[Christian Ristow], a former Muppet creator, has created a much larger puppet that has caught the attention of Popular Mechanics. His Hand of Man is a 27 foot long remote control mechanical claw. Powered by a 90 hp diesel engine, the hydraulic system can be controlled by a glove worn by the operator. This started as a demonstration for a robotics fair, but has recently made appearances at Burning Man, Maker Faire, and had the Grand Champions seat of Popular Mechanic’s Backyard Geniuses Award. While not as practical as some robotic human augmentations, it can crush a car. [Christian]…
Hack
Hand of Man Mechanical Claw
Hack
Gameboy foot controller
[Joey] sent us a link to his Gameboy foot controller. In the video above, you can see him using it to control the loops in the background while he plays his guitar through an 8-bit filter. He tells us that several gameboys were used in the construction. At one point, he had to replace the guts because the music was so loud it knocked his equipment over and destroyed it. We can’t help but feel just a tiny bit of excitement as memories of renting a NES cartridge for the weekend fill our heads when we hear these riffs.…
Hack
Bokode, a new barcode
The MIT Camera Culture Group utilized Bokeh, an effect where the lens is purposely placed out of focus, in order to vastly improve current 2D barcode technology. Dubbed Bokode, the team claims that an off the shelf camera can read data 2.5 microns from a distance of over 4 meters, compared to today’s average barcode reader’s maximum distance of only a foot or so. What looks most interesting is the ability to produce a smoother and more accurate distance and angle calculations (relative to the camera): allowing for a better augmented reality. It also seems to be more secure…
Hack
Ruggedize your not-so-rugged portables
Popular Mechanics has a detailed how-to on diy ruggedization of common portable electronics such as laptops, cameras, and cellphones. There is video of a laptop surviving an eight foot fall due to the tennis balls, pipe insulation, and weather stripping they’ve added. Its not just shock resistant, they’ve used a two-part compound marketed for making custom molded earplugs to make the laptop water resistant.
Hack
The Serpent Mother
The Serpent Mother is certainly an appropriate name for this 168foot long snake fire art installation filled with enough goodies to impress anyone who is into flame effects. [The Flaming Lotus Girls] were allocated $60,000 in May of 2006 to bring this art project to Burning Man. A team of nearly 100 people worked together at a furious pace to pull it off. The collaboration of skill-sets is unfathomable between the metal art, firmware, software, LEDs, and propane design. The primary flames consist of 41 “poofers” along the spine of the serpent each one capable of delivering a 8′…
Facebook
Sub-Communities Are The Future Of Large Media Companies
When I read yesterday that the Wall Street Journal is creating a new “LinkedIn Killer” yesterday, I immediately thought about how likely it is that the company botches things up. When was the last time that you’ve visited a content site and were prompted to enter your contact information in order to “connect with the community” and then proceeded to fill out all your information? In theory it makes a lot of sense but no media company that I know of has gotten it right yet.
The Value In Segmenting Your Reader Base
Fred Wilson recently said to monetize the…
Hack
Vacuum gloves for climbing buildings
Suction is incredibly powerful and can be put to use in several different ways. [Jem Stansfield] built a set of vacuum gloves for a BBC TV series to show how powerful suction really is. He climbed up the side of a 100 foot building, yet had to rely on his safety line near the top. The video of his daring ascension after the jump.
[via DVICE]
Automotive
Motorcycle Protective clothing That works!
There is some great looking motorcycle clothing on the marketthese days, but believe me not all of the motorcycle clothingoffers as much protection as you think. In Europe, formotorcycle clothing to be lawfully sold as ’safety clothing, ithas to pass a series of European standards, which are prettylengthy but are available on my website. The standards cover theclothing’s performance in abrasion, tearing and impact tests,and when they have passed; they are sold with the CE mark.However, no such regulation is available in the USA, so whatshould you look for?Protection in the right places’Not many people realise that most motorcycle injuries…
Life
The Love Began With The Smile
Possibly the deliberate Lord wanted us to meet the person who was wrong before meeting the true human being to if we had finally met the true human being, we will know how to be grateful with giving and wisdom was overturned by this giving. If one of the doors to the happiness was closed, that was other will be open but always him we will gaze at the door that was closed that too long until we were invisible the other door that was open for us.Don’t the beauty look because only would mildewed was swallowed by the age,…
Hack
How-to: Bus Pirate probe cable
A probe cable makes it easy to connect the Bus Pirate to a circuit and get hacking. Good test clips make quick connections on cramped PCBs without causing short circuits. We made two cables for the Bus Pirate v2, keep reading for an overview of our designs and list of part suppliers.
Friday, July 3, 2009 is the last day to pre-order a Bus Pirate. There’s only two days left to get your own Bus Pirate, fully assembled and shipped worldwide, for only $30.
Overview
We use these cables to connect the Bus Pirate’s I/O pins to a microchip…
Health and Wellness
Everyday Routine For You to Boost Your Exercise Program
1. When you arrive at work, park your car further away from your entrance – same applies when you go shopping too.
Also, when at work, try to use the stair case rather than the elevator. Just start with one flight of stairs and
then build your stamina up.
2. If you go to work on foot, try thinking of ways to make your journey a little longer. One Proactol customer gets off
the subway one stop early and walks an extra 10 minutes per day because of this.
[...]
Life
The Past.
Forget the past is not an easy job. But we must realize that the past is not the real thing….There was a saying said that yesterday ended last night. Whether we were successful and failed, that has ended last night. The past was a history and the memory. …The Past is dead and the goods we may not achieve the momentum for tomorrow if we always drag-nyeret past behind us….Unfortunately, not a few people who are still happy (even though they realize without) the past to drag anywhere they go….They like participants in the race marathon that ran with foot…
