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Archives: May 2005

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May 31, 2005

Privately-Built Falcon 1 Rocket Test

Private Space Race is still going strong- The low-cost, privately-developed Falcon 1 rocket is the creation of Elon Musk, the South African spending his own cash to bring the new launcher from the drawing board to reality. Musk was co-founder of PayPal, the online payment system, and earlier the Zip2 software company. Link.

Google + Keyhole = Google Earth

Wow- this looks great, new Google Mapping- Google Earth. Integrated Google searches and a large number of landmarks that can be turned on and off. 3D Buildings, Public Transit, Land Rendering, Coverage, Animations, GPS, Road directions, screenshot savings and a lot more. [via] Link1 Link2.

Media-Sensitive Glasses

As part of her Social Defense Mechanisms: Tools for Reclaiming our Personal Space research, Limor Fried (creator of the Wave Bubble and the Minty MP3) developed the Media-Sensitive Glasses that automatically darken whenever a television is in view, so as to protect the wearer from television’s "hypnotic" effect. Link.

Frog with Implanted Webserver

Gross web server. Experiments in Galvanism is the culmination of studio and gallery experiments in which a miniature computer is implanted into the dead body of a frog specimen. Akin to Damien Hirst's bodies in formaldehyde, the frog is suspended in clear liquid contained in a glass cube, with a blue ethernet cable leading into its splayed abdomen. The computer stores a website that enables users to trigger physical movement in the corpse: the resulting movement can be seen in gallery, and through a live streaming webcamera. Link.

PeanutButterWiki

Make pal David Weekly had a weekend Hackathon and cooked up a free and simple Wiki service- pbwiki. Make a free password protected Wiki as easy as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Great for collaborative projects! What's a Wiki? A way for groups of people to edit a web page- and more. Link.

InstantSOUP - Electronics

Neat projects, using Macromedia Flash. InstantSOUP is a path into electronics using an approach of "learning by making", introducing electronic prototyping in a playful, non-technical way. It was developed following the experience gained in teaching physical interaction design at Interaction-Ivrea. Link.

Robots Work in Swarms and Hives

iRobot and Frontline Robotics are teaching robots how to work together. The goal of iRobot's swarm project is to coordinate the actions of groups of hundreds of individual robots. A Swarm Operating System (SwarmOS) is under development to control as many as 10,000 robots or SwarmBots. Link.

Biodiesel in Seattle

I checked out the Biodiesel station at Laurelhurst oil in Seattle over the weekend- really neat stuff. Here are some photos of the pump. For more information, what vehicles it'll run in and more- here's Laurelhurst's site with the same info as the flyer they had there. Link. Voulme 3 of MAKE will have a lot of interesting biodiesel info, stay tuned!

LCD Nameplate Project

MAKE Flickr Group Photo Pool member pmidge posted a photo of a really cool looking LCD name plate for his door- a project i'm working on is to add an lcd-based nameplate to my office door. this is a prototype board i made to work out the hardware/firmware. the finished product should go well with the orange gorilla fur already on the door... :)Link.

Tischers DIY Camera bag

Neat DIY Camera Bag with hard internal fiberglass shell- I feel like such a tourist (waiting to get mugged) with a camera bag, so I bought a messenger bag and hopefully I won't stand out anymore. I also wanted it to fit in my backpack without getting crushed when I cinch my packs compression straps, so I made a hard shell insert. It's faily common for backpacks to be cut and contents emptied without the person wearing the bag knowing. Link.

Buzz Aldrin Seeks to Alter Image of Space

New book to get kids excited about space exploration-- "Buzz Aldrin: Reaching for the Moon" (HarperCollins). The goal of the book, intended for 6- to 9-year-old readers that Aldrin calls "the third generation of space explorers," is to re-ignite interest and excitement in the space program. Aldrin, 75, says he's always considered it his mission to serve his country and the best way he can do that now is "by offering a vision into the future". [via] Link.

CVS Red Disposable Camera PV2 Mods

DRig writes- Hack the "disposable" digital camera that CVS sells for $20. Includes all wiring diagrams, steps, and software needed to be able to take the images off the camera to your computer. Link.

The Bicycle Forest - DIY Bike Gallery

Bikeforest has a ton of homemade bikes of all shapes and sizes for you inspiration and amusement. Bikes on ladders, recumbent, quadracycles, bikes made of wood, chopper style, and canoe versions. [via] Link.

ShapeLock Plastics...

Make reader Ron sent this in- looks interesting, anyone try it? Might be good for some prototyping. ShapeLock is a super strong plastic similar to Nylon or Polypropylene in toughness. However, unlike the two former plastics it does not need high temperatures or high pressures to form into useful shapes. ShapeLock is easily hand-formed into shape at just 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Link.

Recycling to Survive in Sudan

In Southern Sudan, international aid is being put to full use, and so are the shipping materials. The Sudanese are converting the packaging from international food aid and other supplies into necessities such as ropes, furniture, and kitchen utensils. Workers at an airstrip in Rumbek, in South Sudan, hack apart the fuselage of an old transport plane with axes. Later the aluminum will be recycled into cooking pots. Link.

May 30, 2005

Poor Man's Kinesis Keyboard

Nice keyboard hack- For programmers like me with wrist pain, I have made a simple keyboard modification that lets you press the Ctrl, Alt, and Shift keys with your thumbs. Just like those expensive $240 Kinesis keyboards, but made using a $30 K'nex building toy. (K'nex is like Lego but uses rods instead of bricks). Link.

May 29, 2005

Electric Cinderella

Drawing from the myth of Cinderella a pair of elegant sexy shoes with a crystal tip but with a new power inside: a stun gun. It’s just a shielded, potential weapon, meant to be used only once, as the wearer has to break the glass to use it. Cinderella is no more without defenses; waiting for the prince to save or worse to chose her [via] Link.

The HoverMower

Some DIY versions on the way I bet...Eastman Industries has taken the lawn mower to a new level (literally). The HoverMower is designed to hover slightly above the ground on a cushion of air, making it more maneuverable, extremely light, easy to propel and able to reach previously inaccessible places like extreme inclines, wet grounds, and tight, difficult to get at places. [via] Link.

The Great Ball Contraption

Build a machine out of Lego that takes Lego soccer balls from an input hopper to an output hopper at a minimum rate of one per second by any means you can devise. Define a standard interface for this kind of machine so that the output of one will reliably feed the input of the next. Now invite hundreds of Lego fanatics to use their imagination to build modules of all different sizes and types to meet this standard - then connect them all end to end to make the biggest Rube Goldberg contraption in history. Thanks Steve! Link.

Corporate Fallout Detector

The Corporate fallout Detector scans barcodes off of consumer products, and makes a clicking noise based on the environmental or ethical record (selectable via the "sensitivity" switch) of the manufacturer. It explores issues of corporate accountability and individual choice. Due to increasingly complex global supply chains, a single product we buy may contain parts made by various companies all over the world. Link.

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