Unnecessary Direct Search Results

News: 1.3 Million Dollar Surgical Robot Folds Paper Airplanes, Gives Manicures

Here's a two-in-one "tutorial" for you today; how to fold a paper airplane, and how to execute a belated St. Patrick's Day manicure. Just follow along and do as the da Vinci does—our adroit instructor is a surgical robot, with a hefty price tag of approximately 1.3 million dollars, plus several hundred thousand dollars in annual maintenance fees. In truth, the da Vinci doesn't have the brain power to dictate the folding of a simple origami plane, nor does it know how to paint orange and green...

How To: Play Music With Your Mind

Tired of getting calluses from incessantly strumming along to 'No Woman No Cry'? Just hook up to the brain-music system and use your brain power to play a tune instead. I'm not talking—humming along in your head. The machine, created by composer and computer-music specialist Eduardo Miranda of the University of Plymouth, UK, is composed of electrodes taped directly onto your skull that pick up tiny electrical impulses from neurons in your brain and translates them into musical rhythms on a co...

How To: Ikea Makes Beautiful (Not Quite HowTo) Cooking Videos

When images of a rumored Ikea cookbook surfaced through the blogger grapevine, foodie and graphic design fetishists alike grew ecstatic. The leaked images from the 140 page coffee-table baking book presented pristinely assembled, OCD patterns of ingredients and the resulting desserts for 30 classic Swedish baking recipes. Forsman & Bodenfors, the Swedish agency behind the project took a different approach to the typical organization of the standard baking cookbook.

Start Your Day Off Right: Beautiful Oscar Nominated Short "The Lost Thing"

The Lost Thing is a lovely short written by Shaun Tan and co-directed by Tan and Andrew Ruhemann (executive producer of the fantastic doc My Kid Could Paint That). Based on the award-winning children’s book of the same title (also by Tan), the piece was created over a span of eight years(!) using a mix of CGI and 2D handpainted elements. Tan, whose background is in painting, spent much of the duration "carefully building, texturing and lighting of digitial elements to create a unique aestheti...

News: Trade in Your Grill for Japanese LED Teeth

In the far away land of Japan, gold is out, glow-in-the-dark is in. LED "grills" were recently conceived of by two Japanese designers/hackers for a winter advertising event at clothing store Laforet Harajuku. The LED teeth attachments quickly became a hot item. Foreseeably, one of the two designers demonstrating the teeth in the video above is the familiar Daito Manabe (our favorite "self-electrocuting" mad hacker). Manabe's partner, Motoi Ishibashi, came up with the idea when "he saw a video...

News: Are North Korean World Cup Fans Really Chinese Actors?

World Cup World asks: "How'd North Korean fans get to the game?" Fair and valid question. It's seeming IMPOSSIBLE for any North Korean citizen to get a visa to leave the communist regime (not that they could afford it, anyway) to attend this past week's game. After much initial speculation on whether these fans were the real deal, the mystery has been resolved by multiple news sources.

News: My poor Mom.

One summer day last year we were in our farm house in New Hampshire.  My brother's friend, Michael, had just made a spankin new potato gun.  We ran out of potatos.   You know what I am talkin about.  Everything is happy until you run out of potatos.  Mom is sitting peacefully at the picnic table reading.  Michael gets the .22 and nails a chipmunk that had been terrorizing our grain supplies.  He stuffed the chipmunk into the barrel.  I think some cotten gauze or clothing was wrapped around to...

News: You Can Now Use Your iPhone as an Android TV Remote

You may not own an Android TV device, but your current smart TV may have Android TV functionality built-in already. If not, your next TV could. Either way, you won't need an Android phone or tablet for a remote, because there's a new iOS app for iPhone that'll let you control the service with a D-pad or voice. Google has just officially released Android TV to the iOS App Store, specifically for the iPhone and iPad running iOS 8 or higher. With the app, you can control your Android TV with the...

How To: Convert PDF Documents to JPG Images Online for Free

PDF is a convenient format for documents that can embed text and pictures and can be read by almost any device—personal computers, laptops, smartphones, etc. However, PDFs are mostly read-only files, so sometimes it's necessary to convert them to JPG images, a universal format for pictures. JPGs can be modified by software such as Adobe Photoshop or posted on Facebook.

How To: Join the Fight Against SOPA and PIPA

Amazingly, a lot of people I know haven't even heard of SOPA or PIPA. Now, every English-reading person with an internet connection will finally have those two four-letter acronyms emblazoned in their minds. For the entire day today, Wikipedia's English-language site will be in total blackout in protest against the proposed legislation in the United States. And that's not all. MoveOn, Reddit, BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic and other popular websites are down today in protest.

How To: Make a Hyperbolic Paraboloid Using Skewers

In Monday's post, we created a sliceform model of a hyperbolic paraboloid. In today's post, we will create a similar model using skewers. The hyperbolic paraboloid is a ruled surface, which means that you can create it using only straight lines even though it is curved. In fact, the hyperbolic paraboloid is doubly ruled and is one of only three curved surfaces than can be created using two distinct lines passing through each point. The others are the hyperboloid and the flat plane.

How To: Practice good golf club grip

The way you place your hands on the golf club will have a direct relationship to the flight of your ball, as demonstrated in this how-to video. If your grip is too weak, the clubface angle at impact will be off line, which will cause the ball to curve. The bottom edge of the clubface needs to be straight to the target line in order for the ball to fly straight toward the target. A good golf grip would be considered neutral, that is, neither weak nor strong. A neutral grip will allow your hand...

How To: Protect Your PHP Website from SQL Injection Hacks

As a web developer, I often read articles about hackers (from the lowly to the knowledgeable) infiltrating websites via the dreaded 'SQL Injection' method and completely taking control, changing, gaining access, or destroying the owner's data. As a fellow web developer, I'm sure you want to know how to protect against it. Well, here it is! In this article, you will find out what SQL Injection is, what you can do to protect against it, and additional recommendations that are easy to do and onl...

How To: File a Last-Minute 2010 Income Tax Return: Save Money, Get Free Tax Help & More!

Ever since high school, I've been preparing my own taxes. Each year it gets more and more complicated, which results in me filing later and later, avoiding it until I have the time or just can't wait any longer. I even resorted to using TurboTax online to help do some of the grunt work for me these past couple years, but that hasn't stopped me from being lazy about it. I have yet to file my 2010 taxes, but I will very soon. Tomorrow, in fact—before TurboTax raises their prices.

How To: Build & Hide a Campfire from Your Enemies — The Dakota Fire Pit

Fire.  It’s everywhere— always has been.  From the Ordovician Period where the first fossil record of fire appears to the present day everyday uses of the Holocene.  Today, we abundantly create flames (intentionally or unintentionally) in power plants, extractive metallurgy, incendiary bombs, combustion engines, controlled burns, wildfires, fireplaces, campfires, grills, candles, gas stoves and ovens, matches, cigarettes, and the list goes on... Yet with our societies' prodigal use of fire, t...

News: The Discovery of Dolphin Language

In my early life I was deeply impacted by the work of physician and psychoanalyst John C. Lilly. I still have my dog-eared copies of The Mind of the Dolphin (1967) and Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer (1968). Lilly's work, with dolphins and the development of the sensory deprivation tank, has formed the basis of movies, music and television productions.

Step 1: The Hunt

Help Wanted. Now Hiring. Positions Available. These are among millions of the ways that the world around you says, "work here." Now, it may not be as easy as driving down main street, browsing for catchy billboards or flashy kiosks, calling up the mentioned number and simply getting hired. It takes work. The first step is perhaps one of the easiest: to think. Think about what your qualifications are, what you are good at, and what you wouldn't mind doing. The second step would be to formulate...