July 26 Linkdump

• Quirky: A site for submitting product ideas, submitting feedback on those products, and shopping. Go crowdsourcing. Example: The Broom Groomer is a sweeping improvement in dustpans. Here is what makes this dustpan so awesome: - A row of rubber teeth protruding from the back end of the dust pan to clean the broom's bristles when you're done sweeping. $10.(Site)
• Researching animal individualism using traits like neophobia (fear of novelty) and willingness to explore. Could be based partially on differences in sensory processing speed. (article)
• Pros and cons of induction cooking. Instant heat, very precise. Very little heat leak into the kitchen space. Induction is fast. It can boil water in a snap and shave minutes from the time it takes to cook dinner. Cons - new cooking technique, can burn things, only works on pots a magnet will stick to. Traditional woks or rounded pots don’t work well. Pull the pot off the surface and the heat stops immediately.(article)
• Optimistic article about American demographics. "In 2050, only a quarter [of Americans] will be over 60, compared with 31 percent in China and 41 percent in Japan." Driven by larger families and immigration. Efficient workers, producing high-end products are good for a global system becoming richer. A giving people (over $300B in 2007). (article)
• Yay for trees. "They cover 30% of Earth's landmass and account for as much as 80% of [land] biomass [(an estimate)]." Up to ~300 feet tall. "The oldest living tree — which is also one of the oldest living beings — is thought to be a bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva. It is certainly more than 4,600 years old, and by some reckonings, it celebrates its 4,842nd birthday this year. But however you count, when it was a sapling, the great pyramids of Giza had not yet been built." (article)
• "The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday."(article)
• Article about wikiLeaks as journalism. Most interesting quote from the article was about something totally different - they asked for and got from somewhere ("research institutions" are mentioned) enough computer time to decrypt the encrypted video file.(article)
• The original leak source for the wikiLeaks video smuggled the documents out by pretending his rewritable CD was a music CD (Lady Gaga). Note: No media (including CDs) should be let out of a secure environment.(article 1)(article 2)
• "Airline bag fees rose from $464M in 2007 to >$2B in first 9 months of 2008. In addition, the airlines now have more space available for cargo, which sells at a higher rate than a checked bag. “Freight makes a significant contribution to the bottom line of passenger airlines,”"(article)
• Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) twitches around stage for project 'Atoms for Peace', which for him is a lot of movement.(article)(video(Thom Yorke Echoplex))
• "Eight-story egg-shaped museum addition provides exhibition space and scientific-research facilities." Free tours available for seeings ome of the 13 miles / 22 million specimens preserved in spirit jars. 200 scientists work there with an additional 20M different specimens and can be glimpsed through Windows in the museum. (article)
• Video game review of Bad Company 2. Reviewer kind of funny. Mentions playing on a 3-monitor setup for peripheral vision. Whoa.(article)
• Organization 'Home Food' allows you to eat in the home of trained-chef Italians (with their families) for a fee. Since family is critical to Italian food, this gives you the best experience.(article)
• Nuclear disarmament: Destroying (or converting for use in Uranium reactors) the existing 34 tons of US material will not even start until 2016. That doesn't count any of the material that will be decommissioned from latest US-Russian arms talks. (article)
• Getting past cultural / local barriers finally allowing progress in eradicating Polio in Nigeria and India. Yep, there are still people out there getting paralyzed by Polio. (article)
• New generation of cleaner incinerators turning trash into electricity. No waste-to-energy plants underway or planned in US despite NYC sending "10,500 tons of residential waste each day" to other landfills with similar garbage output throughout the country. (article)
• Notes and video of a "tetris-playing robot which is build with LEGO Mindstorm pieces. The setup is actually pretty complicated. A Texas Instruments DM6437 video development board watches the computer screen via a webcam and calculates the next move. It then outputs that to a grid of LEDs which the Mindstorm watches using a light sensor." Then the lego hand punches keys on the keyboard. Building machines to play games against computers. Woo.(article)
• 6-month photograph exposures showing the sun's path arcing. Pretty cool.(article)
• Same artist (Justin Quinnell) as above, but with super-disturbing images taken from inside his mouth with a tiny camera. (article)
• 2008: World Robot Population Reaches 8.6 Million, or more people than live in New Jersey. (article)
• Review of social networking services. "Foursquare [1M+ users] is essentially an urban network of hipsters, their favorite haunts, their favorite food and drinks" Others include Meetup, Yipit (sends you daily deals based on your location and preferences, Venmo (payment by text message), and Hot Potato. Also mentioned is grad-program in NYC Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) is about new tech. Plants that text you to water them. Web-payment vending machines. Art.sy (online art service to connect galleries with collectors), kickstarter ("community funding for creative projects"), SpeakerText ("If you copy and paste a section of a SpeakerText transcript onto your blog, the link will take people back to that exact portion of the video.")(article)
• Information forum on ending poverty (NJ-based).(site)
• Info on buying/selling timeshare second hand(article 1)(article 2)
• Instructions and video on how to tie a sheepshank(article)
• Flexible circuitry designed for use in tissue for medical interventions(article)
• 3D printer that can use multiple materials at once.(article)
• Overhead projector + webcam + speakers = color on the transparency to get sounds. Roll back and forth for loops.(article)
• Delicious looking cake recipe.(article)
• BYU team produces hand-press to "mass produce inexpensive housing blocks – like bricks, only bigger – for many rural Kenyans who live in huts made from sticks and mud."(article)
• Breastfeeding: author explains why to phrase 'not breastfeeding' as harmful rather than 'breastfeeding' as beneficial.(article)
• Breastfeeding saves lives. Note: Author is militant.(article)
• Hacking your keyboard so you can type with one hand. Commercial products available but with large price tags ($600). (article)
• Try an online demo of typing with one hand. It's much easier than it sounds (although it still requires practice), since your brain can map muscle memory from one side to the other.(article)
• Multi-touch without a surface (using webcams). Video of early Japanese product. (article)
• You can unlock your garage door from the outside by hooking the release cord with a hanger. Add a zip tie to prevent this. (article)
• Precision quad-copter acrobatics. Pretty neat.(article)
• Now the quadcopters can cooperate to lift stuff(article)
• Lock-picking speed record videos. Twist the blank in the lock and file down where the marks appear.(article)
• Lending books to the homeless to empower them. Footpath library project (Australia).(site)
• Dropbox. Online file sync / large file transfer. First 2GB free.(article)
• New business model about 'collaborative consumption' which just means sharing both the product and the price in various ways. Example businesses at the bottom.(site)
• Research site about connecting people in new ways. (site)
• Sculpture art show. I enjoyed 'Hippie Ghost' article)
• Temporary artist commune on Governors Island while they build art installations.(article)
• Solving Rubik's cube using nothing but Legos (although it uses the basic human algorithm rather than a computer algorithm) (article)
• Building a printer out of legos and felt-tipped markers(article)
• Donation funding site indieGoGo for music.(site)
• 100,000 piece lego chess set with automatically self-moving pieces.(article)
• Early article about the ineffective Russian sleeper-spies. Best quote: "Jessie Gugig, 15, said she could not believe the charges, especially against Mrs. Murphy. “They couldn’t have been spies,” she said jokingly. “Look what she did with the hydrangeas.” (article)
• Man sells hand-painted hand-axes as art. They're popular.(article)
• Being among plants boosts your immunity.(article)
• Next generation of wheelie-shoes. They're battery-powered. Video shows their evolution (which was cool).(article)
• Google builds "for dummies" toolkit for Android software development. Drag-n-drop code modules.(article)
• Bare-foot bandit caught.(article)
• Heroin addicts typically inject the heroin, draw some blood back into the syringe, and then reinject it (to make sure they get all of the drugs). Now, in a new practice known as "Flashblood", one addict gives another addict the drawn out blood in the syringe (~1 tsp) to inject into themselves to ease their withdrawl. Noticed so-far among destitute sex-workers in Tanzania and Kenya. Represents a very-high probability AIDS vector for anyone not yet infected. Plus, super-creepy.(article)
• Woman keeps notebook of every evening meal for 5 years. Record, accomplishment, proof of all the cumulative work that went into the meals.(article)
• House-fan on medium or high can keep mosquitos away because it dissapates your carbon dioxide and minimizes sweat, both of which attract mosquitos from far away.(article)
• Sitting for long periods of time is unhealthy, *even if* you exercise regularly otherwise. Get up regularly from your computer or TV.(article)
• Standing room airline plans being developed by Ryanair, as well as other extreme cost-cutting measures.(article)
• Review of more websites extending the couchsurfing idea. AirBnB.com, iStopOver.com, crashPadder.com(article)
• Principal fired despite doing a great job in order to qualify for more funding under the "after X time, one of your options is to fire your prinicpal" rule. Non-partisan, since both parties have made rules like this. (article)
• The mental health damage of being a screener for uploaded web-content, some of which is truly horrific.(article)
• Snopes disproves a myth I bought into. Truth: Humans use 100% of their brains, not just 10%.(article)
• Repo'd buildings that NYC bought, ran, then sold to mostly non-profit groups are now falling again into unlivable decay. (article)
• Description of new game-show 'Minute to Win It'. Stack 5 apples high. Stack metal nuts on edge by sliding them off a chopstick. Keep 3 balloons in the air.(article)(List of games and rules.)
• How to Play Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock (with video) - a 5-object version of rock-paper-scissors.(article)
• Morph 2 images together.(article)
• World horseshoe champion achieves > 90% ringers during competition. (article)
• Anti-poverty: Grassroots business fund.(site)
• New guidelines encourage vaginal births after cesarean birth (VBAC).(article)
• Running shoes based on arch-height have no benefit. Motion-control shoes led to high incidents of pain in study. (article)
• Noticing ADHD in marriage.(article)
• Nothing is ever forgotten on the web. Many employers now Google you before hiring. Framed as existential debate.(article)
• How to give good feedback to your author spouse on their written work. Minimum 10 praise before any constructive criticism (limit 3). (article)
• Federal report criticizes banks receiving bailout funds for huge bonuses with little justification to executives but has no power to do anything about it. (article)
• European Union allows petitions to change EU laws. Requires 1M signatures. Trying to get right balance between verification and access.(article)
• Wooden stonehenge remnats found near original.(article)
• Museum exhibit about the changing styles for wedding dresses.(article)(museum site)
• Tandem bike with a robotic backseat rider. Surprisingly graceful. (article)
• Some cities giving away land to get future property / income tax revenue. Homesteading for the 2010s.(article)
• Neutral site dedicated to vaccines - pros and cons. I've found it very useful.(article)
• It's now legal to jailbreak your phone and defeat DRM on DVDs and games for fair use purposes. Corey Doctorow probably just went into a coma of happy delirium. (article)