I love "lazyweb" sites, Q&A sites, and other crowdsourced resources that deal in instant-gratification content. I especially like them when the signal-to-noise ratio is high; when a lot of really smart, inspired people come together to share their expertise.

As of a few weeks ago, O'Reilly now has its own such site, O'Reilly Answers, a place where O'Reilly authors, editors, conference speakers and goers, readers, i.e. the O'Reilly community, can share knowledge and ideas. Some have asked: how is this any different from StackOverflow? StackOverflow is about programming. O'Reilly Answers is about anything its community of users wants it to be about. The site's tagline is: "Clever Hacks. Creative Ideas. Innovative Solutions." If that's what it turns out to be about, it'll definitely be a place where you'll want to hang.

O'Reilly Answers

Our pal Fra Fondi of HobbyMedia writes:

Joker Racer R/C Server is a small-sized and power-efficient Llinux server designed for radio control cars. You can drive your R/C cars over the internet with your browser (or with a custom iPhone application) by connecting the store-sold web camera and the standard servo/speed controllers of your R/C car.

No word (that I could find) about the cost. [Thanks, Fra!]

JokerRacer

Hasbro is having a contest to see who can build the best Star Wars diorama using "at least five 3 3/4" Hasbro Star Wars figures and or vehicles." Submissions are open until November 16. See the official rules (.pdf). [via Geekologie]

A reader just sent me a link to servodatabase.com, which lists RC servo specifications and provides user reviews, a comparison engine, and various forms of sorting. Looks like a very good resource. [Thanks, Phil!]

SUCCEED Blog: "A collection of the world's most epic, awesome, mind blowing Succeeds"

Interesting article in the Telegraph about "Argleton," a town that appears in Google maps but does not, apparently, exist in the real world. The best theory I've heard is that the town is a "trap" intended to catch those who steal map data. [Thanks, Glen!]

Paul Overton calls this great round-up of creatively reused rolling stock from Web Urbanist a "megapost." I like that term. There's railroad-car homes, offices, hotels--even a railroad-car footbridge. [via Dude Craft]

Don't forget, we're now publishing a monthly Make: Newsletter. The November edition will be emailed out this coming week. The newsletter covers news and happenings around Maker Media, what's going on here at Make: Online, and contains original material, such as my new "Maker's Dictionary" column, a growing glossary of perennial tech terms and cutting-edge DIY, science, and tech-related jargon and slang.

You can sign up for the newsletter here.
Here to see last month's edition.

Well, OK, I think it's really three pieces. But the head and body are a single piece which eliminates the neck seam and makes the effect way more realistic. Then each hand/forearm is one piece, but those seams are concealed by the tattered shirt. A commercial product from TheHorrorDome.com. [via Boing Boing]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Our pals at ThinkGeek are having a contest to see who can design the coolest/geekiest pumpkin-carving template. You can view/download the entries at their contest page.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

If you're still looking for ideas for this (or next) year's Halloween display, check out HauntProject.com. They've done a great job of assembling cool Halloween projects from all over the web and have nearly 1,000 indexed and categorized as of this writing. Shown here are three of my faves so far. Above, a sweet crashed flying saucer prop by Scott Rossi. Below, a motorized monster-in-a-box by Bob and Cindy Stewart.

Finally there's this squishy-eyeball doorbell modification by Scott of Modd3d:

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Tired of reading all of those racist, anti-Semitic, gross, nasty, hateful, and just plain dirt-dumb stupid comments on YouTube? Now you can make everyone as smart as a rocket scientist, or at least as smart as a Nobel Prize-winning physicist (and prankster, juggler, painter, bongo player, and lock-picker), namely Richard Feynman.

FeynTube is a Greasemonkey script that replaces all YouTube comments when quotes from Feynman. You can switch off FeynTube simply by switching off the Greasemonkey icon at the bottom of your browser.

The FeynTube page describes how to install both Greasemonkey and the FeynTube script. [Thanks, Blake!]

More:
Richard Feynman Video
Feynman and ants
Cross-Stitch Your Favorite Physicist
Richard Feynman: The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures

What's that you say? It's a little early in the month to be burning the gallery-of-dorky-jack-'o-lanterns card? Not to worry. I've got four more where this one came from.

Nick created interactive flash versions of two of his homebrew synths. Though I was at first expecting all the synth's interface functionality recreated in software, the wide array of strange samples is still fun to experiment with. Sweet panel design too ... but the interior's aesthetic is even better -

Don't miss Nick's other awesome examples of synth-DIY, did I mention they're awesome? (they are)

These impossibly creepy artifacts are just the tip of the iceberg of awesometasticness that is Steve Erenberg's Radio Guy. Be warned, Steve's site is chockablock with incredible medical, scientific, and industrial antiques he's collected, mostly from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a major click-trap.

Everybody's favorite Xeni recently linked to this cool collection of slayer kits from around the web. Many of these are antiques and have sold for large sums at major auction houses, but I remain dubious as to how serious anyone ever really was about the whole business. [via Boing Boing]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Interesting thread over on The Home Shop Machinist describing the use of H.J. Watts' 1918 US patent 1,241,176 drill, based on the Reuleaux triangle (Wikipedia), for drilling a (mostly) square hole.

Are you one of the nine out of ten adults who purportedly believes you can tell when someone is watching you from behind? If so, does it occur to you that this is a kind of supernatural belief? Dr. Bruce Hood, Director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre at the University of Bristol and the latest subject of our ongoing series of interviews with notable Makers, has some fascinating theories about how such "routine" supernatural beliefs come about as natural consequences of the normal psychology of child development. He also talks briefly about how his own childhood enthusiasm for the paranormal eventually came full circle in his mature scientific interest in the psychology of paranormal belief. Fascinating stuff.

The Howard Phillips Lovecraft Historical Society, whose work I dearly love and have written about before, is compiling a complete prop edition of the Necronomicon from reader submissions! There was, apparently, a "Necronomicontest" of some sort to encourage submissions, the deadline of which has now passed, but they are still accepting "mad ramblings" here.

Yesterday was a big day for anthropology, seeing the first publication of some 15 years worth of analysis of a 4.4 million-year-old fossil skeleton of Ardipithecus Ramidus first discovered by Gen Suwa, then a graduate student of Berkeley paleoanthropologist Tim White, in Ethiopia, in 1992. Science magazine has made all eleven papers freely available to anyone willing to register at their site.

The sponsors of this year's Halloween contest are giving away microchips! To score some, go here, register, then choose the product line and device family you're interested in and click on the orange icons to order free samples. From their press release:

Hey Makers in the United States, UK, Germany, France and Italy... We have the exclusive on some great news from Microchip! Beginning Friday, October 2, you will be able to get free microcontroller, analog and memory samples from http://www.microchip.com/samples/. That's right, you don't even have to pay for shipping and handling! This is a great opportunity to get some parts for your embedded microcontroller project in the Make: Halloween Contest 2009.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Britons John Bryant and Chris Sangwin have written a book called How Round is Your Circle? that looks incredible. I haven't read it (yet), but the promotional website by itself has me sold already. Highlights include Reuleaux tetrahedra, square-hole drilling, and self-righting polyhedra.

If you are curious about the technical details of designing and laying out gears and gear trains, you can download a complete, free, public domain copy of the 1922 edition of the American Machinist Gear Book from Google Books right now.

Cracked casing. Has caused dog to grow third pair of legs. Still adorable. Good product.

Found this in some old abandoned village while on vacation. Older, Russian model (PU239)? Please inquire about shipping. Not responsible for damage due to radiation or explosions.

So glad I don't have to buy this from Libyans in parking lots at the mall anymore.
I bought this to power a home-made submarine that I use to look for prehistoric-era life forms in land-locked lakes around my home town in Alaska. At first I wasn't sure if this item would (or could) arrive via mail, but I was glad to see it showed up with no problems. Well, almost no problems.

Great Product, Poor Packaging
I purchased this product 4.47 Billion Years ago and when I opened it today, it was half empty.

I bought it for my cat
I bought this for my cat and put it with a flask containing poison, in a sealed box. Do you think he likes it ? I've not opened the box yet.

Mackenzie Cowell is one of the founders of DIYbio.org. He is featured in the most recent of our ongoing series of video interviews with notable makers, sponsored by Dow chemical, over at elementsofhumanity.com. Mac is a big advocate, not just of the fledgling discipline of synthetic biology (or "biological engineering," as it's coming to be known), but of the idea that amateurs, hobbyists, and so-called "citizen scientists" have a meaningful role to play in its development. Check it out.

If you've ever wanted to experiment with low-melting-point metal alloys, for casting toy soldiers or other purposes, Rotometals, Inc is a great online resource. Their Low-Melting-Point Bismuth Based Ingot 158-190-ALLOY, for instance, can be melted in a pot of boiling water. If you're concerned about lead or cadmium toxicity, their slightly-higher-melting 281-ALLOY contains only bismuth and tin. The also carry pure bismuth, indium, magnesium, and other metals and casting supplies in convenient quantities for small users.

More than one commenter on yesterday's post about tweels in development for the military expressed curiosity about the possibility of non-pneumatic bicycle tires. Turns out you can buy them, online, right now, from here, and here, and probably some other places that don't turn up in a Froogle search. I have not tried them myself but I'd be curious to have comments from anyone who has.

Popular Mechanics has just published a cool top-ten list of amazing DIY projects. Topping out the list is Christian Ristow's Hand of Man, shown above, but they're all worth a gander. My personal favorite is Matt Denton's walking robot router, shown below.

Borders is running a coupon promotion for the next four days (until 9/14) offering $2 off any magazine they carry on their newsstand. So, if you haven't picked up the latest MAKE, our "Robots, Rovers, and Drones" issue, you can get $2 off at Borders with the coupon found on the link below.

Grab the coupon here.
Find out more about MAKE, Volume 19 here.

Our ongoing series of video interviews with notable Makers, sponsored by Dow Chemical, includes an interesting conversation with mad basement chemist Theodore Gray, a successful computer scientist whose personal chemical element collection drew so much web attention that he eventually was given a regular column with Popular Science, a 2002 Ig Nobel prize, and, most recently, a book deal for "Mad Science.".

In the Maker Shed:

Mad Science