Make magazine, Maker Faire and the Maker movement are amazingly cool and a great way for people to learn. It also gets us back to creating real physical stuff rather than just feeding into a bogus service economy.

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Congratulations to Maker Faire and MAKE Magazine founder +Dale Dougherty, named a "Champion of Change" by the White House today!

"You're sort of the anti-Washington, in that you guys just hang out and do great stuff," said U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra in introducing him. Their conversation was streamed live online at http://whitehouse.gov/live.

"Tinkering was once a solid middle class skill," said Dougherty. "It was how you make your life better. Making involves a willingness around risk, he emphasized "Ok, you fail. So get up and do it again."

It's also about what people do because of passion and personal interest. "People are building robots because they want to," he said. "It's an expression of who they are and what they want to do."

Now, MakerFaire is bringing many families together around making. In California, we have about 100,000 people coming to Maker Faire, said Dougherty. "We've got a lot of kids who don't want to sit in a seat & read a textbook. They want to DO stuff. How do we unleash that power?"

From the press release: "The recognition will come at the first part of a day of activities the White House is calling “Make it in America,” which will bring together American leaders helping to create high-quality jobs in the United States.

The White House Champions of Change Initiative profiles Americans from all walks of life helping the country rise to the challenges of the 21st century. These Champions of Change are doing extraordinary things in their communities working to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world. For more: http://www.whitehouse.gov/champions

Mr. Dougherty is being recognized for his work as founder and publisher of MAKE, a do-it-yourself magazine that helps readers make the most of their technology at home and away from home. Mr. Dougherty leads the Maker Media division of O'Reilly Media, Inc. He also developed Maker Faire, a fair that showcases DIY approaches in arts, crafts, science and engineering. Maker Faire showcases the innovation and creativity of its participants.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2011/1101/Maker-Faire-Mad-science-for-the-masses

“Innovation happens everywhere;” Mr. Dougherty said, “not just in universities or corporations. The innovators who come to Maker Faire to share their ideas are living proof of that.”

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Dale Dougherty talking about @makerfaire at today's @whi… on Twitpic
@whitehouseostp. OSTP November 3, 2011. Tweet. Rotate photo View full size. name. twitter username. @reply to tagged user. Hide map and return to photo. Dale Dougherty talking about @makerfaire at tod…

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Who would have that there were this many elements to analyze in this photo?

Reshared post from +Jhakaas NeiL

A practical example of how the human mind works

Analysis of the Below picture can tell us a lot about how different people think.
– For young men, it's a picture of a lady with a nice arse but only the most observant will notice that she is crossing a street.

– The really observant will notice that she is wearing a thong.

– For older men, she appears to be a respectable woman – with a nice arse – on her way to work.

– The perverts among them will imagine her naked.

– Wiser men will ponder the presence of mind of the photographer to take the shot in the face of such beauty and be grateful that they shared it with humanity.

– For half of the women, this is an ordinary woman who should not have left home dressed that way.

– The other half will think she is a slut but wonder where she bought that blouse.

– Older women will imagine the misery that the woman's arse will cause by the time she reaches 50.

– But only children, the extremely intelligent and the celibate will notice that the taxi is being driven by a dog.

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A decade ago when Bill Gates was still in charge of Microsoft, I never thought much of the man. He always came across as overly aggressive and somewhat unpleasant to deal with. To some degree, those are probably necessary traits to be an entrepreneur and build a big successful company. However, in the years since he stepped away from the company to focus on his foundation, he seems to have aged gracefully and has developed into a more sensitive human being that actually cares about the world.

While I still don't get the ill-fated commercials he did with Jerry Seinfeld a few years ago, he did show a self-effacing side that we never saw from Steve Jobs.
Jobs on the other hand continued to lead the creation of cool new products right up until his final days.

On the other hand, based on what I'm reading from the new Walter Isaacson biography, indicates that Jobs remained an asshole throughout his life especially when it comes to his attitude toward competitors like Google and Samsung.

Very different men and it will be fascinating to see how we view the two of them 10, 20, 30 years down the road.

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Bill Gates is a classy guy. I really respect his maturity in responding to SJ. He deserved more respect.

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Gates Dismisses Criticism in Steve Jobs Biography

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A collection of photos I shot some years ago of a squirrel absconding with seeds meant for the birds

In album 2006_12_09 (28 photos)

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If true, this is absolutely outrageous!

Reshared post from +Jason Calacanis

Shocking photos of employee costume party as a law firm that specializes in foreclosures were published in the nytimes (and shared on Boingboing and here on Google+ by a couple of folks like +Wil Wheaton).

Do these folks realize that they are no different than the folks who are losing their homes? I mean, many Americans are only one layoff away from losing their homes. This reminds me of the cops giving Occupy Wall Street protestors a hard time, while their pensions, salaries and benefits are being annihilated due to us not taxing the rich and the greed of wall street (via their pension funds).

We're all in this together…. even the mega rich. If thing continue the way they are folks are not only going to be protesting in front of the homes of the rich–they are going to start burning them down.

This is a serious situation for America. We have to get our act together and I am in full support of the Occupy Protests–even if my protest is trying to create sustainable jobs for Gen-Y folks who in many cases don't want them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/what-the-costumes-reveal.html?_r=4.

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+Phil Nickinson gives the best rebuttal yet of the ridiculous Android fragmentation chart published by +Michael DeGusta the other day.

As flawed the chart is, even Phil missed one of the most egregious errors of the chart is the indication that all generations of the iPhone have been updated to the current software which is absolutely untrue. In fact the first gen iPhone was cut off from updates when iOS 4 was released 16 months ago. The iOS 5 compatibility chart on the Apple website http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html shows that the 3G and the first two generations of the iPod Touch are no longer capable of running iOS5 and as Phil accurately points out, the 3GS and 4 are incapable of running several iOS5 features such as Siri.

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Editorial: Fun with ‘fragmentation’ charts (or, why you shouldn’t be distracted by shiny objects) | Android Central
This is not a good chart Let’s not mince words here: This “Android and iPhone Update History” chart is not a good chart. Oh, it’s a pretty chart, to be sure artfully illustrated and researched.

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Michael Bay could only dream of creating something like this.

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Epic Bollywood action is epic.

/via http://starbug.soup.io/post/185396003/Image

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It's time to start contacting your representatives and demanding that they let the media "buggy-whip" manufacturers fade into history. They simply aren't worth saving at the expense of freedom of speech.

Reshared post from +Mathew Ingram

http://gigaom.com/2011/10/27/looks-like-congress-has-declared-war-on-the-internet/

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Looks like Congress has declared war on the internet
A new copyright bill proposed in the House would give governments and private corporations unprecedented powers to remove websites from the internet completely, on the flimsiest of grounds, and would …

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I feel your pain Ken

Reshared post from +Bob Goyetche

Ken Jennings is the 99%. and awesome

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Ken Jennings – Blog

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