The Joker's Fun House Constructed From LEGOS

I would usually wait until Saturday (Fun Time!) to post something like this, but it's too good to wait. Vancouver-based LEGO artist Paul Hetherington (aka “Brickbaron“) made this proving once again that LEGO is the coolest toy ever.

A Fresh Food Movement On Wheels In Boston

Food trucks are all over the Washington D.C. area where I live and delectable, healthy food choices abound both indoors and out. But in Roxbury, a section of Boston, not so much. Thirty percent of the population there, which is mostly black and Hispanic, live below the poverty line and many choose either the low nutrition fast food options available or travel to other neighborhoods to buy food.

That's beginning to change. Cassandria Campbell and her friend Jackson Renshaw have created Fresh Food Generation, a Kickstarter campaign, to bring healty, affordable food options to Roxbury and beyond.

Check out the video below and click HERE for the Grist article I sourced this from to learn more.

Trash Men on Strike? Take It To The Bank!

The trash collectors are on strike in Portugal. Portugal has been hard hit by recession and the government of President Aníbal Cavaco Silva is intending to privatize public services in return for a financial bailout from international banking interests.

What has the public been doing with it's trash? Taking it to the bank.

For more click HERE.

Fun Time! Amazing Street Art!

To see more click HERE.

Now This Is Natural Food

Wes Jackson is attempting to revolutionize agriculture by looking into the past.

Artist Carves Mountainous Landscape From Encyclopedia

Travel Photo of the Week

North Pole

Peanuts Christmas Dance Recreated By Flashmob In NYC

Placemats With Engineering Blueprints For Different Foods

Just in time for Christmas! If you'd like to encourage your child's engineering and culinary skills at the same time, the website Awkward Engineer is offering a series of placemats that feature blueprints for making various easy-to-fix foods.

Included are: peanut butter and jelly sandwich, banana split, ants-on-a-log and s'more. If you lead a busy life, now you can just spread out the ingredients and the placemat in front of your child and they can do the rest.

Only $19.50 for a set of four, but I'm holding out for a set that include crêpes and chicken cordon blue.

Device Translates Animal Thought Into Human Language

Do you wonder what your dog is thinking? Find out with No More Woof.

The head-worn device picks up your dogs brain impulses and "translates" them into short phrases.

Bow wow becomes, "What's for lunch?"

Fun Time! Claymation AND Les Claypool!

What could be better than claymation? Claymation featuring Les Claypool.

Living Wage For Families Campaign In Canada

A few days ago I posted about a website where you could find out what a living wage was in your area. Today I'm posting about a Canadian campaign to raise the minimum wage there to a "living wage".

From the website...

"The Living Wage for Families Campaign raises awareness about the negative impact of low-wage poverty on families and communities throughout BC. It also advocates for what poverty researchers believe is a key solution to the province’s rising poverty rates – regional living wages that ensure basic living expenses such as food, clothing, shelter, transportation and child care can be met.

"Without living wage standards, parents and other caregivers who work for low wages in BC face impossible choices: buy food or heat the house, feed the children or pay the rent. The result is often spiralling debt, constant anxiety and long-term health problems. For many more parents it also means working long hours, often at two or three jobs, just to pay for basic necessities. All of which means little time is spent at home, let alone helping children with school work or participating in community activities."

How long will it take in America for us to realize that we are creating the very poverty that is killing the American Dream?

Again, in the words of the website, "Work should lift you out of poverty, not keep you there."

Sign Painters Documentary

Sign painting is dying art. Almost all signage is created by machines these days and use standardized fonts.

"Sign Painters" is a documentary by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon that chronicles the lives and work of a group of sign painters who still do it the "old way". It is also a cautionary tale about what is lost in the technology-driven rush to compete for work.

Travel Photo of the Week

Boudhanath Temple, Kathmandu, Nepal

Manhattan Micro Home

Derek ‘Deek’ Diedricksen, from Relax Shacks, tours this elegant, beautiful and extremely functional micro-home in Manhattan.

State By State Living Wage Calculator

The briliiant folks at MIT have devised and published a state by state living wage calculator. It starts you at the state level and then lets you zero-in on the county or city are you are interested in. It gives you the threshold amounts for minimum, poverty and living wage for a single adult and then a single adult with one, two or three children and then gives you the same information for two adults.

Very eye-opening.

Cool Tools: The Book!

As a younger man I used the Whole Earth Catalog like folks use the internet today. I would "surf" the pages looking at this tool or that book and the experience really opened up my world. I always hoped that one day I would be able to contribute to its trove of information and wisdom. Alas, they went caput in 1996.

Well one Mr. Kevin Kelly (who once was an editor for Whole Earth Review, a magazine spun off the catalog) has continued that spirit with his online "Cool Tools" and I have had the good fortune to contribute several tool reviews to it.

Now Mr. Kelly has condensed the best tools to book form. And I'm in it. Twice. Below is a photo of the page that my review of the Arturia Moog Modular V is on. You can hunt for my Roland MicroCube review on your own.

Fun Time! Inside The Book: The Art Of Rube Goldberg!

Should The US Consider A 'Maximum Wage' Ratio?

Income disparity is destroying our democracy and our nation. I'm not going to go into how the ratio of top income to bottom income earners has drastically changed since 1950. We all know that.

But now there is a nascent movement afoot to change this. The Swiss are considering action. They are considering capping executive pay at 12 times what the lowest-paid worker at a company makes and they are voting on it this Sunday.

But in America we have a mythology of no limits. No limits to the maximum someone can earn. But we have overlooked that to deliver that myth there must also be no limits to the minimum someone can earn.

I have always said that a nation's mythology will determine it's success or failure and that the inability to change or alter a mythology in the face of failure will guarantee that failure. Doubling down does not work.

In 1950 the average ratio was approximately 9 to 1. Now the average ratio of earnings in America is 354 to 1. For every dollar that the lowest paid worker in America gets the highest paid gets $354. That's the average. We were wildly successful as a nation in 1950. Now, not so much. How can we think there is not a connection here? The greatest disparity is found at J.C. Penny, a failing company. The ratio there is 1795 to 1. Why is the failing CEO of a failing J.C. Penny making 1795 times more than a successful employee at the company?

I think that it is high-time that we answered that question. Maybe it's time to take our heads out of the sand in this country and change our mythology of success before it causes the ultimate failure: national collapse.

Here's are some links to the story about what the Swiss are up to.

NPR story. CNN story. Bloomberg News story.

My KORG Littlebits Synth Has Arrived!

And it sure is fun! This particular patch involves a sequencer going into an oscillator into a second oscillator into a filter (being modulated by the envelope generator triggered by the sequencer!) that feeds a delay that goes into the amp.

Check out more here at littlebits.

Travel Photo of the Week

Kopepe beach, Ogasawara, Japan

Triangular House In Japan

From Small House Bliss comes this unique, two story, 595 square foot triangular house with a mezzanine loft. Downstairs bedroom, complete kitchen.

There are loads of windows and sightlines that extend the length of the house and spaces that borrow from adjacent spaces to make the interior seem bigger.

Wedged between a road and a river channel in west Tokyo, the interior space has been maximized by pushing the walls and roof to the limits of the permitted building envelope.

A Beginning To Fixing Our Schools?

Clintondale High School, north of Detroit, has changed the way they are teaching. With more than half of their ninth graders failing math, science and English, principal Greg Green knew something had to be done and decided to use a flipped approach, where teachers record their lectures for the students to watch at home and the students do their "homework" in class.  It's also relies heavily on outside videos like the popular Khan Academy and Ted Talks.

For more watch this video from The News Hour.

Build A DIY Space Capsule!

Just what you've always wanted to do, right? Here is a visual guide to the construction of space capsule TDS80 which is headed to space in the summer of 2014 on the HEAT2X launch vehicle.

With detailed photos and easy to follow drawings like this, what could go wrong?

Fun Time! Dad Colors In His Kids Drawings!

Tatsputin is a traveling dad and his kids give him a pile of drawings every time he travels for work. This is what he does with them.

Here's his imgur page if you want to see more. Here's his reddit page if you want to know more.

A Backyard Library

This pre-fab library was designed by 3rdSpace for a literature professor to house her collection of books. Click here for more pictures and info.

Artist Converts Her Tiny Studio Into Dreamscapes

Artist JeeYoung Lee uses her entire studio space to create surreal dreamscapes. Click here for more.

Travel Photo of the Week

Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Temple and Monastery, Woodstock, New York

The World's Most Exquisite Libraries

Take a look. Click HERE.

Fear Can Be Inherited

The title of the article featured in Nature Neuroscience is "Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations," but the bottom line is a fear reaction in your parents (especially your father) can be genetically transmitted to you.

From the abstract: "we examined the inheritance of parental traumatic exposure, a phenomenon that has been frequently observed, but not understood. We subjected F0 mice to odor fear conditioning before conception and found that subsequently conceived F1 and F2 generations had an increased behavioral sensitivity to the F0-conditioned odor, but not to other odors. When an odor (acetophenone) that activates a known odorant receptor (Olfr151) was used to condition F0 mice, the behavioral sensitivity of the F1 and F2 generations to acetophenone was complemented by an enhanced neuroanatomical representation of the Olfr151 pathway. Bisulfite sequencing of sperm DNA from conditioned F0 males and F1 naive offspring revealed CpG hypomethylation in the Olfr151 gene. In addition, in vitro fertilization, F2 inheritance and cross-fostering revealed that these transgenerational effects are inherited via parental gametes."

Be careful what you fear. You could be passing that on to your kids.

The Yurt Foundation

Bill Coperthwaite has dedicated his life to the study of the tech of ancient people and applying the lessons learned to modern materials and design.

His organization, The Yurt Foundation, is "a nonprofit educational organization established to gather folk knowledge from the cultures of the world and place it in a contemporary framework, thereby creating a reservoir of ideas for designing ways of living that are simpler, more beautiful and more just." The website is a trove of information on this beautiful building design that, in other cultures, is quite traditional.

His handbuilt homestead (below) in Maine was made entirely from hand tools and house the Foundation and it's library and archives.

Fun Time! Invent A Modern Science Kit, Win $50,000!

Ah, the days of the good ol' chemistry set are gone. Too many WMDs in the box just waiting to blow up in our faces!

Lament the death of reason no more! SPARK (Science Play and Research Kit)  is challenging you to envision a modern day chemistry set and if yours is picked you can win $50,000.

But it goes beyond just chemistry. They say they are "looking for ideas that can engage kids as young as 8 and inspire people who are 88. We’re looking for ideas that encourage kids to explore, create, build and question. We’re looking for ideas that honor kids’ curiosity about how things work."

Sounds like we might be able to keep STEM education alive and kicking with notions like this.

Circuit Stickers

And as a follow-up to yesterday's post, I offer Circuit Stickers. From the CrowdSupply crowdfunding website...

"Circuit Stickers are electronic stickers that you can use to build glowing, sensing, and interactive projects without any complicated equipment or programming skills."

These look like the perfect things to go between all that conductive ink.

Circuit Scribe: Draw Circuits Instantly

Here's another Kickstarter project that I've given my money to.

I think it's very important that children learn about electronic devices as soon as possible. When I use the term 'electronic devices' I mean circuits. This nifty pen can draw the conductive part of the circuit replacing wires or board traces and it's perfect for prototyping. You can use anything you would normally draw on; paper, wood, plastic. They also sell a group of magnetic circuit components (LED, buzzer, 8-pin dip socket, etc.) that offer no-glue, no-solder choices for creating your electronic wonder.

While you won't build a cell phone or tablet with these, you will begin to understand how these consumer toys works.

Travel Photo of the Week

Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim

Imagination Playground

An amazing creative playground for kids! With prices! Flexible. Durable. Re-configurable. Gets them exercising their bodies and brains. Everything you'd want in a toy for your young child.

The Dawn Of The Jeff-O-Caster

I've built my own amps and wired my stuff and such. But I've never built a guitar. And guess what? I still haven't.

What I have done is design an idealized platform, that I've had others execute, that I will assemble into a guitar I've dreamed about for a long time. I hope it sounds as good in reality as it does in my head. We'll see.

Now it's up to me to finish. Everything has been given its coats of Osmo and I'm letting it dry overnight. The pickups have been mounted (more on them and the electronics later) in the mounting plate and are resting on the body. More updates as they occur.

I want to thank Seth Johnson of Best Guitar Parts for all the woodwork and part gathering. Not to mention superb customer service. I think he has a future.

Beautiful Small House Made Of Reclaimed Wood

A small home made from reclaimed materials in Driftwood, Texas. Built by Reclaimed Space. For more photos, click HERE.

Fun Time! Google Map Of Middle Earth!

Do I really need to do any more than give you the URL?

You Can Get Bionic Eyes

In a few weeks the Argus II retinal implant will begin to be available to patients blinded by retinitis pigmentosa. Although it will not offer full sight, it will offer some vision to these patients.

The device, which looks a bit like Google Glass, is connected to a tiny electrode array that’s been implanted in the user’s retina and that transmits information to the visual cortex.

The study is small (only 30 people) to start, but if successful, the device will certainly improve and become just the beginning of a long list of implantables. Backers also hope it will be approved for use in patients with macular degeneration.

Before They Pass Away

Humans have been a very destructive force on this planet. Things die when they come into contact with us. And not just wildlife and their habitat. Entire cultures and people have been forced into extinction.

Photographer Jimmy Nelson has documented some of this world's last tribal people. From the Gauchos of Argentina and Ecuador to the people of Lo in Nepal, the threat of extinction at the hands of modernity is a very real thing.

"Before They Pass Away" documents the lives of these people in far flung corners of Earth, before they are lost to the sands of time.

And remember: what goes around, comes around.

Travel Photo of the Week

Blue Ridge Mountains

Let Children Play

There has been a debate running about at what age a child should start formal education. This is a hot topic at our home. Even though both of our children are grown, my wife (who is a child development specialist) and I both agree that most children are ill equipped, both intellectually and emotionally, to start school before the age of six.

It seems that the English are beginning to agree. This article in New Scientist discusses the research going on in England that shows that young children need more play and less goal oriented instruction during their early years. In the words of the article, children's play is "an adaptation that enabled early humans to become powerful learners and problem-solvers."

Perhaps educators and the public should go back and read Summerhill.

The Making Of John Lewis' 'The Bear & The Hare'

There's an absolutely stunning Christmas advertisement for John Lewis International that's been making the rounds and here is a nice "making of" video that's just as wonderful.

Studio Shed Company

Studio Shed is a Colorado company that makes beautiful pre-fab structures intended to be backyard storage, studio or living spaces. Sizes up to 12" x 24" and you can configure the interiors any way you like.

Neat video, too.

Meet 83-Year-Old Luigi Prina, Builder Of Flying Model Ships

Hack Your Useless Inkjet To Print Electronics Circuits

Here's another good idea for printers. Do you have an inkjet printer you're not using? Well now you can get it to print out circuits.

Kurzweil has an explanation on how to do it. From the site....

"The technique, called instant inkjet circuits, allows for printing arbitrary-shaped conductors onto rigid or flexible materials and could advance the prototyping skills of non-technical enthusiasts and novice hackers."

It'll cost you about $300 to get started, but if you do a lot of prototyping that's cheap. Imagine how this and 3D printing in the classroom could revolutionize tech education.

Will 3D Printers In Schools Inspire A Third Industrial Revolution?

That's a good question. Public school is mostly concerned with preparing students to accept and perform in hierarchical, authoritarian based employment situations. What happens when young people realize that they can ACTUALLY make their future?

We might find out. MakerBot has decided that they want to see a 3D printer in every school in America. If this happens, a whole lot of students are going to be able to pull away the veil that conceals the mystery of industrial processes.

As MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis said when announcing this endeavour, ""It can change the whole paradigm of how our children will see innovation and manufacturing in America,"

Here are links to my sources, Motherboard and Marketwatch if you want more on this.

Travel Photo of the Week

Atlantic Ocean Road, Norway

I Wonder What It's Like To Be Dyslexic by Sam Barclay

Here's another great Kickstarter project. Graphic designer Sam Barclay is dyslexic and having struggled with this, he decided to try to create a book that offers non-dyslexics a window into the dyslexic world.

Watch the video, you'll get the idea.

Where Is Childhood Homelessness Getting Worse?

"I can tell your future, just look what's in your hand."

Bonus Sunday Fun Time! Patchblocks Synthesizer Modules!

And while I'm at it, here's another innovative audio product that could shake things up. Patchblocks are programmable synthesizer modules that you can program to be any combination of functions. Oscilators, filters, delays, all are available by using your computer and the Patchblocks software editor to chain together the various "blocks" to create the patch and then load it into the Patchblock to either produce and/or process sound. Here's some video.


Not available yet, but you can sign up to get them on their Kickstarter campaign. I've ordered a couple.

Fun Time! KORG littleBits Synthesizer Kit!

At last: a modular synthesizer for everybody. Why is it for everybody you ask? Because it's only $160, that's why!

The geniuses at KORG figured out that there was a market for this and it's being released in cooperation with littleBits, the company that puts out other cool modular electronics kits.

The synthesizer kit contain all the usual building blocks of subtractive synthesis: oscillators (two!), a filter, random voltage generator, envelope generator, even a keyboard and a sequencer. Just snap the blocks together (they stick together with embedded magnets) and you too are making obnoxious bleeps and buzzes!

Below is a video of the synth in action. I've already ordered mine.



This Kickstarter for Patchblocks looks interesting, too.

Jellyfish Are Taking Over The Oceans

More bad news for the health of our oceans. Australian jellyfish researcher Lisa-ann Gershwin says popular beach resorts around the world are seeing huge increases in jellyfish "bloom" activity, a result of overfishing and changing water temperatures. And it's not just in one or two locations.

"The French and Spanish Rivieras, Chesapeake Bay, the Great Barrier Reef, Hawaii ... some of the numbers are staggering," says Gershwin and adds that the explosion in jellyfish populations is a visible indicator that life in the oceans is out of balance.

If you want to read more, here's a link to the CNN article.

Starfish Dying From “Disintegrating” Disease

Starfish are disintegrating. A malady that used to only harm a small percentage of the creatures is now befalling whole populations. It starts when an animal loses an arm or bits of an arm and proceeds over a few days to dissolve it into a gooey mess.

Although scientist are not quite sure what is doing this, they are agreed on one thing: rising water temperatures are putting starfish under stress and weakening their immune systems.

Research continues and if you'd like to read the online Time article I got this from, click here.

Travel Photo of the Week

Valley of Vang Vieng, Laos

Thorium Powered Automobile

How about a car that you only have to fuel up once every century?

Connecticut based Laser Power Systems is developing a new method of automotive propulsion that uses thorium, one of the most dense materials known in nature. Thorium is so dense it has the potential to produce tremendous amounts of heat, producing steam to power a mini turbine.

Here's the complete scoop from Industry Tap.

Pozie – A Pallet House By Mark Fielding

Can Water Replace Gasoline?

Scientists have discovered a a safe method of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, then using the two gases to make the flame of a welding torch. The only byproduct of the flame is water.

The process, called Safeflame, is also a lot cheaper and safer than traditional propane and acetylene torches, according to the researchers who developed it.

My first question would be, "Couldn't we use this for cars?"

Fun Time! Hilarious Video Of Dogs Shaking In Slow Motion!

Cities Under Strain

So many of our cities are under stress. Population decline, loss of taxable real estate, soaring pension costs, all these contribute to a city going under.

The Wall Street Journal has an interactive chart showing American cities that are facing these problems and how bad they are. Click HERE to see how your city is doing.

Bonus Halloween Fun Time! Mickey Mouse in Ghoul Friend!

Travel Photo of the Week

Bamboo home at Green Village, Bali

For more photos and a little backstory on this home, click HERE.
To see where it is located, click HERE.

The Deep by PES

This beautiful stop motion animated film by PES uses old hand tools, nut crackers and other items to tell the story of an underwater world.

Dome House In Thailand Constructed In Six Weeks For Just $8000!

Steve Areen built this dome house for just $8000. Click here for more and pictures!

Savannah Container Home

Here's a beautiful container home in Savannah, Georgia. At least the interior is beautiful. Click here for more pictures.

Halloween Fun Time! Patrick Stewart reading The Nightmare Before Christmas Poem

And now, Part Two.

A 540-Degree Photo Rig Made Of 130 Smartphones

To promote their Snapdragon mobile processor, Qualcomm created Snapdragon Booth, a “bullet time”-style 540-degree photo rig made out of 130 HTC One smartphones. The Snapdragon Booth was in New York City yesterday, October 24, 2013.

Silicon Super Capacitors Could Replace Batteries

Silicon chip with porous surface
 being coated with graphene to
 create a supercapacitor electrode.

It seems that researchers at Vanderbilt University have discovered a way to make silicon supercapacitors that would allow the creation of batteries that charge in minutes and work for weeks before needing to be recharged.

The researchers said in a paper that instead of storing energy in chemical reactions the way batteries do, silicon supercapacitors store electricity by assembling ions on the surface of a porous material. As a result, they charge in minutes, instead of hours, and operate for a few million cycles, instead of a few thousand cycles like batteries.

For more, here is a link to their research paper published in the October 22nd issue of Scientific Reports.

Travel Photo of the Week

Shaharah Bridge, Yemen