What do you get when you mix a 1970’s style analog chart recorder, an 8-bit microcontroller, and a Fisher-Price Doodle Pro? A truly 21st century toy: An analog PlotBot with e-paper display technology!
Continue reading An AVR-based Analog Plotbot with an E-Paper Display
But you knew that, right? Check out the Wikipedia article about different proofs that 0.999… equals 1. It’s really quite interesting to see the wildly different methods that can be used to arrive at the same conclusion. While I’m partial to the Cauchy sequence version, the first of the proofs is my favorite, beautiful in its simplicity:
0.333…. = 1/3
3* 0.333… = 3 * (1/3)
0.999… = (3*1)/3 = 3/3 = 1
Q.E.D. =)
The Silicon Valley Electronics Flea Market is held monthly, March to October, on Saturday mornings at De Anza College in Cupertino, CA. Today (March 10) was the first one of the year, so I made the trip and got there early– by my standards– at 8 AM, by which time the early birds had already left. The market nominally runs from 5 AM – Noon, but it starts to wind down an hour or two earlier than that.
The flea market is very popular but not crowded enough to be annoying, and it’s full of interesting characters. There are people selling things on the ground, under tents, on tables, and out of pickups, big trucks, horse trucks, Hummers, and Prii. The most common things that you’ll find for sale there are classic computers, radio equipment, electronic components (often by the reel), industrial surplus, tools, cables, connectors, books, software, and consumer electronics. Look a little harder to find esoteric components like lasers, as well as stuff that belongs at an entirely different flea market.
Today I picked up three sets of fine tweezers, a giant package of (giant) rubber feet, a small metalworking file, a package of breakaway DIP headers, and two small triple power supplies (+/- 15V @150 mA, +5V @ 300 mA), a total expenditure of $12. I also took my camera with me to document some of the fun, and you can check out the flickr set here, with 61 photos in moderately high resolution. The folks in the photo above are having a great time chatting over some ‘scopes and signal generators.
The next flea market is on April 14, so mark your calendar!
In this head-to-head review we compare two mechanical label makers: the classic Organizer Express by Dymo and the Bubble Roll Message Maker by Au’some Candies Inc. Other reviewers have discussed the bubble machine before, but we thought that we should, just to be fair, compare it directly to the competition.
Both of these devices use embossed-tape technology. A venerable but reliable system to be sure: batteries not included… or needed. (We like our electronic labels too, but that’s a topic for another time. If you’re into those, you may want to see what Lifehacker recently wrote about those.
Continue reading Comparative review of two embossed-tape label makers
This is a pretzel, and if you were asked what shape it was, you would probably say it was pretzel shaped. But (by definition) all pretzels are pretzel-shaped. Here are some other pretzel shapes that are a little less common: Pretzels for musicians, writers, gardeners, mathematicians, capitalists and Mac fanboys.
Continue reading Play with your food: Pretzels for fanboys
As you can see, I’ve upgraded my MAKE Controller.
I’ve long been a fan of googly eyes and of putting them in places where people don’t expect to find them. In this particular case, it’s a clear improvement, and I expect to see them included as standard equipment in future revisions of the MAKE Controller.
Along the same lines, it’s been really great to see googly eyes getting some popular attention lately in such places as the Klutz book and the Amy Sedaris Craft Challenge, which produced some amazing results– check out the flickr pool.
[Related: LabVIEW routines for the MAKE Controller]
For years we’ve admired the brilliant stickers, buttons, and shirts produced by Unamerican Activities (“quality rebellion at affordable prices”). So, when we came across a whole book about the stickers for $15 at Amazonwe though it was pretty sweet.
But what really sealed the deal was that we realized that it wasn’t just a book about the stickers but a book of stickers— 432 sweet stickers for fifteen bucks.
Continue reading Book review: Sticker Nation by Srini Kumar
They come in all sizes, don’t they? This one is even acting cute.
There’s something very neat about tiny animals perched on fingertips; there’s even a flickr group on the topic.
[Related: Escargot Grand Prix, Cute Baby Animals]
I have some excess 16-segment displays, and people keep asking me where to get these. So… you can get them from me for the moment. This is a Kingbright PSA08-11HWA, a red 16-segment single-character alphanumeric LED display. It has a 20mm ( 0.8 inch) character height and a common-anode drive configuration. It’s the same one that I used for the micro-readerboard holiday ornaments as well as for our logo.
I have two unopened (new, old stock) tubes of 18 pieces each, 36 pieces total. These are getting difficult to find. But, until I run out, I’m selling the displays for $2 each plus $1 per order for shipping (US only), payment via paypal. If you’d like to buy some or all of them, E-mail me.
Update: Poof! We’re sold out. (And wow, that was fast!)
Take a shapeless t-shirt, sew four seams and end up with a fitted top.
Free t-shirts are almost never girl shaped. Here is one technique for making your freebie wearable. Darts in the front and back contour the shirt to fit your curves.
Continue reading Mod your shirt: a fitted t-shirt in four seams
