Jamie Matthews created a nifty notification cube that glows when his Gmail inbox has a message.
I was given a lovely glowing cube by the generous people at Linden Labs as a freebie at a job fair yesterday, and I decided that it was far too attractive to simply sit there on a shelf, pulsating forlornly until its batteries went flat. How about making it useful, while maintaining its visual appeal?
A simple python script runs on his computer, periodically screen-scraping his Gmail inbox looking for new mail. It then outputs a message to the serial port, indicating the mailbox status. On the other end of the serial connection is a Boarduino, which receives the message and toggles power to the cube.
You could start with his code and get a jump-start on doing something similar. It looks like this could inspire a fun project or two on a lazy afternoon.
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> A bike securely-locked but stripped naked to the frame is someone’s really bad day.
So when will all your “my bike is so expensive” Fanboyz finally find some enlightenment and ask to get and only buy parts that are no longer easily detachable?
As it stands now, ease-of-theft actually makes a part more expensive in biking circles (“can change that in 0.5 seconds while still riding downhill at 25mph”) instead of putting such parts firmly where they belong: In the junk bin, because they lack an important quality.
> As it stands now, ease-of-theft actually makes a part more expensive in
> biking circles (“can change that in 0.5 seconds while still riding downhill
> at 25mph”)
This is completely untrue. The expensive parts allow you to switch them out while riding uphill.