"Make" entries

Four short links: 14 October 2011

Four short links: 14 October 2011

Relativity in Short Words, Set Math, Design Inspiration, and Internet of Things

  1. Theory of Relativity in Words of Four Letters or Less — this does just what it says, and well too. I like it, as you may too. At the end, you may even know more than you do now.
  2. Effective Set Reconciliation Without Prior Context (PDF) — paper on using Bloom filters to do set union (deduplication) efficiently. Useful in distributed key-value stores and other big data tools.
  3. Mental Notes — each card has an insight from psychology research that’s useful with web design. Shuffle the deck, peel off a card, get ideas for improving your site. (via Tom Stafford)
  4. The Internet of Things To Come (Mike Kuniavsky) — Mike lays out the trends and technologies that will lead to an explosion in Internet of Things products. E.g., This abstraction of knowledge into silicon means that rather than starting from basic principles of electronics, designers can focus on what they’re trying to create, rather than which capacitor to use or how to tell the signal from the noise. He makes it clear that, right now, we have the rich petrie dish in which great networked objects can be cultured.

Looking for the future? Watch the "crackpots"

Tim O'Reilly and Charlie Rose discuss the drivers of new technology: enthusiasts.

The future of technology will be shaped by the passion of enthusiasts — this was a central point in a recent discussion between Tim O’Reilly and Charlie Rose.

The long slow make

How will a "long, slow make" transform our society?

I sat down with Anil Dash to get some long-term thinking on the Maker movement.

Crowdfunding gets traction in D.C.

New crowdfunding moves from the White House and Congress are positive signals.

President Obama's new jobs plan supports crowdfunded investing and the House Oversight committee will hear crowdfunding testimony next week.

Four short links: 8 July 2011

Four short links: 8 July 2011

DIY Bio Hardware, App Store Numbers, Open Hardware Repository, and Science Startups

  1. OpenPCR ShippingA PCR machine is basically a copy machine for DNA. It is essential for most work with DNA, things like exposing fraud at a sushi restaurant, diagnosing diseases including HIV and H1N1, or exploring your own genome. The guy who discovered the PCR process earned a Nobel Prize in 1993, and OpenPCR is now the first open source PCR machine. The price of a traditional PCR machine is around $3,000. This one is $512 and would go well with Ben Krasnow’s Scanning Electron Microscope. Biological tools get closer to hobbyist/hacker prices. (via Gabriella Coleman)
  2. Apple App Store Figures (Fast Company) — 1 billion apps in a month, 200M iOS users, $2.5B revshare to developers so far (implying a further $5.8B revenue kept by Apple). Another reminder of the astonishing money to be made by riding the mainstreaming of tech: as we move from dumb phones to smart phones, the market for Apple’s products and App Store sales will continue to rise. We’re not at the fighting-for-market-share stage yet, it’s still in the boom. (via Stephen Walli)
  3. Open Hardware Repository — open source digital hardware projects, such as a tool for generating VHDL/Verilog cores which implement Wishbone bus slaves with certain registers, memory blocks, FIFOs and interrupts. CERN just approved an open license for hardware designs. (via CERN)
  4. Wingu — SaaS startup to help scientists manage, analyze, and share data. Recently invested by Google, it’s one of several startups for scientists, such as Macmillan’s Digital Science which is run by Timo Hannay who is one of the convenors of Science Foo Camp. (via Alex Butler)

The NASA Make Challenge

The first challenge: create kits that can be built in a classroom and sent on-board suborbital flights.

If you are fascinated by space, it's a great time for you to be able to do something as a maker and make a real contribution. Makers can now participate in a new kind of space program, one that expands beyond NASA to include commercial space collaboration.

What lies ahead: DIY and Make

Tim O'Reilly on how DIY reveals the next tech trends.

Tim O'Reilly recently offered his thoughts and predictions for a number of areas we cover here on Radar. In this section he looks at the link between do-it-yourself enthusiasm and future businesses.

Open sourcing space

The final frontier is now open to amateurs.

The space race has been reignited, but in a much different way. With off-the-shelf components and your own initiative, you can now launch a satellite or weather balloon. Dale Dougherty looks at this new wave of roll-your-own exploration.

Innovation, education and Makers

Thomas Kalil: What would education look like after a Maker make-over?

During a recent workshop, Thomas Kalil of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy explored the impact of the DIY mindset on education and industry. The full text of Kalil's talk is included in this post.

Four short links: 30 September 2010

Four short links: 30 September 2010

Python Exercises, Maker Revolution, Dodgy Memes, and Government Licenses

  1. Learn Python The Hard Way — Zed Shaw’s book on programming Python, written as 52 exercises: Each exercise is one or two pages and follows the exact same format. You type each one in (no copy-paste!), make it run, do the extra credit, and then move on. If you get stuck, at least type it in and skip the extra credit for later. This is brilliant—you learn by doing, and this book is all doing.
  2. When The Revolution Comes They Won’t Recognize it (Anil Dash) — nails the importance of Makers. Dale Dougherty and the dozens of others who have led Maker Faire, and the culture of “making”, are in front of a movement of millions who are proactive about challenging the constrictions that law and corporations are trying to place on how they communicate, create and live. The lesson that simply making things is a radical political act has enormous precedence in political history.
  3. Truthy — project tracking suspicious memes on Twitter.
  4. UK Open Government License — standard license for open government information in the UK.