Rob Isn't Weird writes "Microsoft has finally responded to the resolutions concerning OOXML (or 662 of them at any rate). The only problem? The JTC1 NBs who are deciding OOXML's fate have to download 662 individual PDFs from a slow, password-protected server; and many have had trouble getting the password. Don't misunderstand the ECMA's intent, though: there would have been 662 OOXML files if they had wanted to make it hard for people to read and criticize the responses. Thanks to the Internet, other interested parties have put all 662 resolutions online in a searchable, taggable format and are requesting that everyone interested help examine them. That means you, Slashdot."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark's exploration of Mister Jalopy's drive-in movie theater on a bicycle starts out normal enough, but gets pretty trippy when Jalopy opens the lid. Care Bears, orangutans, and Mister Rogers all make cameo appearances. All of this magic took place at a "mini Maker Faire" during Felt Club 2007, an annual exposition of cool crap made by interesting people.

When the buzz wears off, we step into the Beijing Accelerator. Rotterdam-based artist Marnix de Nijs created this immersive virtual reality experience in which a seated user rotates at the same speed as the landscape they're viewing. This, too, is trippy. Coop suggests that it be known as "Barf Barf Revolution."

Link to video, comments, and full text of post.

Carla Sinclair, editor-in-chief of CRAFT, gives a great tour of the recent LA Felt Club event (which include a "Makers Square").

Felt Club tour with Carla from CRAFT - Link

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Last week, we wrote about the unfortunate situation of the girl in Missouri who committed suicide after some others who knew here created a fake MySpace profile of a boy who befriended her and then turned on her and told her she was mean and he didn't want to be friends with her. As we noted, there was a push to find or make new laws to punish those who had participated, but in the end, prosecutors are noting that no criminal charges will be filed because no actual laws were broken. Yes, it's a tragic situation, but it is not against the law to be a jerk. Of course, those who participated still have to deal with the consequences of what they did -- including attacks from a virtual posse. In the end, this is the right thing. What happened was awful, but you can't bring criminal charges against people for just being mean, otherwise the courts (and jails) would be even more ridiculous overburdened then they already are.

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SpiritGod21 writes in with a NYTimes article on a new approach to spam detection that claims out-of-the-box improvement of 1 or 2 orders of magnitude over existing approaches. The article wanders off into human-interest territory as the inventor, Steven T. Kirsch, has an incurable disease and an engineer's approach to fighting it. But a description of the anti-spam tech, based on the reputation of the receiver and not the sender, is worth a read.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I miss Phillip, a real agent provacateur if there ever was one.

As reported by the NY Times, he's offering payments to illustrators to spiff up Wikipedia articles.

"It occurred to me that when the dust settled on the Wikipedia versus Britannica question, the likely conclusion would be 'Wikipedia is more up to date; Britannica has better illustrations.'"

Just $20K (less than 30 nights in a European hotel for an American) and he's given the publishing world something to think about.

That's called leverage!

A one-night stay in a relatively nice hotel in a European capital costs an American about the same as a Mac Mini.



It's left as an exercise for the reader to determine which is a better deal.

bobbocanfly writes "Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has succeeded in getting the MPAA to remove their 'University Toolkit' after claims it violated the GNU GPL. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact the MPAA directly, Garrett eventually emailed the group's ISP and the violating software was taken down."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chris Chapman writes:

I've been working on reverse-engineering the Braun Tassimo T1200/T1400 hot beverage system from its barcoded T-DISC brewing pods.

The barcodes are used to "program" the machine to make a particular beverage using a specific amount of water at a particular temperature and for a certain duration of time. My efforts have been directed at discovering a "map" between the barcodes and how the machine controls its brewing processes.

Hacking the Tassimo single-serve coffee machine - Link

Related:

We have a caffeinated collection of coffee related projects from the pages of MAKE in PDF form, if you have every MAKE you likely don't need this, but if you don't - we've collected 5 great projects and have them available for $4.99 (if you're a Tips-N-Tools newsletter subscriber there's a discount code coming for that so hang tight)...

I'm going to have a post about each project, today's is: Bottomless Espresso Portafilter. Mod your espresso maker's filter holder for a tastier cup.

DIY Coffee collects five hot MAKE magazine projects to supercharge your java:

• Home-Build Coffee Roaster
• Bottomless Espresso Portafilter
• Toaster Tea Popper
• Perfect Espresso Temperature Hack
• Web-Fired Coffee with X10 Automation

Got a jones for caffeine and technology? Mod your espresso machine to dial in the perfect shot, with precise temperature control and a filter hack that kicks out maximum tasty crema. Roast your own with a hand-built custom coffee roaster. Hack a toaster timer to perfect-brew your tea every time. And fire up your coffee pot from the internet using X10 automation. Using home-grown techniques and off-the-shelf parts, caffeine junkies will find everything they need to overclock the fix from their favorite shade-grown beverage.

DIY Coffee - a MAKE PDF - Link.

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A month and a half ago, Walt Mossberg wrote up an article saying that government intervention was needed to get US mobile phone operators to open up their networks. I took issue with that notion, noting that it wasn't as simple as Mossberg made out, and there wasn't enough evidence that government intervention was needed or that it would help. In fact, we pointed out that competitive pressures were already pushing mobile operators, with the exception of Verizon Wireless, away from the walled garden model -- and while they hadn't adopted truly open models, it was likely to come with time and increased competition. And, in fact, as we noted last week, Verizon Wireless has responded to these competitive pressures by promising to open up (the reality of that promise remains to be seen).

With that in mind, I was a little disappointed to read Mossberg's take on Verizon Wireless' move. Mossberg cautiously commends Verizon Wireless, withholding full judgment until all the details are out -- which makes complete sense, and is a position I agree with. However, Mossberg fails to note that this (and other such moves) have all happened due to competitive pressures, rather than government fiat, and doesn't retract his call for government intervention. While it absolutely is true that the mobile operators remain too closed these days (even once Verizon Wireless details its plans), what we're seeing is how market pressures tend to drive markets toward openness in much more natural ways than by involving government intervention. The second the government got involved, lobbyists from the mobile operators would make sure that huge loopholes were slipped in that would likely make things worse for consumers, not better. Like Mossberg and many others, I'm frustrated and annoyed by the limitations put on mobile phone systems by operators, but I'm confident that pressure from within the industry and from outside of it (see the recent work of Apple and Google for a start) will eventually force the operators to open up -- and it won't take long for them to realize that the end result is better for everyone, including the operators themselves.

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Goodness, this is beautiful! Read more about the story behind this analog synth here - Link.

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I like Gary Baseman's new albino HotChaChaCha vinyl toy.

As rare as an albino, this little Devil not only steals the halos from Angels but he sucks their pure, rich, red blood too. His lust for innocence and evil is unrivaled in Heaven and Hell and you'll find his angelic appearance beguiling, but don't let it fool you…and don't turn your back on him. This three-legged wily imp is a mean 6 1/2 inches tall. HotChaChCha is made of White Pearlized Vinyl and is contained (for your safety) in his own black coffin box.

Link

Jim Benson enjoyed his "stir-fried wikipedia," served at a restaurant in Beijing. Link (Via Japundit) (Thanks, Lee!)

PoliTech sends us over to Billboard.com for a detailed article about the coming tipping point in the music business in favor of MP3. The two biggest drivers pushing Warner and Sony BMG toward MP3 are an upcoming massive Amazon-Pepsi download giveaway and a positive move by the usually maligned Wal-Mart (according to sources): "...Wal-Mart [alerted] Warner Music Group and Sony BMG that it will pull their music files in the Windows Media Audio format from walmart.com some time between mid-December and mid-January, if the labels haven't yet provided the music in MP3 format."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm looking forward to showing this trick to my kids: sucking the air out of a cushion with a plastic bag and vacuum cleaner. Link (Thanks, Gord!)

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is looking to reinstate a national cap on cable ownership, which would bar any one firm from serving more than 30 percent of the U.S. subscriber base. (A similar rule was thrown out by the courts back in 2001.)

The rationale for a national cap has always been a bit opaque to me. Because cable is geographically constrained, from a consumer perspective, all that matters is the market power my provider can exercise locally. If I've got three regional cable providers to choose from, it makes no difference whether two of them each hold a 40 percent national share. If I've got only one serving my area, the fact that it only controls 3 percent of the national market is similarly irrelevant. And if I'm in the latter boat, declaring that the largest firms with the most resources are forbidden to expand their operations into my neighborhood scarcely seems calculated to increase my access to alternatives. The FCC cites regional consolidation as a motive for the cap, but if cable providers are gunning for such regional monopolies, then won't they divest first in the regions where they do face competition, and hold on to the areas where they're the lone option?

It also seems a little perverse to introduce such limits just as consumers are finally starting to experience more robust choice in premium video. According to The Wall Street Journal, satellite now holds 30 percent of the pay-TV market. And despite some rocky first steps, phone companies are ramping up to aggressively expand IPTV over the next few years. Racing in to rescue viewers from monopoly now is, if not technically "ironic," then at least close enough to meet the Alanis Morissette definition.

Julian Sanchez is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Julian Sanchez and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Corey Helford Gallery is having an Anti-War Show called "? THE WAR" Tuesday, December 4th. It's for one night only. Twenty percent of the proceeds will go to a charity that supports veterans. They are also giving away free posters of all the works in the show. People have to show up to collect their free posters.

Some of the artists include, Andrew Brandou, Gary Baseman, Joe Ledbetter, Fred Stonehouse, Chris Reccardi (shown here), and Luke Chueh. Here's the link to the show preview: Link

An anonymous reader writes "FCC chairman Kevin Martin wants to relax rules on how many media outlets one company can own in one market. Democratic commissioner Copps wants to rally the public to stop media consolidation. He says he's 'blowing a loud trumpet' for a 'call to battle' to stop the FCC from giving big media a generous Christmas present."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The upcoming ACM conference on Designing Interactive Systems has a workshop called "Designing Cute Interactive Media ... that motivate the user in a happy, positive manner"

Cuteness has an effective design philosophy that can be used in many areas to make emotionally engaging user interactive systems, as well as evaluate existing systems. Cuteness can also be included as an engineering design framework that can assist designers and engineers when creating engaging interactive systems that motivate the user in a happy, positive manner.

We look at a range of experiences involving the idea of “cuteness” and its related components. From a psychological standpoint, there are cues that are well known that are instilled in us at an instinctual level. An example is the features of babies that bring out a nurturing and adoration response. Measuring these reactions however is less discrete and is more qualitative in nature. From a cultural standpoint, the definition of how cute something is and what it drives the user to do in response is not yet fully explored.

Link