British burglars have stopped stealing CDs and DVDs because, yeah, who needs ‘em? “…thefts of entertainment products like CDs and DVDs have collapsed in England and Wales, to the point that they are now taken in just 7% of all burglaries in which something is stolen…” ( Thanks, Bruce ! )
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Burglars abandon CDs and DVDs
Today, London design firm Berg announced Little Printer, a “printer connected to the Web.” Little Printer generates a hardcopy, customized news-ticker. It grabs stuff from sites based on your parameters, and you can send it stuff from your phone to read later. When you get home, you tear off the tape and have a little, disposable newspaper to read. It’s the first product in a new line of “Berg Cloud” networked home appliances, all of which talk to a little custom box that you connect to your home router. We love physical stuff. Connecting products to the Web lets them become smarter and friendlier they can sit on a shelf and do a job well, for the whole family or office without all the attendant complexities of computers, like updates or having to tell them what to do. Little Printer is more like a family member or a colleague than a tool. Plus paper is like a screen that never turns off. You can stick to the fridge or tuck it in your wallet. You can scribble on it or tear it and give it to a friend. Announcing Little Printer and BERG Cloud
See the article here:
Little Printer, custom paper news-ticker for your living room
Back in 2008, I bought one of 686’s belt buckles , which has a clever set of snowboard-binding-adjusting tools built into it, including a small flathead and Philips head screwdriver tips on the buckle’s tongues, as well as a socket wrench-head built into the tip-keeper. At the time, I wasn’t sure whether it would survive airport security, but it has — with flying colors. I’ve taken that belt buckle on hundreds of flights, almost all originating in the UK, where I live, through dozens of countries. At one point early on in 2008 or 2009, I even called the consumer advice lines for the TSA and the UK Department for Transport and confirmed that these were allowed. I was even allowed to keep the belt in Hong Kong airport, where they took away my eyeglass screwdriver. A week ago, I flew with the belt from Heathrow Terminal 4 on a Delta flight to NYC. But I’ve just had it confiscated by security staff at Gatwick North Terminal. The guard who confiscated it, Aaron Basset, had this explanation for why the belt buckle was being confiscated here when all the other UK airports I’d flown out of it with had let me keep it: “I stick to what they’ve told me. I’m not going to speak to you anymore. Not if you’re going to publish it. I’m not speaking to you.” At that point, Mr Basset’s supervisor, Pete Sutherland, the security leader for Gatwick North, gave me a copy of Dangerous and restricted items: what you cannot take on board a flight , which lists, under “work tools,” “screwdrivers.” So there you have it, in black and white. Arguably, of course, a miniature screwdriver that’s attached to a belt-buckle isn’t a “work tool” (no builder in a white van shows up at your house to do repairs with his belt buckle). The security staff who took my buckle away to the lost property office (the other options being to throw it out, or buy another suitcase for it and check it in with British Airways) had a variety of explanations for why Gatwick enforces this rule when no one else has, and why the rule makes sense in the first place, but they all boiled down to “I don’t make the rules, I follow them.” One thing all the staff agreed on, though: Allen keys are allowed. Right then, that’s UK aviation security sorted. In three years, I’ve used my belt buckle’s screwdrivers dozens of times — always in some moment of traveller’s extremis, when something really important was really broken. They’ve been figurative lifesavers, and I think if I had them long enough, they’d have been literal ones. Meanwhile, if I wanted to take apart a plane, I’d use a spoon or some other bit of metal. The lady at the store where I bought the replacement belt was sympathetic: “They took my tweezers but they sell them next door in the Boots.” 686 Original Snow Toolbelt - Men’s
If you love Japanese ice-spheres in your booze, but don’t want to spring for a pricey bespoke machine to accomplish the trick, you can always pick up one of Muji’s silicone ice-ball molds, a steal at ?7.50.
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Silicone ice-sphere mold
Work has gotten underway on Plan 28 , a project to create Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, the never-built successor to the Difference Engine. The Analytical Engine was to have been a general purpose computer, and Ada Lovelace designed the first-ever programming language to run on it. Many factors led to its never being completed — the state of the art in precision engineering in Babbage’s day, finance woes, and so forth. John Graham-Cumming, who founded the project, is also the author of The Geek Atlas , a fantastic book. This has required building relationships with a number of bodies. I recently announced that the project had been accepted into the portfolio of projects handled by the Computer Conservation Society. They will provide expert advice as needed. The other vital body to work with is The Science Museum in London. Doron and I have been working with The Science Museum team at many levels to ensure that the project is known about and that we would be able to get access to Babbage’s plans and notebooks to perform the vital academic study of the Analytical Engine as Babbage imagined it. The first step to doing that research was to digitize the entire Babbage archive. Digitization greatly facilitates research as these precious documents can be viewed conveniently from around the world. I am pleased to be able to say that The Science Museum agreed that digitization was vital and undertook this project. The work on digitization started on Monday, September 12 and early in October Doron and I will have access to the digitized versions of Babbage’s plans and notebooks for study. This great first step on Plan 28 is, finally, underway. We are very, very grateful to The Science Museum and all we have worked with there for their support and for having undertaken this vital work that will benefit not only Plan 28 but all those who wish to study Charles Babbage’s work wherever they are. Plan 28: Analytical Engine project gets underway ( Thanks, John ! ) ( Image: AnalyticalMachine_Babbage_London , Wikimedia Commons/Bruno Barral, CC-BY-SA-2.5. )
Apropos this morning’s Guardian column on the ineffectiveness of CCTV as deterrent to crime , here’s Scotland Yard’s study on the use of CCTVs in forensic crime-solving, which concluded that only one crime was solved per 1,000 CCTVs . The UK government spends hundreds of millions of pounds on CCTV — perhaps that money would be better spent on evidence-led crime detection and prevention? ( Thanks, Guy ! )
Go here to read the rest:
CCTVs in the UK: one crime solved per 1,000 cameras
Andrew Ainsworth is a Londoner who designed the original Storm Trooper helmets for George Lucas’s Star Wars . Ainsworth has been casting new armour from his original moulds for the past eight years, selling them to fans at up to 1,800 a throw. Lucas sued Ainsworth in a US court, which held that he had violated Lucas’s copyright; but because Ainsworth has no US assets, Lucas had to bring suit in the UK to collect. However, UK law affords only limited copyright to costumes, and the UK Supreme Court held that costumes are not sculptures, and only get a 15 year term of copyright in the UK, meaning that Storm Trooper armour is now in the public domain in Britain. The court also found that Ainsworth had violated US copyright. Mr Ainsworth sells his Stormtrooper costumes for up to 1,800 A prop designer who made the original Stormtrooper helmets for Star Wars has won his battle with director George Lucas over his right to sell replicas. Andrew Ainsworth, 62, of south London, successfully argued the costumes were functional not artistic works, and so not subject to full copyright laws. George Lucas loses Stormtrooper battle at Supreme Court ( Thanks, @erichhugo ! )
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UK Storm Trooper armourer can go on selling his gear; Brit copyright on Star Wars costumes has lapsed
View Larger Map Band of Brothers , the best WW2 series ever made, was shot primarily at the airfield outside of Hatfield, England . The sets are still standing and are visible on Google Maps. I know where I’m when I’m next in the UK. (Which should be soonish; my pop just moved over there.)
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