Is your iPod’s Firewire cable coming apart at the seams? Several of my iPod cables have started to de-sheath. What about you? The easiest way to fix the dreaded Firewire cable de-coupling is to put a thin layer of Gorilla Glue on the exposed metal part of the FireWire cable being careful not to over-apply Link.
Roger W. Sutton, an inmate at Mountain View Correctional Institution in Spruce Pine, NC, built a working clock out of paper, popsicle sticks, and pencils, using only a razor blade, tweezers, and nail clippers as his tools (Mountain View must allow access to sharp objects). The clock has beautiful colors, too! I’d imagine that being imprisoned gives people a keen interest in the passage of time– and that there are probably many other amazing but little-known projects by prisoners. Link.
A new Make Extra is up today: Mikey Sklar’s raving-mad recipe for building a blinking, glowing wearable with electroluminescent (EL) wire, a PIC microcontroller, and (optionally) a homemade PCB– all using exclusively open-source tools. The plans include full blinky control code that’s ready to compile and burn, or (of course) modify. Link.
Ulla-Maaria Mutanen, a Finnish crafter who presented today at the Reboot conference in Copenhagen, has written a draft crafter’s manifesto that reads like a blueprint for the Enlightenment crossed with an entrepreneur’s prayer. Good stuff. My favorite, #6 – Work inspires work. Seeing what other people have made generates new ideas and designs. [via] Link.
Altoids tins are one of favorite projects cases (seen here). Now Altoids is having a very neat Maker-like contest. To enter you just need to make something out of the Altoids Tin, it can be techy or arty, it can also be the tin from mints, sours and chewing gun. I really like that Altoids is encouraging reuse of their containers. First prize is $1000! Update: Just be aware they’ll own the copyright to it. They should do a Creative Commons License Link.
Great little how-to…I did some research on drip irrigation systems and was impressed to find the cost and features of this technology has really come along. You don’t need to know much about hardware or plumbing, nor do you have to dig any trenches. While older systems were prone to clogging these new systems are really flexible, pretty much leak-proof, and go together like a box of legos. Link.
Here’s some really good photo documentation of binding books. Printing, threading and the part I was most interested in – making and gluing a cover. Put a nice coverage of glue on the spine of your signatures. I also like to put some glue on the inside of the cover along the spine, making a little side to side pattern. Try not to get any glue on the face of the pages or the inside covers. If you make a mess just wipe it up. [via] Link.
