David Lidsky's Blog, page 4627

iPad Hacker Response Blasts AT&T, Says Security Flaws Remain

AT&T emailed its customer base over the weekend to apologize for last week's embarrassing iPad hack. They described the hackers, Goatse, as "malicious," and Goatse has just responded angrily.

AT&T's letter starts as bland and smooth as any corporate blather possibly could be: "Dear Valued AT&T Customer, Recently there was an issue that affected some of our customers with AT&T 3G service for iPad resulting in the release of their customer email addresses. I am writing to let you know no other...

Big Ideas Stuffed Into Small Buildings at the Victoria & Albert

From a Mumbai hovel to a Rural Studio woodshed, it's real, live architecture at the V&A.

Architecture
is a tricky thing to convey in museums, because it's usually resigned to photos,
blueprints, and weird little models. Which can be about as
interesting as watching paint dry. So London's Victoria & Albert asked architects to throw up
structures in the museum itself. The result: 1:1 - Architects Build Small Spaces
displays seven real, live mini-buildings that, as the press materials
tell us...

Work Smart: Take Back Your Calendar With Defensive Scheduling

When it comes to productivity tools, next to your to-do list, your calendar is your best friend. You already use it to track meetings, appointments, and events with other people, but you should also organize and schedule your own work.

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Ever wind up with a full day of meetings and barely a minute to breathe or get any actual work done in between? If your workdays are scheduled out with wall-to-wall commitments more often than you'd like, start making appointments...

World Cup: How Are You Watching?

This week, blogger Michael Surtees showed off his World Cup rig--that is to say, the gear that he's watching the matches on. When we saw the picture, it got us thinking. What kind of set-up are you using to get your football fixes? Given that many people around the world will be using their mobile devices to access the games, it's fair to say that the TV won't be the only screen in use--a fan needs a steady diet of news, social media, and statistics, after all.

So we're teaming up with

How Retro Can High Design Get? Think Wooly Mammoths and Fred Flintstone

Computers might be taking over the world, but all anyone seems to want to design nowadays is stuff that would look right at home in Bedrock. Primitivism has returned, from stone shelves and rabbit sculptures to punching bags shaped like beef carcasses.

Get Your Submissions in for Our Father's Day Contest!

The deadline is 24 hours away--but already, we've been amazed at the quality of your entries.

Last week, we announced our Father's Day contest, a storytelling competition. We asked you to provide a song that always reminds you of your father, and why--with the best story, as selected by us, winning a pair of Ceramic Speakers by Joey Roth.

Your responses have been nothing short of tremendous, and a pleasure to read--a mixture of comedy and memory and sentiment that we're honored to host on our...

Winning Soccer Robots Play More Like Humans

Forget the anguished cries of pain after gentle collisions or even fumble-fingered goalie foul-ups that typify human football. Robot soccer usually dispenses with sloppy play and drama, favoring precision instead. But thanks to Carnegie Mellon, these new little 'bots even play like humans do, too.

But Carnegie Mellon University hopes their 'bots, infused with human qualities, will have an advantage at the RoboCup 2010, beginning in Singapore on June 19th. Usually, computer-controlled bots are...

Afghanistan's Potential Billions in Lithium: Why It's Important

This weekend rare and fabulous news came from Afghanistan that trillion-dollar mineral deposits have been discovered. Chief among the riches is lithium, an element central to the most popular type of rechargable batteries used today. But what exactly is lithium and how do the batteries work?

Lithium the element

Lithium, properly discovered in 1817, is a an alkali metal in the same family as sodium and it's actually a soft metal under normal conditions--you can cut it with a knife. It's also...

Big Ideas Stuffed into Small Buildings at the Victoria & Albert

From a Mumbai hovel to a Rural Studio woodshed, it's real, live architecture at the V&A.

Architecture
is a tricky thing to convey in museums, because it's usually resigned to photos,
blueprints, and weird little models. Which can be about as
interesting as watching paint dry. So London's Victoria & Albert asked architects to throw up
structures in the museum itself. The result: 1:1 - Architects Build Small Space
displays seven real, live mini-buildings that, as the press materials
tell us...

Infographic of the Day: The Physics of Oil Spills

How the ocean absorbs and spreads the oil streaming into it.

The oil streaming into the gulf isn't just pouring from the ocean floor and causing havoc--along the way, it's triggering myriad chemical interactions.

You hear some of these interactions mentioned in news reports--things such bio-degradation and oxidation. But they've never been explained as elegantly as in these infographics by MSNBC.

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The design, obviously, is a bit perfunctory. But the content is superb, seeking to answer what...