Category — MACHINES

Because I never watch television or read magazines,  I am quite slow to notice emerging trends in pop culture.  That is why a had such a shock this weekend when we were driving on a highway ramp towards the airport and a gigantic billboard loomed over me, asking in texting language: “R U Bot or Not?”

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The modern day shaman — the serial start-up entrepreneur — carries around a fascinating collection of baubles and tools. The old school shrunken heads, shark’s teeth, eagle feathers, ointments and herbs are certainly no more fetishistic than today’s gadgets, cables, and protective sleeves.

This fascinating anthropology study belongs to Joi Ito, which I stumbled across by reading up about HTML5 on Hixie’s blog.
go to flickr page

**note, isn’t it kind of cool that we can emulate all the embedded objects related to the photo and then iframe them in Wordpress…!

The excellent description on secure multi-site Drupal installation by Justin Hileman worked like a charm. However, for my own records, it’s a good idea to save the exact procedure that I used on my Centos 5.3 system. Hopefully it might help someone else who wants a complete rundown.  So, if you dare to unleash another hydra-headed monster on your website, here you go, Nick!

Scenario: using one database instance, I wanted to run multiple Drupal sites by using the same core modules and the same contributed modules. The plan was to first install Drupal core, and then to use CVS to get contributed modules, allowing for fairly simple CVS updates of new contributed modules. (Of course, you could do the same to obtain Drupal core, if you want.) Each Drupal site would live in its own folder below the webroot, while the actual core installation and multisites existed above the webroot in an area secure from casual intruders.

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Reading the MOMA Book on Rodchenko, I was struck by Rodchenko’s diary entry about the early aviator Aleksandr Vasiliev.  What must a barnstorming demonstration have been like at Kazan in the year 1912?   At a time when the world was being transformed by new technology, here was a living vision of speed, of man’s ascent to the skies, of futurism come knocking at the skulls of old consciousness, and the dawning of a new age of man.    According to Rodchenko, on Sunday, June 3rd, 1912:

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Although the armatures and servo-controlled eyeballs beneath the skin may be fascinating, Beware the Ides of March, and robot teachers with scary rubber lips!

With all the press surrounding the schoolteacher robot named Saya (developed by Hiroshi Kobayashi), you would think that the Singularity is upon us, but upon closer examination it looks like we will be loping along in the Uncanny Valley for a long time to come.    In the photo series that appeared in the Boston Globe recently, it was apparent to me that loose rubber lips do not a rose make.

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I was talking with my friend Don about this cool book I am reading about the rocket scientist John Whiteside Parsons — Strange Angel — when the conversation somehow changed tracks to Leon Theremin, the enigmatic Soviet inventor.   This conversation prompted me to check out the recent biography by Albert Glinsky, Theremin: ETHER MUSIC AND ESPIONAGE, with an introduction by the late great Robert Moog… yes, that Bob Moog!  In his introduction, Moog mentioned that he wrote an article for Electronics World in 1960 that detailed his early work selling theremin kits by mail order.  Hmm, I thought…wonder what became of that article?  Turns out that someone scanned it for a website, which later vanished, but miraculously it was archived by the Wayback Machine!   Mr. Peabody and Simon, I know you’re out there watching out for us miserable earthlings, and I have to thank you, sincerely. Hope you will enjoy the scanned images of the article, which appeared in the January 1961 issue of Electronics World:
page 1 (288k jpg)
page 2 (472k jpg)
page 3 (400k jpg)
page 4 (342k jpg)
page 5 (135k jpg)

Now we can build our own authentic 1960-style theremins and aspire to the magnificent soundtrack of the original The Day The Earth Stood Still.

If you are interested in other kits, check out the amazing kit details by Art Harrison,  Theremin Enthusiasts Club, and the geeks at Theremin World.  If you are into the latest theremin music, check out Thereminvox.

Reading the latest news about the haunted city hall of Middleborough, Massachusetts got me wondering about the state of the art for ghost busting. What self-respecting paranormal commando would be caught without and Electromagnetic Field detector, a decent digital recorder for Electronic Voice Phenomena, a camera for snapping Paranormal Orbs, a hand-held Infrared Thermometer, Geiger Counter, Night Vision Goggles, Barometer, Static Meter, Negative Ion Meter, and cryogenic storage device?

Well, I guess we’ve come a long way from holding hands in the dark! Madame Blavatsky should be proud.

I went to DrupalCon2008 expecting the usual 20 to 40 techie types in a room. Sort of a Modules Anonymous session, as Boris Mann of RainCity described it. What I didn’t expect was the crazy mad buzz of a thousand Drupalites in the moments before Dries Buytaert gave the keynote speech.

The mojo seems to be rising for Drupal these days!

Meanwhile, heading home on the subway not only was I surrounded by people toting boxed sets of Edward Tufte’s books on visualizing data, the young woman across from me was reading Astral Projection for Beginners. I kid you not! Some days, thankfully, are just strange…

After lengthy consideration, I finally shelled out for some recording gear, so that I could produce audio content. You can see the complete set up for Diamond Bay Radio in the photo above. The basic necessities are the digital audio interface (an M-Audio Mobile Pre, which I got on Ebay for $80) and a decent vocal microphone (a Shure PG-48, also purchased on Ebay for $15). Since the Shure came with an XLR to 1/4″ jack, I had to go to Cambridge Music and pick up a Whirlwind XLR to XLR cable.

The Mobile Pre just looked like a better piece of gear than the Fast Track, and generally cost less than the similar models from Edirol, Tascam, etc; and also was the only model that boasted Windows drivers going back to Windows 2000. As it turned out the drivers did work on my Fujitsu lifebook, running Win2K. Once I had the drivers installed, and figured out how to turn on the input device monitor in Audacity, I was up and running! In fact, Audacity is so totally amazing, I was ripping some background music and recording separate voice tracks for the intro in minutes!

As a result, I can proudly present the premiere podcast of Diamond Bay Radio! A short reading from the Life of Mayakovsy. Hope you like it!

** LINK **

When you really need some original art, but don’t have time to browse at galleries and zine-fairs, why not get your fix at the nearest Art-0-mat? Made from reconditioned cigaret machines, Art-o-mats (and kindred bots) are serving up some fine eye-candy and poetry relief. Cool and refreshing, with no doormat-mouth aftertaste!For the info-trail curious (or Hansel and Gretel lovers) out there, I found this on the links section of Montreal’s distroboto, which was pointed to from the luckysoap blog of J. R. Carpenter, who spoke recently at the MediaInTransition5 conference. (More MIT5 video is posted at Philippe LeJeune’s videos without a blog.

Remember Mister Miracle and his incredible super-detection + power-enhancing device: Mother Box?

Well, now an erstwhile gadget maker has built a prototype for Mother Box! It combines a wireless detection card with a microcontroller that produces a small heartbeat-like vibration when a wireless signal is detected. ping - ping - ping ! You’re walking into a hotspot, Sister!

Imagine the possibilities of combining this with other frequency & radiation detectors. We could have a very useful Mother Box warning system, mounted neatly on the shoulder. Just far enough away from your skull, and just high enough to have a multi-directional clear space to listen on. As the inventor points out, people (”meat” sic) absorb signals, so a receiver above the shoulder like an epaulet might work best.

**LINK**

kudos to Mr. Murphy, inventor of the electronic vehicle, eBug!