Jill and Eric Penne

Fun with dry ice – make a dry ice bubble!

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This needs to be opposed.

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The internet has woken up to the fact that Facebook can steal photos from your profile page and use them in ads targeted at your friends.

We first reported on this on June 24th in the case of reader Rob who was invited on Facebook to meet hot singles who were waiting for him. The Facebook ad used a picture of his wife in the picture. Now a front-page Reddit story and people on Facebook itself are spreading the news about the privacy concern and making a stink.

To opt out, you can just go here and select "no one." Or to do it from within Facebook, click settings -> privacy -> news feeds and wall -> facebook ads. If you have Ad-block, you have to disable it to do the opt out, as ad-block considers it also an ad.

The ads themselves are not served by Facebook but by third-party companies exploiting a part of the application platform which lets app developers see all the friends of a user who has added the app, even if that user’s friends haven’t themselves added the app.

In the description, Facebook says, “Facebook Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends,” but what it should really say is “Facebook Ads slap your picture on stupid IQ test and dating site ripoffs.”

When endofweb.co.uk noticed this issue and asked Facebook for a response, Facebook said they were in the process of investigating the deceptive ads and getting them shut down. David Swain, of the Product and Platform Communications department. at Facebook said, “It’s an important issue, and one we take seriously.”

[Reddit]
PREVIOUSLY: Facebook Encourages Open Marriages-Just Ask Dan’s Wife

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Linn Area Cycler's of Cedar Rapids, Iowa – Cedar Rapids, IA. "Come Ride With US". Sports & Fitness
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Last year, Phil, bless his pointy little head, came up with the idea of the “MAKEcation.” With gas prices at an all-time high and so many news stories about families vacationing on the cheap, close to home, or even AT home, he had an idea for the MAKE community. Why not encourage people to stay at home, learn new skills, and make cool projects, as a family? The idea of the MAKEcation was born. Of course, Phil himself took the first one (he had to make sure it was safe for the rest of us).

So, for the rest of the summer, we’ll be hosting a series of family-friendly projects and challenges here on Make: Online, with some awesome product bundles in the Shed, MAKEcation contests, and articles with MAKEcation ideas, tips, and how-tos. We’re even going to have experts for each program come in as Camp Counselors. It should be a lot of fun.

Our first MAKEcation event starts this Monday. It’s “Teach Your Family to Solder” week. We’ll announce full details on Monday. Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to necessarily TAKE the MAKEcation next week, we’ll just be running content related to soldering, posting easy-to-solder projects, announcing the Shed bundles we’ve put together, etc. And our Camp Counselor will be in his virtual cabin, if you have any questions related to soldering and basic kit-building. Soldering is too often seen as more of a challenge than it needs to be. It’s really not that hard and it’s something that even older children can do (with some supervision).

And don’t wait for us to plan your MAKEcation! We’re hoping makers will plan and take their own family-oriented DIY time off. If you do, please document it. We’ll be giving away some cool Shed products to folks who send us the best MAKEcation videos and pictures. Upload yours to the MAKE Flickr pool and tag them “MAKEcation.” If you’re in the process of planning a family stay-at-home-and-make time, let us know about it in the comments. We’d love to see a brainstorm of MAKEcation ideas.

Above picture from the Hoefer family “Great Chair Challenge.”

More:
Another MAKEcation family challenge
Hydrogen balloon camera project
Laser cut case for a clock – MAKEcation

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UPDATED: Click here for an update on the boy and the accident.

* * *

News from Coralville this morning says police are looking for a cyclist who struck a 4-year-old boy and then left the scene. They would like to find out more about what happened.

So would I, and I hope the guy comes forward, just as I hope any motorist who strikes a cyclist would.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the cyclist was on the sidewalk, where he shouldn’t have been. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the boy wandered into the cyclist’s path. It happens all the time.

I saw it just the other day on a trail ride with some friends. A young boy started pedaling across a trail bridge, stopped, then turned left as we were starting to pass him. Fortunately for all, we were going slow enough to react and not hurt him.

It was a good reminder to watch out for the little ones.

Slow down when you’re around them (and even around grown-up pedestrians). Be ready to stop. You never know what they might do, so be prepared for anything.

I’m inclined to believe that if you hit a kid with your bicycle, it’s your fault.

What do you think?

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How I once hacked my gas-powered walk-behind mower into a work-saving autonomous mower (and amused my neighbors).
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Bottled water isn’t any safer than tap water, and could actually be more dangerous, according to a report from the Government Accounting Office. The big difference lies in the government regulator: tap water is covered by the Safe Water Drinking Act, administered by the aggressive and powerful Environmental Protection Agency, while bottled water falls under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act overseen by the powerless anything-goes industry-lovers over at the Food and Drug Administration.

In fact, bottled water makers are not required to disclose even as much information as your local municipality. If you live in a city of 10,000 residents or more, you probably receive a copy of a water report each year. The Solid Waste Disposal Act requires that public water systems test tap water for various contaminants using certified laboratories and issue a water-quality report, called the consumer-confidence report (CCR), once a year. (For particularly toxic contaminants, the SWDA requires results to be reported within 24 hours.) The CCR summarizes local drinking water quality, information about the water source, levels of detected contaminants, whether any of the detected contaminants exceed federal levels, as well as information on the potential health effects of certain contaminants. (If you live in a smaller town, consult the EPA’s Web site.)

In contrast, bottled water manufacturers don’t have to use certified laboratories nor report the results of any water quality testing to the FDA, even if the contaminants exceed federal standards. The GAO study also found that only a small percentage of the 83 bottled water labels looked at, companies contacted, or company Web sites reviewed contained information comparable to that required of tap water.

Consumer Reports tested bottled water in 2000 and found that it was safe when it met FDA standards, which wasn’t always the case. All water should be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, but since it isn’t, we’ll stick with tap water, thank you very much.

Is tap water safer than bottled? [Consumer Reports]
(Photo: Snap®)

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Image: Discovery Channel

The geek cult around Mythbusters extends beyond the myths, urban legends, and movie magic that hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage bust on the Discovery Channel. Through their science and creativity, the lessons learned on that show are also inspiration for parenting. Here are five gems from the popular television show that can be co-opted into parenting mantras.

Failure is Always an Option

We learn through our mistakes. Since kids have a lot to learn, there are a lot of opportunities to fail. One of the more difficult things for a GeekDad to do is to see the failure happening and not step in to fix it. Sometimes, the best thing a parent can do is allow the laws of physics to play Bad Cop. Just be there to hold your child’s hand in comfort, and then explain the engineering that caused the World’s Largest Paper Airplane to crash to the ground. “Results are data,” as Adam likes to say. Experiencing failure is often a prerequisite to success.

I Reject Your Reality, and Substitute My Own

This Savage-ism came early in the series, during a debunking of whether a car could be ripped off its rear axle. Adam used the phrase to deny what he had previously said on video tape. Although they don’t use those same words, my kids remind me daily that their world tends to be based in a different reality than the one to which we adults are accustomed.

Larry Cohen, a psychologist specializing in children’s play therapy, believes that all kids want to connect. It is our misreading of their intention that leads to angst. Cohen recalls his motivation for writing his book, Playful Parenting, was the desire to remember a particular playdate … and how easy it was to forget that moment of connection at the time. We engage our kids by getting down on the floor with them and let them make the rules of play. (I suspect Adam is quite good at this with his own sons.)

Most Things End in an Explosion

Jamie’s favorite refrain—”When all else fails: C4?—is probably the force driving many Mythbusters experiments onto a path that leads to big booms. There are many days when I feel this is also true of raising kids, especially one who frequently channels Kevin Kline from A Fish Called Wanda. The question then becomes, what do you do when your kid explodes?

“Children do well if they can,” says Ross Greene, a professor at Harvard’s Department of Psychiatry who has written a few books on the subject of how to treat “explosive children” (kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges). Greene’s model—Collaborative Problem Solving—is based on two key insights. First, behavioral problems are best understood as an outcome of lagging cognitive skills, not attempts at manipulation. Second, it’s more effective to address the underlying conditions of the behavior, rather than incentivizing correction through rewards or punishment. As Grant Imahara of the Build Team once observed, the little black box always says we crashed. Not much can be accomplished by trying to fix the box.

If It’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Overdoing

Sometimes when the crew is finished busting, there is still time to play. “Overdoing” an experiment may be an excuse to put Jamie’s C4 principle to use, but it also typifies an important insight about learning.

Other than being a bit of a technophobe, educator Bev Bos has a lot of great things to say about how kids learn. In the talks she gives, she tells childcare administrators and teachers that “children have to use too much.” To understand one’s limits, experimentation with excess is mandatory. Bos recommends putting out more material than seems necessary and inviting kids to use as much as they want, even if that means using several rolls of toilet paper to make a paper rock. It is never wasteful to spark a child’s creative spirit. Remember the Mythbusters motto: With enough lubrication, we can do anything.

Don’t Try Anything You Are About to See Us Do at Home

The obvious parallel here might be, “Do as I say, not as I do,” but I interpret this Mythbusters disclaimer as a reminder of what it takes to be a good parent. For starters, parenting isn’t easy. It requires some expertise that can only be developed by doing the things listed above (e.g. failing, overdoing, dealing with explosions). The consequences of some mistakes can be devastating. It is a risky endeavor that can yield great rewards, but it isn’t for everyone.

Like building robotic swordsmen and remote-controlled cars, parenting is a team sport. I’m lucky to be married to someone who reads a lot on the subject and shares what she learns. When one of our three kids starts yammering about some fantasy creature or LEGO creation, I am reminded of Adam’s emotional admission to Jamie: “I love building strange crap with you.”

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This is why you should not use Internet Explorer. MS doesn’t even say they are going to be able to fix it by the end of the month. Please upgrade to Firefox 3.5 http://getfirefox.com

For the second time in six weeks, Microsoft today confirmed that hackers are exploiting an unpatched bug in DirectX, this time by attacking Internet Explorer (IE).
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A couple months back I coined an acronym for a specific type of person we are seeing more and more lately. Now we’ve talked about this before but for those that are recently joining this experience, let me rehash briefly.

TOYA Boy.

I, at all levels of logic, can understand Linux fanboy-ism. After all, we are not as much a Kernel, an operating system, and Free Software as we are a philosophy.

An important philosophy to my way of thinking.

So of course you are going to have those that take this philosophy to near, ahem…religious heights. Many of us actually have changed our life-course because we believe so strongly in this philosophy. There are millions of us across the globe that understand what computing freedom is…and we embrace it.

Zealot, Fanboy, NerdGeek…

Guilty as charged. More than willing to re-offend. Unrepentant Recidivist.

And I don’t mind a bit evangelizing our philosophy…healthily demonstrated by the fruit of that philosophy…it’s the core of what we believe…of what we know.

That’s where the confusion starts to creep in.

The difference between a philosophy and a product. Let’s break it down to what we are talking about at the core.

Linux (Gnu/Linux for my brethren who prefer) exists as much as a philosophy as it does a system.

Microsoft Windows is a product. Redmond cannot even spell philosophy.

Bought and sold with demanding stockholders eying its stability, big, with gleaming buildings and lots of people paid huge amounts of money to produce said product. I can understand liking a product…I like my HP 2710 printer, I like my poor old decrepit Isuzu Rodeo…

But I cannot understand defending it like they defend and protect Microsoft products, especially given the corporate entity that produces it and the Licensing agreement they must agree to before using it.

So if you like a product that’s good…buy it, like it and use it. But when someone else, a free consumer in the market for Heaven’s sake wants to try something else…..

Why are many you prepared to do just about anything to keep him from doing it? Why are you prepared to mangle the truth or even lie in order to keep someone on your side of the fence? You will repeat complete falsehoods mouthed by others just as ignorant as you in order to sway a decision.

Why? And don’t bother…it’s rhetorical.

Well, I ran into another TOYA Boy this weekend.

Oh, and TOYA = Talking Out Your A$$. (when your mouth knows better.)

…and I do mean boy.

He was all of 16 years old.

A 16 year old with a smart mouth that stays in one piece by the blessing that he is only 16 years old…an adult with his mouth would have gained some hard-learned manners long before now.

I drove South to San Antonio and the surrounding area this weekend to do a spate of installs that I had reserved for a one-shot circuit. We’ve learned to schedule them at least 2 weeks from the time of request to insure that any other installs in that area can be done at the same time. It saves a ton on gas and wear and tear.

His name is Bryan and he too is 16, but much better behaved…well-behaved to the point where him calling me “sir” started to get on my nerves. Bryan has had it tough. He has bounced from foster home to foster home for the past 9 years and it has nothing to do with his behavior. The System simply sucks. The referrer was a CPS Counselor who calls me often with referrals and she told me his story. “Psychologically Brutal” is by no means an exaggeration of his previous circumstance. Through it all, Bryan has a 3.55 grade average going into his Senior year and has already been approached by two colleges. It seems that Bryan possesses some extreme music talent.

One of these Universities would surprise everyone…not many get that invite 3/4th’s of the way through high school.

But Bryan is still a 16 year old boy…the voice of a man…just adjusting to the increasing testosterone levels and not at all comfortable with it. He’s on that cusp that made all of us as young men extremely uncomfortable.

To take his mind from his problems, Bryan likes to play computer games…and write music scores. Original music scores.

Two of his friends had gathered in the family room with Bryan and his caregiver as I unpacked the computer and began to set it up. I had went out of my way to build Bryan a good computer. This kid captured my attention immediately upon his paperwork coming across my desk.

Bryan knelt down beside me and started putting the various cables and wires into the back while I bench-pressed the 21 inch CRT onto the desk. Have I ever mentioned in passing, my extreme dislike for 21 inch CRT’s…? The wonderful woman that pledged to care for Bryan excused herself and told me that if she needed anything, to let her know.

When it came time to push the button, I nodded at Bryan.

“It’s your computer son, you turn it on.”

The Dell Bios bar crept slowly across the screen until the Super OS logo appeared in brilliant color. I glanced at Bryan and his friends to catch their expressions.

It wasn’t any where near what I was expecting.

Bryan was not frowning but I could tell he wasn’t exactly ready to do cartwheels either.

Bryan is a gamer and he was expecting Windows.

I sat down in the side chair and motioned Bryan to take the Captain’s seat. I had him drop the menu and we started exploring his system. As he traveled through the various sub catagories, I explained how the menu system is set up and how to prioritize the applications to his particular needs. Bryan likes to manipulate music and by the time I showed him Rosegarden, LMMS, Audacity, and ZynAddSubFX, he had forgotten his initial disappointment. He was excited. He was absolutely enthralled with ZynAddSubFX.

I explained to Bryan that while Linux was not anywhere near on par with Windows in the gaming sense, it far surpassed Windows in about everything else. I was about to show him the Gimp when one of his friends chimed in from behind us. It was TOYA Boy.

“I’ve got a cracked copy of XP at the house Bry…we’ll go get it later”

I turned in my chair and the kid smirked as I met his gaze.

“Why would you want to ruin a perfectly good computer by putting XP on it. It will be ate up with viruses in a month. Besides, Bryan doesn’t have to steal anything…everything he wants is one mouse click away and absolutely free.” I glanced over at the cased laptop on the end table. “Have you ever used Linux?”

The kid snorted in reply. “Dude, If he wanted a toy he would have went to the mall and bought one. Besides”, he jerked his head toward the brand new Dell. “I haven’t gotten a virus on my computer ever, so that’s a bunch of crap. Power Users don’t get viruses.

I eyed the other kid then TOYA Boy. “That is a sweet computer. Can I see it?”

He froze for just a moment and then went over and picked it up from the table and handed the case to me. I opened the case and pulled out the gleaming black beauty. 2000 bucks worth of upgraded Dell studio XPS laptop wasted on this rich boy snot.

I opened the lid and he smiled with pride as I turned it on and waited for it to boot.

“Do you have any games on it now?”

“Well yeah…that’s what it’s for. Check it out.”

I opened the Experienced cracked menu and started looking through the games he had…all cracked…no CD needed…not a thing on it legitimate. Even Photoshop was stolen. This particular “release” of XP comes with the ability to install some impressive software…all cracked without any of the keygen or serial hassles. The only real protection he had on it was an expired copy of Norton and it had a big red X through it. I didn’t pull it down from the menu but I would guess it was nefariously gained as well. Wireless dutifully found the open signal and connected.

Bad move.

I shifted in my seat and reached in my pocket for the right thumb drive, carefully holding the XPS as I did so. I pulled the cap with my teeth and slid it into the side slot. I waited for the device to register than opened the directory.

“Here’s a game you don’t have. Click that icon.”

The kid glanced at the explorer box then took the laptop from me and took two steps back toward the love seat and sat down. He looked up at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Dude, that’s a kid’s game man…that’s not a real game.”

I just smiled.

“Oh trust me…it’s as serious a game as you can get…try it and see if I’m not right”.

He shrugged and tapped twice on the indicated icon. He fooled with it for about two minutes then laid the machine on the bed. Bryan was still deep into the menu of his new computer. He and his well-mannered friend had discovered Rosegarden and were excitedly exploring the options and features of the application. There was an almost gleeful dialog going on between the two friends.

“Dude, that’s so lame my sister wouldn’t play it.” He pulled the 8 gig drive out of the slot and tossed it back to me.

I just shrugged and turned, put the drive in my pocket and focused my attention back to Bryan.

I took my time with him, explaining to him why Linux and Free Software were a better bet for him, not only now but for the rest of his computing life…barring The Cloud descending upon us all that is. I did accentuate that this was his computer and that indeed he did have a choice of what he put on it but that he should not buckle to peer pressure. Bryan should do what’s best for Bryan. I noted with satisfaction the similarities between Bryan and a young man I encountered in Felton California. That was a good thing.

The other young man was listening just as attentively and that seemed to bother our Little Eddie Haskel.

“Dude, but what about our games. He can’t play our games on that junk.”

I patiently told him that “that junk” was a dual core 64 bit AMD 3200+ with a 250 gig hard drive and three gigs of memory. Because I knew ahead of time that Bryan would have some specific graphics needs, I installed the Quadro FX 5800, bypassing the onboard ATI setup. I also did a mini lecture on the abilities of Wine, Cedega, Crossover Office and some virtualization engines that would allow him to play at almost peak.

It didn’t bother me at all to emphasize with authority that Bryan was being given this computer so he could better himself academically…not putz around at LAN parties and form associations with kids that prioritized gaming over building their futures. None the less, I directed Bryan to a text file in his home directory that listed all the games that played fine on Linux. Then I ended it with my regular finger-wagging .

“AND, it is all but impossible to get a Windows virus on Linux…it’s almost impossible to get any virus.”

Spawn of Satan snorted. “Big deal, that’s not a problem for me either.”

I looked him dead in the eye.

“Pull up your favorite game.” He just looked at me like I had spoken to him in Swahili.

“Do it…I’m going to show you something.”

I motioned Bryan to quickly vacate the seat he was sitting in and dug the red thumb drive out of my pocket and inserted it into the front of the computer. When the sdb1 drive opened, I clicked a folder and double engaged the Sub7 Server…who’s client was softly nestled in the whack-a-mole game I allowed him to execute. While Bill Gates Jr. was yammering on about how he didn’t need security protection and that Windows was as secure as Linux could ever be, the server connected and I clicked the control panel – screen text:

DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?

Bryan looked at me with his head cocked and without looking behind me I typed again:

Yeah, I’m talking to you, “Mr. I-Don’t-Get-Viruses.”

Plato responded in the way I figured he would.

“Hey, someone’s typing on my computer.”

Boy genius, ain’t he?

Bryan smiled widely and I winked.

Again, appearing in a little yellow bordered box on his desktop: “How’s that Windows system working out for you now sport?”

For good measure, I opened about 12 incidences of his desktop calculator and choked his 2 gigs of memory to a crawl.

By then, the kid had caught on. The sound of initiating applications was still dinging on his computer. He all but flung his laptop onto the love seat and came stomping over to the where we were seated.

“You put a virus on my computer?”

I just smiled at him.

“No pal…YOU put a virus on your computer. And it’s a trojan, an OLD trojan. A Power User should know the difference. If you had any kind of protection at all, it would have warned you. You were dumb enough to click on a program given to you by a complete stranger so welcome to the world of social engineering Dilbert.”

Bryan and his other friend almost fell out of their chairs laughing. The kid sputtered and spewed impotent threats about suing me and police reports…I think he even said he was going to tell his mommy.

That sent his friends even deeper into hysteria. Bryan’s “Mom” stuck her head in the door to see what was going on. I smiled and waved. she surveyed the room, waved back then closed the door.

I unmounted the thumb drive and tossed it to the next candidate for the cover of Mad Magazine.

“Open the same folder, click on the “untitled” folder and double click the icon that has the red and white lifesaver. It says “rescue” under it. When it says to, reboot, do it. It’ll take the trojan completely off. Oh, and be patient closing all those calculators…Windows does not handle memory very efficiently.”

The removal tool had him back to normal in 20 minutes.

I spent the next two hours with Bryan, Michael (the quiet kid) and David…a much subdued David. We used the time to explore OpenOffice, Ekiga, Pitivi and a host of sound manipulation applications. I also showed them how to use both synaptic and the shell to apt-get new applications. Even David was obviously impressed and sheepishly asked me how he could obtain the same Linux System Bryan had. I dutifully dug in my bag and gave him a disk and explained it was simple enough even for a Windows Power User.

As I prepared to leave, we gathered in the living room and I spoke to Bryan’s caregiver, I made sure Bryan AND her had the username and password, our business card and instructions to call if there were any problems. I even told Bryan’s “mom” about the incident with David and she laughed softly as she shot him a sideways look…something told me that she was pretty sick of his mouth as well.

I was at the front door with the four of them standing in the hallway, I turned and looked at David.

“So did you learn anything today Dave?”

Shuffling his feet, he repeated that he should never trust a stranger or his word when it came to putting stuff on his computer. He also mumbled something about not talking about things until he knew what he was talking about.

I nodded and smiled. “Yep, that’s a good start.” I began to open the door to leave, then stopped and turned back to him.

“So Dave… was I less of a stranger to you when I told you to click the second icon…?” I met his blank stare for the three seconds it took him to understand what I was saying.

I’m betting there is a good chance he finds a way to re-activate that anti virus program…or if he’s smart, he’ll follow Bryan’s lead.

With that I pulled the heavy front door behind me closed and stepped into the blistering Texas afternoon. I had two more installs in Schertz and New Braunfels before the day was allowed to finish and it was already 1 PM. Eventually, I would return to my home at 12:10 AM on Sunday.

It was a good day.

All-Righty Then

For those who may be concerned, all parties mentioned in this article have read, approve of their participation in the article and bear no ill will toward the author. David’s father thought it was a scream and donated $50.00 to The HeliOS Project – h

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Bridging the gap between the “real world” and your computer, the Arduino Projects Pack takes you further into the world of physical computing. We’ve included all sorts of cool electronic parts this time that help you delve deeper into the true capacity of the Arduino. You’ll experience what the tens of thousands of engineers, designers, artists and hobbyists already know about this awesome and educational prototyping platform.

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