The New York Public Library’s spectacular Digital Public Library challenged designers to create new covers for some of the public domain’s greatest books, which had been previously doomed to an undeserved dullness thanks to the auto-generated covers that book-scanning projects stuck them with. (more…)
Cheap Internet of Things devices like Foscam’s home CCTVs are designed to covertly tunnel out of your home network, bypassing your firewall, so they can join a huge P2P network of 7 million other devices that is maintained and surveilled by their Chinese manufacturer. (more…)
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Crapgadget apocalypse: the IoT devices that punch through your firewall and expose your network
It’s probably the most censored site on the Internet, blocked by national firewalls all over the world, but more people use it every day. Read the rest
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Pirate Bay traffic doubles over three years
There are 28 official state-approved haircuts in North Korea, and there is renewed emphasis on the official coiffure parameters under its new leader, Kim Jong Un. Ironically, Kim’s own haircut is not on the official list.
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Official haircuts of North Korea
Thinkgeek have teamed up with Ifixit to create a Game Console & Electronics Refurbishing Kit , with all the tools you need to crack the case on most games consoles, phones and other gadgets. The 3.5lb box also includes a bunch of cleaning stuff for removing scuffs and marks, to spruce up your old gear to look like the day you unboxed it. Game Console & Electronics Refurbishing Kit gives you both opening and cleaning tools Works with * Xbox One (also Xbox 360) * PlayStation 4 (also PS Vita, PS3, PSP, PS2, and the original PlayStation) * Wii U (also Wii), NES, SNES, Gamecube, N64 * Nintendo 3DS (also DSi, DS Lite, and the Nintendo DS) * Dreamcast * Game Boy Advance SP (also Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Cartridges) * PC building and repair * Smartphone repair * and a bazillion other electronic devices Includes: * 26 Bit Driver Kit * 4 mm Driver Handle – rubberized for a sturdy grip and magnetized to hold bits and screws * 60 mm Driver Extension – increase your reach into smaller devices * Metal Tweezers – grab hold of small screws and components * 26 bits in the following sizes: * Flathead sizes 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 mm * Phillips sizes #000, #00, #0, #1, #2 * Torx sizes T4, T5, T6 * Torx Security sizes TR7, TR8, TR9, TR10, TR15, TR20 (compatible with non-security) * Hex sizes 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 4 mm * Tri-wing sizes #0, #1 * Spanner size U3.0 * Anti-Static Wrist Strap * Dust Blower * ESD-safe Tweezers (electrostatic damage) * Plastic Spudger * Metal Spudger Set * Xbox 360 Opening Tool * Cleaning Swabs * Plastic Opening Tools * Surface Detailing Block (great for refreshing old or dirty plastic parts) * German Detailing Eraser with Brush * Pencil Sharpener * Small ESD-safe Brush (electrostatic damage) * Large ESD-safe Brush (electrostatic damage) * 1/4″ Driver Handle * Phillips #2 * Flathead 6 mm * Game Bit 4.5 mm (Nintendo Nut Setter #6) * Game Bit 3.8 mm (Nintendo Nut Setter #8) Game Console & Electronics Refurbishing Kit
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Games console/phone refurbishing kit with specialized case-opening tools
Davi Barker was flying from Manchester, NH when, he says, he was stopped by two men who identified themselves as “managers” for the TSA, who claimed they had seen Bitcoins in his baggage and wanted to be sure he wasn’t transporting more than $10,000 worth. When he asked them what they thought a Bitcoin looked like, they allegedly said that it looked like a coin or a medallion. ( via Hacker News )
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TSA agents demand bag-search to look for "Bitcoins"
Kembrew writes, “I saw your post in Boing Boing today about Pee-Wee, and coincidentally, I just published a piece on Pee-wee’s Christmas Special . I think it’s the first time Paul Reubens has been interviewed about the upcoming remastered Pee-wee’s Playhouse DVDs that will come out next year.” I previously invoked the term “eye-popping” to describe Pee-wee’s Playhouse, but starting next year, viewers will run the risk of having their eyeballs permanently dislodged from their sockets. “The Christmas Special is going to come out, along with the entire Playhouse series, on Blu-ray,” Reubens tells me. “It’s being remastered now.” “The show was never seen on film,” he says. “The show was shot on film and transferred to tape and edited on tape, and all the effects were done on tape. Then the entire show was put on another tape to broadcast, so there are three or four generations of quality that are lost on every episode. So we went back to the original film elements, and the company I’m working with has recreated every edit in every single show, and recreated all the effects from all the original elements—which we were lucky to have kept.” “It looks unbelievable. It’s so extreme, people are going to freak out when they see it,” Reubens adds. “The detail and clarity and color is amazing.” This means that Gary Panter’s set design, the stop motion animation and other details will come alive in psychedelic high definition. It’s the kids show equivalent of being upgraded from cough syrup to mescaline. Pee-wee’s (remastered) Christmas Adventure: An interview with Paul Reubens [Kembrew McLeod/Little Village]
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Pee-Wee Herman talks about the remastered Christmas Special and Playhouse episodes
For the second half of the 1990s, my standard advice to people buying computers was to max out the RAM as the cheapest, best way to improve their computers’ efficiency. The price/performance curve hit its stride around 1995, and after decades when a couple gigs of RAM would cost more than the server you were buying it for, you could max out all the RAM slots in any computer for a couple hundred bucks. Operating systems, though, were still being designed for RAM-starved computers, and when you dropped a gig or two of RAM in a machine, it screamed . It’s still good practice to max out your RAM, but it doesn’t get you much of a dividend. The turbo-charger of the 2010s is solid-state disk-drives, and they’re screaming up the same price/performance curve that RAM traversed twenty years ago. Two years ago, I traded my laptop drive for a 400GB SDD, spending as much on the drive as I had on the machine, and it was worth every penny. My laptop battery-life nearly doubled, and I stopped getting watch-cursors altogether; no matter what task I performed, it was done instantly. In October, I bought a one terabyte SDD for a ridiculous $435 — about a third of what I paid for a 600GB drive a little over a year ago! — and having run it for two months now, I’m prepared to pronounce it good. I wasn’t familiar with the manufacturer, Crucial, but they got very good reviews on Amazon, and at that price I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. My machine — a Thinkpad X230 running Ubuntu 13.10 — chugs along with nary a beach-ball, and I can go six to eight hours on a six-cell battery with full brightness, and continuous Wifi and Bluetooth usage. I’m rough on my computer, and it’s taken plenty of knocks and bumps without any noticeable impact on the drive. To accompany the new drive, I bought a pair of $78 Toshiba USB3 1TB drives (one for backing up at the office, the other for my travel bag). They’re nothing near as fast as the SDD, but combined with the USB3 bus, they’re plenty quick for daily incremental backups, which take less than five minutes. If your storage needs aren’t as massy as mine, there’s a whole line of Crucial SDDs, 480GB for $269 , 240GB for $140 and so on. They all come with three year warranties, though I haven’t had cause to get service for my drive yet (knock wood). The drive is 7mm high, and comes with an easy-to-fit adapter for 9mm enclosures. I was less impressed with the adapter I bought to copy the files over; it was fiddly and prone to losing its connection. Ultimately, I slapped the new drive into a case in order to make the transfer. Crucial M500 960GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter/spacer) Internal Solid State Drive CT960M500SSD1
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Terabyte laptop SDDs for $435!
The China National Space Administration has launched Chang’e 3, a plutonium-powered lunar lander on-board at 185-foot-tall Long March 3B rocket. The lander is on a four-day trajectory for the lunar surface, and will brake and enter lunar orbit on December 6th. It is scheduled to land on December 14th, in the Bay of Rainbows (Sinus Iridum). The rover masses 140kg, with nuclear heaters to keep systems alive during the two-week-long lunar nights, and will use radar to probe the lunascape as it roves during its mission. It is also outfitted with high-resolution panoramic cameras and telescopes. The Chinese space program’s stated goal is to establish a space-station and autonomous landers that can return to Earth with samples. “On behalf of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center and the command headquarters, I would like to extend my gratitude to all those who have been part of the project,” said Zhang Zhenzhong, director of the Xichang launch base. “And my thanks also go to all the friends who have been helping us throughout the whole process. “The Chang’e probe is on the way to the moon. Of course, it’s a symbol of China’s national power and prowess,” Zhang said in post-launch remarks translated into English on China’s state-run television. Over the next few days, Chang’e 3 will adjust its path toward the moon three times to set up for a critical rocket burn to enter lunar orbit Dec. 6. Landing on the moon is scheduled for Dec. 14 in a region known as Bay of Rainbows, or Sinus Iridum, on the upper-left part of the moon as viewed from Earth. Many of the mission’s specifications and objectives remained secret until the week of launch, when China rolled out details in a press briefing and through official state-owned media outlets. The lander carries a bipropellant rocket engine designed to adjust its power level and pivot to control the probe’s descent from an altitude of 15 kilometers, or about 9 miles, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency. Long March rocket blasts off with Chinese lunar rover [Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now]
Fiber Fix is a repair-tape impregnated with fast-curing, moisture-activated resin; the manufacturer claims it hardens to a strength 100 times that of duct-tape, comparable to steel. Baseline room-humidity is generally enough to activate it once it’s removed from its airtight pouch, but you can also soak it before applying. It cures to usability in 10 minutes, and fully sets in 24 hours. It’s $20 for three rolls in varying widths — though be careful, as it’s reportedly a real pain to get off your hands. Fiber Fix [Amazon] Fiberfix.com ( via Oh Gizmo )
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Fiber Fix: repair tape with embedded super-strong, fast-curing resin