Month: July 2005

Months before the Xbox 360 will ship there’s already a community of fans designing Xbox 360 faceplates. Awhile back we heard there’s a Chia version. This Flickr photo poll has over 125 to check out. These seem to be part of a contest, the winner will be announced soon! Link.

“The Most Beautiful Machine” is an idea of Claude E. Shannon, who died in 2001. His “Mathematical Theory of Communication” is the fundament of the digital machine. It’s a communication based on the functions ON and OFF. In this special case the observers are supposed to push the ON button. After a while the lid of the trunk opens, a hand comes out and turns off the machine. The trunk closes – that’s it!. [via] Link.

Awesome. In January of this year, I was pulled over by a traffic officer for “disobeying a steady red”, a.k.a. running a red light. I pleaded “Not Guilty” to the charge, and today – nearly six months later – I went to court to find out the fate of my ticket violation. Check out how Google Maps saved me some serious cash – and points on my license! Link.

I have owned a PSP for about 2 months now, and love it. Except for one thing. I HATE having to hold the unit when watching movies. I happened to be at Lowes today (its like a Home Depot) and picked up some PVC pipe and a cutter. I came home and made a crude first prototype of my new invention…The PSP Hands Free System. Future enhancements to include battery holder Link and Link.

MAKE will be testing in-flight Wi-Fi, have questions about it? Post them in the comments and I’ll ask the tech staff. The event is an exclusive flight onboard Connexion One, a Boeing 737-400 used to demonstrate the Connexion by Boeing signature high-speed in-flight Internet service. Also, if you want to Skype, iChat, SSH, IRC :-] in the air with me, let me know. Link.

In June, some members of Texas A&M’s AggieSat team went to the Student Hands-On Training I workshop in Boulder. There, we built “balloonsats” containing cameras with timing circuits. Some of these photos were taken from these boxes attached to a weather balloon that went to 95,000 feet. All of the boxes except Texas A&M’s “A-Team” box were cubic. The A-Team’s unique hexagonal design and the M-Team’s stunning bird’s-eye photos of it earned Texas A&M the design award at the event Link.

Moonshiners set up near creeks and rivers to assure a ready supply of water. All whiskey came from sour mash, but recipes varied. Commonly, the moonshiner mixed corn meal and hot water in separate “mash barrels,” later adding large scoops of sugar as well as yeast. After two days, the fermenting mixture began to bubble furiously and continued to do so for several days. When the mash quit “working,” it had the “kick of a mule colt” and was ready to be transferred to the still. [via] Link.