Jeez, Max is on a roll, again, this time making a touch screen blackjack machine for a boring start and stop commute – “Okay today I was thinking and figured, why don’t I just put a touch-screen slotmachine in my car? I am stuck in traffic 2 hours a day. So that’s 2 x 5 days x 12 months = 120 hours a year. “I can gamble while I am waiting at the stop light,” I figured. So you are thinking, “Doesn’t this guy have something better to do?” Actually, this is the best thing I can think of right now of doing… The CuTOUCH runs on 9 to 24DC power so I figured I just needed to provide 12V from the cigarette lighter plug. Well since I just got a new LG cholcolate phone, I decided it was time to junk my Motorola V3 Car adaptor and put it to some good use.” – Link.
The San Jose Museum of Art has a collection of globes with all sorts of info-graphics on them, here’s one with life expectancy – “Exploring how maps mediate between the known and the unknown, Ingo Gunther’s WorldProcessor presents more than 25 illuminated, modified globes to engage audiences into journeying among alternative worldviews, from “refugee currents” to a comparison of the number of patents granted by country.” [via] – Link.
More:
World Processor project – Edge Conditions @ San Jose Museum of Art – Link.
Each week Chuck @ Toolmonger rounds up the week in tools, go get your tool on… – “This week we tested Black & Decker’s (very) new HandiSaw – an inexpensive miniature reciprocating saw for use around the house – that’ll hit the shelves this October. We also took a first-hand look at the Dremel Stylus. Good stuff! We loved Stanley’s Fat Max Extreme demolition drivers (’cause they let you do all those things your Dad told you not to do with a screwdriver). We also toured Unique Performance’s body shop and posted a gallery of 20+ photos of the tools they use to turn rustbuckets into $250,000 Shelby “Super Snakes.” Look for part two of the Unique tour next week, along with sweet interviews we did with a waterjet expert and a guy who converted his knee-mill to CNC.” – Link.
More:
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This kit is pretty simple so it would be a good kit to learn about soldering. It took me about an hour to put together, but a seasoned solderer could put it together faster.
Download the pdf and print it out to have next to you as you put this together. This PDF has lots of good info, you should download it and check it out even if you’re not making the gadget!
Arduino Fever – In MAKE 07 we have a tale of a cute, blue microcontroller that fits nicely in the palm of your hand, and the expanding community of developers who love and support it – here’s a PDF to check out – Link & get MAKE videos and PDFs delivered automatically with iTunes/RSS reader that does enclosures – click here.
One of my favorite “Maker-made” films of all time is Claude Lelouch’s “Rendezvous” – “On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.” _ This site uses Google maps and Google video to show the route through Paris as the movie plays – [via] – Link.
This is neat, run the Mac OS (7.0.1) ona 32 MB thumb drive – ” Running Linux, Windows or applications like Firefox, Thunderbird and AbiWord from a USB flash memory device is old hat. How about a Mac 128K or Plus on a USB key? Using a ‘portable’ Mac system you can: play with old system software and applications without dusting off your old Mac, impress your friends, or show others what the older Mac system looked like, use Mac on Windows and Linux.” [via] – Link.
Last year MAKE was invited to try out Boeing’s Connexion Wi-Fi (wireless) service on their planes. It worked as expected, and now 13 months later it’s disappointing to hear the service isn’t going to take off, literally. It’s not clear why – perhaps laptops may eventually be banned on planes, the demand may have been too low – who knows. Regardless, it was an interesting glimpse of what some international travelers have now – connectivity on flights … on our test flight it was pretty easy to share a connection so others did not need to pay, and it was neat to run another laptop to log all the packets – it was like a portable “Wall of Sheep” in flight Here are some photos from the flight.
Max writes – “Here’s a DIY on how to make an alarm system in 3 minutes. We will use a loud buzzer and some magnetic switchs from Radio Shack to create a simple yet effective alarm system. We will throw in a LCD, keypad so we can alarm the alarm system using a 4-digit code and be able to see the system status using the LCD.” – Link.
Related:
HOW TO – Build an ultrasonic burglar alarm – Link.
In this video Jake McKenzie, Matt Dalton, and Bre Pettis show how to put together a persistence of vision gadget that you can put on your bicycle.
Persistence of vision is a perceptual process where your brain holds an image in it’s head for a moment. This process is what lets us think that movies have people moving in them instead of seeing all 24 frames a second as individual pictures. This projects programs LEDs to flash and appear to make words in the air. Watch the video to learn more and make sure to check out the instructions!
Click here to get the video (MP4) delivered automatically with iTunes. This video will play on PC/Mac/Linux/PSPs and iPod video devices. Also for your viewing pleasure – HD, 3gp, 3g2, Youtube, Google, and Blip.
Here’s how to build a pretty neat looking sound meter, I just bought some ear projection that is rated for 30db, so this might be fun to test if they really work with a visual indicator… [via] – Link.
