Flutterby™! From 2010-12-01 to 2010-12-31

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Creation Museum expansion

2010-12-01 23:36:43.608834+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has unveiled plans to give tax breaks to the Creation Museum to build an expansion that includes a full-scale Noah's Ark and a Tower of Babel.

"Right. What's a cubit?"

Or, as Capt. Renault on MeFi said:

There's something in the back of my mind about building a Tower of Babel... I can't put my finger on it right now, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

[ related topics: Politics Movies Art & Culture ]

More Assange

2010-12-01 23:59:46.276518+01 by Dan Lyke / 8 comments

Charlie Stross proposes that Julian Assange should get the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize:

Wikileaks is not attacking the US government; rather, it's acting to degrade the ability of pressure groups to manipulate the US government to their own ends. Those who benefit the most from their ability to manipulate the State Department are the most angry about this: autocratic middle eastern leaders, authoritarian right-wing politicians, royalty, corporate cartels. Those of us who are scratching our heads and going "huh?" about the significance of Muammar Ghadaffi's botox habit are missing the point: it's not about the content, but about the implication that the powerful can no longer count on their ability to lie to the public without being called on it.

And points to zunguzungu: Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; “To destroy this invisible government”.

... anyone who was surprised that our embassies are doing dirty, secretive, and disingenuous political work as a matter of course is naïve. But Assange is not trying to produce a journalistic scandal which will then provoke red-faced government reforms or something, precisely because no one is all that scandalized by such things any more. Instead, he is trying to strangle the links that make the conspiracy possible, to expose the necessary porousness of the American state’s conspiratorial network in hopes that the security state will then try to shrink its computational network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs broadband History moron Work, productivity and environment Conspiracy Government ]

Baby, I Wish It Was Cold Outside

2010-12-02 01:32:54.962023+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Getting in the holiday spirit by listening to Suburban Sprawl's Christmas samplers, including songs like "All I Want For Christmas Is A Rap Career" and "Santa Just Crashed Into My House and He's Drunk As Fuck". Via MeFi.

[ related topics: Pop Culture Real Estate ]

Craigslisp

2010-12-02 15:01:22.496474+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

http://sfbay.craigs-lisp.com/

What recourthe do I have for a tranthaction gone wrong or a perthon/posth that ith not being honesth?

If you feel you've been cheated in a tranthaction or that there ith falthe advertithing on the thite, pleathe let uth know tho we can look into it on the thite, and tho we can be prepared to provide whatever help we can to polithe and other investhigatorth.

[ related topics: Humor ]

A few questions

2010-12-02 19:16:38.296552+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

Dan Gillmor: A few questions about the Wikileaks release.

For the U.S. government:

  • Why did some 3 million people have access to much if not most of the diplomatic trove? That's hardly keeping things confidential.

[ related topics: Salon magazine ]

TSA pat downs as grooming for sexual predation

2010-12-02 19:19:47.149984+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

The Raw Story: Exclusive: TSA frisks groom children to cooperate with sex predators, abuse expert says

Telling a child that they are engaging in a game is "one of the most common ways" that sexual predators use to convince children to engage in inappropriate contact, Wooden told Raw Story.

Children "don't have the sophistication" to distinguish between a pat-down carried out by an airport security officer and an assault by a sexual predator, he said.

Truth be told, I "don't have the sophistication" to distinguish between 'em either.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Games Sexual Culture Aviation ]

On Wikileaks and responsibility

2010-12-02 19:51:00.771503+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Twitter @natlsecuritycnn, "CNN Natl Security" on October 22:

More on redacted documents. Our producers are finding #WikiLeaks redacted some docs even more than when military released under #FOIA

Close the Washington Monument

2010-12-02 23:39:48.060916+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

Schneier on Security: Close the Washington Monument:

Securing the Washington Monument from terrorism has turned out to be a surprisingly difficult job. The concrete fence around the building protects it from attacking vehicles, but there's no visually appealing way to house the airport-level security mechanisms the National Park Service has decided are a must for visitors. It is considering several options, but I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.

[ related topics: Weblogs Nature and environment Aviation Current Events Heinlein Cryptography Archival Real Estate ]

status update

2010-12-03 02:41:06.910022+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

I get the "tender and mild", but "wholly"? Is there really a problem with adulterated infant? "...may be up to 8% brine solution by weight?"

QOTD

2010-12-03 06:34:12.424697+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

QOTD, Josh Shaffer:

"You’ve turned this orgy into one giant clusterfuck"... Complaint or Compliment?

[ related topics: Quotes ]

Fellatio in fruit bats

2010-12-03 16:26:44.356595+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

University College Cork (Ireland) has lifted sanctions against a professor accused of sexual harassment in connection with pointing out a paper about fellatio in fruit bats to a female colleague.

The paper was Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time, Tan M, Jones G, Zhu G, Ye J, Hong T, Zhou S, Zhang S, Zhang L. (PLoS One. 2009 Oct 28;4(10):e7595.).

But this being Flutterby, I can't just leave it there, so... some video of fruit bat copulation and fellatio!

Initial article and video via Moral Low Ground.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Movies Ethics Robotics Journalism and Media Embedded Devices Education Video ]

The Arrow of Time

2010-12-03 17:23:23.558631+01 by petronius / 0 comments

An interesting item from Science News: If you ask an American or European to arrange something in chronological order (say, cards depicting the 7 Ages of Man) they arange them from left to right, with the earliest on the left. If you ask certain Australian Aboriginals to do the task, they set them up from East to West, just like the Sun travels in the sky. Seems an obvious approach. However, if you sit the Yank on the other side of the table he will still set the cards up from his left to his right, while the Aboriginal will reverse the order of the cards. They don't use left or right, they use absolute directions, like North and South. The implications for having so acute a sense of direction are intriguing; I suppose if your tribe has been in the same valley for 40,000 years you already know every bush and rock cold.

[ related topics: Sociology Interface issues ]

Let there be...

2010-12-03 22:40:14.373541+01 by Dan Lyke / 1 comments

Hacking the GE Color Effects G-35 Christmas lights to give 50 individually addressable RGB LEDs driven with an Atmel microcontroller. (Via MeFi)

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Robotics Embedded Devices ]

Keeping secrets

2010-12-04 19:47:49.547288+01 by Dan Lyke / 1 comments

A lot of people have been mentioning that the U.S. State Department is warning prospective students to not post links to Wikileaks on social networking sites.

Now as much as I'm not generally against the Wikileaks leaks, this is generally smart: A bunch of trusting someone to keep secrets is to know that they're not gonna be casual with confirming or denying things that appear to be common knowledge.

Which is very related to the Valerie Plame situation. It doesn't matter if it's "common knowledge", or has shown up on the cover of Aviation Leak Week, if you're part of a secrecy chain and want to maintain that chain, that means a bunch of denying that something exists outside of the very defined space in which that secret isn't.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Cool Science Weblogs Aviation Space & Astronomy ]

status update

2010-12-04 19:51:05.257131+01 by Dan Lyke / 4 comments

If I hadn't already dropped PayPal for other sliminess, I'd drop them over keeping Wikileaks from donations.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Julian Assange in his own words

2010-12-04 19:57:49.632003+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Guardian interview with Julian Assange is well worth reading.

He talks about his legal situation, and some of the process they're going through to do the redaction.

[ related topics: Weblogs Law ]

Invade Wikipedia

2010-12-04 21:06:59.567138+01 by Dan Lyke / 4 comments

QOTD, Krutz on SE:

Half-remembered from this week's episode of "Have I Got News for You":

"The leaks have been described as a political 9/11. So, with Wikileaks firmly to blame, the world prepares for the United States to invade Wikipedia."

[ related topics: Quotes Politics moron Current Events ]

'Noog Burns a Little More

2010-12-05 17:28:33.304068+01 by meuon / 1 comments

Good pic of the fire dancers in front of the Vega Chrysalis (by Andrew nigh) burn sculpture. There should be some video's of the main burn online soon. The event was well attended, had a great groove to it, some fire dancers, and some Chattanooga fireman trying very hard to let it all happen. The sculpture was augmented with some small thermite and magnesium sparklers, and put on a spectacular show. The crowd dancing around the fire afterwards, with firemen in the middle (attempting to keep people from being hurt) was priceless and a wonderful karmic confluence just a couple of blocks from what we used to call the "Virtual Building".

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Robotics Chattanooga Pyrotechnics Embedded Devices Video ]

FBI inciting terrorism

2010-12-05 19:27:13.261048+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

After discovering that the last few "terror" attacks on the U.S. that were busted up by the FBI were basically set up by the FBI with some developmentally disabled dupe as the fall-guy to provide a non-FBI person for the press release, this should come as absolutely no surprise: Worshippers at a Southern California took out a restraining order against an FBI informant who was trying to incite people to violence. Via MeFi.

And while we're looking at corrupt government officialks desperately trying to increaqse the size of their department: FBI: New Barbie 'Video Girl' doll could be used for child porn:

The document went on to cite the findings of another investigation that found "examples where a concealed video camera had recorded child pornography." That camera didn't involve a doll, FBI special agent Frederick Gutt in Seattle, Washington, said Friday.

Uh. Yeah.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement California Culture Databases Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Audio frustrations

2010-12-05 23:35:15.490627+01 by Dan Lyke / 13 comments

I know I've whined about this before, and I've tried a number of things, but: Am I really reduced to buying an iPod to replace my CD collection?

I have our CD collection ripped to MP3, on a network share, available as SMB, NFS, and probably whatever the hell else I want to throw out there. I'm also willing to copy it to a device.

I have a Chumby, which currently works with SqueezeServer, but the web interface to SqueezeServer is buggy as hell, the whole thing is slower than I have patience for, and we have to fire up something additional to change the music.

There's allegedly Chumby LAN Music, but I can't get it working, I think I could debug it, but that still leaves us without something to browse the album covers (this is important to Charlene).

I want a device I can plug my stereo into that plays audio off the network shares and lets us browse the album cover art quickly and easily.

At this point, I don't even care if I have to buy a tablet computer or netbook to put in the living room, if I can figure out the right interface.

So: Do I need a faster house server so that SqueezeServer is fast enough?

Do the Squeezebox devices provide a usable fast front-end?

If I buy a computer to run this, what's a simple interface that lets us manage playlists and browse album art?

Am I really reduced to putting the MP3 collection into [yuck] iTunes and buying a mumbledy-mumble gig iPod, copying the whole thing over to that, and then plugging that into the stereo?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music broadband Work, productivity and environment Art & Culture Pyrotechnics Douglas Adams Real Estate ]

MPAA silliness

2010-12-06 23:40:46.845253+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Nerve.com: Similar oral sex scenes in Black Swan and Blue Valentine get two different ratings. The former involves two women, and got an R, the latter has a man going down on a woman and got an NC-17.

I don't know what all the differences are, I'd hazard a guess that this goes beyond the "it's hawt if two chicks do it, hur hur" double standard, just the sort of thing the MPAA ratings are famous for, fully over into the "fucked up people in dysfunctional relationships using sex as a weapon get a free pass" territory.

Oh yeah, here we go: IMDB says Blue Valentine is a drama/romance, and that Black Swan is a drama/thriller. So I'm guessing those involved get "punished", making the self-loathing closeted freaks in the MPAA ratings board feel okay with the sex.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Movies Current Events ]

QOTD

2010-12-07 02:32:45.210206+01 by Dan Lyke / 1 comments

"Journalists cover wars by not taking sides. But when the war is on free speech itself, neutrality is no longer an option." -- Dan Gillmor

[ related topics: History Journalism and Media Salon magazine ]

Hardware hackery

2010-12-07 17:12:03.592682+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Project yesterday was taking an old relay controller I had upstairs, figuring out that something was busted in it, so rather than bothering to fix it I wired up a microcontroller to drive the relays. Today I need to get a little stranded THHN so that I can finish wiring up my holiday light controller, and get a few more strands of all one color so that we can do some animated scenes..

But just when I was feeling self-congratulatory about switching back from C# coding to solder, Jeri Ellsworth shows how to build a microwave scanner that sees body parts through particle board.

[ related topics: Animation Movies Robotics Software Engineering Television Embedded Devices ]

December 7, 1941

2010-12-07 17:40:52.596913+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

"...a date which will live in infamy..."

YouTube video of the speech.

[ related topics: History War ]

CJR on the WikiLeaks process

2010-12-08 15:29:56.180104+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Columbia Journalism Review: The Story Behind the Publication of WikiLeaks’s Afghanistan Logs.

[ related topics: Journalism and Media ]

DIY body scanner

2010-12-08 16:28:23.795765+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Two YouTube videos from Jeri Ellsworth: DIY Body Scanner and DIY Body Scanner part II

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Video ]

About modern journalism

2010-12-09 16:32:57.442628+01 by Dan Lyke / 4 comments

Martin Robbins writes about journalism in the context of the NASA "life and arsenic" press conference:

The blogosphere is where this farcical handling of science outreach collided viciously with reality. What's remarkable is that it was only at this stage that the checks and balances that ought to have prevented things going this far finally came into play, and when they did it was like watching a blob of cream cheese hit a metal grater at five million miles per hour.

The quality, accuracy and context of material available on leading blogs exceeded that of much of mainstream media reporting by light years. ...

Mark Jeftovic: Timeline of an Epic #FAIL: The WikiLeaks Takedown Fiasco is the inside story of EasyDNS.com, which is not the DNS provider that dropped Wikileaks.org. That was EveryDNS.com. But try telling that to everyone from the Guardian to the AP (who "quotes" Mark Jeftovic without ever talking to him) to the New York Times. (Via MeFi)

And after you read that, you'll never want to go to any of the Gawker sites or Huffington Post ever again. Not that you'd want to anyway.

Addendum: The EasyDNS web site currently boasts:

The First Name That Comes To Mind For DNS Hosting

Believe It. We found out the hard way.

[ related topics: Weblogs Journalism and Media Net Culture Conferences ]

Holiday lights

2010-12-10 06:17:04.467281+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Video of our holiday lights, as of this evening.

[ related topics: Movies Video ]

The Economist

2010-12-10 09:22:56.890376+01 by ebwolf / 2 comments

At one time I used to enjoy reading the Economist. But I dropped my subscription in the wake of their editorial support for "Enhanced Interrogation". Now the Economist is proving to me that I never want to pick up their rag again with their position on the WikiLeaks cables. But they do make a troubling point. The "fan response" to WikiLeaks is turning the Internet into a digital Afghanistan. Insurgents are setting off the equivalent of IEDs on every target. The result is that the current actions by Anonymous may spark calls for stricter government controls on the Internet. That would be a loss for everyone.

Julian Assange has been arrested. And I have to agree that being in British custody is probably safer for him than being on the lam. The content on WikiLeaks has been mirrored many times and is even safer. I think it's time for the courts to start sorting out the realities: Is there a new line to be drawn in regard to freedom of the press?

[ related topics: Privacy Content Management Invention and Design moron Civil Liberties Net Culture Economics Government ]

status update

2010-12-10 16:51:14.505421+01 by Dan Lyke / 1 comments

More media exposure! MSDebbieP decided to interview me over at HomeRefurbers: http://homerefurbers.com/members/MsDebbieP/blog/517

[ related topics: Weblogs Journalism and Media ]

Streaming

2010-12-10 16:52:20.394998+01 by Dan Lyke / 7 comments

Interesting: Is Netflix streaming its way towards disaster? looks at the economics of Netflix's streaming licenses and why that might not be sustainable. Via MeFi which has some other interesting links on the topic.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Movies Television Economics ]

status update

2010-12-11 06:26:14.43316+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Love Xmas lights, but also start singin' "I've got swinging doors, jukebox, and a bar stool. And my home, has a flashin' neon sign..."

[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]

Logical people

2010-12-12 23:23:16.834104+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Comic OTD: Calamities of Nature looks at mathematicians and sanity

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

Ron Paul on Wikileaks

2010-12-12 23:25:16.04667+01 by Dan Lyke / 6 comments

Excerpt from Ron Paul's speech to the House on Wikileaks:

Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?

Number 3: Why is the hostility directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?

Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

Via here, which also has those questions.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Technology and Culture History moron Current Events Television Civil Liberties Net Culture Real Estate ]

Random gripe

2010-12-13 01:27:27.092244+01 by Dan Lyke / 3 comments

As I mentioned before, we've been so disgusted with the build quality and operating characteristics of the Euro-Pro toaster oven that on Friday we were so annoyed at the thought of using it to toast anything more that we bought a Cuisinart TOB-195 on Dave's recommendation.

So far, good marks.

Euro-Pro? Avoid.

[ related topics: Heinlein Currency Archival ]

Cured meat crèche

2010-12-13 06:45:21.624764+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Cured meat crèche

[ related topics: Archival ]

Necronomicox

2010-12-13 10:56:53.833832+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Necronomicox - "hand painted and body safe horror film inspired dildos"

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Bay Area ]

status update

2010-12-13 17:46:11.07072+01 by Dan Lyke / 5 comments

So should I buy the $79 Altera FPGA dev kit, or the $495 Xilinx one? Which is the right technology to learn?

Today you

2010-12-15 02:05:18.469684+01 by Dan Lyke / 3 comments

"Today you.... tomorrow me." (Via)

[ related topics: Sociology ]

Liquid simulation

2010-12-15 15:41:11.791885+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Liquid simulation in your browser. (Thanks, MarkV)

Ultrasonics

2010-12-15 15:45:34.419096+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Clearing the browser tabs, it's been a busy week that changed focus completely on Monday:

Chris in Florida sent along Midnight Science.com: The Xtal Set Society, specifically for the ultrasonics page and this page on the ultrasonic spectrum.

Probably some experiments for the kids in there...

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Flutterby Freedom

2010-12-15 15:49:09.397737+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Aleatoricism is the process of creating art by randomness. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to this yet, but I got a note from Jason of Aleatory Records, who's a reader here, about his Flutterby Freedom — Bringing Soothing Sounds to persons with epilepsy project.

[ related topics: Privacy Art & Culture Civil Liberties Government ]

Gorgeous toys

2010-12-16 19:42:48.829849+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Woodworking porn: Wood model of an excavator.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Woodworking ]

The Federal Code

2010-12-16 21:23:35.9257+01 by petronius / 0 comments

Representative Greg Walden (R-Oregon) is slated to take over chairmanship of the House panel on Telecom matters in the next session. He announced his appointment on Twitter---in Morse Code.

[ related topics: Real Estate ]

Basic life update

2010-12-17 01:55:26.501536+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Small success for the day: Mapnik in an OpenLayers layer via the OGCServer.

Also long discussions about a web startup that I'm hoping to pawn off on friends (yes, Nancy, I'll call!), and running kids to and from school.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sports ]

Not really a frustration

2010-12-18 19:42:28.595274+01 by Dan Lyke / 3 comments

I love that I'm getting so much interest from people who want to hire me.

It'd be even better if all of the "we want to move quickly!" hadn't come in a week before Christmas when I'm taking a long weekend down in Fresno to help Charlene do organizing of family stuff and sneaking time on mooched WiFi that's weak enough that if I turn the wrong way on my chair it disconnects...

[ related topics: Dan's Life ]

status update

2010-12-19 07:06:11.858049+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

The brilliance of Zynga is that they saw "gold farming" as an opportunity rather than a drain on their game's economies.

[ related topics: Games Woodworking ]

TSA protectung you 24/?

2010-12-19 14:04:53.794739+01 by andylyke / 2 comments

They're at it again: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/...-tsa-screeners/story?id=12412458

[ related topics: History Guns ]

Jury pool balks

2010-12-20 22:37:46.345142+01 by meuon / 2 comments

http://missoulian.com/news/loc...0b36-11e0-a594-001cc4c03286.html

A funny thing happened on the way to a trial in Missoula County District Court last week. Jurors – well, potential jurors – staged a revolt. They took the law into their own hands, as it were, and made it clear they weren’t about to convict anybody for having a couple of buds of marijuana.

Worth reading the rest of the story, and my own comment is: we need more jurors (potential jurors) like this. Small amounts of possession would technically illegal, but hard to prosecute.

[ related topics: Drugs Current Events ]

Julian Assange again

2010-12-21 00:51:49.471008+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Feminisnt: The feminist left versus Julian Assange: how a fanatical belief in every sex crime allegation hurts everyone. Via Eccentric Flower.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

status update

2010-12-21 08:06:08.558387+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Lots of rain. Parts of Southern California got seven inches, but Vivid Entertainment will call it 12".

[ related topics: California Culture ]

Random YouTubery

2010-12-22 17:21:57.338717+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

[ related topics: Movies ]

status update

2010-12-22 20:16:15.460953+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Anyone else think cosmetics when they hear Christmas songs? "With Royal Beauty Bright<tm>, I can make you a *star*!"

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Aviation - Helicopters ]

status update

2010-12-22 21:26:09.333251+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Dear @NewsTrust : "test" as the plain text version of your funds appeal email makes me think you don't "get" the net.

status update

2010-12-23 05:46:09.149794+01 by Dan Lyke / 16 comments

Really? You have to guess at the projection of a .shp file? [Remainder of rant edited out for a family audience]

[ related topics: Sociology ]

QOTD

2010-12-23 18:45:31.367677+01 by ebwolf / 0 comments

Since Dan can tie the SoCal flooding in with pr0n. Here's another easily misconstrued seven inches quote:

The 7 inches does come to close to being too large to hold with one hand...

From the Samsung Galaxy Tab review on Unwired.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Metric System ]

hand powered drilling

2010-12-23 20:53:49.44017+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

Chris in Florida passes along Low-tech Magazine: Hand powered drilling tools and machines, which has a bunch of really interesting variations.

status update

2010-12-24 00:01:20.641568+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

has unlocked the "10 lbs of flour worth of gingerbread dough in his refrigerator" badge.

[ related topics: Food - Cake ]

Census data

2010-12-24 21:58:23.267809+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

Cool! New York Times interactive map exploring 2005-2009 U.S. Census data

[ related topics: Invention and Design Maps and Mapping New York ]

status update

2010-12-26 00:16:09.814549+01 by Dan Lyke / 6 comments

Marley: Still dead.

If the FCC had been there at the beginning

2010-12-26 15:55:27.2262+01 by meuon / 1 comments

http://www.slate.com/id/2279106/pagenum/all

Fun Slate read considering an alternative internet history if the FCC had been involved from the beginning. It won't make sense to most younger people who have only known the 'Net, but to those of us who matriculated from BBS's and early online services to the 'Net I think this fictional story rings true. Especially if you have any experience with governments and technology specifications.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Net Culture ]

status update

2010-12-27 02:16:17.019145+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

I wish the mental health profession had evolved from a tradition of helping people, not just extorting friendship from cosmopolitan yuppies.

[ related topics: Health Consumerism and advertising ]

Wood bike roundup

2010-12-27 03:14:02.998857+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Bamboo Bike Studio, including two-day bamboo frame bike building classes from $632 in studios in San Francisco and Brooklyn.

Renovo Hardwood Bicycles have announced the first 100% FSC Certified wood bicycle.

Via this LumberJocks entry.

[ related topics: Weblogs Bay Area California Culture Pedal Power New York Bicycling Woodworking ]

$5 for a 1/8" Twist Drill?

2010-12-27 06:23:24.444541+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

Christopher Schwarz: Yuppie Tools: A True Accounting:

I'll tell you what I think is expensive: $1,000 laptops that I have to replace every two years to run the software necessary for publishing. (Those are the same disposable laptops that are used for criticizing $50 chisels.)

Bridge City Toolworks: $5 for a 1/8″ Twist Drill? Only in America…:

... I learned that those four bits were properly hardened. The remaining 115 bits were made with what I call pot metal. The reason?

“Because those are the only four hole sizes that Americans use.”

So when you buy those 119 piece $19.95 bit sets at the big box store, you're spending $5 a bit...

Via.

[ related topics: Weblogs Software Engineering Woodworking ]

Secret of life

2010-12-27 06:58:19.408635+01 by Dan Lyke / 1 comments

Kevin Smith gets the observation of the day:

The secret to a successful life is hardly a secret; it requires you to be 

self-centered as all fuck, is all. So long as it’s not at the expense of others, make yourself the center of your universe. You only get to do this ONCE, so try to take as much stress out of the process as you can.

status update

2010-12-27 07:16:05.067473+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Wow! Must cultivate relationships with more people who say "my friend was just making cheese, would you like a wheel?"

Decriminalized Portugal

2010-12-28 16:50:57.719727+01 by meuon / 5 comments

Wash Post story about Portugal decriminalizing drugs

Drugs in Portugal are still illegal. But here's what Portugal did: It changed the law so that users are sent to counseling and sometimes treatment instead of criminal courts and prison. The switch from drugs as a criminal issue to a public health one was aimed at preventing users from going underground.

Good article worth reading, with lots of stats/info from many places. I'm sure it's biased, but it seems to be pretty well done.

[ related topics: Drugs Health ]

Projection struggles

2010-12-28 20:07:30.64234+01 by Dan Lyke / 5 comments

Java has hurt me in the past, but it seemed like Mapnik's WMS server would require a bunch of hacking to do what I wanted, allow people to do dynamic GeoSQL queries from web pages, and I'd heard great things about GeoServer, and I said to myself "I know that Java usually indicates that people don't know how to make comprehensible software, but this time could be different", and downloaded GeoServer.

After much struggle, I got it running (Actually, that's not true, it ran out of the box on my laptop, but was painful to get running on my server. Who knows why? It's Java, after all...). And I imported my .shp file, which appears to be in EPSG:2226, and wrote up a little OpenLayers JavaScript code, and... my lines didn't match up with Google Maps layers. Worse, they crawled around with my zoom, if I got really close they were within a block or so, if I zoomed back out they were miles off.

So I tried using ogr2ogr to reproject into EPSG:900913 and EPSG:4326, re-imported, and I'm getting what looks like the same results.

And my experiments to try to mix data from OpenStreetMap always end up with me looking somewhere off the west coast of Africa. Which I assume is due to OSM using EPSG:900913 rather than "spherical mercator".

And what the hell is the difference between EPSG:900913 and EPSG:3857?

Anyway, for Christmas this year I want a pony and a baby doll and the procedure to use OpenLayers to show Bing, OSM and Google base layers, and my own layers that start out as these shape files, preferably from a PostGIS query because then I can do interesting stuff with the data.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Software Engineering History California Culture Sports Maps and Mapping ]

status update

2010-12-29 01:36:09.752186+01 by Dan Lyke / 11 comments

Spent the last few hours mucking about with Joomla. There's promise there, but...

Disney lines

2010-12-29 22:09:18.493201+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

Via WDWDaddy, a neat article on Disneyland line management. One thing that struck me:

In recent years, according to Disney research, the average Magic Kingdom visitor has had time for only nine rides — out of more than 40 — because of lengthy waits and crowded walkways and restaurants. In the last few months, however, the operations center has managed to make enough nips and tucks to lift that average to 10.

That's a hell of a lot better than our last few visits to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Per ride, I think it's cheaper and more time efficient to drive down to Anaheim and stay overnight there than it is to ride in the local park...

[ related topics: Food Current Events Clowns ]

Cross-compiling again

2010-12-30 06:16:28.904436+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

Cross-compiling for the TI MSP430 LaunchPad platform because my 430MSP eval kits came in. Blinking lights in my future.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Decline of Empathy

2010-12-30 19:03:08.985091+01 by Dan Lyke / 2 comments

I'm not terribly impressed with Scientific American: The Decline of Empathy other than to toss out the suggestion that, perhaps, we as a society have come to a place where we're once again hitting Malthusian limits, and when our economy is bounded it really is us against them.

[ related topics: Economics ]

EZ430-Chronos

2010-12-30 20:14:23.400607+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

I'm going to play with the TI MSP430 Ultra Low Power MCU eval kits I've got, but one of the eval devices is the EZ430 Chronos, a wireless dev kit with pressure sensor and 3 axis accelerometer, in a watch form factor.

[ related topics: Wireless Movies ]

status update

2010-12-30 21:11:15.444044+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

Thinking about how my experiences thus far with open source mapping tools could turn into a presentation for the Sonoma GIS user's group.

[ related topics: Free Software Maps and Mapping ]

status update

2010-12-31 21:01:15.066931+01 by Dan Lyke / 0 comments

1st attempt at vegan almond roca cooling by the stove. Even with a lecithin emulsifier kick, coconut oil doesn't mix as well as butter...


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