An anonymous reader writes to tell us that following the news of NASA's budget cuts impacting their ability to do things like watch the sky for asteroids, a British company has decided to create a "gravity tractor" ship that could divert asteroids away from Earth if the need should arise. Of course, a gravity tractor certainly isn't a new idea. "Dr. Cordey said the company had worked with a number of space authorities on other methods of protecting the Earth from asteroids, but this one would be able to target a wider range. He said: 'We have done quite a lot of design work on this with the European Space Agency and we believe this would work just as well on a big solid iron asteroid as well as other types.' But the high cost implications mean that before the device could be made, it would have to be commissioned by a government or a group of governments working together."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last week we wrote about claims that copyright holders were purposely putting their own content online to see who downloaded it, and then suing them. In that post, we mentioned a post from last year, about one of the companies that's been hired to track down file sharers, DigiProtect, and how its contract seems to suggest this is exactly what the company does. After that came out, there was some talk about how that contract clause really was only used to make sure the company had the right to investigate infringement. However, the company now appears to be quite forward in admitting that it puts files online specifically to catch downloaders:

"We get the legal rights from the companies to distribute these movies to stores, and with these rights we can sue illegal downloaders. Then we take legal action in every country possible, concentrating on the places where such action will be profitable."

Of course, this seems questionable on a variety of levels. First, if it's getting the distribution rights to the content, then the distribution is authorized, and not infringing. Second, DigiProtect makes it quite clear that its focus is on figuring out the most profitable way to do this -- not the best way to cut down on infringement. The company apparently doesn't pay anyone on a fixed salary, but everyone shares in a cut of whatever is "collected." In other words, the program is not at all about stopping unauthorized file sharing, but figuring out the best way to profit from sending threat letters to people. The company even admits that the numbers it demands from people, and the numbers used in lawsuits have nothing to do with actual damages, but are entirely about what they think is mostly likely to get them paid. That sounds an awful lot like the what most people call extortion.

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Tomorrow marks the launch of Cryptic Studios' new superhero MMO, Champions Online. It was developed for the PC and the Xbox 360, but the console version will be much delayed, according to Cryptic CCO Jack Emmert, because Microsoft is holding things up. "Microsoft's a big company, and they have to work out all the various issues related to MMOs. It just takes time for the big beast known as Microsoft to get moving. I really have no explanation other than that, because it's as baffling to developers as it is to everyone else," he said during an interview with VG247. The game itself is apparently finished, but Emmert isn't sure it'll even go live for the 360 by the end of this year. Square Enix developers made similar comments earlier this month regarding Final Fantasy XIV, which will be available first on the PS3 largely because it's taking a long time to work out how the game will interact with Xbox Live.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's a clever reuse of a plastic pedal boat as a ready-made power plant for a mechanical washing machine.

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ScienceDaily is reporting that Washington University School of Medicine researchers have found a way to deliver bee toxin to tumors using nano-spheres they call "nanobees." The results in mice showed a cessation of growth or even shrinkage of tumors while the surrounding tissue was protected from the toxin. "The core of the nanobees is composed of perfluorocarbon, an inert compound used in artificial blood. The research group developed perfluorocarbon nanoparticles several years ago and have been studying their use in various medical applications, including diagnosis and treatment of atherosclerosis and cancer. About six millionths of an inch in diameter, the nanoparticles are large enough to carry thousands of active compounds, yet small enough to pass readily through the bloodstream and to attach to cell membranes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While this should come as no surprise -- since the judge basically said two months ago that he was planning to dismiss the ruling against Lori Drew -- it's worth noting that official ruling dismissing the case has been handed down:

The reasoning of the opinion is that whatever unauthorized access means, it cannot mean mere violation of Terms of Service without more. Such a reading of the statute would render the statute unconstitutionally void for vagueness because it would give the government almost unlimited power to prosecute any Internet user and wouldn't give citizens sufficient notice as to what of their Internet conduct was criminal.

Phew. Whatever you think of Drew's behavior, it was absolutely wrong to try to twist a totally unrelated law to find something to charge her with.

Of course, now, in the wake of this debacle, Missouri passed a new law making online harassment a potential felony, and the first case under that law has been filed.

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Over at BB Gadgets, Steven has the details on these I-SWARM robugs. They're 4 mm long, wide, and tall and solar-powered. Swarm Bots: Now W/Solar Power, Complex Behaviors!

Ottawa artist Howie Tsui paints fantastical, evil, and beautiful landscapes of monsters, ghosts, demons, and deities. He tells me that his new large paintings, "Horror Fables," are in the form of Ming Dynasty scrolls and were influenced by "a variety of dark subjects, including Asian ghost stories, Buddhist hell scrolls, Hong Kong vampire films, neo-conservative propaganda, and twentieth-century genocides such as the Nanking massacre." Howie Tsui

Seen here is the Psycograph, an automated phrenology device from the early 1900s. Of course, phrenology was the idea that you could glean great knowledge about someone's personality based on the shape of their skull. (More Psycograph ad images scanned by John Karp are here.) Over at MindHacks, Vaughan points to this fun audio documentary on the Psycograph, from the podcast series This Week in the History of Psychology.
MP3: David Baker on the psycograph, the 1930s' automatic phrenologist

These days, companies are losing hard drives and other storage media packed with tons of recoverable data. Well, here's one way to keep that from happening: nuke 'em. Davidson, NC maker Brian Little and some friends stacked up hard drives recovered from UNC Davidson machines and melted them with thermite. Brian described the project:

Four guys and one intrepid GF use roughly 40lbs of thermite to incinerate (most of) a stack of used hard drives. The results weren't quite what we hoped for in terms of destruction, but for sheer pyrotechnic effect, a big bucket o' thermite is hard to beat.

Note: Thermite "recipes" are available online for the googling. I'm lazy, and also not stupid, so I just bought mine. Again, Google is your pal here. Also note: Thermite is relatively dangerous. It is intensely energetic and burns out around 2500°F. Once it starts burning, it is going to finish, and will laugh wickedly at your pitiful attempts to extinguish it. I can play with it because I am an adult with insurance and a healthy sense of self-preservation. If you elect to play with this stuff and burn down your parents' home, land yourself in the hospital with third-degree burns or incinerate your grandmother's car, that's your own lookout. I'm not responsible for you.

Here's a fun video of the burn:

As well as more pix.

What is the most radical data security measures you've ever used to protect your own or someone else's data?

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BeckySharp writes "With the nearly simultaneous release of Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" (available right now) and Microsoft's Windows 7 (available Oct. 22), you get the inevitable debate: Which is the better operating system, Windows 7 or Snow Leopard? To help determine that, Computerworld's Preston Gralla put both operating systems through their paces, selected categories for a head-to-head competition, and then chose a winner in each category." Relatedly, Phoronix has posted Snow Leopard vs. Ubuntu 9.10 benchmarks. They ran tests from ray tracing to 3D gaming to compilation. Their tests show Ubuntu 9.10 winning a number of the tests but there are some slowdowns in performance and still multiple wins in the favor of Snow Leopard so the end result is mixed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Saint of Skepticism James Randi is profiled in the current issue of the SF Weekly. The reporter attended Randi's annual Las Vegas conference, the Amazing Meeting, which sounds like a cult revival for unwavering disbelievers and anti-Forteans. From the SF Weekly:

Randi has debunked more than 100 psychics and faith healers in a quest to rid the world of hucksters. It also makes him the subject of scorn among purveyors of the paranormal, true believers who say Randi has made himself rich, pulling in nearly $200,000 a year from his foundation, at the expense of others' careers. His foundation has been hemorrhaging money, and Randi, who has spent his career challenging the notion of an afterlife, now faces his own mortality. He has intestinal cancer and may not have long to live. He has been a commanding presence for four decades, but it's unclear who could fill his role as the face of the skeptic community...

The James Randi Foundation put together its first skeptics' conference in 2003. That first year in Fort Lauderdale, the event drew just 150 attendees. In the years since, it has grown to become the largest gathering of critical thinkers, doubters, heretics, and nonbelievers in the world. More than 1,100 conferees paid about $300 each for admission this year. They come to hear some of the most famous voices in critical thinking — Adam Savage, San Francisco–based cohost of the Discovery Channel's MythBusters; Bill Prady, cocreator of CBS' The Big Bang Theory — and to discuss Randi's favorite topic, skeptical inquiry, a discipline devoted to debunking psychics, faith healers, con artists, and ghost whisperers through the holy miracle of old-fashioned science.

The Amazing Meeting attendees are mostly white males with glasses, facial hair, and a healthy appreciation of physics and Monty Python. They come from as far away as Australia and Japan. There are college students, bloggers, and rambunctious computer scientists. In the halls of the conference, they banter about the psychological phenomenon known as "the ideomotor effect," the pseudoscience behind the instant sommelier (a contraption that can supposedly age wine to perfection in 30 minutes), and — a favorite conversation topic — getting wasted at the hotel bar.

"The Demystifying Adventures of the Amazing Randi"

In-law jokes are a pretty standard staple of the standup comedy business. They can be pretty funny too... even if the concept is a bit dated. But, apparently, they're not so funny to the in-laws of comedian Sunda Croonquist. ChurchHatesTucker alerts us to the news that Croonquist's mother-in-law and sister-in-law are suing the comedian for cracking rather typical "in-law" jokes, which, apparently the in-laws didn't find to be all that funny. They're suing for defamation, even though you have to wonder if anyone actually takes such jokes seriously. I mean, it's a comedian. Of course the jokes are either made up or exaggerated for comedic effect. Still, probably makes for a frosty family gathering.

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BuzzSkyline writes "Improvements in helmets have helped modern soldiers survive bullets and blasts that would have killed them in past wars. But increasing numbers of soldiers are suffering long lasting brain damage from explosions, partly as a result of what appears to be a flaw in helmet designs. Although the blast itself may not accelerate the brain inside a soldier's head enough to cause injury, shockwaves that make it through the space between a helmet and a soldier's head can cause the skull to flex, leading to ripples in the skull that can create damaging pressures in the brain. Simulations that relied on 'code originally designed to simulate how a detonated weapon rattles a building or tank' could lead to new helmets that reduce the traumatic brain injuries that many soldiers suffer as a result of improvised explosive devices and other moderate-sized blasts. The research is due to be published in Physical Review Letters, but a pre-print of the entire article is currently available on the Physics ArXiv."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

brothke writes "The Myths of Security: What the Computer Security Industry Doesn't Want You to Know is an interesting and thought-provoking book. Ultimately, the state of information security can be summed up in the book's final three sentences, in which John Viega writes that 'real, timely improvement is possible, but it requires people to care a lot more [about security] than they do. I'm not sure that's going to happen anytime soon. But I hope it does.'" Read on for the rest of Ben's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You may recall a few weeks back that stories in the UK noted that (non-elected) UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson had a sudden conversion to caring about copyright issues after dining with David Geffen while on vacation. And, despite months of careful study that went into the Digital Britain report, where it was declared that a policy of kicking people off the internet was not on the table, Mandelson suddenly demanded that his department change that plan. And... just like that, the "three strikes" rules are back on the table.

After being widely ridiculed for his suddenly interest in this issue, it looks like Mandelson has decided to defend himself with a guest column in the Times Online, where he runs through the arguments in favor of his position -- all of which read like someone who's been fed lines by some lobbyists -- and then claims that he's open to hearing other ideas and that he understands why people are upset. Of course, if that's the case, why did he propose such a preposterous idea right after the Digital Britain report had rejected it? Either way, let's go through some of his thinking:

First, taking something for nothing, without permission, and with no compensation for the person who created and owns it, is wrong. Simple as that.

Right. Well, other than fair use. Or, what if it's for promotional purposes? And, how do you define "owns it" in that sentence? After all, if I bought a CD, don't I own it? Or maybe not. Wait... this isn't so "simple" after all, is it, Lord Mandleson? Perhaps that's why so many people have spent so many years digging through the problems of copyright law, and recognize how problematic it is when you try to compare it to real property, such as by claiming someone "owns it" even after they've "sold it." So, no, while it may look simple at first, it's not that simple. And that's rather important.

I was shocked to hear that as much as half of all internet traffic in the UK is for the carriage of unlawful content.

As you should be, because those numbers are bogus and supplied by the industry. But, why let that stop you.

If technical solutions can discourage piracy, then as a Government we are obliged to consider them.

So here's a question: which is more important: discouraging "piracy," or having a thriving and robust creative industry? Because that's pretty important. I would assume that the latter is a lot more important, and a lot of what you seem to be saying suggests that if the industry stamped out unauthorized file sharing, people would magically go back to spending their money on that same industry. Yet, there's no proof to support this at all. The industry has been all about the stick, and never seems to put out a carrot. Go ahead and get your three strikes plan, but don't be surprised when the creative industries still fail, because they've pissed off so many people who choose not to do business with them.

Second, our creative businesses drive much of our economy.

Indeed. And to my last point, then, the goal should be on doing things to encourage "creative businesses" to update their business models, rather than relying on false models of artificial scarcity. You do realize that a UK-based music organization (PRS) recently released a report noting that the music industry in the UK is actually growing? Right? These are the sort of facts the Secretary of Business knows, right? And if the industry is growing, despite complaining about file sharing, isn't it possible that the real issue is just focusing on business model improvement, rather than the hand of gov't stepping in and slapping people around?

They provide not only tax revenues and jobs but also ensure that Britain punches above its weight on the global cultural stage. We are a creative people and we do these things well.

Indeed. Good to know they're doing well by adapting new business models. Why interfere with that process?

These businesses will get no favours from government

Well... you mean other than a massive subsidy in the form of a gov't granted monopoly that lasts longer than all of our lifetimes? That, at least, must count as a little favor, doesn't it?

but we should create a regulatory environment where they can operate without having to deal with illegal competition.

"Illegal" competition is a funny thing. See, since you're the gov't and you get to define what is and what is not illegal, it leaves you open to a bit of regulatory capture (the sort that gets tongues wagging about fancy dinners with industry execs in far-away vacation retreats) whereby anything that a legacy industry doesn't like and doesn't want to deal with is suddenly called "illegal."

And yet, despite this "illegal" competition, we see many creative ventures and creative artists learning to embrace this "illegal competition" in the form of file sharing to create much more effective business models. We see artists and new up-and-coming operations that encourage people to file share, and put in place other reasons to buy, such that file sharing isn't "illegal competition" at all. It's free promotion from your biggest fans.

Crucially, if these changes can give the creative businesses and their partners the space to develop new business models that support more new artists, acts and films, then surely we are duty bound to consider them.

I recognize that you are the Business Secretary, but in the history of business, it is not the government "giving room" to legacy industries that leads to them developing new business models. It is the force of true competition, that requires them to be innovative. Welcome to the world of "creative destruction." Holding off the creative destruction does not encourage the new business models. The whole reason the industry is wining and dining you is because they want to hang onto whatever scraps of their dying business model for as long as they can.

Let me emphasise that nothing has been predetermined. And I understand why internet service providers (ISPs), consumer groups and digital rights activists are disappointed that we have decided to consider a range of tougher and faster measures. But let me try, if I can, to reassure them.

Then why were there so many reports that you suddenly (after showing no interest in the subject previously) returned from vacation hellbent on adding "three strikes" to the plan?

I made clear to the content industry that we would consider legislation that includes temporary account suspension only if it was seen as the sanction of last resort. It would only follow a well-established series of warnings and clear evidence that they were taking action to defend their own rights.

Ah, but you seem to have ignored the other part of the equation: users' rights. The EU has declared that cutting people off from the internet is a civil rights violation. Doing so without true due process is a huge violation of their rights. Why would you support that? If the "clear evidence" is only that they were defending their rights, rather than that someone had violated the law, isn't that a pretty massive due process problem?

I want to know more from digital rights groups and consumers about other steps that should be taken to protect people who may feel that they are at risk of being accused without good cause. This could perhaps be because of legitimate file sharing, or because of others hijacking their connection. Having a fair, fast and effective appeals process will obviously be essential.

Wait. Shouldn't the bigger concern be why they have to go through such a process in the first place? Especially when the industry is growing and adapting new business models (see above) and have no need for the gov't to put in place such draconian measures? Why are you already jumping to a situation where some people need to be "protected" rather than removing the threat of erroneous shut-offs entirely?

We are fast approaching the tenth anniversary of the trial in which Napster.com, the site that enabled the first real boom in file sharing, was shut down after legal action by record labels. This legal action was hugely expensive, time-consuming and ultimately did little for consumers. Why? Because it failed to encourage rights holders to develop new business models and did nothing to seek to change consumer behaviour. A decade on, we have another opportunity, and for some in the content industries, perhaps the last.

Yes, the lawsuit strategy failed. But three strikes is a continuation of those same failed policies. The industry has had those ten years to develop and support innovative new business models -- but the major players have failed, time and time again. They sued Napster. They sued Kazaa. They sued The Pirate Bay. They sued Grooveshark. They sued MP3tunes. They sued iMeem. They sued MP3.com. They sued Launchcast. They sued Hi5. They sued VideoEgg. They sued Seeqpod. They sued Favtape. The list goes on and on and on and on.

They've had these ten years to develop new business models. And they failed. Instead, the new business models have been developed outside of the legacy industry -- and they're working. Let them be. Don't give this tool to the legacy players, who failed to innovate. Let them go out of business, and let a new, and much more creative "creative business" industry take over.

You're being played for as a fool by a legacy industry that wants to squeeze every bit of money it can from a dying business model. Putting up three strikes isn't giving them space to develop a new business model. It gives them time to squeeze more out of a corpse.

Ultimately the answer to combating digital piracy lies in the hands of those who own content and those who control access to the internet.

Ah, see there's you're problem. You keep going back and forth between "saving the creative industries" and "combating digital piracy" as if they were one and the same. They're not. There are many successful creative businesses now embracing digital piracy to their advantage by being smart. You should talk to some of them. And, note the party you left out of the equation: the users. The folks who consume and interact and share and promote and buy. If you want to know what the answer is for a thriving creative industry, you should be talking to them -- not the folks still trying to sell plastic discs.

Ask me what I think will finish off piracy as a real threat to our creators and creative businesses and the answer is obvious -- it is the market.

Then why are you favoring one set of players and one business model? That's not the market at work. It's the opposite.

Mandelson's entire argument seems to be built off of a very faulty premise: stop file sharing and the industry succeeds. That's wrong on a variety of points. First, as much as you want to, you won't stop file sharing. You'll just drive people further underground, and that helps no one. Second, the creative industry is thriving today, even with file sharing, and many who are doing great are doing so by embracing it, and using it to their own advantage. Getting rid of file sharing is not the same thing as "succeeding" in the industry. Third, even if you did magically make file sharing disappear, that's got nothing to do with actually giving people a reason to buy. Pissing people off by cutting them off the internet actually gives them fewer reasons to buy.

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"A good story is a dirty secret that we all share," Lev Grossman writes in "Good Books Don't Have to Be Hard, his essay in the August 29 edition of The Wall Street Journal. Grossman, the book critic at Time and author of The Magicians and Warp, believes that a strong emphasis on storytelling will once again becoming important in novels, after having been cast aside as being "disgraceful" for the last several decades. That's good news, he says, because novels without a strong plot, for the most part, suck.

Which is probably why millions of adults are cheating on the literary novel with the young-adult novel, where the unblushing embrace of storytelling is allowed, even encouraged. Sales of hardcover young-adult books are up 30.7% so far this year, through June, according to the Association of American Publishers, while adult hardcovers are down 17.8%. Nam Le's The Boat, one of the best-reviewed books of fiction of 2008, has sold 16,000 copies in hardcover and trade paperback, according to Nielsen Bookscan (which admittedly doesn't include all book retailers). In the first quarter of 2009 alone, the author of the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer, sold eight million books. What are those readers looking for? You'll find critics who say they have bad taste, or that they're lazy and can't hack it in the big leagues. But that's not the case. They need something they're not getting elsewhere. Let's be honest: Why do so many adults read Suzanne Collins's young-adult novel The Hunger Games instead of contemporary literary fiction? Because The Hunger Games doesn't bore them.

All of this is changing. The revolution is under way. The novel is getting entertaining again.

Good Books Don't Have to Be Hard Work

There's plenty of fun to be had with ham radio even if you don't have a license. You can get a hand held radio to listen in on what's going on while you are out and about or get a base station/desktop radio. You can listen to activities on local repeaters. Repeaters allow ham radio operators to talk locally, they send a signal to a repeater and it transmits the signal to other radios in the area. You can listen in to their conversations or to Nets, regular ham meet us on repeaters that discuss a certain topic. A larger desktop radio with a longer antenna will also be able to receive amateur HF communications sent directly from ham radios around the world, you can listen to conversations from places like Germany, Kazakhstan, or Japan.

1. Local repeaters can be found by location at this website, tune the frequency of your radio to the output. Even though the repeater is on, it might not be in use meaning that you might not hear anything. You can program several frequencies into your radio, then tune the radio to the different frequencies until you catch a conversation.

2. You can find a schedule of nets and their frequencies on the ARRL website which lists all nets registered with the ARRL. If you have a hand held, select "local nets" and select 2m or 70 cm for the frequency. You will find nets discussing topics ranging from emergency safety (ARES, RACES) to women in ham radio (YL).

3. If your radio can receive HF (high frequency) communications, you can tune around to different stations to listen in. Or you can check DX clusters online which spot operators from rare locations and post their frequency. The call signs of operators from rare locations are listed under "dx". You can mouse-over the call sign to see where the operator is located.

When you are listening in on ham radio, chances are you will hear a lot codes such as 73, cq, qsl, these are abbreviations that were originally used in Morse code and are now used when speaking. You can find a list of them here.

Most ham radios can tune in to frequencies that aren't on the ham bands. At the airport you can listen to air traffic control. In the subway, you can listen to the local transit station and hear what is going on behind the scenes. A lot of hand held radios are waterproof so at the beach you can listen to lifeguard stations or the coast guard. You can listen to Nascar raceways and speedways, zoos, police stations, fire stations, short wave radio, subway and public transportation radios, space shuttle reentry, weather, etc.. All you need is a radio and a guide to the frequencies to tune in to.

1. Local fire department, police department, transit, school safety, sanitation, hospitals, zoos, parks and lifeguards. When you listen to the police stations, you will notice that they use a lot of codes, "we have a 11-24 on Greene and Fort St.". You can learn what those codes mean here.

2. Airport frequencies
Type in the airport code (i.e. JFK) and learn the frequencies for control tower, approaching flights, departing flights, pre-taxi clearance, etc.

3. Nascar raceways and speedways
Free list of frequencies
List of frequencies that you must pay for

4. Local weather

5. Space shuttle frequencies are only transmitted locally. But you can find retransmissions on your local frequencies toward the bottom on the page.

A hand held radio is a really fun thing to bring out with friends to a bar or party. There's always something interesting happening on the radio sure to spur conversation and help you meet new friends. Just program some frequencies into your radio and you will be all set to go. I've found that the police and fire station radios are most exciting to listen to. You can bring earphones and a splitter if you are going to a quieter place like a coffee shop where you might disturb the other patrons.

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Former US Vice President Dick Cheney proclaimed once again over the weekend that he believes torture applied to war-on-terror detainees in U.S. custody after 9/11 worked brilliantly to reveal terror plots -- this despite testimony to the contrary from a CIA investigator who looked into the details of these abusive interrogations.

Snip from Washington Post item by John Amick:

Cheney's statements come six days after the release of a 2004 CIA Inspector General report (pdf) that documents a litany of interrogation tactics used on detainees, including waterboarding, "walling," face-slapping and at least one mock execution. Cheney's views, though, contradict those of former CIA inspector general John Helgerson, who wrote in the report that there is no proof that such techniques were responsible for reliable information that helped in foiling terror plans.

"I'm very proud of what we did in terms of defending the nation for the last eight years successfully," Cheney said of the Bush administration's post-9/11 terror strategy on "Fox News Sunday." Cheney says he stands behind the interrogation tactics and is convinced the use of those practices were "directly responsible for keeping America safe for eight years."

Cheney: 'I'm Very Proud of What We Did' (Washington Post via Dan Gillmor)

Read this related NYT article, too: A.C.L.U. Lawyers Mine Documents for Truth

Image: excerpt from the table of contents for the 2004 CIA Inspector General report (PDF).

Happy birthday, here's your cannon... @ Dailymail

Mike Daugherty asked his 11-year-old son Logan what he wanted for his birthday. The boy said, "I want a cannon." Dad didn't scoff at Logan's request by saying, "How about a hippopotamus instead," as a Christmas song from another era lamented. No, Daugherty is not that kind of guy. He granted his son's wish and built him a Civil War-era cannon not a model, the real deal. The howitzer fires and rivals anything seen at Civil War reenactments across the country. He said it took him about two weeks to build and is worth about $6,000. "It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg," Daugherty said. The cast iron and steel 4-inch gun barrel is 36 inches long. It is mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels. The cannon weighs about 700 pounds, so it is not something Logan will be able to carry to school in his backpack.

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Video: Time Lapse Test: Station Fire, a haunting little piece put together by Eric Speigelman.

The "Station Fire" has now spread to nearly 100,000 acres. Fires are a predictable, seasonal, and natural aspect of ecology and life in Southern California. The Onion nailed it here.

I know we say this every year, but the ones blazing out there as I type are particularly large and powerful. All weekend, it really did look (and smell) like a giant atomic bomb had gone off. The air throughout LA county was unsafe to breathe. Two firefighters died yesterday, while battling the blazes. I live and work in LA, nowhere near the flames and not at risk. All best wishes go out to BB friends who are in the danger zone. Be safe.

Below: Anthony Citrano's photo coverage of the Station Fire. There are several fires active right now, but this is the big one threatening Pasadena/Altadena/etc., including the NASA JPL facility. JPL's statement about the fire emergency is here, looks like they're pretty safe now. Citrano's Flickr set is here, with a number of truly stunning and scary shots (CC).

After the jump: WHOAH, BB reader Danimation shot another *incredible* time-lapse of the giant smoke clouds, you really have to see this one. Click ahead to view. Feel free to post other resources of interest in the comments.

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Timelapse - Los Angeles Wildfire from Dan B. on Vimeo.

Defense technology reporter Noah Shachtman says, "I've just finished a fascinating embed with the marines of 2/8 Echo company in Helmand province. They've been fighting the Taliban nearly non-stop for eight weeks, in one of the war's most active battlegrounds. Here is one of the stories I wrote last week while I was with Echo. It's an inside account of a sniper team's hit on a group of militants -- and the marines' multiple brushes with death, during the mission."

Links to Noah's stories for Wired while on embed in Afghanistan:

* Echo Company in the Eye of the Storm
* The Taliban Push Back
* And related posts by Noah on Afghanistan and Pakistan here.

Related BB post: US military cancels contract with firm that graded journalists' "positiveness"

Canis Lupus writes to mention that researchers from the University of West England are designing the world's first biological robot, constructed from mold. The robot, "Plasmobot," will be created using vegetative slime mold called plasmodium (Physarum polycephalum) that is commonly found in forests, gardens, and most damp places in the UK. "This new plasmodium robot, called plasmobot, will sense objects, span them in the shortest and best way possible, and transport tiny objects along pre-programmed directions. The robots will have parallel inputs and outputs, a network of sensors and the number crunching power of super computers. The plasmobot will be controlled by spatial gradients of light, electro-magnetic fields and the characteristics of the substrate on which it is placed. It will be a fully controllable and programmable amorphous intelligent robot with an embedded massively parallel computer."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

These tiny I-Swarm (Intelligent Small-World Autonomous Robots for Micro-manipulation) robots are incredibly neat! They move by using a piezoelectric transducer to vibrate across a surface in a manner similar to a bristlebot, only controllable. Because they are vibrating at audible frequencies, they also produce pleasant sounds as they move about. Someone should choreograph a tiny performance for them! [via hizook]

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Amazing dance scene from Pilobolus's SHADOWLAND: the "Transformation" excerpt.

Pilobolus is a "nonprofit modern dance theater obsessed with experimental digital media."

The show opens in Madrid on September 15. Can't wait until it comes to Los Angeles!

...so we earthlings can gaze at photographs like this. "Billows of smoke and steam rise above Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida alongside space shuttle Discovery as it races toward space on the STS-128 mission."

An in-house fave here @ Make: Online, Rock Band 2 for Xbox360 will soon be opening up to independent developers à la iPhone's App Sore. Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music gives an in-depth look at the what it will take to make your own music playable on the upcoming Rock Band Network. The process will require a licensed copy of Reaper audio software ($60, easily worth it on its own), a membership in Microsoft's XNA Creators’ Club ($100), plus of course an Xbox360 & copy of Rock Band 2. The Network is currently in closed beta, with a launch planned for October. More details over at CDM.

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Pre-IFA 2009: Leica has today revealed that we will know about 'the next generation of Leica Cameras' in just over a weeks time. According to an official video (presented by Rudi Spiller, CEO) there will be a live webcast at 9.00 AM EST on 09/09/09, there could be some numerical hint there. We will of course be reporting this live and bringing you full details on the day. Click through to watch the video.

Over the years, we've pointed to tons of research, especially historical research, that shows that near total lack of evidence that patents have any causal relationship to increased innovation. Some of the research shows little effect in either direction, and some of the research actually suggests a serious disincentive to innovate in the face of patents. If you're not all that familiar with innovation and patenting, this may come as a surprise. After all, the whole idea behind a patent is to create an incentive for someone to invent something that moves humankind forward (promoting the progress). The theory is that by providing some sort of gov't granted exclusive monopoly, the inventors have more of a reason to go forward.

There are two key problems with this theory, that explain why the historical evidence can find no support of this happening in practice. The first is that people invent and innovate for all sorts of reasons -- very rarely having to do with "because I can get a patent." It may be "because this is something I need or something I want." Or it could be because the innovator recognizes that with or without a patent, providing that product in the marketplace is likely to be lucrative (and being first in the marketplace is even more lucrative). Or, it may just be that the innovators are driven to make the world a better place. Whether it's profit motive or altruism, there are many reasons that invention and innovation occur without the need for patents.

The second key problem is the very nature of innovation itself. As anyone who's been involved with serious innovation over a period of time can tell you, innovation is an ongoing process, rather than a one-and-done sort of thing. You take an idea, and you work on it, and then you see what people think, and then you innovate, and you try something different and you get more feedback and you innovate some more, and so on. It never ends. You're always continuing to innovate. As such, others are often doing similar innovations, and the ability to leapfrog each other in the marketplace is actually a fantastic driver of innovation. If someone else is doing something cool, it's of little use to just copy them. You want to make something even better. And then they want to leapfrog you as well. That drives serious rapid innovation. A patent, on the other hand, greatly limits this whole process. Because it assumes that innovation is a one-and-done process. Someone comes up with something new, and that's it. The market needs to live with it until the patent expires or someone comes up with something entirely different. That's massively stifling on the normal process of innovation.

A few months back, two professors, Andrew W. Torrance and Bill Tomlinson, published a paper on a simulation game they ran to test out some of these hypotheses. A bunch of folks submitted this back when it first came out, but I wanted to spend some time looking over the details before writing about it. Basically, Torrance and Tomlinson create a nice simulation system that really does a good job simulating the various models for innovation with patents or in a more collaborative world. And, what they found in the simulation they ran supports what has actually happened in the real world, according to the research we've discussed in the past:

These results indicate that current patent systems (that is, systems combining patent and open source protection for inventions) may generate significantly lower rates of innovation (p<0.05), productivity (p<0.001), and social utility (p<0.002) than does a commons system. This suggests that current patent systems may significantly deter, rather than spur, technological innovation compared to a commons system.

Specifically, the results compared three separate models: one where everything gets patented, one where it's a hybrid model with both patents and a common, and one that was pure commons. The results are pretty striking. In the pure commons (no patents) world, they ended up with more innovation, significantly greater productivity and massively more social utility.

Given how well this seems to match up with previous research on what's actually happening, it seems like this model has at least something going for it. Still, it would be interesting to see what happens as they run more tests and continue to refine the sim. But it certainly raises ever more questions about the insistence among patent system supporters that the system must increase innovation. The evidence there is scant. The evidence on the other side? Quite imposing.

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theodp writes "Toddlers don't need to be texting, concedes the NYT's Lisa Belkinbut, but since they have always had toy typewriters and toy telephones, why not toy Blackberrys? If your little tyke is itching to text, the NYT has a round-up of texting devices aimed at children as young as three who want to talk with their thumbs. The question of, 'when is a child is old enough for their own cell phone' has been replaced with the question of, 'what type of texting gadget is appropriate for which age group.' But don't forget to lay down the law: 'Our 13-year-old got a phone with an unlimited plan as a reward for good grades,' says HiTechMommy.com blogger Cat Schwartz. 'Each night he is required to turn the phone in at 10 p.m. and then gets it back first thing in the morning.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Radley Balko's crime column for Reason Online this week "criticizes the thinly-veiled S&M fantasy/cop reality show, The Police Women of Broward County."

The most obvious criticism of these shows is their exploitation and general tackiness. Police work is reduced to clownish pranks, adrenalin-inducing raids, and telegenic lady cops edited to invoke S&M fantasies for the shlubs watching at home. No one expects much dignity from cable networks, but you'd think, for example, that the Broward County Sheriff's Department might object to the sexualization of its female officers, or to a national ad campaign insinuating that they're sporting itchy Taser fingers.

As for the SWAT programs, America has unfortunately grown comfortable with, or at least accustomed to, the idea of using SWAT teams to kick down doors and conduct volatile, confrontational raids for consensual, nonviolent crimes. We've seen a massive increase in these raids, from about 3,000 per year in the early 1980s to some 50,000 per year by the early 2000s. The popularity of SWAT shows didn't cause the problem, but their popularity is sympomatic of it, and they can only further ingrain the troubling notion that there's nothing wrong with sending a unit of cops dressed like soldiers into private homes to arrest nonviolent drug offenders. And of course, we're never going to see the wrong-door raids, or police mistakes that result in fatalities.

Don't Tase Me, Sis: Police Women of Broward County takes reality cop TV to new depths.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. 'It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg,' says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel howitzer, designed to use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent, has a 4-inch gun barrel that is 36 inches long mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels and took Daugherty about two weeks to build at a cost of about $6,000. 'I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift,' says Daugherty's 11-year old son Logan. Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he spoke to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and found it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat. Two days after the family celebrated Logan's 11th birthday, father and son offered a field demonstration of the new cannon on top of a grassy hill overlooking Fairmont, West Virginia and on the third try, the blank inside the barrel went boom and a cannon was born. For a followup they popped a golf ball into the gun barrel, lit the fuse, and watched the golf ball split the sky and land about 600 yards away. 'Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top,' Logan says."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Arnold appears alongside the Small Faces for an absolutely ass-kicking version of Tin Soldier on Flemish television from 1968"

On Dangerous Minds, Richard Metzger posted links to a bunch of video and audio tracks of a fantastic singer I've never heard of before, P.P. Arnold.

P.P. Arnold was one of the Ikettes, the backing singers for the Ike and Tina Turner Revue in the 60s, but after a visit to London, Mick Jagger, impressed by her powerful voice and stunning beauty—who wouldn’t be???—connected her with Andrew Loog Oldham, who signed her to his Immediate Records label, alongside acts like the Small Faces, Chris Farlowe (recognize that one?) and pre-Velvet Underground Nico (who was then recording songs Dylan had written for her with session musicians like Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones).

The Amazing Soul Rock Sound of P.P. Arnold

Stars and Stripes reports that the U.S. military is terminating a $1.5 million contract with The Rendon Group, a private firm that produced background profiles of reporters who requested military embed access in Afghanistan.

The firm graded journalists' past work as "positive," "negative" or "neutral." Military officials were presumed to be granting access to those whose profiles indicated they'd yield a future "positive" spin on reports from the battleground. Snip:

The Bagram Regional Contracting Center intends to execute a termination of the Media Analyst contract," belonging to The Rendon Group, said Col. Wayne Shanks, chief of public affairs for International Security Assistance Forces-Afghanistan.

The announcement follows a week of revelations by Stars and Stripes in which military public affairs officers who served in Afghanistan said that as recently as 2008 they had used reporter profiles compiled by The Rendon Group, a private public relations firm in Washington, D.C., to decide whether to grant permission to embed with troops on the battlefield.

Military terminates Rendon contract (Stars and Stripes, via Poynter/Romenesko)

Also: Read what the Rendon Group has to say about the matter: TRG Comment on Recent Reporting About Our Work in Afghanistan.

Back in March, Becky posted a link to a lampshade I made using this technique. Instructables user quixotiCfluX has posted a great tutorial showing the details of the process. He uses a cool trick with a staple remover to make sure all the tabs have exactly the same bend, which results in very uniform maille.

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tomachi writes "An accountant in NZ has been awarded $17,000 NZD for unfair dismissal after her boss fired her without warning for using uppercase letters in a single email to co-workers. The email, which advises her team how to fill out staff claim forms, specifies a time and date highlighted in bold red, and a sentence written in capitals and highlighted in bold blue. It reads: 'To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist.' Her boss deemed the capital letters too confrontational for her co-workers to read after they woke up from naptime."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

tomachi writes "An accountant in NZ has been awarded $17,000 NZD for unfair dismissal after her boss fired her without warning for using uppercase letters in a single email to co-workers. The email, which advises her team how to fill out staff claim forms, specifies a time and date highlighted in bold red, and a sentence written in capitals and highlighted in bold blue. It reads: 'To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist.' Her boss deemed the capital letters too confrontational for her co-workers to read after they woke up from naptime."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well, well. Last week there was a "town hall" meeting in Toronto about new copyright laws in Canada, and we'll have a more detailed post on that later. But there is one story that popped up from all of this that deserved a separate discussion. Apparently two Parliament Members, Olivia Chow and Charlie Angus, who have been big supporters of consumers' rights on copyright issues, have been called out by music industry lobbyists for distributing a 'disgusting' flyer. Why? Because that flyer contained an interview with Angus (a former musician in a popular punk band), where he talks about the importance of consumer rights and not following through with a DMCA-style law in Canada. It's hard to read anything in that interview that is "disgusting" -- unless you don't believe consumers have any rights. But that apparently was the position taken by Alan Willaert, the Canadian representative of the American Federation of Musicians, who not only called it disgusting, but also demanded a retraction and an apology.

It doesn't sound like he's going to get it. Charlie Angus is defending himself ably:

I was elected to participate in discussions about public policy. I have never heard of a lobbyist group demand an apology for speaking out about a totally botched piece of legislation like Bill C-61. If they spent less time running e-mail attacks and more time speaking with the various players they might realize that the NDP position has been balanced and consistent from the beginning.

As for a public recanting to satisfy the C-61 lobby ? Sorry, dude....it ain't happening.

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Creme DeMentia of GetLoFi shares the steps he took to turn a pair of common plastic maracas into piezo-powered electric maracas! Scroll down for details here.

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Please join me in welcoming John Baichtal to Make: Online! Let him tell you a bit about himself:

I'm a nerd interested in electronics, games, building sets, art and design, toys, hacking and writing. You may have seen my posts on the GeekDad blog, where I've been a contributor for over two years. I reside in beautiful Minneapolis, Minnesota with my lovely wife and three kids.

You'll be seeing more from him this week, and if you can't get enough, you can also follow him on Twitter. Welcome, John!

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adeelarshad82 writes "Advanced Micro Devices has launched a low-power version of its six-core Opteron processor in time for VMworld, a key virtualization show that opens on Monday. The six-core AMD Opteron EE consumes 40 watts, and is designed for 2P servers, among the most popular in the virtualized server space."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Glenn Greenwald uses the fact that Jenna Bush has been hired as a White House (Correction: she won't be covering the White House) correspondent for NBC's "Today" show as springboard for a scorching rant on America's ruling elite and the myth of American "meritocracy."

They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it's really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from...

Just to underscore a very important, related point: all of the above-listed people are examples of America's Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work -- The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor -- who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice -- is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

It's time to embrace American royalty (via Making Light)

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Flickr member kc6qhp created this impressive enclosure for an Arduino Pro -

I made this housing for an Arduino Pro that will control my waveguide relay in my 47 GHz radio. This housing is made from 6061 billet aluminum. The cover is held on with a dozen 0-80 screws. There i a cutout for the programming connection and a filtered DC feedthrough. Later I will add other connectors for the servo and transmit/receive switch, etc. 

Sturdy! - more pics on Flickr.

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It's hardly a new idea, but BullJustin points us to an article in Wired about what the author, Robert Capps, refers to as The Good Enough Revolution, in which he talks about various offerings that have succeeded in the marketplace, despite not having the "quality" of the leading products. So, he talks about the Flip Digital video cameras, compared to higher end camcorders, mp3s vs. CDs, and things like Zoho Writer vs. Microsoft Word. His explanation is that these "lower quality" products are "good enough," and tend to offer certain features, such as easier accessibility, lower price and better ease of use.

I'd argue that the concept of "good enough" misses the point -- and the real issue is that the actual quality is in those other characteristics that he discusses. The real problem is that some start to focus on the "quality" of some aspect of the product, rather than the quality of meeting what the consumer wants. It's the same thing we've discussed over and over again, with a company (or industry) not really understanding its market. The first automobiles were a lot crappier than the fancy horse carriages you could buy -- but they did the important thing better: getting you somewhere faster and cheaper.

The issue is that the focus on "quality" is on the wrong attribute. It's also why many people falsely claim that the VHS beat Betamax, despite "lower quality." Yes, it may have had lower quality of the recorded video, but that wasn't the attribute people cared about. They wanted to be able to record longer videos, which the Betamax was not set up to do, but VHS was. In almost every one of these stories, you find that it really was an issue of quality -- but the real question was what attribute the market cared about when it came to quality.

With the MP3 and the Flip Camera and Zoho Writer (and many others), it appears convenience is a driving attribute. So while all may seem to have less in terms of the type of "quality" that some like to focus on, they ignore what the market actually wants, which appears to be convenience.

This, too, is one of the reasons why it doesn't make sense to get so focused on the product when you don't know what the market actually wants. The people who create the initial products almost always assume that the most important attributes are the product itself, rather than the convenience it provides users. There will always be snobs who want to focus on the "highest quality" possible, but they're part of a small market, rather than a mass market. And if that's "good enough" for them, that's fine -- but it misses the real marketing opportunity.

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Woah: Disney's buying Marvel:

Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney on August 28, 2009, Marvel shareholders would receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. At closing, the amount of cash and stock will be adjusted if necessary so that the total value of the Disney stock issued as merger consideration based on its trading value at that time is not less than 40% of the total merger consideration...

Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including its more than 5,000 Marvel characters. Mr. Perlmutter will oversee the Marvel properties, and will work directly with Disney's global lines of business to build and further integrate Marvel's properties.

Disney to Acquire Marvel Entertainment (via /.)

Shome writes "Apple has stated that there is no evidence that recent iPhone explosions reported by users are connected to overheating of batteries. It may be stated that French consumer affairs authorities have started their own investigation on the reported explosions, some of which have caused minor injuries to the users, and are studying the phone's safety features. The Inquirer runs a piece that blames Apple for blaming its customers. 'This mysterious force is not God, or a rival religion, nor does it require any metaphysics to understand. An "external force" is just Apple's term for the black shirted people who believe that everything that Apple makes is wonderful. It is what other companies call their "customers," writes Nick Farrell.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK, so this morning we took the kid to the zoo in Regent's Park on the 205 bus. The bus we got was quite a new one, and right by the driver was a screen showing the feed from the sixteen CCTV cameras on this one bus. How much of that footage to they actually archive? For how long? And how much of it do they lose track of?

SIXTEEN cameras on the new London bus, 205, Islington, London, UK.JPG

whisper_jeff writes "Disney has announced they will be purchasing Marvel. 'Building on its strategy of delivering quality branded content to people around the world, The Walt Disney Company has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. in a stock and cash transaction, the companies announced today.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David over at Boing-Boing spotted this jaw-dropping video of an experimental robot arm doing things that scare the bejeesus out of me. David writes:

Researchers from the Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory at the University of Tokyo presented this incredible video of a high-speed robotic hand at the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. The laboratory's Web site has many more videos related to this project, called Sensor Fusion. Sensor Fusion: High Speed Robots

For my money, the most impressive stuff is around 2:22, near the end.

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G3ckoG33k writes "According to Electronic Arts officer Rich Hilleman, 'the price of producing console games has rocketed, with marketing costing up to three times more than the development of a title.'" Sounds pretty insane, but does anyone know how this compares to the film industry?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

G3ckoG33k writes "According to Electronic Arts officer Rich Hilleman, 'the price of producing console games has rocketed, with marketing costing up to three times more than the development of a title.'" Sounds pretty insane, but does anyone know how this compares to the film industry?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Taylor Davidson alerts us to an odd blog post with suggestions on how photographers need to adapt to the changing market place. As Davidson properly notes, there's some good points mixed in there with some really odd conclusions. The writer does a decent job explaining how the market has shifted -- with the ease of digital production and distribution, the old exclusivities have gone away. But, from there, gets confused about what to do with it, focusing on trying to build up artificial scarcities or suggesting that photographers try to ignore basic economics. That's not going to work.

The key point is that the writer seems to think that the key scarcity is uniqueness, as if there's some exclusivity to it. Uniqueness is a good thing, but it's not the same thing as exclusivity (again, a point Davidson makes). Uniqueness is what gets you noticed (promotion) and what makes your real scarcities (time, access, experience, etc.) worth more. But the writer of the post seems to think that uniqueness can only be developed by shunning others, learning from no one, and trying to hide all of your ideas. Some examples:

Hide your best work. Only your clients should see it. no one else.

I can't think of an idea any worse than this. Earlier, the writer suggests focusing on commissioned work. You don't get commissioned if you're hiding your best work. Your best work is the calling card for you to get commissioned work.

Do not share or post your techniques. You will only be popular with the ones that have no imaginations. Like leeches, they feed on others knowledge.

Yes, because all brilliant photographers are simply born brilliant, and never learned a thing from others. The statement above does not mesh with any creative process I know. Sure, there will always be some copycats and "leeches," but if you are an innovator, that's only good for you. It boosts your own reputation as being a trendsetter. Furthermore, most truly creative people use the ideas of others as a part of their own, and build on them -- taking pieces of what they find from others, but still building on them and creating something new and unique. Hiding your techniques doesn't make you exclusive or your work more valuable. It likely just means you're cut off from what is state of the art.

Never, ever ask for the opinion of another photographer. If its good, they will copy you, if it's bad, they won't tell you.

Someone's sounding a bit paranoid here. Collaboration and feedback are good things. They're what help people grow. The problem is that the writer seems to think that this market is a zero sum game, of sorts. If one photographer has a good idea, it's one less good idea for the rest of the world. That also explains the following:

Do not copy. If you have an idea, look to see if it has been done. If it has, drop it. Move on. be creative.

Of course, an awful lot of creativity is done by unique individuals looking to redo the work of others, but adding their own style and flare to it.

All in all, I recognize that it's tough for content creators in disrupted markets to come to terms with the market challenges they're facing, but locking everything up isn't the answer. Cutting yourself off from the world, and hiding your best work, is not the answer. That seems only guaranteed to make your own market dwindle. No one will recommend you. People searching for you won't find you. Your work may be unique, but you'll have missed out on valuable ideas and feedback from others. It's hard to see how that's a winning strategy at all.

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chrb writes "Several British news sources have recently reported on the growing campaign that calls for an apology to Alan Turing for his persecution by the British government. The petition to the Prime Minister was started by John Graham-Cumming, who has also written to the Queen requesting a Knighthood for Turing, but admits that a pardon is "unlikely", saying "The most important thing to me is that people hear about Alan Turing and realize his incredible impact on the modern world, and how terrible the impact of prejudice was on him"."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

angry tapir writes "Many libraries routinely delete borrower information, and organizations such as the American Library Association have fought hard to preserve the privacy of their patrons in the face of laws such as the US Patriot Act. But now, as more and more titles become available in Google Book Search, it's not clear whether digital readers will enjoy the same privacy protections they have at the library."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wikitude Drive is an AR navigation system for the Android platform. Originally developed as a proof-of-concept, the app is a fully-functional navigation system that draws turn-by-turn directions over the live camera.

[via AndroidGuys]

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More than two years ago, we talked about a great idea to deal with the (somewhat misleading) question of the trustworthiness of Wikipedia: color code new edits from untrustworthy editors. Not only would this alert people to at least double-check that particular info, it would remind people that Wikipedia is a constantly changing site. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed that I hadn't heard much about this idea since that summer of 2007. However, apparently, it's been gaining in popularity, and now Wikipedia is set to start using it across the site. Here's how it works:

Based on an person's past contributions, WikiTrust computes a reputation score between zero and nine. When someone makes an edit, the background behind the new text gets shaded orange depending on their reputation: the brighter the orange, the less "trust" the text has. Then when another author edits the page, they essentially vote on the new text. If they like the edit, they'll keep it, and if not, they'll revert it. Text that persists will become less orange over time, as more editors give their votes of approval.

While there are some concerns about how well this will work (and how much processing power it will take), it seems like a worthwhile experiment.

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Multimedia animated slideshow creators are web-based services which allow you to remix pictures, photos, video clips and music to create visually impactful showcases, slideshows or just memories of a great holiday. In this guide I have selected and reviewed the best multimedia remixing tools available out there. These multimedia remixing tools allow anyone with little or no technical knowledge to create compelling audio-video slideshows. While experienced users may access advanced features to fine-tune their creations, anyone can get started and produce decent results in a matter of minutes. With these tools, remixing photos and videos into a multimedia animated slideshow is absolutely a no-brainer for both the technically-savvy and the novice alike. In this guide I am presenting two comparative tables and a set of mini-reviews to put all of these multimedia remixers through their paces. First, here are the key features that characterize these multimedia animated slideshow creators:

• Web-based: You do not have to burn CDs to show your slideshows to family and friends anymore. Since these multimedia slideshow creators are all web-based, you just need a computer connected to the Internet and you are done. No more carrying around heavy slide projectors and screens to set up.
• Media import: You can easily access digital content stored inside your media libraries. Either from your computer or across the web, it becomes easier to upload photos and videos to edit and combine into a multimedia slideshow.
• Special effects: You have access to a wide range of transitions and special effects to pimp up the visual impact of your slideshows. You can use customized backgrounds, titles, interactive texts, frames, borders and clickable hotspots inside your slideshows.
• Music: You can either upload your own songs or choose some readily-available tunes inside the music library of the service. Then you can sync (automatically or manually) your music and visuals to create a perfect mix.
• Distribution: You can publish your visual creations on any website or social media page by simply pasting a standard snippet of embed code.

Second, the criteria I have used to select and review these multimedia animated slideshow creators:

• Remixing: Remix your media in an automatic or manual fashion
• Templates: Utilize ready-made templates to create slideshows.
• Social media import: Grab photos and videos from own social media.
• Music library: Access to royalty-free / paid music library.
• Download: Save created slideshows to your computer.
• Social media distribution: Share slideshows on social media sites.
• Private / public: Enable and restrict access to slideshows.
• Pro features: Access an advanced set of features with premium paid accounts.

Please note: When I write "multimedia animated slideshows" I am clearly not referring to those kind of slideshows you can generate on Flickr or Picasa. What I am presenting here are instead slideshows enriched with transitions, animated texts and special effects, that look like professionally-produced movie trailers. Still, you have no idea of what a multimedia slideshow looks like? Check out some of the examples I have prepared for you right beneath this guide comparison tables. Here all the details:

Co-Browsing Tools Comparative Tables

Examples of Multimedia Slideshows and Remixes

Created with Scrapblog
Created with Animoto
Created with Vuvox

Multimedia Animated Slideshow Creators And Remixing Tools

1. One True Media
   
   One True Media is a free multimedia slideshow creator. After the registration process, you can upload your media and start mashing up your photos and videos. Plus, you can add transitions, special effects, frames, texts and rotate images and videos to customize your project. You can also add music tracks from your computer or from the music catalog of One True Media. If you do not want to start from scratch with your slideshow, the service provides you with a set of ready-made templates, priced at $2.99 each. Your project can either be public or private. If your project is public, other registered members can edit and republish your slideshow. Once your project is completed, you can download it to your hard-disk, distribute it using social media or e-mail and even embed your slideshow on the web. You cannot import media from third-party online services. The premium account costs $3.99/month and allows you to have advanced editing options, unlimited monthly uploads and creations, player skins for embedded sharing, premium music, and more.
   http://www.onetruemedia.com/
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Scrapblog
   
   Scrapblog is a free online slideshow generator. After registering, you can combine photos, videos and music in a multimedia presentation using a drag-and-drop interface. A slideshow can either be public or private and you can start with a blank page or choose a free template from Scrapblog gallery. Then upload selected photos and videos from your computer or import any media collection from Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and other services. Later you may add a music track from the Scrapblog library and customize orientation, opacity, size, shape of the elements on your slideshow. When your project is finished, you can order it in a print format, share it via social media, download the project to your computer and also send your creation via e-mail. By purchasing credits from Scrapblog, you can also use ready-made templates, stickers, customized backgrounds, frames and more to enhance your slideshow. With $10 you get about 100 credits. A premium account is not available.
   http://www.scrapblog.com/
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Animoto
   
   With Animoto you can produce automatic multimedia remixes of your videos, images and music for free. Just register, choose a music track and some images and videos to start. Animoto analyzes the music and automatically harmonizes your track to the images and videos while adding special effects and transitions. You can either import your photos and videos from your computer or have Animoto grab your media on popular sharing sites to start. The service claims than two videos are never the same, even re-using identical media content. Anyway, if you are not satisfied with the result, you can always manually re-arrange the order of your media and try again. You can embed your slideshow on any social media site, web page or send it via e-mail. You cannot set private / public projects nor have free templates to start with. The premium account is priced at $249/year and allows you to produce slideshows for commercial use, create full length slideshows, access the extended music library, remove the logo of the service and download your slideshows.
   http://animoto.com/
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Vuvox
   
   Vuvox allows you to mix, create and blend your media - video, photos and music - into visual creations without spending a dime. After registering to the service, you have three service at your disposal: Express, to create visual presentations from the RSS feed of a photo album you have on social media; Collage, to build an interactive storyboard with videos, links, images, music and clickable hotspots; Studio, to create any kind of professional media presentation with several fine-tuning options. Whatever project you want to start, Vuvox lets you upload your own media from your computer or grab your photos, videos and music from your social media on the web. You can either create a private or a public slideshow. No free templates or music library are available. Once your slideshow is created, you can share it via e-mail or social media, but you cannot download it to your computer. A premium account is not available.
   http://www.vuvox.com/
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Joggle
   
   Joggle is a free media library that allows you to create animated slideshows and music playlists. Based on Adobe Air, Joogle lets you remix your digital content regardless of its location: social media sites, online communities, external storage devices and computers. You just select the photos and videos you want to mix and choose a music track to start. Then add transitions, special effects and tweak other options to customize your project. Joogle does not work by actually importing your media, but just providing you with referrals and copies of your files to work on. What this means is your project dynamically changes as you modify the original files where you have stored them. Once your project is created, you can download it to your computer, publish it on the web using web widgets or share your creation privately via e-mail. No private / public projects nor free templates are supported. Premium account is also not available.
   http://beta.joggle.com/
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Roxio PhotoShow
   
   With PhotoShow from Roxio you can blend your digital photos with your favorite tunes in a multimedia animated project. Just submit your media to Roxio and the service automatically remixes your content by adding special effects and transitions. If you are not satisfied with the final result, you can modify your project and also add text, bubbles, borders, frames and much more until you get a rendering you like. You can either upload photos and videos from your computer or import content from your social media accounts. When your slideshow is finished, you can distribute your creation to any web site or social media. No private / public projects are available. The premium account of Roxio PhotoShow costs $39.99/year and allows you to use ready-made templates, access the Roxio music library, upload your own MP3s and also burn or download your slideshows.
   http://www.photoshow.com

Originally prepared by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and first published on August 31st, 2009 as "Multimedia Animated Slideshow Creators And Remixing Tools - Guide To Best Online Services".

Shattering door by Leandro Erlich...

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Using a couple computers, a PhidgetInterfaceKit with RelayBoard, and a bevy of client/server software, Matthias Wagler and friends from Intuity Media Lab built a Rube Goldberg XMPP messaging system to frob a light using an Andorid-powered mobile device. Check out this behind-the-scenes video detailing set-up.

[via hackaday]

Speaking of 'Making Things Talk"...

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One of the benefits of Skype was that, due to the way it works (P2P, encrypted communications), it made it much more difficult to do any sort of wiretap. This has upset various governments who are used to having the ability to wiretap any voice communications. However, it's never impossible. The most obvious way is to simply create some sort of trojan that gets installed on one user's computer that has audio recording abilities -- and Symantec is going around hyping up the fact that source code for just such a trojan has been released. Of course, even Symantec admits that there's no evidence of the code actually being used in the wild -- it seems more like a proof-of-concept. On top of that, it's hardly a new idea. Nearly a year ago, we talked about how German authorities were accused of using something that sounded quite similar. Still, it is a good reminder that even if you're using an encrypted Skype call, at either end of that call, the audio is decrypted, and a well-placed recording system can capture it.

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A few weeks ago I made this get well gift for a good friend of mine, Gareth Branwyn. I took a few pictures, and a quick video, just to document it prior to shipping it off. I wasn't sure if I should blog it, but then I talked with Gareth today and he asked me to post it up on MAKE. So here it is! I hope you all like it as much as I liked making it.

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Barence writes "A British company has patented what can only be described as an orange goo that could save your laptop or iPod after a nasty fall. The amazing material is soft and malleable like putty, but the substance becomes solid instantly after impact. You can punch your fist into a ball of the material sitting on a desk and not feel a thing, according to the staff at PC Pro who have been testing the material, called 3do. It's being used by the military, the US downhill ski team, and motorcycle clothing manufacturers to provide impact protection in the event of a crash. However, it's also appearing in protective cases for laptops and MP3 players."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Museum of Animal Perspectives sticks cameras on the heads of animals and uploads the resulting videos to Flickr. I'm fond of the armadillocam, but wolfcam and cowcam are pretty cool too. Ooh! Pigcam! Goatcam! Cow licking own rearcam!

Museum of Animal Perspectives (via JWZ)

Environmental scientist Jennifer Jacquet poses they question, "Are You an Eco-Douchebag? The test is simple: read this sign ["Dear customers: Please be advised that our Bread Slicer is used for both Organic and Conventional items"] (recently photographed at my local Vancouver market, which is owned by Whole Foods) then gauge your response..."

Now, I'm inclined to believe that pesticide-free food production has health benefits and is good for the planet, but likewise: it is the major crazy to believe that pesticides leap from the bread-slicer wires into your wholesome organic loaf.

Are You an Eco-Douchebag?

Tiger4 writes "Cancer researchers in the UK have come up with a way to sniff for lung cancer on the breath. 'From the results, the researchers identified 42 "volatile organic compounds" (VOCs) present in the breath of 83% of cancer patients but fewer than 83% of healthy volunteers. Four of the most reliable were used to develop a nine-sensor array made from tiny gold particles coated with reactive chemicals sensitive to the compounds.' Other sources have picked up the story as well. Obviously, this would be a big breakthrough for rapid screening, and early detection significantly improves outcomes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I enjoyed this NPR profile of extreme DIYer Tim Anderson, who writes our "Heirloom Technology" column for Make.

Do-It-Yourself Guru who Makes Treasures From Trash

• Autonomous bot uses iPod for serial display

• Arduino binary clock in wood [above, bottom-right]

• Dice reader version 1

• SpringBox rocks the reverb [above, bottom-left]

• Virtual organ controller looks spot-on! [above, top-right]

• DIY pushbutton potentiometer [above, top-left]

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Thanks to Michael, Shakes, and everyone else who pointed out that the technology to make lighter-than-air foam logotypes and other symbols has been around for awhile, and was not, in fact, invented by Stuart Semple as I claimed yesterday. And to be fair to Stuart, he's not claiming to have invented it, either. The trade name for these machines is "Flogos."

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xmpcray writes "Less than four months from now, India's first stealth fighter will fly for the first time. It is called the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, or FGFA, and is being developed in Russia by Sukhoi. Several of the technologies being developed for the stealth fighter have evolved from those used in the Sukhoi 30 MKI. Considered the most maneuverable fighter in the world, the Sukhoi 30 MKI uses thrust vectored engines, which deflect the exhaust from its engines to extreme angles, enabling the jet to pull off violent maneuvers like a flat spin — where the jet literally spins around on its axis."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is a great way to teach chemistry to kids :)

Two New Zealand schoolgirls humbled one of the world's biggest food and drugs companies after their school science experiment found that their ready-to-drink Ribena contained almost no trace of vitamin C. Students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo tested the blackcurrant cordial against rival brands to test their hypothesis that cheaper brands were less healthy. Instead, their tests found that the Ribena contained a tiny amount of vitamin C, while another brand's orange juice drink contained almost four times more.

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Slatterz writes "Security giant Symantec claims to have found the public release of source code for a Trojan that targets Skype users. Trojan.Peskyspy is spyware which records a voice call and stores it as an MP3 file for later transmission. An infected machine will use the software that handles audio processing within a computer and save the call data as an MP3. The file is then sent over the internet to a predefined server where the attacker can listen to the recorded conversations."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Adam Dunkels writes "Inspired by the Twitter-sized program that crashes Mac OS X, I just wrote a really, really rudimentary IP stack called twIP, small enough to fit in a Twitter tweet. Although twIP is very far away from a real IP stack, it can do the first task of any IP stack: respond to pings. The entire source code can be found in this 128-character-long tweet. For those who are interested in low-level network programming, a code walkthrough with instructions on how to run the code under FreeBSD is available here. The FAQ: Q: why? A: for fun."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here are some of my favorites from CRAFT this week:

CRAFT Video: Intro to Metalworking

Spore Prints

How-To: T-Shirt Quilt

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AUDIO EMBED ABOVE: Two trolls on ham radio, one identified as "G-K," the other as "Robert" or "R-J" overheard accidentally on August 29, 2009, while surfing first responder frequencies during the August 2009 Los Angeles wildfires. The two men argued with each other about various technical subjects of interest to radio ops, then discussed drugs and past jail time, then notes on an Andy Griffith show marathon, then torture they'd like to perform on each other in great detail because they hate each other so much. Stay with it.

Technical note: sorry about the audible LOLs -- a friend held the scanner in their lap, and I held my iPhone 3Gs above the scanner, using "voice memo" app to record the audio. None of us could contain ourselves.

Archive.org: Random Ham Radio Trollfight: August 29, 2009, Los Angeles CA (thanks, Chief Fulfiller of Needs + fam!)

scrubl writes "The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has revealed its latest flight simulator runs on SUSE Linux-based clusters of Opteron servers and uses an open source graphics platform. The Defence Science and Technology Organisation's (DSTO) Air Operations Simulation Centre in Melbourne creates virtual worlds that allow pilots to experience real-world combat situations without leaving the ground. The visuals software was written in OpenGL, using commercial and open source scene graph engines and making 'heavy use of OpenGL Shader Language programs.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

scrubl writes "The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has revealed its latest flight simulator runs on SUSE Linux-based clusters of Opteron servers and uses an open source graphics platform. The Defence Science and Technology Organisation's (DSTO) Air Operations Simulation Centre in Melbourne creates virtual words that allow pilots to experience real-world combat situations without leaving the ground. The visuals software was written in OpenGL, using commercial and open source scene graph engines and making 'heavy use of OpenGL Shader Language programs.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Old CD drives are a decent source for parts to make things from. Since the computer industry has encouraged manufacturing churn for so many decades, it is pretty easy to find at least a few surplus drives to dissect. Inside these dusty relics, you will be lucky to find DC motors, switches, gears, springs and more. The tools you will need are pretty easy to come by as well. From the parts you will find, you can make a number of interesting projects.

You can get drives from old computers, which always seem to be at the dump, on the sidewalk of some neighborhoods, out on the loading dock of the school, in basements and garages, etc. It is important that wherever you get them they come to you legitimately free of expectations. These will not be functioning drives after a few minutes of the project.

Teach your family to solder! Take a few pictures tagged as "MAKEcation" and put them in the MAKE Flickr pool by September 9th to enter to win a $100 Maker Shed gift certifiate!

Supplies:
Old computer CD drives (older ones often have better parts)
Plastic bags for storing parts (zippered half size sandwich bags are great)
Small cardboard boxes for storing the larger metal and plastic parts
Battery holder
Tape
Paper and pen
Digital camera
Paper clip

Tools:
Safety glasses
Small phillips head screwdriver
Straight screwdriver
Jeweler's screwdrivers
Pliers, needle nose or channel lock
Utility knife
Soldering iron
Wire cutters/strippers

Concepts:
How does it work?
How is it made?
Differences in technique and age of manufacture
Identifying electrical components
Getting and organizing supplies for future use

Time frame:
An hour or more is ideal

Mastery Objective:
Students and participants will know how to safely disassemble a CD drive or similar electrojunk for parts and project supplies so that they can name the parts inside the device, compare the varieties of manufacturing techniques to solve the same problem and organize the usable parts and components for future use in projects.

Process:
What do you have?
Probably the first thing to do is look at the exterior of the drives you have.
Make note of any markings on the drive. Some things you will likely find are the manufacturer, model number, read/write speed of the drive and my favorite: Date of Manufacture.
The date of manufacture will give you some context to judge the drives in your collection by. Often the older the drive is, the more "off the shelf" the components are.

Use your camera:
Take some photos with your camera or camera phone to show the process of taking the drive apart.
You can also have participants and students take pictures of each of the systems they find, and each of the types of components they find inside.

Case disassembly:
Put on your safety glasses.
Use a screwdriver to take the metal case off the drive. It will usually be 4 phillips screws on the sides that hold it together.
In taking off the metal case, try to keep it from getting deformed. The steel can be useful later. You may find that there are plastic tabs holding one of the pieces in place.
Try to get the case to just fall apart without having to be forced. Most of the time it will just come apart after you remove the screws and press on the plastic tabs.
If you do have to tug on the parts, you may have missed a screw under a sticker. If all else fails, make sure all of the eyes are protected, and pull it apart carefully, probably below the table.
Pop open the CD drawer by straightening out a paper clip and slipping it into the hole on the front panel. The drawer should open easily. You might even find a disc inside.
To remove the drawer, you may have to pry apart the plastic sides, or it might just come apart easily. Different models have varying designs. Be careful if you put force on it that the parts don't fly and hurt somebody.

Be careful not to Over-Disassemble!
You may find that there is a dc motor that is in a plastic housing that holds it in contact with a gear which could serve as a nice little drive wheel. Take it out, but secure it together so it can be used in a future project. If it doesn't stay together with screws or pressure fitting plastic, run a bit of tape around it to hold it.
You may also find that the CD reading eye moves nicely on its' slides. If it is controlled by a DC motor, this could be a neat system to use later.
Basically, look at the things you are taking apart, and see if they can be used as systems or components.
Securing the wires coming from the motor with a bit of tape will help keep them from breaking off later.

Motors and how to read them:
You should find two types of motors inside: DC motor and Stepper motor.

The easiest way to identify a DC motor is by looking at the number of wires coming off it. Most have just two wires. DC motors are controlled by sending electricity through the motor, causing it to turn either clockwise or counterclockwise. Sometimes you may find that there are several more wires going into another area of the case. These can be to an encoder that helps read the speed and direction of the motor.

Stepper motors have more wires coming from them, and often are built right onto a circuit board. These turn by receiving a series of pulses, each of which advances the motor one step. By controlling the timing and quantity of the pulses with a microcontroller, it is possible to precisely set the speed and even the number of degrees the motor will turn.

Save the good bits
As you go, put the useful parts into plastic bags or bins. Label the bags with scraps of paper for easy identification.
You should be able to find at least the following:

• DC motors, usually one will open the tray, sometimes you will find a second to move the eye.
• Gears to drive the mechanisms
• Switches, either momentary pushbutton or other mechanical contactors
• Headphone jack
• Potentiometer
• LED
• Screws

Desolder the components you want from the circuit boards:
The headphone jack, LED, momentary switches and sometimes motors will be soldered directly to the circuit boards. You can use a desoldering braid and an iron to free these items from the boards. If they have fittings, you may want to keep the fittings and instead remove the headers that connect them to the board. You should be able to scrape the coating off the metal traces to solder the fittings to a wire for future projects.

Extensions:
Make a vibrobot.
Practice soldering and desoldering with the components on the boards.
Use a battery holder to power some of the things you find inside.
Use a fishing tackle box to store your parts in labeled bins.
Make a video explaining what you have found inside your CD drives.
Make a poster identifying each of the parts of a CD drive and telling what each does.
Use the parts of the drives to make something amazing!

So give it a shot!
You can try this solo, but it is definitely more fun scavenging old drives in a group with the stuff all ending up on the table. You can compare the differences and similarities between drives better in a group, and you can share observations about the systems. Having a nice collection of stuff to pick from is a great feature of the project. An added bonus is finding handwritten markings made by the people who made the drive. Give yourself and the group some time to explore what you find. In my experience, it takes a few hours to dig through the drives and then make something from the debris. You can do it in one workshop, or you can spread it over a few classes. Share your findings in the comments, and add your photos to the MAKE Flickr pool.

More:

• Homemade microscope using web cam and a CD-ROM lens
• How-To: Quick, cheap soldering stand
• How-To: Free DIY battery holders
• Drawing techniques for making

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binarybits writes "I've written an article for the free-market Cato Institute about how patents impede innovation in the software industry. It points out that people tend not to realize how vast the software industry is. It's not just Google and Microsoft; virtually every organization has an IT department producing potentially-infringing software. Organizations as diverse as J. Crew and the Green Bay Packers have been sued for patent infringement. It's crazy to expect all these organizations to worry about potential patent infringement. Hopefully the Supreme Court's Bilski decision will lead to new limits on software patents."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today on the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a pithy and startlingly accurate summary of the state of science reporting (be sure to click through for the whole thing).

How Science Reporting Works (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

T Murphy writes "Wind farms can appear like storms or tornadoes on Doppler radar when placed too close to the radar. Tornado alley is a good area for wind farms, and good terrain for the turbines is also ideal for Doppler radar. With many new farms being constructed, the problem is growing. A false tornado warning was issued in Kansas by a computer, although canceled by a meteorologist aware of the problem- there are fears that false positives will grow. Worse would be a tornado ignored as a wind turbine. While meteorologists are trying to work with wind farm owners to shut off the turbines during bad weather, they have no control over the placement or operation of the turbines. Efforts are being made to improve detection technology to avoid further problems."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that according to new research, nitrous oxide, the colorless, sweet-smelling gas with a long history as a medical and dental anesthetic is the next big threat to Earth's protective ozone layer. Its role in destroying ozone has long been recognized, as well as its role as a heat-trapping greenhouse gas but the new study puts nitrous oxide's ability to deplete ozone into numbers comparable to those used for other ozone-depleting gases covered by the 1987 Montreal Protocol. The researchers note that the health of the ozone layer has been improving since the adoption of the protocol and that nitrous oxide looms large today as an artificial destroyer of the ozone layer, in part because the emissions of other harmful chemicals have been so sharply reduced." (Continues.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the early-mid-90s there was a Mac desktop app that was a Domain Name Server. Here's how you'd set it up.

1. Put it in your Startup Items folder so it would launch at startup.

2. When it booted a window opens with a list of all the domains it was managing. Of course initially it was empty. You could click on the name of any of them to edit the settings in a dialog. There was a place to edit the name of the domain. A place to add an A record or a CNAME. (In other words it works more or less the same as any web app we use to manage DNS.)

3. An Add button at the bottom of the window. Click it and a dialog like the one in #2 would appear, except all the fields would be blank.

4. There was a text file that also configured the server, in fact the dialogs above just served to add, remove or change the text in the file. I suspect the file was in a standard format that all DNS's use.

Anticipating what people are going to say, yes, I know there's a DNS built into the Mac, but it doesn't have a graphic interface and the instructions for setting it up are ridiculous. I think the one on Windows has a graphic UI, but I can't find any comprehensible instructions that explain how to set it up.

A college classmate, Sandy Wilbourn, who I think of as a brother, is an expert in DNS, and he says the app I'm looking for doesn't exist. I threatened to write it myself, he advised against it. Oh man. What is it with these simple web services that we're allowed to use them through a web app, but they don't want us running our own. I'm going to run my own DNS at some point, and I'd rather do it sooner than later.

Someone is going to ask why I need to do this. I have a good reason. You can either take my word or pay me $1000 and I'll explain.

Update: Chuck Shotton points to MenAndMice's server for Windows, and JY points to CutEdge's server for Mac. Both appear to fit the bill. Thanks guys!!

Scythal writes "In-game advertising provider Massive Inc., acquired by Microsoft in 2006, has signed up or renewed contracts with several publishers, notably EA, Blizzard Entertainment, THQ, and Activision. Eagerly anticipated games like Need for Speed: Shift will feature the technology that continuously collects 'anonymous' information about users, sends them to the Massive database for analysis, and downloads advertisements to be shown in the game. All that happens insidiously, without the users' explicit consent and out of their control, which raises further concerns about privacy, security and quite frankly, customer abuse. Would you feel concerned about software that collects personal information and sends it so that you get more personalized ads in a game you paid for?" (More, below.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Name an industry that can produce 1 million new, high-paying jobs over the next three years, challenges BusinessWeek. You can't, because there isn't one. And that's the problem. So what's the answer? Basic research can repair the broken US business model, argues BW, saying it's the key to new, high-quality job creation. Scientific research legends like Bell Labs, Sarnoff Corp, and Xerox PARC are essentially gone, or shadows of their former selves. And while IBM, Microsoft, and HP collectively spend $17B a year on R&D, only 3%-5% of that is for basic science. In a post-9/11 world, DARPA's mission has shifted from science to tactical projects with short-term military applications. Cutting back on investment in basic science research may make great sense in the short term, but as corporations and government make the same decision to free-ride off the investments of others, society suffers the 'tragedy of the commons,' wherein multiple actors operating in their self-interest do harm to the overall public good. We've reached that point, says BW, and we're just beginning to see the consequences. The cycle needs to be reversed, and it needs to be done quickly."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "While most of the attention at Thursday's Canadian copyright town hall was on the recording industry's strategy to pack the room and exclude alternate voices, the most controversial activity took place outside the hall. It has now been revealed that security guards threatened students and a Member of Parliament for distributing leaflets, and the American Federation of Musicians termed the MP's leaflet, which called for balanced copyright, 'disgusting' and demanded a retraction and apology. At this point, such an admission seems unlikely."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Attila Dimedici writes "According to Cloudmark, 419 spammers are using the democrats.org website to relay email and bypass spam filters. 'The abuse, which dates back at least to the beginning of this month, helps evade filters that internet service providers employ to block the messages. ... The messages were sent courtesy of this page, which allows anyone with an internet connection to send emails. The PHP script employs no CAPTCHA or other measure to help ensure there is a real human being behind each email that gets funneled through the service. The service allows messages to be sent to 10 addresses at a time and even provides a way for people to import contacts they have stored in their address book.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trepidity writes "About seven weeks after the judge tentatively overturned Lori Drew's guilty verdict for 'cyberbullying' following her online harassment of a teenager that was linked to the teenager's suicide, the case was finally officially dismissed. In a 32-page opinion [PDF], the court avoided a minefield of possible follow-on effects that civil-liberties groups had warned of by holding that merely violating a website's Terms of Service cannot constitute 'unauthorized access' for the purposes of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. 1030)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EtaCarinae writes "Nokia didn't succeed in convincing Riverbank to change its licensing terms on PyQt, and so decided to create their own LGPL'ed version of it. From the FAQ at the PySide site: 'Nokia's initial research into Python bindings for Qt involved speaking with Riverbank Computing, the makers of PyQt. We had several discussions with them to see if it was possible to use PyQt to achieve our goals. Unfortunately, a common agreement could not be found , so in the end we decided to proceed with PySide.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

RazvanM writes "At the beginning of this month the Mac OS X 10.5.8 closed a kernel vulnerability that lasted more than 4 years, covering all the 10.4 and (almost all) 10.5 Mac OS X releases. This article presents some twitter-size programs that trigger the bug. The mechanics are so simple that can be easily explained to anybody possessing some minimal knowledge about how operating systems works. Beside being a good educational example this is also a scary proof that very mature code can still be vulnerable in rather unsophisticated ways."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dale H sent this one in from the New Scientist with an amazingly anatomic movement in the robot.

Conventional humanoid robots may look human, but the workings under their synthetic skins are radically different from our anatomy. A team with members across five European countries says this makes it difficult to build robots able to move like we do.

Their project, the Eccerobot, has been designed to duplicate the way human bones, muscles and tendons work and are linked together. The plastic bones copy biological shapes and are moved by kite-line that is tough like tendons, while elastic cords mimic the bounce of muscle.

Neat stuff. This technology looks promising for prosthetic limb replacement. It seems that they are using something kind of similar to Muscle wire.

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These tiny Austrian 2mm pinfire guns look to be exquisitely engineered. From the video description:

Originally made by Austrian watchmakers as decorative pocket watch chain fobs or as cufflinks, these miniature pinfire pistols are now prized collector's items. These are some from my own collection dating from 1904 to the 1970's. All of them fire 2mm blank pinfire cartridges. The revolvers are the world's smallest working double action blank firing pistols. They measure just 38mm in length and are smaller than the famous Swiss Mini Gun which measures 55mm.

(via MAKE)

Researchers from the Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory at the University of Tokyo presented this incredible video of a high-speed robotic hand at the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. The laboratory's Web site has many more videos related to this project, called Sensor Fusion. Sensor Fusion: High Speed Robots

London artist Stuart Semple has built a machine that makes a lighter-than-air foam using glycerin, food dye, and helium, and extrudes cakes of it through a die to create floating foam happy faces, which he releases into the air 2,000 at a time. Check the vid below.

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coondoggie writes "Software designed to beat Chinese censorship may behave in ways that seem suspect, but it is all part of the application's strategy to fool the Great Firewall of China, according to one programmer of the software. 'There are many built-in tricks that do all kinds of things to confuse the firewall,' says David Tian, a scientist for NASA who works spare-time on UltraSurf, the free software designed to promote unrestricted Internet access for citizens of China persecuted for being members of Falun Gang, the religious group the Chinese government is trying to suppress."

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Where do I start with this thing? It has some many elements of awesome!

It's a model of an old-fashion Penny-farthing bicycle that has been brought in to the modern world with the incorporation of 3 cutting-edge technologies:

• It was built, layer-by-layer, using laser sintering rapid prototyping. It's a demonstration project by Italian firm CRP Technology to demonstrate their capabilities.
  


• It's made out of WindForm XT, a carbon-fiber reinforced polyimide material that's usually used to craft high-performance motorsport racing parts.
  


• It incorporates a planetary gearing system. Penny-Farthings have large front wheels so that they can travel further on one pedal stroke; by using this gearing, the front wheel can be a more-comfortable 20% smaller. Planetary gears are used in some 3-speed bicycles, but their beauty is hidden within the rear hub.
  

I love the options that rapid prototyping allows the designer - these handlebars are simple, elegant, and formed as a single piece:

The material used was flexible enough to make the seat, suspension spring, and the body all one piece, too:

Alas, it's just a model - just 16 inches long. Here's hoping that someone builds a rideable version.

More details:

• easy-to-read html, but small pictures


• more detailed paper (.pdf link)

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FleaPlus writes "Steve Cook, project manager for the Ares I-X, Ares I, and Ares V rockets, announced that he will resign from NASA MSFC after 19 years at the agency, leaving for an executive position at Dynetics, Inc. This raises doubts about the future of the Ares program, which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study which scrapped NASA's prior plans to adapt already-existing commercial rockets for human/beyond-LEO exploration in favor of internally developing the Ares rockets."

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N!NJA writes "In an amicus curiae brief filed on Aug. 24, Dell asked the judge overseeing the Eastern District Court of Texas to reconsider its order blocking sales of Word, part of the original ruling in favor of Canadian software developer i4i. In the worst case, the brief argued, the injunction should be delayed by 120 days. 'The District Court's injunction of Microsoft Word will have an impact far beyond Microsoft,' Dell and HP wrote. 'Microsoft Word is ubiquitous among word processing software and is included on [redacted] computers sold by Dell.' 'If Microsoft is required to ship a revised version of Word in Dell's computers, a change would need to be made to Dell's images,' Dell wrote. 'Making such a change would require extensive time- and resource- consuming testing.' An addendum to the brief notes that it was authored in Microsoft Word, part of Office 2003."

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Canadian Member of Parliament for the New Democratic Party and former frontman for the awesome punk band L'Etranger Charlie Angus sez,

I saw your comments on the Toronto town hall copyright forum [ed: in which the NDP was threatened with expulsion for handing out fliers calling for a moderate new copyright law that balanced public rights with the rights of copyright holders]. The fallout has been very bizarre. A copyright lobbyist with the American federation of Musicians is circulating an online e-mail demanding the NDP apologize for our "disgusting" position on balanced copyright.

The attack was caused by Olivia Chow handing out an interview I did with EXCLAIM Magazine on how copyright changes could benefit independent Canadian bands. Exclaim did the interview with me because of my background with DIY bands.

Seems to me the interview is consistent with what the NDP have always said on this file -- we want artists to be able to benefit from the massive stream of information being traded but we don't want average citizens turned into criminals. Here's Michael Geist's blog on the attack on us.

I was elected to participate in discussions about public policy. I have never heard of a lobbyist group demand an apology for speaking out about a totally botched piece of legislation like Bill C-61. If they spent less time running e-mail attacks and more time speaking with the various players they might realize that the NDP position has been balanced and consistent from the beginning.

As for a public recanting to satisfy the C-61 lobby ? Sorry, dude....it ain't happening.

In this project, we'll make battery packs essentially for free. If you need a lot, make a lot. If you need more voltage, add on more cells with couplers. If participants and students in your workshop or class all make their own, they can do it together, maybe even doing a manufacturing project to create many for future use.

For some time now, I have struggled with the expense and scarcity of battery holders. Costing anywhere from a dollar to three, they can raise the price point of a project, though they do look nice and work well. Since they are an item that most stores don't carry, you will have to order battery packs for projects that you intend to do. If you're planning a workshop or class with 25 people and want to use plastic battery holders, order ahead and pay up.

Plastic battery packs are also pretty easy to ruin if the ends of the wires are short-circuited accidentally or intentionally. A short circuit will heat up the batteries, which will then melt the plastic around one or both of the springs, causing the pack to fail. By making a battery pack, your participants and students can free themselves of the various barriers that purchased battery packs present for first run and experimental projects. For more formal projects, you or they may want to dig into the budget and buy some packs for a more polished look.

My first designs were done with cardboard from the recycling bin. I also made these with side by side arrangement. The way I am doing them these days is all in a line, which is probably not as sturdy or compact, but is definitely quicker. If you develop a better way of making these battery packs, please share pictures in the MAKE Flickr pool, and show us some links to them in action on projects.

Skills in this project:

• Manufacturing
• Trouble shooting and the design process
• Identifying a conductor and insulator
• Testing for electrical continuity
• Testing for voltage
• Designing for voltage

Materials you will need:

• Duct tape
• Tin foil
• Batteries, AA or AAA are good to start with
• Rubber band
• Stranded wire

Tools:

• Scissors
• Utility knife
• Wire cutters/strippers
• Voltage/Ohm meter

Time Frame:
Less than an hour, after you get the hang of it, you can make one in twenty minutes or so.

Mastery Objective:
Students and participants will know how to make a 3 volt or more battery pack using readily available materials so that they can use them in electricity projects.

Process:
Gather your supplies.
Make the tubes
For each battery pack, cut 3 four inch strips of duct tape. One will be the coupler, two will be for end caps.
On each strip, cut a 1 inch square out of one end.
fold the strip in half, leaving exposed a 1 inch section at the end. Be careful that the other adhesive is not exposed (it could stick to the battery later)
Roll the strip onto a battery to make a tube. The exposed adhesive tab in the previous step should be the last section on.
Do this to make three of these tubes.
Make a coupler and end caps
Crunch up or fold up some tin foil and put it in one of the tubes. This will help ensure that there is good electrical contact between the batteries.
Put a battery into each side of the coupler. One should be positive end in, the other should be negative end in.
Slide a tube over each end of the exposed batteries.
Fold up a 1" x 2"section of tin foil so that it makes a flat band of foil. Make two of these.
Fold over the end a couple of times so that it is a bit thicker.
Put this thicker end over the end of one of the batteries in turn.
Place a 3/8" to 1/2" wide section of tape over the end of the battery and end cap.
Hold the end caps in place with a piece of tape. You will want to remove the tape when the battery dies or needs to be recharged, so maybe fold over the end to make a pull tab.

Extensions:
Test for continuity
Put your meter on either the continuity setting or the ohms/resistance setting. When you touch the probes to an object that is a conductor like two ends of a stripped wire, you will have continuity: the meter will beep in the continuity setting or it will show numbers in the ohms/resistance setting. Electricity can travel between these two points. If you do not get continuity, such as on a piece of plastic or glass, or if one end of the wire is not stripped, electricity cannot travel easily between these two points. This is an insulator.
Increase your pack's voltage
If your project needs 4.5 volts, 6 volts or more, you can add to the standard pack by slipping another battery onto the pack with another coupler. AA and AAA batteries are 1.5 volts each, so when you connect your batteries in series like this project, each battery you add boosts your voltage by 1.5 volts.
Add wires
Cut two stranded wires, about 2" to 4" long.
Strip the ends about 3/8".
On the end that will connect to the battery pack, spread the strands of the wire.
On the end that will connect to your circuit, twist the wires together. If you have access to a soldering iron, tin the wires to keep them together.
Test your pack and fix if needed
Put your meter in DC voltage mode and touch the probes to each of the wires.
The voltage for two batteries should read 3 volts. A (-) symbol in front of the number just means you have the probes on the battery backwards.
If you get 0 volts, you may need to press the pack together to get a better connection. In this case, you can hold the pack tighter together with a rubber band or carefully tape the caps so that they fit tightly.
Another problem that could give you 0 volts is that the batteries could be in the wrong direction. The negative of one battery has to touch the positive of the next battery.
Use your battery pack
You can use your new battery pack by twisting the wires on the pack to the wires on your circuit project.
You can also solder a 9 volt battery top onto your pack wires so you can use the standardized clip of the 9 volt system.
You can also twist your wires onto a connector cut from a power supply.

More:

• How-To: Pencil lead potentiometer
• How-To: Quick, cheap soldering stand
• 123 Vibrobot

Teach your family to solder! Take a few pictures tagged as "MAKEcation" and put them in the MAKE Flickr pool by September 9th to enter to win a $100 Maker Shed gift certifiate!

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stoolpigeon writes " All communication links with the only Indian satellite orbiting the Moon have been lost, India's space agency says. Radio contact with the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was lost abruptly early on Saturday, said India's Bangalore-based Space Research Organization (ISRO)."

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