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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Qwerkywriter - Typewriter Style Bluetooth Keyboard

Just what we anachronisms want for our computers.....



Get it HERE.

Monday, September 29, 2014

6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save The World

And since we are talking about food...and other stuff. If you're in a hurry, go to 7:50 to quickly get the full implications of what Paul is talking about.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Sweet Potato Fries With Chipotle Mayonnaise

I haven't posted about food in quite a while, but this particular recipe (that I found on PBS from food blogger Adrianna Adarme) seemed to good to pass up.

Ingredients: 3 to 4 sweet potatoes, 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 3 to 4 chipotle peppers in adobo.

Directions: Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. On a baking sheet, spread out sweet potato spears. Drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle with a few pinches of salt. Transfer to the oven to roast for 20 to 30 minutes, until tender when poked with a fork.

Meanwhile, add your chipotle peppers to a food processor and pulse until minced. Add the mayonnaise and pulse again until combined. Give it a taste and salt according to your liking. Remove the sweet potato spears from the oven and serve alongside the chipotle mayonnaise. Yield: 3-4 servings

For the complete story click HERE.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Friday, September 26, 2014

Star Wars House

You too can have the coolest house on the block. The Starwars House, by Korean architecture firm Moon Hoon, manages to look like Obi Wan Kenobi's. More photos HERE.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Travel Photo of the Week


Goa, India

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Dremel's $999 3D Printer Idea Builder

Well now it looks like everyone wants to get in the act. Dremel, the supplier of the world's most elegant motorized hand tools, for modelers of all stripes, has jumped into the 3D printing market with their Idea Builder.

It has a halfway decent build space (9" x 5.9" x 5.5"), but only uses PLA plastic.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Winfred M. Berg

Last week I received new copies of the Winfred M. Berg catalogs, both inch and metric. Filled with machine components: gears, polished rails, bearings, sprockets and pulleys. Everything you'd need to develop a high-tolerance, precision mechanical device.

I once had the catalog practically memorized, I used it so much. Little has changed since I first opened its pages some thirty years ago.

If you need to make a machine and you don't have your own machine shop, this is the catalog for you.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Friday, September 19, 2014

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Travel Photo of the Week


The Oregon Coast at Lincoln City

Monday, September 15, 2014

Mushroom Insulated Tiny House

This tiny house is insulated entirely by Ecovative’s Mushroom® Insulation.

From the website I found it on.....

"Ecovative uses mycelium (mushroom “roots”) to bond together agricultural byproducts like corn stalks into a material that can replace plastic foam. We’ve been selling it for a few years as protective packaging, helping big companies replace thousands of Styrofoam (EPS), and other plastic foam packaging parts. We’re now working to develop new products for building materials. This project is an exciting, radical and innovative approach to try a bunch of ideas, learn a lot, and grow something really awesome.

"Here’s how it works. Mushroom Insulation grows into wood forms over the course of a few days, forming an airtight seal. It dries over the next month (kind of like how concrete cures) and you are left with an airtight wall that is extremely strong. Best yet, it saves on material costs, as you don’t need any studs in the wall, and it gives you great thermal performance since it’s one continuous insulated wall assembly. "

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Fun Time! A Rube Goldberg Machine Powered By Light!




Who care if it's a Japanese advert. This is cool.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

The Guide To Not Buying A 3D Printer

Epic 3D printer fail.
With all the excitement over 3D printing, I thought it might be a good idea to offer information from chopmeister, who appears to have written a very good how-not-to-mess-up-when-buying-a-3D-printer guide.

The basics? Be careful believing jargon, technobabble, claims that anyone can use it because it's "open-source" and comparison tables of competing products.

Be especially wary of the words "Revolutionary, patent-pending, groundbreaking" because as the author states, "Usually (and usually does not mean always) indicates crappy printer. It's the same like all that "as seen on TV" stuff."

Me? I've already have a Micro3D on order, so I just broke all his rules. Let's see what happens.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Travel Photo of the Week


Vancouver Island, Canada

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

The Marionette Maestro

This weekend I had the great pleasure and privilege of meeting Nicolas Coppola, who founded Puppetworks, Inc. in Brooklyn. Nick is puppetry royalty. So many folks who eventually went on to found their own companies, first worked for him. Below is a profile of Nick and his work.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Amish Barn Raising

Perhaps if Americans would once more behave like this, we could begin to solve our problems. The work was done in 10 hours, 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Oh and they took off more than an hour for lunch. More info can be found HERE.


Sunday, September 7, 2014

Floating Saunas In Seattle

Found on Gizmag...

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Friday, September 5, 2014

A 19th Century Stockholm Covered In Thousands Of Phone Lines

From Colossal...

"In the late 19th century, shortly after the patent of the telephone, the race was on to connect everyone to the phone grid. However, due to technical limitations of the earliest phone lines, every telephone required its own physical line strung between a house or business to a phone exchange where the call was manually connected by a live operator. The somewhat quixotic result of so many individual lines was the construction of elaborate and unsightly towers that carried hundreds to thousands of phone lines through the air."

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Travel Photo of the Week


Rhodes, Greece

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Monday, September 1, 2014

Feynman Lectures Released Free Online

From SlashDot....

"In 1964, Richard Feynman delivered a series of seven hour-long lectures at Cornell University which were recorded by the BBC, and in 2009 (with a little help from Bill Gates), were released to the public. The three-volume set may be the most popular collection of physics books ever written, and now the complete online edition has been made available in HTML 5 through a collaboration between Caltech and The Feynman Lectures Website."

Volume One 

Volume Two

Volume Three