I’m all about the tech recently, so here’s the latest show to catch my attention. Debuting last night on the Discovery Channel, is a new show called Prototype This.

The basic theme of Prototype This is that the four hosts, Terry Sandin, Zoz Brooks, Mike North, and Joe Grand take their combined skills and use each episode to conceive of and craft some entirely new design, product, or technology. The end result? A full season of prototypes that are off-the-wall, entirely practical, and everything in between.

If you have Discovery, great. If not, if you want to view some episodes on your own time, check out their website where you can watch videos and full episodes. They need to build up their Full Episode list, as right now it’s only Jon & Kate Plus 8, Prototype This and It’s Me or the Dog — but they have PT, which is obviously my point to this whole entry.

Alot of the clips will still keep you busy for hours though, as there are several exclusive clips for web viewers up there for all the Discovery, TLC and Animal Planet shows, including one of my favorites Dirty Jobs, which recently started its 5th season.

This Entry Has: (0) Comments ~ (0) Trackbacks ~ [Leave a Comment]

I just finished one of the best books I’ve read in the last 10 years. It’s called Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

I would’ve enjoyed the book on its face, but it’s underlying themes really struck a chord with me.

Little Brother is a scarily realistic adventure about how homeland security technology could be abused to wrongfully imprison innocent Americans. A teenage hacker-turned-hero pits himself against the government to fight for his basic freedoms. This book is action-packed with tales of courage, technology, and demonstrations of digital disobedience as the technophile’s civil protest.

We’re living in a time where our personal freedoms are being slowly squeezed away in the name of protection. Each little thing slowly builds on the one before, creeping up on you. If you set aside the fact that the folk warning of the boiled frog is a myth, the anecdote still serves a purpose when examining our country in a post-9-11 world.

The boiling frog story states that a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough — it is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out.

The book does a great job of introducing the reader to modern technology items such as RFID, cryptography and pattern analysis. The narrator of the story takes the time to explain what they are and how they are used with very easy to understand examples – and that’s key to appreciating how these technologies can be used for either good or bad.

I’ve had a time in my life when I was a hacker. Not nearly as experienced or in depth as I could have been, but I understand the culture – another reason this book appealed to me.

But even today, I’m still interested in cryptography and ARGs. I’ve been on a  LARP.

You have several options for enjoying Little Brother.  Besides the traditional print copy, you might enjoy the audio version (listen to an excerpt above), or even download a version to read for free.

I can’t say enough good things about the book. I was already recommending it before I was halfway through, and now that it’s done, I wish I had more to read.

Don’t take my word for it. Read a review or two. I don’t want to make this entry much longer full of their words, but I encourage you to see the impression it has made on others, sometimes even being called a modern day 1984.

Whether it will have the same staying power 60 years from now that 1984 does, I can’t say. What I can say is that it’s an important reflection of today and where we could be tomorrow.

This Entry Has: (0) Comments ~ (0) Trackbacks ~ [Leave a Comment]

From my ‘to be commented on’ articles:

“Kevin Kelly has an interesting post about an archive designed with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 -10,000 years to serve future generations as a modern Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta disk contains analog ‘human-readable’ scans of scripts, text, and diagrams using nickel deposited on an etched silicon disk and includes 15,000 microetched pages of language documentation in 1,500 different languages, including versions of Genesis 1-3, a universal list of the words common for each language, and pronunciation guides. Produced by the Long Now Foundation, the plan is to replicate the disk promiscuously and distribute them around the world in nondescript locations so at least one will survive their 2,000-year lifespan. ‘This is one of the most fascinating objects on earth,’ says Oliver Wilke. ‘If we found one of these things 2,000 years ago, with all the languages of the time, it would be among our most priceless artifacts. I feel a high responsibility for preserving it for future generations.’”

How freaking cool is that? The modern Rosetta stone has unlocked so many secrets of ancient civilizations through the language barrier, its amazing to believe that future generations will have it so much easier. Click the link on the excerpt or follow this link for the full article.

On a related note, I just finished listening to Axis, book 2 of the Spin Trilogy by Robert Charles Wilson, and I highly recommend both books (the second sequel, Vortex, is not yet published).

Here’s a brief summary:

Spin details Earth’s response to an artificial membrane placed around the planet which selectively blocks and filters incoming electromagnetic radiation, blocking out the view of anything beyond minimal low Earth orbit. The novel is told in first person, from the viewpoint of Tyler Dupree. Tyler is a close childhood friend of Jason and Diane Lawton, twins of E. D. Lawton (a wealthy industrialist who makes his money from the developing aerostat business). As children, Jason, Diane, and Tyler witness the dramatic arrival of the “Spin”, as the phenomenon comes to be known, when the stars suddenly disappear one night as they are looking at the sky. Initial experiments show that the membrane is permeable, allowing space probes to pass through, but that time outside passes at a highly accelerated rate, 3.17 years per Earth second, or roughly 100 million years per Earth year. Thus within a generation, the surrounding solar system will age 4 billion years, and Earth will be destroyed by the expanding Sun.

Now can you imagine having a tool such as this digital Rosetta stone after 4 billion years of evolution?

This Entry Has: (0) Comments ~ (0) Trackbacks ~ [Leave a Comment]

Translated from parceltongue: Get over to this website as soon as possible and watch an exclusive trailer for HP and the Half-Blood Prince.

Coming in November… glee…

This Entry Has: (1) Comments ~ (0) Trackbacks ~ [Leave a Comment]

I just brought these guys up at the Brooks’ party on Saturday, so it reminded me to go check out their site for new missions, and lo and behold!!

In honor of my father and uncle, I present the latest Improv Everywhere mission, Human Mirror.

This Entry Has: (0) Comments ~ (0) Trackbacks ~ [Leave a Comment]

Sometimes it takes a large event (such as the current oil crisis) to inspire innovation. Here’s one example. Did you know that because of the shape of gallon milk jugs (as iconic as they are), they are unable to be stacked, and hence the development of the milk crate?

Well, we can thank the price of gas and other environmental issues such as water conservation as driving forces in a redesign:

Sam’s Club redesigns milk jugs

The new containers also store 50 percent more milk per cubic foot than the old jugs. That means more milk on each truck – reducing delivery trips and fuel costs.

…

Sam’s used to take five milk-deliveries per week – now it’s down to two. They could only store 80 conventional-shaped gallons in their coolers. Now they can fit 224 of the new kind.

And, thankfully, that savings gets passed along to the tune of 10 to 20 cents gallon.

I’ll tell ya what, I’ve been seeing the cost of milk going up on par with gasoline for the last year, and changes like this which can save money are a welcome addition to any milk drinking family.

This Entry Has: (0) Comments ~ (0) Trackbacks ~ [Leave a Comment]

If you didn’t get it, obviously you’ve never eaten at Dennys.

Thanks to Neatorama for reminding me that tomorrow night, the full moon of June 18th, is a solstice moon. Because of the high solstice sun, we get a low, horizon-hugging Moon and a strong Moon Illusion.

The Solstice Moon Illusion is described here by NASA. It’s an effect known as the Ponzo Illusion, but there is still some debate on how that’s possible when it’s experienced by pilots without foreground objects.

This Entry Has: (0) Comments ~ (0) Trackbacks ~ [Leave a Comment]

Have to thank Laura for this one from a recent tweet. It made her smile, it makes me smile. I love the Discovery Channel. I really do. Makes cable worth it. I could probably watch it all day.

I’m wondering how many of shows you recognize from the clips. What? You don’t watch DSC? Stop. Right now. Grab a string. Tie it around your finger as a reminder to get to, and watch Discovery channel programming, as soon as possible.

This Entry Has: (0) Comments ~ (0) Trackbacks ~ [Leave a Comment]