Month: September 2005
Oldie but goodie – If you’re like me, you’ve spent tons of cash trying to win some giant bootleg Disney stuffed animal trying to throw balls into a bucket. Well waste your money no longer! Here’s a handy guide on beating the carnival games so you can have the upper hand! [
‘Second Life’ membership now free
The most Maker friendly MMORPG is now free to start – Linden Lab, maker of the popular virtual world “Second Life,” is making membership to its metaverse free. The company said that because free membership will likely prompt a significant number of people to join Second Life, revenue from virtual land the new members buy will probably make up for the loss of subscription fees. “We’re going to make more because some of the people who wouldn’t have otherwise signed up are going to buy land,” Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale said this week. Link and Second Life.
Good news for Xbox modders… the developers of Xbox Media Center for have added to the CVS their efforts toward a working DVD player with menus. Previously menus were not included due to XBMC’s use of mplayer and its current state of not natively supporting dvd menus. [
Energy Generating Backpack
Lawrence Rome, a biologist at the University of Pennsylvania has led the development of a backpack that can generate around 7 watts of electricity, without solar cells, and actually providing a more comfortable backpack in the process. Taking advantage of vertical motion, much like some wave generators, the backpack harnesses body movements while hiking. Link.
This is a really nice gallery of hand carved PC parts by a Russian maker, all out of Redwood with neat looking scrollwork.
HOW TO Make Ice Out of Thin Air
When he isn’t snowboarding or volunteering for Engineers Without Borders, Dave Williams spends his days thinking about something most of us take for granted: ice. As he discovered on a volunteer trip to Haiti in 2002, ice can be a godsend to a poor village, keeping fish fresh on a journey to market or preserving vaccines. But how do you make it without electricity, without access to coolants like Freon or fuels like propane? Williams, 26, knew that forcing compressed air through a hole in the middle of a pipe causes hot and cold air to flow from opposite ends, a phenomenon known as the Ranque-Hilsch… [via] Link.
I, Cringely . NerdTV | PBS
NerdTV is out and it’s great! NerdTV is a new weekly online TV show from PBS.org technology columnist Robert X. Cringely. NerdTV is essentially Charlie Rose for geeks – a one-hour interview show with a single guest from the world of technology. Guests like Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy or Apple computer inventor Steve Wozniak are household names if your household is nerdy enough, but as historical figures and geniuses in their own right, they have plenty to say to ALL of us. NerdTV is distributed under a Creative Commons license so viewers can legally share the shows with their friends and even edit their own versions. If not THE future of television, NerdTV represents A future of television for niche audiences that have deep interest in certain topics. Link.
