http://freereadingsonline.com Entertaining and Informative Articles Updated Daily! Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:53:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Ebay seller nes_harmonica is offering three of these old Nintendo cartridges that have been modded to contain working harmonicas. Why the heck would you do that? Turns out it's kind of a retro in-joke for NES enthusiasts. OhGizmo's Andrew Liszewski explains: If you grew up in the 80's ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/15/nes-cartridge-harmonicas/ adeelarshad82 writes "The open-source Arduino electronics platform has received a ton of attention from the hardware enthusiast community. And one more follower is joining the fray--Mario himself. The mustachioed plumber of console video game fame has been converted into an eight-by-eight LED matrix by Carnegie Mellon University student Chloe Fan. ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/15/mario-reduced-to-8x8-with-open-source-and-arduino/ Einstein, who would be 131 today, needs no introduction. The foremost mathematician of the 20th Century, he held a position at the Institute of Advanced Study, one of the most storied intellectual centers in the world. Nobel Prize. He published papers on such physics-related topics as molecular physics, thermodynamics, the ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/15/happy-birthday-albert-einstein/ An anonymous reader writes "The Australian Informatics Olympiad programming test is being run in a couple of months. I'm an experienced programmer and I'm thinking of volunteering to tutor interested kids at my children's school to get them ready. There will be children of all levels in the group, from ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/15/good-language-choice-for-school-programming-test/ EagleHasLanded writes "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is 50 years old next month, and still no sign of intelligent alien life. Paul Davies of the Beyond Center (also Chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup ) says it's time to re-think and expand the search for ET." ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/15/seti-is-50-years-old-no-sign-of-et/ Acidspew writes "The Australian Government's plan to filter the Internet has caused furore and has been with vehement objection. Many people have put their opinions forward regarding this matter but this time around, M86 Security — the vendor that provided many ISPs equipment during the initial filter trials — has ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/filter-vendor-agrees-aussie-censorship-cant-work-as-promised/ A lovely pie for Pi Day (3/14), by Boing Boing reader Genise Schnitman. I wish I could taste a bite. http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/happy-pi-day-2/ portscan writes "There is an entertaining and telling article in the Wall Street Journal about iPhone use by Microsoft employees. Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank and file. The head of Microsoft's mobile division tried to explain it away ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/microsoft-employees-love-their-iphones/ boarder8925 writes "In a move sure to surprise no one, Obama has come out on the side of the MPAA/RIAA and has backed the ACTA: 'We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,' Obama said in his speech, 'Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/obama-backs-mpaa-riaa-and-acta/ Happy Pi Day from Makers Market! This sterling silver Pi Pendant and Pi Earrings from Oregon jewelers Nicholas and Felice would be a great gift for the mathematician, engineer, or scientist in your life. ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/in-the-makers-market-pi-day-accessories/ paulproteus writes "I'm a Debian developer and a part-time contributor to a few smaller projects. I do a lot of free software-y and open source-y things. Sometimes, though, I don't do them. I figure some other Slashdotters might have similar hang-ups — we contribute to a project, but there are ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/what-aspects-of-open-source-projects-do-you-avoid/ From the MAKE Flickr pool: Flickr user arms22 built this neat Arduino-based camera, including a LS20031 GPS receiver and a C328 640x480 camera module, with a SD card to store images. The maker provides more <a href="information and code on his blog, though it's in Japanese. ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/arduino-digicam/ andylim writes "It's been rumoured for some time now that Apple will include RFID technology in a future iPhone. An RFID-packing iPhone could interact with various objects including opening doors and it could even be used in shops to register items at the checkout. Beating Apple to the RFID punch, ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/how-to-make-your-own-iphone-rfid-reader/ So now I'm following Lee Joramo's instructions for installing Snow Leopard on the Mac Mini, in target mode. So far I've got the Mini showing up as an external hard drive on the MacBook. Update: It worked. I got a clean installation of Snow Leopard on the Mac Mini, using ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/i-got-my-firewire-cable/ Hugh Pickens writes "Techflash reports that Classmates.com has agreed to pay up to $9.5 million to its users to settle a lawsuit that accused the social network of sending deceptive emails that made people believe their old friends from high school were reaching out to connect — only to discover, ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/classmatescom-settles-lawsuit-over-phony-friends/ Has it been two weeks already? This has been fantastic. Those of you who read and comment on this website may suspect that the people who run it are the coolest people on the planet; turns out your suspicions are absolutely correct. This has been a wonderful place to blab on ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/hello-i-must-be-going/ An editorial at Eurogamer delves into what Sony and Microsoft hope to achieve with their upcoming console motion control systems, despite entering the market several years after Nintendo set the standard. "The cards Sony has placed on the table this week suggest one answer to that question. It sees PlayStation ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/how-sony-and-microsoft-hope-to-crack-the-motion-control-market/ "Tulane" wasn't Chuck Berry's last great song -- that would be "Oh What a Thrill," from Rockit -- but it's awfully close. Recorded for Back Home, the 1970 album he recorded for his return to the Chess label after a few years at Mercury that we fans are still trying ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/chuck-berry-tulane-greatest-song-of-all-time-of-the-day/ While I love a good, messy workshop, I appreciate a clean one if only to get tips on organizing my own space. Craig and Cindy Smith's shop, which they call the Firefly Workshop, offers some neat tricks. Also, what's up with the astromech dome and Wall-E eyes? I am not a ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/firefly-workshop/ terets1 writes "Reuters reports that Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez, issued a call on Saturday for 'internet controls' to prevent rumors and inaccurate reporting from spreading. He specifically cited a case in which a website incorrectly reported that a senior minister had been assassinated and kept the story up for two ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/venezuelas-chavez-to-limit-internet-freedom/ theodp writes "Formerly only available to Apps Users, Google has made Apps Script available to everyone (sample script), including you Google Docs low-lifers. Apps Script lets you automate actions across spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and other Google services. No spamming, kids!" Read more ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/google-makes-apps-script-available-to-all/ Update VICTORY! Motion passed with near unanimity! I'm delighted to report that the UK Liberal Democrats' Spring Convention have accepted the emergency motion on internet freedom, and will be debating it tomorrow morning. The LibDems were plunged into controversy last week when two of the LibDem Lords introduced a pro-web-censorship amendment ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/add-your-name-to-save-the-net-fb-page-help-the-libdems-do-the-right-thing/ I take the Fifth. I plead temporary insanity. Nolo contendere. I threw reason out the window. I felt smug for some reason. And I was feeling jealous of all the people who, on April 3, had their iPad. And I didn't. So, after reading that Andrew Baron ordered one with his winnings on AAPL stock, I ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/in-a-moment-of-insanity/ Every few years I almost get snookered into making a major furniture purchase at Ikea. Then I come to my senses. First, what Ikea is good for -- the little chotchkas you need to get a house started. Dishrags. Flatware. They have a starter box with a few pots and ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/the-lesson-of-ikea/ FleaPlus writes "The US Air Force is currently preparing for the launch of the secretive X-37B OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle 1) spaceplane, which was transferred from NASA to DARPA back in 2004 when NASA opted to focus its budget on lunar exploration. The reusable unmanned spaceplane is set to launch ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/air-force-spaceplane-readying-for-launch/ Not sure how long it's been down, but it's been a while. Nothing on status.twitter.com. This reminds me what I'm going to talk about at the 140Conf on April 20. How we are fools to think that something like Twitter can run entirely on one company's servers. The Twitter guys should ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/twitter-is-down-this-morning/ Barence writes "Mozilla has announced plans to redraft the open-source license underpinning projects such as Firefox. The Mozilla Public License 1.1 has been used to distribute numerous projects including Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenSolaris and Flex for over a decade. In the first phase of this process, Mozilla will release an alpha ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/mozilla-foundation-begins-redraft-process-for-mpl/ JoshuaInNippon writes "In honor of Pi Day, March 14 (or 3.14 for those who may need a hint), readers may be interested in reading an interview with Professor Daisuke Takahashi, the Japanese researcher who found 2.5 trillion digits of Pi back in August, before being apparently being edged out in ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/pi-day-and-an-interview-with-a-pi-researcher/ Happy 3.1415926535 - Pi Day! Pi, Greek letter (), is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th. Pi = 3.1415926535… With the use of computers, Pi has been calculated to over 1 ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/pi-day-es-bday-and-dst/ This week in the MAKE Flickr pool we saw: Smallest Zine In The World by The Bottomless Paddling Pool, play clothtylophone by syano, Schlitz box amp by nitdoggx, Oscilloscope + arduino by zeni666. ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/make-flickr-pool-weekly-roundup-38/ gollum123 writes "Think we'd all be better off if HTML5 could somehow instantly replace Flash overnight? Not necessarily, according to a set of comparisons from Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center website, which found that while HTML5 did come out ahead in many respects, it wasn't exactly a clear ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/a-skeptical-comparison-of-html5-video-playback-to-flash/ this_boat_is_real writes "Somewhere off the coast of Chile a pioneering underwater robot named Abe lies in a watery grave today. The Autonomous Benthic Explorer was one of the first truly independent research submersibles, being both unmanned and un-tethered to its launching ship. While on its 222nd research dive on Friday ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/long-running-underwater-robot-lost-at-sea/ Here's a good reason to stay in Austin on Monday night. In 2001, Jon Lebkowsky and Cory threw the first annual Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) party during SXSW Interactive, hosted by EFF-Austin. This party became annual tradition, and morphed over the last four years into Plutopia, a multifaceted extravaganza of music, ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/plutopia-a-multifaceted-extravaganza-in-austin-monday-march-15/ Marc de Vinck says: "I was watching SpongeBob with the kids. During the snail races I noticed the announcer's mug. OK, so it most likely stands for Bikini Bottom (where SpongeBob lives), but maybe, just maybe, it stands for something else?!" http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/bb-cameo-in-spongebob-squarepants-not-really/ Home movie hero Robbins Barstow writes, I am the 90-year-old producer of the 1956 family home movie, Disneyland Dream, which you first BoingBoinged nearly two years ago, on April 11, 2008. I thought you might be interested in knowing that a 1956 "Disneyland Dream" DVD is now available for purchase for ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/epic-disneyland-56-home-movie-is-now-a-dvd/ The folks over at Geek Squad produced this helpful infographic describing a rescue method that might help save your phone if you accidentally dunk it in water. Read more | Permalink | Comments | ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/how-to-save-a-wet-cell-phone/ this_boat_is_real writes "There's growing concern over how pharmaceutical companies use social media and the Internet to market their products. Last November, the US Food and Drug Administration held a hearing on the topic, and many were worried over how marketing mediums such as Twitter — which has a 140-character limit ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/pharma-marketing-faces-a-character-count-conundrum/ badger.foo writes "The OpenBSD 4.7 pre-orders are up. That means the release is done, sent off to CD production, and snapshots will turn -current again. Order now and you more likely than not will have your CD set, T-shirt or other cool stuff before the official release date. You get ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/openbsd-47-preorders-are-up/ Kirigami is kind of like origami except you get to make cuts, too! Check out Daniel Wyllie L. Rodrigues's excellent kirigami geometric shapes. The top image is called Five Spheres of Persistence. Each of the five spheres consists of a cube, an octahedron and a rhombic dodecahedron on top of ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/geometric-kirigami/ I could go on all weekend about Son House, one of the top and longest-lasting country bluesman, but I'll be kind to you and get to the music quickly. His original recordings are messages from a foreign land, his sessions and concerts after rediscovery rival Skip James' (hear an interview ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/son-house-death-letter-greatest-song-of-all-time-of-the-day/ It's Caturday. Watch: Charlie Schmidt's Keyboard Cat REINCARNATED! (via Sean Bonner) http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/14/new-keyboard-cat-is-pretty-great/ Mirk writes "Back in 1985 it was possible to understand the whole computer, from the hardware up through device drivers and the kernel through to the high-level language that came burned into the ROMs (even if it was only Microsoft BASIC). The Reinvigorated Programmer revisits R. C. West's classic and ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/programming-the-commodore-64-the-definitive-guide/ In my household, we have an almost unhealthy obsession with all things Patagonia. The environmentally conscious surf-and-climb brand from California has just released its lightest fabric ever via the new M10 jacket — it has three layers of waterproof material, air vents for your armpits, a giant hoodie, and weighs ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/patagonia-m10-jacket-weighs-only-10-ounces/ krou writes "Talking to the BBC at a private function held at the Royal Society in London, former astronauts Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan both spoke out about Obama's decision to postpone further moon missions. Lovell claimed that 'it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/former-astronauts-call-obama-nasa-plans-catastrophic-2/ krou writes "Talking to the BBC at a private function held at the Royal Society in London, former astronauts Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan both spoke out about Obama's decision to postpone further moon missions. Lovell claimed that 'it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/former-astronauts-call-obama-nasa-plans-catastrophic/ Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission is using GPS data collected in every cab to review millions of trips in New York City over the past 26 months and has discovered a huge number in which out-of-city rates, twice the rate ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/gps-log-analysis-uncovers-millions-in-nyc-taxi-overcharges-2/ Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission is using GPS data collected in every cab to review millions of trips in New York City over the past 26 months and has discovered a huge number in which out-of-city rates, twice the rate ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/gps-log-analysis-uncovers-millions-in-nyc-taxi-overcharges/ Xylocopa Design (of Build-Your-Own Ratmobile fame) just added this beautiful Mysterious Mushroom Puzzle to their Makers Market store: These gorgeous engraved wooden mushrooms fit together to make a 6" square - but in only one configuration! Assembling them may not look so bad, but trust us, it's no simple task. ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/in-the-makers-market-mysterious-mushroom-puzzle/ According to The Financial Times, "Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now '99.9 per cent' certain to go ahead [with the closure] as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/brinksmanship-continues-in-google-china-row-over-censorship/ In this leaked, six-page email, Richard Mollet, the Director of Public Affairs for the British Phonographic Institute (the UK's record-industry lobbyists), sets out the BPI's strategy for ramming through the Digital Economy Bill, a sweeping, backwards reform to UK copyright law that will further sacrifice privacy and due process in ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/leaked-uk-record-industry-memo-sets-out-plans-for-breaking-copyright/ Bueno Aires's Librería El Ateneo Grand Splendid used to be a beautiful movie palace. Saved from the wrecker's ball, it is now one of the most majestic bookstores I've ever clapped eyes upon, a veritable temple to books. Marilyn sez, "El Ateneo Grand Splendid in downtown Buenos Aires is a ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/most-beautiful-bookstore-buenos-airess-libreria-el-ateneo-grand-splendid/ Conference-goers had fun building tiny robots and high-tech graffiti at the TEDActive event in Palm Springs last month, thanks to Newegg and the Maker Shed. The annual get-together of big thinkers had a Newegg-sponsored Tinker Box "lab" area where conference attendees built bristlebots, LED throwies, and RGB LED origami lamps. My ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/making-things-at-tedactive-2010/ sglines writes "Over the last couple of years I've been slowly getting deaf. Too much loud rock and roll I suppose. After flubbing a couple of job interviews because I couldn't understand my inquisitors, I had a hearing test which confirmed what I already knew: I'm deaf. So I tried ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/why-are-digital-hearing-aids-so-expensive-2/ sglines writes "Over the last couple of years I've been slowly getting deaf. Too much loud rock and roll I suppose. After flubbing a couple of job interviews because I couldn't understand my inquisitors I had a hearing test which confirmed what I already knew, I'm deaf. So I tried ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/why-are-digital-hearing-aids-so-expensive/ You've heard of tilt-shift photography, right -- pix shot with a special lens that makes everything look like little models. Well, check out Sam O'Hara's The Sandpit, an awesome tilt-shift movie of a day in the life of New York City! [via Kottke] More:DIY tilt-shift lensWeekend Project: Tilt-Shift PhotographyHOW TO - ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/the-sandpit-a-tilt-shift-movie/ suraj.sun tips a report up at CNet which begins: "Browser makers, grappling with outmoded technology and a vision to rebuild the Web as a foundation for applications, have begun converging on a seemingly basic but very important element of cloud computing. That ability is called local storage, and the new mechanism ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/key-web-app-standard-approaches-consensus/ MAKE is at the FIRST Robotics expo at the Javits Center in NYC for the NY/NJ regionals. Check out my Flickr set for some of the robot action! The New York City / New Jersey FIRST  is a regional office of FIRST, the 501c3 nonprofit organization created to inspire ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/first-robotics-expo-nyc/ Each week I help Ladyada with "Ask an engineer" at 10pm ET, a live video chat for beginners and pros, all about engineering and making things - this week she will going through another chapter in the Make: Electronics book, she'll also answer questions from the "Maker Business: Adafruit Industries, ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/ask-an-engineer-tonight-at-10pm-et/ An anonymous reader writes "David Cummings, a programmer who worked on the Mars Pathfinder project, has written an interesting editorial in the L.A. Times encouraging Toyota to drop claims of software infallibility in their recent acceleration problems. He argues that embedded systems developers must program more defensively, and that companies ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/toyota-acceleration-and-embedded-system-bugs/ Intermolecular polarity is a fancy way of saying "oil and water don't mix". Here, Science Bob explains why, and shows off a fun trick you can do over and over with oil, water, food coloring and alka-seltzer. Thumbnail courtesy Flickr user ncfc0721, via CC Previously:Saturday Morning Science Experiment: The Gummi Bear Gets ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/saturday-morning-science-experiment-alka-seltzer-lava-lamp/ Lanxon writes "Robots of the future will be capable of learning more complex behaviors than ever before if a new, pan-European research project succeeds in its goal of developing the world's first architecture for advanced robotic motor skills, reports Wired. If successful, the four-year AMARSi (Adaptive Modular Architecture for Rich ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/amarsi-project-aims-to-have-robots-learn-jobs-from-co-workers/ gregg writes "HM Cancri has been confirmed as a binary system of two white dwarfs orbiting each other so closely that they complete one orbit every 5.4 minutes; they are separated by a mere 8 Earth diameters. 'These are the burnt-out cinders of stars such as our Sun, and contain ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/fastest-and-most-compact-stellar-spinner-confirmed/ Like many in the insulated west, I've long been fascinated by North Korea, what life is like in there, and what will happen to the peninsula after the walls come down. (Of course, I'm half a world away, so I have the luxury of being fascinated with North Korea. Life ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/hanging-out-with-kim-jong-il/ Hugh Pickens writes "The Associated Press reports that the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has deferred a decision until June on whether to create a '.xxx' Internet suffix as an online red-light district, beginning a 70-day process of consultations on a domain that could help ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/final-decision-deferred-on-xxx-domains/ I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "PJ of Groklaw has found some really interesting documents coming out of the never-ending SCO trial. Specifically, in SCO v. Novell, SCO doesn't want the jury to find out about the email Blake Stowell (then a PR guy for SCO) sent to Maureen ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/sco-asked-ogara-to-smear-groklaw/ holmesfsf writes "Creeped out by the Lower Merion School District's remote monitoring of students? Check out the Free Software Foundation's response to the laptop spying scandal and help build a wiki listing of school districts that provide students with laptops, so that the FSF can campaign against mandatory, proprietary laptops." ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/pa-laptop-spying-inspires-fsf-crowdsourcing-effort/ Barence writes "Beneath the web pages indexed by Google lies an online world that few know exists. It's a realm of huge, untapped reserves of valuable information containing sprawling databases, hidden websites and murky forums. It's a world where academics and researchers might find the data required to solve some ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/the-dark-side-of-the-web/ MMBK writes "Dennis Chamberland is one of the world's preeminent aquanauts. He's worked with NASA to develop living habitats and underwater plant growth labs, among other cool things. His next goal is establishing the world's first permanent underwater colony. This video gets to the heart of his project, literally and ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/permanent-undersea-homes-soon-temporary-ones-now/ superapecommando writes "GCHQ lost 35 laptops in one year, potentially containing highly sensitive data. The UK's electronic spy centre was today lambasted by MPs for having a 'cavalier' attitude to data security. The centre is responsible for tracking the electronic communications of terrorists. In a new report, the Commons Intelligence ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/uk-intel-agencys-missing-laptops-might-contain-sensitive-data/ Earthquake Retrofit writes "The Register has a rather funny story about the Zeus botnet: 'The latest version of the Zeus do-it-yourself crimeware kit goes to great lengths to thwart would-be pirates by introducing a hardware-based product activation scheme similar to what's found in Microsoft Windows. ... They've also pushed out ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/malware-authors-learn-market-segmentation-from-the-best/ WolverineOfLove writes "I'm recreating a 1980s abandonware game with copyrights that have been seemingly unused for the past 18 years. The situation is detailed further in a Slashdot journal entry I just wrote, but in short: Is it worth dealing with all the copyrights and paying money if I want ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/licensing-an-abandonware-game/ Sweet busking pitch: Boba Fett costume, accordion, Zelda theme. This is what makes the NYC subway great. Boba Fett shows off his artistic side (via Digg) Previously:Dead Plants: kick-ass shoutin' hillbilly blues busker music from ... Man playing a hand-made, electrified, one-stringed musical ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/boba-fett-accordion-busks-the-zelda-theme-on-a-nyc-subway-platform/ Here's the latest trailer for Luc Besson's forthcoming steampunk movie, "Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adele Blanc-Sec." That's some heady stuff. Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adele Blanc-Sec - 2nd teaser (Thanks, Xeni!) http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/luc-bessons-steampunk-movie/ Looking for an automobile decor element that proudly proclaims your devotion to the earliest, persecuted science fiction fans who huddled in catacombs, scratching crude rayguns into the walls? Look no further. WHITE vinyl SCI-FI RAY GUN decal jesus fish parody 3x5 (Thanks, Travis!) Previously:DIY Flying Spaghetti Monster bumper sticker Teach the Controversy tees illustrate ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/sci-fi-a-jesusfish-raygun-parody/ Kate from Aussiecon, the upcoming World Science Fiction convention in Melbourne, sez, "The deadline for sending in your Hugo Awards nomination ballot is fast approaching! The Hugo Awards are awards for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. The nomination deadline is Saturday, March 13, 2010 23:59 PST. To submit ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/hugo-nominating-deadline-looms/ The census is one of America's great institutions, the way the country knows itself. Here then is the 1870 statistical atlas of the ninth census, scanned at high rez. Your one-stop shop for 1870's best infographics: "Presented here are all of the maps and charts from the first statistical atlas ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/us-census-infographics-from-1870/ Photos: Xeni Jardin (top) and Sean Bonner The South African rap-rave internet star known as The Ninja grabs my face by the cheeks. He leans forward and stares into my eyes, like a large savannah predator about to inhale a hamster. "And that's what I did to Jimmy Iovine," he says. ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/die-antwoord-to-sign-with-interscope-neill-blomkamp-to-direct-next-video/ CuteSteveJobs writes "Apple has been dealt a severe blow having been told that it no longer has a monopoly on the letter 'i' for product naming. IP Australia, the government body that oversees trademark applications, rejected Apples' complaint against a company selling 'DOPi' laptop bags. Last year Australian computer company ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/apple-loses-aussie-trademark-complaint-over-i-name/ Dthief writes "A long-running legal battle between the United States government and a group of 29 scientists and engineers of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, has now reached the US Supreme Court." At issue: mandatory background checks for scientists and engineers working at JPL, which they allege ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/jpl-background-check-case-reaches-supreme-court/ We've discussed in the past how copyright isn't really "property" at all, and trying to compare it to regular property leads to all sorts of confusing problems. Take, for example, this lawsuit, found via Michael Scott, over who owns the rights to thousands of songs. The actual mess ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/when-you-try-to-figure-out-who-owns-imaginary-property-things-get-confusing-fast/ Brad Hubbard writes "I regularly read a blog called "Knock Off Wood" -- a site where a woman teaches readers how to build various designer-looking pieces of furniture at home for a lot less. It's the best kind of "maker" site - someone who is passionate about crafting, freely sharing ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/williams-sonoma-nastygrams-blogger-who-helps-people-build-their-own-furniture/ donadony writes "After twitter, now it's Digg who's decided to replace MySQL and most of their infrastructure components and move away from LAMP to another architecture called NoSQL that is based in Casandra, an open source project that develops a highly scalable second-generation distributed database. Cassandra was open sourced by ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/digg-says-yes-to-nosql-cassandra-db-bye-to-mysql/ For 50 years, residents of the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit have tried to understand the "cursed bread" incident, a moment of terrifying mass insanity and hallucinations that left at least five dead and dozens in asylums. Now the mystery is solved: the CIA secretly spiked the bread from the bakery ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/french-village-went-insane-after-cia-spiked-its-bread-with-lsd/ Alan at Hacked Gadgets found this neat video that shows how ball bearings are made. All of that work to make what seems like a simple part! [via Hacked Gadgets] Read more | Permalink ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/how-ball-bearings-are-made/ Wireless Ink was a company that I remember getting some buzz back in the 2005/2006 timeframe... and then they dropped completely off my radar. Honestly, I had thought they had gone out of business. So I was a bit surprised to see them suddenly pop back up with ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/google-facebook-sued-because-without-some-random-patent-no-one-would-ever-access-a-social-network-from-a-mobile-phone/ Earlier this year we noted this was likely, but now it appears that Rep. Howard Berman is getting ready to introduce an "Internet Freedom Bill," that would limit how US companies could operate in "internet-restricting countries." Now, we've already pointed out that it's odd to see politicians pushing such ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/irony-alert-hollywood-howard-berman-to-introduce-internet-freedom-bill/ You may have seen some of the rather popular videos by Common Craft, which has built a rather large following based on these videos about technology and social media using paper diagrams on whiteboards. What the videos are really good at is simplifying things in a way that's easy ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/viral-video-producers-want-to-charge-you-to-embed-their-videos/ See this announcement on the Frontier News blog. http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/opml-editor-universal-app-testing/ ChocSnorfler writes "James Lupski, a physician-scientist who suffers from a neurological disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth, has been searching for the genetic cause of his disease for more than 25 years. Late last year, he finally found it — by sequencing his entire genome. While a number of human genome sequences have ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/hunting-disease-origins-by-whole-genome-sequencing/ A few years back, I wrote about why we had found full text RSS feeds to be much more powerful and useful than truncated RSS feeds. The reason that many sites push truncated feeds is the belief that it will force people to click through, and the ads on ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/13/truncated-rss-is-a-bad-business-decision/ PipianJ writes "A recent preprint posted on arXiv by Vadim Bobylev presents some startling new numbers about a future close pass of one of our stellar neighbors. Based on studies of the Hipparcos catalog, Bobylev suggests that the nearby orange dwarf Gliese 710 has an 86% chance of skirting the ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/nearby-star-forecast-to-skirt-solar-system/ More info on their website. Read more | Permalink | Comments | ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/nova-albion-steampunk-exhibition-this-weekend/ Macharius writes "Today, the Texas Board of Education approved 11-4 a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the role of Christianity in American history and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light. The article goes on to mention that ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/texas-approves-conservative-curriculum/ I bought a Canon scanner to use with my MacBook Pro 13-inch laptop, but it just doesn't work. Once in a while it produces a scan, but most of the time, the drivers say they can't find a scanner attached to the computer. I've been advised this may be because ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/installing-snow-leopard-on-a-headless-mac-mini/ Just a couple of months ago, I wrote about something that I thought was really impressive by Thomson Reuters. A Reuters blogger wrote a blog post on his official Reuters blog questioning Reuters itself after rumors started spreading that the company had spiked an article after pressure from the ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/reuters-social-media-policy-gets-it-half-right-half-wrong/ Last year, I gave family members letters from the World's Smallest Postal Service for Christmas. They are awesome and make a fun gift. Spotted on the MAKE Flickr pool is this professed "smallest zine in the world," an art "zine" done with eraser-carved stamps. I love the idea of doing eraser ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/smallest-zine-in-the-world/ Harbor East is hosting an art opening called "Tools, Trash and Technology - A 25-year retrospective of the Art and Design of Marque Cornblatt." Marque's whimsical, clever creations have been featured on BB and MAKE. The event runs March 10-April 4, 2010 and is open Wednesday - Saturday 11 a.m. - ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/marque-cornblatt-retrospective-art-opening-in-baltimore/ barnyjr writes "According to a story from Reuters, 'Vaccines that contain a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal cannot cause autism on their own, a special US court ruled on Friday, dealing one more blow to parents seeking to blame vaccines for their children's illness. The special US Court of Federal Claims ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/court-rules-against-vaccine-autism-claims-again/ The Olympics are coming to London, so our civil liberties are going out the window: because nothing epitomises the spirit of global competition and cooperation like corporate bullying and unfettered truncheon-waving. Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/london-olympics-police-powers-to-force-spectators-to-remove-non-sponsor-items-enter-houses-take-posters/ Netflix, of course, received tons of attention and (apparently) a lot of valuable research, with its Netflix prize competition, that allowed anyone to take a bunch of Netflix data and try to improve on Netflix's ranking algorithm. Of course, whenever you're dealing with "anonymized data" there are questions about ... http://freereadingsonline.com/2010/03/12/netflix-cancels-plans-for-new-netflix-prize-as-part-of-privacy-lawsuit-settlement/