Category: Cool Stuff

Denied! – Bush executive order to stop release of Presidential papers as the public documents they are

In 2001, President Bush signed an executive order which would allow a President to disallow the publication of Presidential papers as long as he/she wished, even extending that write to descendants.  Since these documents are public records except in the case of classified information, this has never been done before.  Formerly, all Presidential documents (again, excluding classified materials) were released as the public records they are after a set time past the end of a President’s administration.  With the Bush executive order, researchers had to prove a need for the records before they would be released if any relative wished to hold them as non-public records.  And that’s pretty hard to prove, when you don’t know what the records hold.

Recently, a judge upheld the public’s right to access to these records and blocked the portion of the executive order which would stop the release of papers.

A federal judge on Monday tossed out part of a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep some of their presidential papers secret indefinitely.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the U.S. Archivist’s reliance on the executive order to delay release of the papers of former presidents is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with law.”

You might remember Kollar-Kotelly for her work on the Microsoft case.  While some of her work in the past has been criticized, I like her for the fact that she has ordered Bush administration officials to speak on the illegal domestic surveillance in the post-9/11 era.

[tags]President Bush, Executive order, Presidential papers, Public documents, Kollar-Kotelly[/tags]

A single sheet of paper

Some time back, I discovered this website hosting images of what I consider to be artwork, generated from a single sheet of paper. If you hit the page and just look at the couple of sheets, you might think it’s OK, but fail to be impressed. Trust me — scroll down. Whoever did this is a master of patience and cutting skills.

singlesheet-artwork01.jpg singlesheet-artwork02.jpg

I have no idea how this could even be done, but to date, I believe my most artistic work has been something on the order of my creating some marble-ish spheres in raytracer POV-Ray. I can envision artistic goals, but lack the skills to achieve them. So things like cutting paper into cool final forms really impress me.

[tags]A single sheet of paper, Mad cutting skills[/tags]

Build your own Segway-style scooter

Don’t tlbonscooter have several thousand dollars in the wallet to spare, but really want your own Segway?  Well, you could always try the Do-it-yourself homebuilt Segway-style scooter if you have the skills for that.

Self-balancing scooters, like the Segwayâ„¢ are often thought to be technological miracles, but it is not actually very hard to build one. I built the one described here in about a week using off-the-shelf parts. I spent another week tweaking the high-speed stability, improving the steering control, and writing about it.

Shoot yeah!  I have mad skillz.  So mad they have to be spelled with a ‘z’ instead.  But not quite mad sizzles, which is what I hear Snoop Dogg has.

So just how does the DIY self-balancing scooter compare to a real Segway?

The Segway is made with quite high-quality, high-tech, and expensive components. Overall, the components I used are a lot lower-tech and cheaper than the ones in the Segway. Yet, mine seems to ride just fine. It suggests that there’s room for a Henry Ford of balancing scooters to develop and sell a low-cost everyman’s version. Here’s a quick comparison. Quotes below are from segway.com.

This is followed by the comparison.  And I can tell you from reading it that while the real deal certainly wins for polish, the DIY scooter doesn’t measure up too badly on functionality.  Now to find a few hundred spare hundred lost in the sofa to make my own.

The author of the page has extensive information on the why of building this, some ideas for doing your own, and even updates on his next generation DIY home-built.  Overall, it’s a really cool project.  The write-up and details are long, but if you are into this kind of project work, I assure you it is worth the time to read it.


[tags]Self-balancing scooter, DIY Segway-style scooter, DIY[/tags]

See through pinball machine

Pinball machines are cool. I keep looking around, trying to find a decent machine locally at a price I can afford. I pretty much always fail, but I still look. So when I saw this see-through pinball machine highlighted over on boingboing, I just had to post about it. This is a machine I wish to have in my house.

bb-see-through-pinball.jpg

Michael Schiess – -proprietor of the legendary Lucky JuJu Pinball Arcade in Alameda, CA — has with the help of a few friends transformed a 1976 “Surf Champ” Gottlieb pinball machine piece by piece into a completely transparent pinball machine. The machine will be part of a science center exhibit he’s developing around the science of pinball machines. This thing is beautiful.

Of course, I’ll never have a pinball machine that awesome residing in my house. But I can tell everyone I’d like to have one like that. And someday, I’ll hopefully have some kind of pinball machine at home.

More images are available at the linked site.

[tags]Pinball, Lucky JuJu, Pinball Arcade[/tags]

New guilty pleasure – Top Secret Recipes

You’ve been out to eat. You had a great meal. You think how wonderful it would be if you could just make it yourself – then you could eat it whenever you wanted. But how could you ever figure out how to make it without just getting the recipe from the restaurant? Discover the recipe cloning that comes from Top Secret Recipes.

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Got a recipe you want to find? You can search for it to see if they’ve broken the secret yet. The search is straight-forward, and results are pretty quick to comb through.

top-secret-recipes_search.gif

Some recipes, as you can see above, are free while some cost. The few recipes I’ve looked at were all 79 cents, but I don’t know if that price carries across to all payment-required recipes or not. Unfortunately for me, the queso recipe I was looking for isn’t there. For recipes which are available, Top Secret Recipes has ratings by users along with comments on how closely the prepared food matches the target item.

[tags]Top Secret Recipes, Recipes, Top Secret, Food[/tags]

It’s good to get wood

I love wood. There’s something good about having some sturdy wood all day, you know. The look of good wood in your hands is really memorable. That’s why I’ve been thinking about getting wood for my wife.

miniotiphone

Of course, since we don’t have an iPhone, we can’t use this particular wood replacement cover, but I’m thinking about trying to find a wood case replacement like this one for her iPod.

iwood

That looks much better than these (admittedly cool but not as cool) wooden iPod cases, doesn’t it?

icase-wood

So, all kinds of choices, but I have a feeling that to give my wife some good hard wood, I’ll have to do all the work myself.

[tags]iWood, iPhone, iPod, Wood is good[/tags]

American Gladiators is back?

If you don’t know American Gladiators, you don’t know the meaning of pure eye-candy television.  And now, you’ll get your chance to see it real soon now.

NBC is getting into the ring with “American Gladiators,” which has been revived by the Peacock for midseason.

The competition skein — which featured players with names like Nitro, Turbo and Laser in its campy, early ’90s syndie incarnation — will be updated for the 21st century with new technology and twists. MGM TV, which was behind the original hit, is producing along with Reveille.

. . .

Plestis said he was particularly interested in the original U.K. version of “Gladiators,” which focused even more on the characters and the behind-the-scenes stories of common folk going up against the show’s powerful stars. The new “Gladiators,” he said, “will have the scale, scope, different characters and family drama that the U.K. version had.”

So – look for it soon.

[tags]American Gladiators, Televised eye-candy[/tags]

NBC to offer free content downloads briefly after shows air

It’s a small step forward, but hopefully this is the beginning of something good – NBC will offer some of its programming for free download the night of broadcast with viewing possible for up to a week after each show airs.

NBC’s move comes as companies throughout the television business search for new economic models in the face of enormous changes in the business. Networks continue to lose audience share, and viewers – especially many of the highly prized viewers under 30 years old – are increasingly demanding control of their program choices, insisting on being able to watch shows when, where and how they want.

. . .

Jeff Gaspin, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group, said, “The shift from programmer to consumer controlling program choices is the biggest change in the media business in the past 25 or 30 years.”

That comment is the biggest challenge facing the content producing industries right now. As technologies have improved for capturing, storing, time- and place-shifting, copying, and working with this content (i.e. music and television programs), the producers of the content have lost so much of the control over how this content is used. So many big-wigs in the companies affected by this fear it and have resorted to tactics like legislating loss of consumer rights (I’m thinking of you, DMCA) rather than trying to find ways to make consumer choice work to the industry’s advantage.

Continue reading “NBC to offer free content downloads briefly after shows air”

Pirates vs. Ninjas

It’s an age old question, really – which is more insanely awesome and power: a Pirate or a Ninja? And might I point out that due to their awesomeness, both MUST be capitalized when asking which is more insanely awesome. Of course, there has been debate over the ages. The Pastafarians believe Pirates to be more insanely awesome. Anyone in on Int3rpipe memes knows that this Ninja is pretty freakin’ awesome. But who wins in the ultimate showdown? Could either REALLY beat Chuck Norris?

Thankfully, development team Blazing Lizard has stepped in to help answer the question. From the team comes

kotaku-Pirates Logo

Yes – the ultimate face-off between the ultimate foes: Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball. And why should we car and trust these guys? Well, this team is composed of some folks from Volition/THQ, the developers responsible for such awesomeness as Freespace and Red Faction.

Blazing Lizard was founded by three former THQ/Volition veterans who were behind games like Red Faction, Freespace and Saints Row. Now expanded to a mighty team of four, they intend on releasing their first (of what they hope to be many) PvN-themed games in January 2008. That is, as soon as they sign a publisher and actually decide on which downloadable platform is right for them (PSN or Xbox LIVE).

If you aren’t pumped about this, you just aren’t a gamer. If you are pumped, check out Joystiq’s Pirates vs. Ninjas gallery for more pretty pictures.

(Oh, and with all the links, if it isn’t clear what you need to click for all the goodies, just click the pretty picture above)

[tags]Pirates, Ninjas, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Flip out and kill people, Real Ultimate Power, Joystiq, Kotaku, Freespace[/tags]

Happy 25th, smiley face

emoticon.jpg Happy 25th birthday, smiley face emoticon!

A lot of people have asked me about this, so I thought I’d put the information here, linked under my home page:
Yes, I am the inventor of the sideways “smiley face” (sometimes called an “emoticon”) that is commonly used in E-mail, chat, and newsgroup posts. Or at least I’m one of the inventors.

Fahlman, the author of the above quote and web page, may not have been the first to ever use the now-well-known emoticon, but there seems to be no evidence of anyone doing so before he proposed the iconic characters. For even more details, read more of the history of the smiley, which includes links to even more history.

[tags]Happy Birthday emoticon, Iconic smile, Online community[/tags]

Death Blossom

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Death Blossom strategy, which, sadly, has nothing to do with The Last Starfighter and everything to do with Sudoku.

This strategy is based on extending Aligned Pair Exclusion but uses Almost Locked Sets to make some clever reductions. From the components used it could be named Aligned ALS Exclusion but Mike Barker, who formulated it first in this thread, hit on “Death Blossom” because it starts with a cell designated as the “stem” which points to Almost Locked Sets, or the “petals”, and is a great deal more flowery.

That’s right – a Sudoku strategy given the same name as the ultimate weapon in The Last Starfighter is actually based on an advanced strategy for Sudoku seemingly (but not really) named after primates. And it’s an even more advanced strategy. That makes for some crazy ultimate weapon monkies, or something.

And the provider of all this Sudoku strategy awesomeness apparently has a new book coming out soon for more Sudoku madness. If you aren’t doing Sudoku, you should be – and this book could be the perfect introduction for you.

[tags]Sudoku, Death Blossom, Crazy ultimate weapon monkies, The Logic of Sudoku[/tags]

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