Bicycles

200 countries, 200 years, 120,000 data points, 4 minutes…

…and a pretty sweet Minority Report-esque dynamic infographic (“infomotion?”), to boot. The point? The world today has more than its share of problems, but we can all be thankful it isn’t the world of 200 years ago.

The charming Swede is Hans Rosling–physician, statistician, and host of BBC 4’s The Joy of Stats. Pretty much everything about this video makes me happy, not least of all that the Brits have a TV program celebrating statistics itself. [Thanks, Dad!]

P.S. If you’re feeling cynical, check out the equally-cool-but-way-less-uplifting Animated Map of Nuclear Explosions, 1945-1998 by Isao Hashimoto.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan2
Make: Projects – Light switch time capsule

Make: Projects – Light switch time capsule

I get nostalgic when I move out of a home, especially if it’s one I’ve lived in awhile. Leaving a secret treasure or two, stashed here and there, seems to help me get closure. Unlike, say, dropping a note down inside the wall, a note on the back of a switch plate is likely to be found sooner or later, but not right away. I’ve included a PDF template with a tiny font that makes it easy to fit a 500-word message on the back of a standard light switch plate.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan22

Top 10: Robots doing stuff that scares the &$#! out of me

In truth, I regard the “robot uprising” meme with about the same level of seriousness as the “zombie apocalypse” meme. I suppose robots becoming sentient, independent, organized, and uncontrollably violent is at least plausible, but if I let all the plausible apocalypses keep me awake nights, I’d never sleep again. So, in the spirit of fun, here’s a collection of videos showing the mad, mad foolishness that roboticists have been up to equipping our future overlords with their tools of power. Or, in a more serious vein: Look at all the amazing stuff robots can do these days!

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan4
Minority Report-style web surfing with Kinect

Minority Report-style web surfing with Kinect

It’s amazing to see all the fantastic Kinect demos popping up everywhere. Just goes to show you that people will go out of their way to do fun things with a product if it’s truly innovative. Take, for instance, this demo from MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group who’ve created a Chrome browser extension, called DepthJS, that uses a gesture interface to control a standard web browser using a Microsoft Kinect controller. If you view the accompanying video I’m sure you’ll agree that the effect is strikingly similar to the touch-free UI from the movie Minority Report. I’m not sure if it’s the most efficient method to interface with a browser, but I think it has to be one of the coolest

Continue Reading Adam Flaherty
Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Bikes

Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Bikes

Bicycles could quite possibly be the most popular maker vehicles. Here are some bikes and bike accessories for the cycle-friendly folks on your gift list. College bike trunk, DIY on Make: Projects by Frank Yost, from MAKE 23 Growing up, I would often visit my grandparents in Dinkytown, the southeast Minneapolis neighborhood near the University […]

Continue Reading Becky Stern