DailyDirt: DIY Fast Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some restaurants guard their recipes as if they were the blueprints for a nuclear bomb. But it's usually not that difficult to reverse-engineer some kind of copycat meal that tastes pretty good, and there are tons of foodies out there with blogs dedicated to replicating all kinds of famous dishes. Here are just some examples of folks giving away the secret recipes for a few fast food favorites.

• A McDonald's chef shows everyone how to make a Big Mac at home and points out that the secret sauce is actually published on the company's website. Here's the big secret for the sauce: Soybean oil, pickle relish [diced pickles, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, vinegar, corn syrup, salt, calcium chloride, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate (preservative), spice extractives, polysorbate 80], distilled vinegar, water, egg yolks, high fructose corn syrup, onion powder, mustard seed, salt, spices, propylene glycol alginate, sodium benzoate (preservative), mustard bran, sugar, garlic powder, vegetable protein (hydrolyzed corn, soy and wheat), caramel color, extractives of paprika, soy lecithin, turmeric (color), calcium disodium EDTA (protect flavor). [url]
• Making a a Taco Bell Chalupa doesn't look so difficult, but it takes a bit more effort than sitting in your car and shouting your order at a big menu sign. Now if someone wants to figure out a home-made Dorito big enough to be a taco shell... [url]
• Some customers don't like Chick-Fil-A's political leanings when it comes to gay marriage, but they still want some tasty sandwiches. The Chick-Fil-Gay is just one solution to that problem. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: big mac, chalupa, diy, fast food, food, recipes, secret sauce
Companies: chick-fil-a, mcdonalds, taco bell

DailyDirt: DIY Space Satellites

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It's getting easier and easier to send stuff into low earth orbit, and more folks seem to be interested in doing it. So not surprisingly, there is a growing number of projects that offer to perform amateur experiments on small satellites. For students, the opportunity to send up experiments into space has been around for at least a couple years (via the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program), but now almost anyone can participate in a space experiment. Here are just a few examples.

• SkyCube is a satellite project on Kickstarter with $1 sponsoring 10 seconds of the mission. For just $6, you can broadcast six 120-character messages from space! [url]
• Whatever you can fit inside a ping pong ball can be sent up to the edge of space (100,000 feet) -- and anyone can make a PongSat. Presumably, though, they won't let you fill your ping pong ball with a combustible propellant and an altimeter trigger.... [url]
• The ArduSat Mission has completed its Kickstarter campaign and put up a list of experiment ideas that could be run on its Arduino-based satellite. Some of the suggestions for experiments/apps aren't too exciting, but there's also a prize of $1,500 for the most innovative experiment or app for the ArduSat -- so someone is bound to come up with a few more ideas. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: arduino, ardusat, diy, low earth orbit, pongsat, satellites, skycube, space
Companies: kickstarter

Metal Band Chimaira's Frontman Talks DIY Versus 'Label Hell'

from the outspoken-critic dept

The Metalluminati blog has a great interview with Mark Hunter, frontman of the metal band Chimaira. Hunter is apparently a known critic of record labels, but he has a thoughtful and measured view, and in this interview he discusses the pros and cons of the DIY approach for bands:

Example: For us, leaving Roadrunner in 2006 was necessary for the band to continue. We didn’t feel part of a team, so I simply asked our A&R Monte Conner to let us go. The pro was we got our freedom; the con was our career in the UK suffered drastically. While we paired up with good company after, Nuclear Blast had less of a presence in the country and our sales (both, album sales and live tickets) dwindled in the UK while they went up in the rest of the world.

I can’t recommend what’s right or wrong, I can only guarantee there will be unforeseen consequences to any path you take. Some labels might have a market cornered — like heavy metal in the UK — so you actually might be better suited to stay in that “hell.”

He also addresses the question of piracy and free distribution in general, and the beginning of his comment is very reminiscent of rapper/producer El-P's comments in his recent guest post, which is interesting since the specific question he was answering was about how hip-hop has been faster to embrace these things than metal:

Personally speaking, spending energy yelling at fans of music for their method of intake would be trite, not to mention hypocritical.  Chimaira got popular thanks to Napster, Limewire, and various other file-sharing platforms.  We embraced YouTube in the beginning, and were one of the first metal bands to make webisodes.

The full interview is a good read and includes links to some other great comments from Mark Hunter, who is clearly a guy with a lot of smart stuff to say about the music industry.

Filed Under: chimaira, diy, label hell, mark hunter

UK Community Gives Up Waiting For High Speed Broadband: Digs Its Own Fiber Trenches

from the nicely-done dept

Providers of high speed broadband love to talk about how they're providing private networks that shouldn't be regulated at all, but they tend to ignore the fact that they usually rely on government subsidies in the form of rights of way -- the legal ability to dig the trenches (or string cables on poles) to run the key infrastructure. Now, of course, we've heard of various muni-broadband projects, but one community in the UK apparently got so fed up with waiting for a big broadband provider to bring service to their village that they not only started setting up their own system, but they literally got dozens of residents to help them start digging the 51 mile-long trench where the fiber optic cable that connects them to the wider internet will lie. Talk about taking matters into your own hands...

Filed Under: broadband, community, diy, fiber

DailyDirt: Defend Yourself! (Or Give Peace A Chance...)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War is over)" song used to be routinely played on the radio towards the end of the year, but it seems that folks either "like" or "really hate" holiday songs (and that Baby Boomers are still in control of popular holiday music). In any case, if you received a shiny new "Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle" last weekend, here are some other advanced weapons that you might shoot your eye out with.

• Automated attack drones might sound like science fiction, but lethal autonomy is becoming more practical as technology provide better sensors and recognition software. Landmines already kill indiscriminately, so "smarter landmines" are better, right? [url]
• Build your own laser pistol at home, you scruffy-looking nerf-herder! Remember: Do not look at laser with remaining eye. [url]
• If you think Tasers are effective non-lethal weapons for police officers, then check out Photonic Security Systems' SMU 100 laser rifle which is designed to (temporarily) blind people from up to 500m away. Just watch out for rioters carrying around big mirrors.... [url]
• To discover more interesting tech-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: autonomous, diy, drones, lasers, non-lethal weapons
Companies: photonic security systems

DailyDirt: Give Me Liberty... Or Give Me Robot Armies?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The robot apocalypse, depending on whom you believe, is steadily approaching. Robots are already fighting in battles all over the world, so maybe it's not such a crazy idea that they'd stop taking our direct orders someday. Here are some interesting examples of fighting machines that could be looking for John Connor in the near future (or alternate past).

• Libyans have started to create a DIY robot army from spare parts and recovered munitions. Just watch out for the whiny slave-boy without a dad building a protocol droid... [url]
• Microaviary drones are built to mimic the flight characteristics of moths, hummingbirds, hawks and other flying animals. These aren't the drones you're looking for. Move along. [url]
• Some soldiers are already giving out purple hearts to robots... But perhaps a purple power adapter would be a better analogy? [url]
• Giving robots a personality could be a good idea. As long as that personality is more of a Johnny5 ("Need more input!") and less of a Terminator ("Fuck you, asshole"). [url]
• To discover more interesting robotics-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: diy, droids, drones, microaviary bots, robots

Murakami Releases His Own eBook Without His Publisher

from the do-it-yourself dept

With the increased adoption of the iPad and the Kindle, eBooks are finally becoming a viable alternative to traditional paper-based books. And with this shift, comes an opportunity that some publishers may not like -- it is now easier than ever for authors to self-publish their works. Popular Japanese author Ryu Murakami announced that he will be self-publishing his next novel directly to the iPad, sidestepping his publisher in favor of working directly with a software publishing company on this eBook. Murakami's eBook, "The Singing Whale," will include video content and music by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto that will hopefully leverage some of the strengths of the new platform. By self-publishing, Murakami has the chance to make more money from this book than he has with his previous deals. That said, he's also assuming the risk that it loses money; in order to break even, Murakami needs to sell 5,000 copies of the digital book, which is priced at around $17. To be fair, $17 seems a little high for an eBook, but Murakami's eBook attempts to justify the cost by incorporating video and music, elements not typically found in the run-of-the-mill eBook. But, even if this experiment doesn't succeed, Murakami will probably be just fine -- his publisher, Kodansha, reports that they are in talks with the author about publishing "The Singing Whale" as a traditional book. Since Murakami clearly has other options at this point, undoubtedly those negotiations will play out more favorably for the author. We've seen a few interesting new models arise for book publishing in the recent past, so hopefully this is a sign that we will start to see even more.

Filed Under: books, diy, ebooks, ryu murakami, self-publishing

Even In A Digital Age People Like To Build Stuff -- Like Real, Physical, Stuff

from the tinker-away dept

Over the past few years, there's been a bit of a renaissance of the "DIY" culture towards building all sorts of "stuff." It's sometimes unfortunate when so much focus in the tech world is just on the latest in what's happening online, in that it ignores all sorts of other interesting things going on. The NY Times is noting a return to having even software and internet developers practice building physical things as well, in part just to get them to start thinking outside the (computer) box when thinking about how to design digital things. Think of it as cross-training for the digital developers mind.

Filed Under: design, diy, tangible, technology