Subm writes "Lamborghinis, motion-capture rooms, secret new weapons, these are a few things included in the profile of Epic Games and its Design Director, Cliff Bleszinski. 'A Microsoft employee who works closely with Epic described the company as having a "band dynamic." Staff turnover is low, and many of Epic's most senior employees have been friends for more than a decade. This does not seem a very long time until one sits in on an Epic meeting and realizes that anyone over the age of thirty-five achieves the temporal stature of Methuselah. Epic's recent growth is regarded with wary gratitude by many of its employees, though some miss the old days, when, as Sweeney put it, "we were just a bunch of kids who had some cool ideas and were doing neat things."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Subm writes "Lamborghinis, motion-capture rooms, secret new weapons, these are a few things included in the profile of Epic Games and its Design Director, Cliff Bleszinski. 'A Microsoft employee who works closely with Epic described the company as having a "band dynamic." Staff turnover is low, and many of Epic's most senior employees have been friends for more than a decade. This does not seem a very long time until one sits in on an Epic meeting and realizes that anyone over the age of thirty-five achieves the temporal stature of Methuselah. Epic's recent growth is regarded with wary gratitude by many of its employees, though some miss the old days, when, as Sweeney put it, "we were just a bunch of kids who had some cool ideas and were doing neat things."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you read the angry comments we get from self-proclaimed "inventors" whenever we write about patents around here, you might get the impression from them that if you can't protect your ideas, there's simply no reason to be an inventor. It looks like Johnny Chung Lee is proving that's simply not true. Lee has made plenty of cool things, some of which have garnered plenty of attention: from his Poor Man's Steadycam to his Wii-based interactive whiteboard. But none of his inventions have garnered as much attention as his YouTube video of his headtracking virtual reality system for the Wii, which became a YouTube sensation: The New York Times now has an article noting all of the ways that Lee has benefited from being so public in revealing all of his inventions. Rather than struggling to get known, he's well known all over the place. Plenty of companies came calling trying to hire him, leading to a job he wanted at Microsoft. And, even when he's giving his ideas away for free, he's making some money on the side. The Poor Man's Steadycam, for example, is available to purchase, and Lee has made a quarter of a million dollars from it -- even though he provides full instructions for anyone who wants to build their own. Patent lawyers may cringe, but it would seem that he's doing quite well actively giving away his ideas, rather than trying to lock them up with patent protection.

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Will Allen has won a well-desrved MacArthur "genius grant" for his approach to urban farming (via):

The compost as heating system is particularly smart. If you're in Milwaukee, check out his farm or participate in a worksho.

Also, check out the latest issue of Craft to make your own hydroponic garden.

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NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a landmark ruling, a Canadian court has ruled that a web site's publication of hyperlinks to an allegedly defamatory web site is not in and of itself a 'publication,' and therefore cannot in and of itself constitute defamation. In a 10-page decision [PDF], Crookes v. Wikimedia, Sup. Ct., British Columbia, Judge Keller dismissed the libel case against Jon Newton, the publisher of p2pnet.net, which was based on the fact that his article contained links to the allegedly defamatory site, since hyperlinks, the Court reasoned, are analogous to footnotes, rather than constituting a 'republication.' Mr. Newton was represented in the case by famous libel, slander, and civil liberties lawyer Dan Burnett of Vancouver, British Columbia."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a landmark ruling, a Canadian court has ruled that a web site's publication of hyperlinks to an allegedly defamatory web site is not in and of itself a 'publication,' and therefore cannot in and of itself constitute defamation. In a 10-page decision [PDF], Crookes v. Wikimedia, Sup. Ct., British Columbia, Judge Keller dismissed the libel case against Jon Newton, the publisher of p2pnet.net, which was based on the fact that his article contained links to the allegedly defamatory site, since hyperlinks, the Court reasoned, are analogous to footnotes, rather than constituting a 'republication.' Mr. Newton was represented in the case by famous libel, slander, and civil liberties lawyer Dan Burnett of Vancouver, British Columbia."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Michael from ProdMod designed a high powered version of his photo light using a Luxeon LED with heatsink -

The following project is a neat way to make your own high powered video light to attach to your digital camera or camcorder. I called it the NightVlogger 160 after I read the term on this article of someone willing to use this type of light to allow him to take paparrazi style video at night. At 160 lumen it is very bright and fits in a slim AAA battery holder using only 3 batteries.

He's also considering releasing a kit for the device. Head over to the site for more info - ProdMod Night Vlogger 160

ProdMod LED Camera Light Kit v1.1

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Steven Leckart writes on CoolTool:

Ever wonder what instruments, pedals and assorted gizmos Eric Clapton used on stage with Cream circa 1968? If you're a gearhound, amateur musician, professional journeyman, or weekend warrior, Guitar Geek is a fantastic resource (and a major potential time suck). In addition to a laundry list of gear, with each artist comes a very straightforward visual roadmap of what hooks into what. Plus, each specific piece of gear gets its own page with additional info and links to every band in the database that uses, for instance, the Digitech WH-1 Whammy: Robert Fripp, Steve Vai, Radiohead, and My Bloody Valentine, just to name a few. The catalog of bands/guitars is not as vast as it could be. It's very late-90s-heavy and there are some glaring omissions -- no Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin. Also, the site says the accuracy of each setup is not guaranteed, as each has been cobbled together from bios, concert footage, eyewitness accounts, press and online research. Nevertheless, even if you're a fan who has no interest in building your dream setup, there's a certain wow factor when you dive in here (check out Eddie Van Halen's rig circa 1997. Seriously.). When I was 14 years-old and played non-stop, not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined so much info would ever be available in one place.

Guitar Rig Database

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While some of our critics like to falsely claim that the business model we describe for leveraging "free" is simply about selling "t-shirts" since they're the only scarce good that our critics can think of, it's important to point out that scarce goods are not just tangible goods, and "access" is often one of the most valuable scarce goods out there. In fact, we've definitely seen some musicians embrace this as something worth selling, but haven't seen it as much in other contexts. That's why it's interesting to see journalist/blogger Ana Marie Cox trying out a version of that business model herself. Cox, famous initially for being the original editor of the Wonkette political blog has been working for The Radar lately, but apparently it just went out of business. Cox wants to keep covering the election, and has set up a tiered sponsorship rate card:

• Anything: Good karma, knowledge that sometimes merit is rewarded. If not in this particular case.
• Over $10: A personal thank-you email (please include your email in "instructions for seller")
• Over $50: A personal thank-you phone call (please include your phone number in "instructions for seller")
• Over $100: My instant message screen name, regular personal updates via email and/or instant messages on election night
• Over $250: I will ask a senior McCain adviser the question of your choosing and send you the MP3 audio of the exchange
• Over $500: Phone call from McCain headquarters on election night, detailing hilarious antics sure to ensue
• Over $1000: One-on-one post-election dinner debrief

I have no idea if this plan will work, but it is fascinating that it basically works on a system of charging more for greater access. It will be interesting to see if Cox reports back on how well this experiment goes.

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AlexGr writes to tell us that Microsoft apparently has plans to embrace a little known messaging standard called AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol). Red Hat, a founding member of the AMQP working group, was very excited about the news and wrote to welcome Microsoft to the party. "Suffice it is to say that AMQP is to high-value, reliable business messaging what SMTP is to e-mail. The proprietary message oriented middleware (MOM) products on the market today like IBM's MQ or Tibco's Rendezvous fulfill the same function as AMQP. But they operate exclusively in single-vendor fashion and utterly fail to interoperate with each other. They are also — perhaps not by coincidence — burdensomely expensive. As a result their use is mostly limited to wealthy organizations such as Wall Street banks (at least the ones who are still in business) that need to exchange huge volumes of business messages very reliably and very quickly. But AMQP's supporters feel the market for such reliable messaging could be much larger if a less expensive and truly open solution became available."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AlexGr writes to tell us that Microsoft apparently has plans to embrace a little known messaging standard called AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol). Red Hat, a founding member of the AMQP working group, was very excited about the news and wrote to welcome Microsoft to the party. "Suffice it is to say that AMQP is to high-value, reliable business messaging what SMTP is to e-mail. The proprietary message oriented middleware (MOM) products on the market today like IBM's MQ or Tibco's Rendezvous fulfill the same function as AMQP. But they operate exclusively in single-vendor fashion and utterly fail to interoperate with each other. They are also — perhaps not by coincidence — burdensomely expensive. As a result their use is mostly limited to wealthy organizations such as Wall Street banks (at least the ones who are still in business) that need to exchange huge volumes of business messages very reliably and very quickly. But AMQP's supporters feel the market for such reliable messaging could be much larger if a less expensive and truly open solution became available."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Little-Scale shares this tutorial for building your own ring modulation filter for guitar - cheap, but effective!

This circuit is made up of two main functions - a square wave generator and a switching mechanism. By using the square wave generator to control whether an electronic pathway is open or closed (ie. whether electricity is conducted between two points), a signal from a sound source is switched on and off at a constant, periodic rate.

- Step-by-step ringmod

From the pages of MAKE:

Stomp Box Basics - MAKE:15 p.82 Subscribers, read this article now in our digital edition

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When you're too whacked-out for the Ron Paul campaign, you really do have a problem. Snip from an article about previous victim-hallucination hijinks by Ashley "A Giant Black Man Carved A B Into My Face for Barack" Todd:

In March, Ms. Todd was asked to leave a grass-roots group of Ron Paul supporters in Brazos County, Texas, group leader Dustan Costine said. He said Ms. Todd posed as a supporter of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and called the local Republican committee seeking information about its campaign strategies.

"She would call the opposing campaign and pretend she was on their campaign to get information," Mr. Costine said last night. "We had to remove her because of the tactics she displayed. After that we had nothing to do with her."

About a month earlier, he said, Ms. Todd sent an e-mail to the Ron Paul group saying her tires were slashed and that campaign paraphernalia had been stolen from her car because she supported Mr. Paul. "She's the type of person who wants to be recognized," Mr. Costine said.

McCain Volunteer Admits to Hoax (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

techmuse writes "According to a series of tubes sites, Senator Ted Stevens has been found guilty of lying about free home renovations that he received from an oil contractor. He faces up to 5 years in jail, and the outcome of his current reelection bid is now in doubt. 'The conviction came after a tumultuous week in the jury room. First there were complaints about an unruly juror, then another had to be replaced when she left Washington following the death of her father. Finally, jurors on Monday discovered a discrepancy in the indictment that had been overlooked by prosecutors. Jury deliberations in this historic trial have at times been as contentious as some of the proceedings The Justice Department indicted Stevens on July 29, and the Alaska Republican took a huge legal gamble and asked for a speedy trial in order to resolve the charges before Election Day. Judge Emmet Sullivan complied with Stevens' request, and in less than three months from the time of his indictment, Stevens was found guilty.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

techmuse writes "According to a series of tubes sites, Senator Ted Stevens has been found guilty of lying about free home renovations that he received from an oil contractor. He faces up to 5 years in jail, and the outcome of his current reelection bid is now in doubt. 'The conviction came after a tumultuous week in the jury room. First there were complaints about an unruly juror, then another had to be replaced when she left Washington following the death of her father. Finally, jurors on Monday discovered a discrepancy in the indictment that had been overlooked by prosecutors. Jury deliberations in this historic trial have at times been as contentious as some of the proceedings The Justice Department indicted Stevens on July 29, and the Alaska Republican took a huge legal gamble and asked for a speedy trial in order to resolve the charges before Election Day. Judge Emmet Sullivan complied with Stevens' request, and in less than three months from the time of his indictment, Stevens was found guilty.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's a rather charming little video from the LA Times on three generations of repairmen who've operated a typewriter shop. The proprietors say they've seen a resurgence of interest in the manual typewriter in recent years as interrupt-driven computer users seek out a writing tool that does just the one thing: allow you to write, undisturbed by pop-up ads, joke emails, and tanking stock tickers.

Video: Typewriter stays relevant in technology-saturated world

More:

• Build a keyboard from an old typewriter
• Evolution of the typewriter
• Jeremy Mayer's typewriter reassembly

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Rodger's R/C ghost-bot might be the coolest thing I could imagine running into on Halloween night -

I have re-used my electric-wheelchair hack technology and applied it my ever-morphing holiday bots. Today's submission - Donna the Dead - "one mad bride that goes for a ride".

Using "low-tech" Home Depot pipe technology (tie-wrapped to her head), she seems to float though the chilling evening sky -- moaning at the mad scientist who wired 5 volts into her "Party City" vibrating scull. A $10 strobe running from a 12V scooter battery inverted to 110VAC makes sure she's noticed, and the 110V makes for easy use of a wall-wart to send 5 volts up the flat-black pole.

Spread spectrum dual channel RF technology insures she won't stray. The AVR code, that taps into the wheel-chair pot electronics is freely available at www.thespiritedtree.com and also was first posted in Trossen forums.

Well done! Surely a somewhat scaled down version could be made using an inexpensive toy R/C car … unfortunately, this would likely not be well received in my urban neighborhood :/ - Donna The Dead Bot

More:

DIY Halloween contest! This is the BIG ONE!!!!

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Teenagers have a long history of running away after getting into arguments with their family, but throw in the fact that the argument was over a video game and suddenly you've got a big press story in which the press can slam video games as being evil. As you may or may not be aware, there's a story up in Canada concerning 15-year-old Brandon Crisp who ran away from home after an argument with his parents concerning how much time he was spending playing video games. Rather than suggesting that it may have been the argument that drove him from home, his parents are blaming the evils of video gaming, with his father saying:

"I'm worried he has met someone online through this game. It could be organized crime or someone involved in Internet gambling. Pedophiles can stalk kids through these games."

His mother apparently believes that he was taken by another video game player. So the press is having a field day, with the Toronto Globe & Mail running an editorial slamming pretty much everything to do with video games as being secretly addictive, and even claiming that video games are worse than drug or alcohol addiction, because parents and teachers encourage kids to play video games.

The problem is more insidious in some ways than drugs or alcohol because society approves of the basic activity. Parents don't bring home a case of beer or a vial of cocaine for their children but they do buy the computers that their children use. Schools demand that students use computers for their homework assignments.

Perhaps it's not surprising, though it is depressing, in this day and age that a newspaper opinion writer seems to simply lump all computer use together and automatically assumes that "video game addiction" must be the cause of the problem here, when that's not at all confirmed in any way. To support the opinion piece, the Globe quotes the guy who's been pushing to get video game addiction declared an official addiction, not noting that, as the guy who popularized it, he would stand to have his practice benefit greatly from getting to treat all those so-called "addicts." And, more importantly, the Globe article, which mentions the guy's crusade, ignores the fact that he was shot down by the American Medical Association which noted there is "nothing to suggest" that video game addiction "is a complex physiological disease state."

But why let any of that get in the way of a good opinion piece?

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Ponca City, We love you writes "The New Scientist has an amusing story about the seven greatest scientific hoaxes of all time. Of course, there have been serious cases of scientific fraud, such as the stem cell researchers recently found guilty of falsifying data, and the South Korean cloning fraud, but the hoaxes selected point more to human gullibility than malevolence and include the Piltdown Man (constructed from a medieval human cranium); a ten-foot "petrified man" dug up on a small farm in Cardiff; fossils 'found' in Wurzburg, Germany depicting comets, moons and suns, Alan Sokal's paper loaded with nonsensical jargon that was accepted by the journal Social Text; the claim of the Upas tree on the island of Java so poisonous that it killed everything within a 15-mile radius; and Johann Heinrich Cohausen's claim of an elixir produced by collecting the breath of young women in bottles that produced immortality. Our favorite: BBC's broadcast in 1957 about the spaghetti tree in Switzerland that showed a family harvesting pasta that hung from the branches of the tree. After watching the program, hundreds of people phoned in asking how they could grow their own tree but, alas, the program turned out to be an April Fools' Day joke." What massive scientific hoaxes/jokes have other people witnessed?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ponca City, We love you writes "The New Scientist has an amusing story about the seven greatest scientific hoaxes of all time. Of course, there have been serious cases of scientific fraud, such as the stem cell researchers recently found guilty of falsifying data, and the South Korean cloning fraud, but the hoaxes selected point more to human gullibility than malevolence and include the Piltdown Man (constructed from a medieval human cranium); a ten-foot "petrified man" dug up on a small farm in Cardiff; fossils 'found' in Wurzburg, Germany depicting comets, moons and suns, Alan Sokal's paper loaded with nonsensical jargon that was accepted by the journal Social Text; the claim of the Upas tree on the island of Java so poisonous that it killed everything within a 15-mile radius; and Johann Heinrich Cohausen's claim of an elixir produced by collecting the breath of young women in bottles that produced immortality. Our favorite: BBC's broadcast in 1957 about the spaghetti tree in Switzerland that showed a family harvesting pasta that hung from the branches of the tree. After watching the program, hundreds of people phoned in asking how they could grow their own tree but, alas, the program turned out to be an April Fools' Day joke." What massive scientific hoaxes/jokes have other people witnessed?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A fascinating and extensive piece in Discovery magazine on why Charles Darwin "would have loved Botox" -- not as a tool of vanity, but of science, to "eavesdrop on the intimate conversation between the face and brain." Here's a snip:

Botox and Dysport are best known as treatments to mask aging. Injections into the muscles that make frowns can slow the growth of lines around the eyebrows. For his brain experiment, Haslinger and his colleagues gave 19 women Dysport injections. Two weeks later the scientists scanned their brains as they showed the women a series of angry or sad faces and asked them either to imitate or just to observe the expressions. Haslinger then ran the same experiment on 19 women without Dysport and compared the two sets of scans.

When the women made sad faces, the same brain regions became active in both those with Dysport and those without. But making angry faces triggered different patterns. In the Dysport-free women, a region known as the amygdala—a key brain region for processing emotions—became active. In the women with Dysport, who could not use their frown muscles, the amygdala was quieter. Haslinger also found another change, in the connections between the amygdala and the brain stem, where signals can trigger many of the feelings that go along with emotions: Dysport made that connection weaker.

Of course neuroscience labs are not the only place where people get shots of Dysport or Botox. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in the United States doctors administer millions of injections of Botox each year, many of them to people’s faces. Haslinger’s research suggests that this is part of a massive, unplanned experiment.

In June 2008 in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, a team of cosmetic surgeons suggested this experiment is making all of us happier. People with Botox may be less vulnerable to the angry emotions of other people because they themselves can’t make angry or unhappy faces as easily. And because people with Botox can’t spread bad feelings to others via their expressions, people without Botox may be happier too. The surgeons grant that this is just speculation for now. Nevertheless, they declare that “we are left with the tantalizing possibility that cosmetic procedures may have beneficial effects that are more than skin deep.”

The Brain: Why Darwin Would Have Loved Botox (Discovery Magazine, thanks Susannah Breslin!)

No one seems to hit the sweet spot, the no-brainer cloud platform that could take our software as-is, and just run it -- and run by a company that stands a chance of surviving the coming recession (which everyone really thinks may be a depression).

Of all the offerings Amazon comes the closest. With a number of turns of the key you get a Unix or Windows platform in the sky. I wish the number of turns was 1, but it seems to be more like 10 or 20. But it's still pretty good.

There are a number of VPS companies, but... none of them are really big enough to make a convincing case they won't go the way of Exodus or Conxion, two colo companies I bet on in the past whose pain became my pain when their businesses got in trouble.

I was hoping Microsoft would hit the home run, but it seems not. Why wouldn't the Windows company just offer Windows in the cloud -- nothing more and nothing less? The marketing people seem to have figured it out, they call the new offering Windows Azure, but what does it have to do with Windows other than sharing a brand? I don't know.

Wouldn't it have been great if they bought VMWare, or another virtualization vendor, and used their deep financial pockets to create server farms all around the globe that just ran the operating system they made famous?

Looks like I'm going to bet on Amazon.

As Rachel Maddow says -- talk me down!

This was one of the most charming projects I saw at Maker Faire, Nyssa's little micro RC jousters. Such a simple idea, a great project for kids, and one of those things that starts you thinking about other things to do with your tiny RC cars. You could make lots of papercraft skins, have a cat chasing a mouse, Alien vs. Predator, McCain v. Obama (Palin vs. McCain?).

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We're experimenting with some ads on sites that have a smart / maker / can-do / DIY spirit, so - we're pleased to see our first test on Consumerist. As its name implies, the focus is on consumerism, and it deals with consumers' experiences and issues with companies and corporations - many of the stories are about folks getting information and doing things themselves or "better". A lot of "if can't open it, you don't own it" - it's one of my favorite sites so if you like them too stop on over and subscribe to MAKE via the promo we're running.

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Artist Shepard Fairey, who created the iconic OBEY/OBAMA image we've seen so much during the current presidential campaign, writes:

Check out this link to a plethora of parodies of my Obama HOPE poster. I’m very happy that the HOPE poster has become such a point of reference. One parody that is not included is something I consider a high point in my career for pop culture recognition. Mad Magazine’s new cover is a spoof of my Obama image. I loved Mad as a kid. I think Mad’s satire heightened my understanding of irony and hypocrisy. I’m very excited to be a part of Mad’s history.

mad history (obeygiant.com, thanks Sean "kappa hunter" Bonner!)

Zarath writes "The fictional town of Eureka (from the TV series by the same name) is going to potentially become a real life town as the University of Queensland, in Australia, plans to build a multibillion-dollar 'brain city' dedicated to science and research. The city, hoping to hold at least 10,000 people, is looking to attract 4,500 of the brightest scientists from around the world to live and work there. The city is planned to be built west of the city of Brisbane, in Queensland. While not funded by the Department of Defense (like the [city of the] TV series), the potential for such a community is very interesting and exciting."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Zarath writes "The fictional town of Eureka (from the TV series by the same name) is going to potentially become a real life town as the University of Queensland, in Australia, plans to build a multibillion-dollar 'brain city' dedicated to science and research. The city, hoping to hold at least 10,000 people, is looking to attract 4,500 of the brightest scientists from around the world to live and work there. The city is planned to be built west of the city of Brisbane, in Queensland. While not funded by the Department of Defense (like the [city of the] TV series), the potential for such a community is very interesting and exciting."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Zarath writes "The fictional town of Eureka (from the TV series by the same name) is going to potentially become a real life town as the University of Queensland, in Australia, plans to build a multibillion-dollar 'brain city' dedicated to science and research. The city, hoping to hold at least 10,000 people, is looking to attract 4,500 of the brightest scientists from around the world to live and work there. The city is planned to be built west of the city of Brisbane, in Queensland. While not funded by the Department of Defense (like the [city of the] TV series), the potential for such a community is very interesting and exciting."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It would appear that the Turkish government and courts are a bit trigger happy when it comes to flat-out banning websites for almost no reason at all. In the past, we've reported on Turkish bans on YouTube, Slide, Wordpress.com and Google Groups. Now, via Slashdot, we see that a Turkish court has banned all of Google's Blogger service including all of the blogs hosted at blogspot.com. Unlike the bans of the other sites, which happened after people who were offended by content found on each complained, it appears that the Blogger ban was due to a Turkish TV service, Digiturk, which was upset that some Blogger users were posting links to unauthorized streams of Turkish football matches.

Yes, you read that correctly. Because a few bloggers had linked to (not even hosted) some unauthorized streams of a sporting event, Digiturk was able to ban all of Blogger. At this point, you have to wonder why Turkey allows the internet at all.

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Matt_dk writes "VASIMR is a new high-power plasma-based space propulsion technology, initially studied by NASA and now being developed privately by Ad Astra. A VASIMR engine could maneuver payloads in space far more efficiently and with much less propellant than today's chemical rockets. Ultimately, VASIMR engines could also greatly shorten robotic and human transit times for missions to Mars and beyond."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Matt_dk writes "VASIMR is a new high-power plasma-based space propulsion technology, initially studied by NASA and now being developed privately by Ad Astra. A VASIMR engine could maneuver payloads in space far more efficiently and with much less propellant than today's chemical rockets. Ultimately, VASIMR engines could also greatly shorten robotic and human transit times for missions to Mars and beyond."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Patrick from buildyourcnc.com talks to Chris Connors at Maker Faire Austin about making machines that can make other machines.

More:

• Making Austin Weird: CNC Times 3(+)

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Ben Hazell says: "Dean Kamen invented the Segway. He's also made a fortune in medical technology and now thinks he's built a working Stirling Engine - efficient electrical energy from heat. If it's true it's amazing and world changing - the breakthrough we need to face climate change. Even if it's not, he's a fascinating guy."

Now he and his engineers have built and tested a range of Stirling engines suitable for mass production that can be run on anything from jet fuel to cow dung. The one in the boot of the small blue car is designed to extend its range and constantly recharge its batteries to make a new kind of hybrid vehicle: one fit for the roads of the 21st century. A Stirling-electric hybrid, Kamen tells me, can travel farther and more efficiently than conventional electric cars; it generates enough power to run energy-hungry devices such as heaters and defrosters that are essential for drivers who, unlike those he calls the 'tofu heads' of California, must cope with a cold climate; and even using petrol, the engine runs far cleaner than petrol-electric hybrids such as Toyota's Prius.

However, Kamen confesses, his new creation isn't quite finished yet: 'The Stirling engine's not hooked up. Which really pisses me off.'

But it could work?

'It will work,' he says. 'Trust me.'

Dean Kamen: part man, part machine

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets, things started as usual: with Napoleon popping a wheelie on a motorcycle. Apple censored all mentions of hot teen p***y on the iTunes UK store, a deliriously nerdy gamer proposed to his girlfriend by hacking the video game Chrono Trigger and Dell announced a new netbook that is being favorably compared to the MacBook Air. Rob looked at a not-so-humble four track and a new Casio camera phone with an 800x480 screen, as well as a silvery steampunk Motorola Aura. Also, did you know that you can buy a stungun for $13? Rob didn't. A car engine that fits on your finger, an Australian perpetual motion machine. Joel liked an alarm clock called the Bandai Gun O'Clock and puzzled why Google released Google Earth on the iPhone before Android. There was a clock with a thousand gears, a giant human skull made out of kitchenware, a bench made of Nokias, an Open Source GameBoy and an Atari Punk Dreamcast. And that's not even to mention an invasion by LEGO bots. And the headline of the day was: I have no mouth and I must bark. Link

“It’s hard to read comic books as my time is now restricted.” -- Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso

My heart truly goes out to him.

Link (Via Comics Journal)

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Japan's badass new prime minister

AC/DC “Rock N Roll Train” – music video in an Excel spreadsheet via Waxy.

Like PowerPoint, once everyone has something it's abused, used and eventually art comes of it.

Excel drawings.
Spiral Star art made in Excel.
Games developed in Excel.
Use Microsoft Office Excel to read live RSS stock ...

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xyz writes "Do black holes increase in size indefinitely? According to an analysis by astronomers at Yale and the European Southern Observatory, the maximum size a black hole may reach is only few tens of billion of solar masses. The limit was calculated using an analysis of what may happen to the gas surrounding a black hole which has reached few tens of billions of solar masses. It is thought that black holes of such size heat the surrounding gas to a temperature where the radiation pressure begins blowing outer layers into space."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

xyz writes "Do black holes increase in size indefinitely? According to an analysis by astronomers at Yale and the European Southern Observatory, the maximum size a black hole may reach is only few tens of billion of solar masses. The limit was calculated using an analysis of what may happen to the gas surrounding a black hole which has reached few tens of billions of solar masses. It is thought that black holes of such size heat the surrounding gas to a temperature where the radiation pressure begins blowing outer layers into space."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We needed an easy-to-remember address for people whose vote is being challenged. Here's what we came up with.

http://goodvote.org/

If you believe the will of the voters should be reflected in the result of the 2008 election, please pass on the address. It's totally non-commercial, with a single purpose, to help assure a fair election.

It's no surprise that some people get attached to their various social networking profiles, but would you sue if the social network took down your profile? That's exactly what one woman is doing, as seen in a lawsuit filed last week and brought to our attention by Eric Goldman. The complaint lays out the details, but a quick summary is that the woman was shocked (shocked!) to find out that some of the celebrity profiles on MySpace are not, in fact, run by the actual celebrities. So she set up a profile that would "verify" celebrities, and allow those verified celebrities to place her logo on their MySpace page. She claims that one of the fake celebrities complained to MySpace and they took down her profile.

Now, you might think that since its MySpace's site, they can take down whatever profile they want -- but not according to this woman, who mentions the "mental anguish" caused by this over and over again. While it may be a bogus reason for MySpace to have taken down her page, it's not clear what legal grounds she has to stand on. There are some other complaints in the filing, including the fact that MySpace allowed fake celebrities to sign up (and the lawsuit demands that MySpace be forced to take these fake profiles down) and that she had asked MySpace (via a cold call) to support her efforts -- and then was offended when MySpace "stole" her idea and had created their own "celebrities" site (of course providing no evidence that the idea was "stolen"). She also complains that she tried to take her complaint to the arbitration firm listed in MySpace's terms of service only to discover that the firm no longer did work for MySpace, so she claims that MySpace committed unfair business practices by including the arbitration clause in its terms without living up to it.

The best line in the filing may be after MySpace took down the woman's second attempt at this "celebrity verifying" profile:

"At this point Plaintiff was literally seething with anger to the point that she was now consumed by it."

It's not clear what's illegal about making someone angry, but these days, you never know... Anyway, the full legal complaint is below (click through for those reading this via RSS):

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Someone in Germany is driving an automobile built for UK roads and has installed a Muppet in the passenger seat. The speed cameras in Germany are made to take photos of drivers who sit in the left side of the vehicle, so drivers of UK-style cars driver can't be easily identified.

A German police source said: “The number plate is not enough. We need clear evidence of who is driving the vehicle too.

“But because this is a British vehicle we can never get a decent picture. The driver has obviously worked this out because he has placed a large puppet in the passenger seat.

“This may be an example of the famous British sense of humour but it is still dangerous driving. The driver has been caught on camera on several occasions and the puppet is on the passenger seat every time. We suspect he positions the toy deliberately before accelerating past the camera.”

German police seek speeding British Muppet

Mister Jalopy is having fun with a cool new tool called Mulitcolr.

Idee has built a remarkably easy to use tool for searching Flickr for photos according to color palatte. Besides being completely straightforward and great fun, Multicolr is surprisingly useful to test different color combinations... It should be a standard installation at every paint store. And this is no one off tidbit, Idee is doing other fascinating stuff. Like TinEye Mobile - an iPhone app where you snap a photo of an album cover and it returns YouTube, Wiki and AllMusic data about the release. These folks are worth keeping an eye on.

Multicolr - stunningly elegant Flickr tool

Scientists at the University of California Los Angeles are reporting that while some people may think "life begins at 40," all it seems to do is slow down. According to recent research, at age 39 our brain reaches its peak speed, and it's all downhill after that. "The loss of a fatty skin that coats the nerve cells, called neurons, during middle age causes the slowdown, experts say. The coating acts as insulation, similar to the plastic covering on an electrical cable, and allows for fast bursts of signals around the body and brain. When the sheath deteriorates, signals passing along the neurons in the brain slow down. This means reaction times in the body are slower too."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists at the University of California Los Angeles are reporting that while some people may think "life begins at 40," all it seems to do is slow down. According to recent research, at age 39 our brain reaches its peak speed, and it's all down hill after that. "The loss of a fatty skin that coats the nerve cells, called neurons, during middle age causes the slowdown, experts say. The coating acts as insulation, similar to the plastic covering on an electrical cable, and allows for fast bursts of signals around the body and brain. When the sheath deteriorates, signals passing along the neurons in the brain slow down. This means reaction times in the body are slower too."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"I can't watch this election unravel over corruption, not this time."

The thin silver lining in James Howard Kunstler's dark thundercloud of doom is that Americans will once again get to work "making things, growing things, and rebuilding things"

If the financial system completes its self-destruction -- and that's looking more and more like a real possibility -- there will be several pretty awful consequences. One is that the United States will be forced to declare bankruptcy by repudiating its own debt. All those who took refuge in US Treasury bonds and bills will be like folks who sought shelter from a tornado in their out-house. That would go hand-in-hand with a massive currency inflation that is likely to follow the current phase of compressive liquidating deflation -- in which every possible asset is being sold off for less than its face value. That process is self-limiting due to the finite supply of real salable assets. The trillions of dollars injected into system while this is happening must eventually snap-back as people shed the last fungible article and compete for necessary commodities like food and fuel with dollars that are suddenly plentiful but worthless. At some point, the government may have to summon up a new currency. I don't think it will be anything like the "Amero" which the paranoid fringe incessantly mutters about as part of their fantasy in which the US, Mexico, and Canada all join up to become one country. But any "new dollar" would probably have to be backed by gold.

As we discover ourselves to be a much poorer nation, one of my correspondents put it: "the bogus risk-swapping economy must be replaced by a net value-added economy." That means actually making things, growing things, and rebuilding things, and that can only begin to happen if we do not stupidly sucker ourselves into a war with other nations who are liable to be extremely ticked off at us for destroying the global economy, but also competing with us for a dwindling supply of resources that are not equitably distributed around the world.

This means especially oil. I hope you're enjoying the temporarily cheap prices at the gas pumps, because this is purely a function of the compressive deleveraging that is going on right now, as contracts and positions held in energy markets are being dumped by everybody and his uncle to raise cash to meet margin calls. My guess is that oil and its byproducts will become much more difficult to get in the months ahead -- not just more expensive, but literally not available.

Easthampton Burning?

Previously on Boing Boing:
• World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler
• James Howard Kunstler's "Eyesore of the Month"

As regular BB readers know, Instructables.com is a hub of HOWTO where makers post step-by-step guides to building everything from a magnetic refrigerator lights to a dog wheelchair to a marshmallow shooter. Eric Wilhelm and Christy Canida, the proprietors of Instructables, are quintessential Happy Mutants and we're delighted that their site has become so popular. It now features more than 10,000 projects! Instructables and MAKE magazine have compiled a slew of the best of the site's offerings in a terrific 300 page book, The Best of Instructables, Volume 1, published this week. More than 120 projects are organized into categories like home & garden, robotics, food, and photography. I think I've found the perfect holiday gift for the riot nrrrds and maker youth (of all ages) on my list! Watch the video above to hear about the book from Eric and the Instructables community. The Best of Instructables, Volume 1 (Amazon)

This isn't a world of difference from the other animatronics projects out there, but there are 2 reasons this animatronic rat Instructable stands out for me:
1. An excellent quote from the creator: "Last year I was just a naked rat on top of a trash can, but this year I got to dress up."
2. The top hat. It almost makes the little guy hug-able!

Check him out:

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Reflections on tinkering by Steve Song, sounds about right to me... What do you think makers? via Bruce.

"Tinkering isn't so much a specific set of technical skills: there tends to be a pretty instrumental view of knowledge. You pick up just enough knowledge about electronics, textiles, metals, programming, or paper-folding to figure out how to do what you want. It certainly respects skill, but skills are a means, not an end: mastery isn't the point, as it is for professionals. Competence and completion are".

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Scott Horton of Harper's posted this video of Palin at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday where she "told the crowd that an Obama presidency would present the specter of a socialist state in which fundamental American freedoms are undermined."

Horton goes on to ask:

Does Sarah mean a state:

* That snatches its victims off the street, denies them all form of legal process and whisks them away to secret “blacksites” where they can be tortured using all the techniques described in Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon?

* That arrests and prosecutes its political adversaries for imaginary crimes so as to eliminate them from the running in election cycles in which they could do some damage?

* That destroys the careers of professional military men because they got promotions under a prior regime and therefore considers them disloyal?

* That believes it can detain and hold its enemies forever without any charges or any evidence against them, denying them access to courts to prove their innocence?

...

Sarah, you have no need to fear the future.

Read the rest here: Palin's nightmare

Arno Igne writes to tell us that the number of underage participants in "high-tech" crimes has risen steeply in recent history. Reporting children as young as 11 swapping credit card details and asking for hacks, many are largely unskilled and thus more likely to get caught and arrested. "Communities and forums spring up where people start to swap malicious programs, knowledge and sometimes stolen data. Some also look for exploits and virus code that can be run against the social networking sites popular with many young people. Some then try to peddle or use the details or accounts they net in this way. Mr Boyd said he spent a lot of time tracking down the creators of many of the nuisance programs written to exploit users of social networking sites and the culprit was often a teenager."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Arno Igne writes to tell us that the number of underage participants in "high-tech" crimes has risen steeply in recent history. Reporting children as young as 11 swapping credit card details and asking for hacks, many are largely unskilled and thus more likely to get caught and arrested. "Communities and forums spring up where people start to swap malicious programs, knowledge and sometimes stolen data. Some also look for exploits and virus code that can be run against the social networking sites popular with many young people. Some then try to peddle or use the details or accounts they net in this way. Mr Boyd said he spent a lot of time tracking down the creators of many of the nuisance programs written to exploit users of social networking sites and the culprit was often a teenager."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In recent months, we've seen various politicians freak out over the possibility that terrorists might possibly (gasp! oh no!) make use of YouTube and Second Life, and now a new Army intelligence report can get politicians all worked up over the possibility that terrorists might use Twitter. While there's nothing wrong with various intelligence officials looking at possible scenarios for how terrorists might make use of various communication tools, how long will it be until we get politicians complaining that "something must be done!" The fact is that anyone can use pretty much any communication tool for either good or bad purposes. For the most part, I'd imagine that Twitter would be a pretty bad tool for terrorists to use, since so much of it is public. There are Twitter competitors that allow much more private conversations, but maybe terrorists are like Silicon Valley hipsters who only go with the hottest of the hot web 2.0 startups. So, yes, it's important for intelligence officials to think through scenarios in order to be aware and ready for them, but hopefully calling out Twitter specifically won't lead to a ridiculous overreaction from politicians.

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From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

• Pinhole tophat [top left]
• Handlebar seat [top right]
• Lemon-powered LEDs [bottom left]
• Homemade cider press [bottom right]
• HOW TO - macro lens hack
• Homebrew iPhone MIDI controller
• Classy USB status box
• DIY bike brake lock
• WSG guitar
• Oregano distortion

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This skull, constructed from old cookware and kitchen utensils, was keeping vigil in London's Regent Park. Brownlee has more over at Boing Boing Gadgets. Giant skull made out of kitchen utensils

Giant skull made from kitchen stuff via BBG.

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blackbearnh wrote in with a story that's not really about the iPhone, but if your office speakerphones beep like mine does, read on: "If you own an iPhone, you may have noticed that it has a distinct and very annoying effect on clock radios, computer speakers, car radios, and just about anything else with a speaker. The folks at O'Reilly Media aren't immune, so they set out to discover just what is it about iPhones that makes them such bad RF citizens. The iPhones aren't the only bad apples in the cell phone basket and there's not much you can do about the problem. We're really in an interesting time in that there has never been so many high-powered personal transmitters just wandering loose in the world."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

blackbearnh wrote in with a story that's not really about the iPhone, but if your office speakerphones beep like mine does, read on: "If you own an iPhone, you may have noticed that it has a distinct and very annoying effect on clock radios, computer speakers, car radios, and just about anything else with a speaker. The folks at O'Reilly Media aren't immune, so they set out to discover just what is it about iPhones that makes them such bad RF citizens. The iPhones aren't the only bad apples in the cell phone basket and there's not much you can do about the problem. We're really in an interesting time in that there has never been so many high-powered personal transmitters just wandering loose in the world."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

London-based artist Laurie Lipton has a show of lovely Dia De Los Muertos-themed charcoal and graphite drawings at Copro Nason Gallery in Santa Monica, California. Seen above, "Sweets Seller" (24" x 35 1/2", graphite on paper). Laurie Lipton: Day of the Dead (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)

Emmanuel Guibert's graphic novel Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope is totally different from anything I've ever read. It's a picaresque memoir of a Californian soldier who was shipped to Europe during the last days of WWII, just in time to see the comic, banal, and wrenching scenes associated with the wind-down of hostilities. His is a soldier's story different from the ones we're accustomed to -- he and his comrades are sent to Prague at the cessation of hostilities to see if they can keep the Russians from claiming it in the post-war scramble. Afterwards, he wanders Europe as a chaplain's assistant, then as a civilian clerk for the military. He goes back to California, almost marries, breaks it off, goes back to Europe and bums around more there, meeting distressed artists, good and bad people, villains and everyday folks.

Cope dictated his memoirs to Guibert, an award-winning graphic novelist, after a chance meeting between the two in France. The two struck up a friendship and Guibert's affection for Cope shines through every panel. This is a kind of complimentary opposite to Maus: a story about a man whom war transformed into something better: tolerant, cosmopolitan, observant, and humane.

I discovered Alan's War through a recommendation from the inestimable Dave at Los Angeles's Secret Headquarters, my favorite comic shop in the world, during a visit there last spring. He'd read an advance review copy and couldn't say enough good things about this book. He was absolutely right (he's yet to give me a bum steer -- that table of recommended works running down the middle of the store is like a best-of-the-best in graphic novels).

This is just the first of several planned volumes in Alan's War. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series. Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope

Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine posted their picks for the 50 most memorable images from NASA's half-century history. Of course, this list will ignite debate like rocket fuel on a campfire, but I got a special kick out of the image above. From the Air & Space caption:

Shuttle Enterprise with cast of Star Trek, 1976 NASA’s prototype space shuttle was to have been named Constitution, but fans of the Star Trek TV show mounted a write-in campaign that led to it being named Enterprise. Here the show’s cast (minus William Shatner) poses with the test craft.

Top 50 NASA Photos of All Time

Over at Dose Nation, my favorite freak writer Erik Davis posts affectionately about Clark Ashton Smith, author of The Hashish Eater (1922) and a host of other weird tales, many for Weird Tales magazine.

When I was a strange young teen, I wrote ornate and old-fashioned poems haunted by images of demons, wizard scrolls, and implacable fortresses. Matthew Greenfield, a sophisticated chap I knew at college who later became a professor of English, was guilty of a similar sin, which he called “Dungeons and Dragons poetry.” Though I didn’t play much D&D, I did read a lot of weird fantasy stuff from Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, and, of course, H.P. Lovecraft. These purple prose monarchs, whose similes and descriptive passages shone with the fetid light of corpse-fed fireflies, lorded over my imaginal life for a few years, and infected the verse I wrote for creative writing classes and for my pleasure. You, dear reader, are happy that I am loathe to disinter them from the sepulchral Office Depot containers moldering in the dank and fetid corners of my necromantic storage space. They are, one might say, o’er-wraught...

But not a smidgen as o’er-wraught as the amazing poetry of Clark Ashton Smith, the California poet and fiction writer who, along with Howard and Lovecraft, wrote his weird stories for Weird Tales, mostly in the 1930s.

The Hashish Eater: the witchery of words, Buy Smith collections on Amazon

Part of my daily routine used to be going back through the archive of Scripting News to see what happened on this day in fill in the year. But when the number of years passed ten for some reason I stopped doing it.

I thought it would be interesting to see what happened on this day four and eight years ago, to see where we were in the elections of those years.

http://scripting.com/2004/10/27.html

http://scripting.com/2000/10/27.html

Nothing really earth shaking happening election-wise in either year, but the Red Sox had just won the World Series four years ago, snapping a losing streak that had been going for 86 years. They called it The Curse of the Bambino. That's why there's a picture of Babe Ruth on the 2004 entry, with a big R.I.P. on it.

An anonymous reader writes "Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for 'Barack Obama' kept flipping to 'John McCain.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for "Barack Obama" kept flipping to "John McCain"."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As researchers learn more about how memory works, the possibility of targeted amnesia becomes more feasible. Scientists recently succeeded in wiping out a nasty memory from the mind of a genetically-engineered mouse. By altering the activity of a specific enzyme, they affected a mouse's ability to recall the experience of being shocked. The team from the Medical College of Georgia and the East China Normal University reported their findings in the science journal Neuron. From Science news:

Insight from such experiments may one day lead to therapies that can erase traumatic memories for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or wipe clean drug-associated cues that lead addicts to relapse.

“We should never think of memories as being fixed,” says Howard Eichenbaum, a neuroscientist at Boston University. “They are constantly being renovated and restructured.”

Eichenbaum is not convinced that Tsien and his colleagues have erased the mice’s memories. Altering a memory so that it can’t be recalled under certain circumstances might produce similar results, he says. “We never know for sure that it’s really gone,” he says.

But if chemicals can help someone specifically forget painful or traumatic memories, it may be irrelevant whether the memories are entirely erased or are just altered beyond recognition, Eichenbaum says.

"Selective memory"

Matt is working on an open source Game Boy...

Ok, so ever since middle school I've wanted to make one of these... but I only now have enough know-how and support to make it, ... an Open Source game boy :) Actually, it's a little smaller than a game boy, but it's 1000% cooler (in my opinion) because it uses an Arduino as the "core", and a few modules and shields that already exist.

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Festo AirJelly - robot jellyfish at Pop!Tech 08...

This morning opened with a helium-filled, robotic jellyfish floating serenely above a rapt, suddenly very awake audience. Makers Festo took the stage briefly to talk about how they are using engineering found in nature to create these organic-looking, eerily familiar robots. Their hope is in creating beautiful robots, they will inspire young people to get involved with science and engineering.

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PaHalloweenFreak came up with this easy giant spider illusion Instructable. Sometimes what we imagine is much worse than what we can see . . .

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The GreenDot Project aims to train software to recognize a person by the unique fingerprint of body language. New York University computer science professor Chris Bregler tells me that the GreenDot Project "is DOD funded for some biometrics application, but we also applied it to lots of public figures, including the current Presidential candidates." From the project page:

The goal of the project is to train a computer to recognize a person based on his or her motions, and to identify the person's emotional state, cultural background, and other attributes. The research is federally funded (by the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation), and conducted by an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, movement experts, linguists, and other specialists. The current focus is the analysis of national and international public figures while they are giving speeches, with future plans to investigate many other domains. The research team is building a large database of people's motions, using cable television recordings and web video downloads. Through techniques similar to those used in speech recognition, this project applies machine learning (an Artificial Intelligence technique) to train a computer system to compare the detected body language of an individual in a video, to that of a database of other subjects.

GreenDot Project

There's an odd article over at TorrentFreak, which is usually quite good and reliable. This one starts out with a title announcing that Nine Inch Nails' Donation Model Doesn't Work for Most Artists. That's a questionable assertion from the very start, because Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, for the most part, haven't used a donation model. Instead, Reznor has very much focused on using free as a part of a business model built around giving fans scarcities to buy. Yet, TorrentFreak falsely states that Reznor made $1.6 million using a "donation" model. That's simply untrue. He made $1.6 million by selling scarce goods.

The rest of the article goes on to show that a bunch of unknown artists on some file sharing service that asks for donations didn't make very much money doing so. That should bring out a "well, no duh!" from pretty much anyone. As we've said for years, "give it away and pray" isn't a business model at all, but that fact is hardly a condemnation of using free infinite goods as a part of your business model. The unfortunate opinion out there, often repeated by those who want to trash those of us explaining the economics at play, is that we believe if bands just put their music out for free, they'll make money. Thus any band that doesn't make money that way is an example that the model we believe in doesn't work. This argument completely misses the target.

First of all, there will always be some bands that won't be able to make money -- and that's because they're not very good. No business model will work if you're not that good. So, seeing a particular business model not work for some bands is hardly a condemnation of that business model. Second, if bands want to make money these days they need to do a lot more than just give away their music for free. They need to get out there and cultivate true fans, which means working hard to build up a serious fan base. From there, they can begin to put in place any number of business models to make money, focusing on using the free infinite goods (music) to sell scarcities of some sort (concerts, access to the band, special limited edition goods, the creation of new music, etc.). So, the fact that a bunch of bands that used a poorly thought out business model didn't make money from it isn't surprising. It's the way it should be.

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Ostracus writes "The next big stage in the evolution of the Internet, according to many experts and luminaries, will be the advent of the Semantic Web — that is, technologies that let computers process the meaning of Web pages instead of simply downloading or serving them up blindly. Microsoft's acquisition of the semantic search engine Powerset earlier this year shows faith in this vision. But thus far, little Semantic Web technology has been available to the general public. That's why many eyes will be on Twine, a Web organizer based on semantic technology that launches publicly today."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ostracus writes "The next big stage in the evolution of the Internet, according to many experts and luminaries, will be the advent of the Semantic Web-- that is, technologies that let computers process the meaning of Web pages instead of simply downloading or serving them up blindly. Microsoft's acquisition of the semantic search engine Powerset earlier this year shows faith in this vision. But thus far, little Semantic Web technology has been available to the general public. That's why many eyes will be on Twine, a Web organizer based on semantic technology that launches publicly today."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alphadogg writes "Clinical tests on a four-year, $1.74 million project for NASA, called the Virtual Space Station, are expected to begin in the Boston area by next month. The effort is designed to address the onset of depression in astronauts while they are in outer space. In the project, sponsored by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a recorded video therapist guides astronauts through a widely used depression therapy called 'problem-solving treatment.'" Here's a related story from a few weeks ago. Those astronauts got it rough.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alphadogg writes "Clinical tests on a four-year, $1.74 million project for NASA, called the Virtual Space Station, are expected to begin in the Boston area by next month. The effort is designed to address the onset of depression in astronauts while they are in outer space. In the project, sponsored by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a recorded video therapist guides astronauts through a widely used depression therapy called 'problem-solving treatment.'" Here's a related story from a few weeks ago. Those astronauts got it rough.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nice home chemistry how-to....

Hot Ice refers to a chemistry demonstration involving a supersaturated solution of Sodium Acetate which, when disturbed, will appear to freeze into “ice” as the cold solution turns from a liquid into a solid in a matter of seconds. This process is exothermic and the resulting “ice” is warm to the touch, contrary to what one would expect of ordinary ice.

The picture to the left depicts pillars of Sodium Acetate Trihydrate which were created using Hot Ice solution.

Supersaturated solutions of Sodium Acetate are used in certain types of hand-warmers.  When a metallic button is pressed inside a plastic pouch, the supersaturated solution begins to crystallize, in the process releasing heat.
Sodium Acetate is one of the products of the reaction between baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate, NaHCO3) and vinegar (Acetic acid, HC2H3O2).

...In the video, a supersaturated solution of Sodium Acetate is carefully poured into an empty Petri dish and a small Sodium Acetate seed-crystal is dropped into the liquid. The seed-crystal triggers the “freezing” of the supersaturated solution and the liquid begins to crystallize. The crystallization expands outward from the seed crystal and quickly fills the entire Petri dish, converting all of the supersaturated Sodium Acetate solution into solid Sodium Acetate Trihydrate.

Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments
Our Price: $29.99

For students, DIY hobbyists, and science buffs, who can no longer get real chemistry sets, this one-of-a-kind guide explains how to set up and use a home chemistry lab, with step-by-step instructions for conducting experiments in basic chemistry. Learn how to smelt copper, purify alcohol, synthesize rayon, test for drugs and poisons, and much more. The book includes lessons on how to equip your home chemistry lab, master laboratory skills, and work safely in your lab, along with 17 hands-on chapters that include multiple laboratory sessions.

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Justin writes -

Hi! With a little inspiration from your blog, I made a sequencer from a turntable and some tin foil. I connected a homemade 555 oscillator and cheap keyboard so that they would be triggered by the strips of tin foil rotating on the turntable.

Nice contacts sequencer - always great to hear our posts can inspire experimentation and projects like this!

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My novel Little Brother has just come out in the UK, a month ahead of schedule (Waterstone's, the book-store chain, wanted it as a featured title, but their slot was in October, not November). This is fabulous news, of course, but it does mean that I'm not around to do signings and events right away (I got married on Sunday night and am now on my honeymoon -- this was written in advance and automatically posted!). Still, I wanted to make sure that there were signed copies available right away for collector/fans who didn't want to have to choose between getting a copy now and waiting for a month to get a signed one.

So last week, before leaving for the wedding, I popped into the HarperCollins offices in London and signed a stack of 500 copies of Little Brother that are now on sale through Play.com. It's only while supplies last, natch, so act now! Little Brother UK edition signed

An anonymous reader writes "My boss recently assigned me a project, that was all his idea, with two basic flaws that would require me to break multiple web sites' Terms of Service (TOS). Part requires scraping most of the site, parsing the data and presenting it as our own without human intervention. While we're safe on copyright issues clearly scraping like this is normally not allowed. At times it might also put a load on those sites. The other is, for lack of better words, a "load balancing" part that requires using multiple free accounts instead of purchasing space and CPU time for less than $2,000 USD per month. The boss sees it as "distributed" computing when in reality it's "parasitic". My question is am I wrong about the ethics? If I do need to walk how best can I handle it without damaging my reputation and future employment opportunities?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "My boss recently assigned me a project, that was all his idea, with two basic flaws that would require me to break multiple web sites' Terms of Service (TOS). Part requires scraping most of the site, parsing the data and presenting it as our own without human intervention. While we're safe on copyright issues clearly scraping like this is normally not allowed. At times it might also put a load on those sites. The other is, for lack of better words, a "load balancing" part that requires using multiple free accounts instead of purchasing space and CPU time for less than $2,000 USD per month. The boss sees it as "distributed" computing when in reality it's "parasitic". My question is am I wrong about the ethics? If I do need to walk how best can I handle it without damaging my reputation and future employment opportunities?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The "Kikkit" project is an interactive art installation that combines architecture and sound synthesis to turn an outdoor park into an urban instrument. While playing soccer in a nearby field, when the ball happens to hit the fence containing the cones, its sound is amplified and played back through the cones into the surrounding urban space. This project was part of the "Tuned City" festival held this past summer in Berlin.

Composed City the Kikkit Project

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At last count, at least 10 states had passed laws banning the sale or rental of violent video games to children, and every single one of them has been thrown out as unconstitutional. At this point, any state that passes such a law is knowingly throwing away taxpayer money to defend the law in court -- and, for the most part they're doing it to pander to the electorate, so they can talk about how they "protected the children" despite more and more evidence that violent video games aren't a threat to kids.

Perhaps the most bizarre of all of these state laws is the one in California, where our governor starred in numerous violent films. Yet, Schwarzenegger has been at the forefront of supporting this law. After a lower court followed all those other states in throwing out the law as unconstitutional, the Schwarzenegger administration quickly appealed, and the new case is set to begin this week, with most noting that it's unlikely that California will somehow buck the trend and get the law approved. Instead, we get a waste of taxpayer money (in a state that's going bankrupt) so that an action hero of a ton of violent films can claim he's "protecting the children" from viewing a little show violence.

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An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has a new article where they provide Ubuntu 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10 benchmarks and had ran many tests. In that article when using an Intel notebook they witness major slowdowns in different areas and ask the question is Ubuntu getting slower? From the article: 'A number of significant kernel changes had went on between these Ubuntu Linux releases including the Completely Fair Scheduler, the SLUB allocator, tickless kernel support, etc. We had also repeated many of these tests to confirm we were not experiencing a performance fluke or other issue (even though the Phoronix Test Suite carries out each test in a completely automated and repeatable fashion) but nothing had changed. Ubuntu 7.04 was certainly the Feisty Fawn for performance, but based upon these results perhaps it would be better to call Ubuntu 7.10 the Gooey Gibbon, 8.04 the Hungover Heron, and 8.10 the Idling Ibex.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has a new article where they provide Ubuntu 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, and 8.10 benchmarks and had ran many tests. In that article when using an Intel notebook they witness major slowdowns in different areas and ask the question is Ubuntu getting slower? From the article: 'A number of significant kernel changes had went on between these Ubuntu Linux releases including the Completely Fair Scheduler, the SLUB allocator, tickless kernel support, etc. We had also repeated many of these tests to confirm we were not experiencing a performance fluke or other issue (even though the Phoronix Test Suite carries out each test in a completely automated and repeatable fashion) but nothing had changed. Ubuntu 7.04 was certainly the Feisty Fawn for performance, but based upon these results perhaps it would be better to call Ubuntu 7.10 the Gooey Gibbon, 8.04 the Hungover Heron, and 8.10 the Idling Ibex.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Frostedminipete housed an Atari Punk/noise synth inside of an old Dreamcast game console, making good use of most of the case's features -

This is my first atari punk console, housed inside a dreamcast. Photo cell is demonstrated with a strobe light in the second half of the video.

Extra features include...

-Internal speaker with on/off [under lid]
-Opto-theremin (photo cell) with on/off [under lid]
-4 Body Contacts
-Pretty blue LED
- ... uh, furby eyes.

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From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Erik's designing a new Arduino shield for Bluetooth wireless usage and currently gauging interst for a possible kit relese - Arduino Bluetooth Shield

Arduino Diecimila

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ElementC writes "Team Twiizers, the group behind almost all of the Wii Homebrew scene, has released an update to the Homebrew Channel (and installer) that allows for installation on a Wii with the most recent update installed. While the team still recommends against installing the Nintendo update, those who accidentally updated or purchase games that require the update are no longer left out to dry. This update to the Homebrew Channel also adds SDHC support, a feature Nintendo has not implemented in vanilla Wiis. The community has also created an app that updates just the Wii Shop Channel — allowing users to purchase Wiiware and Virtual Console games without losing their homebrew. It took the team only two days to get the fix out."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ElementC writes "Team Twiizers, the group behind almost all of the Wii Homebrew scene, has released an update to the Homebrew Channel (and installer) that allows for installation on a Wii with the most recent update installed. While the team still recommends against installing the Nintendo update, those who accidentally updated or purchase games that require the update are no longer left out to dry. This update to the Homebrew Channel also adds SDHC support, a feature Nintendo has not implemented in vanilla Wiis. The community has also created an app that updates just the Wii Shop Channel — allowing users to purchase Wiiware and Virtual Console games without losing their homebrew. It took the team only two days to get the fix out."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Al sent us a link to his amazing "Magic Mirror" project. He used and Arduino and a bunch of hidden sensors to control a Flashed based video. Check out the instructable for all the cool things it does. [Thanks Al!]

After multiple trips to Disneyland, I got the idea to do a Snow White type magic mirror for my two girls. I found a product after some googling but it was quite expensive so I decided to build my own. While at it, I figured I better add a Halloween Mode and Pirate mode.

Make you own Magic Mirror

DIY HALLOWEEN from MAKE & CRAFT!

It's here!! DIY HALLOWEEN 2007 from the editors of MAKE and CRAFT brings you 40-plus DIY projects for the holiday that's made for makers. From the craftiest costumes to amazing animated props and the latest in computer-controlled haunted house effects - Link.

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The folks over at Gizomodo have combined two of my favorite things, LEGOs and Halloween. This looks like a fun project to build, and it would make a perfect addition to anyone's desk.

How To Build a 3D Lego Halloween Pumpkin

More:

DIY Halloween contest! This is the BIG ONE!!!!

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While I have tremendous respect for the ongoing work that Ben Edelman has done over the years exposing many of the dirty tricks used by spyware and adware vendors, I tend to disagree with his view on trademark law. In the past, Edelman sided with websites that sued early spyware vendors for putting up competing pop up ads, but that was missing the point. The real problem there was the fact that spyware was surreptitiously installed. If people wanted to see competitive ads, that should be their choice, and not a trademark issue. There's nothing wrong with competitors trying to get your attention if they know you're looking for a competitor's product. That's not a trademark law, so long as there's no attempt to confuse users into thinking that one product was made by someone else.

Edelman, however, disagrees. And, now, he's actually suing Google for allowing AdSense ads to be placed on "typosquatter" domains. This lawsuit seems like a longshot. As has been seen in numerous lawsuits over AdSense and trademarks, suing Google is trying to put liability on the wrong party. You could potentially sue the owner of the domain, but even that seems like a stretch. It's unlikely that anyone arriving at the typosquatted domain will be "confused" into believing they're at the correct site. They'll either quickly retype the URL properly, or they'll click on a link on the site that takes them to the proper site. There's no actual "confusion" here and it's difficult to see how there's any consumer harm. The fact that Google makes money off the practice shouldn't be seen as illegal at all.

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An anonymous reader points to what's claimed to be "the world's first look at Dell's 12.1" netbook," running at Australian Personal Computer Magazine. There's a bit of gushing at the beginning, but this is followed by some informative pictures, informal battery-life tests, and interesting background about the machine's components. Upshot: it's a well-made, decent-performing small laptop with a better keyboard than smaller netbooks and more wireless options than most. However, it's shorter on battery life (bigger screen, smaller battery) than Dell's smaller Mini 9, and less easily upgraded.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader points to what's claimed to be "the world's first look at Dell's 12.1" netbook," running at Australian Personal Computer Magazine. There's a bit of gushing at the beginning, but this is followed by some informative pictures, informal battery-life tests, and interesting background about the machine's components. Upshot: it's a well-made, decent-performing small laptop with a better keyboard than smaller netbooks and more wireless options than most. However, it's shorter on battery life (bigger screen, smaller battery) than Dell's smaller Mini 9, and less easily upgraded.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Screen capture and screen recording tools allow anyone to record faithfully any visual activity taking place on your computer screen, generally for the purpose of creating a video tutorial, demo or showcase to be published online. Once a screen recording gets published online it is normally referred to as a "screencast" (a broadcast of a screen recording). Photo credit: Mipan, Anatoly Tiplyashin Screencasting and screen recording tools give you the possibility to capture videos of either the full area of your computer screen or alternatively of a specific area of your monitor. You can use all of your computer normal functions while screen recording and even record your own audio as you comment and highlight the tasks being carried out. Screen recordings can be generally saved in one more standard video file formats for easy upload and republishing on any web site. Typically free, such screencasting applications are also really easy to use: to record a video, just decide whether to record a specific area or the full screen, hit the record button or key combination, and start doing your demo as if you were actually showing your computer screen to someone. Once you are done hit the Stop button and the recording gets saved for you automatically on your hard disk, ready to be exported / converted in any one of the major video file formats. Here below a small set of screen capture features I have identified as critical when comparing these tools. Use it yourself to more easily find the screencasting tool that best suits your needs.

• Platform: Specifies which operating system is required to run the application
• Software - Web-Based: Determines whether the tool is a downloadable software or a web-based application
• Capture Region: Possibility of recording the entire screen or specific regions of your screen
• Record Audio: Allows to record the audio from a microphone along with the video
• Record Webcam: Allows to record and embed your webcam video inside your screencast
• Shortcut Key for Stop: Enables you to stop the recording by pressing a key combination
• Output Formats: Indicates the available output file formats in which you can save your screencast

Here all the details:

Screencasting Tools Comparison Table

go to the table!

Record Videos Of Your Screen

1. Camtasia Camtasia is probably the most known screencasting solution to record your screen easily. You can record any fixed or hand-drawn region of your screen, with the possibility of embedding your webcam or any other video source into your screencast. When finished recording, you can edit your video with a professional suite of video editing tools: cut parts, apply effect and transitions, add captions and audio, and more. After you're finished, export your work in one of the major video file formats to share it on the Web. $299 to buy. http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp



2. CamStudio CamStudio is a screen recording software that allows you to record all screen and audio activities on your computer. CamStudio allows you to create AVI video files to be converted into Streaming Flash videos (SWF). The interface is really easy to use: just set the video and audio quality, and press the big red button to start recording. When done, you'll be able to save the file locally on your machine. Free to download and use. http://camstudio.org/
   
   
3. uTipu uTipu is a new screen recording software which allows you to record anything that is shown on your screen in order to create demos, tutorials or clip recording. uTipu can capture your full screen or any selected region you want to define, letting you zoom and record your screen activities. When finished, the video can be uploaded directly to your account. Fully free, uTipu works on Windows XP and Vista only. http://www.utipu.com/app/
   
   
4. I Show You I Show You is a free software for Windows platforms that enables you to easily record a sequence of operations in real-time as you perform them on your screen. After the screencasting session ends, you can edit your recording by drawing on it, adding notes, or recording a voice over narration. When done, you can send it to your friends via email, messenger or any other application. You can download ISU by clicking here. http://www.vapisoft.com/ISU.htm
   
   
5. oRipa Screen Recorder oRipa Screen Recorder is a free software solution that lets you record your screen activities and saves them as video files. oRipa Screen Recorder can help you record presentations, web pages, tutorials, or anything that is happening on your screen. You can save your output video in multiple formats and codecs, and add a real-time audio narration. oRipa is free to download and use. http://www.ejoystudio.com/oripa-screen-recorder/index.htm
   
   
6. Jing Jing is a downloadable application for taking screenshots and screencasts of your monitor (or any region of it). You can invoke Jing via keyboard shortcut, select the area you want to capture, specify whether you want a video or an image, and then just let Jing do its work. Currently Jing is free to download. Works on both Windows and Mac platforms. http://www.jingproject.com/
   
   
7. Debut Debut is a free screen capturing software for Windows that anyone can use to capture video or still images from any device. The setup comes in just 400kb and, after you install it, you can capture any part of your screen, or even capture videos from a webcam. You can export the video in any format and save the screenshots in JPG format. Debut is completely free to download and use. http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html
   
   
8. FreeScreencast FreeScreencast is a free screencasting software that allows you to create high quality Flash encoded screencasts easily. Just register to the service, download the software and you will be ready to start recording your screen. When you finish your video, you can save the output flash file to your computer. Or if you prefer to share it, simply use the automatic upload service that will store your file online and will let you embed it in your website or blog. Free to use, registration needed. http://freescreencast.com/



9. Screencast-O-Matic Screencast-O-Matic is a Java-based application that anyone can use to create screencasts of their screen with no additional software to download. Without even registering to the site, you can record anything that happens on your screen just by setting the capture size, choose if you want audio included, and click go. When done, you can publish the screencast online or download it in .mov format. Free to use. http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/



10. AviScreen AviScreen is an application for capturing screen activity in AVI video format, or sequential images, but with no audio. You can specify any area of the screen to define what you want to capture, and also use the “follow the cursor” feature: using this mode you can produce a video or image of relatively small dimensions while covering all mouse activities over the whole screen area. When you are finished with your work, it will be automatically exported and saved in AVI format or sequence of BMP images. Free to download, available for Windows only. http://www.bobyte.com/AviScreen/index.asp
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11. ScreenToaster ScreenToaster is a web-based screencasting software that lets you record screen activities without downloading any software. Working on any Windows, Mac, and Linux machines, it allows you to record your screen by pressing a key combination. The same combination will also stop the recording, and then you'll be able to create a new video file that will be immediately saved into your account, so that you can whether share its link or embed it everywhere. Free. http://www.screentoaster.com/

Please help me refine, edit, correct and extend this guide by suggesting other screen capture tools and screencasting web services that I have not included in the above list, by using the comments section here below.

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi for MasterNewMedia and first published on October 27th 2008 as "Screen Capture, Screen Recording, Screencasting: The Best Tools To Record Videos Of Your Screen - Sharewood Guide"

We covered the Komegatone synth-in-a-suitcase previously on MAKE, but there wasn't too much information at the time. Recently, Craig sent us a link to a video and thought it was worth another post. Awesome Sound! [Thanks Craig]

More about Komegatone synth-in-a-suitcase

More:

Komegatone synth-in-a-suitcase

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Dave made a really nice LED Umbrella... Source, schematic, laser files and more all included! via NYCR.

Ever wanted to grow grass in your cubicle? I did. But the grass kept dying. So I made a custom grow light out of LEDs, and now I have the nicest lawn on my block. Build photos, schematic, sourcecode, etc. are on the project page.

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A CD - cereal box "spectrometer"... Jerry writes -

A simple spectrometer can be built from a CD and a box. Cut a slit on one side of the box. Place the CD on the other side with about 60 degree angle. Look down into the openning on the box. The slit should not be too wide, otherwise the spectrum lines will be blurred. It should not be too narrow either, otherwise the spectrum is too dim. I use a 0.2mm wide slit.

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