Month: July 2005

The cycle computer sensor is mounted on the circumference of a freely spinning plate (in my case a peanut butter jar lid screwed to a sliding door castor) which is surrounded by three rounded cups (baby food cups, NZ$4 the set) and mounted on a pole (an aluminium towel rail). All parts are either naturally weather-resistant (e.g. plastic or aluminium) or made so (e.g. varnished the wood, used silicone sealant to prevent water getting in). The unit was assembled and then calibrated out the window of a moving car. Thanks Chris! Link.

Jim sent this in, how can we not post it! I’m posting this and submitting it to the Make Blog in hopes that the gentleman who let me photograph him on his custom bike in Knightsbridge yesterday will visit the site (as I asked him to..) and perhaps instruct the rest of us how to create a dual-bike hybrid like this one. Link.

Summer time is here in the northern hemisphere and with it comes the heat waves. Cooling indoors is of course not something new, but how about cooling down your sitting area outside? In this article we will show you how you can make use of some ordinary things you can find in your home and garage, and put this together to an efficient cooling machine. I can only say this – you’ll need some cleaning detergent, spray bottle and a garden hose. Thanks Chris! Link.

This is an actual potato-powered Web server, currently online here. After the great SpudServer joke, I thought it would be interesting to see what an actual server capable of running on potatoes would look like. This server is very, very slow (around 0.2 hits/second), so you may have trouble connecting. [via] Link.

Interesting article about the death of the fix it economy. Remember the old ad about the lonely washing machine technician? Well, he’s no longer lonely — he’s dying away. In this disposable age, the neighborhood appliance technician is disappearing. Link.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the iUke: a tenor-scale ukulele with an integrated USB port. Plug this uke into a Mac and GarageBand will see it as a standard digital audio device, without any additional boxes, adapters or special cables needed. And there’s no reason why it wouldn’t work with any Windows-based app that recognizes USB audio. [via] Link.

This site contains a two and one-half minute video clip highlighting a kinetic sculpture/machine that continuously ties and unties a necktie. Although it is artistically inspired and intended for entertainment, the machine, (name “Why Knot”), dramatically demonstrates how engineering principles and methods can be used to solve unusual problems not normally associated with technology. Link.