A group of student makers took kite arial photography to a new level: weather balloon photography.

Gheck out Gareth's previous entry on the project.

Mail Online has a decent writeup. Nice of them to copyright the photos for the students, isn't it?

Building the electronic sensor components from scratch, Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vil, Martm Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort were able to send their heavy duty £43 latex balloon to the edge of space and take readings of its ascent.

Under the guidance of teacher Jordi Fanals Oriol, the budding scientists, all aged 18 to 19, followed the progress of their balloon using hi-tech sensors communicating with Google Earth.

'Meteotek was our experiment to see if we could accurately measure the Earth's atmospheric conditions at 30,000 metres, take pictures to prove the experiment and then recover the instruments attached to the balloon after its deflation,' said team leader Paretas, 18.

'We were overwhelmed at our results, especially the photographs. To send our handmade craft to the edge of space is incredible.'

Their use of Google Earth was integrated into the project and provides some nice mashups of their data.

It's great to see the progress of their build in photos and text on their blog. Their site also provides a choice to use Google translate, which helps people from other cultures access their work.

Thanks Tom!

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Z80xxc! writes "Microsoft recently announced a new product called Expression Web SuperPreview, which lets developers view their web pages in any browser installed on their system, as well as in different versions of IE, all from the same interface. The product has one genuine innovation — a built-in tool for overlaying the rendering from one browser over another to compare (referred to as 'onion skins'). There are also HTML debugging aids and other helpful tools for web developers. A beta version is available for download. However, the current build only has support for IE — it will compare rendering in IE6 with either IE7 or IE8, whichever is installed. An internal build shows Firefox and Safari on Windows as well. The final product will appear as part of MS Expression Web Studio 3 when it is released later this year. (It will not be available in the Expression Mac suite.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "When every student has a laptop, why run computer labs? That's a question schools have been asking themselves as computer ownership rates among incoming freshmen routinely top 90%. After only four freshmen showed up at the University of Virginia in 2007 without a computer of their own, the school decided that it's no longer worth the expense of running campus computer labs. Student computer labs have been a staple of campus life since the '60s. So what are the benefits that will be missed as other schools follow UVa's lead?" The university's report notes understanding that "that students need collaborative space where they can bring their laptops and mobile devices to conduct group work, especially as the curriculum becomes increasingly team- and project-based." One of the spaces formerly occupied by computer labs "has been transformed into a technology-rich collaboration area."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Marketplace introduced me to the idea of the convertible shopping cart the other morning. The problem is that people need a place to live, and that a decent shelter can be provided by working off the form of the shopping cart. By providing a personal place for people, homeless people can begin to regain their dignity. EDAR, or Everyone Deserves A Roof, is has developed an early production model that can begin to address the problem.

This system could also provide a good solution to temporary housing following disasters, it is enclosed, sits off the ground, folds up and provides some storage for personal effects. People can participate in the project by donating a unit or more to organizations in need.

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homesalad writes "Researchers in Toronto have discovered a huge international electronic spying operation that they are calling 'GhostNet.' So far it has infiltrated government and corporate offices in 103 countries, including the office of the Dalai Lama (who originally went to the researchers for help analyzing a suspected infiltration). The operation appears to be based in China, and the information gained has been used to interfere with the actions of the Dalai Lama and to thwart individuals seeking to help Tibetan exiles. The researchers found no evidence of infiltration of US government computers, although machines at the Indian embassy were compromised. Here is he researchers' summary; a full report, 'Tracking "GhostNet": Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network' will be issued this weekend." A separate academic group in the UK that helped with the research is issuing its own report, expected to be available on March 29. Here is the abstract. They seem to be putting more stress on the "social malware" nature of the attack and ways to mitigate such techniques.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

N!NJA writes in with a Register story on a lawsuit filed against Acer for selling Windows Vista on an underpowered notebook. Of course anybody can sue for anything; it will be interesting to see if this action goes forward in the courts. "With a lawsuit filed Wednesday in San Francisco, California, two residents of Fostoria, Ohio seek damages and relief from the world's third-largest computer maker after purchasing a sub-$600 Aspire notebook that included Windows Vista Premium and a gigabyte of shared system and graphics memory. In its official "recommended system requirements," Microsoft recommends that an additional 128MB is required to run the Premium incarnation of its latest desktop operating system. ... Microsoft says that the Premium, Business, and Ultimate editions of Vista will run on 512MB systems — with certain OS features disabled. In the beginning, Redmond called these 'Vista Capable' machines, and it's facing a separate lawsuit over this potentially misleading moniker."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "In The Civil Heretic, the NYT Magazine takes a look at how world-renowned scientist Freeman Dyson wound up opposing those who care most about global warming. Since coming out of the closet on global warming, Dyson has found himself described as 'a pompous twit,' 'a blowhard,' and 'a mad scientist.' He argues that climate change has become an obsession for 'a worldwide secular religion' known as environmentalism. Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, calling him climate change's chief propagandist and accusing him of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models and promoting 'lousy science' that's distracting attention from more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet." Dyson himself wrote about the need for heretics in science not long ago.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jamie points out news that Charter Communications filed for "prearranged" Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, primarily to reorganize some of the $21.7 billion in debt it has accrued. Quoting: "The St. Louis-based company seeks to emerge from bankruptcy as early as the end of summer and doesn't plan on selling any of its assets to competitors. After Chapter 11, interest costs at Charter, which has never posted a profit since going public in 1999 due to massive debt interest payments, will be cut in half to $830 million a year. The filing restructures about $8 billion of debt at Charter, which is controlled by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, but leaves about $13 billion of debt on its books. Allen will control 35 percent of the votes in the reorganized company. In the bankruptcy, Allen's 51 percent equity stake in the cable operator will be wiped out, along with shares of other stockholders. Allen also holds some debt and preferred stock."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Constantine the Less writes "Mozilla has released Firefox 3.0.8 to fix a pair of code execution holes that put users of the browser at risk of drive-by download attacks. It includes a fix for one of the flaws exploited during this year's CanSecWest Pwn2Own hacker contest. The update also fixes a separate zero-day flaw disclosed earlier this week on a public exploit site. Both issues are rated 'critical,' Mozilla's highest severity rating."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Security expert Ben Laurie has a scorching indictment of the "Verified by Visa" program used by British banks. This system is basically the perfect system for phishers and identity thieves, and conditions honest people to behave in foolish ways that leave them vulnerable to having their life's saving taken off of them.

"Frame inline displays the VbV authentication page in the merchant’s main window with the merchant’s header. Therefore, VbV is seen as a natural part of the purchase process. It is recommended that the top frame include the merchant’s standard branding in a short and concise manner and keep the cardholder within the same look and feel of the checkout process."

Or, in other words: Please ensure that there is absolutely no way for your customer to know whether we are showing the form or you are. In fact, please train your customer to give their “Verified by Visa” password to anyone who asks for it.

Craziness. But it gets better - obviously not everyone is pre-enrolled in this stupid scheme, so they also allow for enrolment using the same inline scheme. Now the phishers have the opportunity to also get information that will allow them to identify themselves to the bank as you. Yes, Visa have provided a very nicely tailored and packaged identity theft scheme. But, best of all, rather like Chip and PIN, they push all blame for their failures on to the customer

More Banking Stupidity: Phished by Visa

200 children in the UK, some as young as 13, have had files opened on them by the British anti-terror cops as potential terrorists -- even though they have committed no crimes. The children were reported to the anti-terror squad by their teachers on the basis of school work, journals and conversations that, in the teachers' view, indicated that the children were susceptible to extremist beliefs. The programme is only 18 months old and has already identified 200 children who should be treated as terrorism suspects. At this rate, every child in Britain should be on the watch list by, what, 2018?

The police say it's all right, though, so that's OK.

A Home Office spokesman said: "We are committed to stopping people becoming or supporting terrorists or violent extremists. The aim of the Channel project is to directly support vulnerable people by providing supportive interventions when families, communities and networks raise concerns about their behaviour."

Police identify 200 children as potential terrorists

Wormbook has a lovely meditation on the hacker mindset and the satisfaction of breaking and fixing computers, quoting from Ellen Ullman’s Close to the Machine, "still the best book I know about the psychology of nerding:" "My computers are not broken, but at times like these I like the look of delicate circuit boards open to the naked air. Several hours ago, in a fit of restlessness, I decided to install a pre-release version of a new operating system. Then there seemed to be problems with some of the internal devices. So I took them out, one after the other. Now they lie all around me—cards, wires, memory modules, screws—all in a jumble. To test components, I do what I’m absolutely not supposed to do: run the machines with the covers off. I’m supposed to discharge static electricity before touching anything. But I scuff around on the carpets, grab things with two hands, hold metal to metal. I recognize the nastiness of this mood, reckless and rebellious, like I could get away with breaking the laws of physics. There’s a perverse comfort in broken machinery."

Reading this, I realised that the rage is itself an attractive part of the process because it feels so good when it is over, and everything dissolves into order. There is something in this process of destruction and recreation that resembles the state that long articles and still more radio programmes get into, just before they get right: everything is spread out in ways that look chaotic to everyone except me, and even I can’t quite explain how they will go back together. I can only show, if I keep my concentration. The element of risk makes it far more attractive than the times when everything goes smoothly and by routine. You feel you have discovered a hidden order to the universe. Alternatively, as sometimes happens, you take it all apart and it never ever goes back together properly. All you are left with is a heap of broken junk. But that’s more common with words than with computers.

Creative destruction (via Memex 1.1)

Make Blog has a great roundup of links and coverage for the opening of Bletchley Park's recreation of the Polish "bombe" code-cracking devices that were instrumental in breaking the German Enigma cipher in World War II. Bletchley's curators gathered all the surviving scientists from the original effort to lead the project, and the result is beautiful and inspiring.

Bletchley Park is a national treasure. Every visitor to Britain should go.

During World War II, British brainiacs helped save their country and defeat the Nazis. Recently, the equipment they used has been rebuilt and the surviving members got together for a reunion.

The rebuild project appears to be a maker's delight: code, electronics, old-school manufacturing, and rapid prototyping all wrapped up in a world-changing quest to win the war.

Code cracker remade

Image from Women of Uganda Network
The Women of Uganda Network has an interesting story of a woman who got scammed at a cell phone charging business.

Mrs. Muyonjo is a housewife in a remote village of Ivukula in Iganga district, Eastern Uganda. She used to ride her bicycle for twenty miles in order to come to the nearest small town with electricity to charge her mobile phone battery. Not any more.

One day, she fell victim to unscrupulous individuals. "I will never give my telephone to the village battery chargers again. I gave them my new phone for charging, and they changed my battery and instead returned to me an old battery whose battery life can only last for one day." Unable to find the money or time to charge the battery daily, she decided to find an alternative charging solution. "I looked at what was readily available to me and came up with my own charger. I devised this method to enable me charge my battery every day. It works perfectly."

via Treehugger

In Uganda, as in many other countries, cell phone use has become huge. Access to charging technologies, however is not so huge.

The solution Mrs. Muyonjo came up with was pretty good for a first iteration. Long term, she and her neighbors would probably be happier with a device that has a voltage regulator, ability to sense a complete charge, and of course, a renewable energy source. Could such a device be made from electrojunk? Make: Online readers, what can we come up with? Bring out your ideas for charging circuits, working and theoretical and let us know in the comments and MAKE Flickr pool.

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Hugh Pickens writes "Richard Jenkins reached 126.1mph in his Greenbird car on the dry plains of Ivanpah Lake in Nevada, setting a new world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle. 'It's great; it's one of those things that you spend so long trying to do and when it actually happens, it's almost too easy,' says Jenkins. The Greenbird is a carbon fiber composite vehicle that uses wind (and nothing else) for power. The designers describe it as a 'very high performance sailboat,' but one that uses a solid wing, rather than a sail, to generate movement. Due to the shape of the craft, especially at such high speeds, the wings also provide lift; a useful trait for an aircraft, but very hazardous for a car. To compensate for this, the designers have added small wings to 'stick' the car to the ground, in the same way Formula 1 cars do. 'Greenbird weighs 600kg when it's standing still,' says Jenkins. 'But at speed, the effect of the wings make her weigh just over a ton.' Jenkins has also built a wind-powered craft that travels on ice, rather than land. 'Now that we've broken the record, I'm going back on to the ice craft. There's still some debate as to whether traveling on ice or land will be faster.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Make: television Season One has come and gone. But in case you missed it, we'll be rolling out the ten episodes of our premiere season again.

Episode Three, take two, coming at you:

Enter the alternative universe of Jake Von Slatt, a leading Steampunk Maker, who turns modern technology into Victorian works of art. In the Maker Workshop, John Park mounts a remote control camera on a painter's pole to take stunning aerial photographs, and Cy Tymony demonstrates some sneaky uses for magnets. The Maker Channel presents a theremin orchestra, a smoke ring generator, a pulse-jet bike, and a video-hack method to paste yourself with a beer into congressional hearings on C-SPAN.

Get the m4v of Episode Three, or subscribe in iTunes. Watch the individual segments of Episode Three and find instructions for the Pole Cam after the jump.

All episodes, individual segments, and PDF instructions of our Maker Workshop projects from Make: television Season One can always be found at our Episode Guide. You can also watch Make: television videos on YouTube, Blip, Vimeo, or download our torrents at LegalTorrents.

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CBRcrash writes "Apparently, if iPhone users decide that they want a refund for an app (users can get a refund within 90 days, according to Apple policy), Apple requires that developers give back the money they received from the sale. But, here's the kicker: Apple will refund the full amount to the user and says that it has the right to keep its commission. So, the developer not only has to return the money for the sale, but also has to reimburse Apple for its commission."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

nandemoari writes "Microsoft has revealed more about Windows 7 and its support for touch screen technology. The system sounds impressive, however, reports suggest it appears to have a high error rate. In an early version of the system, Microsoft found some problems. For example, both the zoom and rotate functions worked less than 75% of the time, often because the computer confused the two. To rectify this, engineers redesigned the system so that it only looks out for gestures specifically relevant to the program being used. This made a significant improvement: the zoom gesture was now recognized 90% of the time. The problem is that even a 90% success rate may be too low. If you can imagine how frustrating it would be if one in ten keystrokes or mouse movements didn't do what you intended, you can see why touch screen technology will need to be even more reliable if it's to truly improve the user experience. PC Authority has a related story about statements from HP, who don't expect such technology to replace keyboards and mice any time soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

During World War II, British brainiacs helped save their country and defeat the Nazis. Recently, the equipment they used has been rebuilt and the surviving members got together for a reunion.

The rebuild project appears to be a maker's delight: code, electronics, old-school manufacturing, and rapid prototyping all wrapped up in a world-changing quest to win the war.

The Bombe was the brainchild of Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman, and the 210 machines manufactured by the British Tabulator Machine Company did vital work cracking encoded German military traffic - a feat which shortened the war by two years, Bletchley Park suggests.

The original devices were destroyed after the war on security grounds, but in 1970 a set of blueprints turned up at Bletchley and the idea to reconstruct a Bombe was born. The rebuild team, led by volunteer John Harper, has finally succeeded in putting the beast together:

Nice of them to recover that lost knowledge. Were you involved in the rebuild of the Turing Bombe? Let us know about the experience in the comments.

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)

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New ways of consuming news, information visualization, age differences in Internet adoption, and the failure of traditional advertising on the Web, are just some of the hot topics George Siemens navigates through in this Media Literacy Digest issue. Photo credit: Concetta Gotlieb

The information cycle - creation, dissemination, validation, sharing, re-creation - has been altered. It is more open, more participatory, and less under the control of distributors (such as journals, newspapers, and mainstream media).

With many printed newspapers switching to online editions to survive the economic crisis and, broadly speaking, with traditional media inadequacy to provide a balanced and interest-free news service, what is the future of news delivery and consuming? Social media is the key, as it will serve as a sensemaking tool to filter out of the incoming tsunami of data what is not relevant for you while allowing you to create and redistribute your own personalized news streams. The only problem with such an approach is that we may reduce our critical aptitude, selecting and accessing only the information we agree with. But even under the threat of such negative consequences, George Siemens believes a networked approach is the best way to overcome the decadence of traditional media. If you want to explore how new technologies are changing our society and the impact new media has on the educational landscape, this weekly Media Literacy Digest, systematically showcases pointers, facts and resources to help you analyze and make sense of the communication revolution we are going through. Here all the details:

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends by George Siemens

What Will Happen When Your Local TV Station & Newspaper Are Gone?

Interesting question, especially considering the almost daily announcement of newspapers ceasing publication - sometimes altogether, other times, moving online: What will happen when your local TV Station & Newspaper are Gone? My view: We’ll find new ways of validating information, of discovering important topics, of sharing developments with others, and, hopefully, of reviving the role traditional news has largely abdicated of being a countering source of power to the other power structures of society. Instead of central news agencies serving the role of making sense of complex information landscapes, social networks will filter and serve a sensemaking, wayfinding, and coherence making role. Concerns will obviously arise - such as how to ensure that we are not only accessing information that we already agree with (echo chamber) - but challenges exist in any field. Networks, however, are more adaptive than existing centralized approaches.

Knowledge Overload

The information cycle - creation, dissemination, validation, sharing, re-creation - has been altered. It is more open, more participatory, and less under the control of distributors (such as journals, newspapers, and mainstream media). Higher education has been slow to understand this shift. We are, after all, the experts. Others will turn to us when they need answer. Or not. The big lesson of Wikipedia is that people desire access to reasonable quality of information (even when it is likely to contain errors and has not been vetted by experts) as much as they desire expert-vetted information. Ken Coates recognizes this shift (though I disagree with his call for controlling scholarly input - my view: publish it all. Instead of assigning intelligence in advance of publishing, assign intelligence at the point of search and discovery. The solution will be found in better tools.):

We have collectively created the equivalent of an academic monsoon over the past three decades, with no change in the forecast for the coming years. Without a major reconsideration of how we share and use information, how we keep up with the field, and how we recognize academic accomplishment, we will continue to add to the floodwaters, all the while spending less attention on whether or not anyone reads our work, listens to our presentations, or appreciates our professional contributions.

And, somewhat related, a presentation on promoting your academic research online through blogging. Had to chuckle at this comment:

“I started up a blog and all I got was five invites to give keynotes, ten new collaborators, introduction to new funding bodies, an interview in Nature, an invite to scifoo, three papers… and a couple of t-shirts.”

Women in Educational Technology

To acknowledge Ada Lovelace (the first programmer) day, Janet Clarey has put together a list of women in educational technology. It’s a great list of individuals who are making significant contributions to our field. Thanks Janet!

Visualization

Click above to enlarge image The next big advance in information use / management will be visualization. Abundance requires new methods (i.e. Anderson’s “more is different” view). We can’t manage information abundance through traditional methods of interaction. I’ve suggested previously that networks serve a wayfinding and sensemaking role. Technology is another key component. Visualization can help to reveal connections not readily evident. IBM’s Many Eyes is one of the leading sites in this regard… and they have released a new visualization type - Phrase Net. A phrase net is different from typical word clouds (which usually display word frequency by increased size - i.e. the more often a word occurs, the larger it is). A phrase net “diagrams the relationships between different words”. I decided to throw our handbook of emerging technologies into the site to see visualizations. If you’d like to dynamically interact with the visualization, it’s available here.

The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine

For some, this promises a hopeful future, for others, a depressing erosion of what it means to be human - The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine:

Sometime early in this century the intelligence of machines will exceed that of humans. Within a quarter of a century, machines will exhibit the full range of human intellect, emotions and skills, ranging from musical and other creative aptitudes to physical movement. They will claim to have feelings and, unlike today’s virtual personalities, will be very convincing when they tell us so. By around 2020 a $1,000 computer will at least match the processing power of the human brain. By 2029 the software for intelligence will have been largely mastered, and the average personal computer will be equivalent to 1,000 brains.

Now, when reading anything by Kurzweil, it’s a good idea to take proclamations of this nature with a combination of “wow, that’s interesting” and “you’re throwing darts in the dark”. We barely understand the human brain. New discoveries are announced daily, but I’d be surprised if a serious student / practitioner of “philosophy of mind” or neuroscience would make statements such as this. While computing and processing power of computers can exceed the human mind, previous predictions have been terribly wrong (consider GOFAI in the pre-connectionist days where computers were expected to beat chess players by the late 60’s, something that didn’t happen until 1997). The real question, as Kurzweil asks (but doesn’t answer thoroughly) at the end of the article, centers on what consciousness is and whether or not machines can be said to possess it.

Printernet

I’ve been playing with a Kindle. Because it’s not available in Canada, I can only buy books or use it to read newspapers when I’m in the US (and I am fairly frequently). I generally like the interface. Visual cues of reading progress are nice and the device is comfortable to hold. But, I still like paper. I like marking up sentences, adding thoughts in the margin, and highlighting important ideas. I can do most of those things with a Kindle… but in an awkward, cumbersome way. Enter Printernet - custom printing for newspapers, magazines, and even wikis:

In the jargon of networks, this so-called “printernet” can have the same benefits as the Internet - massive parallel manufacturing with standards-based interfaces, real time production information and easy access for everyone. Each printer - the combination of the machinery and the intelligence that manages the machinery - is a print output node. Each node is both part of the network and self-sufficient. When the nodes are working together mass customization of print product becomes commonplace at previously impossible speeds and quantities.

Singapore as a Model for Teaching Excellence

Finland has long been recognized for teaching excellence. Singapore is now getting its share of attention. Why do schools in Singapore “produce” successful learners when other schools do not (even when, as the article notes, they are using the same curriculum as some American schools)? The article argues that better teaching is due to rigid selection, higher pay, and greater respect for the profession. Now, of course, none of those things produce better learning, or even a better teacher. But these incentives do create a climate where bright and motivated individuals enter the field of teaching. What they do in the classroom and how they interact with learners is what produces learning success. How much they are paid and respected only gets them into (and keeps them in) the classroom.

Why Advertising Is Failing on the Internet

The author makes this claim: Why advertising is failing on the internet:

“Traditional advertising simply cannot be carried over to the internet, replacing full-page ads on the back of The New York Times or 30-second spots on the Super Bowl broadcast with pop-ups, banners, click-troughs on side bars.”

…and then goes on to state why advertising will not work online. I’m not convinced. If advertising is not explicit (”click this link” or “buy this product”) then it will form part of the content. We see well-placed product endorsements in movies… and hear them in podcasts (such as TWiT). Google-free is not open-source-free. If advertising doesn’t work, then web 2.0 will collapse as it is based on Google-free.

Generations Online 2009

Pew Internet released a short report earlier this year: Generations Online. Biggest increase in internet use? Those in the 70-75 year-old age group. Age groups vary by their use of the online medium: younger generations use the internet for socializing / entertainment… older generations use it for research / shopping. Nothing too surprising, but does reinforce the message that age is less consequential online than intent or interest. No one age group is magically predisposed to be aggressive users of the internet.

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on March 26th 2009 in his newsletter eLearning Resources and News.

About the author To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book "Knowing Knowledge".

Photo credits: What Will Happen When Your Local TV Station & Newspaper Are Gone? - ronen Knowledge Overload - ktsdesign The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine - Antonis Papantoniou Singapore as a Model for Teaching Excellence - Roslan Rahman/ Why Advertising Is Failing on the Internet - Gunnar Pippel Generations Online 2009 - Geo Martinez

smooth wombat writes "If everything goes according to plan, an experiment designed to test whether plants can grow in the limited lunar gravity will hitch a ride with a competitor for the Google Lunar X Prize. 'The current prototype for the greenhouse is a 15-inch-high (37.5-centimeter-high) reinforced glass cylinder that's about 7 inches (18 centimeters) wide on the bottom. Seeds for a rapid-cycle type of Brassica plant — basically, mustard seeds — would be planted in Earth soil within the container.' The press release from Paragon Space Development Corporation outlines its partnership with Odyssey Moon to be the first to grow a plant on another world. In addition to the experiment, Paragon will be helping Odyssey with the thermal control system and lander design. To win the prize, Odyssey must land its craft on the lunar surface by the end of 2014."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Joseph Herscher from New Zealand made this super-impressive Rube Goldberg machine about Cadbury creme eggs. I'm not going to say any more about it, just watch; such fun! Via Core77.

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These Crayon Rings from Timothy Liles are lovely and would be fun to draw with, though at $50 for 10, they're probably too expensive to give to the kids. If you had a ring mold, though, you and the tots could have a fun afternoon melting down the crayolas, pouring them, and making your own set.

Crayon Rings (via Geisha Asobi)

O frabjous day! Daniel Pinkwater has put most of the text of his news kids' book The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There online, along with audio of him reading the first chapter.

Pinkwater may be my single most favorite writer in the entire world -- he's certainly the writer who had the biggest impact on me, through novels like "Alan Medelsohn, the Boy From Mars," collected in his 5 Novels omnibus. Mr Pinkwater, if you're reading this, I owe you one. I owe you several.

And I can't wait to read this book!

When I got home from school, my room was full of ghosts..._again!_ They were being invisible, but I could feel the cold spots in the air.

"Did I speak to you ectoplasms about this, or did I not?" I asked the empty room.

Silence. The ghosts were dummying up.

"Rudolph Valentino! I can smell your lousy cigar!"

There was a faint smell of cigar smoke, the trademark of the ghostly Valentino, so I knew he was among them. And my bedspread was rumpled. Probably they were sitting on my bed, playing cards.

"Look, you spectres--this is a young girl's bedroom, not a club! Why do you have to hang out here all the time? You have an eight-story hotel to haunt. There's a complete apartment reserved for your personal use. Why don't you stay there? It's the nicest one in the whole building."

The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There

The Yggyssey

MP3 link to Pinkwater reading chapter one

(via Neil Gaiman)

Kinetic artist Reuben Margolin was featured on a recent episode of MAKE: television. He uses salvaged wood, metal, cardboard, and other recycled materials to create massive mechanical wave sculptures. Absolutely incredible work.

head_dunce writes "It seems that this economy has inspired a lot of businesses to move to Linux, with Red Hat posting profits that beat everyone's expectations. There's a dark side to being a highly profitable company in a down economy, though — now there are talks of Citigroup and Oracle wanting to buy Red Hat. For a while now, we've been watching Yahoo fend off Carl Icahn and Steve Ballmer so that they could stay independent, but the fight seems to be a huge distraction for Yahoo, with lots of energy (and money) invested. Will Red Hat stay independent? What potential buyer would make for a good parent company?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At the beginning of the month we were one of the first to write about the amazing Thru-You "album" created by a DJ named Kutiman, who took individual sounds off of YouTube and mixed them into a full album. I've always been a believer in the concept that remixing something is a creative endeavor in its own right, but I'd never seen the point driven home quite as clearly as in this album. Not suprisingly, Kutiman has received plenty of well-deserved attention for the project, and Wired is running a great interview with him that's well worth reading. The idea that what he's done is almost certainly illegal and copyright infringement (he seems incredulous at the idea) should be a clear indication that something is wrong with the current copyright regime.

But, again, there's this false belief out there that "remixing" is simply copying. But I defy anyone to explain how taking a simple kid playing a scale on a trumpet could become integral to an entire (great) funk song. Here's the trumpet bit: And here's the full song: Or how about this basic trombone solo becoming such a haunting and compelling part of this dub reggae song (trombone comes in at 42 seconds). Here's the trombone: And here's the full song: To say that's "copying" or even just derivative is insulting to the amazing creativity and work of Kutiman to blend all these totally separate sounds into something amazing. Just as a musician plays notes on an instrument, Kutiman used YouTube as his instrument and created something amazing and wonderful... that probably breaks a ton of copyright laws. It's difficult to see how anyone could claim that's not a massive problem.

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We recently posted a report pointing out that touring revenue wouldn't be an acceptable substitute for a loss in recorded music sales. A part of that report suggested that there just weren't that many efficiencies that could be wrung out of the live touring business, while also noting how expensive it can be to put on a tour. Part of my problem with that report was that it focused very much on an old model of touring, and didn't consider that new technologies could, in fact, really change the way people think about touring.

For example, plenty of folks have pointed to the success Jonathan Coulton has had with touring, by using services like Eventful to guarantee a large enough crowd at a certain location and showing up for a "strategic" concert in a place where he's guaranteed to make some money out of it. But some are taking it even further. We've certainly talked about backyard/house concerts before (in fact, we've been suggesting them for about six years), and we've seen Jill Sobule use them as part of her model to fund her latest album. She ended up doing five or six of them, and said they were lots of fun (and she's still open to doing some more).

However, I recently came across a story from a band who basically did an an entire tour based on (mostly) house concerts. The story is from February, but I just found out about it, seeing it mentioned in the comments on a post from Andrew Dubber about how he wants to attempt house consulting for bands (an interesting idea in itself).

The story of the house concerts tour is really fascinating, though, in a variety of ways. Basically, the band -- based in the UK -- were able to book a bunch of gigs all at people's homes around the US. They did most of the booking via Twitter, from people who followed them, noting how much more efficient this was than the traditional system of begging different venues to put on a show:

Method for our tour: "talk to lots of people on twitter >> make friends >> allow them to discover music as they get interested in who we are >> tell them we're touring >> invite them to host gig >> Book in the dates" - the audience is a shoe-in, cos most people can fairly easily find 15-30 friends who are up for a crazy night of music making in a house. It's a nuts idea, it's fun, and it has the added benefit of being validated by a friend of their's... if Tracy/Linda/Angela/Steve/Gus etc are willing to book this, it MUST be good. The person who books the show then emails the links to what we do around (no need to send out CDs) so people have an idea what to expect. Everyone comes to the gig, eats, listens, buys CDs, and we go home with money and loads of new friends. Win-Win.

Other benefits were that the gigs were tons of fun and the band saved on hotels since they usually were able to crash at the house that put on the house concert. They note how many amazing people they met, and how much of a connection they made with folks by playing in such an intimate setting. Also, an advantage of such house concerts is that it was a great way to expand their audience and fanbase, since the "host" basically would go out and recruit a bunch of friends -- most of whom knew nothing about the band before seeing them play.

Perhaps most interesting of all: the band made more money on this tour than they did in the past touring clubs. They noted that the "risk" and costs are much lower. While they say they aren't getting rich this way, they are earning money -- and more than the "old" way of doing things.

So, once again, this obviously isn't a model that works for everyone -- and no one's saying it is. But it does show yet another business model that can work for certain bands, by taking a very different look at the market and coming up with creative and innovative ways to get themselves out there, and do so profitably.

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Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger

Try this shit on for size: Next, the inevitable remix! Thanks Russ Gooberman!

Today was the best day of skiing in Park City. The sky was clear. It wasn't too warm, and it wasn't brutally cold. When you stopped, breathing hard, the air had a refreshing crispness to it. (This was the first time I had ski'd since becoming a non-smoker). There was packed powder everywhere. No lift lines. The scenery gorgeous and I was skiing beautifully. It was also the last ski day for this trip. Tomorrow and Sunday I'll hang out in Salt Lake with friends and return to SFO on Monday morning.

The ideas kept coming -- one was a meta-idea -- an idea about ideas. It seems we should have an industry retreat at Park City some year, no sessions, no formal meetings, just ski groups, people who ski together, a few hours at a time. It might pump some fresh blood through tech and/or media to do so.

Another idea -- a web service that's all about making money and pleasing users and marketers all at the same time. Pretty sure it doesn't exist, so as you're evaluating the idea, don't assume it's just like something you've already seen.

Imagine a new Digg-like site where marketers submitted ads. The ones that moved to the top would of course get more views. That would encourage advertisers to learn what viewers liked, if getting more views was one of their goals. At first there would be no cost to placing an ad. But after a time advertisers would pay a flat fee to place their ads on the service, say the cost of running an ad on a non-post-season football game. The great ads would make a lot of money because they would get far more viewers than the not-great ones, but all would pay the same.

The people who ran the site would make a fortune, assuming it bootstrapped well.

Have I ever seen an ad I liked, one person on Twitter asks. Yes of course. Many. Have you ever watched the Superbowl?

The thing is that ads don't have to be bad, they can be funny, interesting, informative, inspirational, and sometimes so good you can't help but watch them over and over.

I was upset that I had to miss the FTC's workshop on DRM earlier this week. I had been invited to speak at the event, but had already committed to speaking at the Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville, so had to decline. But, from the writeups about the event, it's quite clear that many in the content industry still believe DRM is a good idea (or, rather a "necessary" idea), despite the fact that it doesn't work. DRM, despite what they might say, does not "enable new business models" at all. It simply gives the content holders the illusion that they can somehow control the content. But, it never stops any copying at all. So, it actually tends to just annoy those who are trying to legitimately purchase and/or access the content. Because those who are going to access it in an unauthorized manner will do so separately.

That said, a bunch of folks have sent in a series of stories this week that are somewhat amusing. Basically, it seems that video game companies have decided to stop calling DRM "DRM." This follows a series of horrific PR nightmares, where firms made use of DRM in ways that significantly limited the value of certain games, and players (or potential customers) of those games struck back in trashing those gaming companies for treating them as criminals. So, now, we have stories about Valve launching a new DRM that "makes DRM obsolete" even though it's still DRM. Then there's EA -- who received the biggest brunt of consumer backlash for its DRM choices. It's releasing the new Sims "without DRM methods that feel overly invasive." But, of course, it will still have DRM.

It's really difficult to understand what these execs think they're doing that benefits them in any way. It's not about enabling new business models. Any business model they're talking about can work just fine without DRM. It's not about "keeping honest people honest," because you don't have to keep honest people honest -- that's why they're honest. It's not about stopping unauthorized file sharing or "piracy," because no DRM has yet been shown to do that at all. It's not about "slowing down" unauthorized file sharing, because once an unauthorized copy is out there, it gets pretty quickly copied everywhere. One copy is all it takes and then nothing is "slowed down" at all. The only thing DRM serves to do is get in the way of legitimate customers trying to do what they want with content they thought they had legally purchased. In other words, it destroys value for legitimate customers -- and it's difficult to see any business rationale where that's an intelligent move.

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Brian saysof CarBibles.com

This is a cool site with all kinds of good car info

Indeed, There are lots of tips on improving your vehicle's operation.

Some highlights:
Fuel efficiency

You go biking or skiing at the weekends. Great. When you're commuting to work, that empty roof rack is adding aerodynamic drag to your car. More drag means more power to overcome it, which means worse mpg. Take it off when you're not using it. Same goes for those 'aerodynamic' roof boxes - if you're not using it, get rid of it. Yes they look aerodynamic but the fact of the matter is they do induce drag. And to be honest, they look silly. Hey - I know it means getting up and doing something rather than just routinely getting in your car and driving off but we're talking about gas mileage here. mpg. Fuel economy. It's all to do with money. Be lazy? Or save money?

Brakes

If you did any sort of physics classes when you were back in school, you might remember something called mechanical advantage. In its most basic form, mechanical advantage is the ratio of force-in to force-out in a mechanical system. Mechanical Advantage = Effort Torque/Load Torque.
For example a 20kg weight 1 metre from a pivot can lift a 40kg weight 0.5m from the pivot on the other side. The effort torque and load torque calculations are to do with force in Newtons and distance from pivot point. Hence torque is measured in Newton-metres, or Nm. A Newton is the amount of force required to accelerate a mass of one kilogram by one metre per second². On Earth, where acceleration due to gravity is 9.8m/s², the force exerted upon a mass of 1kg is 9.8N (usually rounded up to 10N). Another popular notation is lbf.ft - pound-force-feet, commonly referred to as foot-pounds. 1 Newton-metre is equivalent to 0.737 foot-pounds.

Some of the sections have very good CAD models of the parts of systems. There is a lot more, some very thorough examinings of the transmission, suspension and just about every aspect of your vehicle. If you have any good car projects going or information to add, let us know in the comments.

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After the tragic school shooting in Germany a couple of weeks ago, politicians almost immediately (and predictably) called for a ban on the sale of violent video games. Now, a leader of the German police union has also called for a ban, claiming that in "every" violent episode like the school shootings, the shooter has had an "addiction" to violent video games. Proof of the link between violent games and people acting out violence in real life remains tenuous, but the union boss says "when a chance to remove a probable cause exists, it must be used." Okay, sounds good. Violent people probably eat sandwiches, so let's ban them, too. I bet they have all ridden in cars, too, so riding in cars must cause violent behavior -- ban 'em. This correlation/causation thing is easy, isn't it?

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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mateuscb writes "A new way of creating a CAPTCHA using 3D objects has become a reality. The idea was thought up independently by blogger Taylor Hayward and by the folks at YUNiTi.com. 'Similar to Hayward's idea, this new technology relies on our ability to identify objects in 3D instead of using alphanumeric characters. YUNiti's 3D Captcha, however, has three objects in the challenge and extends the list of images to any object, not limiting it to animals as in Hayward's idea. This increases the challenge's level of complication to prevent computers from successfully making the correct guesses.' I, for one, welcome the thought of not having to read more and more complex CAPTCHA. Lately, I've been having a hard time getting CAPTCHA to work the first time."

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Having just pointed out how multiple train operators are using intellectual property laws to shut down helpful third party apps, we're seeing a number of stories about other companies doing something similar. First up is Last.fm, which has apparently started blocked a bunch of third party apps that had been using undocumented calls to stream content from Last.fm. Last.fm (now owned by CBS) was in a bit of a quandary, because its licenses with the major record labels (there they go again, blocking innovation) forbid streaming except in specific circumstances -- so these third party apps "broke" the agreement. But... that's not quite true, because the agreements are between Last.fm and the labels, not the third parties. Last.fm has now specific requirement to block others from creating apps. So, yes, Last.fm has every right to do this, and I'm sure the labels were demanding it do this, but it still doesn't make it a very smart move. Those third party apps were making Last.fm more valuable. Blocking them hurts the overall value and pushes people to go in search of other services that are more consumer friendly.

This move also comes right after Last.fm's recent decision to charge for streaming outside of the US, Germany or the UK. This also has folks up in arms -- and is driving away users in droves to other solutions. Last.fm has plenty of competitors out there, and working hard to make its own service less usable and less reasonable isn't going to help keep users around.

Meanwhile, a bunch of folks have sent in the story of how DVD rental kiosk operator Redbox has pressured a third party to takedown its Redbox iPhone app. The app was apparently pretty cool, making use of the phone's GPS to tell you where the nearest kiosk is, and letting you reserve the movie you want. There is some speculation that Redbox is upset that the app also pulls a list of promotional codes, allowing some people to rent movies for free -- but that's a misguided concern. If that's the real issue, then they should just change how their promotional codes work because (of course) the codes are still available for anyone to search and use online. Shutting down the iPhone app doesn't fix that at all.

Still, it seems that both companies should know better. Having third parties build apps that make your services more useful is a sign of success, and should be encouraged, not threatened and shut down. We live in an age where too many people focus on using intellectual property as a club to block any use -- even when those uses are helpful in making your core product even more valuable.

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