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Take a look at the brand new gallery I’ve compiled of Trapper Keepers and Trapper portfolios (folders) from the 1980s and 1990s.  It is permanently linked at the top of the page, or you can see it here.

Here’s a hot story:

The quest to unlock the iPhone from being inextricably tied to AT&T’s network has finally proved to be, um, extricable. (Is that even a word?) While the process is nontrivial, involving opening the iPhone and soldering and stuff, it’s doable in the right hands. You can browse the hardware hacking process starting with “What you need” on George Hotz’s blog (http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com).

The hard part, so it seems to me:

“The red line is covering the A17 trace. In order to trick the chip into thinking the flash is erased in the correct section, you will need to pull this high. Scrape away at the trace with something like a multimeter probe. Then solder a very thin wire to it. Be very careful. Only scrape away at that solder mask above that one trace. YOU DO NOT WANT TO BREAK THE TRACE. This is the hardest step in the whole process; the rest is cake. Also solder a wire to the 1.8v line. Connect to wire coming from the trace and the wire coming from the 1.8v to your unlock switch. Be careful, you only get one chance to do this right. Thanks again to Nick Chernyy for the picture.”

There’s also a fair amount of software-fooling-around-with. I won’t pretend to understand or explain it.

What it comes down to is that a fully unlocked phone should be able to be used on any GSM network. This is a bigger deal outside of the US. It’s not like you can use the iPhone on Verizon or Sprint, for example. Also, if you’re patient enough it’s very likely that you will be able to purchase an unlocked phone, or send yours to someone to do the dirty work, in the near future.

If you’re burning with desire for an unlocked iPhone, and your wallet is burning a hole in your pocket, you can bid for the second unlocked specimen on eBay.  Be forewarned - it’s already over $8k, with 6 more days to go!

Apple’s not gonna like this. Maybe they should hire George?

Just what you’ve always pined for… celebrity medical leavings! The star of The Colbert Report fractured his wrist while taping a show several weeks ago. Last night, August 23, 2007, Stephen’s cast was removed by his physician, Dr. Jerald Vizzone (complete with confetti and four dancers in scrubs). Click the cast to see the eBay listing, 290153546119.

100% of the final sale price will support the Yellow Ribbon Fund. The Yellow Ribbon Fund assists injured service members and their families while they recuperate at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center by offering free cab vouchers, hotel rooms, apartments, rental cars, job mentoring, internships and tickets to sporting and cultural events.

The auction ends September 3 at midnight EDT (9pm PDT September 2), so bid early and bid often. Just kidding, with eBay you don’t have to bid often.

You’ll also receive a WristStrong Bracelet, which supports wrist awareness. If you don’t want to bid thousands of dollars for Stephen’s cast, visit ColbertNation.com to purchase a WristStrong bracelet for $5 (plus shipping). Proceeds from the sale of WristStrong bracelets will also benefit the Yellow Ribbon Fund. OR…if you don’t want a bracelet or a used cast, and you’d like to contribute to the fund directly, you can do that too! You don’t have to support the war to support our troops.

Shamelessly stolen from the mead.com website, here are 5 more Trapper Keepers, showing the 3 non-solid-color designs. The last one with the drawings is very Napoleon Dynamite-esque. Mead uses this design on one of their student planners.
I have a strong suspicion that Mead’s target demographic for the new Trapper Keeper is NOT current elementary/middle school/junior high school/high school students, but rather those of us in our 30s (and 20s, I guess). Here’s a big hint: if you visit the TK mini-site, the fourth link is “Share Your Story”. The example they give? “When I was in the 5th grade, my Trapper Keeper had hearts with rainbows on the cover. It was the coolest thing ever! I kept everything in it.”

I LOLed at that, since I’m pretty sure my 2nd Trapper Keeper also had hearts and rainbows. My memory’s a little fuzzy. I seem to recall having one with a mountain scene (photograph) on it. I think my brother had one that was maybe plain blue or red - will have to check with him. I wasn’t one of the kids who got a new Trapper Keeper every school year, though. I must have gotten more folders, because I recall a bright purple folder with what looked like fine paint splotches all over it in colors like magenta, yellow, and maybe teal. It was reminiscent of the spiral paint art of the day.

I was SO psyched to find out last month that Mead has brought a reincarnated version of our beloved Trapper Keeper back. I bought mine at Staples. So far, that’s the only store I’ve found that carries them. Also, there is a dearth of information about this new product on the web, so I’ve taken the liberty of compiling some information for your reading pleasure. What would you like to know about the new (improved?) Trapper Keeper?

What’s the same?

• It’s a three-ring binder
• It has a flap closure
• It is sold in a variety of colors
• Prominent Trapper Keeper logo (and distinctive font (i.e. typeface for those of you who are anal retentive))
• Trapper folders are available (plain colors at this time)

What’s different?

• The rings are typical of other binders, not plastic, and snap open and closed, without the slider (but see below*)
• The closure is not Velcro, it’s magnetic
• Only the front has a layer of clear plastic
• The front plastic is an open pocket so you can put whatever design you want on the front of your Trapper Keeper
• No Trapper folders come with the new Trapper Keeper; instead, heavy-duty plastic dividers are included
• There is no clipboard feature in this incarnation of the Trapper Keeper (and no notepad to go with the nonexistent clipboard)
• The inside front and back covers have one pocket each, similar to some other existing binders
• This Trapper Keeper features rubberized grips that are (somewhat?) color-coordinated with the main color

Here’s a list of the colors (main color w/ grip color) I’ve seen, either in person, or indicated on the Mead website:

• light blue w/ blue-grey (I own this one)
• pink w/ blue-grey
• green-grey w/ green-grey
• orange w/ green-grey
• light green w/ green-grey
• grey/green-grey w/ green-grey
• blue w/ grey
• red w/ grey
• 3 patterns (multi-stripes, drawings & scribbles, and stars) w/ blue

Note my grey notations above. On the website the grip colors appear to be blue-grey, grey, and blue. In the store, the grip colors varied even between two otherwise identical Trapper Keepers. Also, the non-blue-grey grips looked pretty greenish to me, sort of like greenish mud, but I can’t be sure if the intended color is supposed to have any green in it.
There are six different Trapper folders at this time. All are solid colors:

• red
• orange
• yellow (geography)
• green (solar system)
• blue
• purple (writing/English)

The folders have three holes, of course, and seems to be pretty typical of the original Trapper folders from our past. Sturdy paperboard with two 3-sided pockets. Each folder has some factoids/reference material about a different subject on the inside, printed in black or white, depending upon the color. The subjects are geography, history, music, our solar system — complete with Pluto as a planet — yikes!, English, and math/geometry. I only have three of the six colors, so I can’t recall which colors go with history, music, or math.
The folders are plentiful in the Staples stores, but the Trapper Keepers themselves are a little more elusive, and it looks like the stores only stocked about 20-30 Trapper Keepers initially. If you are going to look for them in a Staples store, head for one of the large yellow 4-sided cardboard displays. One of the four sides has the Trapper Keepers, and possibly some Zwipes. The other sides might have some Five Star products. The Trapper folders should be clustered with all the other back-to-school folders, probably 2-4 boxes worth. YMMV.

The regular price of the Trapper folders is $0.99, and the Trapper Keeper goes for $7.99, though it was just on sale for $5.99. This is still plenty cheaper than the $20+ Zwipes binder, which might be the closest thing to the old Trapper Keeper before the return of the champ.
Click the image below to see the official Mead Trapper Keeper mini-site. It’s got some pictures and a “3D” rendition (sort of) that you can play with.

*I forget which Mead product it was, but another of their binders HAS THE PLASTIC SLIDER ring system! Ahh, it’s the Five Star Tru-Lock binder.

I was checking my newly-set-up Google Reader for new RSS feeds and news stories today, when I saw the headline “Couple Engaged on Zero-Gravity Flight“. I certainly didn’t expect to see another entry so soon, but perhaps many more are to follow, based on the following story (clipped for length):

Commercial Zero-Gravity Flights Begin in Las Vegas
By Leonard David
Special to Space News
LAS VEGAS — Zero Gravity Corp. inaugurated service to Las Vegas April 21, the latest step in the company’s quest to give the average citizen the opportunity to experience weightlessness the same way astronauts in training and in spaceflight do. …Zero-G’s specially modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft — G-Force One — offers paying customers a largely empty fuselage that becomes a padded playground as the plane runs through its routine — climbing and diving maneuvers that simulate the microgravity that astronauts experience. Flight operations are being conducted from Signature Air Terminal here at McCarran International Airport. …While NASA has flown microgravity research flights for about 50 years, very few civilians have been exposed to the experience, McMahon said.

Consumer marketing

The gradations of gravity help participants gradually adapt to the experience. That gradual conditioning and the positioning of clients during the plane’s maneuvers help minimize a person’s susceptibility of motion sickness. A very light dosage of medication also is available to participants. “We’ve knocked motion sickness down to a point where it’s not a concern,” Diamandis said. Within three designated zones inside the aircraft, flight groups are broken into teams and assigned coaches to help maximize a customer’s microgravity experience.

Last month, Zero-G established a relationship with the Sharper Image Corp. to exclusively market and sell seats on its public flights. Starting May 15, reservations for seats on the Zero-G Experience will be made available through Sharper Image’s specialty retail stores and via the company’s monthly consumer catalog.

Offered at a price of $3,500 per seat plus tax, those taking part in a 90-minute period experience 15 parabolas, as well as take home items like their flight suit, photographs and a DVD of their encounter with microgravity. Charter flights cost $115,000 and fly up to 35 people. Zero-G also has regularly scheduled flights from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Entree into the next frontier

The first official public flight from Las Vegas was April 21, followed by an April 23 VIP/media day. To celebrate the start of Zero-G operations from Las Vegas, the private VIP flight carried such notables as Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, as well as key Las Vegas casino executives, including entertainer Raymond Teller [he goes only by his last name on stage] of the magic and comedy team, Penn and Teller.

Currently, future Zero-G flights out of Las Vegas are slated for the following dates: May 26; June 16, 17 and 30; August 4; September 1 and 2; October 6; November 10; and December 30 and 31.

I expect to see many more headlines and sightings of floating celebs and others in the near future. Anyone wanna spot me $3,500?

Over the course of a single week, I saw not one, but three separate instances of people in zero-gravity situations on television. No, I don’t watch the NASA channel.

The first instance is probably the best-known: Dr. Stephen Hawking, the brilliant theoretical physicist, who also is afflicted with ALS, fulfilled his dream of experiencing weightless flight. A company called Zero Gravity runs these flights where riders can experience 25 seconds of weightlessness eight times. Sure, it was not yet the space travel he surely craves, but it must have been an absolutely amazing experience for this man who is nearly imprisoned in his own body. This story was well-reported in the media; I saw several video clips aired around April 26-27.

The second instance came when KFC (or, as it is once again known, Kentucky Fried Chicken) kicked off its transition to zero grams trans-fat cooking. Okay, so I didn’t see it on TV, per se, but there is a commercial with a man dressed like the Colonel, and he is floating by himself in zero gravity (again, probably run by the same company). I saw it on the web, but since it was a commercial I assumed that it was mainly aired on television. I saw this on April 30.

The third instance was on the Fox network show Bones. Two of the characters, Brennan and Booth, wanted to interview an astronaut who was busy training, so they accompanied him where? oh yes, on a zero gravity flight! Saw the show on May 1.

So, why am I mentioning these sightings? I wish I had some actual information to back the idea up, but if it wasn’t simply several coincidences, perhaps Zero Gravity has special times of the year reserved for film crews.

I’m waiting for the fourth sighting. It would be really fun to watch little kids in zero g (and that would remind me of Ender’s Game), but they probably don’t let anyone under 18 go on these trips.

I find The Consumerist to be a really interesting source of news, and today one of the headlines that greeted me was “Digg Goes Ape$#@*!” [followed in time by “Liveblogging Digg’s $#@*!storm“].

The first story reports:

“A wide-scale user revolt is disrupting popular social news networking Digg. It’s a protest over Digg
acquiescing to MPAA pressure and deleting a 15,000+ dugg story about a crack for the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray DRM system.

Now, every single story on the front page contains the cracked number in some way.

The madness began after not only was the initial story deleted, but the user’s account was deleted as well. Other people who submitted stories linking to the number also got their accounts deleted and their sites received takedown notices. Even people who submitted stories about the deleting of other accounts, stories which did not contain the number, also got deleted. That’s when things really got bonkers.

Users are hiding the number in all sorts ways. One story claimed that a new Jules Verne manuscript was found, entitled, “09:F9:11:02:9D:74:E3:5B:D8:… Leagues Under the Sea.” Others link to pictures of the number. A new one says Jesus has “the secret key.” Others coyly ask, “anyone know what this number is?” Diggers are digging the stories like crazy, trying to keep the number on the front page and thumb their nose at Digg and the MPAA.”

Hilarious!!!

Digg/Kevin Rose pulled not only the original post but also deleted the posting user’s account, thus setting Diggers afire.

The original dugg story was published February 13, 2007 and can be found at the Wired Blog Gadget Lab:

The New HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Hack: What It Might Mean For Us

“09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

That’s the so-called “Processing Key” that unlocks the heart of every HD-DVD disk to date. Happy Valentine’s day, AACS.”

A statement from Kevin Rose of Digg, eventually acquiescing to this pressure from Diggers:

“But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.”

Another statement reads:

 

DiggThis: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

by Kevin Rose at 9pm, May 1st, 2007 in Digg Website

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on,

Kevin

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