First time accepted submitter theideabulb writes "Just as stock investors have portfolios of all different sorts of stocks, Lego investors hold massive collections of Lego sets and can make annual profits that beat stocks. This article is a looking into the world of the little plastic brick that makes money for LEGO fans and a website that helps track peoples' collections to help them track their profits."

Hugh Pickens writes writes "If you still have some last minute Christmas shopping to do and are looking for cool gifts for the tech nuts in your life David Pogue has put together a list of twelve cheap tech gifts and gadgets that real-world people can give to real-world friends, bosses, employees and family members — nothing over $100. How about a Zapped edition of Monopoly for $25 where there is no paper money in the game. You put your iPhone or iPad in the middle of the Monopoly board — and each player gets a fake credit card. You pay or collect money from the bank electronically, just by placing your card briefly on the touch screen. Or how about a Sound Oasis Sound Therapy Pillow for $38? The speakers are in the pillow, you don't feel them, and you can drift to sleep with music playing without disturbing whoever is trying to sleep next to you. Then there's the Tagg Pet Tracker ($100, plus $8 a month after three months) that snaps onto your dog or cat's existing collar. You can use the pettracker.com Web site to find your pet on a map, using your phone or computer. Our favorite is the Cirago iAlert Tag for $50. If you walk away from your smartphone (iPhone, Android phone or BlackBerry), your key chain beeps to alert you and it works the other way, too. If you leave your keys somewhere, the phone beeps to alert you as you walk away! But the weirdest and most memorable of the suggestions are the Necomimi Brain-Powered Cat Ears for $100. It's a headband with fluffy white cat ears attached that perk up, flop down and otherwise turn, cutely and catlike, in sync with your brainwaves. There's a good deal of debate online about just how much the ears' motion is, in fact, governed by your brainwaves but one thing the Necomimis do extremely well is get attention, start conversations and make your holiday gift memorable. Now go start wrapping."

Hugh Pickens writes "Matt Richtel and Jesse McKinley write in the NY Times that for generations of American children, Legos were the ultimate do-it-yourself plaything. Little plastic bricks, with scant instructions, just add imagination. But today's construction sets are often tied to billion-dollar franchises like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and invite users to follow detailed directions, not construct their own creations from whole brick. It's less open-ended, some parents and researchers say, and more like paint-by-numbers. 'When I was a kid, you got a big box of bricks and that was it,' says Tracy Bagatelle-Black. 'What stinks about Lego sets now is that they're not imaginative at all.' Lego loyalists are quick to defend the company. Josh Wedin, the managing editor of the Brothers Brick, a Lego blog, called complaints that they are less creative 'simply ridiculous,' adding that Legos always included some instructions, though he says he misses the alternative designs that used to be on the back of the box. But Clifford Nass, a sociology professor at Stanford University who studies how people relate to the physical world versus the virtual world, says some essential qualities were lost when Lego became more like other toys. 'The genius of Lego was, you had to do the work.' Learning about frustration, Nass says, 'is a hugely important thing.'" (And watch soon for a review of The Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide, a book intended to help Lego users escape the tyranny of block-by-number instructions.)

beefsack writes "An engineer by the name of Andrej Skraba has combined an Arduino board and an MK802 mini PC running Ubuntu to create a robot which is controllable via its own node.js server and a mobile phone. Seen by some as products competing in a similar space, Andrej shows how the two devices can make the most of their unique features to complement each other, working together."

theodp writes "The BBC News' Laura Gray reports on a juggling notation system developed in the 80's called Siteswap (aka Quantum Juggling and Cambridge Notation) and how it has helped jugglers discover and share thousands of new tricks. Frustrated that there was no way to write down juggling moves, mathematician Colin Wright and others helped devised Siteswap, which uses sequences of numbers to encode the number of beats of each throw, which is related to their height and the hand to which the throw is made. 'Siteswap has allowed jugglers to share tricks with each other without having to meet in person or film themselves,' says James Grime, juggling enthusiast and math instructor for Cambridge University. Still unclear on the concept? Spend some time playing around with Paul Klimek's most-excellent Quantum Juggling simulator, and you too can be a Flying Karamazov Brother!"

TVmisGuided writes "People have made UAVs out of wood, aluminum, even 3D-printed plastic. But now comes the tale of C#/C++ developer Ed Scott who, after damaging his Gaui 330x, got the idea of designing and building a Lego quadcopter. And it worked! 'Most people go to their favorite hobby store to get parts for their UAV, I go to my kid's playroom.'"

Last week, you asked questions of Eugene Kaspersky; below, find his answers on a range of topics, from the relationship of malware makers to malware hunters, to Kasperky Labs' relationship to the Putin government, as well as whitelisting vs. signature-based detection, Internet ID schemes, and the SCADA-specific operating system Kaspersky is working on. Spoiler: There are a lot of interesting facts here, as well as some teases.

Frequent contributor Bennett Haselton writes this week with his favorite novelty science gift items for 2012. Levitation engines, puzzles, optical illusions brought to life, and all of the tips and tricks he's found for getting the products to work correctly. Decorative, whimsical, and not too expensive — except for the items that have earned it by being pretty amazing. Read on for the details, and be sure to mention other good possibilities (Just 14 shopping days left until Christmas) in the comments below.

Readycharged writes "A generation's childhood dreams have come true with the creation of a working 'robot in disguise' Transformer which, when operated by remote control, morphs from a luxury sports car to a missile hurling robot in seconds. Japanese inventor Kenji Ishida is planning to make 10 lucky (and undoubtedly rich) purchasers owners of these toys in the run up to Christmas, having first displayed them at the Maker Faire in Tokyo during the first week of December. For those willing to wait a few years, Ishida plans to have created a life size, drivable model by 2030."

mask.of.sanity writes "This custom Yamaha TRX 850 has been outfitted with wireless sniffing and attack tools, routers, a laptop, Raspberry Pi and even a heads up display integrated within the bike helmet. It was built from open source kit and cheap hardware by a security penetration tester who wanted to make his love of wardriving more nimble. The plans are detailed in a diagram and a video."

The screenwriter of Toy Story 3, and Little Miss Sunshine, Michael Arndt is writing the script for Star Wars: Episode VII according to Lucasfilm. From the article: "...The new movie has just entered pre-production and is slated to be released in 2015. It was announced just last month as Disney acquired Lucasfilm, but there’s still no word on what the major plot points of the new chapter will entail. However, Vulture reports that 'the studio’s brass want to bring back the three central characters of the original Star Wars: a much older Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo. No deals are in place with any of the original actors, though our source did say it had high ambition to sign up Mark Hamill, and EW recently reported that Harrison Ford was open to the idea of returning.'"

RenderSeven writes "As previously reported the immensely popular Buckyballs office toys have been targeted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Last week Maxfield and Oberton, the maker of Buckyballs gave up the battle and announced they would discontinue sales and close. However, being driven out of business is not enough for R Buckminster Fuller's estate, who has filed yet another lawsuit that they own all rights to the name "buckyballs" despite widespread use of the term. If you still haven't bought your own yet, a few thousand sets in stock are still available."

Hugh Pickens writes "Alexander George writes about a new app that takes the data from a smartphone's accelerometers, GPS, and inclinometer to plot information for braking force, lean angles, speed, and on-track location onto Google Maps to shave precious milliseconds off each lap time in motorcycle races. Race Sense is designed to be a useful tool for someone who races for a living and a very fun toy for those who just like to brag about what lean angle they got at their ride day, and what top speed they reached down the main straight. Australian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer Anthony West provided much of the R&D that went into tweaking the app. 'With sponsorship's so hard to find and I need another way to survive. I spent some of my own money developing it with an Italian guy who also likes to ride himself, and who writes programs,' says West who designed Race Sense to fulfill the needs of a genuine MotoGP racer. 'Sometimes it's one second [separating] 20 people. If you adjust one little thing thinking about something in one corner you can lose four places.'"

It's been said that the mix of stories on Slashdot is like an omelet: linux and tech, mixed with science and Legos, and a few reviews and sci-fi folded in. It's not just the stories that are a good mix, however, it's the people behind them. Through the past 15 years, an unusual cast of characters have been responsible for keeping the site up and running and bringing you the stories you want to read. We've asked a number of them to write a few words about their time working here and to share a few memories. Below you'll find that some of our former employees don't know what "a few words" means, and a collection of what bringing you news for the past 15 years has been like.

kodiaktau writes "An article in the WSJ discusses why internet users are more rude online than they are in person. The story discusses some of the possible reasons. For example, a study found that browsing Facebook tends to lower people's self control. An MIT professor says people posting on the internet have lowered inhibitions because there is no formal social interaction. Another theory is that communicating through a phone or other device feels like communicating with a 'toy,' which dehumanizes the conversation. Of course, a rude conversation has never happened on Slashdot in the last 15 years."

There you were, one evening in Ann Arbor, MI, looking at a bunch of crazy spinning pinwheel-type things on light poles that seemed to change speed, colors, and light patterns with each minor wind shift. You were seeing Whirlydoodles. Slashdot met Whirlydoodle creator Timothy Jones at the 2012 Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire and shot a quick video of him and his colorful "micro-electric wind turbine" in action.

LinuxOnEveryDesktop writes "Stephen Pakbaz designed a custom Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory Rover set, complete with PDF build instructions and parts lists. There's a dearth of official LEGO sets to do with Curiosity, but if the Cusoo listing gets to 10,000 votes that could change..." I like the idea of LEGO asking for public input, but find it slightly annoying that they require registration to do it; an anonymous "thumbs-up" would be nice.

postermmxvicom writes "I have a friend who is a mechanic, but enjoys tinkering with software and hardware as a hobby. I want to get him a gift that will either broaden his horizons or deepen his understanding in these fields. He is proficient at soldering components and removing them from circuit boards. His programming experience is with a wide variety of scripting languages. He recently used teensy and arduino boards and an accelerometer to add some bells and whistles to a toy car he made. He also used his knowledge to help a friend find and correct weaknesses in his shareware (that would have let 'customers' share more freely than intended). He is fascinated that people can create chips to modify existing hardware. Do you know of any good books or kits (or even tools of the trade) that would appeal to a hobbyist and allow him to grow? Is there anything that might also play off of his handyman/mechanic abilities?"

SicariusMan writes "Looks like warnings and other precautions were not enough to save Buckyballs Magnets. According to this report, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is concerned about the increase in children swallowing the rare earth magnets, and has issued its first stop-sale order in 11 years. Amazon and others have already agreed to stop selling the toys. 'Although the commission issued a safety alert in November, it has received more than a dozen reports since then of children ingesting the magnets, with many requiring surgery, it said. More than 2 million Buckyballs and at least 200,000 Buckycubes, a similar cube-shaped magnet, have been sold in the United States.'"

Four years ago, there were around ten hackerspaces across America; today, Hackerspaces (Techshops, Makerspaces) are within driving distance of a good chunk of the population. The RepRap can be assembled for a moderate price, and those with a bit more cash to burn can get one preassembled from multiple sources. Makerfaires are held in most major cities, sites like Instructables and Hackaday are thriving, and all things "Maker" are cool. Far McKon was at HOPE 9 giving an update on how far community fabrication has come since his 2008 presentation at the The Last HOPE (mp3 of the talk), what threats lie on the horizon, and where we might find ourselves in another four years.

Update: 09/20 21:02 GMT by U L : There's an audio recording of the talk available.