BonesSB writes "I'm a student at a university in Massachusetts, where I have a federal work-study position. Yesterday, I got an email from the office that is responsible for student run organizations (one of which I work for) saying that I need to go to their office and have my finger prints taken for the purposes of clocking in and out of work. This raises huge privacy concerns for me, as it should for everybody else. I am in the process of contacting the local newspaper, getting the word out to students everywhere, and talking directly to the office regarding this. I got an email back with two very contradictory sentences: 'There will be no image of your fingerprints anywhere. No one will have access to your fingerprints. The machine is storing your prints as a means of identifying who you are when you touch it.' Does anybody else attend a school that requires something similar? This is an obvious slippery slope, and something I am not taking lightly. What else should I do?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PMA 2010: Sigma has also taken the opportunity to reveal a bit more about its new 'FLD' glass, which is used in several of the company's lens designs simultaneously unveiled at PMA. Standing for 'F' Low Dispersion, the material is claimed to have performance equivalent to fluorite glass, but at a more affordable price. Its optical characteristics apparently allow excellent correction for residual chromatic aberration, while its lower density compared to traditional optical glass allows lighter lenses. It's used in the company's new 70-200mm, 17-50mm and 8-16mm designs.

PMA 2010: More than a year after first showcasing it at the 2008 Photokina trade show, Sigma has re-announced the SD15 digital SLR. Successor to the SD14, it incorporates a 14MP Foveon X3 sensor, the same True II processor as the latest DPx models, and a larger 3.0" 460k dot LCD. Other features include SD card compatibility, ISO 100-1600 (50-3200 extended) sensitivity, 21 shot raw buffer at 3fps and 5 frame auto bracketing for HDR-enthusiasts.

PMA 2010: Last but not least of the lenses, we come to Sigma's upgrade for its popular 50-500mm ultra-telephoto zoom which now incorporates Optical Stabilisation - a hugely welcome addition to such a long lens. Again Sigma claims the OS offers up to four stops benefit, and works with Sony and Pentax SLRs as well as Canon, Sigma and Nikon models, with the stabilized viewfinder image aiding in focusing and composition. The all-new optical design uses 22 elements in 16 groups, including four SLD glass elements, but the filter size has grown to a whopping 95mm.

PMA 2010: Continuing our way through Sigma's bag of goodies, we come to the widest-angle rectilinear lens yet made for APS-C DSLRs, in the shape of the 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM. Essentially an equivalent of the company's 12-24mm lens for full-frame, this features a disorientatingly-wide angle of view of 121 degrees for exaggerated perspectives. It has a built-in petal shaped hood, HSM focusing with full-time manual override, and a minimum focus of 24cm. Again, it will be available to fit Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sigma and Sony SLRs.

PMA 2010: Sigma has announced the DP1x digital compact camera, a revised version of its DP1 large-sensor compact camera. Featuring the same sensor and wide angle lens as the DP1, it inherits the faster True II processor from the DP2 and a new AF algorithm for faster auto focus. It also shares the revised rear design of the DP2s, with a dedicated 'QS' (Quick Set) button and more visible labeling of controls.

PMA 2010: Sigma has released the DP2s compact camera with a 14MP FOVEON  X3 CMOS sensor. With almost identical specifications to its predecessor, the DP2, it offers a new AF algorithm for faster autofocus, a Power Save mode and a slightly revised rear design with more visible labeling of the buttons. The camera will ship with the company's latest Photo Pro 4.0 raw processing software.

PMA 2010: Third on Sigma's long list of introductions is an image-stabilized fast standard zoom for APS-C SLRs. The 17-50mm EX DC OS HSM offers a slightly wider angle of view than the company's previous models in this class, and alongside optical stabilization also adds a hypersonic autofocus motor for users of all mounts (Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sigma and Sony). It uses two elements made from Sigma's new 'FLD glass', plus two glass mold and one hybrid aspherical elements, to reduce aberrations. The minimum focus distance is 28cm across the entire zoom range, giving a maximum magnification of 0.2x, and the 77mm filter thread does not rotate on focusing.

PMA 2010: Sigma has announced the 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM, a large-aperture short telephoto lens which is bound to pique the interest of budding portraitists. Featuring a hypersonic focus motor with full-time manual focus override, the lens uses a 9-blade diaphragm for attractive background blur, and has a minimum focus distance of 85cm. It comes with a lens hood adapter for ASP-C/DX users that extends the length of the hood to give more effective shading, and will be available in mounts for Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sigma and Sony SLRs.

PMA 2010: Sigma has launched into PMA with a veritable salvo of interesting new products. First up is the APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM, an image-stabilised fast telezoom with ultrasonic-type silent focusing that provides a direct alternative to recent arrivals from Canon and Nikon. The all-new optical design uses two elements made of Sigma's newly-developed 'FLD' glass (plus three of SLD glass) to reduce aberrations, a 9-blade circular aperture for attractive bokeh, and features full-time manual focus override. The Optical Stabilisation system promises up to four stops benefit when hand-holding, and like other recent Sigma lenses, can be used by owners of Sony and Pentax cameras (the lens will also be available in Canon, Nikon and Sigma mounts). Last but not least, a dedicated adapter that extends the length of the hood for APS-C users is supplied as standard.

Steve Cooley designed a pretty deluxe hardware interface for controlling music software, better known as the Beatseqr. Since it's based on an Arduino Mega, the device can of course be reprogrammed to make use of onboard faders and LED buttons in a variety of ways. Beatseqr sends data out in the form hi-res OSC messages, which can be converted in software down to MIDI. Source code for the project is available on github and prebuilt versions of the hardware are now for sale on Maker's Market.

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PMA 2010: Samples images from Nikon's 24mm F1.4 AF-S wide-angle prime lens. We're not sure if these are the world's first indepent sample shots with this lens but, given how hard it was to wrestle it away from the guys on the Nikon stand at the PMA Sneak Peek event, there can't be many others.

thirty-seven writes "According to four Canadian psychologists, a study they have conducted shows that math anxiety, 'the feeling of fear and dread of performing mathematical calculations,' can negatively affect mathematical tasks much simpler and more basic than previously thought. In the study, participants were asked to count black squares on a white screen. The number of squares shown ranged from one to nine and participants were given as much time as they wanted before answering. When the number of squares was in the subitizing range (one to four), both math-anxious and non-math-anxious participants performed equally well, but when the number of squares was in the counting range (five to nine), the math-anxious group took longer and were less accurate. The University of Waterloo's news release about the study includes this interesting note: 'Previous studies have shown that a weakness in basic math abilities has a greater negative effect on employment opportunities than reading difficulties [do].'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "When it comes to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent, the USPTO is an agency that just can't say no. Or yes. It's now been 4+ years since actor Peter Calveley submitted prior art that triggered a USPTO reexamination of the 1-Click patent. Still no 'final answer' from the USPTO, although an Examiner recently issued yet another Final Rejection of 1-Click related claims (pdf), admonishing Amazon for making him 'sift through hundreds of submitted references to identify what applicant allegedly has already submitted,' which he complained is 'adding an undue burden' to his workload. Looks like Bezos' 2000 pledge of 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office' isn't working out so well in practice. Not too surprising — after all, Amazon did inform Congress that it 'has modified its specific [patent] reform proposals from the year 2000.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From Boing Boing:

Matt sez, "With that rocks-for-brains reporter in Boston trying to link campus shooter Amy Bishop's crimes to Dungeons & Dragons, I thought I'd take an opportunity to look at the good D&D has done for several writers I know. This is that article. By the way, I've been a D&D player for almost thirty years now, and have been a happier, more productive person for it."

And Cory adds:

I haven't played since my early 20s (late teens?) but D&D was an enormously positive influence on my life and imagination.

And I would add: Me too! D&D helped me as a writer, storyteller, project organizer, and was also one of my entrees into making. When I started with D&D, my friends and I were too poor for miniatures, so we made our own from clay, and our dungeons and scenery were constructed out of paper, cardboard, and foam. I got my first Dremel tool to help me make gaming components. And it was my first heavy, multi-application use for my first computers (writing scenarios, player handouts, drawing maps, keeping character databases, and hanging out on D&D BBSes).

Not to mention, as someone who has dyslexia, it helped me with my number/math skills and in seeing the utility of applying math to something that was hugely fun and creative.

Writers reminisce about Dungeons & Dragons

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Via newsycombinator comes a reaction at Ars Technica to the recently reported claims of excessive memory use on machines running Windows 7. From the article: "I installed the XPnet performance monitoring tool and waited for it to upload my data to see what it might be complaining about. The cause of the problem was immediately apparent. It's no secret that Windows 7, just like Windows Vista before it, includes aggressive disk caching. The SuperFetch technology causes Windows to preload certain data if the OS detects that it is used regularly, even if there is no specific need for it at any given moment. Though SuperFetch is a little less aggressive in Windows 7, it will still use a substantial amount of memory—but with an important proviso. The OS will only use memory for cache when there is no other demand for that memory."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PMA 2010: A splinter group from the dpreview.com editorial team has touched down in Anaheim to cover the announcements from the PMA 2010 show. We'll be wandering from stand-to-stand, bringing you pictures and insight about all the latest launches, including live blogging from some of the press conferences. Stay tuned over the next few days for all the latest news.

Pre-PMA 2010: Samsung has announced the WB2000 with full 1080p HD video recording. The camera comes with a 10MP CMOS sensor and offers P/A/S/M shooting modes, RAW capture and high-speed video recording at up to 1000 fps. It also features an 'advanced panorama' mode with object tracking, and a dual capture mode that allows users to capture stills whilst recording videos. A 3" AMOLED screen rounds off the specification.

Pre-PMA 2010: Samsung has released the WP10 waterproof ultracompact. It has been designed to operate underwater to a depth of up to 3 meters and features a dedicated Aqua mode, that optimizes camera settings for underwater photography. The 12MP camera comes with a 2.7" LCD, 5x (36-180mm equiv) internal zoom lens and 720p HD video recording.

Samsung has announced that it plans to roll-out five more lenses for its NX system in 2010. The new range includes a 20mm f/2.8 pancake, 60mm f/2.8 macro, 20-50mm compact zoom, 18-200mm superzoom and another version of the 18-55mm kit lens without image stabilization (O.I.S.). The lenses will be released through the course of this year.

Pre-PMA 2010: Samsung has released the EX1 premium image stabilized compact camera with a fast f/1.8 wide angle 3x (24-72mm equiv.) zoom lens. It comes with a 1/1.7 inch 10MP CCD sensor and a 3.0 inch multi-angle AMOLED display. The camera also offers full manual control, RAW capture, VGA video recording in H.264 format and a new faster DRIMeIII processor.

MikeChino sends along this awe-inspiring excerpt: "Think claims of electric vehicles that get over 200 MPG are impressive? Try this on for size: a group of mechanical engineering students at Cal Poly have developed a vehicle that can get up to 2752.3 MPG — and it doesn't even use batteries. The Cal Poly Supermileage Team's wondercar, dubbed the Black Widow, has been under construction since 2005. The 96 pound car has three wheels, a drag coefficient of 0.12, a top speed of 30 MPH, and a modified 3 horsepower Honda 50cc four-stroke engine. It originally clocked in at 861 MPG and has been continuously tweaked to achieve the mileage we see today." It's not quite as street-worthy, though, as Volkswagen's 235 MPG One-Liter concept. Updated 20:01 GMT: The Cal Poly car's earlier incarnation achieved 861 MPG, not MPH; corrected above.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Australian reader Ian Ross sent in pictures of his awesome workbench, which packs some interesting gear like nixie-tube test equipment.

It is the disorganised chaos of over 30 years of collecting discarded electronic devices. Some of the test instruments use lovely Nixie tubes and I also have a flat screen telly so I can escape to my sanctuary at night. The main workbench light is a surplus dental exam light which is excellent for working with small devices.

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obarthelemy writes "Having at last gotten Linux to run satisfactorily on my own PCs, I'd now like to start transitioning friends and family from XP to Linux instead of Windows 7. The catch is that these guys don't understand or care much about computers, so the transition has to be as seamless and painless as possible. Actually, they won't care for new things; even the upcoming upgrade to Windows 7 would be a pain and a bother, which is a great opportunity for Linux. I'm not too concerned about software (most of them only need browser, IM, VLC, mail and a Powerpoint viewer for all those fascinating attachments). What I'm concerned about is OS look-and-feel and interface — system bar on the bottom with clock, trash, info on the right, menu on the left, menu items similar to those of Windows. Is it better to shoot for a very targeted distro? Which would you recommend? Are there themes/skins for mainstream distributions instead? I've been looking around the web, and it's hard to gauge which distros are well-done and reasonably active."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The MintyBoost Parts bundle from the Maker Shed includes everything you need to make the RuntyBoost version of the MintyBoost! We include the MintyBoost kit 2.0, our Make Project tin, and even the AA batteries. Yes, the batteries are included too! All you need to do is some simple soldering, and a few minor mods of the project tin, and you will have a great portable charger.

Features

• (1) MintyBoost USB Charger Kit v2.0
• (1) Make Project Tin - Measures 3-3/4" long, 2-3/8" wide, 3/4" deep
• (2) AA Batteries. Yep, they're included!

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If you have the Make: Electronics book, or just thinking of getting a copy - tonight I will be assisting Ladyada (Limor Fried) with Adafruit's weekly "Ask an engineer" LIVE video chat... Here are the details...

Tonight, Saturday 2/20/2010 - 10pm ET - "Ask an Engineer" - our weekly LIVE video chat! What is "Ask an engineer"? From the electronics enthusiast to the professional community - "Ask an Engineer" has a little bit of everything for everyone. If you're a beginner, or an seasoned engineer - stop in and see what we're up to! We have demos of projects and products we're working on, we answer you engineering and electronics questions and we have a trivia question + give away each week. This week we'll go through some of chapters of "Make: Electronics by Charles Platt" The book is geared towards ultimate-beginners and teaches electronics starting from basic core of analog to some digital to microcontrollers. You'll learn tools, prototyping soldering techniques, transistors, 555's, etc. while completing useful projects. A nice and tidy intro! This book is a good accompaniment to learning microcontrollers/Arduino in that it fills the necessary electronics theory and background.

Chat starts at 10pm ET (Saturday night 10pm ET 2/20/2010) on the dot (here and here)...

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rjch writes "After its recent win against mod chip piracy in the Australian Federal courts, Nintendo is now on the prowl for other companies to sue. 'Nintendo will pursue those who attempt to jeopardise the gaming industry by using all means available to it under the law. In particular, Nintendo is currently contemplating bringing further actions against other sellers of game copying devices in Australia.' The game company said since 2008 it had pursued over 800 actions in 16 countries to stop game piracy, confiscating 'well over' half a million game copiers for the Nintendo DS. The company said piracy affected sales, the price of video games, and employment in the video game industry." Reader daria42 sends in a related piece asking whether Nintendo is being too harsh over this and the recent $1.5 million judgment against a man who leaked New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What's not to like about plastic sushi strapped to plastic trucks on porcelain plates? I mean, this has got everything.

The series of sculptures featured on AZITO show the perfect merger discovered between TOMY toy cars, plastic food models used by restaurants, and the dishes accompanying those cuisines. Four carry enticing plastic sushi models, while another four carry Chinese food models. Strapped down to the toy cars, the plastic foods are readily docked onto the very dishes which would be used in their consumption. Yet, the cars cannot budge from the perimeter of the dish; the food cannot be consumed; and the viewer recognizes the paradox in having the exact collection of items needed for transporting food onto the table and into our mouths - and yet, not being able to perform either function. Enticing us with our own desires of play, eating, and mimicry, and then turning such impulses into plastic model visions, these eight sculptures beautifully capture the spirit of "Paramodel".

Paramodel "tommy sushi" & "tommy ca". (Thanks, Francesco!)

On Thursday we discussed news that a Pennsylvania high school was spying on students through the webcams in laptops that were issued to the students. The FBI is now taking an interest in the case, investigating whether federal wiretap and computer-intrusion laws were violated in the process. "The FBI opened its investigation after news of the suit broke on Thursday, the law-enforcement official said. Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman may also investigate, she said Friday." Ferman said her office is "looking to see whether there are potential violations of Pennsylvania criminal laws."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Barry sez, "UVEX, the ski goggle maker, got a nastygram from an Olympics Committee IP lawyer, forbidding them from using any images -- or even mentioning -- that gold medal winner Lindsey Vonn uses their equipment."

So UVEX turned to verse:

Blonde Who Uses Our Stuff Wins Downhill (Last Name Rhymes With "Bonn")

There once was a lawyer from the IOC,
who called us to protect "intellectual property."

"During the Olympics", she said with a sneer
"your site can't use an Olympian's name even if they use your gear."

"No pictures, no video, no blog posts can be used..."
Even if they are old? "No!", she enthused.

While Olympians chase gold the IOC pursues green.
Cough up millions, or your logo cannot be seen . . .

Theoretically, a trademark claim is partly about protecting a company's name from "tarnishment," but it's hard to imagine how one could tarnish the IOC's reputation any further, between the naked greed, the unchecked bullying, the corruption and bribery, the doping, and the censorship. Oh, and the thousands of poor people inevitably evicted whenever the Olympics come to town. Is there any way the IOC's reputation could sink lower?

Blonde we like wins Downhill (Last name rhymes with "Bonn") (Thanks, Barry!)

The New York Times has an excellent investigative piece on the small-town judges of New York State. These judges are elected to office, need no legal training, have no oversight (many don't even keep court records), and have the power to imprison people for up to two years (and some accused have been kept in jail for many more years, waiting for a judge to call their cases), and collect millions in (unaudited) fines and penalties. The system is a shambles, and there have been calls for reform since the 1920s, with no movement to do anything about it, despite racist remarks, blatant violations of law, pursuit of personal vendettas from the bench and other grave misconduct. Judges send abused women back to their spouses ("Every woman needs a good pounding every now and then," quipped Donald R. Roberts, a former state trooper, now a judge in Malone, NY), lock up children, deny accused counsel, find accused guilty without a trial or a plea.

Reading this piece, you get the sense that the reporters struggled to winnow down the list of horrific abuses to fit the space -- the litany of absolutely nightmarish judicial behavior goes on and on and on and on.

And several people in the small town of Dannemora were intimidated by their longtime justice, Thomas R. Buckley, a phone-company repairman who cursed at defendants and jailed them without bail or a trial, state disciplinary officials found. Feuding with a neighbor over her dog's running loose, he threatened to jail her and ordered the dog killed...

In the Catskills, Stanley Yusko routinely jailed people awaiting trial for longer than the law allows -- in one case for 64 days because he thought the defendant had information about vandalism at the justice's own home, said state officials, who removed him as Coxsackie village justice in 1995. Mr. Yusko was not even supposed to be a justice; he had actually failed the true-or-false test...

In Mount Kisco, people who asked for the court's sympathy were treated to sarcasm: Justice Joseph J. Cerbone would pull out a nine-inch violin and threaten to play. Mr. Cerbone phoned one woman and talked her out of pressing abuse charges against the son of former clients, state records show. But it took eight years, and evidence that he had taken money from an escrow account, before the State Court of Appeals removed him in 2004 after a quarter-century in office.

The commission twice disciplined the town justice, Paul F. Bender of Marion, for deriding women in abuse cases. Arraigning one man on assault charges, he asked the police investigator whether the case was "just a Saturday night brawl where he smacks her and she wants him back in the morning..."

In 11 years as justice in Dannemora, in the North Country, Thomas R. Buckley had his own special treatment for defendants without much money: Even if they were found not guilty, he ordered them to perform community service work to pay for their court-appointed lawyers, although defense lawyers and the district attorney had reminded him for years that the law guaranteed a lawyer at no cost.

"The only unconstitutional part," he told the commission before it removed him in 2000, "is for these freeloaders to expect a free ride."

In Tiny Courts of N.Y., Abuses of Law and Power

Update: Here's a recent update on the situation. In summary: nothing's changed (thanks, Salugod!)

squidw* writes "Online attacks on Google and other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military, say people involved in the investigation. From the NY Times: '... the attacks, aimed at stealing trade secrets and computer codes and capturing e-mail of Chinese human rights activists, may have begun as early as April, months earlier than previously believed. ... The Chinese schools involved are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School, according to several people with knowledge of the investigation who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inquiry. Jiaotong has one of China’s top computer science programs. Just a few weeks ago its students won an international computer programming competition organized by IBM — the “Battle of the Brains” — beating out Stanford and other top-flight universities. Lanxiang, in east China’s Shandong Province, is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Now we're getting into the thick, juicy part. I spent Friday in a flurry of tweeting and note-taking, bopping from one two-hour symposium to another. I was really pleased with myself for managing to pack in five different sessions—until I realized that I'd totally missed meeting Ron Howard, King of the Gingers, at a presentation on science and Hollywood. Whoops. Thanks to my science journalism colleagues, though, I am able to tell you this: Nobody ever worked out the physics behind turning a jukebox on just by hitting it.

Those disappointments aside, the day was chock full of fascinating facts. After the jump, I'll tell you about the science of superheroes, the best way to make electric cars profitable to own and why the advice many new parents get about preventing food allergies is probably wrong.

Hopeful Monsters

This session featured writers from "Heroes", the scientific advisor to "Watchmen" and a scientist studying the real-world evolution of the—relatively super—traits that turned single-celled organisms into animals, and people.

It's that last speaker, Nichole King, Ph.D., from the University of California, Berkeley, who brought up a really interesting point about the intersection between evolution and sci-fi. Evolution, as you know, is driven by random mutations in DNA, and most of those mutations have no visible impact at all. DNA changes, but nothing important happens to the overall organism.

Other changes in DNA lead to negative impacts—for instance, the mutations that lead to cancer. Finally, and luckily, some mutations are beneficial. But, King reminded me, they're very seldom only beneficial. The same innovative mutations that make an organism stronger are usually also associated with at least one biological trade-off. You may gain, but you also lose. And whether the mutation gets counted as "successful" depends a lot on how the benefits and detriments balance out.

Think about what that could mean for, say, the X-men? Should Warren Worthington III be dealing with the osteoporosis that must surely go along with his light, flight-ready bone structure?

The Real Benefit of Hooking Your Electric Car Up to the Grid

Vehicle-to-Grid is a relatively new concept. It can refer to a lot of different ideas but, generally, we're talking about enabling electric vehicles and utility companies to establish a close, personal relationship, built on two-way communication. Its theoretical potential was first studied in 1997. In 2008, researchers first hooked up an all-electric vehicle to the real, not just simulated, grid.

I'd certainly heard of the idea before today, but mostly with the idea that doing this would enable consumers to sell electricity stored in the battery back to their utility companies. Easy peasy. You know, if you overlook the fact that buying electricity from and selling electricity to the same company, for the same price, isn't going to help anybody turn a payback on their initial investment in the car.

No, the real place where vehicle-to-grid power has considerable financial potential is frequency regulation, according to researchers from the University of Delaware, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other institutions. If you're one of the companies that runs America's electrical grid system, you have to pay a lot of attention to keeping the flow of power humming along at a steady, reliable rate. In fact, you're legally obligated to have a certain amount of generator backup dedicated to ramping power production up and down, smoothing out the fluctuations in frequency.

But coal and other traditional power plants are slow moving beasties, trying to respond to what is, essentially, a zap-quick problem. Fleets of electric vehicles, plugged in and able to communicate with the electrical grid control systems, have the potential to be a better (and way more green) alternative. And, because utilities need that backup capacity—whether or not they're using it at any given moment—the price they'd pay a consumer to make an electric car part of that backup is much higher than the rate they'd pay just to buy excess power from the car's battery. Kind of the difference between a monthly membership fee at the gym, and a one-off charge to use the sauna for an hour.

So just how profitable is that. The calculations vary—and the impact is larger for fleets than individual cars—but a 2007 study done by Jasna Tomic, Ph.D., from the alternative transportation institute CALSTART, makes it appealing. Using utility rate numbers from 2003, a 250-vehicle fleet would have grossed more than $1 million in a year, and netted close to $700K.

A new perspective on childhood allergies

For years, parents have been told to put off introducing their babies to certain foods—things like milk, soy and peanuts—that tend to cause allergic reactions. The idea behind the advice was that, if you gave a baby's immune system a chance to mature before tossing a food trial at it, it might not be so likely to overreact.

But that theory is turning out to be wrong, according to a panel of European and American public health experts from organizations like the FDA and the British National Health Service Trust. There's no evidence that delaying the introduction of potentially allergenic foods does anything to reduce a child's likelihood of developing an allergy, they said. And, in fact, there's some evidence that delaying the foods may actually increase the risk of allergic reaction.

Why? Researchers can only speculate right now, but it might have to do with the fact that you can never completely eliminate environmental exposure to certain foods. Even if you stringently avoid peanuts, you might still come into contact with very, very minute amounts of the allergy-causing nut proteins. As it turns out, it's these small, rare, random exposures that are more likely to set the stage for developing a sensitivity to a particular food, rather than regular consumption.

Once they're ready to eat solids, your baby or toddler is better off being adventurous with new foods.

More to come tomorrow! Plus, over the next few weeks, I'll also be doing a few more in-depth stories, based on AAAS lectures and symposia.

It would be easy to read this and feel superior, but don't.

Imagine you knew nothing about computers and somehone handed you a Macintosh and told you to figure it out.

How long would it take you to figure out what each of the applications did, or even what an application is, and how they differ and how they're similar.

Suppose you found your way all the way to WordPress, think about how many layers of menus and user interfaces you had to master just to get there.

There's the menubar at the top of the screen. The dock at the bottom of the screen. Then, when you launch the web browser, there's a new menu at the top of the screen (and did you notice or did you just think it was the same menu). Then when you get to WordPress, it has its own menu at the top of its screen. But above that menu there are things you click that kind of act like menus that take you away (toolbar icons). WordPress has several kinds of menus. The one running across the top of its screen and the one running down the left.

Okay, someone told you to click OK when the machine asks you to install new software. You have to enter your special password to get it to do that. But don't click OK when you're at a web site or in an email. How do you know which you're in?

And icons. Sometimes you click them once and sometimes you click them twice.

You don't see all of these layers of complexity either because you were around when each one came online (I was) or you just forgot what it was like to be presented with it for the first time. I have no idea what it was like to be a child who had these things since before they can remember, but I know a few undergrads at NYU who I'm going to ask about this.

My mother, on the other hand, has been using computers since before they were born, she started with the Mac in 1985 or so, but like someone who learned to speak another language as a child, she sees the bewildering complexity of our language whenever she does things that we take for granted.

You might say don't worry, her generation won't be here much longer, but that's my mom you're talking about. And further, how much effort are we wasting pushing around all these unnecessary concepts? Too much.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Tampa Tribune reports that Jimmy Wales recently spoke at the TEDx conference in Tampa about the three big failures he had before he started Wikipedia, and what he learned from them. In 1996 Wales started an Internet service to connect downtown lunchers with area restaurants. 'The result was failure,' says Wales. 'In 1996, restaurant owners looked at me like I was from Mars.' Next Wales started a search engine company called 3Apes. In three months, it was taken over by Chinese hackers and the project failed. Third was an online encyclopedia called Nupedia, a free encyclopedia created by paid experts. Wales spent $250,000 for writers to make 12 articles, and it failed. Finally, Wales had a 'really dumb idea,' a free encyclopedia written by anyone who wanted to contribute. That became Wikipedia, which is now one of the top 10 most-popular Web sites in the world. This leads to Wales' theories of failure: fail faster — if a project is doomed, shut it down quickly; don't tie your ego to any one project — if it stumbles, you'll be unable to move forward; real entrepreneurs fail; fail a lot but enjoy yourself along the way; if you handle these things well, 'you will succeed.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which includes a who's-who of the tech world, including Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Fujitsu, AMD, eBay, Intuit, Oracle, and Yahoo, has issued a strong defense of current Canadian copyright law, arguing that the US is wrong to place Canada on the annual Special 301 list. The submission argues that the US should not criticize Canada for not implementing anti-circumvention rules (PDF) and warns against using the Special 301 process to 'remake the world in the image of the DMCA.'"

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Wandering through the Make Flickr pool the other day, I saw what appeared to be custom made game controlling guitars. Taking a closer look, I saw that they were actually using Scratch Sensor Board controllers. The Scratch Board is a neat device with four inputs for custom built sensors. On the board itself are a potentiometer, light sensor, sound sensor and a push button. Your program can look for user generated input on each of these, which can change your program or game based on the sensor input.

Chris, whose photostream the picture was in told me a bit about the project:

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snicho99 writes "A US owned gaming company has fled Australia, leaving unpaid employees and a massive tax bill. Apparently many staff have been working unpaid for months to allow their game to ship and hopefully the company to recover. Interzone's Perth (Western Australia) office was created with the assistance of a state government grant. Last week Interzone's (American) CEO entered the building at night and removed all the servers and IP so that Interzone could continue production at a new company they have opened in Ireland. The staff caught him on camera. More background here."

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I'm enjoying SF based Kiriko Moth's work. You might remember seeing her work from the bee post :) I think Crabfu should hang out with Kiriko and maybe that robot octopus.

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The Installer writes with this selection from GizMag: "Walking quadrupeds are being cast to play a major role in the rapidly unfolding age of robotics. The platform promises versatility far beyond that of wheeled-vehicles and will undoubtedly find applications in a wide variety of fields. Not surprisingly, the development of quadrupeds is being driven by the military and DARPA has recently boosted its efforts by awarding Boston Dynamics $32 million for the prototype phase of its Legged Squad Support System (LS3) program. ... LC3 is conceived as an autonomous support pack-robot for ground troops that can carry 400 pounds or more of payload, sustain itself for 24 hours and cover 20 miles in almost any kind of terrain."

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MIT's The Tech has the results of a wide-ranging survey of the sex-lives of the university's undergraduates. It's not very scientific (the respondents were self-selected, and 60% of the student body didn't respond), but the charts and commentary are a fun read. I'm particularly taked by the idea of a taboo against "floorcest" (shagging someone whose room is on the same dorm floor as yours).

Sex@MIT: The Survey (via MeFi)

Teresa Nielsen Hayden expertly dissects the latest accusation of plagiarism against JK Rowling, and imparts rather a lot about the publishing industry in the bargain.

<img src="http://craphound.com/images/willythewizard.jpeg" class="right" align="right" What these lawsuits teach us:

1. The plaintiffs haven't paid much attention to other works in the genre.

2. Non-writers think it's the ideas, rather than the execution, that makes a book. They've got that backward.

3. People who aren't accustomed to having a lot of ideas of their own have a very poor grasp of the odds that others might independently come up with the same ideas. <br clear="all"

Rowling's being sued for plagiarism again

Wednesday's Dork Tower comic contemplated the possibility of a Warren Ellis alarm clock. I'd buy one, or at least download one for my Android phone!

DORK TOWER, Wednesday, February 17, 2010 (via Forbidden Planet)

Hal sez, "Near the end of his long and touching Esquire article about the career and illness of Roger Ebert, Chris Jones writes about Ebert's discovery that somebody (probably Disney) had disappeared the YouTube videos of his tribute to Gene Siskel on his own freaking show:"

Ebert keeps scrolling down. Below his journal he had embedded video of his first show alone, the balcony seat empty across the aisle. It was a tribute, in three parts. He wants to watch them now, because he wants to remember, but at the bottom of the page there are only three big black squares. In the middle of the squares, white type reads: "Content deleted. This video is no longer available because it has been deleted." Ebert leans into the screen, trying to figure out what's happened. He looks across at Chaz. The top half of his face turns red, and his eyes well up again, but this time, it's not sadness surfacing. He's shaking. It's anger.

Chaz looks over his shoulder at the screen. "Those fu -- " she says, catching herself.

They think it's Disney again -- that they've taken down the videos. Terms-of-use violation.

This time, the anger lasts long enough for Ebert to write it down. He opens a new page in his text-to-speech program, a blank white sheet. He types in capital letters, stabbing at the keys with his delicate, trembling hands: MY TRIBUTE, appears behind the cursor in the top left corner. ON THE FIRST SHOW AFTER HIS DEATH. But Ebert doesn't press the button that fires up the speakers. He presses a different button, a button that makes the words bigger. He presses the button again and again and again, the words growing bigger and bigger and bigger until they become too big to fit the screen, now they're just letters, but he keeps hitting the button, bigger and bigger still, now just shapes and angles, just geometry filling the white screen with black like the three squares. Roger Ebert is shaking, his entire body is shaking, and he's still hitting the button, bang, bang, bang, and he's shouting now. He's standing outside on the street corner and he's arching his back and he's shouting at the top of his lungs.

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man (Thanks, Hal!)

Matt sez, "With that rocks-for-brains reporter in Boston trying to link campus shooter Amy Bishop's crimes to Dungeons & Dragons, I thought I'd take an opportunity to look at the good D&D has done for several writers I know. This is that article. By the way, I've been a D&D player for almost thirty years now, and have been a happier, more productive person for it."

I haven't played since my early 20s (late teens?) but D&D was an enormously positive influence on my life and imagination.

Jay Lake, the author of ten novels including his most recent, Green, told me that D&D became a big part of his life as boarding school student.

"At boarding school, if you're good and fast with homework, and deeply socially and athletically inept otherwise, there's not a lot to do. I'd been to seven schools in nine years on three continents when I hit Choate Rosemary Hall," said Lake. "I possessed the kind of poor social skills that are almost hip today, but were a recipe for meat-grinder misery in the 1970s when too-smart, too-isolated kids didn't have ready access to the kind of virtual retreats we have today in gaming, programming and online life. Geek culture at the teen level didn't exist yet, except as a special class of victimhood. Combine that with a raging case of clinical depression, and I was a disaster waiting to happen."

Dungeons & Dragons provided a constructive way to pass the time for Lake and his friends.

"The alternate worlds and wild imagination of D&D gave me and my fellow misfits an outlet, and we had dozens upon dozens of hours per week to spend on it. Where else were we going to go? We lived in our high school. Think about that for a minute. Six or eight ferociously bright kids-Choate is one of the most academically competitive schools in the nation-with nothing to do but make things up to amuse one another, and D&D providing the framework."

Although those years have since passed, Lake still credited the game with providing a foundation he has built upon as a successful writer.

"Those three years playing D&D at boarding school did more to ground me in storytelling, plot construction, and sheer, raw imaginative throughput than any other single activity of my life. Today I'm a successful fantasy and science fiction novelist with ten novels and over two hundred short stories in print or on the way. I might have gotten to this point by a different path, but it would not have been the same journey,"

Writers reminisce about Dungeons & Dragons (Thanks, Matt!)

Skip forward about two minutes into this launch video of the Atlas V rocket on Feb 14, 2010, for the moment when it goes supersonic while passing through a layer of ice-crystals, creating a visible sonic boom in sun-dog form. Breath-taking.

Sonic Boom Meets Sun Dog 720p (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Kelson writes "Have you noticed that there haven't been many updates to Gears in a while? That's because Google has decided to focus instead on similar capabilities in the emerging HTML5 standard: local storage, database, workers and location cover similar functionality, but natively in the web browser. Of course, since Gears and HTML APIs aren't exactly the same, it's not a simple drop-in replacement, so they'll continue supporting the current version of Gears in Firefox and Internet Explorer. I guess this means the long-anticipated Gears support for 64-bit Firefox on Linux and Opera are moot."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MIT researchers are exploring whether a swarm of tiny helicopters outfitted with LEDs could self-organize into a massive flying display "screen." The vision for the nascent Flyfire project is that each of the choppers acts as a pixel to form a dynamically-reconfigurable display.


From MIT's SENSEable City Lab, co-developers of the Flyrire project:

With the self-stabilizing and precise controlling technology from the ARES Lab, the motion of the pixels is adaptable in real time. The Flyfire canvas can transform itself from one shape to another or morph a two-dimensional photographic image into an articulated shape. The pixels are physically engaged in transitioning images from one state to another, which allows the Flyfire canvas to demonstrate a spatially animated viewing experience.


Flyfire serves as an initial step to explore and imagine the possibilities of this free-form display: a swarm of pixels in a space.

Flyfire

Jay Rosen points us to an article out of France that takes a stab at presenting what a modern internet-era newsroom should look like. The point that I find most interesting, that helped clarify a few different ideas for me, is that it splits "journalism" into three distinct categories, all of which have a role in the newsroom:

1. Reporters -- who go out and do first person reporting -- creating original stories, not just reposting rewritten wire copy.
2. Columnists -- who "start conversations and give stories another perspective."
3. Curators -- who "'cover' the news by sorting, verifying and editing live everything good existing on the web and in the media. They make link journalism, they make the news more accessible."

Now, this is interesting in a few respects. First, many "reporters" today don't really do what is described as reporting above. That is, they often do try to take wire copy or stories that were written elsewhere, and go through the wasted process of "re-reporting" them just to pretend it's a new and unique story for that publication. In many ways, this is a waste of resources. What would be better is if they actually encouraged #3 above -- let a "curator" handle that sort of news.

Unfortunately, for the most part, newspapers seem to look down on "curating" as if it's some sort of lesser form of journalism, and this is a sticking point that they're going to need to get past if they want to understand how people engage with the news today. These days, everyone is a curator of the news in some fashion: they share news, comment on it, post about it, etc. But they also look to the "pros" to add more value to it as well. But if the traditional press looks down on this function, they won't do a particularly good job of it. It's sometimes tough for a press who used to want itself to be "the final word" on every story to admit that others may have reported it better/faster, as well as the fact that sometimes it's better to involve the community, rather than treating the community as riffraff waiting for the word from the god-like journalists.

If a newsroom were set up with a focus on those three roles (I would add editors as well...), with the understanding that they work together as a team to both bring the most information and community to a particular story, I doubt we'd see newspapers struggling as much as they are today.

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Some people whose names you may know or computers you may have used all had dinner together last week.

Photo above: Apocalyptic shit-disturber John Cusack eats the final grape at the namedrop alpha table, drawing heated commentary from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who sources say did not get a single grape.

(L-R, for reals, EDGE 2010 dinner: Jared Cohen, US State Department; Dave Morin, Facebook; John Cusack, actor/writer/director/thinker; Dean Kamen, Inventor, Deka Research; Bill Gates, Microsoft, Gates Foundation; Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post; Michael Shermer, Skeptic Magazine. Not shown in this photo, but huddled around the same table, were Peter Diamandis, George Church, and me. )

Here's the photo gallery for this dinner, hosted by John Brockman and EDGE to herald "the Dawing of the Age of Biology." Let the jpeg record show that I managed to get up close and personal with Marissa Mayer and Nathan Wolfe, then later with Danny Hillis.

More about the big ideas discussed, after the jump.

John Brockman, in presenting the theme for this 2010 edition of the annual EDGE dinner, wrote:

In the summer of 2009, in a talk at the Bristol (UK) Festival of Ideas, physicist Freeman Dyson articulated a vision for the future. He referenced The Age Of Wonder, by Richard Holmes, in which the first Romantic Age described by Holmes was centered on chemistry and poetry, while Dyson pointed out that this new age is dominated by computational biology. Its leaders, he noted, include "biology wizards" Kary Mullis, Craig Venter, medical engineer Dean Kamen; and "computer wizards" Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Charles Simonyi. He pointed out that the nexus for this intellectual activity — the Lunar Society for the 21st century — is centered around the activities of Edge.

All the scientists mentioned above by Dyson (with the exception of Simonyi) were present at the dinner. Others guests who are playing "a significant role in this new age of wonder through their scientific research, enlightened philanthropy, and entrepreneurial initiative" included Larry Brilliant, George Church, Bill Gates, Danny Hillis, Nathan Myhrvold, Jeff Skoll, and Nathan Wolfe.

EDGE: "The Edge Dinner: A New Age of Wonder, Where the Dawning of the Age of Biology Was Officially Announced." (Thank you, John Brockman / EDGE.org)

Many people think that when people set up their online social networking profiles, they may be prone to... exaggerating a bit. Given that they can control what they say about themselves, many have posited that those profiles really represent an idealized version of themselves. Yet, perhaps that's not true. Jose Luis Campanello points us to a recent study that found that people actually tend to be pretty honest in their social networking profiles. This really doesn't seem all that surprising when you think about it. I would guess that the results might be a bit different if they looked at dating sites, rather than social networking sites. On a social networking site, you're connecting with a lot of people you probably already really know in real life. As such, it makes little sense to present much of an idealized version of yourself, because your friends already know you -- and might even call you out for being fake. Still, as the report notes, there are still some people who believe that the norm is for people to lie about themselves, when the truth is that, in such realms, people really do tend to be pretty honest. And that's a good thing.

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An anonymous reader writes "The Polish website Moje Jabluszko ran an experiment that proves the poor reliability of the liquid contact indicators (original, in Polish) installed by Apple in the iPhone. They performed three different tests to challenge the LCIs , which they recorded as a movie. They decided to mimic regular usage of the iPhone — meaning, you go outside where it could be cold or warm, then move inside in a building where temperature might be dramatically different, but still within covered conditions. So, they placed the iPhone in its box for one hour outside at -11 C, then moved it inside at room temperature for 24 hours. They repeated the experiment 3 times, and after the third cycle they could show that the LCI located in the audio jack plug started turning red! This is a clear proof that LCIs are not reliable and could turn red while the iPhone has been used under the defined environmental requirements defined by Apple. Here, only the condensing water could have been in contact with the sensor. In other words, even moving in and out during regular winter time will make you iPhone LCI turn red!" (In the tech specs for the iPhone, Apple rates the non-operating temperature range as -20 to 45 C.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I've been meaning to write about Topspin CEO Ian Rogers' "moonlighting" foray into managing the band Get Busy Committee. Given Ian's close involvement with new music business models, it's no surprise that he's been doing a lot of interesting things, from selling uzi-shaped USB keys with the album (the album is called "Uzi Does It") to using Kickstarter to fund a vinyl picture disc -- including an offer for $1,000 to have the band write a song about the buyer, which would go on the release. It turns out that option sold out in a day (though it looks like some of the other options are still a bit short on buyers).

What's really great, though, is that Ian is revealing as much of the process as he has time for in semi-regular blog posts. Recently, he explained part of the general thinking that he's been pushing on the band, that they should: "Do Something Small Weekly, Something Big Monthly." The specific implementation doesn't fit for all content creators (or even all musicians), but the concept is a good one. It's a recognition that the old way a content creator related with fans was through major one-off "releases" (new album, new book, new concert, etc.). But times have changed, and the way you connect with fans is an ongoing process, and like it or not (and plenty don't like it), there is a sense of "what have you done for me lately." But if you're going to thrive in that sort of world, you have to keep doing stuff and keep experimenting. Setting a specific pace (something small weekly, something big monthly) is quite a useful way for many to think about this sort of experimentation in small, easy to comprehend and implement steps.

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Vigile writes "The idea of having a 'Limited Edition' solid state drive might seem counter intuitive but regardless of the naming, the new OCZ Vertex LE is based on the new Sandforce SSD controller that promises significant increases in performance, along with improved ability to detect and correct errors in the data stored in flash. While the initial Sandforce drive was called the "Vertex 2 Pro" and included a super-capacitor for data integrity the Vertex LE drops that feature to improve cost efficiency. In PC Perspective's performance tests, the drive was able to best the Intel X25-M line in file creation and copying duties, had minimal fragmentation or slow down effects and was very competitive in IOs per second as well. It seems that current SSD manufacturers are all targeting Intel and the new Sandforce controller is likely the first to be up to the challenge."

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Doug McKee of Bellingham, WA carves skateboards that look like birds, insects, and sea creatures.

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A few days ago, you may remember, I posted the comments I submitted to the USTR on the Special 301 report, where I pointed out the value of allowing countries to set their own intellectual property policy, rather than forcing everyone to follow US faith-based intellectual property policy. Traditionally, the Special 301 process was a way for industry lobbyists to get the US gov't to put countries they didn't like on a special "watch list," that would lead US diplomats, who didn't even understand the lack of factual basis for the report, to start putting pressure on other countries to change their intellectual property policies to make them more draconian (funny, isn't it, that they only went in one direction?). Basically, lobbyists would submit the details of countries whose IP policies they didn't like, and the USTR would basically turn around and put out a list based on what was submitted, with little effort to actually look at the situation. This year, at least, the public was able to submit comments (such as mine, linked above), but it's unclear how much of an impact that will have.

In the meantime, EFF and Public Knowledge have teamed up to ask the USTR to change the process and, at the very least, stop taking the word of industry lobbyists as if it were gospel. They also suggested that the USTR be more flexible in allowing countries to set their own IP policy -- noting, amusingly, that the US itself famously didn't implement its "international obligations" in the Berne Treaty for decades, because the country felt differently about certain aspects of copyright law. Hell, even today we're not in full compliance with Berne. But for some reason the USTR acts as if other countries need to fall in line with US IP policy, even as we've chosen to go in a different direction when we felt it was warranted.

Of course, the best thing to do isn't to change the Special 301 process, but to ditch it entirely. It serves no reasonable purpose and has been abused by industry representatives for years. It puts a strain on US relations with other countries, and harms the ability for other countries to craft IP policy in the way that they feel will best serve culture and innovation.

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In this video, "Jankworks," makes a joyful noise by flicking, banging, twanging, tapping, and triggering various pieces of old tech (drives, phone bells, typewriters, cassette players, etc). Jankworks writes:

I loved the pictures of Mark Tilden's workshop and it reminded me on the many times, while working on some project, that the clutter and tangle of tools and parts threatens to overtake everything. The link I've sent you goes to an, ahem, experimental 'music' video I made, using the junk and media components assembled on my shelf, to introduce sound. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either, but it was fun (and challenging) to create. Thought you might enjoy.

Analog Retread

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