The late Jack Kirby created Captain America, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer, Thor, Sgt. Fury, Kamandi, and many other famous characters. He was, and remains, at least twice as good as any other comic book creator I can think of. His groundbreaking innovations in layout, plot, character, and theme have not only influenced thousands of comic book creators, but the movie and animation industry as well.

Kirby: King of Comics, by Kirby's longtime friend and assistant, Mark Evanier, is part biography, part coffee table art book. The text of this lavishly-illustrated, 224-page, large format book runs 35,000 words, but Evanier says he's working on a 500,000 word biography of the world's greatest comic book writer and artist (I'll buy that when it comes out, too).

Not only was Kirby a man of awesome talent, he was also very kind-hearted. I've met a lot of my literary and artistic heroes and many of them didn't seem to be very nice. Not Kirby. I met him when I was 16 years old and I hung around him for three days. I'm sure I was a terrible pest, but he was as genial as could be, and he even gave me his address, inviting me to stay at his house if I ever came to California. What a guy. Link

(I'm liveblogging from TED 2008, in Monterey, CA)

Presenter:

Technology hacker Joshua Klein built a vending machine that teaches crows to deposit coins they find into a special vending machine that dispenses peanuts. He has been studying crows for over ten years and has learned that they are very intelligent. Their brain/body weight ratios are similar to chimpanzees. He's showing a video of how a crow learned to use a tool to pull an object out of of a tube. It's impressive.

Crows are smart and adaptable. For example, they drop nuts on streets so cars run over them, then wait for the traffic signal to change so they can pick up the food. Other crows who see this happen quickly learn how to do this for themselves.

His machine uses Skinnerian training. He put coins and peanuts around the machine. The crows eat the peanut on the feeder tray. Then Joshua took away the nuts and left coins in the feeder tray. It pisses off the crows. They sweep the coins around with their beaks, looking for food. When a coin accidentally drops into the slot, it dispenses a peanut. Next, Joshua took away the coins. The crows learned to find coins elsewhere and deposit them.

So now he wants to train crows for search and rescue, picking up trash, and other mutually beneficial tasks.

(I'm liveblogging from TED 2008, in Monterey, CA)

Presenter: MIT Media Lab's Todd Machover, who talks about how music has a special power in our lives.

We all love music, but it's even more powerful if you don't just listen to it -- you must make it yourself. Mozart Effect (increasing IQ in babies by subjecting them to music) doesn't work, you can't just listen to music to become smarter, you have to make it.

He created Brain Opera, which is 100 instruments anyone can play using natural skills -- you don't need to know how to play a traditional instrument. The Brain Opera led to Guitar Hero, which also came out of MIT Media Lab.

Music can change your life and the way you communicate with others and change your mind. What's after Guitar Hero? We are making toys for little kids like squeezie instruments. Software to help kids make music, called Hyperscore, allows anyone to compose music.

Music is one of the only things that people with advanced Alheimer's can respond to. It's also good for people with schizophrenia and other metal illnesses. Music is accelerating treatment in hospitals.

Music shows you who you really are. He says he's more nervous talking on stage than playing music. He's working on an opera called Death and the Powers. It will premiere in Monaco in September 2009. It's about a rich guy who wants to live forever, so he downloads himself into the environment. The stage becomes a character. The stage is a giant stringed instrument. There's also an army of robots on stage, a Greek chorus that observes the action. They are cubes, but they have a lot of personality. Stage also has a library with robotic books, each of which have high packed LEDs on the spines.

Machover wants to make personal opera and personal instruments, that can be adapted to the way you personally behave. It's the future of interfaces. He invites a young man on stage. His name is Dan Ellsey and he's in a wheelchair. He has cerebral palsy. He was flown in from the hospital where he lives in a special jet. He hardly ever travels -- this is the second time he's been out of Massachusetts in his life. He's using a text-to-speech to talk the audience. He just said he loves musics, and is using this personal instrument to compose and perform music.

Dan says he is going to perform a song called, "My Eagle Song." They are showing his Hyperscore composition. Now the music is playing. I'm not sure if Dan is controlling the playing of the music or not: he has a headband with some LEDs on it, and an iSight camera trained on him, so I think he is controlling the playback of his composition in some way.

Here's an article about Dan with a link to his music. Link

(I'm liveblogging from TED 2008, in Monterey, CA. This morning's session is "How Do We Create?") Presenter: John Knoll, inventor of Photoshop and visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic.

John compared how visual effects were made for movies from the 1950s with contemporary movies. He showed clips from Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and clips from Pirates of the Caribbean.

The process hasn't changed that much. You start off looking at the script, have discussions with director, and decide what needs to be shot using visual effects: anything you can't just go out and shoot, anything that doesn't exist, anything that's too expensive, too dangerous, or just not possible.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea used miniature ships in a studio tank (about 200 ' x 200', a few feet deep). The last pictures that used this techniques was Tora! Tora! Tora!. The tank method works pretty well but the scale of the water doesn't work well. Droplet size is wrong.

For Pirates, Knoll also built a tank, but came up with ways to split in full-size water droplets. Adding full scale water in background really helps.

The folks who created the amazing security camera screen saver (now available for Windows), are working on a real-life version of the "superplonk" reality filtering system that author Charles Stross introduced in his terrific novel, Accelerando.

In Accelerando Charles Stross writes about a lot of interesting concepts we are just starting to work on. It was one of the most important books for me in 2007. it shows how close science fiction and science get in these days.

My favorite feature is "superplonk." It remixes the environment and filters annoying persons, objects and sounds. That’s an augmented reality version of what I practice today with special earplugs. But soon that should be possible with modified hearing devices and slim head mounted displays.

One experiment in my ongoing surveillance series simulates superplonk with images of network cameras. Via motion detection I am reconstructing a place’s image without people and cars. All moving objects are becoming ghosts. Only people and cars who are standing still are becoming visible. Movement makes you invisible. Jan covers this topic in his master thesis, too.

Link

The BBC reports that French researchers have invented a rubber made from urea (a component found in urine) and vegetable oil that rebinds when cut. They say immediate applications include self-reparing seals and kids toys.

The substance, described in the journal Nature, produces surfaces when cut that retain a strong chemical attraction to each other.

Pieces of the material join together again as if never parted without the need for glue or a special treatment.

The French researchers are already making kilogramme quantities in their Paris laboratories and say the process is almost completely green, and could be completely so with a few adjustments.

Link (Thanks, Sigsy!)

The second place winner in the "Greener Gadgets Competition" is Clay Moulton's LED lamp, which uses a gravity mechanism to generate electricity. To light the lamp, you lift the weight and let it slowly fall.

A Virginia Tech student has created an LED floor lamp that is powered by gravity, using a weight slide similar to the concept of a grandfather clock. The lamp puts out the equivalent of a 40-Watt bulb, and lasts four hours per cycle. The mechanism is expected to last 200 years.

To "turn on" the lamp, the user moves weights from the bottom to the top of the lamp. An hour-glass like mechanism is turned over and the weights are placed in the mass sled near the top of the lamp. The sled begins its gently glide back down and, within a few seconds, the LEDs come on and light the lamp, Moulton said. “It’s more complicated than flipping a switch but can be an acceptable, even enjoyable routine, like winding a beautiful clock or making good coffee,” he said.

Link (Thanks, Tom!)

You can buy a $50 kit to build this beautiful LED persistence of vision wristwatch. (Or pay $189 for the fully-assembled, ready-to wear watch.)

With two time display options (Binary and wave-it-in-the-air POV display) and a super-bright flashlight mode, this watch is sure to turn some heads. Buy as a chip only, a kit to assemble yourself, a preassembled board, or a complete watch.

Link (Via Make)

Derrick Bostrom kindly scanned pages from a book called 1975: And the Changes To Come by Arnold B. Barach.

The book was published in 1962 and has photos and captions about the ways in which technology will change our lives in the coming decade. Here's some of the wonderful things we can expect when 1975 rolls around: Utrasonic dishwashers, combination electronic oven and food freezers, portable ovens (for tabletop cooking and broiling), toaster bacon, triple purpose TV unit ("for the housewife, enabling her to watch her children at play or identify visitors at the door or watch her favorite color television program"), wireless cardiac monitors, irradiated canned beans, and automatic language translation.

Caption for photo above:

Film Based Teaching Machine. Student pushes one of four buttons to give answers and his score appears on paper slip at upper right. Teaching machines, expected to boom in the next decade, usually operate on the principal of repetition until the pupil understands. They aim to speed up the learning process and relieve teacher of much paper work in the classroom.

I can't wait for 1975 to get here. I am saving up for a Hi-Fi Sphere. Link

The beautiful Cape Schank House in Victoria, Australia, designed by Paul Morgan Architects, has some interesting features, including a rain water tank in the middle of the living room.

Within the living room the ceiling wraps down to an internal water tank. The tank cools the ambient air temperature of the living room during summer, supplies rain water, and structurally carries the roof load.

Link (Via notcot.org)

A newly launched project called White House Redux invites you to design a new home for the U.S. Presidency:

What if the White House, the ultimate architectural symbol of political power, were to be designed today? On occasion of the election of the 44th President of the United States of America, Storefront for Art and Architecture, in association with Control Group, challenge you to design a new residence for the world's most powerful individual. The best ideas, designs, descriptions, images, and videos will be selected by some of the world's most distinguished designers and critics and featured in a month-long exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture in July 2008 and published in Surface magazine. All three winners will be flown to New York to collect their prizes at the opening party.

Link. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

In 2002, Vincent Lamouroux built this Pentacycle to travel along the abandoned Aérotrain hovercraft monorailway built in the 1970s.

Link | Video about Aérotrain (Via VVORK)

Are you ready for Maker Faire Bay Area 2008? The call for makers is open now!

Come to the Los Angeles tryouts on February 9, 2008, from noon to 4pm at Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026. Please download this application form, fill it out, and bring it with you.

San Francisco tryouts are on February 17.

(If you don't want to come to tryouts, you can also apply online.)

Link to Maker Faire teaser movie

John Schwartz reports in today's New York Times about the global community of "satellite spotter" hobbyists who track the heavenly motions of satellites -- some of which are secret government projects -- and share what they find online:

Thousands of people form the spotter community. Many look for historical relics of the early space age, working from publicly available orbital information. Others watch for phenomena like the distinctive flare of sunlight glinting off bright solar panels of some telephone satellites. Still others are drawn to the secretive world of spy satellites, with about a dozen hobbyists who do most of the observing, Mr. Molczan said.

In the case of the mysterious satellite that is about to plunge back to earth, Mr. Molczan had an early sense of which one it was, identifying it as USA-193, which gave out shortly after reaching space in December 2006. It is said to have been built by the Lockheed Martin Corporation and operated by the secretive National Reconnaissance Office.

One of those satellites may be visible to folks in New York City on Friday. Link to the full story, and here's a related item on the NYT "Lede" blog. Image: UK-based satellite spotter John Locker, photo by Jonathan Player for The New York Times.

Last week, Thane Heins of Ottawa took his perpetual motion device (the Perepiteia) to Boston to show it to Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Markus Zahn at MIT's Laboratory for Electromagentic and Electonic Systems.

Zahn says the device's performance was "unexpected and new."

It's now Jan. 28 – D Day. Heins has modified his test so the effects observed are difficult to deny. He holds a permanent magnet a few centimetres away from the driveshaft of an electric motor, and the magnetic field it creates causes the motor to accelerate. It went well.

Contacted by phone a few hours after the test, Zahn is genuinely stumped -- and surprised. He said the magnet shouldn't cause acceleration. "It's an unusual phenomena I wouldn't have predicted in advance. But I saw it. It's real. Now I'm just trying to figure it out."

There's no talk of perpetual motion. No whisper of broken scientific laws or free energy. Zahn would never go there -– at least not yet. But he does see the potential for making electric motors more efficient, and this itself is no small feat.

"To my mind this is unexpected and new, and it's worth exploring all the possible advantages once you're convinced it's a real effect," he added. "There are an infinite number of induction machines in people's homes and everywhere around the world. If you could make them more efficient, cumulatively, it could make a big difference."

Link | Videos of the Perepitea

UPDATE: Now you can download the Dispatch as a single zip file from Archive.org.

Mister Jalopy and I are working on a new media conglomerate called Dinosaurs and Robots. Here is Mister Jalopy to describe it:

It is true that my entertaining internet presence, Hooptyrides, has been neglected as of late. As Ed T. -- official stalker of Hooptyrides -- has pointed out, the time elapsed since my last post has officially set a new record for inattention by shattering the Spring 2007 period of neglect.

Though I would like to claim sloth as the excuse, I have been fantastically busy launching a media conglomerate with Mark Frauenfelder called Dinosaurs and Robots. In addition to a blog and radio station, Dinosaurs and Robots is also publishing a (digital) magazine called Dispatch.

Make Magazine has been terrifically supportive of trying all sorts of novel approaches to conveying technical information and have backed it up by hiring great artists to illustrate whatever I am trying to explain. The relationship is better than great and I am spoiled by their attention to excellence. But, as a DIY-snob, I have always wanted to try to do the entire thing myself. The first issue of Dispatch is a handy magazine of projects, techniques and tools, loosely arranged around the idea of transport.

Besides planning and executing every step of the projects myself, I was also the sole designer, photographer, writer and editor of the inaugural Dispatch. It was a good deal of effort - maybe 60 hours, as it required a lot of starting from scratch. But, it was great fun and the next one will be less onerous as I have now set some standards for how I want to convey information.

Powered by Yahoo/Adobe PDF Ads
There are folks who do not believe creative effort should be rewarded monetarily. I am not one of those people. Dispatch is released as a PDF with dynamic ads from Adobe/Yahoo. You can choose to turn off the ads or open the PDF with Apple Preview, which does not support ads. However, if you enjoy the Dispatch and would like to see future issues, I would appreciate it if you'd open with the Adobe Reader and leave the ads enabled.

Since I have had a sneak peek, I am eagerly looking forward to Volume 2 by Mark Frauenfelder. It is very cool.

Link

(Thanks to Eric, Mike and Matt of Yahoo!)

Ninety-two-year-old Peter Davey of New Zealand says he invented a unique water boiling gadget 30 years ago. He claims it uses sound waves, not a heating element, to boil water in seconds.

Davey noticed as he played the saxophone at home that everything resonated at a different frequency.

"The glasses will tinkle on one note. Knives and forks in the drawer will tinkle on another note and I realised that everything has its point of vibration," he said. "In the same way, a component in the ball is tuned to a certain frequency."

A retired engineering professor, Arthur Williamson, was invited to look at the boiler in action. He said:

"I don't know enough about sound to know whether you can transfer that amount of energy via soundwaves. I doubt it," said Williamson.

He did remember an alternative kettle years ago that had two perforated metal plates inside. The power ran between the plates, through the water. "The resistance through the water provided the load. I wonder if it isn't working like that? Without taking it to bits, you can't tell."

Someone, please, take it to bits. Link

Researchers at the University of Sunderland and Durham University have developed a wonderfully whimsical looking "prototype cognitive helmet" that "bathes the brain with infra-red light and stimulates the growth of brain cells."

Its creators believe it could reverse the symptoms of dementia - such as memory loss and anxiety - after only four weeks.

Dr Dougal claims that only ten minutes under the hat a day is enough to have an effect.

"Currently all you can do with dementia is to slow down the rate of decay - this new process will not only stop that rate of decay but partially reverse it," he said. Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair. It is able to penetrate the skin and even get through the skull.

Link

Next time you're all lost in the supermarket, you can count on Robovie to help you find your way.

In a series of demonstrations conducted from January 22 to 24, a souped-up version of ATR’s Robovie humanoid robot monitored people as they passed through a 100 square meter (1,076 sq ft) section of the Universal Citywalk Osaka shopping center. Relying on data from 16 cameras, 6 laser range finders and 9 RFID tag readers installed in and around the area, the robot was able to watch up to 20 people at a time, pinpoint their locations to within a few centimeters, and classify each individual’s behavior into one of 10 categories (waiting, wandering, walking fast, running, etc.).

Whenever Robovie spotted people who looked disoriented, the child-sized droid wheeled up to them and asked, “Are you lost?” If so, the robot provided simple directions to the destination and pointed the way. If not, the robot proceeded to recommend nearby shops and restaurants.

Link

Afrigadget recently blogged about an inexpensive power source for Africa created by Dr. Cedrick Ngalande in Malawi. Today, the blog points to videos of the invention in action:

The rotor moves slowly most of the times but does pick up at certain intervals. This process continues for many hours. Since the rotor is quite heavy (and hence more inertia) a small geared DC motor can be connected to the rotor to generate power for cell phones, $100 laptops, and other things in Africa. People can leave this thing to charge their phones/$100 laptops overnight.

Basically we have two chambers on either end of the rotating (pivoted) rod. The arrangement of the chambers is such that on either side of the rod, one chamber sits on top of the other (this is important). At the beginning of this operation, I fill the bottom chamber on each side with a yeast sugar solution. Each bottom chamber is always locked under pressure by special valves. Due to pressure the solution starts moving from a bottom chamber into its respective top chamber. Note that by moving upwards, the fluid’s center of gravity shifts, resulting in a mass imbalance which causes the wobbling.

Link to post with video.

I don't know if Mike Brickley's engine is more efficient than others, but the animated rendering is pleasant.

The Brickley engine configuration is projected to improve fuel mileage 15-20%. CO2 emissions are cut as well by 15-20%. This accomplishment is made through reducing engine friction: turning energy normally lost in heat into useful work. With petroleum prices increasing and global warming on the rise, there is an urgent need for us to provide a more efficient, less polluting internal combustion engine.

The Configuration

By changing how the pistons connect to each other and how they connect to the crankshaft, a great deal of friction can be eliminated. The configuration employs a combination of pinned linkages to determine the paths of the pistons to within a few thousandths of an inch of linearity, and thus basically eliminates the need for piston skirts. It connects the pistons efficiently to each other and to the crankshaft at a fraction of the losses incurred in a typical configuration. The top end of the engine remains basically the same and uses the technology available in current engines.

In his younger days, Mr. Brickley made this cool steam engine powered bicycle. Link

Each year, a string of Yuri’s Night World Space Parties around the globe celebrate humankind’s first foray into space. That first human was Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The events are a lot of fun (I hosted one in Texas, had a blast!), and the 2008 Bay Area edition is calling for artists and scientists -- deadline is February 8.

We’re looking for visionaries of the sciences and arts to join our celebration: artists who love science, scientists who love art, and those who blur the line between all disciplines. Exhibit or demonstrate your works in the spacious NASA hangars or adjoining tarmac and structures. ively for installations, performances and demonstrations.

This is an exciting opportunity for unique collaboration between the science world and the art world. We encourage partnerships between scientific and artistic minds and may be able to assist in partnering.

We are looking for: New installations of all sizes and types, interactive works, sound works, light works, large-scale sculpture, live demonstrations, working models, table top demonstrations, prototypes, new technology, presentations, impromptu lectures, and unique performances from international and local artists. We are also seeking new video works documenting arts, humanities, performances, installations and microgravity works.

Link.

UPDATE: Organizer Matt Hancher (of the NASA/Google Planetary Content Team at NASA Ames) says:

Thanks for posting the Yuri's Night call for proposals to Boing Boing! Unfortunately, the event website doesn't yet have info about how to propose. Anyone who's interested can send email to proposals@worldspaceparty.org to get more info.

Previously:

Yuri's Night: spacemen branded me with Yuri Gagarin's head!

Megan says: "Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology researchers developed an exoskeleton to help aging farmers perform manual tasks." Link

Ushahidi is a website created to give Kenyans a way to report incidents of violence in the ongoing post-election crisis. The project came together, it seems, during the TED Global conference event earlier this year in Tanzania. Erik Hersman, who publishes Afrigadget and was one Ushahidi's organizers, tells us more about who's behind it:

Ory Okolloh - Was the nexus-point of information for news during and after the elections in Kenya as the mainstream media went quiet. Ory was also the genesis of Ushahidi as she opined in one blog post, "Google Earth supposedly shows in great detail where the damage is being done on the ground. It occurs to me that it will be useful to keep a record of this, if one is thinking long-term. For the reconciliation process to occur at the local level the truth of what happened will first have to come out. Guys looking to do something - any techies out there willing to do a mashup of where the violence and destruction is occurring using Google Maps?"

Daudi Were - Has been blogging and working to hold together a disparate group of 400 bloggers in the Kenyan Bloggers Webring. He is working full-time on two initiatives. First, to create strong partnerships for Ushahidi through the Kenyan NGO Council. Secondly, to create easy ways for people to donate to the Kenyan Red Cross.

Juliana Chebet - Being upcountry during elections gave her a unique view of the post-election aftermath. Also a blogger, she has been busy taking pictures and video, and chronicling what she sees. Juliana has also been a part of making Ushahidi, primarily in putting new reports into the system.

Segeni Ng'ethe - Owner of Mamamikes.com. As people have had a hard time getting cash and an even harder time trying to find cell phone charge cards, Segeni has been providing one of the only ways for people to send money from abroad and recharge people's cell phones. On top of that, he has created a voucher system that allows anyone in the world to donate money directly for distribution and use by the Kenyan Red Cross.

Link. Over at Global Voices, contributor Juliana Rincón Parra has this roundup of online video that provides a glimpse into the current state of affairs in Kenya, including first-person testimonies of violence recorded and published by Ushahidi participants: Link. More coverage of the crisis in Kenya on Global Voices here. (thanks, Emeka Okafor!)

Previously on BB:

Video from TED Global conference - Africa: The Next Chapter

Deconstructing Vanity Fair's "Africa" issue

Marilyn sez, "Harvard Medical School researchers have developed an ingenious way to deliver drugs directly to the brain (in order to kill a tumor, for example), that uses the virus that causes rabies, which is extremely effective in infiltrating the blood brain barrier that blocks most other kinds of molecules."

In this study, the drug was injected into the tail of the mice, targeting the blood vessels. Using small interfering RNA (siRNA) as a drug treatment for many diseases has been powerfully successful in other animal models, but the problem has always been the process of making it a practical drug for clinical application. Therefore, this new technology developed by Kumar et al sheds light into a new, non-invasive and feasible way to deliver siRNA specifically to the brain.

siRNA is gaining popularity as a preferred drug treatment method since its early conception in the past seven years. It takes advantage of the cell’s ability to stop its own protein production as soon as a short RNA sequence corresponding to the protein is detected outside of the cell’s nucleus. This triggers a powerful protein synthesis arrest, which can be harnessed to modulate or treat diseases such as diabetes, Hepatitis C, and even transplant rejection.

Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)