When I was in Boulder, CO last week I went for a walk in a city-owned "greenbelt" hiking trail. I saw this sign that read, "All bags and coolers subject to search. City of Boulder Rangers and Police Officers will be patrolling this area."
Are the police allowed to search your bags in a public park without a warrant? (I saw no police officers or rangers while hiking that day; in fact I saw no other hikers either.)
"This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our rulers should be directed -- that music and gymnastics be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact...."Click through to see the whole quote and the comic that goes along with it...
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My colleague Julie Steele, editor of The Geek Atlas, suggested I check out the Musée des arts et métiers on my recent trip to Paris. It's a true Maker's museum; I really don't know where to begin. It's got so much stuff a Maker could love:
There's a lot more (computers, engines, planes, it keeps going on and on). Check out the museum's web site and this Flickr set.
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Jake von Slatt, of Steampunk Workshop, points us toward this nice round-up of commercially-available nixie clocks (top image). That article points to another round-up of homemade nixies (bottom image).
A Modern Take On Nixie Tube Clocks...
Nixie Clock Gallery
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"Inspired in part by contemporary war imagery, grafitti, and comic-style silhouettes," this series of collages and drawings "question the numbness with which viewers are habituated to observing the carnage of war and domestic violence." (via @nopattern)
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Well, there is simply no beating around the bush about this one. No mitigating factors. Nope, none. The new Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is absolutely fucking terrible.
Not a disaster, just a total bore, which is worse. Please don't shoot the messenger, I sincerely expected to like it, but man oh man does it suck. It's mind-numbingly bad. The pacing is all wrong. It felt like we were in that theater for about seventeen hours. My wife hated it even more than I did.
After a fantastically conceived opening sequence (one of the finest I've ever seen, brilliantly executed) my first thought for this review was "Harry Potter franchise kicks it up a notch! Or two!" I was fantasizing about my blurby superlatives showing up on movie posters, but... sadly t'was not to be.
After the first ten minutes the film quickly dropped off in energy and intelligence. After 30 minutes, the suckiness picked up speed. Much of the script made no sense. Some-- like all the villains--characters' actions seem to have no motivation whatsoever. Aside from one or two action-oriented scenes (the Quidditch matches were remarkable), it was an absolute snoozefest.
Looks great, same great cast, all the right ingredients, I grant you that, but I will say it again: The new Harry Potter movie is godawful.I know what you're thinking. Your kids will still love it. Guess again. Your kids will hate it and get restless after 30 minutes. So will you. No one would love it unless the studio was paying them to love it. I don't think the people who worked on it or acted in it love it. No one would like this movie. It's shite. The word of mouth will be horrible.
If you read this far and you still plan to see "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"... as you are sitting there watching one of the worst big budget films in recent memory, a total piece of shit, remember this review and don't say I didn't warn you. Because I did.
Via this month's EMS Lab's Linkdump come these pics of sneakers with "bumper stickers" on them. When we were brainstorming stickers for The Maker's Notebook, somebody came up with idea of a set of robot bumper stickers ("Resistance is Futile (if > 1-ohm)," "My other bot is a Big Dog," etc). These reminded me of those.
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Christian Engstrom of the Pirates party is absolutely correct in his assumption that Elvis's music does not belong to him. It belongs to great songwriters like Otis Blackwell, who wrote so many of Elvis's big hits such as "All shook up" and "Return to sender", and who fought for years to protect and strengthen US copyright law. Without copyright, Mr Blackwell would never have been able to create that "common cultural heritage" that Mr Engstrom wants to think of as his own.First, this is a near total misreading of what Engstrom said. You have to assume that Carnes -- by no means an unintelligent person -- is simply deliberately misstating Engstrom's claims to further his own protectionist positions. Engstrom's point is just in noting how odd it is that we can't share a key part of our common cultural heritage. If you look at pretty much all of human history up until recently, part of what made a common cultural heritage possible was the ability to share it. Engstrom wasn't claiming that it was his own as Carnes states, but that as part of our common cultural heritage it makes sense that we'd like to share it with others. That's how culture works.
He forgets that it isn't technology that "opens up new possibilities" -- it is the people who create the technology, the very people who earn their livings from patents and copyrights.No, actually, Engstrom is quite clear that he does not forget the people. He's quite focused on actually supporting their individual rights. What he's against is the abuse of their rights via overly encroaching government monopoly. Furthermore, Carnes is again wrong in claiming that these people "earn their livings from patents and copyrights." They do not. They earn their living by putting in place (or working for a company that has put in place) a workable business model that involves providing goods and services that people or companies want and pay for. They may use patents and copyright as a part of that, but it is false and misleading to claim they earn their money from the patents and copyrights. The patents and copyrights, by themselves, pay nothing. In fact, the only way to get money from such intellectual endeavors is to offer people something they want in order to generate money in a business model. No one is trying to take that away. We just think that it need not have the gov't setting up unnecessary and limiting barriers.
Computer code, songs, artwork and drug patents don't appear "as if by magic". These people invest their lives, their dreams, their money, their time and all their hopes for the future in their work.Indeed. No one has suggested otherwise. But part of that investing of lives, dreams, money and time is making sure they put in place a reasonable business model.
Creative people don't necessarily create only for money, but the money is necessary if only for them to continue to create.Again, this is a total strawman. Carnes is pretending that Engstrom said that creators shouldn't earn money. He did not. He was pointing out that how they earn money may change, but no one is saying they shouldn't earn money. That Carnes seems to think that copyright is the only way to make money from content is either willful ignorance or blatant lying by someone whose job it is to push for greater protectionism for his constituents.
The real "restriction" on Mr Engstrom's access to an Elvis song is a paltry 99 cents for a download on iTunes. For that he wants us to abandon the copyright and patent laws that have been constructed over hundreds of years.Again, this is a total misreading of Engstrom's comments. Engstrom's complaint isn't with the 99 cents one needs to pay to download a tune (though, I don't believe they use American money in Sweden...), but with the fact that he should have to pay to share and promote such a cultural artifact with others. It is only with intellectual property that such a restriction is placed on it, and it is a massive limitation on how people interact through culture these days.
Nor is the world "at a crossroads", as he claims. We will not face the apocalypse if people have to pay for music again. What is already causing serious cultural damage is the failure to enforce copyright law on the internet. I started making my own music at eight years old and by 13 I was making money at it. By 27 I was a professional songwriter and built a lifelong career as an "active" creator of musical culture; until, that is, I was put out of business by illegal downloading.Again, Carnes seems to have misunderstood and is misrepresenting what Engstrom said (I don't believe he reflected him accurately once in the entire letter, which is impressive). No one is saying we will face the apocalypse if people "have" to pay for music again. He's simply noting that it's impossible to stop what technology has allowed. There is no such thing as people having to pay for music again. No one has to pay for anything. They make decisions in the marketplace -- and many are choosing not to pay for music anymore.
Mr Engstrom warns that "society has to make a choice" between total anonymity or totalitarian control on the internet. This is naive. The right choice is neither. Instead, we need to find some sweet spot in between. It is simple to conflate the ideas of privacy and theft. I could, for instance, claim that it is my right to wear a ski mask into a bank in order to keep my identity "private" from the prying eye of the bank security camera. The security guards might take exception to that, and for good reason.Must we really explain the difference between copying and theft yet again? Engstrom is not talking about theft. He's talking about the ability to share and to communicate through content.
Similarly, while governments should limit intrusion into people's private lives they also have the responsibility to protect citizens from the theft of their property.Indeed. They do. But this is not about theft, and it's not about property.
Laws are passed based on history, common sense and hopefully the common good. The internet is a new medium and the world is still trying to come to grips with the balance between privacy and security. I would ask Mr Engstrom to give that a chance to happen by toning down the rhetoric.This is the most amusing of all, seeing as Engstrom's piece was rather devoid of inflammatory rhetoric, but was amazingly reasonable and level-headed. And speaking of rhetoric, it was Carnes who recently did an amazingly inflammatory interview where he used all sorts of bogus rhetoric. In it, he referred to the internet as "cyber somalia." He claimed the days of the stand alone songwriter were "over." He claimed that those who are sharing and promoting music online are "a mob of anonymous looters." He said he was hoping for "a 'bail-out' for all the songwriters who lost their jobs because their intellectual property was not protected by the US Government on the Internet." He calls Google "a real culture-killer." He called anyone who suggested that perhaps songwriters should explore new business models in a changed market "unbelievably arrogant and self-serving."
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Robert Ullman has a new art book out, called Atom-Bomb Bikini: The Lurid Art of Robert Ullman, which includes his charming sketches, pin-up art, and editorial illustrations. He's going to be selling it at the San Diego Comic Con, but you can also order copies from his web site.
Atom-Bomb Bikini: The Lurid Art of Robert Ullman
The twice-monthly Lost Knowledge column explores the possible technology of the future in the forgotten ideas of the past (and those just slightly off to the side). Every other Wednesday, we look at retro-tech, "lost" technology, and the make-do, improvised "street tech" of village artisans and tradespeople from around the globe. "Lost Knowledge" was also the theme of MAKE, Volume 17
This week, we look at an awesome, indigenous type of ocean mapping and navigation technology known as stick charts (aka Marshall Islands stick charts, Micronesian stick charts, or Polynesian stick charts).
The Wikipedia entry for Marshall Islands stick chart starts:
Marshall Islands stick charts were made and used by the Marshallese to navigate the Pacific Ocean by canoe off the coast of the Marshall Islands. The charts represented major ocean swell patterns and the ways the islands disrupted those patterns, typically determined by sensing disruptions in ocean swells by islands during sea navigation. Stick charts were typically made from the midribs of coconut fronds tied together to form an open framework. Island locations were represented by shells tied to the framework, or by the lashed junction of two or more sticks. The threads represented prevailing ocean surface wave-crests and directions they took as they approached islands and met other similar wave-crests formed by the ebb and flow of breakers. Individual charts varied so much in form and interpretation that the individual navigator who made the chart was the only person who could fully interpret and use it. Use of stick charts and navigation by swells apparently came to demise after World War II, when travel between islands by canoe halted.
An article on Jaime Morrison's wonderful blog, The Nonist, identifies three basic types of stick charts:
Scott Rosenberg, the co-founder of Salon, has written an excellent new book called Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters.
It's well-researched and very entertaining. Scott interviewed me last year and there's an entire chapter about Boing Boing in it. He also has chapters about Justin Hall (who started the blog Links From the Underground in 1996), Dave Winer, Jorn Barger (who coined "weblog" for his Robot Wisdom blog), Blogger founders Ev Williams and Meg Hourihan, and Heather Armstrong of Dooce, among others.
Above, an interesting video in which Scott tries to identify the very first blogger. It's sort of like trying to find the first rock'n'roll song.
Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters
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Here at MAKE, we're lucky enough to have a rotating stable of interns who build and test most of the projects before we go to print each issue (and sometimes photograph any missing step shots). They also haul supplies from the warehouse, shop for tools and materials, and come up with projects of their own on a surprisingly regular basis. We also work them to near death before, during, and after each Maker Faire -- packing pallets and building projects to send to the fairgrounds beforehand; setting up booths and greeting the public for 12-plus hours a day during the event; and unpacking trucks when everything comes back to our offices after the fact.
In exchange, they get to have one of the most highly coveted jobs in the land. Seriously. I've had top-level editors ask if they could trade their job for an internship at MAKE, not to mention engineers, the parents of our interns, and just about anyone who gets a look at the Make: Labs, where the interns build, sew, hack, hammer, drill, and solder day in and day out.
Now we're offering our website readers a look into the fabulous lives of the MAKE interns. Twice a month, the current interns will offer up stories about the projects they're working on, the trouble they've gotten into, and what they plan on building in the near future.
Jacob McKenzie, one of our two original interns who began working for us in the fall of 2005, has always said that we've pretty much ruined him for life in terms of ever having a cooler job. Nonetheless, Jake left his internship in 2007 to finish his bachelor's degree at UC Berkeley. He graduated with a 4.0 GPA and a degree in mechanical engineering. During the 2008 winter break, we called him up and asked him to demonstrate a few of our previous projects for the TV show, Quest, which were well-received and a blast to see get filmed in our very own Make: Labs. Most recently, Jake was accepted at both Stanford and MIT for graduate school. After much thought, he chose MIT, where he'll begin the next part of his journey this fall. He's promised to keep in touch, and let us know if he ever finds a cooler job than MAKE Intern. He remains unconvinced that he will, but his future looks bright to us.
Tune in on Wednesday, July 29, for the first of many first-person accounts about interning at MAKE!
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These silicon spheres, manufactured by metrologists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) as part of efforts to alleviate dependence on the International Prototype Kilogram, have properties that are as close to truly exact as measurable properties are likely to be for a long time to come: They weigh 1.0000000 kilograms, are smooth to the nearest 0.0000000003 meter, and are round to within 0.000000050 meters. One of them is even monoisotopic. Via boing2.
The episode of the Martha Stewart Show, with MAKE Editor-in-Chief Mark Frauenfelder, aired again today. If you're coming to MAKE for the first time as a result of seeing the show: Welcome! Make yourself at home. If you'd like to learn more about Maker Media, our magazine MAKE, our websites Make: Online and CRAFT, and our other projects, check out this introduction to Maker Media. If you're looking for more info on the projects Mark demo'd on the program, here's a link to the project PDFs.
And if you have any questions about what we do, feel free to post them in the comments below.
More:
MAKE Editor Mark F. on The Martha Stewart Show this Monday (with a link to the actual episode online)
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The China Daily reported last month that more than 3,000 young people were tricked or forced into in to the four-month long course. To enroll their children, parents or guardians had to sign a contract acknowledging that they would be given electric shocks of up to 200 milliamperes. The treatment cost 6,000 yuan ($878) per month. Patients were considered “cured” or “reborn” once they admitted to their addiction."Ministry halts controversial electrotherapy program for Internet addicts" (via Fortean Times)
Ben and Catherine Mullany were murdered while honeymooning in Antigua last July. MyDishBiz, an Ohio satellite dish company, used one of their pre-wedding photos in an advertising campaign, running a false testimonial below their photo.
The photo was downloaded from an internet tribute to the couple murdered two weeks after their wedding a year ago then used alongside the bogus testimonial.A spokesperson for MyDishBiz said: "We are trying to track down who sent the testimonial and picture for inclusion on our website."The testimonial said: "We have made $1,080 alone with your MyDishBiz internet business opportunity.
"We are very happy with this program. This is the best opportunity we've seen online ever. Thanks again."
I'll bet they're trying really hard.
MyDishBiz runs photo of murdered couple giving happy testimonial
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Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
Condition: Critical is an amazing website that focuses on those affected by the ongoing war in eastern Congo. The site was created by Médecins Sans Frontières, otherwise known as Doctors Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organization that works in 60 countries around the world to combat the tragic consequences of war, violence, and famine.
Condition: Critical turns the spotlight on war-torn North and South Kivu with videos, photos, and first-person testimonies from the men, women, children, and medical relief workers who are experiencing what is happening there firsthand.
Life isn't just hard in eastern Congo: this region is in critical condition. And things aren't getting any better. The destiny of everyone in this region is shaped by war and violence. The story of their struggle to survive needs to be told.
(Jeffrey Gettleman has been doing a remarkable job of chronicling the war for The New York Times. He reported on the use of rape as a war tactic in the DRC here and here.)
A new video series on Condition: Critical brings to life the tragedies being inflicted upon the region's children. In "Survive," "Express," and "Fight," we hear from children who are struggling to survive the conflict around them.
If you'd like to donate to MSF, you can do so here. The MSF YouTube channel is here.
Toxel.com hosts these great pics of a museum pond outside Taipei, executed by sculptor Ju Chun. Via Neatorama.
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Chemistry Comes Alive! has about a dozen 1980s era videos of fun-to-watch chemical reactions, such as an ice bomb, a mercury "beating heart," a nitrogen triiodide explosion, and a thermite reaction.
The company has aggressively guarded its online reputation. In 2007, it sued an Arizona man who maintained a consumer-oriented Web site that included criticisms of Lifestyle Lift, saying the site's use of the procedure's name infringed on the company's trademark and amounted to false advertising. A federal judge in Michigan dismissed the case last year, saying the site was commentary protected by the First Amendment.NY AG: Facelift firm placed bogus online reviews (via /.)But Lifestyle Lift also came up with another new way to fight back: Having staffers post glowing reviews, comments and testimonials that appeared to come from clients.
"I need you to devote the day to doing more postings on the Web as a satisfied client," employees were told in one internal e-mail, according to the attorney general's office. Another internal message directed a worker to "put your wig and skirt on and tell them about the great experience you had."
The disguised workers did that and more, sometimes pushing to get message boards to remove critical posts and even setting up pro-Lifestyle Lift Web sites that masqueraded as independent views, Cuomo's office said. The postings dated back to early 2007, the attorney general's office said.
Brian Burton, 27, and Antwon Simmons, 26, stole a laptop and cell phone from the decoy luggage as it moved through Kennedy Airport, Port Authority officials said.Sting nabs sticky-fingered JFK airport workers going through luggage (via Consumerist)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Today at Boing Boing Gadgets, we had a special theme day on makeup. Stop by to read about:
* three battery-operated mascaras;
* why permanent makeup is scary;
* how to look hot in high-definition;
* a zit zapping gadget called the Zeno;
* crazy transformer makeup kits;
* a visual history of cosmetics gadgetry;
* a video gallery of humanimals;
and movie makeup tips.
We also wrote about other cool stuff like a laser-cut wooden keyboard, new digicams from Samsung, ceramic knives inspired by cavemen, an ironing board that turns into a mirror, and a Pac-Man stapler.
Phyllis Gotlieb, the legendary Canadian science fiction writer, died yesterday. Phyllis was very old but very sharp -- I last saw her at an Ad Astra convention in Toronto a few years ago, and I followed her on a mailing list for Canadian sf writers, where she was a smart and funny poster. Phyllis wrote well into her old age, continuing her very long career in the field.
I first met Phyllis at Ad Astra, the Toronto area science fiction convention. She and I were co-panelists on the very first panel I ever sat on. I was 17 and I'd just sold my first story. Phyllis was well into her senior years. She was delightful. I don't remember what the subject of the panel was, but I remember the warmth and wit with which Phyllis engaged with little pipsqueak me, the welcome she made me feel as a freshman writer. I have never, ever forgotten that -- the author of O Master Caliban! deigning to notice me, much less treat me as a colleague.
Phyllis and her husband Kelly were palpably, achingly in love (Kelly once had my father in his university physics class, a class he never forgot). We had dinner together in 2007 at Ad Astra, and the two of them were the epitome of sweet old married coupledom, finishing each others' sentences, helping each other in a million tiny and affectionate ways.
By my reckoning, Phyllis was 82 when she died (I don't know the details of the death). I can only hope that when I'm 80, I'll be as sharp, productive and good-spirited as Phyllis was when I last saw her. Science fiction has lost one of its greats today, and Canada, too. My sincerest condolences to her family. You are missed, Phyllis.
(Thanks, Lorna)
(Image: Sunburst Awards)
Recently on Offworld we saw things living in places we didn't expect, like Taito's fantastic looking formerly Japanese-only vector-sharp retro-futurist mobile phone game Space Invaders Infinity Gene making a surprise visit to the iPhone, demoscene group Braadworsten Brigade bringing a mini-rave to your copy of Microsoft Excel 2003, and Subatomic's iPhone tower defense hit Fieldrunners coming as a PSP downloadable.
We also saw our first inside-the-gallery shots of French guerrilla artist Space Invader's NYC art exhibit, including his Rubik's Cube recreations of Daft Punk and Velvet Underground album covers, found no less than 100 brilliant 5-second art/glitch videos based on 'old video games' (above), and followed the latest in the copyfight between iPhone dev Mobigame, IGDA board member Tim Langdell, and anyone who has ever thought about stringing together the letters E-D-G- and E.
Finally, our 'one shot's for the day: Florian Hufsky's pixel pirates, and, best of all, the world of Shaun of the Dead meeting the world of Left 4 Dead.
Paperclips respond to electromagnetism coming through floor of train in Japan. (Via Pink Tentacle)
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Instructables is looking for more awesome projects for its Art of Sound contest, where you can win lots of audio goodies including handcrafted speakers and bzzt-boop toys from Bleep Labs. The competition is steep, but hopefully inspirational!
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From the MAKE Flickr pool
Flickr member drug123's MEGA-ISP shield turns an Arduino into an In-System Programmer for AVR Chips -
Prepared schematics and board layout of this Arduino shield during one-hour-long phone call. Spent another hour to create "physical interpretation".This could prove quite helpful as a backup for my USBTiny - I'll have to give it a go myself.
Purpose of this PCB is providing ISP header to turn Arduino in full-functional programmer for AVR microcontrollers.
Firmware to turn your Arduino board into ISP programmer can be found here.
Connected device could be seen here.
All components on PCB were scavenged from old dead LAN cards.
I have released schematics for improved version of this board under CC BY-NC-SA license, you may find it here.
More:
HOW TO - use Arduino as a high voltage programmer
Vincent Mariano, of the SPHS Solar Knights solar race car team out of South Plantation High School in Plantation, Florida, wrote in to ask us why we haven't written anything about the Dell-Winston solar car challenge currently underway at the Texas Motor Speedway. Because we hadn't heard from you yet, Vincent! Thanks, and good luck in the race.
The top-most picture is of the racing teams at the event. The other pictures are of the Solar Knights' vehicle. The first day of racing was yesterday, with races running through Friday. The Solar Knights placed third in last year's competition.
Vincent: make sure to write back and tell us how you guy's did.
Solar Knights Racing home page
Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Justin Fox's The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street is a book that chases down a provocative debate that the author discovered while working for Fortune magazine: the idea that the market is driven by fear, psychological quirks, fads, and other "irrational" factors, and as such, it does not represent a set of prices derived from the decisions of millions of actors, but rather a set of nearly impossible to predict fluctuations that are about as useful as a series of coin-tosses.
This hypothesis is a timely one, given the recent econopocalypse, but readers who (like me, I admit) turn to the book to find a snarky excoriation of the idiocy of the rational market ideologues who got rich while annihilating the economy will not find it here. Instead, what Fox has put together is a thoughtful, often fascinating, always illuminating history of the idea of market rationality, and the fortunes of the economists, bankers, regulators, philosophers and psychologists who've sought to explain the stormy seas of the market (and to get rich while doing it, of course).
If you've followed the behavioral economists and the exciting, weird and difficult-to-generalize conclusions they've reached since the crash (or the last one), Myth is a good grounding in the ideas that behavioral economics reacts against: the notion that a small group of fast-moving, informed investors can keep the market rational by exploiting the idiots and the suckers and the weirdos, taking all their chips and sending them away from the table.
Myth considers "rational" explanations for bubbles and crashes -- the fact that CEO and fund-manager compensation is structured such that a "rational actor" will do things that make the market go blooie -- and also the most pervasive "irrational" economic factor: overconfidence, which seems to be at the root of many, if not all, of the market's oddities.
By the end of the book, I was left with a much clearer understanding of how little I understood: how much of the technical jargon and specialized jargon of finance serves as window-dressing on a bunch of unproven and half-proven ideological assertions, and how little there is in the new "science" of behavioral economics to explain all of it (yet).
The overwhelming conclusion I came to when it was all done was this: if I was starting out at university right now, I'd go into behavioral economics and see what there is to be seen. It's a new territory, rich and barely mapped, and there's plenty to discover there.
The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street
From the MAKE Flickr pool
Another great idea for a business card, Adrian's laser-cut card transforms into a handy little caliper. Plans are available on Thingiverse.
More:
Adafruit's business card makes art!
From iPhone Apps to Beer Holders, Killer Accessories for Your Guns
(via Neatorama)
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From the MAKE Flickr pool
Flickr member six million dollar dan made clever use of a spring clamp for his garden timelapse camera -
clamp is standard spring clamp. it actually has a hole in it already that fits a #1/4-20 screw. #1/4-20 is standard size for camera mounts (in the USA at least). I added the red thumbscrew.Thanks Dan - always good to have hacks like these in your arsenal.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Lynn, from ioBridge, sent us a link to this project by Matt Morey which uses the ioBridge IO-204 and the PHP Widget Control API to allow him to send commands to his home automation system via Twitter. Using this set-up, he can write messages to an LCD screen, get sensor values, and turn off the lights.
Introducing http://twitter.com/MattsOffice
More:
Flickr user Mendicon received this netbook cosy as a gift from their girlfriend. The only thing missing is a function to recharge the battery when you press: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start.
[via gadgetlite]
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Photo credit: Phecsone
With the growing amount of blog-based independent news, social media, real-time news streams, live collaboration tools, video and podcasts, Internet users are increasingly on the run. At the pace of a few minutes for each, people are jumping from conversations to entertainment to creating content and sharing it with no pause or break. Their attention is now the scarce resource, not the content, tools or services they are interacting with.
That's why the ability to grab and hold someone attention for an extended period of time has become more valuable than gold. Getting deep and extended customer attention is going to be one the most valuable asset a company can build, no matter what article or product it sells.
This is why "attention" is the new ROI.
But how do you conquer such scarce and in-demand attention?
There are many ways. Start creating a two-way relationship with your audience. Make customers your friends. Establish a sincere dialogue with them before you make any sale. Provide advice. Share good information and resources with them. Teach them something good. And so on.
As a matter of fact, it is the whole concept of "selling" that needs to be approached in a different way.
People are suspicious of marketing. If they see that you are actively trying to sell them something they will resist your offers. Direct marketing strategies are also useless in this new trust economy and institutional info has become the symbol of fake, untrustable company communication.
Customers want friendly, sincere, credible and unpartial suggestions, passionate recommendations by someone who cares about their needs and not only about extracting money from them.
Start building a following of passionate, true fans and followers who love your advice, suggestions and ideas. Let them be your best marketing agents. Help them realize their dreams and they will in turn do the best word-of-mouth marketing job you could ever buy, for free.
If you leverage your character, authority and expertise, without coming down as the "best", the only one, and all that classical marketing crap, but relate to people in a way that puts them and satisfying their needs as your first objective, they will start to like you more than they ever did. They will self-elect themselves as your brand-ambassadors and will spontaneously promote and give advice about your product at zero cost to you. Be so good and honest to make them trust your advice and the sale will come, guaranteed.
In today's featured contribution, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith explain why the trust economy is on the rise and why attention is indeed the new ROI.
Here all the details:
What happened to the early days? You built a baseball stadium, a store, a web app, and people flocked to it.
Now what? We are suspicious of marketing. We don’t trust strangers as willingly.
Buzz is suspect. It can be bought. Instead, consumers and business people alike are looking towards trust. We want our friends to tell us it’s good. We want someone we know to say we should look into it.
Marketing spend might start at awareness, but in the trust economy communities are king, and ROI stands for Return on Influence.
This affects disruptive products or services more than ever. You have a new razor? Mine seems just fine. Your new web application is a great time saver? I’m over here instead because my friends use this web app.
Marketing and sales people, here is your notice; you’re fired unless you start investing in the trust economy.
Somewhere into the 1990s, the sense that what someone tells you about a product or service is “true” went downhill fast. We became skeptical about everything.
The more society attempted to “be real,” the more they launched deceptions that were quickly overturned.
Some innocent people videotaping their RV trip across America suddenly became “that Walmart scheme.” The lonely girl in her bedroom became a production project. The “try out Vista on ferrari laptops” turned into a controversy. Even Nikon’s D80 campaign went through some blogosphere controversy related to whether giving someone a product for evaluation was too influencing on future coverage.
What do these all have in common? Trust. All of these situations came from unknowns, drove awareness briefly, were uncovered to be something different than perceived, and floated like a lead balloon.
The relationship comes before the sale, not the other way around.
Make your customers friends. Not in an ushy-gooshy “let’s all go out and get tattoos” way. But, care about these people. Treat them like what they are - your gold.
In marketplaces where a simple sale is no longer simple, building trust today, through establishing and cultivating relationships, is at the core of the experience. This isn’t “trust so you can make a sale.” Rather, build trust and establish a relationship, period - for the sake of that trust and relationship alone.
The sale is neither here nor there until the relationship is established.
The problem when you’re faking that relationship - like, after you make the sale - is that the friendly emails suddenly stop. When the relationship is fake, the client detects that. In fact, we all do.
But if the relationship is real, you will do the best for your client. When that happens, you’ll begin to see all those negative responses vanish. Why? You just became a friend, and friends look out for one another. A short-term sales person or marketer sees only the number they’ve been given to hit.
While numbers are important, and while bosses have quotas in mind, it’s possible that building a stronger relationship will drive more recurring sales and referrals and further adoption. Consider it tending a farm of potential versus hunting for the short term.
If marketing and sales requires a new relationship, the best returns come from those with the most influence over others.
Your friend the photography buff influences her photowalking club. Your brother’s friend who works at the sports bar has a line on which new beers are good, and people trust him and value his opinion.
Learn the skill of identifying the influencers, and develop those relationships. And for the bonus round, learn how the online world makes this even easier via social networking. With luck, this can occur organically.
The goal isn’t to roam around on social networks hand-picking friends. Instead, get involved with communities of interest, and grow these experiences and relationships BEFORE you need them. And remember, if you are building relationships strictly for business, they will have less impact. That’s because being part of relationships is what real people do.
When you enter a market, be a real person. Act like one, care like one, and feel like one. Those subtle signals, verbal and non-verbal, help people figure out how to react to you and see whether they should hand you any of their attention.
Understand that the digital natives know who’s there to market and sell, and who’s there to build relationships. We (the digital natives) know you’re new. We often can tell really quickly that you’re hoping to introduce your product or service to the conversation. Some of us will even be more responsive to this than others. But, then there will be many who will cry foul the moment you cross the line into pure sales or marketing.
Remember, the trust economy is a conversation / relationship environment. We know you’ve got a job to do, but there are lots of people who prefer you do it elsewhere if you’re going to use traditional “bomb” marketing and sales efforts, versus “hand to hand” relationship building.
The edges between work and social life are blurring. people are shifting their social networks into their work networks and vice versa - business associates and childhood friends, side by side.
Business has invaded Facebook. Creative talent seekers are scouring MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube for their next star. Do you “friend” (befriend?) your boss on Facebook? do you send Twitter messages to your sales rep? You do now.
Social software permits rich interactions. What you feed into the system becomes another point we can use to connect.
We prefer to buy from people that are like us. You like Batman movies? Me too! That may not always be enough to move a sale, but it shows your human dimensions, and in this wired world of digital communities and deep long-tail niches, humanity-over-IP is the protocol.
There’s networking and relationship-building for business, and then there’s sales-disguised-as-networking. Don’t confuse the two.
“That guy” talks about his product incessantly. His product sent out a really great tee shirt to fans. His product is beating the doors off the other guy. You should really get on over to his product’s website and look at the updates.
Don’t be that guy. Talk to people because you like the people. Choose people that have something to do with your product, and then, ask them about them. Make the person you’re speaking to a rock star - care about them, the projects they have, and come to see it from THEIR point of view. You’ll find yourself excited about their successes, and then they’ll be happy about yours, too.
Consider this a “trust Stock market,” and the marketplace is really bearish on “that guy” today.
Ask anyone if they have enough time in a day. Ask them if they want more words to look at, more decisions to make, more websites to navigate. Our attention is becoming more valuable than originally calculated.
Web hits, magazine subscribers, and TV viewers can’t be counted accurately any longer, because we’re not paying as much attention!
Here’s a magic question: “What has your attention right now?” And if you seek to influence that answer, you are barking up the right tree.
If you answered that your attention is on this manifesto, don’t lie: The truth is that your attention is on this manifesto, your email, possibly the fight with your wife this morning, and how you were cut off during rush hour right before work.
Admit it: Attention is scarce - more valuable than cash and rarer than gold. When you get some, embrace it and find out how to get more. Then lather, rinse, repeat.
Think about it like this: In a time of starvation, people hoard their food. these days, we are starved for time. That means it’s harder to get someone to try your service, or read your blog, or even have a conversation with you - all that takes attention we don’t even have.
You solve this by creating value before you need it. that imbalance helps people realize what you’ve given them, and it makes them want to give you more of their attention. If you use that wisely, you’re well on your way. But the challenge comes in knowing how not to squander or over-use the attention you’re given.
If you’re forever asking for the spotlight, people will grow tired of this quickly. Just like with any economy, there are deposits of your time and attention, and then there are withdrawals when you seek out someone else’s. So pay close attention to your balance statements.
Look at any glossy print advertisement for a new product. Is there a smiling person holding that product? Who is that person? Do you trust celebrities to tell you what’s good? Why should a testimonial from someone you don’t know sell you, especially when you KNOW they were paid?
Now, what if your friend told you about something they love - no money changing hands, and without any incentive? What if your friend simply really loved a product or service? Wouldn’t you feel compelled to follow their suggestion? Now turn that equation around. Find LOVERS of your products and services and equip them to evangelize.
Keep it above board, and make disclosure the keyword that keeps it all honest. If you do this right, the next thing you know, you have a volunteer army.
Friends are the Wall Street of the trust economy. Can you reach out? Who do you know that can solve the issue?
Chris Brogan uses social media and technology to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris has merged his experience in technology (enterprise It and wireless telephony) with his passion for social media. Chris Brogan blogs at chrisbrogan.com.
Julien Smith leverages the web and social media to help businesses reach their goals in the online marketplace, with a focus on connecting media with the audiences they are looking for. Julien’s podcast was among the first in Canada, and his blog was named among the 10 best art / entertainment blogs in the country. Julien Smith blogs at inoveryourhead.net.
The dog days of summer are upon us, and you know what that means? Time to hit the beach? Well, maybe. But, it also means that it's time for some special deals in the Maker Shed. Each week we will feature a kit at a special "dog days" discount. The deal will last about a week, so take advantage of the savings while you can.
This week's dog days of summer deal is the Brain Machine kit by Mitch Altman. The kit sells for $34.99, but for the next week, it's only $24.49, that's 30% off. Only while supplies last.
Please note: The Brain machine in the picture above is a heavily modified version, with some extra components. You can learn how to hack your Brain Machine here. No animals were harmed in this promotion, and please don't use the Brain Machine on your dog!
More about the Brain Machine on sale now in the Maker Shed
Related:
Build: Hacking the Brain Machine
Team Twiizer is able to inject custom graphics onto a DSi via an Arduino. There isn't a lot of information about this hack yet, but the teaser video is really cool. I'll post more about this project when the details are unveiled.
A full week of hacking is finally giving us some fruitful results. Enjoy this small tiizer video, and stay alert for what's yet to come! :)
A little more about Team Twiizers DSi Haxx
In the Maker Shed:
Make: Arduino
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Mike from Uptownmaker has complied a list of "18 Essential skills for a Maker" - inspired by Geekdad's "100 Essential Skills for Geeks". Uptownmaker's list is geared towards electronics projects - good stuff. Here are some of my favorites...
2. Spot valuable salvage- Not only knowing where to get it, but knowing it when you see it. Finding it isn't too hard- curbs, alleys, and the classic dumpster dive. Deciding whether to keep it is the real trick: can it be broken down? Are there useful things inside (gears, motors, electronics, hardware, salvageable wood, springs, etc.)? Is trying to salvage parts of it a wise thing to do (upholstered items left outside are a great way to get bedbugs into your home)?
7. Know which glue to use, when- Elmer's white, spray mount, Uhu glue sticks, JB Weld, cyanoacrylate, and two-part epoxy all have their uses.
13. Strip, splice, and terminate wire- Trickier than it sounds. You should be able to splice wire using a crimp splice, a wire nut, and heat shrink + solder (note: electrical tape is NOT on that list). You should know how to use a wire stripper to strip stranded wire without cutting more than one or two strands. You should be able to attach a wire to your project in such a way that it will still be attached in two weeks, two months, or two years.
18. Program a microcontroller- nothing fancy, just something along the lines of the Arduino. Just enough to make it spin a motor on a trigger or light an LED or sound an alarm.
A good follow up would be links and resources for each of the items on the list, books, sites, pages in MAKE... post up your "Essential skills for a Maker" in the comments!
This could become an interesting list that we could expand on MAKE if there's enough interest.
2. Spot valuable salvage- Not only knowing where to get it, but knowing it when you see it. Finding it isn't too hard- curbs, alleys, and the classic dumpster dive. Deciding whether to keep it is the real trick: can it be broken down? Are there useful things inside (gears, motors, electronics, hardware, salvageable wood, springs, etc.)? Is trying to salvage parts of it a wise thing to do (upholstered items left outside are a great way to get bedbugs into your home)?18 Essential Skills for a Maker (via Make)3. Spot eminently hackable, cheap Chinese crap- The glut of crap from China occasionally brings some real gems with it. Woot.com recently sold some rotating LED-based "police lights" for $3, which connect to USB and can be turned on and off by pressing a key on the keyboard...
7. Know which glue to use, when- Elmer's white, spray mount, Uhu glue sticks, JB Weld, cyanoacrylate, and two-part epoxy all have their uses.
8. Know which tape to use, when- Duct, masking, Scotch, foam-two-sided, and (occasionally) electrical tape all have their uses...
14. Create fairly neat holes of arbitrary size and shape in sheet metal, plastic, and wood- Nibblers, step-bits, tin-snips, chisels, awls, drill bits, and the appropriate Dremel bit all play crucuial roles here...
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Jeffrey A Carver sez, "The prologue to my SF novel Sunborn (Tor Books), narrated to an animated video sequence drawn from a slew of NASA images from Hubble, Chandra, etc. In the case of this particular prologue, the astronomical images actually do reflect the story of one Deeaab, explorer from across the brane-boundary. I think it's pretty cool, which is not entirely bragging, as the real video wizardry was done by a fellow named Adam Guzewicz. Created for a local arts festival, I decided to see if it might be an interesting way to introduce a book to new readers."
Video Narration
of Sunborn
(Thanks, Jeffrey!)
"
Interesting article over at Fast Company, The Desktop Manufacturing Revolution by Jamais Cascio - The end of the current production-manufacturing economic model may be on the horizon. But what if nothing's ready to replace it?
Clay Shirky recently described revolutions as situations in which "...the old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place." He was talking about newspapers, but the insight can apply much more broadly. Advertising, for example, seems to be going through its own revolution, with existing models falling to tatters without a clear successor waiting in the wings. Education is another example, and some would argue that a similar process is underway in the realm of international power and politics.Shirky's observation came to mind while watching a recording of Bruce Sterling's closing keynote for the ReBoot conference last month. Late in the talk, Bruce tosses out this line: "Objects are print-outs." He goes on to discuss how to rethink one's relationship with material possessions in an increasingly precarious world, but the "objects are print-outs" line stuck with me. It encapsulates not just an attitude towards material possessions, but--in one pithy phrase--one possible shape of the next economy.
Tapecraft
(via Evil Mad Scientists)
Goose gets a bionic leg in world-first operation (via Medgadget)
Here is the world's first bionic Goose. The two-week old gosling was found with a broken leg, but vets did not have the heart to put it down.Instead, they decided to operate on the young creature, named Betty, to give her a bionic leg.
She was fitted with steel pins, nuts and bolts to build a leg brace which soon got her back up and waddling around.
The orphan, found at Watermead, Buckinghamshire, has already learned to walk again at nearby Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital.
(Image: JEFF MOORE)
The Crucible's 9th annual Fire Arts Festival is kicking off on July 15 from 8pm to midnight, don't miss it!
Each July The Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival celebrates creativity through fire and light with a spectacular open-air exhibition of interactive fire art, performance and the largest collection of outdoor fire sculpture on the West Coast.
The Crucible's 9th Annual
2009 Fire Arts Festival
July 15-18, 2009
8pm-midnight
Off-the-Wall Tallies of Jackson's Sales
(Thanks, Barry!)
StarWars.com | The Empire Muggs Back: Art for a Mighty Good Cause
(Thanks, Bonnie!)
You want an algorithm, here it is:Indeed. Create useful sites with useful content that people use, and don't be spammy, and you'll most likely rank well in Google. You don't need to force Google to reveal the nuts and bolts of its algorithm. That doesn't change anything. If you're trying to craft your websites to the specifics of the algorithm, you're already lost. If you're creating websites that match the "plain English" code above, you're going to be just fine.
1.) Sites that are useful to visitors will rank high.
2.) Popular sites that are useful to visitors will rank higher.
3.) Sites that don't offer any value to the web or are irrelevant to the query won't rank well.
4.) Sites that are harmful or spammy won't be included in the index.
Seriously, that's Google’s algorithm in plain English. There's your disclosure. The weighting factors and code behind it don't matter -- these principles are all you really need to know.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
[Cook] and his lawyer Orly Taitz have filed a lawsuit so the Major does not have to go to war and fight in Afghanistan because that would be, ”in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command.”
Birthers insist that a giant conspiracy has taken place. The birth certificate showing that Obama was born in Honolulu in August 1961 is fake, they say. Birthers are also certain that some kind of time travel treachery has been undertaken by shadow pinko government agents, who warped themselves back to 1961 to insert notices in the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star Bulletin saying that "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama" gave birth to a son on August 4, 1961.
Lowry and his colleagues studied another set of mice, who were subjected to a stress-response test. They dropped each mouse into water for five minutes and timed how long it would take the animal to switch from active swimming to passive floating. Control mice swam for an average of two and a half minutes, while the M. vaccae–injected animals paddled for four. Researchers already know that antidepressants increase active swimming and decrease immobility. The bacteria “had the exact same effect as antidepressant drugs,” Lowry explains.Maybe this explains some people's craving for eating dirt? From a CDC article titled "Eating Dirt":The results so far suggest that simply inhaling M. vaccae—you get a dose just by taking a walk in the wild or rooting around in the garden—could help elicit a jolly state of mind. “You can also ingest mycobacteria either through water sources or through eating plants—lettuce that you pick from the garden, or carrots,” Lowry says.
Among children, too, it seems eating dirt might have immunologic consequences. Maternal immunoglobulins are secreted in breast milk shortly before birth and for 1 year or more afterwards. Children often begin eating dirt a year or two after birth. As maternal immunity wanes, eating dirt might “vaccinate” children who are losing their maternal IgA, which could stimulate production of nascent immunoglobulins, especially IgA. Eating dirt might also help populate intestinal flora.
Discover magazine asks: "Is Dirt the New Prozac?" (Via Seth's Blog)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
We CAN’T just fix HTML every 10-15 years with a 5-10 year process. This is the only shot for a generation. That is a huge responsibility not just for those directly responsible for the specification, but all of use who take more than a passing interest in these issues.
#
Wholesale vendors in the capital report that demand for Nokia handsets has fallen by as much as half in the wake of calls to boycott Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) for selling communications monitoring systems to Iran.Iranian consumers boycott Nokia for 'collaboration' (Guardian UK, thanks Sepideh)There are signs that the boycott is spreading: consumers are shunning SMS messaging in protest at the perceived complicity with the regime by the state telecoms company, TCI. Iran's state-run broadcaster has been hit by a collapse in advertising as companies fear being blacklisted in a Facebook petition. There is also anecdotal evidence that people are moving money out of state banks and into private banks.
Nokia is the most prominent western company to suffer from its dealings with the Iranian authorities. Its NSN joint venture with Siemens provided Iran with a monitoring system as it expanded a mobile network last year. NSN says the technology is standard issue to dozens of countries, but protesters believe the company could have provided the network without the monitoring function.
Siemens is also accused of providing Iran with an internet filtering system called Webwasher.
