This first vid is from BotJunkie. Apparently those guys and gals at NASA not only build nimble robots but edit one slick video.

This second vid is old (from 2007) but it shows the kind of silliness it’s impossible to avoid when the means are right at your fingertips.

* Why haven’t I posted? I took a summer class (French) that was a semester’s work in six weeks, started a new novel and went on vacation. Also, I’ve been working on some tech projects with my nephew via Skype (more on that in a future post).

Bend over, come closer… is there a cool breeze whistling down your butt crack? Is the world jingling its pockets for change to stick in your coin slot? Then I have the Instructable for you: the coin slot detector.

Multimedia artist Amy Khoshbin has combined a Lilypad Arduino, vibrating motor and photoresistor to solve the (hopefully not sticky) problem of plumbercrackitis. The photoresistor measures the amount of light beaming down your foul line. If there’s light, we’ve got visual contact and the vibrating motor is triggered. Time to pull it up, baby!

Unnecessary you say? Just plain silly? The waste of a perfectly good microcontroller which ought better expend its cleverness to flash a cheerful sorority of bright whites?

Oh, I beg to disagree, my friends, lest you find a photo of your broad smile Flickring for all to see.

Sunday’s NYTimes included a great article, “Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley,” analyzing the reasons barriers still exist for women in the field of technology. Here are a few stats:

• women create only 8 percent of venture-backed tech start-ups
• they account for just 6 percent of chief executives in the top 100 tech companies
• women account for just 22 percent (less than a quarter!) of software engineers at tech companies

These numbers are discouraging and surprised me. I personally know quite a few women who work as programmers and engineers, but that’s probably because I’m in the field myself. I should have realized, as the article states, that even though women now “outnumber men at elite colleges, law schools, medical schools and in the overall work force,” they’re still woefully underrepresented in engineering and computer science programs — the pipelines to careers in tech.

Which called to mind the low percentage of women in politics. Interestingly, the field of politics also has a “pipeline” problem according to “The Primary Reason for Women’s Under-Representation? Reevaluating the Conventional Wisdom.” The pipeline in this case is a person’s professional background — law, business — where women comprise fewer workers than men, even though the numbers are fairly equal for obtaining university degrees in these subjects.

In both cases, one of the deterrents is the desire to focus on family. A career in tech, as in politics, is seen as, and often can be, many hours over the traditional forty per week and so all-consuming that it’s hard to focus on anything else. It’s the work/life-balance chestnut we’ll be roasting for decades to come.

The bigger issue for me is the question of self-confidence. The NYTimes article states, “Many analysts and entrepreneurs say that attitude ['I have to know everything before I start; I have to have it all figured out'] — rooted in a lack of confidence — is the main reason that when women do pursue start-ups, they often do it later in life than men.”

I bristled when I read this. Why is wanting to be well prepared tantamount to a lack of confidence? And yet the more I rolled the idea around my noggin, the more I wondered if it’s true — partly true, anyway. When I started doing web development in the mid-90s, I jumped right in because it was a spanking-new field and the name of the game was figuring out how to do something with nothing. But when I started programming, I went back to school and took classes because I was nervous and wanted to be prepared — the field was well established and I wanted to shine.

Was I suffering from a lack of confidence?

Here’s another interesting factoid from the NYTimes article: “in a study of 493 undergraduate engineering majors’ intentions to continue with their major, men tended to stick with their studies as long as they completed the coursework, while women did so only if they earned high grades.”

Are we women trying too hard? Should we take a deep breath and just jump in? On the other hand, more than one of my former male bosses has told me that he prefers to work with women because they’re more detail-oriented and responsible.

Maybe we women are just living up to expectations. Good little workers, loving moms, hot-to-trot sexpots with perfectly shaved legs and bikini lines. It’s not too much to ask, is it?

This weekend I read an interesting article about the iPad’s impact on eBook piracy. What?! The thing’s only been available for a week — how could it have had an effect on anything already? Read on, grasshopper.

In “eBook Piracy ‘Surges’ After iPad Launch,” the founder of TorrentFreak found that “unauthorized” eBook downloads of the top 10 paperback books in the business category increased by 78% on BitTorrent after the iPad launch. I have to say I was surprised. Not only that downloads jumped in such a dramatic fashion, but that business books are so popular.

Then I discovered in reading a study by Attributor that the most pirated eBooks — nothing to do with the iPad — fall into the category of business and investing . I’m not sure whether I find this amusing or ironic, since this is the category of reader most likely to be informed about the consequences of lost revenue. Apparently there is no Venn diagram of knowledge and ethics in the category of business and investing.

Oh well. I have to admit I thought a 78% jump in illegal downloads was extraordinary. If I were a business writer or publisher, I’d be — pardon the pun — seeing red.

Then I continued reading the article and my fears were slightly assuaged by the fact that “the absolute download numbers [of eBooks] are relatively small compared to those of music and films.”

Okay, but the purchase of books is probably just as small when you run the same comparison. Also, many books and eBooks are simply unavailable for download. So once they are available, will we see the same rates of piracy as we do with music and movies?

Maybe, maybe not.

As the TorrentFreak reminds us, “when the iPod was launched there were no digital download stores, making file-sharing networks the only option to get music easily.” So if it’s easy and relatively cheap, people will buy instead of steal, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

No, this is not yet another review of the vaunted iPad. Yes, I did swing by the local Apple store on Saturday to check it out: it looked/worked like my iPod Touch ballooned a few times larger, with lots more fingerprints. Enough said. (If you want an iPad review, you can read a ridiculous number of iPad stories from Wired.com or just go and play with an iPad yourself.)

What you may not have heard due to all the Apple mania, is that the JooJoo tablet also came out this past weekend. Originally dubbed the CrunchPad, it’s had a tortuous journey to market and looks a little like the iPad’s ugly stepsister (see also Engadget’s unboxing video).

Soon there will be more and more tablets to choose from, just as there are now a plenitude of netbooks on the market. So the question is: Which is the future — tablet or netbook? Or neither?

Both tablets and netbooks are taking two user issues into consideration: size and functionality. Ideally, we users would like all the functionality of our desktop or laptop computers in a smaller (more portable) form factor. Or, we want at least the functionality of our smart phones in a larger form factor. The netbook partially solves the first issue and the tablet partially solves the second. There’s also the creator vs. consumer issue. The netbook makes it easier to be a creator with a built-in keyboard and access to productivity software. The tablet makes it easier to be a consumer with a simple touch interface and ready access to entertainment and social networking.

Of the two, the tablet has captured the imagination in a more concrete way. According to Wired, the tablet “will change the world.” (A mini-entertainment center is a lot more fun than a mini-workhorse.)

But in fact we kind of want it all, don’t we? We want small size (phone size) and high functionality (desktop functionality). We want to be able to create at times and consume at times. But how many devices do we want to purchase and carry around and have to sync? Instead of more devices, what about one small device and many surfaces?

This is where something like Skinput comes in. It projects an graphical user interface (GUI) on your arm, then reads the vibration when you tap your arm. The example they show in the video of controlling another device strapped to your arm is where you can see its utility. It wouldn’t work for typing, for example, because you’d be one-handed. But imagine being able to project a GUI or a keyboard wherever you want — like the Virtual Laser Keyboard (VKB), only smaller, more accurate, more graphically extensible.

Now imagine a tiny device in your pocket that transmits to a tiny projector that you can use for input and output, or to a “screening” surface that you can fold up and stick in your pocket. Now that’s the future. The tablet is merely the right now.

How could it be possible to scan an entire book in one minute? By flipping the pages, of course. Researchers Takashi Nakashima and Yoshihiro Watanabe at the University of Tokyo have developed a superfast scanner that lets you digitize a book by rapidly flipping pages.

Their system uses a camera with an incredibly fast shutter (500 frames per second) to take pictures of the text and/or images as the pages are flipped. Except, you might interject, what about the fact that the pages are curved as they’re being photographed (we’re flipping the pages, right?). You’re right! Because the pages are curved, the letters in the text and any images will be distorted in the pictures taken. They would be useless if the clever researchers hadn’t solved this problem by shining a laser on each page that projects a set of lines, which are also photographed. Their software then uses the lines to flatten each image.

(FYI, for those of you who don’t know, converting an image of text [not readable by a Kindle or Nook, for example] into a PDF [a format recognized by text readers] is already quite easy and accessible to all by using OCR software.)

The next step the researchers plan to take is miniaturizing the process for integration into smart phones. “One day,” according to Erico Guizzo, “you might be able to flip the pages of a book in front of your iPhone and get a digitized version in seconds.”

Holy crap! When the news story about the superfast scanner came out on March 17th, I imagine thousands of publishers took this epithet literally as they dropped to their knees to pray it ain’t so.

On the other hand, let’s look at the process for a minute and not just the product. The device is predicated on the existence of a hard copy book, not a digital book. And it’s predicated on the idea that you want to read this hard copy book in digital form. One scenario would be that don’t want to buy the digital form. So you go into a bookstore, pick up a book and scan it — essentially stealing it. Makes the whole idea of getting a digital copy for free hit home, doesn’t it? It really is stealing.

The truth is that it’s not going to get harder to convert books to digital form or to share them in digital form. It’s only going to get easier. So the only thing that will stop the theft of intellectual property is the knowledge, the true sense, that it is theft if you don’t compensate an artist for his or her work. I’m not being all high and mighty here; I’m as guilty as the next person of having downloaded one or two things for free. So I’m saying this to myself as well as everyone else. Not compensating artists is simply not right.

But there is yet another side to this issue: What if you want to digitize the books you have paid for? The ones sitting upon shelf after shelf at home? Daniel Reetz, founder and steward of the DIY Book Scanner community, built his own book scanner for about $300 because he wants his books with him everywhere. (I can relate to this; when I travel, I always overpack books.)

If you’d like to build your own book scanner, his instructions are available at “DIY High-Speed Book Scanner from Trash and Cheap Cameras” or DIYBOOKSCANNER.ORG. (Yet another project to add to my list.) Of course, scanning a book with this DIY device will take a lot longer than a minute, but that just gives you time to fondle your book. Oops, should I not have divulged that?

The title says it all this week (see the video). But there’s more behind these handy intrux if you’re a budding filmmaker.

First off, last week was SXSW, a major networking event for the music industry but more interestingly, from my point of view, it’s also now an “interactive” festival geared toward web developers, bloggers, new media entrepreneurs and more. (See my Twitter feed for a couple of nice links to wrap-ups.)

At the same time, I was looking around this week for a GoC topic and found Howcast, a website that’s like Instructables in that it provides how-to’s (such as the one above), and different in that it’s the #1 global mobile platform for instructional video and develops filmmakers by having them create said videos.

My favorite topic area is Technology, of course, but there’s a wide selection ranging from How to Not Suck at Socializing to Baby Sign Language to Finding a Green Hotel.

Interestingly, about a month ago Howcast announced that it was expanding its Emerging Filmmakers Program (EFP), “offering filmmakers a tiered program that will allow them to get more involved with more challenging — and rewarding — video-making.” EFP provides their filmmakers with a fully researched script, professional voice-overs and embedded graphics, then gives them feedback on every upload thus allowing them to refine their skills. Pretty cool for those of you out there who are looking not only to improve your work but to get more eyeballs on it.

How does this all connect?

Well, if you’re an emerging filmmaker, you can get tips on how to attend SXSW from Heather Menicucci of Howcast. Meanwhile, you can work on your skills by making videos for Howcast (you have a year, after all, until the next SXSW). Then you can connect your laptop to your TV to look at your work and show it to others. Beautiful!

Or, you can simply hook up your laptop and watch a few videos on Hulu. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. In my opinion, the factory (the filmmaker) did a good job. What do you think?

I’m lucky enough to have a husband who plays guitar and writes songs occasionally, one of which I have appropriated as my theme song. But that’s my personal theme song. What about 2literal.com — my public face?

This week I heard about Codeorgan on GeekBrief.TV (#720). Codeorgan is a free service that translates the code behind your website into music.

It looks at the content in between your homepage’s “body” tags, scraps any characters not found in the musical scale (A to G), then looks at these characters to determine which is the most commonly used “note.” If there are an even number of these notes, then the song will be in a major pentatonic scale; if it’s an odd number then the song will be in a minor scale.

It also defines a synthesizer to use based on the total number of characters used on the webpage, and a drum loop based on the ratio of that total to the number of characters that are musical notes.

The upshot is a pretty decent song. Listen to 2literal.com (it takes a few seconds to process). Not bad, right? Now I need a motto.

Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” According to Helen Keller, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” A dramatic sentiment for a dramatic life. But I think I like designer Phillip Lim’s motto — “Some days peanuts; some days shell.” Today I give you peanuts.

My birthday was this weekend, which happened to coincide with Vermont’s tax-free holiday, so I did something I’ve never done before: I bought myself a birthday present — the brand-new Fuji FinePix HS10.

In fact, the Fuji HS10 is so new, it’s not even in stores yet. So I did several things I’ve never done before: I bought a product sight-unseen, I bought a product I hadn’t researched on the web first, and I bought a Fuji instead of a Canon, which has been my camera of choice for 20+ years.

What possessed me? Was I in a crazy birthday haze, my faculties soaked with purply serotonin short-circuiting the über-cautious consumerism that is my trademark?

I can’t deny I was in a good mood, but the fact is I’ve been researching Canons for the past six months. Before the advent of digital photography, I used to shoot with a 35mm Canon so I was looking to finally buy an SLR. I’ve been limping along with a Powershot for years and it was time to pony up the cash for a camera with more manual control and better output overall.

So then how the heck did I end up with a camera that’s not only not a Canon and but also not technically an SLR? Because of the video, of course.

After the TEI conference where I was switching madly between photo cam and video cam — and ultimately not shooting enough with either one — I decided that my camera wish list needed to include video, and not just any video but HD. If I was going to spend $500 on a camera, I wanted it all.

So on my birthday/VT tax-free day, I went to an excellent local store, LeZot Camera (crappy-looking website but great store). I told the guy I wanted to see a Canon SLR and that the icing on the cake would be that it shot HD video. Well, the Canon that does all this — the Rebel T1i — is a couple hundred dollars out of my price range at about $750. I was hoping that maybe I’d missed something in my intrepid yet uninformed research, but unfortunately I hadn’t: the Canon landscape looked exactly as I’d seen online.

Oh well, I told myself, I’ll wait a couple more years until the price comes down. I must have looked disappointed or, more likely, absolutely unwilling to buy the T1i when the LeZoti told me about the Fuji HS10 — he’d just seen it in a tradeshow and not only did it include all the shooting features I wanted, plus the HD video, but it also had a manual 30x optical zoom.

If your jaw isn’t on the ground at this last spec, don’t feel bad. Mine wasn’t either but it should have been. Until now, this level/type of zoom has been found only in detachable lenses; Fuji’s fixed lens twists like one of these to give you the control without the bulk. Which was another of my requirements: I wanted the smallest, lightest camera with the most functionality.

Of course I won’t know for certain how fantastic the Fuji is until I have the camera in my hands, shoot some pics and video, then download it all to my computer. Two weeks until the unboxing. Can’t wait!

Sometimes the concept is driven home to me: a great idea is not enough.

I couldn’t help but consider this as I was reading the March issue of Inc. magazine’s “Cool College Start-ups 2010” — how many of these startups will still be in business a year from now? Two years? In last year’s roundup, the story of Michael Dell (founder of Dell Computers) was used as an example of a successful college entrepreneur. But there aren’t too many Michael Dells out there; in fact many of the 2009 college start-upers have already changed course. Does it matter?

I often highlight innovation on this blog because the output of creative minds is so exciting. And the commercialization of such innovation isn’t really the point, is it? If you don’t care whether or not your clever idea pays the bills, then you can simply post it on Instructables and move on to the next.

For example, my current favorite project at Instructables is the solar-powered trike. I can easily picture myself riding up and down the hills of Burlington on this electric trike (maybe I would make it a bike).

I’m assuming the creator (a student) is not planning to commercialize this particular build because he or she has posted it on the web. But a version of this idea could certainly dig a foothold into the marketplace. No special license or gas required for a stable, albeit slow-moving, vehicle. Sounds good to me.

But does the creator have the desire to be working on this one idea for the next five years, ten years? Does he or she have that single-mindedness of purpose?

Successful entrepreneurs are like researchers in this respect: they are happy to hammer away at the same problem, day after day, year after year. This may sound dull, but remember that this idea is certainly multifaceted and holds the promise of great reward: money and status for the entrepreneur; status and money for the researcher.

Yet you might have a great idea, single-mindedness of purpose, a healthy dollop of business savvy and still not wind up with a company like Facebook (which is still trying to monetize, by the way). Oh that’s right, we forgot about timing and luck, often one and the same.

If you tried to get your idea off the ground right before the recession, you might have run through all your capital and come out the other side battered and broke. Or maybe your idea is ahead of the marketplace. I owned a Compaq laptop in the late 1990s that worked like a tablet — not a hit at the time.

It’s pretty daunting, isn’t it. Hopeless almost. And yet…

What drives a creator to create is the process of the making itself, the ineffable thrill of sitting back and knowing you’ve made something unique. So in the end, maybe a great idea is enough. It just might not pay the rent.