Web behaviors I’d like to see go away

Unboxing Sliders

I may be unleashing my inner Andy Rooney, but there are some Web behaviors that seem to have gone on too long. Here is my short list.

Unboxing Videos

By the time you get the boxed product home, I already know what it looks like, what it does, and how it works. I don’t need halting narration to tell me what I can see. If you really want me to watch, promise me that you will give me tips at the end on how to get rid of all the packing material.

Machine-gun tweeting

machine gun tweets

For example, tweeting constantly about the conference you are attending. I don’t care that “Joe Schlebotnik says all devices will be ‘massively media aware’ before the end of the decade. #expocon2010″

Cut-and-paste Facebook memes

Requests/demands to paste to my Facebook status. 90% of you won’t agree with this, but I’m counting on my friends to be among the 10% that do.

Twitter #alternatemovietitles hash tags

The first few were funny, but now that we’re down to #porn4aliens. . .

Mystery links in Twitter

Posting shortenened URLs with no context. Do you really think I’m going to click on the link in this tweet? “WTF? Check this out. bit.ch/dErpD3RP“

My internal conflict regarding “The Social Network.”

I haven’t seen “The Social Network” , but, I plan to, despite negative assessments of its historical accuracy. Reviews of the movie seem to fall into one of two camps. Either it’s portrayed as a great story or as an inaccurate character assassination. I presume it’s possible to be both.

The conflict stems from an old problem. Fiction takes liberty with the truth. If you’ve learned history from Shakespeare, for example, then much of what you believe may be wrong, distorted, or complete literary invention. Do I dismiss Macbeth, because it wrongly accuses Macbeth for murdering the King of Scotland in his sleep? Moving forward to more recently penned stories, do I shun the film Amadeus because there is little factual basis for the rivalry between Salieri and Mozart?

I don’t, and so, I’m left to wonder, how do I make the distinction between unfair distortion and literary license. Is there one? Does it matter?

I think it matters if a film is presented as as a documentary. In such a case, I think that is an imperative to disclose the sources of material, to check facts, and to present multiple points of view.

The problem that I see, is the tendency of people to learn history from the movies, to take cinematic presentations at face value. Unfortunately, that problem is not likely to go away, and so, one could argue that even fictional portrayals should conform to at least minimal standards of accuracy. Another argument is that fictional portrayals of living people should adhere to a higher standard.

The history of film is a sordid one. Films like “Birth of a Nation,” or “Triumph of the Will” challenge our ability to praise the art while ignoring the frightening messages behind them. For those unfamiliar with these films, the first is one that casts the Ku Klux Klan as heroes; the second, a propaganda film from which many iconic images of Hitler and Nazi Germany have been taken. Both are considered to be cinematic masterpieces.

In such a context, I am willing to try to give “The Social Network” a fair viewing before dismissing it for reasons of inaccuracy.

Office vibration sensor.

The object was to create a sensor from common office objects. My first idea was to make a vibration sensor (great for detecting bosses with heavy footsteps or passing light rail trains). Here are some items that should be easy to find in any office.

basic materials

In just a few minutes, I came up with this. Not pretty, but effective.

finished product

Best if used on something that wobbles at the slightest movement. That rickety shelving unit, perhaps?

Live from Gnomedex

The Moose is in Seattle now, recruiting sources for the Public Insight Network.

Live Videos by Ustream

Arriving in Seattle

Just getting into Seattle for the Gnomedex conference.  Should have just enough time to check in and head over the registration party. More later.

Just noticed I’m wearing my Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge t-shirt. Really, I didn’t plan it that way.

Old RC toy made into a garage alarm

My wife wants some sort of indicator to show when the garage door is open. The garage is visible through the back window, but sight lines make it difficult to determine. Also, when the shades are drawn, there is no visiblity. I considered X10 modules at first, but that just seemed like overkill when all I really wanted was a small led to illuminate.

Then, I remembered an old RC toy car my son had. The controller unit was simple, with just one button. Pushing the button made the car go forward. Releasing it made it go backwards while turning. On the receiver (car) side, the controller signal caused a voltage to toggle between -1.5 volts and +1.5 volts. With a little testing, I found a point that toggled between 0 and +3 Volts. This was just enough to provide drive an LED. A magnetic reed switch from Axman Surplus worked perfectly for the door sensor. This switch is in the off mode when the magnet and reed unit are near each other (door closed). When the door opens, the magnet will be pulled away and complete the circuit. The transmitter and switch are hooked up to a PIC16F684 chip. The reed switch is connected to pin 4, which is configured as a digital input. When the reed switch is open (door closed), the signal on pin 2 goes high. This turns on an NPN2222 transistor, which in turn causes the transmitter to send a signal. The receiving unit goes to +3 volts on the output when there is no signal, and drops to 0 volts when there is a signal. In other words, when the door is down, the LED indicator is off. This may seem overly complicated, but it has one advantage. If the garage-side (transmitting) unit fails, the light will come on. Although this may be a false positive for the door being up, it indicates that something is wrong on the transmitting side (power failure, loose wire?).

Circuitry from RC car repurposed as a garage door alarm

Side glow cable with LEDs

Many projects require illumination.  An LED is often a good choice because it can be bright while using a minimum of current.  An ultra bright LED can even drive enough light through short lengths of side glow fiber optic cable.  This cable is flexible plastic cable with a reflective core to direct light to the side, as opposed to simply transmitting the light to the end of the cable.  While it is designed to be used with bright halogen bulbs that push light through hundreds of feet of cable, I was interested to see how well an LED could work with just a few feet of cable.

My wife and I are interested in making safety clothing for night bicycle riding and thought this might be useful. We ordered a five foot section of 3mm wide cable from here. Once I had the cable in hand, I attached a bright red LED to each end with shrink tubing.

End connections

A quick test shows that two LEDs provides a fairly even glow along the entire length of the tube. Each LED was rated to deliver 18,000 millicandelas of light.

Two LEDs powered up

This looks like it could be used on a bicycle helmet to provide a flashing illumination. More to come as we experiment.