Thursday, March 22, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
iPad and Photography
We hang out and talk about the new iPad and the impression it makes on photography and photographers.
Joining us this week in the hangout: Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko, Eric Kim, Teresa Stover, Victor Cajiao, Steve Stanger, RC Concepcion.
Irish Team Comes to U.K. to Kickstart Coding for Children
Emma Mulqueeny @hubmum at #codingforkids Guardian 12/10/11
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
An Interview With Rob Schmitz, The Reporter Who Fact-Checked Mike Daisey [TCTV]
Rob Schmitz is a reporter and Marketplace Correspondent based in Shanghai, China. He has spent time in many factories – as well as a bit of time outside of the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, the same factory fabulist Mike Daisey interviewed workers he purported were 12 and 13 years old. Schmitz’s findings definitely didn’t jibe with Daisey’s and I decided to sit down for a few minutes to go over his experiences reporting on Chinese manufacturing practices and problems.
“I think the truth is pretty complicated,” he said. “Foxconn has a little over one million employees in China.” Schmitz spent time talking to employees with Daisey’s translator, Cathy, and found a whole range of problems, from low wages to, oddly enough, complaints about the food. He didn’t see much of what Daisey described, but there’s a reason: Foxconn is one of the tightest-run manufacturers in China and Taiwan. There are problems, he said, but many of these problems are being addressed and when issues arise, workers are actually beginning to strike.
The truth, as Schmitz said, is complicated, and Daisey’s fabrications sadly cloud the real and pressing safety issues found in many of China’s lesser suppliers. To go after Foxconn and Apple is an easy ploy to gain eyeballs and attention, but the real concerns happen away from the bright media glare.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
A bicycle light that’s safe, bright, and thief-proof
With many more urban cyclists hitting the streets, most cities are constantly playing catch-up to make their roads a safer place for both riders and drivers. However, even when a city has a good handle on how to make bikers and cars play nice, accidents are almost inevitable.
Painted bike lanes, neon jackets, lights and flashers all help to prevent run-ins on the road, but there’s much we can’t control: like theft. Bicycle and accessory theft has plagued the cycling world since its inception– it’s just an accepted reality of urban cycling. Now, a bike light has been designed with both the problems of safety and theft as its inspiration.
After a friend was hit while riding his bike in the dark because his light had been stolen, Brad Geswein and Slava Menn wanted to develop a light that fended off thieves. As it turns out, their friend wasn’t the only one with this problem: one in three urban cyclists have had their lights stolen, and eighty per cent of riders frequently forget their lights at home.
In their quest to make city biking safer, the pair developed The Defender. The light locks sturdily to your handlebars making it extremely difficult to remove. Plus, it looks like a gun.
The light was designed by Ori Levin of Tsor Design, and is made of lightweight aluminum, ultrabright LEDs, and uses AA batteries that give the rider around 100 hours of battery life. “We’ve put it through extensive durability and reliability testing and it’s nearly indestructible. No tool from a hardware store can remove it,” says the Defender’s Kickstarter page.
In fact, the security screwdriver included with the light is the only thing that can remove it, an the allen key provided is the only thing that can release the battery door.
The seventy dollar light is waterproof, uses around 40-60 lumens, and can be switched from steady to blinking mode.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The cockroach beatbox
By dissecting a cockroach ... yes, live on stage ... TED Fellow and neuroscientist Greg Gage shows how brains receive and deliver electric impulses -- and how legs can respond. This talk comes from the TED-Ed project.
Why you should listen to him:
As half of Backyard Brains, neuroscientist and engineer Greg Gage builds "spiker boxes" -- small rigs that help kids understand the electrical impulses that control the nervous system. He's passionate about helping students understand (viscerally) how our brains and our neurons work, because, as he said onstage at TED2012, we still know very little about how the brain works -- and we need to start inspiring kids early to want to know more. He is a 2012 TED Fellow.
Before becoming a neuroscientist, Gage worked as an electrical engineer making touchscreens. As he told the Huffington Post: "Scientific equipment in general is pretty expensive, but it's silly because before [getting my PhD in neuroscience] I was an electrical engineer, and you could see that you could make it yourself. So we started as a way to have fun, to show off to our colleagues, but we were also going into classrooms around that time and we thought, wouldn't it be cool if you could bring these gadgets with us so the stuff we were doing in advanced Ph.D. programs in neuroscience, you could also do in fifth grade?"
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Kasama-Yaki (Made in Kasama)
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
SYNOPSIS
The triple disasters of March 11, 2011, shook Japan to its core. It claimed over 18,000 lives, with 3,000 still missing. Many thousands were displaced by the tsunami, and those who lived near the Fukushima nuclear reactors will probably never return home. It has been a year since the disasters but the people of Japan are still coping with the emotional trauma of that day. The disasters brought forth many truths about the power of nature, the limitations of the government, and the unpredictable nature of life. “Kasama-Yaki” is an intimate portrait of two potters, Katsuji and Shigeko Kokubo, filmed by their daughter, Yuki. Heartfelt conversational interviews are woven throughout the film, as they reflect on life, death, family, and art. The film is a journey into the minds of two individuals whose outlooks were inevitably touched by the disasters, and a glimpse into the heart of Japan.
概要
２０１１年３月１１日に起こった３つの災難で日本は大きな打撃を受けた。１万８千人以上の命が奪われ、今もなお３千人の行方不明者がいる。津波の被害により数千人が家を失い、福島原子力発電所付近の住民は再びふるさとで暮らせる可能性を失ってしまった。あれから１年、日本の人々はあの日の衝撃を今も抱えながら日々の生活を送っている。今回の震災で、多くの事実が明らかになった。自然の力、政府の欠点、そして人生は予測できないということ。本作品「笠間焼」は陶芸家の小久保勝司（こくぼ・かつじ）さんと恵子（しげこ）さんの親密な生活を追ったドキュメンタリー映画。監督は陶芸家の娘、小久保由紀（ゆき）。心のこもった対話型インタビューが織り込まれ、小久保夫妻の生と死、家族、アートについての観点を探る。震災で人生観が変わった２人の陶芸家の物語を巡り、日本人の心を垣間見ることのできる作品である。[日本語はページの下に続いています]
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