Decision Making Capacity Search Results

How To: Electron Spirographs with a Cathode Ray Tube

In this article, I'll be showing you how to make a cool visual representation of sound using an old cathode ray tube (CRT) television, a stereo, and a sound source. You'll also need a pair of wire cutters, and a few screwdrivers. To properly understand this project, it's a good idea to learn a little bit about how CRT TVs work. Check out this article on how they work.

Weekly Tips #1: Building Around Your Environment

One of the best ways to make a great build is to build around the environment. Fancy plugins like World Edit and Voxel Sniper aren't always necessary. In the real world, people can't just edit the environment to their every whim and need. They have to work around it. Not only does building around your environment help to make your build look nicer, it helps to make it look more realistic. In the above picture, I could only make a small house because I wanted this build to work with the enviro...

News: Block Cell Phone Signals on the Carrier of Your Choice by Hacking a Radio Frequency Jammer

Cell phone jammers, a DIY endeavor for the darker crowd. I'm pretty sure we've all considered having one at some point: whether the obnoxiously loud woman next to you is announcing private bedroom stories to a crowd on the subway, or your kids are grounded from using the phone (and consequently snagged a hidden prepaid phone), sometimes having a cell phone jammer comes in handy.

How To: Generate Electricity From Kinetic Energy

Piezoelectric Energy In this article, I'll show you how to make a small, wallet-sized device that generates electricity from kinetic energy. The concept is simple: Piezoelectricity is the charge that is produced when certain solid materials (commonly ceramic and crystal) in response to mechanical stress. Piezoelectrics have many applications; in speakers, actuators, sensors, even fuses. For more information, click here.

Scrabble Bingo of the Day: GRUYERE

Scrabble Bingo of the Day: GRUYERE [n] One of the most famous types of cheeses made in Switzerland, made from the milk of a cow. It's a hard yellow cheese named from its town of origin, Gruyère. The cheese can be spelled with or without the grave accent (`) on the è, though in the United States it's usually without.

News: Palm-Sized Pentakis Dodecahedron

I finally got around to making the pentakis dodecahedron from the instructions in Math Craft admin Cory Poole's blog post. It's not tightened/straightened up yet because I just noticed that I have two black and white and two blue and green compound modules next to each other (but no purple and pink modules next to each other—to the math experts, this is a parity thing, as you can only have even numbers of modules paired up next to each other).

How To: Make Hanging Dried Persimmons (Hoshigaki)

A seasonal tradition brought over from Japan to America by Japanese-American farmers, making hoshigaki (as they're called in Japanese) is a fun outdoor autumn project you can do before the winter season really kicks in. Hang a bunch of peeled persimmons on a string outside, wait for three to five weeks, and harvest yourself some naturally dried persimmons during the winter months. Though peeling the fruit and then regularly massaging the fruit every few days after hanging may be more labor in...

Math Craft Monday: Community Submissions (Plus Polyhedral Stellation)

It's another Monday, which means it's once again time to highlight some of the recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. Additionally, I thought we'd take a look at the process of stellation and make some stellated polyhedra out of paper.Rachel Mansur of Giveaway Tuesdays posted a video from animator Cyriak Harris, which zooms into fractal hands, where each fingertip also has a hand and fingers. A few more details can be found here, as well as some other really cool pic...

News: Making Art with the Golden Ratio

You can do some pretty cool stuff with the golden ratio. The image above is made from taking each quarter-circle in the golden spiral and expanding it into a full circle. In the second image, the spiral and the golden rectangles are overlaid on the the first image, showing how it works.

How To: Make Minecraft Potions

Sometimes mining and crafting gets boring. The thrill of hunting mobs, exploring strongholds, or the Nether is often much more satisfying and appeals to the RPG nerd in all of us. Well, Mojang took the hint and as part of the 1.9 release, there will be potions, more mobs, other worlds, and enchantments added to the game. To preview this release, read my tutorial on how to download and install 1.9.3.

How To: Create a Bump Key to Open Any Door

Lockpicking is a skill that takes years upon years to master. Locks come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but have common ground in how they work. Most cylinder locks have "tumblers," which are metallic cylindrical objects that sit vertically to the actual locking mechanism. Tumblers have five or six holes with rounded key pins of various height in them, each needing to meet an exact height or the cylinder in the center (the lock itself) will not be allowed to turn. This is the reason why yo...

Tartine Bread: The Beauty and Artistry of Bread Making

Unfortunately, I'm a little behind schedule on my pizza dough making mission, but I promise - more experiments coming soon! In the meantime, here's a beautiful video about the nuance that goes into bread making, as demonstrated by famed San Francisco baker Chad Robertson of Tartine Bread. Bread and pizza dough go hand-in-hand, and I've been thinking about picking up the Tartine cookbook for some time now. As I mentioned above, the nuance that goes into the process is really pretty remarkable....

News: The Perfect Hack for Enabling NFC Credit Card Payments on Your iPhone 4

Remember the good ol' days when you actually had to swipe your credit or debit card to make a payment at the store? Now all it takes is a flick of the wrist to purchase goods with your card, thanks to RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology from Chase (blink), Visa (payWave) and MasterCard (PayPass). But soon "contactless" payments will be made by an entirely different beast—NFC, which stands for near field communication.

News: The Brilliant Work of Zeboyd Games Highlights Some Hideous Flaws in XBLIG

Games like Minecraft and Braid have proven that there is money to be made in the indie game marketplace, which means more and more designers are following suit, one being Zeboyd Games. The two-man indie design team released two excellent JRPG spoofs on the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) Marketplace in 2010: Breath of Death VII ($1) and Cthulhu Saves the World ($3). Both have been well-reviewed and spent time near the top of the XBLIG sales charts, but its success couldn't be rivaled by what wa...

The Getty Museum Presents: How to Make Art from Ye Olden Days

Art Babble is a video network for artists and art lovers alike, launched by a group of curators at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The site is divided into channels, series and partners, with a wide variety of top notch videos from institutions far and wide. The Getty Museum has posted some especially fascinating content, most notably their series on modern artisans and craftsmen demonstrating antiquated art techniques.

News: To Explore New Worlds...

One of the things I enjoy the most about making tutorial videos is watching the reactions. In YouTube's backoffice, they give me great tools like Insight, Demographics, Discovery and Hot Spots. I can tell when people's attention drops off when watching. I can see what age groups and gender my audience is made up of. And... I can see where most people came from to get to see my videos.

News: Google Kills Gaming on Android

One of the biggest advantages iOS has over Android as a mobile platform is how readily and fully it has embraced mobile gaming. There are over 200,000 games available in the Apple store, compared to approximately 100,000 in the Android Marketplace. As an Android-using gamer, this has always bothered me.

How To: Make Your Own Roman Sahdes

Making Your Own Roman Shades Are you an everyday Martha Stuart? You know, one of those do it yourself creative people who can make better household items than you can find at the store. It so, I found a great (quick to the point) video that will help you design and make your very own set of Roman Shades.

How To: How Area 51 Fooled the Soviets with Fake Spy Planes

Area 51 is the most secretive military base in the United States, a base that U.S. government officials to this day still barely acknowledge because of its top secret development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. But a slew of Cold War-era documents have finally been declassified, and National Geographic has discovered a rather low-tech method the military used to hide its high-tech prototypes.

News: Fluorescent Puppies You Can Turn On and Off

Always wanted a fluorescent dog but didn’t want to commit? Well, here’s your solution. Researchers at Seoul National University developed fluorescent puppies that only glow when you want them to. Just inject the special pups with doxycycline and they’ll glow like a black light poster for a few weeks. Then, they return to dull, furry normal.

How To: Make a tropical passion fruit Caipirinha

Cachaca is a delicious, sugar-based liquor that makes amazing drinks. This video shows you how to use cachaca, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 shot of passion fruit juice and some ice to make a fruity and icy cold summertime drink. Garnish with a slice of orange. Make a tropical passion fruit Caipirinha.

How To: Makea Bois de Rose champagne cocktail for brunch

The fruity nature of this drink makes it a good choice for a brunch cocktail, or any time you want something sweet and tangy. To make this drink, you need: 1/2 ounce bitter orange liquer (such as Aperol), ice, 1 ounce dry gin, 1/2 ounce elderflower liquer (such as St Germain), juice of 1/4 a lemon, rose Champagne or sparkling wine and an orange peel garnish. Makea Bois de Rose champagne cocktail for brunch.

How To: Knock a Holiday Out of the Park: Observing Mom the Homemaker Prepare for Easter

I confess, I’ve always wanted to put on an awesome holiday dinner in a big house that’s mine where I cook everything and it is AWESOME. Since I don’t yet have a house, I’ve only entertained in small ways (college parties notwithstanding, ahem), but watching Mom the Homemaker utterly tame Easter dinner this year gave me some great ideas for holiday entertaining. Check out the helpful tips I learned from watching her!

Shadow: Why, God, Why?

Any time a feature is introduced in an MTG set and not replicated in subsequent sets, balancing issues are surely forthcoming. You wind up with one set that can do things the others can't, forcing players to counter that set with other cards from it, and generally limiting the creativity with which one can effectively play the game. Playing these types of cards is like playing trap defense in hockey or boxing like Floyd Mayweather: you might win, but neither you, your opponents, nor the peopl...

News: Navigating the sugar (and white flour) fests

What's the main dish that's served at pot lucks? Pasta! And what's pasta loaded with? White flour! Pot lucks, birthday parties and similar gatherings are a regular occurrence in our family. Humans like to socialize and in our culture, we do that best around food--food that mostly contains white flour. And if at least some of that food isn't loaded with refined sugar, it's like you've breached an important rule of social etiquette!

How To: Make Bubbles and Squeaks

I saw this on the Food Network and tried it out. We loved it. It is a great way to use leftovers and with the holidays upon us, I know you'll want to try it. I think it was Jamie Oliver who presented it although I couldn't find it on the website. It was described as a common thing done in the UK as the evening meal after a Sunday lunch. It is great with leftover turkey, dressing, and potatoes and gravy. The name comes from the sounds that it makes when it cooks. When you put the patties in th...

UPDATE: The Secret Behind Why McDonald's Hamburgers Won't Rot

For some reason, McDonald's hamburgers are mysteriously unsusceptible to Mother Nature's inevitable toll of decomposition. Yep, you pretty much have to dip a McDonald's cheeseburger in acid if you want it to decompose. So we're left with the question: Why? Why does a McDonald's hamburger retain its original shape, color and texture after 12 years?

News: Jaccard Tenderizer - A Must Have Tool

This is a tool I wouldn't want to do without in my kitchen. It's full name is the Jaccard Super Tendermatic Meat Tenderizer but if you refer to the "Jaccard", most food folks will know what you are talking about. Jaccard makes lots of food prep products but this is probably their most well known. There are other tenderizers on the market, but this one is better made and uses higher quality materials than most. High quality stainless steel blades in a sturdy plastic case that is machine washab...