a gthing science project

Posted by sam at April 19th, 2006

I was about to submit one of the stories I wrote on DIY happy to digg.com and I noticed a duplicate submission.  I thought - “Oh cool, someone has already submitted my story!”  But upon closer inspection I found that they had actually copied my text, word for word, and posted it on their site as their own.

Furious, I started looking at what I could do.  I contacted their host (blogger) and told them about it, sending along a screenshot to prove it, I also contacted google’s abuse team (who actually own blogger) to dispute his pagerank and maybe get him removed from the google index, and I wrote him a note that he should not be plagiarising my work.

I also learned the “plagiarism” is a weird word to spell, but I think i got it down.

The first thing is he copied my text, which is bad enough - but I would not have gone to the lengths I did if he had not also submitted his site to Digg (a popular tech-news site).  Ripping off my work is one thing, but then trying to get credit and recognition for it is quite another.

Here is a screenshot from his website (click for larger):

And here is the story on DIY happy (which is pretty cool):

Real Time 3D Flight Tracking with Google Earth.

You can see he not only stole the title, but he stole the entire last paragraph and the links and link text.

This sort of thing seems to happen all the time - it’s way cool to copy someone else’s stuff if you put quotes in it and link to your source - it’s the way your site gets promoted.  But to steal the text without a mention of your source is way crappy.  Plagiarism is enough to get students kicked out of school, and it’s enough to making me flaming pissed off.

Nothing has happened yet.  His story is still up - even with my comment on it calling it plagiarism and linking to the source.  We’ll see what happens tomorrow morning though.

The whole thing reminded me of a web service where you can search for plagiarism of your content.  It’s called Copyscape, and guess who is the only result for the website www.diyhappy.com?

Posted by sam at April 16th, 2006

I got a new macbook yesterday - traded in the old one.  It doesn’t have any of the problems I mentioned a few posts ago, and it also doesn’t have any dents in it from being dropped (yet?).  I will be more careful with this, my second chance at life.

I’m going to my aunt’s for Easter.

Posted by sam at April 14th, 2006

Our projects that we will be presenting at the Make Faire in San Mateo next week are now listed on Makezine.com.  Check it:
http://makezine.com/faire/makers/

We have the infrared stuff, the ECG, retro handsets, etc.

Posted by sam at April 13th, 2006

Sam now weighs in at under 200 lbs.  And I did it all without the help of exercise. 

Posted by sam at April 13th, 2006

I checked the stats for DIY:happy today and found this…

And here’s why…

That’s a screenshot from Digg.com.  In case you’re wondering, here’s our story on DIY:happy that was linked to:

How to make a guitar pickup.

But, uhhh… unfortunately it looks like the site just went down … should be back up in a bit though.

Posted by sam at April 11th, 2006

Problems with my macbook (and why it’s being returned for a newer one):

• Make high pitched noises when there’s no processor load
• Screen brightness changes by itself sometimes
• Gets incredibly hot (like, I cooked an egg on it today)
• The sound clicks and pops (sometimes even when no audio is being played)
• Tonight it started “mooing” like a cow.

Of those issues, Apple has admitted to and fixed all but the sound clicks and pops.  Apparently UVSC will take it back so long as I can prove apple has admitted the problem, which I have done. 

Here’s hoping for a trouble-free macbook pro come tomorrow.

Posted by sam at April 11th, 2006

Check it out, a live ticker that shows headlines from DIY:happy.  I’d put it in my sidebar, but I can’t edit it anymore because my paid subscription to livejournal ran out.  All the more reason to move to my own blogging software - just too lazy to redo my theme….

Anyway, if you’re cool throw the picture up on your page and link it to www.diyhappy.com.  It will update by itself. It will make us both happy.  Forever.

Posted by sam at April 11th, 2006

My boss wants to get a new rabbit (when his current one dies), and is investigating how to import a rare breed from the UK.  What’s so special about this breed?  Besides it’s dis-proportionate ears, it’s big enough to eat a small child! 

Apparently, though, the bigger the rabbit - the lazier.  So, as my boss put it “How freakin’ cool would it be to have a huge lazy rabbit just sitting around the house all the time?!  Small children could take rides on it!”

What more can be said?

Posted by sam at April 10th, 2006

You sure can find some interesting things filed with the US Patent office.  For example, this gas powered missile launcher.  Seriously - read on.

“A toy gas-fired missile and launcher assembly whose missile is composed of a soft head and a tail extending therefrom formed by a piston. The piston is telescoped into the barrel of a launcher having a closed end on which is mounted an electrically-activated ignitor, the air space between the end of the piston and the closed end of the barrel defining a combustion chamber. Joined to the barrel and communicating with the chamber therein is a gas intake tube having a normally-closed inlet valve. To operate the assembly, the operator places the inlet tube with its valve open adjacent his anal region from which a colonic gas is discharged. The piston is then withdrawn to a degree producing a negative pressure to inhale the gas into the combustion chamber to intermix with the air therein to create a combustible mixture. The ignitor is then activated to explode the mixture in the chamber and fire the missile into space.”

Don’t even try to look at the pictures.  They will confuse you.

Posted by sam at April 9th, 2006

I made this comic today with Comic life.  I stole the picture off of boingboing.  That’s right, each frame is part of the same picture. 

It’s not very funny - I just wanted to make a comic.