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Archive: Online
September 1, 2008
Makers use Firefox
I do reports each month about how the MAKE site is doing in terms of traffic and all sorts of metrics, I don't think I've ever posted any of the interesting tidbits so I'm going to start doing that... here's one, most of you visiting the site are using Firefox (this is for the month of August vs July).
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Sep 1, 2008 01:00 PM
Online |
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August 27, 2008
List of problems solved by MacGyver
List of problems solved by MacGyver only on Wikipedia of course via Kottke.
MacGyver is in a room trying to get out, but sees the key in the other side of the locked door. He takes out a map, unfurls it and sticks it under the door. He then pushes the key out of the lock using his Swiss Army knife, which lands on the map. He then drags the map back under the door, thereby getting the key to unlock him from the room.In order to disguise himself, MacGyver rolls up the same map and uses it as a peashooter to distract a woman who was washing some clothes.
To get away from a guard with a gun aimed at him, he wraps the same map around an iron bar to disguise the bar from the guard. He first bats away the gun and then slugs guard in the chest with it.
MacGyver uses the same map again as a makeshift sled to slide down sand dunes to get away from the guards chasing him.
While escaping the guards, one of them shoots a bullet through the side of the balloon he is escaping in. He uses the same map and some duct tape to patch a hole over the balloon fabric and escape.
Post your favorite in the comments!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 27, 2008 08:00 AM
Online |
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August 25, 2008
Fantastic Contraption
This Flash game called Fantastic Contraption lets you build animated machines to get around bypass obstacles and get to a goal. It's the perfect mix of mechanics, puzzles, and video games. I had fun refining my machines to make them better. Via Buzzfeed.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Aug 25, 2008 09:00 PM
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There are many young engineers... we can't wait until they grow up...
A couple fun "maker" commercials from Norway's Hydro "There are many young engineers... we can't wait until they grow up..." - thanks Dan!
I was talking to a friend of mine and he said that many of the mechanical engineering companies, Boeing for example, have engineers that are all over 65 - they'll be gone or dead in 10 years and it's not likely they'll all be replaced. These companies spend over $100k per new engineer, just to find and recruit them... but it's a slow process and there is more demand than supply.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 25, 2008 12:00 AM
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August 19, 2008
Project tracks its progress and location as it interacts
The "FOLKESTRONOMY" project consists of a mobile mapping device that connects to the Internet to update a map in realtime as participants interact with the project. The build consists of an Arduino connected to a GPS device that reads the coordinates and relays them to available wireless networks. This project is more complicated than this review merits, so I would suggest you to follow the link to read the excellent documentation of this project.
Posted by Jonah Brucker-Cohen |
Aug 19, 2008 06:00 AM
Arts, Mobile, Online |
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August 15, 2008
Calculate the solar potential of your roof
The RoofRay site allows you to specify location, size and slope of your roof via Google Maps. It then uses this info to estimate how much energy can be generated from your available exposure. Though perhaps not terribly precise, it's certainly helpful for familiarizing more people with some determining factors and maybe even making solar power planning a bit more fun (and viral!) - RoofRay [via Lifehacker]
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Aug 15, 2008 08:00 AM
Green, Online |
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August 14, 2008
"Archaeologist" - See a MAKE timeline on DIGG
This is neat, you can see some of the top stories from MAKE that hit DIGG over the last couple years... (You can try out other sites and keywords too)...
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 14, 2008 08:00 AM
Online |
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August 13, 2008
CircuitPeople - View and share printed circuit board files online
CircuitPeople made a site where you can upload Gerbers in a zip file for easy viewing (PNG) via Ladyada. Also check out gerbv.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 13, 2008 08:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Online |
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August 8, 2008
Chris Harrison's visualization projects
Incredible collection of visualization projects by Chris Harrison -- I think I like the bible visualizer the most.
Bible Cross-References. This set of visualizations started as a collaboration between Christoph Römhild and myself. Christoph, a Lutheran Pastor, first emailed me in October of 2007. He described a data set he was putting together that defined textual cross references found in the Bible. He had already done considerable work visualizing the data before contacting me. Together, we struggled to find an elegant solution to render the data, more than 63,000 cross references in total. As work progressed, it became clear that an interactive visualization would be needed to properly explore the data, where users could zoom in and prune down the information to manageable levels. However, this was less interesting to us, as several Bible-exploration programs existed that offered similar functionality (and much more). Instead we set our sights on the other end of the spectrum –- something more beautiful than functional. At the same time, we wanted something that honored and revealed the complexity of the data at every level –- as one leans in, smaller details should become visible. This ultimately led us to the multi-colored arc diagram you see below.The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 8, 2008 12:00 AM
Online |
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August 6, 2008
Online generative music … generator
The WolframTones algorithmic composition generator creates a new multi-instrument sequence with every click -
WolframTones works by taking simple programs from Wolfram's computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them as music.Includes options for style, instrumentation, pitch and time controls - you can even email each piece as a MIDI file
- Generate a Composition
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Aug 6, 2008 03:30 PM
Music, Online |
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July 29, 2008
LegalTorrents - cool service
I was looking for a good and easy way to put up a torrent of a video. When you want to move a 500mb video file around it seems that eventually someone is going to need to pay a lot in bandwidth, some video services like Vimeo use Amazon's S3 but at some point if a video is popular (and high quality) it could end up costing someone thousands of dollars. This is where BitTorrent could come in, if something gets popular the burden of the download is shifted to the collection of downloaders. The problem torrents at the moment is that a lot of torrent sites are associated with copyright infringement, so LegalTorrents is a nice alternative that allows you to put your content up. It will be interesting to see what happens with video services in the next couple years.
For now, here's our test with LegalTorrents, a 500mb HD version of Citizen Engineer & torrent.
More:
Volume 12 - Remake Your Own Hollywood Movie (Page 76).
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jul 29, 2008 06:38 AM
Announcements, Online |
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July 17, 2008
Immune Attack - 3D first-person shooter game... teaches immunology
Immune Attack is a shoot'em edu-game that teaches immunology! via /. . Available for PC, in vitro, in situ, and in vivo.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) presents Immune Attack™, an educational video game that introduces basic concepts of human immunology to high school and entry-level college students. Designed as a supplemental learning tool, Immune Attack aims to excite students about the subject, while also illuminating general principles and detailed concepts of immunology.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jul 17, 2008 10:00 AM
Computers, Online, Science |
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July 15, 2008
HTML Color Name Generator
From the MAKE Flickr photo pool
Funax built an HTML Color Name Generator to derive RGB hex code from a physical objects -
I can decide the HTML color name without looking at color charts.Ok! - HTML Color Name Generator on Flickr
[…]
PC side software was built with Processing. This stapler's color is Cadet Blue. Ok?
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Jul 15, 2008 06:00 AM
Arduino, Online |
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July 2, 2008
Noise generator ... generates noise (in your browser)
Load page, adjust filter, enjoy the isolating benefits of on demand noise. - Simplynoise
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Jul 2, 2008 02:30 PM
Online |
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June 30, 2008
Twitter Fail whale... a 3D sculpture from the MAKE Flickr photo pool
MAKE Flickr photo pool member Hil writes -
[Here's] A little kinetic sculpture of the lovely Twitter Failwhale, based on the image by Yiying Lu that is used when Twitter.com is over-capacity. The image is called' Lifting up a Dreamer' I’ve wanted to make this since I first saw the image some weeks ago.
More:
You can follow MAKE on Twitter by simply here.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jun 30, 2008 08:00 AM
Arts, Computers, Crafts, Online |
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June 24, 2008
How we made Google Apps Hacks
I've been using Google Docs more and more, especially for collaborative work, both at Dorkbot DC and Make: Books. At first, I did so reluctantly, but I've become a real convert. So I was thrilled when we (Make: Books) published Google Apps Hacks. I'm learning all sorts of useful and fun stuff from this book. If you're a regular Google Docs/Apps user, or you want to become one, you really should check out this title.
My cohort at Make: Books, Brian Jepson, and the book's author, Phillip Lenssen, have written a two-part piece on how they went about developing the book in, you guessed it, Google Docs. Here's Brian's recent post on Hackszine:
When Philipp Lenssen started writing Google Apps Hacks, we made up our minds that we'd develop the book in Google Docs. A while back, Philipp wrote up Part I of the story of how we made the book. From Writing a Book in Google Docs:
Currently, my editor Brian Jepson and I are collaboratively writing the book (tentatively titled) Google Office Hacks by O'Reilly using Google Docs. I wanted to outline the process we came up with, and maybe it's helpful for you too for certain needs.I just wrote Part II of this story, and Philipp's posted it to the Google Blogoscoped blog. From From Google Docs to InDesign:
One of the tricky parts for us was getting the chapters into InDesign, the book layout program we use for our books and magazines. I know where we were coming from - Google Docs' HTML format - and where we were going to - InDesign's tagged text format.
From the Maker Shed:
Google Apps Hacks by Philipp Lenssen - all about Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Presentations, and more!
Price: $29.99
Buy it in the Maker Shed
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jun 24, 2008 10:00 PM
MAKE Store, Online |
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June 13, 2008
7 in 7: Day 4
The fourth day of 7 in 7 at ITP revealed Seasonal Salad Dress, Spammed!, Face the Web and "Cheating" Book Cover. Click on a picture to read about each one-day project in the 7 in 7 blog.
Posted by Rob Faludi |
Jun 13, 2008 10:00 PM
Arts, Crafts, Imaging, Online, Portable Audio and Video, Wearables |
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Realtime sensor network awaits your input ... or output
Wow, this could grow into something quite awesome. Pachube is -
a web service that enables people to tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices and spaces around the world, facilitating interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual. The idea is to make it relatively simple to "plug" together interactive projects and buildings around the world, as well as to create embeddable graphs of sensor feeds.Only eighteen feeds conected at the time of this post - but the datastreams are already quite interesting - from a Japanese living room to a swing in Sweden. Head over to the site to learn how to connect your own sensor/stream - Pachube Thanks, Chuckster!
Update: Interested Londoners can learn more about Pachube -
Extended Environments/Arduino/Networked sensors workshop- [ Only 3 days left to sign up! ] more info @ Tinker.itUsing Arduino and Pachube, Usman will lead a 2-day workshop, June 21 & 22, at Arup's headquarters in London, kindly hosted by Tinker.it! The Extended Environments workshop will form a basic introduction to networked sensors, making particular use of Extended Environments Markup Language (EEML) and Pachube. Please join us if you would like to learn more about using Arduino to connect together remote environments across a network, share sensor data, or create interactive environments using Pachube, but you will need to register by June 15th!
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Jun 13, 2008 06:00 AM
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June 12, 2008
iPhone broadcasts live video
Wow, Flixwagon did what seemed impossible stream live video from an iPhone! Ken writes -
We're happy to announce that our development team at the Flixwagon lab has successfully streamed the first-ever live high-quality video from unlocked iPhones to the web, using Flixwagon's alpha client.While we don't condone or recommend unlocking iPhones, as avid iPhone users ourselves we wanted to experiment with ways to enable flixwagon on the iPhone, until the official SDK supports video. We're going to continue working with the iPhone SDK in the future so we can offer this functionality to all users once video becomes a standard part of the iPhone.
After Flixwagon is installed on the phone, users can broadcast videos with one click to the flixwagon website. Videos can be watched live or saved for later. Also, videos can be embedded in blogs via our flixee widget or uploaded to the user's YouTube account. Users can also easily determine which of their contacts to share each video with.
We'll release the iPhone version to our Alpha testers in July. In the mean time, if you want to sign up for Flixwagon or get updates on future roll-outs and supported mobile devices, click here. Also, fell free to follow us on Twitter for continuous updates.
Update: Qik is going to have live streaming from the iPhone too, wow!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jun 12, 2008 11:30 AM
iPhone, Online |
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June 10, 2008
Ebay data as music
The Sound of Ebay project generates an audio sequence from your auction history -
EBAY'S CONCEPT IS BASED ON TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN BUYERS AND SELLERS – TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN HUMAN BEINGS, NOT CONSUMERS AND COMPANIES. THE EBAY-GENERATOR SOFTWARE REFLECTS THIS CONCEPT IN A WAY THAT IT DOES NOT ONLY GENERATE YOUR FREE PERSONAL SONG, THE GENERATOR ITSELF SHALL BECOME A FREE APPLICATION THAT ANY USER CAN INSTALL ON HER/HIS COMPUTER TO PRODUCE AN ENDLESS STREAM OF BUBBLING EBAY-GROOVES.(fyi - In addition to a lot of capitalization, the site features some NSFW pixel-art) - The Sound of Ebay [via Boing Boing]
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Jun 10, 2008 02:30 PM
Computers, Online |
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Phillip Torrone
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Tel: 707-827-7311
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