Tech, News, Hacks & Lifestream Updates
Archive for February, 2011
A Five-Step Process for Delegating Decisions (and Making Them Stick) [Delegating]
Feb 14th
Image via gfpeck.
Derek Sivers, founder of online independent music bastion CD Baby, describes the awkward but common situation of being in charge of his own small, independent operation, but feeling helpless to do anything but spend all day triaging questions and problems.
Sivers broke free by starting a process that, in the end, would make him almost unnecessary for the actual running of his own firm. Every time there was a notable question, he would:
- Gather everybody around.
- Answer the question, and explain the philosophy.
- Make sure everyone understands the thought process.
- Ask one person to write it in the manual.
- Let them know they can decide this without me next time.
By the end of two months, Sivers was actually free to work on new projects, grow the business, and resume something resembling a life. Has this happened to you or someone you know? Give us your best advice for breaking free of the Everybody’s Parent situation in the comments.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/vip/~3/VWBZHieRV_I/
Pole Mount an HDTV for Clutter and Cable Concealment [HDTV]
Feb 14th
This clever HDTV mount doesn’t just float your television between two Stolmen system support poles, it provides a read space for wrangling cable clutter and peripherals.
IKEAHackers reader William Davis wanted to use the Stolmen system from IKEA to build an entertainment center. The challenge? Safely mounting the HDTV. He ended up making a box-like bracket that not only accommodated the wall mount for the TV but provided extra space behind it to wrangle cables and peripherals. He essentially gets the benefit of a recessed wall cabinet without having to actually tear up his walls and install it.
Visit the link below for additional photos and installation instructions.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/vip/~3/LGcBFKENUSI/
Christina Ricci Claire Forlani Claudia Schiffer Colleen Haskell
Citizens Push To Erect A Statue of RoboCop in Detroit
Feb 14th
RoboCop via Kickstarter
If the RoboCop saga has any lasting lessons, maybe it’s that politicians shouldn’t mess around with Twitter.
What started out as a joke on the social media site has mushroomed into a nationwide effort to build a statue of RoboCop in the beleaguered city of Detroit. Earlier this week, someone in Massachusetts sent a tweet to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, suggesting RoboCop would be a great mascot for the city. Philadelphia has a Rocky statue, and RoboCop would “kick Rocky’s butt,” he pointed out.
Bing actually wrote back, responding, “There are not any plans to erect a statue to Robocop. Thank you for the suggestion.”
The Internet was listening. Not long after Bing’s tweet, a group of Detroit residents started a Facebook event page, which quickly grew to 4,600 supporters and counting. As of Friday morning, supporters have already raised $8,300 toward their $50,000 goal, using the fundraising platform Kickstarter.
Imagination Station, a nonprofit center aimed at cleaning up blighted neighborhoods, is offering space on its campus for the RoboCop statue. The Kickstarter campaign explains how metal artists might build the statue: “We can take a relatively small figure of RoboCop (conceivably even an action figure), have it 3D scanned by lasers (cool!) and scale its form to create a light-weight model of any size we’d like, which can then be used to pour and cast liquid metal.”
While Bing rejected the idea of a city-funded effort, his office seemed willing to accept RoboCop, in case his likeness is bestowed upon them.
“Should the opportunity present itself to receive a donation of this, or any other works of public art, we will consider acceptance and appropriate placement,” said Karen Dumas, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office.
The Detroit Free Press points out that not everyone loves the idea: “Sorry, I think this idea is horrid,” Carl Henry of Plymouth posted on the Facebook page. “If you wanna build a statue, build one to represent an unemployed autoworker, homeless person or something deserving of recognition.”
Others have argued statues of Motown legends like Diana Ross or Michael Jackson should take precedent over a nerd-tastic sci-fi icon.
The fundraising campaign has until March 26 to reach its goal.
[via Reuters]
Vanessa Anne Hudgens Vanessa Ferlito Vanessa Paradis Vanessa Williams
This Week in the Future, February 7-11, 2011
Feb 14th
TWITF: Feb 7-11, 2011 Baarbarian
Ah, another week of great science and tech posts. This week, we’ve got a particularly robot-heavy TWitF t-shirt prize for one lucky reader. All you’ve got to do is tell us which of the stories featured in this week’s t-shirt design is your favorite and why, via either Facebook or Twitter.
The rules: Pick your favorite of the five stories featured in this week’s Baarbarian masterwork, and tell us why you picked it. You can do that via Twitter (follow us, and use the hashtag #TWitF so we can find you) or comment on the TWitF post on our Facebook page (and, of course, you can just buy the t-shirt here, if you’re into that whole exchanging-currency-for-goods-and/or-services thing, rather than social media contests). The stories are:
- Japanese Robots Will Run In First-Ever Full-Length Robot Marathon
- Future Robots Could Use Manhole Covers To Navigate Through Cities
- Video: Anybots Robot Orders Scone at Palo Alto Coffeeshop
- The Catholic Church Gives Blessing to Confession iPhone App
- This Robot Can Hear Your Frightened Breathing, Even Through Walls
And here are some of our other favorite stories from this week:
- Robot of the Week: ‘Affetto,’ A Disembodied Japanese Baby Head, Takes Uncanny Valley to New Depths
- Archive Gallery: PopSci Fights the Battle of the Sexes
- NASA and DARPA Want a “100-Year Starship,” As Long as They Don’t Have to Build It
- The Goods: February 2011′s Hottest Gadgets
- HP/Palm Brings WebOS Back to Life, Announces TouchPad Tablet, Veer and Pre 3 Smartphones
- Rogue ‘Steppenwolf Planets’ That Have Escaped From Their Suns Could Harbor Alien Life, Astrophysicists Say
- Video: Scientists Smash Giant Granite Balls Together to Simulate Asteroid Collisions
- FYI: What Does Space Smell Like?
And two more from our “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” package:
Source: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-02/week-future-february-7-11-2011
How a Hive Mind Mentality Can Make You Capable of Anything Good, Evil, and Bizarre [Dark Side]
Feb 14th
We generally like to think of ourselves as individuals and appreciate our unique qualities, but when thrown into a group we can become very different people. Ideas and actions can spread like viruses until your individuality is completely wiped away. This is called deindividuation and here’s how it works.
The wonderful blog You Are Not So Smart is back with another great article, this time detailing what happens to you when you’re lost in the frenzy of a large group or crowd. This is possible because we are essentially anonymous in a large group. All it takes is a little arousal—as much as a statement from one member of the group—to get everyone riled up and lost in the moment.
Psychologists call this phenomenon deindividuation, it’s fun to say and one of the more straightforward terms in the scientific lexicon. In certain situations, you can expect to be de-individualized. Unlike conformity, in which you adopt the ideas and behaviors of others for acceptance and inclusion, deindividuation is mostly unconscious and more likely to lead to mischief. As psychologist David G. Myers said, it is “doing together what you would not do alone.”
The article mentions a couple of studies, pointing to a simple way to avoid this problem: remind yourself of your individuality to lose the feeling of anonymity you gain in a group. This can be as simple as saying your name out loud to prime yourself with thoughts of identity. This can help prevent you from taking part in some potentially horrible group actions you’ll later regret.
For a more detailed and fascinating look at deindividuation, be sure to read the full post over at You Are Not So Smart.
Deindividuation | You Are Not So Smart
You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/vip/~3/wdO-5lI_gLE/
Archive Gallery: PopSci Fights the Battle of the Sexes
Feb 14th
July 1928
PopSci attempts to determine, once and for all, which is the superior gender
Over the years, Popular Science has strived to answer your questions about the world we live in. What’s on the moon? Why don’t we have flying cars? How do magnets work? As compelling and relevant as these questions are, though, none inspires as much fury as the age-old debate on whether men and women are equally capable.
For the most part, we answered no. Like it or not, our magazine has always been a product of its time, and for at least the first 70 years of our 138-year history, we held men in higher esteem because science and feminist literature had not yet given us reason to believe that women could accomplish much on a grand scale.
Click to launch the photo gallery.
While the battle of the sexes began thousands of years ago, we began paying extra attention to it in 1920, when women won the right to vote. Women began to matter, and as a male-dominated publication, we weren’t sure we approved. We balked women female athletes either broke, or came close to breaking records held by men. We scoffed at women who thought they could drive without getting into an accident. “Men, it seems, are able to beat women in sports just because they are men, endowed by nature with superior qualities of speed, strength, and stamina!” we wrote after arguing why women’s sports were a farce.
Still, we couldn’t deny the psychology reports demonstrating that male and female students scored equally on intelligence tests. We couldn’t deny that the male and female brains donated to science bore the same weight and measurements. A few of our writers conceded, saying that men and women were separate but equal. Their intelligence and temperaments complemented each other.
But this is the pre-Betty Friedan era we’re talking about. Calling women equals in the mid-1920s might have been a step forward, but later that decade, we took two steps back after publishing Dr. Prescott Lecky’s article on why women can never achieve greatness.
“Women do not count large among the geniuses because they do not want to be geniuses,” he wrote. “They want to be women.”
Offended? Amused? Or (lord help you) inspired? Click through our gallery to read more about the early 20th century’s attitude toward female intelligence, athletic ability and driving skills.
Source: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-02/archive-gallery-popsci-settles-battle-sexes
Rashida Jones Rebecca Romijn-Stamos Rebecca Saint James Reese Witherspoon
Bare Branches: Incorporating Organic Elements in Your Workspace [Featured Workspace]
Feb 14th
If your office needs a shot of something more organic than your nature desktop wallpaper, you might want to take a cue from today’s featured workspace and bring outdoor elements inside.
Juan Solanoy‘s workspace is a fairly simply white desk in a white room. He scavenged some tree trimmings and propped them up in the corner to add an organic element to his room and serve double duty to hang some peripherals like his headphones. They break up a space that would otherwise be completely sterile (now he just needs something organic and alive and he’ll have to total life on a 23rd century space station vibe down pat).
If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/vip/~3/yj5nkjIpKHo/
How to Make Your Own Home Carbonation System (for DIY Ginger Beer) [DIY]
Feb 13th
I found myself thirsty for some good ginger beer recently so I decided to look up a recipe to make it at home. I love ginger beer in the store but I just can’t swallow the $1.25 price tag every day.
Top image from Something Edible.
Initially I made the ginger beer with sparkling water but I found it wasn’t as carbonated and I wasted half the bottle because I didn’t drink enough. With my home carbonation system I can drink as much very fizzy ginger beer as I want, and it produces bubbles of a very fine character. I’m going to detail how to do this with a ginger beer recipe, but you can use the same basic method to fizzy up just about any drink you’d want to me.
What You’ll Need
- PET bottles. Coke, Mountain Dew, etc. I use both 1-liter and 20-oz bottles. 2-liter bottles would take a lot of CO2 so I haven’t tried one yet.
- Something sharp to start mark the hole in the bottle cap.
- 15/32″ drill bit. I recommend step drills from Harbor Freight since they make a nice clean hole.
- Snap in valve stem (4 pack for around $3.00)
- CO2 pump. Try to get one that accepts non-threaded cartridges since they are cheaper. Mine is a Genuine Innovations Ultraflate; I get 5-6 20 oz bottles per 16-gram cartridge.
How It Works
Clean out your bottles and take off the labels. Mark the center of the bottle cap on the inside of the cap with a sharp knife or awl. Drill from the inside out with the step drill until you reach the 15/32″ size. Turn the cap around and remove the burs from the top with the step drill.
Lubricate the valve stem with a little soap and pop it through the cap. Wiggle it and pull the stem with a towel for grip if needed.
To carbonate your drink, fill the bottle with your beverage until it is 2″ from the top of the bottle. Squeeze out the air from the top and screw the cap on tightly. Screw on the CO2 pump and then turn the bottle up side down and shoot some CO2 into the bottle in short bursts. The internet says the bottles can withstand 200psi but I wouldn’t want to try it. Just use small bursts and shake the bottle until it goes soft. Inflate again and shake. Usually 3 times does the trick but using the one liter bottle requires quite a few shots. Carefully open your drink and enjoy!
If you want to try my ginger beer recipe, here it is:
Ginger beer (makes one 18 oz bottle)
- 1 oz. fresh ginger juice (centrifugal juicer like a Juiceman works very well)
- 1.5 oz fresh lemon juice (if you use the centrifugal juicer you can add some peel for some zest. Go easy on the peel until you find the amount you like)
- Scant 1/4 cup sugar
- .5 oz honey
- 14 oz cold water
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/vip/~3/MG-XNwRkwyU/
Starting Page Makes Your Google Searches Completely Anyonymous [Search]
Feb 13th
Google’s a great search engine, but search privacy has long been a concern for some. If you want to search privately without leaving Google, Start Page is a simple webapp that can act as a proxy for your searches.
Starting Page operates just like any search: you enter terms, press search, and get results. In this case, however, you’re still searching Google but Starting Page goes out and performs the search for you. This way Starting Page is tracked for performing the search and you’re not, keeping your search private.
Starting Page | via One Thing Well
You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/vip/~3/SIkCFjbFKwg/
Starting Page Makes Your Google Searches Completely Anyonymous [Search]
Feb 13th
Google’s a great search engine, but search privacy has long been a concern for some. If you want to search privately without leaving Google, Start Page is a simple webapp that can act as a proxy for your searches.
Starting Page operates just like any search: you enter terms, press search, and get results. In this case, however, you’re still searching Google but Starting Page goes out and performs the search for you. This way Starting Page is tracked for performing the search and you’re not, keeping your search private.
Starting Page | via One Thing Well
You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5757634/starting-page-makes-your-google-searches-completely-anyonymous
