"Kickstarter" entries

DIY fabrication hits a new price point (maybe…)

If the DIY Desktop CNC Machine gets funded, we'll be closer to personal replicators.

The DIY Desktop CNC Machine project on Kickstarter could bring reasonably-priced 3D fabrication technology to the masses.

Musopen sets classical music free

To fund copyright-free recordings, Musopen asked for $11k. They got $55k.

The music of Beethoven and Brahms isn't covered by copyright, but performances and sheet music are. With an assist from KickStarter, MusOpen has raised more than enough money to right that wrong by recording and releasing classics into the public domain.

Four short links: 2 Sep 2010

Four short links: 2 Sep 2010

Science Blogs, AppEngine Community, Kickstarter for Good, Manmade Geography

  1. Guardian Science Blogs — the latest in a series of science blog aggregators. Nobody is too sure what benefits a blog umbrella like Discovery or Nature (or the Guardian) offers bloggers. Regardless of this, the content is fantastic.
  2. v2ex: A Community Running on AppEngine — no hosting costs, massive scalability.
  3. Raising Money for Vanuatu Arts Center — a Kickstarter project to fund a 6-hectare/14.8-acre off-the-grid artists retreat, cultural preservation and technological education space in the remote Pacific island of Vanuatu. Kickstarter is incredible. (via BoingBoing)
  4. Orbiter (XKCD) — names are human artifacts, as every Internet mapping company knows. I’m reminded of how Gracenote, who run CDDB, store every datum submitted to them, and consequently have nearly fifty spellings of Britney Spears.
Four short links: 12 May 2010

Four short links: 12 May 2010

Secrets to Success, Sousveillance, Etherpad Lives, Personal Social Networks

  1. The Ten Commandments of Rock and Roll (BoingBoing) — ten rules that should be posted in every workplace as a guide to how to fail poisonously.
  2. Snapscouts — rather creepy sousveillance site. It’s up to you to keep America safe! If you see something suspicious, Snap it! If you see someone who doesn’t belong, Snap it! Not sure if someone or something is suspicious? Snap it anyway! I like the idea of promoting a shared interest in keeping us all safe, but I’m not sure SnapScouts is there yet. (update: Ha, it’s a brilliant joke! See the comments for more)
  3. Etherpad Foundation — was open-sourced after Google acquired the company that offered it, has now acquired a life-after-death. Compare with the updated Google document editor which has a wordprocessing layout engine built in Javascript, and uses the algorithms behind Etherpad to offer simultaneous editing. (via Hacker News)
  4. Diaspora Kickstarter Project — team looking for seed funding to write an aGPLed “privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network” (no news of dessert topping or floor wax applicability). Received 2.5x their requested funding in a few days.