I have a hard time exercising unless there’s some type of cool technology involved. jnielsen posted his heart rate and GPS info from the Ironman Arizona triathlon race. “I used my Garim 301 for the entire race and loaded it up to motionbased.com. The GPS has the distance almost dead on. Check it out – but no cracking on my time:) It’s a pretty cool tool – I actually swam a pretty straight line!”. Links to the individual maps and data here.
Microsoft’s Channel9 site now allows Tablet PC users to use ink in their forums now. Here’s my post (View image) with some ink from my Tablet. I really like the idea of some type of easy to implement system so more comment systems could allow ink from Tablet PCs, Wacom devices and PDAs. Oh course I’d really like to figure out a way to ink up my photos on Flickr. Update: Here is the first ever comment spam in ink!!
Wow, check out this correspondence figuring out ways to help soldiers in the field diffuse those cell phone detonators. “I was connected via a soldier on Iraq who sent me a picture of the radios they are using to set off the IEDs. Some of them are using FRS radios (Family Radios). The picture I saw was a Motorola TalkAbout 5000 (or something like that). What I did was make a FRS radio connected to a 7 watt external amplifier, and with a BASIC stamp controlling the main function buttons of the radio. It will hop through all 838 possible codes (22 channels, 38 privacy codes) and transmit for 1 second on each channel. Hopefully setting off the bombs before they drive through”.
I posted up my photo based “IT CAME FROM MAKE” comic using Comic life, but I’m interested in making the comic look more comicy. Here’s http://www.macmerc.com/articles/Graphics_Tips/209″>a great step by step guide to turning photos in to comic book looking art work with Photoshop. I’m trying to see if I can get GiMP to do the same thing.
Scary Terry’s Halloween pages has some cool projects using wiper motors that look like a lot of fun. Rocking a chair, kicking legs and dancing skeletons. Although it’s a bit too early for Halloween I’m going to start picking some motors up over the next few months to get ready to totally freak out the kids this October. Have any Halloween projects you’re thinking of doing? Let us know!
Here’s a simple project that might be interesting to try out. This simple circuit can detect the invisible fields of voltage which surround all electrified objects. It acts as an electronic “electroscope.” Regular foil-leaf electroscopes deal with electrostatic potentials in the range of many hundreds or thousands of volts. This device can detect one volt. Its sensitivity is ridiculously high.
http://www.delicious-monster.com/”>Delicious Library. In MAKE we feature comics from Howtoons.org and I love the idea of using an photos I have around here to my own comics. Here’s the first one I made called “IT CAME FROM MAKE” (click here to view). It’s a one page comic with stuff I posted to my photo site. Speaking of– on a MAKE-mash up note, wouldn’t it be cool if this app “slurped” in your Flickr photos so you could make (and share) comics from all your Flickr photos? Might make a cool web app.
We’re going to try an experiment with an additional audio program starting next week. We’re still gearing up to release our interview series really soon with great audio from all sorts of amazing Makers out there. But, we’ve had a ton of requests to do a weekly show with DIY projects, hacks and commentary on stuff we’re up to at MAKE, so we’re going to do it, why not. We’ve also been doing the FM radio rounds lately and the “call in” part of the shows have been packed with hundreds of folks working on cool projects or looking for advice- so if you’d like to ask us a question or tell us what you’re up to call 206-888-MAKE. Toll charges apply, we’ll have a Skype voicemail set up soon too, but do call in or post up questions here!
As some of you noticed I was offline for a couple days this week, at the peak of depression (wireless deprivation) I considered grabbing a EVDO card, but since I use a Mac for some of my work, the card I was considering didn’t seem supported. No longer! The folks over on EVDOinfo.com have posted the instructions on using the Novatel v620 from Verizon. If anyone tries this out and can confirm that it works the comments it would be much appreciated.
A lot of MAKE blog readers requested an easy way to suggest a site, so we made a suggest a site form you can send DIY stuff, hacks or projects you think we should know about. You can also click the “Suggest a site” link on the main page or on the blog. In other MAKE news we just surpassed 200 members in our MAKE Flickr group pool! If you haven’t already, join the group and check out the DIY-ity. Where else could you see a powered super-whiteboard eraser in action.
MAKE will be on the Hallerin Hilton Hill show on Friday, April 15th at 9am EDT on WNOX Knoxville, TN AM 990, FM 99.1, FM 99.3 or live on the web if you want to tune in. We’ll be talking about MAKE, some new projects we’re working on and whatever happens to come up with live calls and more. The more we’ve been talking with folks around the country, the more it seems everyone is up to some type of interesting project or invention! Year of the Makers!
