Announcements

The Space Cycle: New Way to Exercise in Orbit

The Space Cycle: New Way to Exercise in Orbit

Hf Scit Spccycle051004 01This might make a good low cost DIY centrifuge for here on Earth too – “For most space travelers, the first effect of weightlessness they feel is nausea. But over the next few days and weeks, the lack of gravity takes its toll on the rest of the body, leading to muscle and bone mass depletion and troubles regulating blood pressure…researchers at UC Irvine and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) have developed a two-person, centrifuge-like, one-stop workout machine that makes its own gravity. They call it the Space Cycle.” Link.

ETel: Makers Wanted!

ETel: Makers Wanted!

Logo Sm-2From Nat “Are you hacking something cool around voice-over-IP, Skype, Google Talk, gaim, Asterisk, VoiceXML, or similar technology? We want to know about it! We’re looking for participants in the ETel Fair at our Emerging Telephony conference (conference is Jan 24-26, San Francisco; Fair is the evening of the 25th). We want cool hacks, funky devices, awesome apps. The fair is like a poster session with booze: you and a dozen others each have a demo of your system and a poster describing it, and conference attendees and the general public get to walk around, drinks in hand, grilling you about how it works, how much work it would take to add feature X, or whether you want to work for them/be acquired by them/come back to their hotel room for drinks and “session initiation”. If that sounds like you, drop mail to me (gnat AT oreilly.com) and Surj (surj.patel AT gmail.com) and tell us what you’ve got …” Link.

MAKE’s Kits For The Holidays!

MAKE’s Kits For The Holidays!

KitIn MAKE 04 we featured some great kit gift ideas in the magazine, “Kits for the Holidays”. But we didn’t have room for all the kits we found, so here’s another round for elves with makers on their list. MAKE subscribers can log in and view the full article hereLink. We also have our own kit for taking high speed flash photography to capture high-speed events — A splash. Popping balloons. Breaking glass. It’s an amazing adjustable flash controller triggered by light or sound. Link.

The end of Spiral Island…

The end of Spiral Island…

Diagram-1 Giorgio write “Hi, with respect to the post you wrote about Spiral Island, well it seems that island was destroyed during the past hurricane season.” – Spiral Island was a floating artificial island in a lagoon near Puerto Aventuras, on the East coast of Mexico south of Cancun. It was built by British expatriate Richie (or “Reishee”) Sowa beginning in 1998; he filled nets with empty discarded plastic bottles to support a structure of plywood and bamboo, on which he poured sand and planted numerous plants, including mangroves. The island sported a two-story house, a solar oven, a self-composting toilet, and three beaches. He used some 250,000 bottles for the 66-by-54-foot structure. Spiral Island was destroyed by a hurricane in 2005. Mr. Sowa plans to build a stronger island in a more sheltered area. Link.

Lexus peel out cheat code…

Lexus peel out cheat code…

LexusJust like video game cars, real cars have cheat codes too…“Here’s a(n) [alleged] way to disable the traction/skid control systems called VDIM on the Lexus IS: “start the car with the parking brake on…then foot brake twice. (keep the foot brake down). then parking brake twice (keep it down ) and repeat till skid light is on the dash…..it will reset when you restart the car” [via] Link.

What Would MacGyver Do?

MacgyverThis looks like an excellent book “What Would MacGyver Do? is a book-in-progress. When it is finished, it will be a collection of 75 to 100 original stories by and about people who have exercised MacGyver-like ingenuity in solving their everyday problems. The stories will be selected and edited by Brendan Vaughan, an editor at Esquire magazine.” Link.