Slashdot Mirror

If you want a great example of this, Twitter has blackholed the #Right2Game hashtag. You know, because it's hate speech, and not an IndieGogo campaign by Twin Galaxies and supported by the Nerdist, Stan Lee, and others.

But the idea of gamers having a right to be gamers so offends the SJW Twitter crowd, they got Twitter to hide #Right2Game from the trending tweets and block it from autocompleting. Apparently merely talking about the right to play the games you like is enough to "threaten people on the basis of" a giant list of SJW buzzwords I don't feel like repeating.

I've built a book scanner from that site a number of years ago and it has worked well enough for what I needed.

The real problem isn't the hardware though, it's the multiple programs needed to process the images and get everything into a small text searchable pdf file afterwards.

To give you an idea, my workflow usually starts by importing all the left pages into Lightroom, process for things like correcting blacks and whites, keystoning, skewing, and cropping, and then I export everything as jpg files. I then repeat for the right pages. This has to be done separately because each camera sees the book from a different angle -- lighting is usually different, keystoning will be different, and even the distance of the camera to the page has to be taken into account for correct cropping. After that, I run a perl script to combine the left and right pages so that they're numbered sequentially, and then finally import into Adobe Acrobat Pro to make text searchable pdf files. I've tried all other OCR software, and Acrobat has them all beat. If there is color in the images the pdf file will be HUGE. I've scanned some of my son's books for school that were in color and attempting to view them on an iPad 3 was folly.

There is a program called Scan Tailor that also helps process images. It does a decent job of finding the borders of the pages for auto-cropping, and attempts to correct skewed pages, however it requires looking through each page to make sure it's found everything correctly. Too often I'll find it crops incorrectly, missing things like page numbers in the corners of the page. http://scantailor.org/ When I'm looking to make the smallest PDF files possible, I'll use this after Lightroom.

This indigogo campaign looks to make this whole thing a lot simpler (Czur Scanner): https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

It's apparently an all-in-one solution with hardware and software. The video shows it doing black and white well enough, but I question how well it will deal with color (They don't show any demos of color books). Seemed good enough to purchase (I did so), even if only for black and white, and simpler than the DYI setup I've been using.

This is very confusing, on the one hand you say why not insist on Free Licensing for the resulting works, then you offer "rewards" of royalty free use of a certain number of photos (if they were released under a Free License then there is no question about royalties) but then say you will put up 1 day of photos under a Creative Commons BY-SA license.

So if they are truly under a Free license then why would you think you can limit the freedoms of people to use them in such a way to be able to offer more photos for royalty free use at difference reward tiers?

And as I tried for unsuccessfully here:

https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

That's just selling a royalty-free copyright license, the art is no more "free" than anything else.

Or... more people could start taking my advice as offered here:

http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/20...

And as I tried for unsuccessfully here:

https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

(I really need to run some more experiments along these lines...)

I think I just had an idea to promote this...

Check this newly created Facebook group to see the idea begin and grow...

https://www.facebook.com/group...

all the best,

drew

It's worth pointing out that Kickstarter would never have allowed this campaign. IndieGoGo is so much scammier that it's ridiculous. I don't think I'd ever 'invest' in a crowdfunding campaign from either site, but if I did it would be Kickstarter because of the following policy differences:

- With IndieGoGo, you get to keep the money even if you don't reach your funding goal.
- With Kickstarter, you can only show actual prototype hardware in your videos/campaign site - no mockups or 3D rendering allowed.

It's pretty easy to see how these differences mean that IndieGoGo is the go-to site for products like:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robot-dragonfly-micro-aerial-vehicle#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/batteriser-extend-battery-life-by-up-to-8x#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/anonabox-access-deep-web-tor-privacy-router#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kreyos-the-only-smartwatch-with-voice-gesture-control#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#/

just to name a few.

It's worth pointing out that Kickstarter would never have allowed this campaign. IndieGoGo is so much scammier that it's ridiculous. I don't think I'd ever 'invest' in a crowdfunding campaign from either site, but if I did it would be Kickstarter because of the following policy differences:

- With IndieGoGo, you get to keep the money even if you don't reach your funding goal.
- With Kickstarter, you can only show actual prototype hardware in your videos/campaign site - no mockups or 3D rendering allowed.

It's pretty easy to see how these differences mean that IndieGoGo is the go-to site for products like:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robot-dragonfly-micro-aerial-vehicle#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/batteriser-extend-battery-life-by-up-to-8x#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/anonabox-access-deep-web-tor-privacy-router#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kreyos-the-only-smartwatch-with-voice-gesture-control#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#/

just to name a few.

It's worth pointing out that Kickstarter would never have allowed this campaign. IndieGoGo is so much scammier that it's ridiculous. I don't think I'd ever 'invest' in a crowdfunding campaign from either site, but if I did it would be Kickstarter because of the following policy differences:

- With IndieGoGo, you get to keep the money even if you don't reach your funding goal.
- With Kickstarter, you can only show actual prototype hardware in your videos/campaign site - no mockups or 3D rendering allowed.

It's pretty easy to see how these differences mean that IndieGoGo is the go-to site for products like:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robot-dragonfly-micro-aerial-vehicle#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/batteriser-extend-battery-life-by-up-to-8x#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/anonabox-access-deep-web-tor-privacy-router#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kreyos-the-only-smartwatch-with-voice-gesture-control#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#/

just to name a few.

It's worth pointing out that Kickstarter would never have allowed this campaign. IndieGoGo is so much scammier that it's ridiculous. I don't think I'd ever 'invest' in a crowdfunding campaign from either site, but if I did it would be Kickstarter because of the following policy differences:

- With IndieGoGo, you get to keep the money even if you don't reach your funding goal.
- With Kickstarter, you can only show actual prototype hardware in your videos/campaign site - no mockups or 3D rendering allowed.

It's pretty easy to see how these differences mean that IndieGoGo is the go-to site for products like:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robot-dragonfly-micro-aerial-vehicle#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/batteriser-extend-battery-life-by-up-to-8x#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/anonabox-access-deep-web-tor-privacy-router#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kreyos-the-only-smartwatch-with-voice-gesture-control#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#/

just to name a few.

It's worth pointing out that Kickstarter would never have allowed this campaign. IndieGoGo is so much scammier that it's ridiculous. I don't think I'd ever 'invest' in a crowdfunding campaign from either site, but if I did it would be Kickstarter because of the following policy differences:

- With IndieGoGo, you get to keep the money even if you don't reach your funding goal.
- With Kickstarter, you can only show actual prototype hardware in your videos/campaign site - no mockups or 3D rendering allowed.

It's pretty easy to see how these differences mean that IndieGoGo is the go-to site for products like:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robot-dragonfly-micro-aerial-vehicle#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/batteriser-extend-battery-life-by-up-to-8x#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/anonabox-access-deep-web-tor-privacy-router#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kreyos-the-only-smartwatch-with-voice-gesture-control#/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#/

just to name a few.

Pretty much.

It would be nice if someone was making new keyboards, but there isn't anyone.
There IS an indiegogo by some guy in Australia making new C64 keycaps... (in various colours and translucencies), but not new keyboards.

https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

Personally I'd like a mechanical keyboard for these computers so that they can shed their "toy" status a bit, but good luck getting Unicomp or some other mechanical keyboard maker to make replacements.

[CORRECTED LINK to ARTICLE, 150 comments]
Ask Slashdot: Best Payloads For Asteroid Diverter/Killer Mission?

TheRealHocusLocus writes:

The Emergency Asteroid Defence Project has launched a crowdfunded IndieGoGo campaign to help produce a set of working blueprints for a two-stage HAIV, or Hypervelocity Asteroid Intercept Vehicle. This HAIV paper (PDF) describes the use of a leading kinetic impactor to make a crater --- a following nuclear warhead would detonate in the crater for maximum energy transfer. The plans would be available for philanthropists to bring to prototype stage, while your friendly local nuclear weapon state supplies the warhead. This may be a best-fit solution. But just ask Morgan Freeman: these strategies could fail. What --- if any --- backup strategy could be integrated into an HAIV mission as a fail-safe in case the primary fails? Here is a review of strategies (some fanciful, few deployable) if we have to divert an asteroid with very short lead time. A gentle landing on the object may not be feasible, and we must rely on things that push hard or go boom. For example: detonating nearby to ablate surface materials and create recoil in the direction we wish to nudge. Also, with multiple warheads and precise timing, would it be possible to create a "shaped" nuclear explosion in space?

Use Kickstarter or another crowd funding to make it work. 450 mil is a bit steep though.

Been there, done that. Despite two month of press releases and a reasonable well-documented deliverable (plans for HAIV mission payload vehicle), a panel of international experts willing to donate their own time, a mere $200,000 target to help with other expenses, even a Slashdot article to promote it, should I even mention cool items (the shoulder patches arrived today)...

Only 187 human beings (2 were me) from planet Earth put in a grand total of $8,834 towards their $200k goal.
May we now have a moment of silence to consider this.

[... ... ... ...]
[Hissssssss...... BANG!]

What a mess. Glowing iridescent rings of exposed mantle like the hollow eye sockets of a ghost. Each one the eye of a hurricane of steam and worse things. Now if this was your planet, you would be feeling unpleasant tingles working up and down your spine right now just to look at them. Or even to hear me describe them. If there are no tingles you haven't given it enough thought. Thousand-foot tsunamis towards the coasts (it's an ocean impact). Molten fragments are setting prairie and forest ablaze a thousand miles away. When it burns out night will fall early. The next Winter will last dozens of years. It is merciful when dark clouds roll over everything at the end. Final curtain.

Good thing we took that 'statistical cost-benefit analysis' approach to heart. Makes it easier to bear.
If survival would be ZERO, cost-benefit analysis is as pointless as dividing by ZERO.

This might be a better link.

Perhaps an open-source fixed-function password keeper (as Mooltipass) in separate trustable hardware would work?

I have one of those. I call it a "brain".

I worked out a system about 20 years ago for generating passwords that would be fairly secure, yet easy for me to remember.

Apparently I must be special, because I'm the only person I know who doesn't use a password-keeper of any sort, not even a Post-It stuck to the bottom of my keyboard. (I do allow my browser to store a few passwords for things that don't matter, e.g. the stupid Flash games I occasionally indulge in as a momentary distraction.)

OK, now ask yourself this about your system: How many passwords would we have to know for us to reverse engineer your system? What do you do with multiple websites that have a single sign-on system, so you have to use the same password on multiple websites? Still feel confident?

How about you tell us all the hypothetical signon for, say, abcd.com, efgh.com, and ijkl.com - will you still be confident that your system is secure? How many guesses would it take for us to get the password to mnop.com correct after you tell us the three passwords above?

"Would you like to play a game?"

Perhaps an open-source fixed-function password keeper (as Mooltipass) in separate trustable hardware would work?

I have one of those. I call it a "brain".

I worked out a system about 20 years ago for generating passwords that would be fairly secure, yet easy for me to remember.

Apparently I must be special, because I'm the only person I know who doesn't use a password-keeper of any sort, not even a Post-It stuck to the bottom of my keyboard. (I do allow my browser to store a few passwords for things that don't matter, e.g. the stupid Flash games I occasionally indulge in as a momentary distraction.)

The Ashley Madison system stored an MD5 hash of the lower-cased username and password on the user's computer, so that they could revisit the site without having to reenter their login info.

Computing MD5 hash values is much faster than computing bcrypt() values, the hackers already had the username, and both fields were lower-cased.

They just brute forced the MD5 hash until they got a match. About 90% of the MD5 passwords matched exactly (ie - the passwords were already in lower case), of the remaining 10% they tried uppercasing the individual letters of the password until it matched.

Security is hard. Basing the MD5 hash on a reduced-space plaintext password was the fundamental error.

Also there were some administrative lapses. They changed password hash algorithms, and then forced users to change passwords at next login. Many users hadn't logged in in several years, so this left a lot of old, insecurely hashed passwords around.

Generally poor security for such a sensitive site. Makes me wonder how good other popular sites are at security.

We really should figure out this security thing.

Perhaps an open-source fixed-function password keeper (as Mooltipass) in separate trustable hardware would work?

I have ordered a couple variants of these; haven't received either of them yet. But it sounds good in theory. And there are no IP issues: it's an open-source design, with open-source firmware, completely programmable so that each user can customize his own layout. (For the first time I'll have a keyboard I really "own".) The keyboard can still be made flat (although usually the two halves are positioned independently), so any laptop manufacturer could even start shipping with this kind of layout. I hope that will happen at some point.

The main points are that the two halves are rotated to a better angle to reduce strain, and also that the thumbs are able to operate several keys each, not just the spacebar.

What to do with capslock is such a minor issue compared to everything else that's wrong with QWERTY. This is why, despite being quite a fast typist, and not suffering particularly much wrist pain, I nevertheless feel that it's time to try something more efficient. I do have some shoulder pain sometimes, so figured maybe that's from having to hold my hands too close together in front of me. It's worse when I use a laptop too much, whereas at work I've been using an old Microsoft 4000 ergo keyboard for years.

Now if they would just ship... ;-)

An similar alternative is keyboard.io. From one side, I wish I'd waited for their crowdfunding campaign to get started, because it's gorgeous, and I love the wooden-case idea. From another side, I think theirs is going to be less customizable: every key has a different shape, so you can't have printed rearrangeable keycaps, e.g. if you want to try colemak you have to ignore the legends on the keys, or get keys without legends. And they are definitely not going to ship until the middle of next year, either.

I'm still not sure how In intend to celebrate the IMPENDING DISMAL FAILURE of the EADP Mission fund raiser to raise $200k for producing a set of plans to for a viable asteroid deflection/destruction mission. Win or lose, something besides NOTHING ready to deploy on short notice. What kind of cake would be appropriate for this level of fail?

185 people have contributed $8,803 of $200k. Two of them are me.

WHAT IF a simple test appeared out of the blue one day... something that you could not ignore. Despite any best effort to put a positive spin on it, the moment it flicks into your mind you think to yourself, "All is lost."

A TEST as clear and obvious as it is simple. Something that no amount of explaining away could touch, for which no rational excuse was possible, and even the most carefully constructed counter-arguments reveal themselves as elaborate denial mechanisms, unworthy even of response.

Despite hundreds of trillions of real and imagined dollars in circulation, a populous modern society of the self-proclaimed 'age of enlightenment' cannot raise an amount of money equivalent to that of a single yearly CEO's salary...

We have built the Internet... and connected our world... to.... well shit.
I can't even think up a single good reason anymore.
It all seems like so much tripe, if we're in the process of failing this simple test.

EADP HAIV Funding campaign has only 12 days left. Only 177 people and $8,475 of $200k raised.
C'mon please. For short notice impact threats this mission is/would be the ONLY thing on the table.
Please, just go there and read what they have to say, what the plan is. Only 12 days left.
I am so extremely fucking embarrassed for my species right now.

The take-away talking points of the threat are no duh. Grab any kid and ask 'em how the dinosaurs died, you'll probably get the right answer. Ask the kid, could it happen tomorrow? They'll probably say, yeah I guess. Now, release the kid.

Now grab some BULLSHIT STATISTICS-ABUSING disaster apologist, you know, the ones that keep repeating with glee that "on average 100 people die every year" from something that could/might/will kill EVERYONE, as if that statistic means anything at all. Now release the apologist, letting 'em fall on their head.

We don't need to raise 'awareness' or make a special flag to wave or make a Youtube video or put a "I made fun of Armageddon on Slashdot" feather in your cap. So many feathers in so many caps around here, thought you'd all be flying around by now. I'm kinda sorry for venting but I've brought up this topic around here and have seen too many answers that translate to, "I dunna give affuck, it's God's Will". I hope the vast bulk of you who haven't commented on this topic at all are open on the idea of weaponizing space for our planet's defense.

If I had wealth or mortgageable assets I'd have ALREADY funded the damned thing.
All by MYSELF in one shot.
That is embarrassing to me...
I really thought that after 50 years on Earth I'd have played my cards better.
Now I am reduced to begging, to help raise $200k
for a cause I believe to be as 'verdant' and 'just' as any on Earth.
And being reduced to begging strangers for money on behalf of this mission
makes me even more angry and resentful.
I'm a real mess.

3 for 3.
One for all, and all for one!

Why is this article (in general) ruffling so many feathers? Because it is a thinly-disguised Malthusian Energy hit-piece specifically targeted at the center of IT's most sacred golden calf, the cloud server industry. The reason that the assumptions made in this study are confusing to many (as in, why are we even on this page? Isn't an overall one-third quiescent portion a sign of a properly engineered critical system?) is that it was not motivated by intelligent resource usage concerns at all.

Energy-environmentalists are like beavers these days. Their teeth are always growing, so they have to gnaw on something. So today they are gnawing on you. These hit pieces are everywhere these days.

Energy usage on every conceivable scale is the 'new' pseudo-environmentalism, and the bar of publishable relevance has been set low so that everyone can participate. So they do. In the olden days you could enjoy your hot shower without guilt and read a book in the brilliance of that 100 watt light bulb... secure in the knowledge that so long as you were part of a team that was striving towards a general goal of greater efficiency on some massive scale, or heading off the problem entirely by developing cheaper and less limited sources of energy, you were a net 'positive' for humanity. And you were.

Somewhere along the line WE let tabloid environmentalism take over, and the scale was tipped towards presumptive guilt. WE let this happen. This is a religious mental disorder for which no actual religion is necessary. Now the merest accusation of wastefulness gains traction because it resonates with that "we're fucking up the planet" meme, and the burden of proof has shifted to YOU as the individual to 'prove' you are a net-positive or at least a neutral. Whether you are conscious of it or not you have bought into an idea of Original Sin.

It's time to reject the notion that energy is somehow is in 'short supply', 'expensive' or 'harmful to the planet'. What is actually in short supply these days is actually the innovative drive to secure better base load energy sources . And what there is a useless dearth of are people striving for (and achieving) ten minutes of fame by pointing out some comparatively tiny 'waste' of energy somewhere, and using that fame (a phenomenon enabled by click-through environmentalists)... to put some one-ten-thousandth of one-millionth of humanity's energy usage 'on trial'. It diverts you from your daily pursuit, whatever that is. It may deliver the illusion that you're making a positive contribution just be reading the stuff. Nope.

Beaver-chewing on specific industries that are built with redundancy and a certain amount of slack for various reasons, many good, is a waste of time. The best design is an over-design after all, and the real world is old-school. Only those working on solving the BIG problems at any given time are our best real hope.

Don't distract those people, where ever they may be.
For all we know there may be just a few left.

The campaign to develop standard plans for a launch vehicle to intercept asteroid threats stands at 174 people and $8,447 raised of $200k with 20 days left to go. If it was some silly little Raspberry Pi thing it would be funded already many times over. And I was hoping this was the Smartest Generation.

Apparently there has been a reboot effort going on with significant improvements in the noise department.
They had a (miserably failed) indiegogo-campaign 2+ years ago: https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

The turbulence doesn't look half bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Looking at how close people are standing during the landing procedure, it is much, much better than the same situation for helicopters.

In the noise department the info given by these guys is this:
"Due to advances in technology the fuel consumption has been reduced by 66% and the 98 decibels of noise is now around 62 Decibels; A helicopter main rotor break the speed of sound that is why you can hear it coming for miles and miles.

Now you would be lucky to hear the WASP at 500 feet." (from the Youtube comments at the video above)

Every time a statistician uses 'average' or 'chances are' in a sentence, God kills a kitten.
Think of the kittens!

I am at a complete loss to understand why taking an important step in Earth's defense that could only be accomplished by its most intelligent species is only able to raise a sorry-ass-monkey-fuck $5,898 from 111 people in 11 days.

And now I am being told I should embrace some gambler's fallacy of 'non-imminence' (on average! we think!) and ratchet down my whimpering terror and boost complacency until I am a well-adjusted individual.

Statisticians and writers sometimes take inappropriate liberties when presenting probabilities. This is natural because finding joy in figuring things out is one of our finest traits. The reason for choosing any particular angle to present a result can be "because it would be fun to think of it that way". Or as in articles like this, to allay what is perceived as a generally unfounded or disproportionate amount of fear. Addressing these fears directly is invaluable because they can traumatize children, and have even been known to swing adults into voting Republican --- or Democrat!

For preventable global existential threats, is it 'OK' to play the stats game by the same rules as for other non-global or non-existential threats? Is it even ethical? That word bites doesn't it.

Isn't there some kind of 'division by zero' thrown exception thing that applies when we're talking about extinction events? As a species, aren't we clever enough to invent one if it does not exist?

Not all statistics are actionable.
And not all science articles are fit for children.

[TA ] Human beings haven't been around on Earth forever. [...] Chances are, we're not going to be around forever, either. It's only a question of how and when we're going to go out.

That's it, kids --- it's nature's way. Go gently into the Good Night when your time is come, as a species. "That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea." If this some sort of foundation argument, then what is being built?

We are the species who invented "forever". We are not bound by it because its definition is not yet complete. By what ever objective scientific time scale that can be derived from any present theory of The End, you must try to factor an important unknown: the effect future human insight and due diligence may bring to bear on the problem of survival. If you have trouble believing this as I do, join the club. I won't.

I've already said my piece about those poor 100 people who died from asteroids last year (on average! we think!).

All in all, a great article, well researched and compellingly written. But the why of it really sucks. How did that happen? Are there hungry insurance salesman lurking nearby worried that the sorry-ass-monkey-fuck $5,898 from 111 people in 11 days will eat into their commissions?

Don't sell out that ultimate future by falling prey to an extinction event that could happen tomorrow. The way things stand it may be at least ten years before a viable mission is ready to go IF we start today. Let us hope it's ten years of good luck.

Every time a statistician uses 'average' or 'chances are' in a sentence, God kills a kitten.
Think of the kittens!

I am at a complete loss to understand why taking an important step in Earth's defense that could only be accomplished by its most intelligent species is only able to raise a sorry-ass-monkey-fuck $5,898 from 111 people in 11 days.

And now I am being told I should embrace some gambler's fallacy of 'non-imminence' (on average! we think!) and ratchet down my whimpering terror and boost complacency until I am a well-adjusted individual.

Statisticians and writers sometimes take inappropriate liberties when presenting probabilities. This is natural because finding joy in figuring things out is one of our finest traits. The reason for choosing any particular angle to present a result can be "because it would be fun to think of it that way". Or as in articles like this, to allay what is perceived as a generally unfounded or disproportionate amount of fear. Addressing these fears directly is invaluable because they can traumatize children, and have even been known to swing adults into voting Republican --- or Democrat!

For preventable global existential threats, is it 'OK' to play the stats game by the same rules as for other non-global or non-existential threats? Is it even ethical? That word bites doesn't it.

Isn't there some kind of 'division by zero' thrown exception thing that applies when we're talking about extinction events? As a species, aren't we clever enough to invent one if it does not exist?

Not all statistics are actionable.
And not all science articles are fit for children.

[TA ] Human beings haven't been around on Earth forever. [...] Chances are, we're not going to be around forever, either. It's only a question of how and when we're going to go out.

That's it, kids --- it's nature's way. Go gently into the Good Night when your time is come, as a species. "That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea." If this some sort of foundation argument, then what is being built?

We are the species who invented "forever". We are not bound by it because its definition is not yet complete. By what ever objective scientific time scale that can be derived from any present theory of The End, you must try to factor an important unknown: the effect future human insight and due diligence may bring to bear on the problem of survival. If you have trouble believing this as I do, join the club. I won't.

I've already said my piece about those poor 100 people who died from asteroids last year (on average! we think!).

All in all, a great article, well researched and compellingly written. But the why of it really sucks. How did that happen? Are there hungry insurance salesman lurking nearby worried that the sorry-ass-monkey-fuck $5,898 from 111 people in 11 days will eat into their commissions?

Don't sell out that ultimate future by falling prey to an extinction event that could happen tomorrow. The way things stand it may be at least ten years before a viable mission is ready to go IF we start today. Let us hope it's ten years of good luck.

I wonder what this patent will mean for the widely renowned social robitics pioneer who started the JIBO project on indiegogo.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jibo-the-world-s-first-social-robot-for-the-home

I wonder if the trade mark that Ubuntu presumably has could come into legal dispute? https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

Donate what you can to save the needy in this hour of need!
https://life.indiegogo.com/fun...
http://www.globalgiving.org/pr...

What do think about lights that adapt during the day? Such as: The Sunn Light https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... Lumious https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

Yes, I actually thought this would be the greatest weight loss game kind of system ever - "gain weight lose your Internet connection"

But no, the target customers thought removing the Internet connection or television was not a funny game at all.

instead it would be so "terrible",... and customers would happen to be forced to "disable", "remove", "destroy" etc. the thing..., because they don't need a baby sitter... because they are so damn good in losing weight. Maybe, China is arranging some kind of holiday camps to its food addicts too?

http://www.coindesk.com/change...

https://www.changetip.com/how-...

Protip aims at competing with changetip as well:

https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

Could put a link in since the time it takes to google is above the average attention span.

This whole ads business needs to go away. Seriosly, stop trying to convince people to buy your garbage.
Create a nice web site for all your site so that people can search and compare. And for all independent publishers there are other means to get a buck.

https://www.kickstarter.com/
http://www.patriondigital.com/
https://www.indiegogo.com/
http://www.patreon.com/
etc.

And Amstrad sold their set top box business off to Sky. (And thus the rights to the Spectrum ROM)

As found on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum Zega Indiegogo page:

"The development and marketing of the Sinclair Spectrum Vega is under licence from Sky In-Home Service Ltd, who inherited the intellectual property rights to the Spectrum computers from Amstrad."

BrainBackups Openworm Deep Mind Lovotics Neurogrid

China has demonstrated in the past decade that it is capable of making such large-scale changes to its infrastructure. Asking them to do that trick again seems reasonable.

They did incidentally make thorium reactors a national priority a few years ago.

The impoverished West meanwhile has this: https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

At least on the Canon side of things, focus-by-wire lenses are rare

Oh good to know top grade Canon lenses have a mechanical link even if the throw is short

I do own a Canon EOS 3, a film camera with 45 focusing points and eye control to choose from them (though I haven't used it for a long time now..). It might be that it's just the implementation on EOS 3 that wasn't right but this solution didn't work for me. I tried using eye tracking to choose the focusing point a few times and then switched it off toggling focus points manually.

I think you'll find that within the next ten years, nobody in their right minds will still be focusing manually, particularly when they're shooting 4K

It will indeed be interesting to see if that happens. If I was to bet on it I would say that it's not going to happen in cinematography. Indeed moving focus through the scene is one of the tool that a cinematographer uses to achieve the desired artistic effect. It is hard to imagine that a computer algorithm would be able to predict how fast or slowly we want to bring objects in/out of focus and how much smoothness we want in these transitions.

Further if wikipedia can be trusted the best film scanners go as high as 8K resolution. And if the precision of manual focus pulling was enough to shoot all of the movies we've watched and enjoyed so much on the big screens it should surely remain sufficient to shoot future films which are to be projected to the same screens. Don't think even IMAX films were shot with autofocus which means that manual focus was sufficient even for that vastly superior resolution.

And why wouldn't manual pulling be precise enough in a cinema setting? The scene is planned in advance, everybody knows exactly where each actor and object is going to be, marks are made (or stops set) before shooting begins for real. I heard even tape measuring is still common. Can autofocus beat the precision of a measuring tape? And failing that with digital you always have the option of zooming in to individual pixel levels to ensure your pencil mark on the follow focus device is correct. Lastly focus depth even though sometimes shallow isn't nil in most circumstances so small focusing errors might not have an adverse negative effect on the result.

So if you're limiting yourself to mostly old lenses, you might as well limit yourself to 720p as well, because you'll be lucky to out-resolve that with most lenses designed more than about a decade or so back

Chances are you've got the experience here while I certainly don't. However my impression so far was that what you're saying is true but not to such an extreme extent. People do use old lenses including those which are much older than a decade on modern still cameras and the results they're getting certainly don't look like they were shot with resolution of about 1/3 mega pixel provided by 720p video. I think the truth must be somewhere in between and the old glass must still be a valuable tool. After all if that glass was indeed that bad why wouldn't the prices not be nil today? Some of these lenses still command amounts of money which one on a budget would think twice before spending.

So I really think that they need to at least lay the groundwork (in hardware) ... so that the system will be readily extensible in the future

Here I do agree unconditionally. Groundwork needs to be there. I'm not on the project team but I understand this is precisely what is happening. If you look at the current plans of Axiom Beta design you will notice that the lens mount is attached with 4 screws to the camera body. This is done precisely so that a different mount can be easily fitted

World first? Videocam?

Well it's indeed the world first open source and cinematic video cam.
Elphel is only the other open source cam but it's not cinematic.

Ok the heading is a little cheesy, but then after a fantastic uptake the crowdfunding
campaign has run out of breath a little and we need to generate some new buzz :)

Hi,

I'm not on the Apertus team however I've seen many a discussion on the IRC channel and so I can answer that. Yes indeed powered lens mounts are on the list of features. It's just that they expected after the initial release of Axiom Beta, the one which crowdfunding is being collected.

To this I would however like to add that old manual lenses are arguably rather well suited for shooting movies. I think it is an established fact of life that nearly all cinematic production is done with manual focus (google "focus puller", "first assistant camera"). Now the modern electronic lenses even if they have a manual focusing ring are not well suited for the task. The problems are:

1. the connection between the manual focusing ring and the lens part is electronic rather than mechanical - pulling focus is a lot less convenient, there is no mechanical feedback
2. focus control is not always proportionate - with a fully mechanical lens if you rotate forward 1/4 of a turn and then back 1/4 of a turn then you will arrive at the old focusing point; not so with fly-by-wire lenses - the distance your focusing point travels depends on how fast you're rotating the manual focusing ring and returning predictable to an earlier focus setting is not possible; this in particular renders useless "follow focus" devices with hard stops and pencil marks
3. it is often better if the aperture can be set in a step-less fashion

Old manual lenses certainly fix the first two issues, not sure about the last one. So I can conclude that while having a powered mount is very much desirable on Axiom cameras (and so it will come just a bit later) it is also true that the old lenses are in fact more suitable to the task of shooting movies and so the decision to deliver a fully manual Nikon-F mount first is justified

Yes I do have a nice powered lens for GH3. I also have some modern lenses my Nikon. However because of the above limitations I have already decided that should I dare to invest into actually buying an Axiom (presently I'm just a crowdfunding campaign backer) then I'll have to splash out for some old Nikkor-s as well. BTW I've been thinking of buying old glass on occasion anyway. I find it rather charming and the heavy metallic lens barrels inspire confidence in me

Hi,

I'm not on the Apertus team however I've seen many a discussion on the IRC channel and so I can answer that. Yes indeed powered lens mounts are on the list of features. It's just that they expected after the initial release of Axiom Beta, the one which crowdfunding is being collected.

To this I would however like to add that old manual lenses are arguably rather well suited for shooting movies. I think it is an established fact of life that nearly all cinematic production is done with manual focus (google "focus puller", "first assistant camera"). Now the modern electronic lenses even if they have a manual focusing ring are not well suited for the task. The problems are:

1. the connection between the manual focusing ring and the lens part is electronic rather than mechanical - pulling focus is a lot less convenient, there is no mechanical feedback
2. focus control is not always proportionate - with a fully mechanical lens if you rotate forward 1/4 of a turn and then back 1/4 of a turn then you will arrive at the old focusing point; not so with fly-by-wire lenses - the distance your focusing point travels depends on how fast you're rotating the manual focusing ring and returning predictable to an earlier focus setting is not possible; this in particular renders useless "follow focus" devices with hard stops and pencil marks
3. it is often better if the aperture can be set in a step-less fashion

Old manual lenses certainly fix the first two issues, not sure about the last one. So I can conclude that while having a powered mount is very much desirable on Axiom cameras (and so it will come just a bit later) it is also true that the old lenses are in fact more suitable to the task of shooting movies and so the decision to deliver a fully manual Nikon-F mount first is justified

Yes I do have a nice powered lens for GH3. I also have some modern lenses my Nikon. However because of the above limitations I have already decided that should I dare to invest into actually buying an Axiom (presently I'm just a crowdfunding campaign backer) then I'll have to splash out for some old Nikkor-s as well. BTW I've been thinking of buying old glass on occasion anyway. I find it rather charming and the heavy metallic lens barrels inspire confidence in me

I'm pinning all my hopes on this project.

From the updates:

In a July 23 editorial, Nature magazine has joined the calls to redirect fusion funding to aneutronic fusion—fusion that produces no radioactive waste. Speaking of the difficulties facing the ITER tokamak program, the editorial urged that, “Given these realities, the prudent course for the world’s funding agencies would be to support research into alternative fusion fuels, such as deuterium-helium-3, or proton-boron-11—which require higher temperatures to ignite, but produce very few neutrons—as well as alternative reactor designs that would be simpler, cheaper and more in line with the kind of plant that power companies might buy.”

Nature specifically urged that one of the projects that should be considered for government funding is “Lawrenceville Plasma Physics in Middlesex, New Jersey, which is trying to exploit a configuration known as a dense plasma focus to build an extremely compact reactor that does not emit neutrons.” Read more here.

Lantern has a crowd funding project running on Indiegogo:

https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

Bert

As long as you keep your private key secure no one can take your Bitcoins. You can generate your private key on a non-networked computer and write it down, then transfer your coins to the public address.

Assuming you trust your printer, Mycelium is working on a USB plug to make paper wallets.

https://www.indiegogo.com/proj... ??

https://www.indiegogo.com/proj... also was a scam, purportedly concentrating diffuse radiation.

Yeah, at least twice as idiotic as those people who think "solar power" is real.

Many times more. The most mediocre of engineers wouldn't fall for the crap on that site.

Here we go: https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...

The $20 Vocore is for the module only. If you want the Ethernet, USB and power connectors you need to order the $40 Vocore+Dock choice. instead I'd recommend getting the $38 choice form the AsiaRF campaign. https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...
AsiaRF is going to ship three months earlier and support for it is already checked into OpenWRT.

These unit aren't really the same thing as a RaspPi. RaspPi is oriented towards having a GUI and screen. These units are oriented towards networking and embedded control. The unit are also tiny - about one cubic inch. Many times smaller than a RaspPi.

There is another similar project simultaneously up on Indiegogo from AsiaRF
https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...
It was put up about a week later so its funding is not as far along. There are still a few Early Birds left.

It based on the same chip and around the same price. The main difference is that the AsiaRF module has already gone through CE/FCC testing and it is already in production. So there is very little risk of the project not shipping. Support for the AsiaRF unit is already checked into OpenWRT.

I find it interesting that they are offering to design and build 10 custom boards with wifi/Ethernet to your spec for $5000. Similar design work in the US/EU would be $30,000 or more.

Apparently it has a pin out dedicated to PORN ;)
  https://images.indiegogo.com/f...