Open source GSM network via /.

...the setup consisted of a pair of BTS' (Base Transceiver Stations) running at 100mW transmit power each and tied to a tree. In turn these provided access to the Base Station Controller (BSC), in this case a Linux server in a tent running OpenBSC. The system authenticated users with a token sent via SMS; in total 391 users subscribed to the service and were able to use their phones as if they were on any other network. Independent researchers are increasingly examining GSM networks and equipment, Welte's work proves that GSM is in the realm of the hackers now and that this realm of mobile networking could be set for a few surprises in the future...

We try to primarily highlight freeware here on Lifehacker, but occasionally you need a piece of software that costs a pretty penny. Remember: Just because you can't get an app for free doesn't mean you can't still get it on the cheap.

A lot of people take the BitTorrent route when they're stuck between a rock and their wallet, but rather than using pirated software, weblog Digital Inspiration suggests a few solid tips for finding software deals on the internet. It's a fairly comprehensive post, and some of the suggestions are obvious, but we like a few tips in particular. For example:

If there is a software program that you want to purchase, go to the manufacturer's website and subscribe to their email lists and also follow their blog, Twitter feed, or Facebook page. Many companies regularly post deals and offers through these channels so you can be the first one to find about new deals.

Everyone's looking to "leverage social media" these days, and Twitter's full of promotions from software creators. You can even set up a separate group in a Twitter application like previously mentioned TweetDeck that contains all your deal-tracking feeds so you don't have to clutter up your personal feeds with your attempts at money-saving.

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a hardcore bibliophile, but we're a common enough lot these day. And the one sight that always makes me linger over a webpage is rows and rows of neatly organized books. So, in an effort to draw more like-minded read here to my little blog, I decided to round-up a gallery of photos of some of the most beautiful libraries I've ever seen photos of. Enjoy.

Abbey Library St. Gall in Saint Gallen, Switzerland
Photo Credit: Gerda Steiner & Jorg Lenzlinger.

The Astronomy Library of the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands
Photo Credit: (Erik)

Bristol Central Library
Photo Credit: *Firefox

The British Library reading room at the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum in London, England.
Photo Credit: Sifter

Central Library of Vancouver in Vancouver, Canada
Photo Credit: lightgazer

Delft University Library in The Netherlands
Photo Credit: rutger spoelstra

José Vasconcelos Library
Photo Credit: CliNKer

Klementinum National Library in the Czech Republic
Photo Credit: The Czech Tourism Board

The Library of Melk Abbey, in Melk, Austria
Photo Credit: Emgonzalez

Library of Parliament (reading room), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Photo Credit: Alejandro Erickson

The Los Angeles Central Library in Los Angeles, California
Photo Credit: Candice (Bessie Smith)

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (The Austrian National Library) in Vienna, Austria
Photo Credit: Oke

Philology Library of the University Berlin in Russia
Photo Credit: Sven Werkmeister

The Royal library Black Diamond in Copenhagen, Denmark
Photo Credit: madcrow

Royal Library El Escorial in Spain
Photo Credit: cuellar

City Library of Stockholm in Sweden
Photo Credit: arndalarm

The Suzzallo library of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington
Photo Credit: Cap'n Surly

Even more Libraries

Of course, these are only my top choice for the world's most beautiful libraries. There are hundreds of libraries around the world. Here are a few other location to find photographs of some of the world's most scenic libraries.

• The Librophiliac Love Letter's Compendium of Bautiful Libraries

If you know of any other good library compilations that differs significantly from this list, drop a comment below.

The US Constitution is one of our most remarkable inventions of all time. A lot of people in other countries think so too. It is a robust self-correcting legal OS. But it was written in an arcane code long ago. To make any sense from it you need some help.

This lively graphic novel adaptation of the Constitution is by far the best aid I've found to deciphering its code. It is the comic book version, but rather than dumbing it down, it smartens it up. The graphic novel goes through the Constitution article by article, and explains what each bit means, why it is there, and how it came to be. Like the Bible, the Constitution doesn't say what you thought it did. I was surprised what was not there as well as what was. I learned tons from this annotation, despite studying it in high school. It renewed my respect for it, and in a way, also makes clear its limitation. I feel I can be a slightly better citizen. Best of all, this book does all that with pictures, which makes it a page-turner.

Recently my brother-in-law, who is an immigrant, had a lot of questions about the Constitution. I handed him this book and he came back very informed. I gave it to my son who would normally have nothing to do with such boring material. But it's a comic! You've always wanted to read it, and should. Here's the perfect excuse and ideal method.

If you want the unadorned, raw version, get a pocket version. This sturdy shirt-pocket-sized one contains both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. I have a few friends who pack this pocket version in their travel bags. Good conversation starter.

The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation
2008, 160 pages
$12

Available from Amazon

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America
(Pocket)
2000, 58 pages
$5

Available from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:

tdarnell writes -

I've recently discovered an animation that was rendered using the measured redshift of all 10,000 galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image. I've written a short script that leads you through a quick history of both deep field images and this video ends with a fly-through of the Ultra Deep Field. Every galaxy in the image is in its proper distance as viewed from the telescope line of sight. As if this image wasn't amazing enough.

In 1927 Dr. Thomas Parnell at the University of Queensland heated a sample of petroleum pitch, also called bitumen, and poured it into a glass funnel, with a sealed neck, set in a ring stand. Three years later, in 1930, he broke the neck off the funnel and set it aside. It took eight years for the first drop of pitch to fall. The experiment has been running continuously ever since, and has produced a total of eight drops to date. The man shown in the photograph above is Dr. John Mainstone, who is the experiment's current custodian.

The most recent drop fell in November 2000, which means the next one should be falling sometime in the next couple of years. The funnel contains enough pitch to run, it is estimated, at least another hundred years. To date, no one has ever witnessed or photographed a drop falling, but that's likely to change with the next one. The University of Queensland maintains a webcam showing a live view of the experiment at all times. The photograph below shows a screenshot I captured of it just this morning:

A domestic terrorist. A kidnapper. A corrupt politician. An identity thief.

These are just of a few of those brought to justice with the help of our Regional Computer Forensics Laboratories (RCFLs), according to the latest RCFL annual report now available online. 

Fiscal year (FY) 2008—which ran from October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2008—marked the ninth year for the RCFL program, which had 14 labs operating around the country by the end of the fiscal year. Labs planned in Orange County, California and Albuquerque, New Mexico will soon bring the total to 16.

For my money, it is one of the more perverse facts of the physical universe that elemental mercury, which is so beautiful and has so many amazing and useful properties, is also so dangerous.

This fountain, commissioned by the Spanish government from Alexander Calder for the 1937 World's Fair, pumps quicksilver instead of water. Today the entire fountain, located at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, is enclosed in a glass box to prevent exposure of visitors to the toxic metal. Professor David Eppstein at UC-Irvine has a nice gallery of pictures, including the above.

More:

• Mercury driven motor

Though the recipe does call for some flammable and toxic ingredients, curious chemists may want to check out these instructions for making your own magnetic ferrofluid over at Sci-Spot. Anyone come across a any better methods? Please drop a line in the comments!

Bill Gurstelle was a Contributing Editor for MAKE magazine. His most recent book is entitled Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously. You can follow Bill on his danger-quest at twitter.com/wmgurst. He is a guest Make: Online author for the month of August.

More on the Maker quest towards building a flying car....

Batting third in the flying car line up was the Mizar, a true and actual product of the Technology Underground, but it has a sad and far more tragic case history than the others.

Henry Smolinski and Hal Blake took the top half, engine, and wings from a light airplane, and placed tehm in an attachable module that fit on rails set on top of a modified 1971 Ford Pinto.

By melding the two disparate vehicles through a variety of attachment methods, they came up with a flying car - half Ford economy car and half high wing airplane. Initially it worked pretty well. In fact, it really did fly and as such it got a lot press (as flying cars tend to do.)

Here's a quotation, from a 1973 magazine article (Peterson's Complete Ford Book, 3rd Edition):

"Planned as a dual-use vehicle to fly long-distance travel and then operate as a conventional automobile for local surface travel, here's how the Mizar works. Equipped with its pusher-type aircraft engine, the Mitzar airframe will be kept on telescopic supports at a convenient airport. You drive the AVE-modified Pinto to the hanger and back the car under the airframe. A self-aligning track incorporated into both units makes attachment an easy job that requires less than two minutes to complete.

Structural connections are made with self-locking high-strength pins in the structurally linked track assembly and wing support connections.

The last line in that description is worth special attention. For in late 1973, Smolinski and Blake climbed aboard the Mizar prototype one last time and powered up the engines. No one knows what went on in the cockpit of the Mizar as it rolled down the runway during takeoff. But what is known is that very shortly after they left the ground, the "self locking high-strength pins" gave way and the flying car developers found themselves driving through the Southern California sky in a suddenly wingless, and decidedly non-airworthy, Ford Pinto.

The tragic death of the two principal developers resulted in the end of the Mizar project. So, still, the world awaits the first practical flying car. But there is always another one looming on the horizon, ready to take off from the technology underground and fly into the big time.

More:

• Dude, where's my (flying) car? Part 1
  
• Dude, Where's my (flying) car? Part 2
  

Bill Gurstelle is a Contributing Editor for MAKE magazine. His most recent book is entitled Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously. You can follow Bill on his danger-quest at twitter.com/wmgurst. He was a guest Make: Online author for the month of August.

In my last online article, I discussed the concept of the flying car and how difficult it is to make a viable one. But designers continue the quest.

Hollywood set designer turned engineer Norman Bel Geddes came up with one of the first flying car concepts. His work yielded a design for something that looked much like a 1940 Chevy Coupe with wings welded onto the sides and the wheels replaced by a single rear-facing propeller.

Bel Geddes never got off the ground with it.

But since then, quite a few flying cars have been successfully flown. One of the first and perhaps most successful was the ConvAIRCAR.

On paper, the ConvAIRCAR was envisioned as the marriage between an automobile and an airplane. It promised to revolutionize the daily drive for thousands, perhaps millions, of commuters.

In November of 1947, a prototype ConvAIRCAR circled San Diego for about an hour and a half. It appeared, for a brief time, that the aircraft's developers had actually produced "the Fertile Mule," that is, a hybrid with a viable future. But, in reality, this airborne sedan was still a flying car, and therefore a single successful test flight proved little.

A few days after the test flight, a test pilot crash-landed the ConvAIRCAR on a dirt road when it ran out of gas. The only prototype of the ConvAIRCAR in existence was damaged beyond repair. And that's as far as that particular flying-car ever went.

Next post: Flying car tragedy

More:
Dude, where's my (flying) car? Part 1

Bill Gurstelle is a Contributing Editor for MAKE magazine. His most recent book is entitled Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously. You can follow Bill on his danger-quest at twitter.com/wmgurst. He was a guest Make: Online author for the month of August.

A flying car is, to many futurists and makers, the epitome of technological progress; the holy grail of personal technological achievement. A car that flies from Chicago to Fort Wayne and an airplane that one can drive to the Piggly Wiggly to pick up eggs and coffee, all in the same package -- that's what I want.

We're a clever group, so here's an obvious question: Why is there no flying car in your garage? It's well into the 21st century, it seems like we've had plenty of time to tackle this. Over the next few days, I'd like to a look at what progress (or lack thereof) various individuals and companies have been made towards realizing my dream machine. It's a long story, and to be honest, not a particularly pretty one.

So, let's begin considering this question with the words of recent Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Patrick Landry.

"As Governor, I shall seek investors who will bring their capital to Louisiana in an effort to design, develop, and eventually mass-produce an aeromobile. This vehicle, which would revolutionize transportation in America, would be a cross between an ultra light aircraft and an automobile. The intended purpose is to create the ability of lift-off between 55 and 75 MPH, flying at low altitudes for short distances, and conceptually, look similar to an Indy racecar."

-- Unsuccessful 2003 Louisiana Gubernatorial Candidate Patrick "Live Wire" Landry

Patrick E. Landry first threw his hat into the political ring in 1999. Landry, called "Live Wire" because of his background as an electrician, claimed that among his qualifications for high office was his virginity.

Obviously, Landry was something of a fringe candidate. But his virginity, his plan to nuke Baghdad, and his Flying Car Development Platform, got him over 10,000 votes. In fact, in the 2003 governor's race, Landry came in eighth out of seventeen candidates.

The flying car idea didn't start with animated cartoons in the 1960s, although most baby boomers probably first imagine something like what George Jetson dropped off daughter Judy of at Orbit High in. Actually, it's a concept that's been in the air since airplanes were first invented.

This is the flying car, designed by Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria in 1885. Everyone said he was nuts. But now, 120 years after his death, German scientists have shown him to be one of the unsung pioneers of flight.

Ludwig, whose fantastical castle at Neuschwanstein aptly featured in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, drew up plans for a flying car more than two decades before the Wright brothers took to the air, but when he tried to build it he was declared insane and stripped of his crown.

Recently German aeronautical experts re-studied Ludwig's designs and say they would have worked. Sketches recovered from letters between the ruler and Austrian engineer Gustav Koch show the monarch had planned to create a fleet of flying machines that would take him across his beloved Alpine lakes to his many castles, including the fairytale Neuschwanstein.

In my next article, I'll look at a couple of attempts that came close...

Irving, Texas, is the home of this clever sculptural fountain by Robert Glen. A fountain jet beneath each hoof gives the illusion, particularly in still photographs, that the bronze horses are splashing through the water.

According to some reports, toy designer Tim Kehoe spent 15 years and $3 million US to bring his vision of colored soap bubbles to market. Making a colored bubble is apparently hard enough, but the real challenge is making them non-staining. That's right: By virtue of some very fancy dye chemistry, Zubbles are only colored as bubbles. Once they pop the color disappears. After years of hype, they can finally (and only) be purchased here.

School work involves a fair amount of tedious reading, which is why knowing how to get through and comprehend text quickly is a useful skill to have. Looking to learn? Try incorporating the A-E-I-O-U method.

In the above video demo (warning: 15 second ad) posted on instructional web site 5min, speed reading guide Chris offers his advice on how to plow through your words. According to Chris, you can do so by choosing a passage and voicing "A-E-I-O-U" or "one, two, three, four" as you read the text. He goes on to say that the average person reads between 125-250 words per minute because they're still reading with their larynx (even if not out loud). To read above this level, you need to read just with your eyes, not your larynx. Chris suggests that repeating the above phrase will help train you to stop voicing the word using your larynx, which will apparently help you to better visualize the text in its entirety and thus get through your required (or other reading) faster.

We're not promising you'll get through ten books a day, but the idea makes sense and certainly seems like it could speed up your reading a bit. Looking for an alternative way to get through Geology 101? Check out a few more previously mentioned speed-reading techniques.

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to becky@makezine.com or drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Martin writes in:

Why do my incandescent light bulbs buzz when I'm using a dimmer switch? What can I do to stop it?

Household lights run on alternating current (AC), which can be seen as a sine wave on an oscilloscope. To decrease the brightness of the bulb, a dimmer switch takes chunks out of the sine wave. This essentially turns the bulb on and off around 120 times every second, depending on the dimmer swtting. Charging the bulb filament creates an electromagnetic field, and when this field is turned on and off so rapidly, the changing force can cause the filament to start vibrating in sync with the frequency of the ons and offs.

To stop the buzzing, you can try rough service light bulbs, which have the filament anchored in more than two places, unlike regular light bulbs. Think of the filament supports as legs on a table. Two legs would make for a wobbly table, but make that three or four legs, and you've got something more sturdy.

If it's your dimmer that buzzes instead of your light bulbs, you may need a dimmer rated for a higher capacity. Try removing some of the light bulbs connected to the dimmer and see if it makes a difference. If the buzzing is quieter, you may need a stronger dimmer. Common triac-based dimmers are controlling the chopping up of that AC wave, and can also vibrate because of it. Some higher quality dimmers have filters in them to prevent that.

Some more reading on the subject:

• How to stop lighting dimmer switches from buzzing on Ask MetaFilter
• Buzzing lights on Smarthome
• Switches and Dimmers Buying Guide