We wrote about Flat World Knowledge, the open source textbook provider earlier this year, in noting how the textbook market was ripe for disruption. It's great to find out that the company has now received $8 million in funding -- which seems to go against a rash of recent stories from publications about how companies building business models with a big "free" or "open source" component would have trouble raising money these days. FWK, of course, is using free properly -- as a part of a larger business model where scarcities are charged for, but infinite goods are given away freely. Who knows if it will succeed, but it's nice to see the vote of confidence from investors.

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thefickler writes "Microsoft is opposing an industry plan, the Open Cloud Manifesto, to promote cloud computing interoperability. Officially, Microsoft says the plan is unnecessarily secretive and that cloud computing is still in an early stage of development, but there are allegations that Microsoft feels threatened by the plan because it could boost Linux-based systems. The goal of the group behind the manifesto, the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum (CCIF), is to minimize the barriers between different technologies used in cloud computing. And this is where the problem seems to lie, with the group stating that 'whenever possible the CCIF will emphasize the use of open, patent-free and/or vendor-neutral technical solutions.' Some speculate that Microsoft is actually worried that this will allow open source systems, such as Linux, to flourish, at the expense of Microsoft technology." Amazon is also declining to support the plan, saying, "the best way to illustrate openness and customer flexibility is by what you actually provide and deliver for them." Reader smack.addict contributes a link to an O'Reilly piece asking what openness really means for cloud computing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The newspaper business is in the can, papers are closing left and right, and lots of others are laying off staffers. But perhaps some of those who have their newspaper gigs can get in on a hot growth industry: ghostwriting Twitter messages for celebrities. Even better if you're a laid-off copy editor who wrote headlines -- all the better to deal with the 140-character limit as you seek to convey the personality of a celebrity who's too lazy/incompetent/uninterested to do it themselves, while making their fans feel really special because they're enjoying what they think is a small personal connection. Shaquille O'Neal, who writes his own tweets, sums it up pretty well: "It's 140 characters. It's so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you."

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Charlie Stross and I are doing a benefit talk for the Open Rights Group on May 1 in London, entitled "Resisting the all-seeing eye." Hope to see you there -- Stross is a ball, and ORG is a damned worthy cause, especially in this era of ubiquitous surveillance.

From technologies like PGP and Tor to the arguments that will convince people - friends and family as well as media and politicians - to watch out for their digital rights, this event is your anti-surveillance 101.

Cory Doctorow - science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist - and Charlie Stross - science fiction writer and former programmer and pharmacist - will share how and why to control your data. The event will be moderated by Ian Brown - academic, activist and Blogzilla.

The entry price is either joining Open Rights Group - by handing door staff a completed form (link to PDF) - or making a one-off £10 donation on the door. Please register for tickets here. Drinks will be available, as is The Three Kings - a local pub - to continue the debate.

What: Doctorow and Stross: Resisting the all-seeing eye
When: 1830, Friday 1 May 2009
Where: Crypt on the Green, St James Church, Clerkenwell, Clerkenwell Close, London, EC1R 0EA - Map

Event - Doctorow and Stross: Resisting the all-seeing eye

storagedude writes to tell us that a storage geek has an interesting article on why ancient Egyptians were better than us at data preservation — and what we need to do to get caught up. "After rocks, the human race moved on to writing on animal skins and papyrus, which were faster at recording but didn't last nearly as long. Paper and printing presses were even faster, but also deteriorated more quickly. Starting to see a pattern? And now we have digital records, which might last a decade before becoming obsolete. Recording and handing down history thus becomes an increasingly daunting task, as each generation of media must be migrated to the next at a faster and faster rate, or we risk losing vital records."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've pointed out time and time again that there's really no such thing as an anonymized dataset. Given the data, it's almost always easy enough to at least connect some of it back to a real person. It looks like there's now some research to support that. Steven Hoy points us to a new paper where some researchers wrote an algorithm that takes anonymized data from social networks and connects it back to names and addresses of individuals:

We present a framework for analyzing privacy and anonymity in social networks and develop a new re-identification algorithm targeting anonymized social-network graphs. To demonstrate its effectiveness on real-world networks, we show that a third of the users who can be verified to have accounts on both Twitter, a popular microblogging service, and Flickr, an online photo-sharing site, can be re-identified in the anonymous Twitter graph with only a 12% error rate.

Basically, the researchers are saying that anonymized data isn't really anonymous -- and social networks that insist they're "safe" because they've anonymized the data are being somewhat disingenuous.

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Ryan McAdams writes "Popular websites, such as Facebook, are wasting as much as 75MBit/sec of bandwidth due to excessively long URLs. According to a recent article over at O3 Magazine, they took a typical Facebook home page, looked at the traffic statistics from compete.com, and figured out the bandwidth savings if Facebook switched from using URL paths which, in some cases, run over 150 characters in length, to shorter ones. It looks at the impact on service providers, with the wasted bandwidth used by the subsequent GET requests for these excessively long URLs. Facebook is just one example; many other sites have similar problems, as well as CMS products such as Word Press. It's an interesting approach to web optimization for high traffic sites."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Whoa. Check out these gorgeous steam-engines and steam-powered vehicles built by machinist Bob Jorgensen. Bob died in 2006. This site is a tribute to his creativity and impressive machining skills.

JorgensenSteam.com

From MAKE magazine:

Check out MAKE, Volume 17: The Lost Knowledge issue!

Buy your copy in the Maker Shed
Subscribe to MAKE
Access the Digital Edition (if you're already a subscriber)

In Volume 17, MAKE goes really old school with the Lost Knowledge issue, featuring projects and articles covering the steampunk scene -- makers creating their own alternative Victorian world through modified computers, phones, cars, costumes, and other fantastic creations. Projects include an elegant Wimshurst Influence Machine (an electrostatic generator built entirely from Home Depot parts), a Florence Siphon coffee brewer, and a teacup-powered Stirling engine. This special section also covers watchmaking, letterpress printing, the early multimedia art of William Blake, and other wondrous and lost (or fading) pre-20th-century technologies.

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The transition from analog to digital TV has turned into a real mess, thanks to the bungled converter-box coupon program, but also because of the ham-fisted way in which the delay of the transition's been handled. Earlier in the week, it seemed things might be getting back on track as the coupons started flowing again, but today we come to find out that officials are now worried about a shortage of boxes. You'd think somebody might have looked into the supply situation earlier, but hey, apparently it didn't really matter as long as there weren't any coupons. Once again, this illustrates how poorly the government has managed this situation. The coupon plan has been flawed from the outset, and if the government was so concerned about the supply of boxes, it should have taken steps to ensure it would be sufficient long ago. Stay tuned for another delay...

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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taucross writes "Australian ISP iiNet is making a very bold move. They are asking the court to accept that essentially, BitTorrent cannot be used to distribute pirated content because a packet does not represent a substantial portion of the infringing material. They are also hedging their bets purely on the strength of the movie studios' 'forensic' evidence. This ruling will go straight to the heart of Australia's copyright law. At last, an ISP willing to stand up for its customers! Let's hope we have a technically-informed judge."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

John Baichtal, Geekdad contributor and Twin Cities maker, wrote a nice review of Make: Day over at the Wired Blog. Make: television is happy that so many families enjoyed this event, it turned out to be a great mix of fun for both adults AND kids! (link)

We share John's sentiments, about Make: Day and hope it continues...

"By all accounts the event's turnout was awesome -- it attracted about 5,500 attendees, or about a thousand more than a typical Saturday. Hopefully the hubbub will induce the movers and shakers to make this an annual event." Full article.

Photos are still pouring in! Take a look and be sure to tag your photos and add them to the Make: television pool.

We love this photo! A young girl pilots a robot built by the FIRST robotics club.

(photo credit: fivesixzero)

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tritonman writes "A new scientific study suggests that crabs can feel and remember pain. From the article: '"More research is needed in this area where a potentially very large problem is being ignored," said Elwood. Legislation to protect crustaceans has been proposed but it is likely to cover only scientific research. Millions of crustacean are caught or reared in aquaculture for the food industry. There is no protection for these animals (with the possible exception of certain states in Australia) as the presumption is that they cannot experience pain.' Perhaps soon there will be a study to determine that vegetables feel pain as well, then all of the vegans will only be allowed to eat rocks."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

cocoanaut writes "A new project launched by Google's Python engineers could make the popular programming language five times faster. The project, which is called Unladen Swallow, seeks to replace the Python interpreter's virtual machine with a new just-in-time (JIT) compilation engine that is built on LLVM. The first milestone release, which was announced at PyCon, already offers a 15-25% performance increase over the standard CPython implementation. The source code is available from the Google Code web site."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When I was in the UK recently, I was surprised to hear just how much most folks hate PRS -- the collections society in charge of getting various businesses to pay for playing music. PRS is also the group that has caused music videos to be pulled from YouTube after demanding much more money than was economically feasible. But, where PRS really shines is in threatening tons of small businesses. Over the years, we've had stories on PRS threatening car repair shops, because mechanics in the garage were playing their radios loud enough that customers in the waiting room could hear them. That's a public performance, according to PRS. Then they went after a police station because some cops were listening to radios. Then they went after a children's charity for singing Christmas carols without paying up. The group has even been known to call up small businesses and if they hear music in the background, demand payment, including one case involving a guy working at home with his dog. Apparently, that constitutes a "public performance."

The latest (sent in by a few folks) is that PRS has now threatened a woman who plays classical music to her horses in her stable to keep them calm. She had been turning on the local classical music station, saying that it helped keep the horse calm -- but PRS is demanding £99 if she wants to keep providing such a "public performance." And it's not just a one-off. Apparently a bunch of stables have been receiving such calls.

Obviously, this is not a case of random excessive attempts by PRS to squeeze more money out of people. It's become systematic. The group seems to believe that playing music in almost any situation now constitutes a public performance and requires a licensing fee. You just know they're salivating over the opportunity to go after people playing music in their cars with the windows down.

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cars writes "Remember how you can scan any bar code with an android phone and it will tell you where to find that product for cheaper? A new Android application called BarTor (formerly ScanTorrent) can scan any DVD bar code and then signals either uTorrent or Vuze on your PC to download the movie from BitTorrent. How long do you think this will last?" Other features include purchase opportunities on barcode lookup, Google base product lookup, site-level filtering, and several others.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The uproar over "sexting" -- kids taking nude pictures of themselves and sending them with their cameraphones -- is in full swing, with lots of politicians looking to wring some publicity out of it. In our earlier post about the Pennsylvania prosecutor who threatened to bring child-porn charges against some kids for taking their own pictures, Steve L left a comment noting that a politician in Ohio plans to introduce legislation that would make sexting a misdemeanor offense. He says he wants to criminalize the activity to protect kids from the "extra burden" of being charged with felony sex offenses. It's bizarre, though, as he says that teen sexters "did something stupid, but I don't think anyone wants for them to be called sex offenders," and "I think what these teens need is education about how this type of behavior could affect their lives." So the way to educate them is to make them criminals?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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snydeq writes to mention that a recent survey by KPMG shows that many people feel that out-of-work IT workers will be much more tempted to turn to criminal activities due to the down economy. This, coupled with an E-crime survey that shows fraud committed by managers, employees, and customers tripled between 2007 and 2008 paints an interesting picture. "In other survey results, 45 percent of respondents who handle critical national infrastructure said they are seeing an increase in the number of attacks on their systems. Fifty-one percent of respondents from the same category said the technical sophistication of those attacks is getting better. Sixty-eight percent said that of all kinds of malicious code they felt Trojan horse programs -- ones that are designed to look harmless but can steal data along with other functions -- had the most impact on their businesses. Rootkits are the next highest concern, followed by spyware, worms, viruses, mobile malicious code and, finally, adware."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I love this funky little vibrobot, made from a mobile phone vibrartor, keypad, a clothespin, and some wire.

Vibroroach

More:

• Jar-lid vibrobot
• Vibrobot from a speaker and pull-cord toy
• HOW TO - Make a Bristlebot a tiny directional ...

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Wil Wheaton is leading a kitchen-table game of Dungeons and Dragons with his teenaged son and some of his son's friends, and documenting the campaign in his blog. This is absolutely charming, a heartwarming tale of our proud geek heritage being passed down through the generations.

D&D was the first thing to capture my attention as thoroughly as reading had. I remember just falling head over heels for it -- the miniatures, the painting, the storytelling, the dice, the paraphernalia, the social circle. It was all I could think about for years. I haunted the downtown D&D stores like The Four Horsemen and Mr Gameway's Arc (which had a full-scale replica of the bridge of the Enterprise on the top level!), and hoarded graph-paper like it was going out of style. Reading this brings it all back to me.

As John Rogers notes, "They are, in the end, about a father sitting down at a kitchen table, for hours, teaching and telling stories with his son."

He looked up at Nolan and their other friend. "If I get behind her, I can get out of reach of her claws, and I do all kinds of cool stuff when I'm flanking someone."

Yeah, this kid is really into being a rogue.

They agreed that he could go for it. I decided that this was incredibly difficult: DC 20.

"Make an athletics check," I said. Then, "are you sure you want to do this?"

But the die was out of his hand. It rolled across the table in front of him and landed at the edge of the map: 19.

"What's your athletics bonus?" I said.

"Plus 1," he said.

"Well, I can't believe you pulled it off, but you did it."

"YES!" He said, with a major fist pump.

"Let's see if the Dragon hits you, as you leap away," I said. She rolled a four.

"As you crouch down to leap away, she looks down at you and snorts contemptuously. She slashes at you with her left claw, but when it snaps closed, you've already lept through her grasp! You lock your hands around the neck of this statue, and spin around it, tucking your feet in and avoiding the wyrmling's bite. You let go of the statue, somersault in the air, and land on your feet behind her."

"That was so cool," Nolan said.

His friend and I both nodded. I realized that I was having a lot of fun visualizing the action in my head, and describing it to them all as evocatively as possible.

and so the campaign begins... (Part I)

and so the campaign begins... (Part II)

and so the campaign begins... (Part III)

and so the campaign begins... (Part IV)

a few thoughts and lessons learned from behind the dm screen

Jon sends in one of the more amusing opinion pieces written about conditions needed to get people to actually pay for content, written in the Guardian by Paul Carr. You have to get past the drunken bar fight part (which is what makes the article amusing) to the theory, which is that to get people to pay for content, it needs to hit at least two of the following three conditions:

1. An experience that can't be replaced anywhere else for free.
2. Making the purchase incredibly easy (key point: the real "cost" is price + hassle, so lowering the hassle factor is like dropping the cost)
3. At the end, the buyer actually "owns" the purchase, rather than just "accessing" content.

It's definitely an interesting theory -- built mainly off of looking at the success of Tapulous and its iPhone apps. However, I'm not convinced that these three conditions actually will work in the long run. I think they can absolutely work in the short-run, however. The first point, for example, only works so long as the content can't be replicated by others. That's not really true of something like a video game. Either someone can figure out a way to copy it, or even taking unauthorized copying out of the equation, someone else can come up with a similar game and offer it for less (or even free, using a different business model).

The second point definitely does make sense. People absolutely are willing to pay for convenience... but, again, that second point goes away if the first point isn't there. That is, no matter how hassle free the buying process might be, if the experience can be substituted by a free option, then the ease of the buying process probably doesn't matter too much.

The third point is also somewhat in dispute. I do agree that if people are paying for "content," it's important that they get some sort of ownership and control over it, but I actually think that there's something to paying for access, depending on what that access is. Access to content? Eh. Access to people, however... is quite different.

So, while I'm not convinced that these three checkboxes work, it still makes for an amusing and worthwhile read if you're trying to understand these sorts of business models.

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TechDirt is reporting that the ACLU has stepped in on behalf of several teens facing the threat of child pornography in Pennsylvania for sharing of nude pics of themselves. Unfortunately for a girl in New Jersey she is facing much more than just a threat as she was arrested yesterday for posting almost 30 explicit pictures of herself on MySpace for her boyfriend to see. "the ACLU has sued the prosecutor on the girls' behalf, saying he shouldn't have threatened them with baseless charges -- which haven't yet been filed -- if they wouldn't agree to probation and a counseling program. The prosecutor says he was being "proactive" in offering them a choice, but the ACLU says he shouldn't be using "heavy artillery" to make the threats. As its attorney points out, teaching kids that this sort of behavior can bring all sorts of unwanted and unforeseen ramifications is a good idea, but threatening them with child-porn charges isn't the best way to do it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today is the final day of Boing Boing Video's live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, with  Killscreen TV + Offworld. We're streaming live video around the clock on our new Ustream channel. Tune in for conversations in our BBV@GDC studio with hosts including Matty Kirsch from Killscreen TV and Xeni from Boing Boing, visits from fellow Boing Boing bloggers, and the following special guests today, Friday March 27, 2009, the final day of GDC:

* Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy, talking about his most recent game, Noby Noby Boy (note: previously recorded on-site at GDC)
* A planned interview nearby with Hideo Kojima, CEO of Konami. He's the creator of the recently released Metal Gear Solid Touch game for the iPod touch and iPhone (it's currently available on the Apple App Store). He's doing a talk at 3pm at the San Francisco Apple Store, if you're in SF, you should try to go!
* In-studio visit by game developer and researcher Jane McGonigal, whose amazing GDC talk Cory blogged about here.
* Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music, talking about music and video games, and hopefully demoing some music-making gizmos!
* Vlad Micu, "Videogame Visionary" from the Netherlands
* Alice Taylor, game researcher, blogger, and developer, of Wonderland and Channel 4
* Tracy Fullerton of the USC Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab

For BB Video + Offworld's complete video and blog coverage of GDC09, visit offworld.com/gdc09.

Chat room after the jump, or you can hop directly to our Ustream page to view chat + video stream side by side.

(Special thanks to our live stream host Ustream TV, to Wayneco Heavy Industries, and to our transportation provider at Virgin America. Video Crew members in the house this week: Jolon Bankey, Wes Varghese, Derek Bledsoe, Xeni Jardin, and Killscreen TV's Matty Kirsch and Allison Kingsley).

---

Jane Q. Public writes "At the Federal Trade Commission's Seattle conference on DRM, FTC Director Mary Engle started off by referencing the Sony rootkit debacle, and said that companies are going to have to get serious about disclosing DRM that may affect the usability of products. She also said that disclosure via the fine print in a EULA is not good enough, and 'If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away, don't be surprised if the FTC comes calling.' Transcripts and webcasts are available from the FTC website." Update 18:13 GMT by SM: as Jane Q. Public was nice enough to diplomatically point out, the webcasts are no longer functioning, but transcripts are still available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It seems like a decade or so ago, it was pretty easy to find a friend who had a story about their car window being smashed and their stereo stolen. But the FBI says that car-stereo thefts have dropped by about 60 percent since 1994, thanks mainly to technology and economics (via Engadget). Fewer people are replacing their car stereos these days, as the quality of factory units has improved, but also as features like CD players have diffused throughout the auto population. Most thieves won't bother stealing factory stereos because their resale value is so low: they have to find a buyer who needs to replace the same model, and that's much harder than reselling a radar detector or GPS unit that will work in any car. What's more, the cost of aftermarket equipment has dropped significantly, squeezing stereo-stealers' margins even more. Usually when we talk about unintended consequences, it's in reference to something with decent intentions that delivers some negative unexpected outcome, but it's nice to see sometimes things work the other way, too.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Carl Zeiss has said it will produce a Canon-mount version of its 18mm F3.5 lens. The Distagon T* 3.5/18 super-wide angle lens has previously only been available in the ZF and ZK mounts for Nikon and Pentax cameras, respectively. A Canon-mount version of the lens is being shown at the Photo Imaging Expo 2009 show in Tokyo and will be available 'towards the end of the year,' the company said.

Carl Zeiss has said it will produce a Canon-mount version of its 18mm F3.5 lens. The Distagon T* 3.5/18 super-wide angle lens has previously only been available in the ZF and ZK mounts for Nikon and Pentax cameras, respectively. A Canon-mount version of the lens is being shown at the Photo Imaging Expo 2009 show in Tokyo and will be available 'towards the end of the year,' the company said.

From the TED archive, a new video:

Virus hunter Nathan Wolfe is outwitting the next pandemic by staying two steps ahead: discovering new, deadly viruses where they first emerge -- passing from animals to humans among poor subsistence hunters in Africa -- before they claim millions of lives.

Armed with blood samples, high-tech tools and a small army of fieldworkers, Nathan Wolfe hopes to re-invent pandemic control -- and reveal hidden secrets of the planet's dominant lifeform: the virus.

TED Talks: Nathan Wolfe (thanks, Jason Wishnow)

Engadget is reporting that the iPhone 3G is finally available contract-free if you are willing to pay a much higher premium. Without a contract consumers are looking at $599 for an 8GB model and $699 for the 16GB. AT&T has the added restriction that you must be an existing AT&T customer, but Apple (retail stores only, sorry) will sell one to anyone willing to pay the premium. This change brings the model much closer to the prevailing European model where phones are sold as hardware and the plans are handled completely separately.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jason Leroy Savage will go to prison for 90 days for having sex with a vacuum at a car wash in Thomas Township, Detroit. From the Associated Press:

(He) must also submit to drug testing.

The 29-year-old from Michigan, was sentenced Wednesday at Saginaw County Circuit Court. Savage pleaded no contest to indecent exposure last month.

Man caught in vacuum sex act gets 90 days

An anonymous reader writes "To little fanfare and not much news coverage, Canonical released the beta of Ubuntu 9.04 'Jaunty Jackalope.' I tried it on a Dell Mini 9 using the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) and it's fabulous! Much better than the sad 'Dell Desktop' that it shipped with. Finally, someone has broken the 25+ year old too-many-open-windows-and-chaos desktop paradigm with UNR's task oriented layout, which is perfect for small netbook screen sizes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Morbid Anatomy's Joanna Ebenstein visited the Cabinet of Curiosities of Bonnier de la Mosson, a magnificent 18th century collection of marvelous natural wonders now installed in a library attached to Paris's Museum of Natural History. The actual cabinets themselves are absolutely incredible! From Morbid Anatomy:

This collection is discussed at length by Celeste Olalquiaga in a piece entitled Object Lesson / Transitional Object which ran in a 2005 issue of Cabinet magazine. Here is an excerpt from that piece, which discusses the original cabinet of Bonnier de la Mosson at great length:

Hidden away in the endless folds of Paris’s Jardin des Plantes, the Cabinet Bonnier de la Mosson stands as a unique manifestation of the intersection between aesthetics and science. Dating back to 1735, this luxurious cabinet, amassed and exhibited thanks to a family fortune based on the procurement of regional taxes, has the rare quality of combining the atmospheric mise-en-scène of the preceding Wunderkammern with the organizational intent of the later cabinets, producing an original blend of system and fantasy. Considered by many the richest and most imaginative French cabinet of the early eighteenth century, this curiosity cabinet was housed in the hôtel particulier, as the city residences of aristocrats and royalty were known, of Joseph Bonnier de la Mosson (1702-1744), located in the now extinct rue des Dominiques...

Cabinet of Curiosities of Bonnier de la Mosson

The AP is reporting that a senator has introduced legislation that would allow struggling newspapers to operate as nonprofits, similar to the way public broadcasting works. "[Sen. Benjamin] Cardin [D-Md.] introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to choose tax-exempt status. They would no longer be able to make political endorsements, but could report on all issues including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage could be tax deductible. Cardin said in a statement that the bill is aimed at preserving local newspapers, not large newspaper conglomerates. ... The head of the newspaper industry's trade group called the bill a positive step."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last month, we wrote about how Josh Freese was using rather hilarious tiers to sell his latest album. In my keynote at the Leadership Music Digital Summit earlier this week, I used Freese as an example of a less well known artist doing something similar (and yes, we're working to get the video of the keynote online, but it may take a little while). Now Ian Rogers from Topspin alerts us to the fact that Josh's $250 tier has sold out in less than 48 hours (there were a total of 25 available). At that tier you got a signed CD/DVD (and the music as a download), a t-shirt, a signed drumhead and drumstick and lunch with Josh at PF Changs or The Cheesecake Factory (he's apparently a big fan). That's a gross of $6,250 for just that option alone. That's no $750,000, but it's a pretty damn good start for a musician that is a lot less well known. Looks like Josh is going to become pretty well known at the local PF Changs... and I'm sure some folks will still claim that these models can't work for less well known musicians.

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Touchatag (formerly TikiTag) is a very interesting looking consumer-level RFID (radio frequency identification) product. They can be used in many ways, from toilet paper inventory control to managing your Airwolf VHS tape lending library. I plan to get one soon to test out and do a proper review. (It probably won't displace my iConveyor as my favorite RFID device!)
MAKE pal Kent Barnes send these photos of the device's innards for us all to enjoy. Note the SIM card; what's that doing there?

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Death Metal sends along an Ars Technica piece about The Pirate Bay's plans for a virtual private network service to help ensure its users' privacy. "The Pirate Bay is planning to launch a paid VPN service for users looking to cover their tracks when torrenting. The new service will be called IPREDator, named after the Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that will go into effect in April. IPREDator is currently in private beta and is expected to go public next week for €5 per month. ... IPREDator's website says that it won't store any traffic data, as its entire goal is to help people stay anonymous on the web. Without any data to hand over, copyright owners won't be able to find individuals to target. ... The question remains, however, if any significant portion of The Pirate Bay's users will decide to fork over 5 per month solely to remain anonymous. It seems more likely that the majority either won't care, or will simply start looking for lesser-known torrent trackers to use."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Limor and Phil are up to plenty of good over at Adafruit Industries, where they're working on controlling a hotplate for soldering circuit boards. Check out the video of Limor demonstrating how the laser-cut wheel and servo controls the temperature knob for the hotplate.

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squirrel messenger
unidog
wiggles dog wigs
dancing chicken
owls
daily mail picnic
frog
inner city snail
counting sheep
squeek the squirrel
hamsters in hats
uni the hedgehog

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

adamengst writes "If you've had an Xserve drive fail, you may have considered saving some money by putting a replacement drive inside its Apple Drive Module. That may be a false economy, though. TidBITS explains why, while pinning Apple down on exactly what goes into Apple Drive Modules and why they cost so much more than bare retail drives."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Noise Addicts posted this effective recipe for near-automatic generation of album artwork (though it does allow for some creative typesetting) -

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band.

2. Go to “Random Quotations”. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page will be the title of your new album.

3. Go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days”. The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Give it a go - the results can be eerily convincing. Plus - it's a quick and easy fix when you get the creative urge at the office/library/etc. Man … I could swear my cousin had that Stutz Blackhawk album back in the day.

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Back in January, we got a tremendous response in the comments to a post about some teens in Pennsylvania who were facing the potential of child porn charges from an overzealous local prosecutor. Three girls had snapped nude and semi-nude pictures of themselves, and and faced charges of manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography; the two boys they sent the photos faced possession raps. Now, the ACLU has sued the prosecutor on the girls' behalf, saying he shouldn't have threatened them with baseless charges -- which haven't yet been filed -- if they wouldn't agree to probation and a counseling program. The prosecutor says he was being "proactive" in offering them a choice, but the ACLU says he shouldn't be using "heavy artillery" to make the threats. As its attorney points out, teaching kids that this sort of behavior can bring all sorts of unwanted and unforeseen ramifications is a good idea, but threatening them with child-porn charges isn't the best way to do it. Of course, in neighboring New Jersey, it seems like prosecutors didn't just stick to threats of such charges: a 14-year-old girl has now been arrested for child porn possession and distribution for posting nude photos of herself on MySpace for her boyfriend to see. At least in that case, they say they won't charge friends who viewed the photos as well.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Small Batch, Inc. are some super smart folks. But you already knew that. They're the team that created Measure Map, which was later bought by Google. Earlier this week, they launched Wikirank, a tool for exploring and comparing what's popular on Wikipedia. It's pretty damn cool.

Jeff Veen explains why he digs Wikirank:

... it helps people find stories in the data. One of the great things about the web is how measuring tiny behaviors reveals patterns that tell stories. The data we get from Wikipedia is no different; as we started playing around with the numbers, we saw loads of interesting shapes emerge in the charts.

I mean, just do a comparison on the past and present lead singers of Van Halen, and you'll see an accurate visualization. The possibilities are endless.

It was an honor and privilege to work on this project. Great, smart people + a compelling idea + awesome implementation = best client experience in quite some time. My little part was designing the logo and working with Small Batch on the visual design. Congrats to Jeff, Bryan, Greg and Ryan on turning an idea to completion in such a short period of time. And I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Patrick Bowman writes "I'm with a small (okay, it's just me) startup planning a camera-related USB device for the mass market. It's probably patentable so I can't give details. I can handle the software but have no hardware design or manufacturing experience. Does anyone have any recommendations for a company to handle the PCB design and manufacture? Instead of starting from scratch I've also considered approaching one of the companies (mostly in China) that make similar devices and asking them to modify their hardware for my requirements, and to provide their source for me to modify. Has anyone taken this route before? How did it work for you?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yesterday, I blogged about the photos I'd caught of some beautifully detailed artist's anatomical models on sale in the dealer's room at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco. I ended up going back later in the day to buy one of the models (they brought their "slightly irregular" stock to the show and are selling it at half off), and I got to talking with the staff about their wares.

It turns out that they're on something of a holy mission to introduce high quality, affordable artistically rendered anatomical models to the fields of science, art and medicine, replacing the standard, multi-thousand-dollar, low-quality anatomical models with sub-$500 versions that are much better rendered and easier to grasp.

But these are more than teaching aids or artist's reference -- they're absolutely drop-dead gorgeous sculptures, created by a Bay Area artist called Andrew Cawrse. The more I look at the model sitting here on my desk, the more enthralled I am with it, and the more clever grace-notes I spot in the various cutaways that make clear a thousand myriad elements of anatomy (and I had to laugh to discover that the cross-sectioned penis is attached by a magnet, so it can be removed by customers who aren't allowed to show penises in their workplaces).

Freedom of Teach/Anatomy Tools

We're still looking for entries for the Maker Faire Bay Area, May 30 and 31, at the San Mateo County Expo Center. This year's focus is Re-Make America, inspired by President Obama's call for all of us to participate in remaking America. We're looking to showcase "the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things."

Key Points:
* Entry Close Date: March 31, 2009. Space is limited, please submit your entry by the due date!

* Dates: May 30-31, 2009
Hours: Saturday 10am - 8pm (6pm - 8pm evening program); Sunday 10am - 6pm.
Note: This is NOT Memorial Day Weekend.

We're also specifically looking for makers with projects in the following categories:

- Sustainability
- Alternative Energy
- Clean Tech and Green Tech
- Community and Group Based Projects
- Lost Crafts
- Artisanal Food Makers
- Student Projects
- And more....

Submission form and more info here.

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circletimessquare notes a New Scientist piece calling attention to a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences, which attempts to raise awareness of the dangers of severe solar electromagnetic storms. "In 1859, amateur astronomer Richard Carrington noticed 'two patches of intensely bright and white light' near some sunspots. At the same time, Victorian era magnetometers went off the charts, stunning auroras were being viewed at the equator, and telegraph networks were disrupted — sparks flew from terminals and ignited telegraph paper on fire. It became known as the Carrington event, and the National Academy of Sciences worries about the impact of another such event today and the lack of awareness among officials. It would induce un-designed-for voltages in all high-voltage, long-distance power lines, and destroy transformers, as Quebec learned in 1989. Without electricity, water would stop flowing from the tap, gasoline would stop being pumped, and health care would cease after the emergency generators gave up the ghost after 72 hours. Replacing all of the transformers would take months, if not years. The paradox would be that underdeveloped countries would fare better than developed ones. Our only warning system is a satellite called the Advanced Composition Explorer, in solar orbit between the Sun and the Earth. It is 11 years old and past its planned lifespan. It might give us as much as 15 minutes of warning, and transformers might be able to be disconnected in time. But currently no country has such a contingency plan."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Artist Justine Lai's new project is a set of oil paintings of her having sex with every president of the USA, in order.

In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal. I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated.

I approach the spectacle of sex and politics with a certain playfulness. It would be easy to let the images slide into territory that's strictly pornographic—the lurid and hardcore, the predictably "controversial." One could also imagine a series preoccupied with wearing its "Fuck the Man" symbolism on its sleeve. But I wish to move beyond these things and make something playful and tender and maybe a little ambiguous, but exuberantly so. This, I feel, is the most humanizing act I can do.

NOTES ON JOIN OR DIE (Thanks, Frank W!)

From the 11/5/99 New York Times: "CONGRESS PASSES WIDE-RANGING BILL EASING BANK LAWS By STEPHEN LABATON":

''Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,'' Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ''This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.''

The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation's financial system

CONGRESS PASSES WIDE-RANGING BILL EASING BANK LAWS (11/5/99)

Take an old outdated hard drive and teach it new secret tricks by increasing it's capacity and speed.
Thanks go to Brian Nadel for the original article in MAKE, Volume 17.
To download The Flash Memory Hard Drive MP4 click here or subscribe in iTunes.

Check out the complete Flash Memory Hard Drive article in MAKE, Volume 17 "Flash Memory Hard Drive"
and you can see that in our Digital Edition.

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When the folks over at Electro-Harmonix discovered Gwendolin Tägert had been crafting and selling huggable handmade versions of their legendary Big Muff ? stompbox, they could have persued litigation on the grounds of trademark infringement. Instead, they did what everyone should when faced with a cuddly-soft pillow - they embraced it.

We're all too familiar with the endless lawsuits suffocating the world of music, and so we decided to do something different. Instead of threats, demands, and legal letters, we contacted Gwendolin, told her we loved her work, and offered a formal license in exchange for an option to purchase them at discount. So, rather than a new enemy we now have a new friend, and a beautiful Big Fluff Pi. Take that as a lesson, music-industrial complex!

Here's hoping Pro Co Sound feels similarly affectionate to the huggable Rat pedal - really though, how could they resist?

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Take an old outdated hard drive and teach it new secret tricks by increasing it's capacity and speed.
Thanks go to Brian Nadel for the original article in MAKE, Volume 17.
View the PDF of this project. and then subsribe to MAKE Magazine for other great projects
you can do over the weekend.

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Roy Trumbull, a talented reader, is working his way through the best of Project Gutenberg's texts, reading them aloud in a podcast called "Story Spieler." He's got a lot of classic science fiction, Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary" and lots more. Roy read some of my work aloud and did a fantastic job with it, and I'm really enjoying listening to his work on these stories, too. It's a great way to mine the past for some of the great and forgotten works of literature.

Story Spieler Podcast

Podcast feed

What is it about folks who operate train lines that make them so confused when it comes to intellectual property? They seem to be focused on harming their own businesses in an effort to "protect" intellectual property. If enforcing your intellectual property makes you worse off, then why are you enforcing it? Just today, we received two separate stories of incredibly backwards thinking from those who operate train-lines -- which makes you really wonder why some people get so focused on protecting intellectual property that they lose sight of the fact that it's harming their business.

We've already talked about those who run trains in Germany and Australia cracking down on people creating their own iPhone train schedule apps, claiming they violated intellectual property rights of the train operators. This makes very little sense for a variety of reasons. First, it is still quite ridiculous that any sort of factual information can be covered by copyright -- but in Europe such "collections" of information can be covered by the database copyrights -- the idea that if you put factual information into a "database" that database then deserves copyright protection. Europe has this, while the US does not -- and studies have shown that contrary to what copyright supports insist, this increased right has actually hindered the database industry in Europe... but that hasn't made the law go away.

But, of course, even more idiotic than just the question of copyrighting facts, is the simple point that these apps make it easier for people to ride the trains, which should be exactly what the train operators are encouraging. Thanks to the mantra of certain copyright supporters that "free is bad," some folks seem unable to think out more than a single step. The fact is, that if people can make a great train schedule app that makes it easier to take the train, then that means more people will take the train, which is where the real money is for train operators. But, of course, the folks who only see one step out, think "wait, we should be making money on that data!" even if it means fewer people take the train, and the net benefit is less.

The latest to make that decision is the UK's National Rail Enquiries, who forced the creators of the MyRail Lite app to shut down (thanks to Donald for sending this in). MyRail Lite was a free iPhone app. NRE is offering its own app... for £4.99. So in the short-term rush to try to score a bit of money from a small group of people, NRE is making the overall rail system a lot more complex for the majority of people. Short-term thinking at its finest.

Unfortunately, the author of the article, Rory Cellan-Jones, starts out by agreeing that this is dumb, but then seems to change his mind, after reading the silly James DeLong article about newspapers where he (in typical DeLong fashion) insists that the use of "free" is what destroyed newspapers. The arguments are easy to debunk, but Cellan-Jones seems to have fallen for them. But it's easy to see how wrong it is in this case: the business NRE is transportation. If it gets people from point A to point B more efficiently, it will be able to make more money charging for that service. A free app that makes the process more efficient helps the bottom line. Trying to scrape up a bit of extra cash at the front end, while making the process more inefficient for more people is incredibly short-sighted.

But, that isn't the most ridiculous story we heard today about trains and intellectual property. Lucretious sends in the news that a group of four very nice women in New York City who have been voluntarily working to make public transportation in NYC more pleasant have been ordered to stop by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The women have set up a website, MTAService.org where they provide information on how to make your public transit in NY better. It's run by four women, who also ride the subways regularly (wearing their own made up uniforms) trying to help provide better service -- helping people find where they need to go, or helping mothers with strollers, for example.

But, of course, the MTA has sent them a cease-and-desist, demanding they pull down the information. You can see the trademark worries -- even though the website clearly states that the MTA Service Specialists (as they call themselves) are in no way affiliated with the MTA (they note "unfortunately.") But, rather than the MTA doing the smart thing, and seeing if they can actually associate themselves with these helpful women, the MTA just wants to shut them down. This is short-term thinking again. Sure, there almost certainly is a valid trademark claim here -- but if someone actually took the time to sit back and look at the facts of the situation, they would realize that a better response would be to see if they could sign these women up officially to help improve service on the subway. As the women note, they're just trying to improve the MTA's service, without costing the city any money at all.

Once again... we see how this aggressive believe in "we must protect our IP!" is actually being used to hinder service improvements, rather than help them.

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The folks at NYC Resistor laser-cut this sweet little flying-V ukelele, designed with open source tools. It's just a half-size prototype. but there's some there there for sure.

2) With the help from a kind friend, I got this file into the proper format for printing, stuck a sheet of 1/8? x 24? x 12? plywood into the laser, and then hit the “GO” button. Just before you hit that button, you are required to shout “FIRE THE LAZZZZOR”, just so people know, well, that something magic is about to happen.

3) After about twenty minutes of laazzzoor (which costs me $20… $1 per minute of laser use), out came the piece of wood, from which I could easily pop out the various parts of my new uku. From there, some simple wood glue and human hand pressure produced the outcome seen below.

Open-Source Ukulele Proto Uno Lazzzzored FTW! (Thanks, Nathan!)

MojoKid writes "After Intel filed a lawsuit against NVIDIA late last month, alleging that a four-year-old chipset license agreement the companies signed did not extend to Intel's future generation CPUs with 'integrated memory controllers' (like Nehalem), NVIDIA decided to fight with fire. Today, NVIDIA filed a countersuit in the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware against Intel Corporation for breach of contract. Furthermore, the action also seeks to terminate Intel's license to NVIDIA's valuable patent portfolio, which no doubt is reverberating with some level of intensity in the halls of Intel."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi will be conducting a workshop in NYC next month, focussing on interactivity in the physical realm of public commerce -

This workshop will focus on the ways in which retail environments have evolved from traditional elements of display to being real windows of opportunities for brands to extend themselves in the real world. Based on 10 years of experience in the interaction design and physical prototyping field Massimo Banzi, will walk participants through the principles of interaction inside retail environments, and enable them to build their own interactive elements, using the Arduino, an easy and world-renowned physical prototyping platform. Additionally, IconNicholson will be presenting their Social Retail concept and Zonebee will be talking about their work with Tinker.it! at the Flandrau Science Centre.

Interactive retail environments with Arduino
4/7/09 – 4/7/09
10am to 5pm
Fee: $200 for professionals, $150 for students

Icon Nicholson HQ, New York
The Puck Building, 8th Floor
295 Lafayette Street
New York, NY 10012
map

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ThinkGeek is now selling "Wire Glue," a conductive adhesive made with micro-carbons. They're selling a .03 oz bottle for $4. I like what BotJunkie said about it:

It looks like a neat product, and I'm sure it works well, but if you're thinking of getting this rather than learning how to solder... You should just learn how to solder. It's cheap, it's fun, and you get to melt metal and make stuff. Give it a shot, and then after you burn yourself, you can go ahead and buy the glue without feeling guilty.

"Wire Glue" Conductive Glue

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Becky Stern has followed up her plush model of her damaged femur with a complete, anatomically correct plush knee. Go Becky! She adds, "I used elastic to give the ligaments realistic stretch, and even gave it the capability to dislocate, just like my real knee. Built using anatomical models and the pictures my doctor took from inside my knee during surgery as references."

Plush Knee (Thanks, Becky!)

Just Posted: Our review of the Canon PowerShot SX1 IS. The SX1 IS is an update to the popular S5 IS, and is the first in a new wave of compact cameras that sport CMOS sensors with fast shooting times and HD video recording. Like its CCD-based sibling (the SX10), the SX1 offers a 28-560mm equiv. stabilized lens. But does the introduction of CMOS to compacts add enough to justify such a price premium over the CCD version? Follow the link to find out...

Just Posted: Our review of the Canon PowerShot SX1 IS. The SX1 IS is an update to the popular S5 IS, and is the first in a new wave of compact cameras that sport CMOS sensors with fast shooting times and HD video recording. Like its CCD-based sibling (the SX10), the SX1 offers a 28-560mm equiv. stabilized lens. But does the introduction of CMOS to compacts add enough to justify such a price premium over the CCD version? Follow the link to find out...

An anonymous reader writes "Someone over at Redmond flipped the wrong switch, it would seem. Ars Technica spotted that the Windows 7 download page on TechNet had switched to say Release Candidate instead of Beta. It's now back to Beta, but not before Ars got all the details off the page: 'The public RC will apparently be coming in May 2009, and not in April as previously rumored. The RC testing program will be available at least through June 2009, and the actual build will expire June 1, 2010. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions will be available in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish.' A screenshot and all the text on the RC download page, which was set to be published 'May 2009' is saved over at Ars."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This was posted to the MAKE Forums and I thought I'd repost it here:

We need to create a revamped "Cooper Rand" which is a speech device for those who have had throat cancer or other larynx related illness. This device needs to be wireless. Is anyone interested in sharing wireless technology ideas?

See it at http://www.speechaid.com/cooperrand.asp

Technology from 1950 with 9 volt batteries. Any ideas about how to update it very much appreciated here and all over the world.

kikad@sover.net

If you decide to help out with this project, keep us in the loop on it.

Need help with a new voice

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Jay from thecapacity created this airsoft robot that you can control with a Wiimote. He's using Construx for the mounting hardware, a webcam for remote sighting, and an IOBridge to control the servos.

I'm pretty sure I'd never want this thing in my office, but something similar with a motor operated squirt gun might be more my style.

Greetings Officefighter - Wiimote Office Defender

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If high-quality reporting is prohibitively expensive, why not cut the cost of labor? So goes the thinking of NYU history professor Jonathan Zimmerman whose piece in The Christian Science Monitor argues that professors should be encouraged to write for newspapers for free, much as they did historically. Instead of publishing in journals solely for academics, professors should contribute their expertise to the general public through frequent newspaper commentary on world events.

Of course, the structure of success in academia -- "publish or perish" -- motivates professors to publish in journals that are inaccessible to general consumption. Plenty of well-respected professors already publish OpEd pieces in newspapers on a regular basis, but they tend to be already tenured. (Take Amartya Sen's recent article in FT accompanied by his very lengthy piece in the New York Review of Books -- all of which are an outgrowth of his scholarly publishing.) Zimmerman suggests that if "30 or 40 prominent research universities issued a joint statement, urging their faculty to publish in popular venues," more would do so. Unfortunately, the way tenure works, 30-40 dispersed faculty would hardly be the assurance a young Ph.D needs.

Instead, academia should be thinking larger. We do not need professors to write for newspapers -- the medium itself is not necessary. Academia can do two things to support a vibrant, reliable information ecosystem: support open access and support faculty blogging. Open access publishing increases the availability and reach of scholarship; the original articles are more accessible, allowing more general purpose writing to piggy-back off them. And as for academic blogging, the future of news need not contain newspapers as we know them. Plenty of brilliant professors have compelling and informative blogs, but for the most part, these are not considered positively in the tenure process, creating a disincentive to young scholars. If Zimmerman and others who care about high quality information want to promote it, they should encourage tenure committees to support academic blogging.

Kevin Donovan is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Kevin Donovan and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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I really like this project by Joshua McGinnis. It uses an Arduino and ultra sonic sensor to keep track of the distance the user is from the computer. Then it calculates the size of the font and background color based on that distance. Oh, and it will twitter that distance too! Nice touch!

Arduino & sonar returns your distance away from the computer and it is displayed on the screen. the farther away you are from the computer the larger the text and the greener the screen. the closer you are, the smaller the text and the redder the screen. get within 5 inches and a buzzer alarms. distance is twittered.

More about the Arduino sonar buzzer and PHP twitter thing

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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An anonymous reader writes "Who needs crusty old rubbish like the Victorian era or World War II? Instead, an Ofsted report leaked to The Guardian details proposals to teach UK primary school children how to use Wikipedia, Twitter, podcasts and blogs. Presumably they're already au fait with b3ta and 4chan. And you already can't get the kids off Bebo without a crowbar."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I don't understand enough about how EU policy-making works to fully understand this, but the EU Parliament which has rejected "three strikes" type rules (that would kick those accused of copyright infringement offline after three accusations) as being against basic civil rights in the past, has apparently rejected yet again a three strikes approach. Yet... at almost the same time, we're being told that France is actively pushing the EU Parliament to approve a three strikes provision in a telco bill that will be voted on next week. There was some concern last year that while the EU Parliament rejected three strikes, it would backdoor its way in via a separate telco bill. Is that what's happening again, where there are two separate discussions about three strikes provisions? It would be great if those familiar with how the EU Parliament system works could explain the two items.

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New education paradigms suggest you get rid of all pre-packaged, fixed approaches in learning, and develop your skills to adapt to as many different needs and situations as possible. Learning to be flexible has indeed become a key resource. Photo credit: Aleksandr Ugorenkov

"[...] give up the idea that competence must exist within the person and expand our view that whenever possible it should be built into the situation - Gloria Gery"

Back in 2004, Jay Cross already championed a different learning approach. He observed that while in the old days you just had to play a fixed role and follow a precise path, in 21th Century you "perform without a script. Everything's impromptu". That's what you need to realize. Your skills, what you need to do, is not to specialize in something, and follow the same modus operandi for the rest of your life. The real competence you want to learn is instead to harmonize yourself with different contexts, just as a fluid adapts its shape to the container it's poured. Here's Jay Cross sharing his original view:

Improv Education

by Jay Cross

Intro

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.
William Shakespeare, "As You Like It"

The first wave of e-learning brochures invariably touted the benefits of focusing on the learner. Schools and classes had always been organized for the convenience of the faculty-one size fits all. In the e-era, learners received personalized instruction - just what they needed, just when they needed it. It was "learner-centric." But there's a problem with this approach. Walk into the sales department, the warehouse, the call center or the executive suite, talk with the people there, and you know what you'll discover? The members of the organization are known as "workers." They are blue-collar workers, knowledge workers, hourly workers, commission-only workers and contractors doing work-for-hire. Nobody calls them "learners."

Old Education Paradigm: Play a Fixed Role

The rhetoric about learners lulled us into thinking that the job was to prepare individual learners. In the real world, superior performance more often results from the efforts of coordinated teams of workers who work well with customers. As Abraham Maslow famously said, "Give a kid a hammer, and every problem looks like a nail." In our case, it's, "Call them learners instead of workers, and every solution looks like blended learning." Executives don't see it this way at all. Have you ever read a proposal for a major project that didn't list executive support as a prerequisite to success? Want to know what will grab the attention of any executive? Execution. Getting the job done. Performance. Now, to the confusion of executives and CLOs alike, the very nature of performance is changing. In the old days, corporations hired people to play roles. Job descriptions contained stage directions. Training taught workers their lines. The costume was a blue blazer, or perhaps a gray flannel suit. The cast was composed of repertory actors, performing the same show with the same colleagues, one performance after another. An actor often stayed with the same show for an entire career, receiving a gold watch and a pension following the final curtain call. Those days are long gone.

New Education Paradigm: Adapt Your Competences

Today's workers perform without a script. Everything's impromptu. Stage cues come from the audience in real time. Costumes? The dress code may be pajamas if you work from home. Rewards go to innovators who deviate from the expected. Success is measured by the take at the box office instead of seniority or past performances. Training was appropriate when actors memorized their lines. Today, it's OK to read from cue cards - you can't know everything. Good props help make a show great. As Gloria Gery pointed out long ago, it's time to

"give up the idea that competence must exist within the person and expand our view that whenever possible it should be built into the situation."

Instructional design purists say, "Information is not instruction." So what? If information helps me become a better performer, just tell me. Don't insist that I take an entire course. If I can add more value with a better connection to the 'Net, a subscription to a reference service or a direct line to the local expert, then give it to me. Give me a way to do my job better - I don't care whether or not you call it instruction.

The Improv Example

The Improv home page reports that the most popular form of improv today

"is 'spot' improv, in which performers get suggestions from their audience and use them to create short, entertaining scenes. No matter where or how it's performed, the essential ingredient in any improvisational performance is that the audience and the actors are working together to create theatre."

When workers are actors, and customers the audience, CLOs must be more than drama coaches. They must prepare cast members to be agile, spontaneous and innovative. They must coax the audience into playing its part. CLOs must focus on optimizing the process of workers and customers performing together. The play's the thing. The show must go on. After all, life is not a dress rehearsal.

Originally written by Jay Cross and first published on Chief Learning Officer Magazine on September 1, 2004 as "Improv Education".

About the author Jay Cross is a champion of informal learning, Web 2.0, and systems thinking. He served as CEO of eLearning Forum for its first five years and has keynoted major conferences in the U.S. and Europe. He is the author of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance. Jay Cross currently helps teams apply informal / Web 2.0 learning approaches to foster collaboration and accelerate performance. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School.

Photo credits: Old Education Paradigm: Play a Fixed Role - Pawe? Pacholec New Education Paradigm: Adapt Your Competences - Dmitry Bairachnyi

Well, this is a surprise. A bunch of folks have sent in the news that Utah's governor vetoed the video game retail bill that had zoomed through the legislature. State after state after state has passed similar laws, all of which have been thrown out by the courts as being unconstitutional. In this case, the law would have other unintended consequences, including that it gives incentive for stores to not have a policy on selling violent video games to minors -- because liability only comes in if they had a policy. Yet, many state governments continue to pass such laws, knowing that they're a waste of taxpayer money to defend, because they want to make it look like they're "protecting the children." That's why it's great to see the governor veto the bill while pointing out a clear recognition of how pointless it would be to pass the law:

While protecting children from inappropriate materials is a laudable goal, the language of this bill is so broad that it likely will be struck down by the courts as an unconstitutional violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause and/or the First Amendment.

The industries most affected by this new requirement indicated that rather than risk being held liable under this bill, they would likely choose to no longer issue age appropriate labels on goods and services.

Therefore, the unintended consequence of the bill would be that parents and children would have no labels to guide them in determining the age appropriateness of the goods or service, thereby increasing children's potential exposure to something they or their parents would have otherwise determined was inappropriate under the voluntary labeling system now being recognized and embraced by a significant majority of vendors.

Even the Salt Lake City Tribune is now trashing the legislature for pushing this bill forward and praising the governor for rejecting it:

Whew. Gov. Jon Huntsman rightly vetoed House Bill 353, which would have given voluntary media-industry ratings of movies, DVDs, video games, CDs and even books the weight of law and made sellers responsible for enforcing them.

Somehow, this misguided piece of legislation zoomed through the Legislature with hardly an opposing vote, and, we suspect, without a thorough vetting.... In their misplaced zeal to limit access to media they don't like, our legislators might have eliminated the very tools parents need to set limits on what their children see and hear. We dodged a bullet on this one. Having misfired badly, the Legislature should not bring it up again.

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On this week's Make: Talk, we'll be chatting with John Edgar Park, host of the Makers Workshop segment of Make: television. John will be talking to us about the show and about his articles in MAKE, especially the Florence Siphon Coffee Brewer from Volume 17. John is also a "character mechanic" for Disney and was responsible for the hamster physics in the movie Bolt. Character mechanic? Hamster physics? And I thought I had a cool job!

Mark is on the road this week, so Dale and I will be joined in the virtual studio by Keith Hammond, MAKE magazine's Copy Chief and our liaison with Make: television. Be sure to call in to talk with us and for prizes that we'll be giving away during the show!

More:

• Make: Talk episode #003 show notes and next episode
• Make: Talk episode #002 show notes and next episode
• Make: Talk episode #001 show notes and next episode

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Thelasko writes "After several pictures of the Model S were leaked onto the internet, Jalopnik has the first official pictures of the Model S. One of its most striking features is its massive touchscreen in place of the center console."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tim writes in:

What are the reasons we see light bulbs made up of lots of small LED's instead of one large LED?

As Collin showed us in his excellent video about the subject, LEDs pass electricity through "dies," or little chips cut from a larger wafer of semiconductor; there is just a small active area that's actually lighting up, which is then reflected out in the desired direction. Engineers try to make the most efficient LED possible, which is linked to the size of this semiconductor as well as the heat it puts out, among other things. There is such a thing as a multi-die package, which puts more than one piece of semiconductor inside the same plastic casing. My favorite electrical engineer, Matt Mets, found me this interesting article comparing the efficiencies of single-die and multi-die packages for LEDs. Essentially, the maximum usable size of the semiconductor is limited, and there's a limit to how many you can cram into one lens before the thing generates too much heat. On the practical side of your question, the market is just now seeing a boom in these "bulbs" containing many LEDs, like the one pictured above (image from Treehugger). The product designers for these things are buying off-the-shelf components and putting them together into a product, not engineering new LEDs... yet. We're able to see a massive reduction in energy consumption with these LED bulbs when compared to incandescents, so the demand for an even more efficient model (perhaps using multi-die LEDs) hasn't quite caught up to us yet. The takeaway: bigger isn't always brighter!

Young maker Justis writes in:

I've just started out in electronics and I want to make some cool stuff! but alas, being a kid and all, I don't have much time to bike to radioshack every time I need a resistor. How do you recommend I start gleaning things for projects?

Simple: you've got to build up a stash! Components aren't that expensive, especially resistors. I'd recommend asking family members for gift certificates to Sparkfun, the Maker Shed, and even Amazon, which all carry excellent components and kits, and they'll mail them right to you, no bike-riding required (work with your parents to ensure you're buying form a reputable site). If you come across older devices at the thrift store, like VCRs and the like, they often contain full-size (not surface-mount) components that you can remove while you practice your de-soldering skills. When I was a kid, I was really into baking, so for every gift-giving holiday, I'd ask for a different item that I couldn't afford myself, namely a stand mixer. If you make a wish list for those who might shop for you, include web addresses for particular products to ensure your non-savvy relatives get you the things you really want. To start with, I'd highly recommend the DIY Design Electronics Kit by Sparkle Labs. It comes with a great starter assortment of many different types of components in common varieties, so you won't have to ride over to RadioShack quite so often. Show us what you make!

If you have additional advice for Tim or Justis, leave it in the comments! And if you have a question for MAKE about a project you're working on, concept you're trying to understand, or anything else related to the complicated life of makers, drop me a line at becky@makezine.com (or record a video, tweet at us, etc.).

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Governments keep trying to build bigger and bigger databases -- and almost every such database eventually gets abused in ways that harm privacy rights. One of the most aggressive governments in building such databases has been the UK -- and a new study of such databases has found that approximately a quarter of the UK government's databases are illegal in that they don't do nearly enough to protect individual's privacy and civil rights. Of course, these sorts of things don't get any attention until it's too late -- and there's a big enough abuse or leak to really lead to public attention.

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We've noted, thankfully, that US courts have been quite good about protecting the anonymity of online posters, arguing that anonymous speech is a part of free speech. Other countries haven't been nearly as good about this, with courts often being quick to demand info on anonymous commenters. It appears that at least one court in Canada falls into that camp as well. Michael Geist highlights how a court has ordered a website to turn over info on anonymous posters. Geist notes that Canadian laws and court rulings normally do support a strong anonymity right as part of privacy rights -- but suggests that the court in this case simply wanted to side with the guy suing, perhaps based more on emotional reasons (the anonymous commenters are accused of hate speech) rather than on any true legal basis. As Geist notes, anonymity is not an absolute right, but the bar should be pretty high before a court orders any information to be revealed about anonymous commenters. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case here.

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GrApHiX42 writes "I pissed away my 20s and now I want to go to school and get a bachelor's degree in computer science. The thing is, I'll be 35 when I get out of school, and I've read on numerous sites that there seems to be some ageism going on in the IT industry when it comes to older geeks. What have some of the 'older' Slashdot readers experienced as far as being replaced or just plain not getting hired because IT is a 'young man's game'?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger

Reclusive British comedy genius Chris Morris came out with his darkly surreal masterpiece of weirdness, "Jam" (based on his "Blue Jam" radio show) in 2000, but sadly because of expensive music rights issues, "Jam" has seldom been seen outside of the UK. This is a shame, because "Jam" is a uniquely...um... well... ah...hmmm... I hesitate to call it "comedy" because it's so odd and disturbing, but if I called it "David Lynchian" comedy, we'd be in the right ball park at least. "Jam" is like a bad --make that very bad-- acid trip played for laughs. Take a look at one of the show opens:

Not exactly "funny ha ha" stuff. In fact, there's nary a traditional "joke" in the entire series. There are six episodes of "Jam" and although I'd classify myself as a huge fan of the show, six episodes of something like this is plenty!! The style would've become a creative dead end. But a great talent like Chris Morris wasn't to repeat himself anyway --his next project, the wonderfully vicious satire of dotcom dickheads, "Nathan Barley" was quite a shift away from the brooding psychopathy of "Jam." I eagerly await his feature comedy debut, rumored to be about Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers.

This is one of my favorite "Jam" moments, "Mister Lizard" featuring the always brilliant actor, Mark Heap --he's in tons of stuff-- as a creepy television repairman.

Here's another great "Jam" clip with another UK comedy auteur, Julia Davis, creator of the "wheelchair Gothic" classic, "Nighty Night" as a particularly stupid woman:

Joe Grand is always getting into something interesting. He's been a contributor to the pages of MAKE since our very first issue. The man lives the MAKE ethos for sure: "Hardware hacking is, to me, a perfect example of 'anti-establishment'. Make a product do something it was never intended to do, add a personal touch, and make it your own. Not just buying a product and using it as is (which is what The Man wants you to do!)."

In Volume 01, he broke down the basics with a Primer on soldering and desoldering. Then, in Volume 02, he gave us one of the longest projects we've ever run: coming in at a whopping 35 pages, "Retro Game Heaven: The Atari 2600 PC" shows you how to cram a full-featured PC system into an Atari 2600 video game case. Just so you can get a glimpse, here's a window into the project in our Digital Edition and some pics:

Also in Volume 02, Joe taught us how to add a power switch to an external drive. In Volume 03, he offered up the basics of reading and drawing schematics for folks just getting started. He also had articles in Volume 05 (building your own satellite dish mast), 06 (building a kit to read radio frequency ID tags), 08 (a chat with Ralph Baer), and 10 (voltage, current, and resistance broken down).

We checked in with Joe to see how he's been spending his days and he wrote:

"I've been very busy lately. Let's see. Here's a partial list :)

I finished filming a season of thirteen episodes of Prototype This, an engineering show for Discovery Channel. That was a great way to introduce/show off engineering to the masses. It was a very interesting experience and ended up turning a lot of viewers on to the fun side of engineering, which was a nice surprise."

[Check out his video interview with Joe, where he gives insight into his background, including how he's actually on a Trivial Pursuit card. Also, here's a great Prototype This! segment on creating the six-legged vehicle.]

"My backup unit (Ben) was born in October and is well on his way to becoming a young hacker. He's a lot of fun :)"

[Yes, folks, Ben maybe a baby, but he has his own blog!]

"I've started Kingpin Empire, a project that gives back to the computer underground, technology, and health communities through charitable donations. In 2008, we donated just under $2,500 to the EFF, ACLU, Hackers for Charity, American Cancer Society, and American Heart Association! I know we can do better, even in this tough economy, so I'm hoping to get the message/cause spread far and wide.

I'm currently working on the DEFCON 17 badge for DEFCON. It's the 4th year in a row that I've had the honor of designing the conference badge as an active, artistic electronic device. Previous years' [14, 15, and16] work here:"

"I'm also working on some still-in-stealth-mode hobbyist electronic gadgets and getting back to my roots with some security analysis of hardware infrastructure. I'll go public with this stuff when it's ready."

Thanks, Joe! Keep up with Joe Grand on his site, Grand Idea Studio. And pick up any back issues you may not have at the Maker Shed.

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Yesterday some stories broke about how AT&T and Comcast were "testing" the RIAA's "three strikes" plan. As we noted, this wasn't a surprise at all, as both companies had indicated willingness to do so -- but it was amusing to see both companies avoid fully admitting it. In fact, both companies have now come out denying that they're doing any such thing, but you have to read between the lines here, and it's not at all difficult to see what's almost certainly happening.

Both companies are "testing" a program by which they send infringement notices on to the users. That's the part that both have admitted they're doing, but they get to deny any three strikes plan, because no one's getting cut off. But, that's only because people haven't been accused multiple times yet. Thus, this way they get to start heading down that path without ever making an official statement that they support the RIAA's plan to kick people off. It's a way to ease into such a program (they hope) without the PR headaches that would come with such a plan. But, note that neither AT&T nor Comcast will take a stand like Verizon has, where it flat out said that it will not give in to the RIAA (and, in Verizon's case, the company does have a decent history fighting against the RIAA when it comes to protecting its customers' privacy).

If AT&T and Comcast really want people to believe that they're not going down this path, then why won't they come out and say the same things that Verizon is saying?

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Day 3 of Boing Boing Video's live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco with  Killscreen TV + Offworld. We're streaming live video around the clock on our new Ustream channel. Tune in for conversations in our BBV@GDC studio with hosts including Matty Kirsch from Killscreen TV and Xeni from Boing Boing, visits from fellow Boing Boing bloggers, and the following special guests today, Thursday March 26, 2009:

Alice Taylor of Channel 4 and Wonderland

John Seggerson of Telltale Games

Derek Johnson of Chalice Games

Troy Gilbert of Mockingbird Games

Sebastien de Halleux of Playfish Games

and our pal Kevin Kelly from Joystiq

For BB + Offworld's complete video and blog coverage of GDC09, visit offworld.com/gdc09.

Chat room after the jump, below!

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(Special thanks to our live stream host Ustream TV, to Wayneco Heavy Industries, and to our transportation provider at Virgin America. Video Crew members in the house this week: Jolon Bankey, Wes Varghese, Derek Bledsoe, Xeni Jardin, and Killscreen TV's Matty Kirsch and Allison Kingsley).

Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "For Shimmer magazine's 10th issue, we've got twelve fantastic new stories and an interview with none other than Cory Doctorow. In honor of Cory's work with Creative Commons, we are giving away the pdf of this issue as a free download."

Issue Ten (Thanks, Mary!)

Carbonite, one of a few players in the competitive online backup space, has now sued a vendor it used for hardware whose failure in 2007 led some of Carbonite's customers to lose their data. While you can understand why Carbonite is trying to sue this vendor, you have to wonder if it actually makes business sense. As some in the article note, it's not clear there's a real legal remedy here, and Carbonite may be doing this as a PR move, to make people realize that it wasn't responsible for the lost data. However, as someone who was recently on the market for such a solution, I'd say this lawsuit actually makes me think less of Carbonite. First, it reminds everyone that the company lost people's data. Second, it suggests that the company is unwilling to take responsibility for the loss. The people signing up to use Carbonite are trusting Carbonite to set things up in a way that their data won't get lost. They're not trusting Carbonite's suppliers. It's Carbonite that failed those customers, and simply trying to offload the blame does little to convince anyone that the company is setting things up in a way that will prevent this sort of thing from happening again, no matter who the tech supplier might be.

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Our pals at Adafruit have released kits for their most awesome Tweet-a-Watt, a kit that turns a lonely Kill-a-Watt power meter into a Twittering energy-usage reporter. Now you can tweet your ravenous power hunger to the entire world!

The Tweet-a-Watt Starter Kit, with everything you need to create one outlet monitor (minus the Kill-a-Watt unit), costs $90. Additional Add-on outlet kits sell for $40. We should have Tweet-a-Watt kits in the Maker Shed soon and will let you know as soon as we do.

How to make your own Tweet-a-Watt will also be one of the major projects in MAKE, Volume 18, so stay tuned for that.

Tweet-a-Watt kits now available...

More:
Tweet-a-watt - our entry for the Core77 & Greener ...
HOW TO - Make your own Tweet-a-Watt

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