Ohhh Baby: The Criterion Collection Comes to Hulu [Hulu]

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If you love movies, you love The Criterion Collection. It's as simple as that. So get excited, because the CC now has a channel on Hulu.

As of right now, it only has the first six features from the Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman series, but more should be coming in the near future. Of course, since it's Hulu, it's not available outside the US, which sucks. But come on, free streaming Criterion Collection films! It's tough to complain about that. Your lunch breaks just got a whole lot more sophisticated. [Criterion via Good]


iPhone 3.2 Beta 3 SDK Simplifies Developing Universal iPad/iPhone Apps [Apple]

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Apple's making life simpler for developers with the iPhone 3.2 Beta 3 SDK which makes it easier to develop universal apps by allowing devs to easily update "existing iPhone projects to include the necessary files to support" iPads. [Apple] Updated again.

Update 1: Commenter apple1loop and others are reporting that Apple has pulled the SDK from their developer website. No word on why this happened just yet.

Update 2: Once again, apple1loop</a is reporting with an update, this time to let us know that the SDK is back up on the developer site.


Synthesizer Used to Create Doctor Who Theme Tune Being Flogged on eBay [Synthesizer]

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With eight days left in the auction, the actual EMS VCS3 synthesizer used by John Baker at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to create the Doctor Who theme is already up to $6,000. There are some deep-pocketed Whovians out there.

It's being sold on eBay after John Baker's estate sold it on after his death in 1997, and is apparently in very good condition, not having been used since the late '70s. Will the winning bidder use it to create YouTube montages of his/her favorite Doctor Who clips with a spooky synth soundtrack? Compose mixed tapes to be sent to David Tennant? Or simply have their bank send statement after statement of unpaid credit card bills? [eBay via Retro To Go]


Nokia Admits That The N97 Sucked, Working to Improve Their Phones [Nokia]

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So the Nokia N97 was a bit of a disaster. Normally, companies pretend that all of their products are great, even when they aren't. But one Nokia VP is willing to admit that the N97 was a steamer.

Nokia's VP of Markets Anssi Vanjoki recently said in an interview that the N97 was a "tremendous disappointment in terms of the experience quality for the consumers and something [they] did not anticipate." How refreshingly candid!

Of course, he's using such candidness as an excuse to claim that they've learned their lesson and are working to make the N97 a real contender via firmware updates. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it might be a little late for firmware to save the N97, but if Nokia really is learning from its mistakes, bring on the next gen devices. If Microsoft can retool its mobile division after the abortion that was WinMo 6.5, there's no reason Nokia can't do the same. [All About Symbian via Engadget]


Woodburner Problems

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I finally finished the woodburner Iv had previously asked advice for, though its up and running it is by no means finished. The brief i set myself was to try to build a woodburner to heat the old pub i live in. I wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing, to have a big glass door to see the fire, for

Determining the Pipe Invert Level

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Hi there!!

How to find the the Invert level?? I have 2 manholes the one has IV level 1.5m , the pipe size is 200mm and the distance between 2 manholes is 20mtr.. slope 1:100. how to find Invert level of the 2nd manhole?? thanks!! the slope of 1:100 is correct??

Thank you!!

Building a True Spaceship – And Then Going Somewhere

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Spaceships Worthy of the Name, Buzz Aldrin, Huffington post

"In storage at Marshall Spaceflight Center, and elsewhere around the country are spacecraft components from which we can build a true spaceship, one worthy of the name. I've called the Exploration Module, or XM. This vehicle, lifted up to orbit aboard the Space Shuttle in its final missions, would be a true spacecraft that lives only in space. ... My concept for a cycling spaceship, now universally called the Aldrin cycler, could be fashioned out of the XM. All we'd need would be a rocket to attach to it, maybe like the Centaur liquid hydrogen upper stage flown many times aboard many different launchers - and managed by Ohio's Glenn Research Center."

For NASA no easy answer for next space destination, AP

"Former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern said he's waiting to hear what NASA officials outline in the Capitol Hill hearings, but he too has concerns about not having a precise destination. "We need a destination and a timetable and that's really lacking," Stern said. He said that relying on technology to dictate a location "sounds like a program to nowhere." Because human spaceflight is about inspiration, science and international cooperation, Stern said, "you need a specific destination, a proper noun, something that's capitalized."

Pipe for Compressed Air

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Can someone finally lay to rest the arguments regarding the use of PVC pipe for compressed air and gases. I have read many statements pro and con for PVC. Some say it shatters, others say they have used it for years and never had a problem.

Schedule 40 PVC is rated at 480 PSI and sc

So Apple Bans Girls In Bikinis, But A Shirtless Gay Dude Washing A Car Is OK? [Apple]

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Apple has banned sexy apps. But apps from Playboy and Sports Illustrated remain. Why does Apple care what turns me on?

If you need another example of why the iTunes App Store's walled garden is flawed, Apple has been only too happy to oblige, capriciously and arbitrarily removing an unknown number of "sexy" apps without warning. All that's missing to complete the metaphor is a flaming sword.

Some of those apps were certainly garbage, but it seems most were simply slideshows of women in various states of undress.

Jenna Wortham, writing for The Times, quotes Apple's Phil Schiller: "It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see."

By Apple's own count, there are over 130,000 apps in the App Store. With a selection that varied, I'm sure there's something to offend everyone.

How about an app that discusses abortion and birth control law? Maybe an app that helps you hook up with gay guys? How about an app that teaches you how to evangelize the fundamentalist Christian religion?

Think about that last one for second and the furor that would erupt if Apple made a sweeping ban of religious apps from the App Store. I am not a Christian. I would be concerned if my child were discovering religion before I'd gotten a chance to talk to them about it. (Especially since that would mean I had given birth to a baby without a mother, completing—if adventitiously—my dream to be the Male Madonna.)

Yet I wouldn't blame Apple for letting the app be sold, just like I wouldn't complain that I found it morally offensive, its existence alone threatening and insulting. And to be clear, I've got absolutely no problem with the "Grindr" app pictured here being on the app store. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em. It's simply a great example to highlight how subjective Apple's ban has been. That image is right there on its App Store page.

Look, we know censorship is wrong. We've been having this conversation as a society for a couple hundred years, and if you haven't learned by now that freedom of speech negates freedom from offense, there's nothing I can do to convince you except renew your subscription to Hustler.

The issue at hand is that Apple doesn't have to abide by the laws we've put in place in our society because the App Store is part of its business. Often I feel like that's a good thing—or at least fair dinkum. They built it; they get to run it.

With a closed ecosystem comes a lot of responsibility. Apple has taken on the heavy mantle of arbiter, ostensibly to manage quality. I can forgive them for that, even if I don't like it. But the only reason to ban blue apps is taste. And if these apps were a matter of taste, why were they approved in the first place? What will the next set of apps be that Apple decides are inappropriate long after people have spent hundreds of hours creating and marketing them? Ban apps because they're poorly designed—not because they're simply sexual.

Apple is making a moral judgement, declaring that nudity and titillation is something that should made hidden and shameful. It's disappointing that a company so publicly supportive of progressive sexual rights would react so orthodoxly.

Actually, it's worse than that. Apple is trying to take the easy way out, talking about degradation of women and the innocence of children, but allowing content from established brands—brands that exhibit sexual material meant to arouse—simply because they're well known and thus "safe". Apple is aping the sexual posturing of conservative American society, defining what expressions of sexuality are acceptable to even acknowledge.

Sure, there's still plenty of smut out there on the internet, readily accessible through the iPhone's Safari web browser. That's not the point.

Apple has made a declaration: that sex and sexuality are shameful, even for adults. But only sometimes. And only when people complain.

Unfortunately, they've accomplished the opposite. The only thing I'm ashamed of is Apple.


Phase Loss

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what happends when you lose a phase (i.e) blown fuse or something similar

in a wye connection in a line side and what happens when you lose a phase in the load side of a wye?

Video: First Suborbital Scientist Class Trains at NASTAR Center

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The NASTAR Suborbital Scientist Training Program provides space flight physiology training for prospective 'Suborbital Scientist-Astronauts' interested in understanding how to take advantage of emerging low-cost, frequent suborbital 'human-in-the-loop' experiments and Research & Education Mission (REM) opportunities.

12 Suborbital Scientists signed up to participate in the inaugural course on January 12-13, 2010 at The National AeroSpace Training And Research (NASTAR) Center, located just outside Philadelphia, PA. The researchers, students and grad students that participated were supported from the following institutions: SwRI, Boston University, the Denver Museum of Natural Sciences (DMNS), the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Central Florida and the University Space Research Association (USRA).

The NASTAR Suborbital Scientist Training Program includes an overview of the commercial space research industry, high altitude training, suborbital space flight training and distraction factor management training. Trainees practice comprehensive Astronaut training techniques and learn how to mentally and physically prepare themselves and their experiment for the extreme environmental conditions experienced during spaceflight.

Courses Available. Contact NASTAR Center at 215-355-9100 or info@nastarcenter.com to sign up or go to http://www.nastarcenter.com for further information on this, or other courses. Video courtesy of NASTAR and Jim Arthurs, Image Shoppe

A More Awesome (But Maybe Creepier!) Way to Facebook Friend That Girl You’re Talking To With Augmented Reality [Android Apps]

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The Astonishing Tribe's latest demo is Recognizr, an app that blends Polar Rose's face recognition tech with augmented reality and social networking—point your phone's camera at somebody's face, and their contact info and social networks will magically appear.

You have to join the Recognizr service and upload a photo to the database in order to be recognized, so it only works with people who've decided that, yes, if you take a head-on picture of them, it's okay for you to see their social networking info. The prototype app's built on Android, though Polar Rose's facial recognition tech will work on an iPhone 3GS too.

It's actually not really that invasive or creepy—it definitely seems even less so than another facial recognition social networking app from MWC—since it's completely opt-in, and really, the explosion of location-based services that broadcast where you are would seem to give people more pause. Or maybe these things should bother me more. Hello, I live on the internet. [TAT via Technology Review via Dvice]


FarmVille Is a Perfect Demonstration Why Flash Is Stupid in Mobiles [Rant]

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Adobe spends considerable money trying to make us believe that Flash is an indispensable part of the Web. But like a friend said on Twitter, this Nexus demo video shows why Flash is not worth it in any mobile device.

He is right. It's not only the battery consumption, but the incessant zooming and scrolling, and the loading times. Why would I like to look at a Flash-based web site on the tiny screen of my Windows Phone 7 or my iPhone? Especially when I avoid them on my desktop computer in the first place.

So here's the question: Beyond YouTube—already available as dedicated apps in all cellphones—and other Flash-based movie playback—which will be soon replaced by HTML5 H.264 embedding—when was the last time you thought "OH, I NEED FLASH TO RUN THIS MUST-SEE SITE!"? Unless you want to play inane Flash-based games like Farmville and enjoy Flash-based ads in your browser, what does Flash really bring to the web today?

Do the test: Open your browser, go through your bookmarks, and make a list of actual content delivered by Flash only, the content you actually consume on a daily basis. If you are like most of the people I know, beyond YouTube and porn, you will come back mostly empty-handed.

We are in the Web 2.0 era, people. Let's move on to more interesting things. [Redmond Pie via Twitter]

Ed Note: This is just Jesus's opinion, and most of us disagree. – JC


Save the Date: LPIN Convention Dates and Location Set for April 23-25

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Indianapolis, IN -- The Libertarian Party of Indiana will hold its nominating convention April 23-25, 2010. The convention will serve as a time to nominate libertarians for the party's ballot, workshop on topics such as fundraising and campaign tips, noted speakers and a time to meet Libertarians from around Indiana. Saturday night will also feature a debate for candidates seeking the chairmanship of the national Libertarian Party.

The convention will be held at the Drury Inn Suites at 82nd & Shadeland in Indianapolis. Registration and hotel information will be posted at LPIN.org by March 1, 2010.

S. African HIV Plan: Universal Testing & Treatment Could End the Epidemic | 80beats

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aids-dayIt’s a big year for South Africa: Less than four months remain until the first matches of the World Cup, when much of the planet’s attention will turn to the country. But being under the spotlight of international sport makes it difficult to hide a country’s less glamorous bits, as China and Canada have found out trying to shield pollution and addiction problems from the glare of the last couple Olympiads. In June, the microscope will turn to South Africa and its ongoing AIDS crisis.

This month one of the country’s health leaders has renewed his call for blanket HIV testing and anti-retroviral drug dispersal to all patients, which he says can stop the AIDS epidemic once and for all–without having to find a vaccine against the virus or a cure for the disease.

Brian Williams’s idea isn’t new. The former World Health Organization figure, who is now one of South Africa’s top health officials, came out with a paper more than a year ago explaining his model for how effective universal testing and immediate therapy could be. But this week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego he expounded on his proposal: “The epidemic of HIV is really one of the worst plagues of human history…. I hope we can get to the starting line in one to two years and get complete coverage of patients in five years. Maybe that’s being optimistic, but we’re facing Armageddon” [The Guardian].

The anti-retrovirals given to HIV-positive people have saved millions of lives, Williams says, but have done little to stop transmission, partly because of how many people don’t know they have HIV. Facing such a tall order, Williams is optimistic. If a full-on testing and treatment project were to begin today, he says we could stop the transmission of the disease within five years. If patients take [anti-retrovirals] when they should, the amount of virus in their bodies can fall by 10,000 times, to a level at which they are extremely unlikely to pass the virus on [The Guardian].

However, he knows the price of testing and treating everyone. The cost in South Africa alone would be $3 billion to $4 billion per year, he said. But the plan would save money from the first day because of all of the people today who have to be hospitalized, and because of all of the young people who die in the prime of their lives, he said [CNN]. South Africa already has the world’s largest program of giving out anti-retroviral drugs to treat AIDS, because the country has the world’s largest caseload.

While more health officials consider Williams’ idealistic strategy, he and his colleagues stress that it should be done in conjunction with ongoing research into new treatments and practical measures, like South Africa’s efforts to beef up its condom supply in preparation for the footballers and their supporters who will descend on the country this summer.

Related Content:
80beats: If Everyone Got An Annual AIDS Test, Could We Beat Back the Epidemic?
80beats: HIV/AIDS Patients in Papua May Be Tracked with Microchips
80beats: Beware of Hype: AIDS “Cure” is Good Science, But Won’t Halt the Epidemic
80beats: South African Health Minister Breaks With Past, Says HIV Causes AIDS

Image: flickr / troismarteaux