Stefan writes “A nice detailed description of Oregonian Adrian Carbine’s record-setting amateur rocket flight. Powered by twin “N” motors, the two-stage model soared to over 40,000 feet. Dimensions: Length: 17’4″, sustainer dia: 4.25″, booster dia: 4.6″. Pad weight: 96.5 lbs. Weight without motors: 43.5 lbs (including parachutes, tubular nylon, electronics, avionics bays, CO2 systems, etc.). The entire airframe weighed 28 lbs empty.” Link.
Wow, MAKE pal David Weekly will be on this panel – “How do hackers collaborate? How have these patterns changed over time, with shifting cultures and new technologies? What can other disciplines learn from hacker culture? Hacker culture has always been a highly collaborative meritocracy that has extended well beyond organizational and geographic boundaries. This manifests itself in a variety of ways — from face-to-face gatherings, such as the legendary Homebrew Computer Club meetings 30 years ago, to open source projects today. The collaborative tools and processes that have always been pervasive in hacker culture are now beginning to penetrate other fields as well, from grassroots political activism to the arts.” [via] Link.
Here comes an interesting trend – buying real world goods with virtual money – “The first real product, an XFX GeForce graphics card, is selling for L$20,000 or about US$80 (approx. $L250 = US$1). Makes sense, upgrade your system from work within the virtual world you’re running. What next?…How about something simple that generates from the SL itself, like user-created t-shirts a la something like Threadless? What do you think would work? Gosh, virtual currency for virtual things is going to be sooooo passe soon.” Link.
Monopole writes in about an open source 3D camera – “Stereoscopic Camera and Camcorder Synchronizer using the commonly available LANC camera control ports. Based on the Atmel ATMega8 microcontroller. Both the software and the hardware is open source, with board layouts on the website.” Link.
NextBrick.net has a post about some really cool LEGO’s from the 60’s and 70’s from Mario, he writes “Dedicated to those of you LEGOmaniacs who are too young to remember the first years of Lego, or who have never had the opportunity to see some of these relics. During my childhood I spent tons of hours playing with Lego, and a large part of my small week’s pay buying spare parts. It would have been strange not to receive at least one Lego set at or birthday. My sister Elena and my brother Stefano are just one and two years younger than I am. They were very fond of Lego too and we usually played together to build very large cities. Not all of our Lego survived, but we still own a very large bunch of pieces, which I am pleased to share with you in this page.” Link.
Ok we want every single one of these great Japanese craft books! Each photo is complete with ISBN number so you can try to find them through Amazon Japan, YesAsia.com or through the Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya. (There’s a Kinokuniya in San Francisco’s Japan Town with lots of crafty books.) But just looking at all the covers is inspiration in itself because we aren’t sure we’d be able to read the directions! Link and more resources here.
Want a fun way to watch the Winter Olympics? Yarn Harlot has started the 2006 Knitting Olympics where anyone who wants to participate must cast on a project during the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympic games on Feb 10th and have the project finished by the time the Olympic flame goes out on Feb 26th. Everyone who completes their project in time, gets the gold medal (for your blog). [via] Link.
