Okay folks, I've finally finished my underground ancient city. Actually it's more like, I need to move on to other things and really should stop obsessing over this thing already. You can find it at the warp location "woodcity" - which is funny because there is not a stick of wood in it! That's the idea: the city is so very, very old that nothing but stone (and some conveniently located, er, naturally burning torches and lava and ice deposits) remains to be seen today. All is enveloped in the...
What would MacGyver do if he was stranded on a trash dump in the middle of the ocean? If he had the right supplies, chances are he'd come up with something very similar to this PVC and duct tape boat. C'mon, we all know MacGyver always has duct tape on him!
A large number of the greatest musicians to ever shape the history of sound first learned to play on cheap, dirty, and often times even homemade instruments. There is a very unique atmosphere that comes about when creating music with something made by your own hands—out of what was no more than garbage at the start. There is a sense of accomplishment that inspires the maker, and gives motivation to learn the limits of their creation. Those who have the desire to build an instrument are often ...
Erik Demaine is a Professor of Electronic Engineering and Comp Sci at MI, but he is also an origami folder who has had work displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. He makes some beautiful models and intricate puzzles, but in my opinion the really inspirational work is the curved creased models. In Erik's own words describing the above models: "Each piece in this series connects together multiple circular pieces of paper (between two and three full circles) to make a large circular ramp ...
The last tree on earth The world looks new today.
Let's face it. Minecraft probably wouldn't exist today if not for LEGOs. They are fundamentally the same; building objects out of blocks. Only Minecraft has expanded on the idea, creating a world where nearly anything can be made. It's probably even more accurate to say that Minecraft is the digital embodiment of LEGO Mindstorms, thanks to all the working, moveable parts and ingenious in-game engineering that make Minecraft a functional, living world.
Since today (11/11/11) is the last 6 digit binary date this century, I thought we should look at some kinetic binary calculators.
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server.
Make sure you have A good place to work. Tips
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been widely used by the military for surveillance and reconnaissance missions—even armed combat. But there are other beneficial applications of an unmanned aircraft, such as search and rescue operations, scientific exploration, locating mineral deposits, transporting goods and even filming bikini models. But drone development can be pretty pricey, unless you just happen to have a 3D printer...
While we're waiting for Google to sort out the mess over suspended Google+ accounts, it's a good reminder that you have the option to download much of your Google+ data with Google Takeout. Google Takeout, created by an internal Google engineering team marketed as the Data Liberation Front, is a free service that provides a handy and easy way to download data from your Google+ stream, your contacts and circles, and other information in a zip file.
Just announced by Google's Senior Vice President of Engineering +Vic Gondotra, Google+ has finally arrived for the iPhone! Many people have been waiting for this for a while, and it seemed like it would be held up forever in Apple purgatory, but now it's available for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and the iPhone 4. Support for iPad and other Apple iPhone devices is in the work, so be patient. You can download it directly from the iTunes store.
On the same day that Google launched their new social network, Google +, a team of Google engineers calling themselves the Data Liberation Front announced their first service on Tuesday—Google Takeout, a product that allows users to easily move their data in and out of Google products, including Buzz, Contacts and Circles, Picasa Web Albums, Profile and Stream (the equivalent of Facebook’s newsfeed).
Meet DareDroid: sexy nurse, geek couture and mobile bartender, engineered into an all-in-one technologically advanced garment. Created by fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht, hacker Marius Kintel, and sculptor Jane Tingley, the team calls themselves the Modern Nomads (MoNo), and their series of garments fall into Wipprecht's invented family of "Pseudomorphs". Pseudomorphs are tech-couture pieces that transform into fluid displays—which is exactly what DareDroid does.
Following in the footsteps of great historical figures is a great way to learn about them. Michael Wood famously did so in the 1980's for his PBS documentary and book In The Footsteps of Alexander The Great. This March, UK-based marketing director Chris Worth completed a similar endeavor—not by tracing the path of a real-life emperor or explorer, but a humble video game character. One known simply as "The Courier".
The war against machines is near, thanks to Cyberdyne... I mean... the German Aerospace Center. The DLR Hand Arm System is a terminator-like anthropomorphic appendage that functions just as a normal human hand and arm would. Only it's way more durable and can take a beating from not only a hammer, but a baseball bat. Possibly the next-gen soldier?
As I sit in the office surrounded by creators and great imaginative minds I wonder what can I do to make my project an exciting activity and at the same time how to help the Theater I currently intern at. Well it has occurred to me that I am able to do the thing I love the most: Art. I cannot just sit somewhere and do tons of paperwork because that would be horrid and there is no way I could survive one entire year doing it, but I am good at running activities and events, I am good at teachin...
Calling all curious minds—scientists, anthropologists, relentless tourists: Saturday, April 9th, is International Obscura Day, the day to "explore hidden treasures in your hometown," or so says Atlas Obscura, a website dedicated to public curiosities and esoterica. If you're the kind of person who appreciates public oddities every day of the year, tomorrow is icing on the cake. Celebrate Obscura Day in one of hundreds of locales—from Los Angeles to Sydney, from Berlin to Manila.
About the 37 x 37 Homestead Expansion, Part III There’s a problem with it, and you may find it hard to complete.
These magical beans can keep your coffee hot for hours. Not blazing hot, burn your tongue on the first sip, and not disappointingly lukewarm, but coffee fit for every baby bear—just right. Genius.
Matt Reed, a web developer at Nashville interactive ad agency Redpepper, built a massive, real life Facebook Like "button" out of Legos, which lights up whenever someone clicks Like on his Facebook page. The programmer loves LEGOs, and draws an affinity between the legendary building blocks and engineering: "[Legos] are great for prototyping physical objects. I don’t manufacture things, but I do click blocks together. Plus, most things I deal with on a daily basis are pixelized. Legos are som...
Meet Newstweek, a hidden device engineered to hack news items being read at public WiFi hotspots (cafes, libraries, airports, etc.). Both nefarious and tech-saavy, the ingenious mechanism wasn't fathered by a group of web hackers, but rather a pair of Berlin artists, Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev. The duo are interested in exploiting the "trustworthiness" of big media outlets in order to demonstrate the vulnerability of relying on just a few dominant networks.
Don't you love those simple little tricks that just make life easier? Like quick solution for a pesky stripped screw? Apartment Therapy says,
This laminate flooring is very impressive as far as the surface is concerned. My client actually used a sharp screw and tried to scratch it, and we could not see anything. It is rated as a AC3 which is mid grade as the grading system is from AC1 to AC 5, 5 being the best.
Eric Jacqmain is one smart cookie. Borrowing from the same principles of Archimedes’ mythological death ray, the Indiana teenager used an ordinary fiberglass satellite dish and about 5,800 3/8" mirror tiles to create a solar weapon with the intensity of 5000x normal daylight. The powerful weapon can "melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete, turn dirt into lava, and obliterate any organic material in an instant."
Know the saying, "The inmates are running the asylum"? Well, if the inmates actually were running the asylum, we imagine the asylum might look something like this!
Yup, that's right! There is a new larp starting up near me, called Cobalt Nightmares, where the theme is Post Apocalyptic Fantasy. I have to admit, I absolutely adore the Post Apocalyptic genre (especially that awesome Fallout LARP in Poland), and I'm interested to see what happens when it becomes a fantasy game instead of a science fiction game.
What do you get when you take a run-of-the-mill kitchen knife and add a simple synthesizer circuit? Behold, the Syntheslicer! Creator Jonathan M. Guberman writes:
Live in the future (à la Star Trek, circa 1966) with uiproductions' pneumatic air-powered sliding door:
Love this Rubik's Cube stamp with movable type Chinese characters by Shaun Chung. Chung laser-etched the characters from wood, and then adhered them to a regular Rubik's Cube to create verses from a traditional Chinese text.
Theo Gray of Gray Matter explains the principle behind sending steel up in flames- as long as it's steel wool, of course. The process is beyond simple. Spend 2 bucks and 2 minutes: purchase a steel wool pad, hold in pliers, light with a match. But the question is, why is steel wool flammable, while other forms of metal are not? Explanation below the video. Theo says:
Update 9-9 1 day free gift: Farmhands!
New England theme - Limited Edition items! Update 8/5
This is probably the funniest video I've seen this year, they really don't hold anything back. Things you'll see in the video, based on real events:
How would you like to live like Tarzan, except in a sustainable, organic treehouse? Check out TED Fellow and urban designer Mitchell Joachim and his plan for homes of the future. Read the full article here.
U.K. department store Debenhams has pulled back the curtain on the reality behind swimsuit modeling. As expected, the standard model goes through quite a bit of "Photoshop magic".
25-year-old Chen Jinmiao of rural China dreamt of one day owning his own Lamborghini. But the truth is, it was highly unlikely he would ever be able to afford one. The lorry driver then undertook an impossibly difficult project- figuring out how to build a replica for considerably less cash. A year and approximately $3,000 later, he achieved his goal.
Iowa firefighter Pete Lilja has modded the software of a Canon powershot to record images of Earth, from as high as 85,000 feet!
Researchers Hiroto Tanaka and Isao Shimoyama (of Harvard University and University of Tokyo) have constructed a tiny replica of the swallowtail butterfly. The crudely made model uses just balsa wood, rubber bands, and a steel wire crank. The goal is to better understand the biomechanics of butterfly flight. Via Wired,
The newest fuel alternative on the horizon? Pee. U.S. researchers have been experimenting with using urine as a method of producing hydrogen. Not only could this virtually free and readily available resource possibly power automobiles, but it could also aid in the clean up of municipal wastewater.
