Welcome to

since a couple of weeks, the infosthetics website contains a sparkline diagram of its relative daily Google Adsense earnings, updated hourly. in contrast to the quite static “unique visitors” graph, this sparkline is more volatile & shows more complex patterns that are interesting to grasp. it is loosely based on a script that creates an Adsense RSS feed. instead of a RSS file, it now parses the data into a sparkline.
for those wanting to have their own Adsense sparklines on their website, the source code (PHP) can be downloaded here. one also needs the sparkline PHP library & some basic knowledge of crontab on your webserver to set up the automatic hourly execution of the script.
but most importantly, one must first kindly ask Google Adsense permission for its use! note that this display is in accordance to the Google Adsense policy, as it does not disclose the earnings directly, but only shows its relative fluctuations. see more information about this issue after the break.

this was the answer from Google Adsense on the request of using the sparkline display: “Thank you for taking the time to email us. Gen­er­ally publishers are not permitted to disclose daily earnings information in any form. However, you may implement the chart you have de­scribed, as long as it does not display any numbers or draw undue attention to the ads.
The above permission applies specifically to websites administered by you, and may not be transferred to any other publishers. We appreciate your efforts to remain in compliance with our program policies.”

so be sure to ask permission first!

Originally from information aesthetics on May 30, 2006, 8:34pm

a light sculpture, titled “plastic trade-off”, that visualizes the global financial markets by translating real-time data of these markets into abstract light flows. the coordinates of selected places of the stock market system were marked on a globe & spatially connected, hereby creating a 3-dimensional & spatial data visualization framework.
see also the source & stock market skirt.
[syl-eckermann.net|via we-make-money-not-art.com]

Originally from information aesthetics on May 31, 2006, 5:04pm

Originally posted by mullingitover from del.icio.us/tag/awesome, ReBlogged by eteam on May 31, 2006 at 09:03 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on May 31, 2006, 9:03pm

If Dazzle Camouflage sounds too specific as a beginning, read the article: “Art, culture and camouflage” on the same site first.
Amongst others it contains a picture of a soldier holding The Holy Bible in the US woodland camouflage pattern, first introduced in 1989.

Originally posted by jefurii from del.icio.us/tag/art, ReBlogged by eteam on May 30, 2006 at 09:57 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on May 30, 2006, 9:57pm

an impressive set of data visualizations that explore the del.icio.us collaborative bookmarking network. the (unfortunately static) series include an interest versus popularity graph, an individual link-space graph (each user is represented as a dotted column, the color is determined by the amount of popular links), a circular link diagram & a color-based recommendation grid.
see also groop.us & browse delicious & revealicious & vox delicii.
[mandalabrot.net|thnkx Ian]

Originally from information aesthetics on June 1, 2006, 1:10am

Here’s a collection of 5 things you can do with old TVs: Plasma globe, Tesla coil, Scope/Audio fun, Jacob’s ladder and a computer case - Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine at May 25, 2006, 01:34, published by J.J. Toothman

Originally from Rhizome.org on May 31, 2006, 8:22am

Circulation (2003, 56.1MB, 3:24 min)

ZDEN is a Slovakian artist and a pioneer in real-time
video performing - VJing . His live visuals are produced by a
self-developed post-production tool called CIRCULATION,
a software-based real-time 3 source video mixing engine.
Visit his site.
Lots more to follow -watch this space.

Originally by doron golan from DVblog at June 1, 2006, 00:00, published by Pau Waelder

Originally from Rhizome.org on June 1, 2006, 9:06am

Originally from Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net - CULTURE AND POLITICS AFTER THE NET at May 31, 2006, 12:44, published by Marisa S. Olson

Originally from Rhizome.org on May 31, 2006, 4:00pm

Cory Doctorow:
The Ohio State University’s Christopher M Fairman has published a scholarly paper called “Fuck”:

This Article is as simple and provocative as its title suggests: it explores the legal implications of the word fuck. The intersection of the word fuck and the law is examined in four major areas: First Amendment, broadcast regulation, sexual harassment, and education. The legal implications from the use of fuck vary greatly with the context. To fully understand the legal power of fuck, the nonlegal sources of its power are tapped. Drawing upon the research of etymologists, linguists, lexicographers, psychoanalysts, and other social scientists, the visceral reaction to fuck can be explained by cultural taboo. Fuck is a taboo word. The taboo is so strong that it compels many to engage in self-censorship. This process of silence then enables small segments of the population to manipulate our rights under the guise of reflecting a greater community. Taboo is then institutionalized through law, yet at the same time is in tension with other identifiable legal rights. Understanding this relationship between law and taboo ultimately yields fuck jurisprudence.

Link

(via MeFi)

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on May 31, 2006, 5:31pm

Cory Doctorow:
University of Birmingham microbiologists have found a bacterium that excretes electricity-generating hydrogen when fed sugar, and have made electricity from waste chocolate headed for the landfill:

The team fed Escherichia coli bacteria diluted caramel and nougat waste. The bacteria consumed the sugar and produced hydrogen, which they make with the enzyme hydrogenase, and organic acids. The researchers then used this hydrogen to power a fuel cell, which generated enough electricity to drive a small fan (Biochemical Society Transactions, vol 33, p 76).

The process could provide a use for chocolate waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill. What’s more, the bacteria’s job doesn’t have to end once they have finished chomping on the sweet stuff. Mackaskie’s team next put the bugs to work on a production line that recovers precious metal from the catalytic converters of old cars.

ef=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?a=NiuTXw”>

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on June 1, 2006, 8:10am

Cory Doctorow:
Wired News sent Thomas Greene to the ISS World Conference, a no-press-allowed conference for companies that sell wiretapping equipment to law enforcement, ISPs, telcos, and repressive governments. These super-s33kr1t spies blabbed everything in the bar, let Greene slip into the conference spaces and eavesdrop, and slipped him a copy of the conference CD to copy to his laptop.

Greene recounts some fascinating discussions he held with attendees about the ethics of selling snooping technologies to the kinds of governments that imprison and torture dissidents. In one case, he had a remarkable conversation with an attendee who assured him that the Bush administration was less conscientious of human rights than foreign dictators:

“Well, it’s quite an issue,” I said. “This is the equipment of totalitarianism, and the only things that can keep a population safe are decent law and proper oversight. I want to know what they think when they learn that China, or Syria, or Zimbabwe is getting their hands on it.”

“You really need to educate yourself,” he insisted. “Do you think this stuff doesn’t happen in the West? Let me tell you something. I sell this equipment all over the world, especially in the Middle East. I deal with buyers from Qatar, and I get more concern about proper legal procedure from them than I get in the USA.”

“Well, perhaps the Qataris are conscientious,” I said, “and I’m prepared to take your word on that, but there are seriously oppressive governments out there itching to get hold of this stuff.”

He sneered again. “Do you think for a minute that Bush would let legal issues stop him from doing surveillance? He’s got to prevent a terrorist attack that everyone knows is coming. He’ll do absolutely anything he thinks is going to work. And so would you. So why are you bothering these guys?”

://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?a=oL1r9a”>

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on June 1, 2006, 8:22am

Cory Doctorow:
Vinay Gupta has a fascinating article on WorldChanging that characterizes limited liability corporations as a form of government subsidy (because otherwise, these companies would have to take out expensive liability insurance). Gupta posits that thhis creates a “perverse incentive” to do bad things, like pollute, and wonders aloud what would happen if LLCs were phased out:

What if we phased out limited liability? Suppose, for example, we made shareholders liable for up to 1% of their assets in corporate bankruptcy cases - you can lose up to 1% of your net worth to cover the unpaid debts of corporations in which you own stock. Would that change shareholder behavior to less risky investments? Would it cool the economy - or increase corporate responsibility at no cost to the tax payer?

Could regulating the degree of investor protection become one way of pulling corporations back into line when corruption becomes rife? Would ENRON have happened if shareholders had been even partially liable?

I’m not enough of an economist to really understand the implications of this idea, but I’d like to open the floor up to discussion: is viewing limited liability as a subsidy to the investor a valid way of thinking about it, and is reducing that subsidy to the investor a plausible way of making our economy a little more risk-averse and therefor environmentally responsible?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?a=3HcNfw”>

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on June 1, 2006, 12:51pm

Cory Doctorow:
A couple whose PC was repaired by a Best Buy was told their old hard drive would be destroyed, but instead it turned up at a flea-market:

“He said, ‘My name is Ed. I just bought your hard drive for $25 at a flea market in Chicago,’” said Gerbus. “I thought my world was coming down.”

Gerbus and his wife had good reason to worry.

A total stranger had access to the couple’s personal information, including
Social Security numbers, bank statements and investment records.

href=”http://digg.com”>Digg)

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on June 1, 2006, 12:24pm

David Pescovitz:
John Alderman and Sarah Borruso, veteran thinkers/reporters on technology and culture, teamed up with virtuoso designer Erik Adigard (M-A-D) in a visual/textual exercise pondering how TV is transforming as a media. The result is “Exploding TV: From One to Many to Many to Many,” a smart and graphically stunning poster that they presented at the 2006 Information Architecture Summit. The poster was also reprinted in 10×10, a fun PDF magazine published by Eat Creative in Japan.

John says:

The poster came about because Erik, Sarah, and I were all doing work with IPTV and mobile TV, and we proposed a poster for the IA Summit in Vancouver, while simultaneously Eat asked for a submission to 10×10. Mainly we just wanted to do some thinking about the properties of TV as it changed from broadcast to Internet distribution, like how that changed the whole underlying dynamics. On top of that, there were all kinds of new devices popping up demanding new kinds of content. So we
wanted to start connecting some dots.

Link to 10×10 (PDF)

Originally by David Pescovitz from Boing Boing on May 31, 2006, 4:56pm

Cory Doctorow:
Red Hat has developed a new MySpace like site called Mugshot — but it’s open source. I saw a short demo of Mugshot this morning at the Red Hat Summit in Nashville and it was pretty hot; they nicked the best stuff out of all the social networking sites and put them together in an open codebase.

The Mugshot client application is built with a special cross-platform code library developed in C with GLib and GObject. For network communication, Mugshot uses the open XMPP protocol also used by Jabber and Google Talk. The current version of Mugshot is built with Loudmouth, a GLib-based XMPP implementation developed by Imendio. The Linux version of the Mugshot client user interface is built with GTK and uses GConf for storing configuration data, which means it is closely aligned with the GNOME desktop environment. The Linux version uses D-Bus for interprocess communication, and will provide Firefox integration.

Link

(Thanks, Segphault!)

Originally by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing on May 31, 2006, 6:44pm

Anthony Castronovo made a huge silver helium balloon and let 100 or so people try it out, looks like a lot of fun (and helium) - maybe we’ll make one for the next Maker Faire! Link.

Related:

• Balloon construction - Link.
• Floatup blog - Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on May 31, 2006, 10:33pm

Virtual LEGO building for Macs - “Bricksmith allows you to create virtual instructions for your Lego creations on your Mac. The magic is based on the LDraw library, a collection of 3D models of Lego building blocks created by enthusiasts from around the world. With Bricksmith, you never have to worry about running out of parts!” [via] - Link.

Related:
LDraw - Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on May 31, 2006, 6:57pm

MAKE Flickr photo pool member Francois Schnell posted up a ton of example/screenshots from “Liberlab” an open source lab project - “The Open Source project Liberlab aims to help democratize educational scientific experimentation through the creation and use of a DIY digital lab at a very low price ($20). Liberlab can also be used to learn about robotics, automation, human-machine interface or interactive arts.” Project page and Flickr photo set.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on May 31, 2006, 4:26pm

Here’s a template and instructions for building a reflector/diffuser for your camera’s flash. The downloadable template fits Nikon’s SB-600 but is easily adapted for other flashes - Thanks Matt! Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on May 31, 2006, 2:58pm

Ian writes - “This is a simple bike light which can be contructed with a minimum of tools. It is bright enough to be useful as a headlight, is fairly robust, and cheap to construct. It’s perfect for commuting and does a surprisingly good job for mountain biking too. The whole thing, including rechargeable batteries, weighs about 200g and will run for over two hours. “ - Link.

Related:
Other bicycle light projects - Link.

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Originally from MAKE Magazine on May 31, 2006, 1:48pm