The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: April 29, 2012

Official News page 9


WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton

I decided it was time to go through all the accumulated geek stuff, which has been building up, so this week is a special geek only issue. I think you’ll find a little something here to whet your appetite, even if you’re not a true geek.

Incidentally, next week is a holiday here in the UK, so there won’t be a Winding Down, I will instead be doing yet more work on the apartment...


Geek Stuff:

If you’ve ever been to the WWII code cracking center at Bletchley Park in the UK, you will know that they have an amazing statue of Alan Turing. What you may not know is that the artist, Stephan Kettle did a smaller bust first so that the trust could see what he was planning. This weekend the smaller version was auctioned off at the ACCU Conference in Oxford (actually, it was at motel in the middle of a roundabout (traffic circle) in the middle of the Oxford bypass (beltway)), to raise funds for the trust. I have little doubt that it will be displayed in a pride of place by the programmer who bid highest. Quite a coup for a geek!
http://www.stephenkettle.co.uk/images/turing01.html

Calling all space geeks. Dutch freelancer Sander van den Berg has put together a really smooth video using footage from NASA’s Voyager and Cassini space probes. The result is the coolest two minute video I’ve seen for a long time! Take a look.
http://dvice.com/archives/2012/04/new-video-of-sa.php

And now I’m calling all Deadheads. On the 5th of June, Jerry Garcia’s custom made ‘Lucky 13’ Alembic guitar is coming up for auction on eBay. All the proceeds will be going to the Amicus Foundation to help its work in providing educational opportunities and assistance to hill tribe refugees along the Thai/Burmese border and to underprivileged Thai communities. A nice piece of Grateful Dead memorabilia for a lucky bidder...
http://www.gizmag.com/lucky-13-alembic-guitar-from-grateful-deads-jerry-garcia-to-be-auctioned/18630/

The trouble with 3D printers is that they are so expensive, usually in the one to two thousand dollar range. But prices have been coming down and the l latest to come in at less than US$1,000 is the Solidoodle 2 at a mere US$499. Like most low end 3D printers the machine can only build plastic objects, and in this case the objects must be less than 6 inches on each side. A nice geek toy, but to be really useful, and for there to be one in every household, I suspect printers in the US$350-US$400 range capable of using sintered metal will be needed. But this is a good start, and geeks are almost defined by being one ahead of the masses!
http://www.gizmag.com/solidoodle-3d-printer/22326/

Google launched its new Google Drive rival to the likes of Dropbox this week. Geeks were queuing to try it out. Unfortunately, in the case of Mac geeks, things didn’t go quite as smoothly as Google might have hoped for. In fact, it isn’t ready for the Mac at all, and eager Apple fans were left looking at a a piece of text in the top right hand corner saying “Your Google Drive is not yet ready”. Oh dear, that was naughty of Google since the announcement clearly stated:

“Google Drive is available for:
PC and Mac
iPhone and iPad (coming soon)
Android devices”

Still, we have to make allowances. Google is all geek, and we all know that geeks have difficulties communicating with humans...
https://drive.google.com/start#home
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/25/g_drive_mac_not/

The most ambitious geek startup company has got to be Planetary Resources, started this week by a bunch of geeks, including Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, James Cameron, and Charles Simonyi (the inventor of Microsoft’s much reviled Hungarian Notation for its programs). The company plans to mine asteroids for natural resources to be used on Earth. Sounds like science fiction, but apparently we already have most of the technology needed. Amazing how rapidly space flight is happening now it’s out of the hands of governments, isn’t it.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57419298-76/asteroid-mining-land-grab-in-space/

Traveling long distances on roads? Would prefer to travel by private jet, but can’t afford it? Then try this special edition Mercedes JetVan Sprinter from Ventura, California-based Becker Automotive Design. Doesn’t look that much from the outside, but inside... Inside it’s fitted out with all the trimmings of a luxury private jet! Brilliant idea.
http://www.gizmag.com/mercedes-benz-sprinter-private-jet-van/22070/

Incidentally, those of you who can still remember their misspent youth with hours when you should have been studying spent playing foosball, might like to take a look Teckell’s designer foosball tables to go in to their Mercedes JetVan. They’re very classy, I like the crystal glass and chrome ones, but if you really want to burn cash, the top end of the range is a limited edition in crystal and aluminum Cristallino Gold LE. It’s described by Gizmag as ‘not for the feint of wallet’...
http://www.gizmag.com/teckells-designer-foosball-tables/22235/

But perhaps you’d like a toy that’s, how shall I put it, a little more massive. Then how about Aeolus, an acoustic wind pavilion that you can walk through. It’s an Aeolian harp and it makes ethereal music as the wind blows over its tubes. Amazing, and artist Luke Jerram is to be congratulated on producing something so unique. Incidentally, both the videos are worth watching. The music is very creepy, very alien sounding.
http://www.gizmag.com/acoustic-pavilion-music-thin-air/22240/

Finally, Happy birthday to Volvo. The inventor of the modern three-point seat-belt is 85 years old this month, and still selling 500,000 cars a year
http://www.gizmag.com/volvo-85-85th-birthday-anniversary/22156/


Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Andrew, Barb, Fi, and to Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.

Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
29 April 2012

Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.


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