Google mapping street bumpiness

Noah has mapped the bumpiness of the streets of Cambridge using an accelerometer he made. Schematics, source and more on his site. It would be great to have these types of maps if cars could record this data so cities would know where all the potholes are. Link.

The following notes grew out of a search for a good pattern for sewing a cycling jersey using non-lycra fabric. I’m not a great fan of lycra jerseys for touring, preferring a somewhat looser fit and a fabric that doesn’t feel like a wet plastic bag after I sweat in it all day long. Wool is good for cold weather, and polyester for warmer conditions.
Another good how-to. These hints are worth gold! Some close friends, engineers, technicians and the like were admired with the quality achieved by this process. Again, the motivation arised after veryfing that in the brazilian market is very hard to find materials for doing an industry-grade PCB at home. There are those nasty pens (using them sucks)…there are transfer sheets (‘Letraset’ a load of work for doing a pcb) and finally there aren´t those special transfer papers, imported and mainly USA made. Even if we got them here, their cost would be prohibitive.
Handy web page where you select the colors and get the OHMS. Find color codes for resistor value or vice versa. Hit Tab or click mouse to get Result. To find resistor value, hold the resistor so that the side by side color rings are to the left. You can also choose metal or carbon film.
Ever wondered how you could make your xbox controller light up? This tutorial goes over the basics of adding two LED’s to a Xbox S type controller. Good how-to, photos and a simple project to get started with soldering stuff.
Tom had a lot of anxiety about his email inbox and couldn’t stop checking his email compulsively while working. So he embodied his anxiety in a clock that compulsively checks his email for him, and worry over the amount continually coming in, so he wouldn’t have to. This clock would run at a normal pace when there is no email waiting, but every new kilobyte of email would drive it hyperactively forward. A java application living on an application server checks his email accounts, noting when new data arrived.