The Morning Benders - "Excuses"
Monday, February 22, 2010 | |
Yours Truly Presents: The Morning Benders "Excuses" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.
I totally stole this from Madeablog, who turned me on to it. Sounds like/reminds me of: the Shins, Dr. Dog, the National, Illinois.
Link: The Morning Benders
Eddy Current
Thursday, February 18, 2010 | |
Eddy Current Tubes -- Drop the Magnets down the tube. An eddy current is set up in a conductor in response to a changing magnetic field. Lenz's law predicts that the current moves in such a way as to create a magnetic field opposing the change; to do this in a conductor, electrons swirl in a plane perpendicular to the changing magnetic field.
Because the magnetic fields of the eddy currents oppose the magnetic field of the falling magnet; there is attraction between the two fields. Energy is converted into heat. This principle is used in damping the oscillation of the lever arm of mechanical balances.
Guatemalan/Honduran Observations
Monday, February 15, 2010 | |
- Agua pura, pro favor.
- Temescals: Tiny Sauna that substitute for baths is rural Guatemala. They are quite interesting.
- The Pan-American Highway.
- Gallo.
- How long will it take? A: 1hour B:3hours C: 2 hours.
- I saw a chicken cross the road, I was not able to identify intent.
- Lady Frog.
- This whole country is a garbage dump and they seem to be rather proud of that.
- Mr. Crunchy.
- Manzana té / apple te.
- Walking by yourself in the Tikal jungle at night is not the most relaxing thing to do, while laying down in a nice hammock reading a good book like "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" is.
- Glass shards and/or barbed wire.
- Xocomil.
- Palestinian Chess: the paws explode and kill everything on all of the surrounding 8 squares.
- Idea for the children at Pacaya, an active volcano near Antigua to make more money: Offer the hiking sticks at the start of the hike for say 2 or 3 Q, you will get a few takers then offer them about 1/3 of the way up for 5 or 10 Q, and you will make a great deal more money. Collecting the walking sticks at the bottom is also genius, but you guys have already figured that one out. Further if someone, either the guide or someone else, could camp out at that hut about 1/4 of the way down and sell torches for your head you could make some serious money.
- Mob Violence.
- Tuk Tuks.
- Chicken Buses (Guate! Guate! Guate!)
- What are those things floating in my "purified water"?
- Bed Bugs.
- Drivers go as fast as their vehicle can go always. They will also fit many more people than you thought possible inside, on, and hanging off of the vehicle what ever it be.
- Mountain farming.
- Altitude sickness.
- Lake Atilan is the volcano equivalent of a black hole.
- You can get into Honduras without a passport, it is not recommended but entirely possible.
- A 1x4 plank although not perfect, is a suitable substitute for a canoe paddle.
- If you canoe through mangroves at night and run into the bush, don't be alarmed if little crabs fall off the trees and into your watercraft.
- Vodka and club soda = O.K. Tequila = Bad.
- Beware of the suicide showers they are hooked up directly to 120 Volts and drawing around 50 amps of current and lets just say they are rather careless with instillation, I got shocked by some stray voltage turning the water on and off.
- The police don't exist expecially at night, and you don't call them or report to them as sometimes they are the perpetrators.
- Montezuma's revenge.
- Burn! Trash Burn!!!
- Fire crackers........all the time.
- Tortillas, frijoles negro, arroz, picante salsa, y café.
- Rats.
- Quetzaltrekkers is a quality group, and they feed you better on their hikes that you get normally.
- San Simon.
- Imagine how great this would be if it was just us, the stars, and NO ducks!
- Something just hit me in the face.
- The Gringo Trail.
Make Faire: Minneapolis !!!
Friday, February 12, 2010 | |
Twin Cities Maker is going to have a Mini Maker Faire at the Hack Factory on February 13th, 2010! Come one, come all! We're planning to have the fun start at 2 PM with local makers exhibiting and playing in the newly acquired space. We will also have an Art Show and Party later that night for people to come and experience the space and have some refreshments.
We are looking for you to join us and we are also looking for people to exhibit! If you're interested, please contact us at twincitiesmaker@gmail.com so we can reserve a spot for you! Also come to our regular Wednesday night meetings if you would like to help us out or get some ideas for your table.
ADMISSION IS FREE!
There will be raffles throughout the day for maker stuff. Light refreshments will be provided at the art show and party.
Makers for the day include:
- Tim Kaiser - Hands-on music, plus a performance
- Joseph Rand - DIY Wind turbine
- Ed Vogel - Displaying of super cool electric cigar box guitars
- Stefan - Showing off some amazing air cannons
- Replica Prop Forum - Replica movie props
- Adam Wolf - Display and playing with Arduinos
- TC Maker sign-up table - Join and become part of the TC Maker community
- TC Maker's tables to show off your stuff!
- Pat Arneson - Noise toys
- Tripoli Minnesota Rocketry Club
- Meg Koslowski and Andy Rennert - Art cars on display! Transform the thing you drive into something that is a work of Art!
- Nick and Jim of TC Maker - Presenting a life size "Operation" game complete with red nose!
- CazTek - Featuring flame throwers and pulse jets and other fun engineering feats!
Please join us to support the Hack Factory and local makers by becoming a member or making a donation.
Hack Factory
3119 E 26th St Minneapolis, MN 55406
Mini Maker Faire 2-6 PM
Art Show & Party 7-11 PM
Click one of the images below to get a full page PDF copy of a promotional flyer.
Joseph Rand ? DIY Wind turbine
Green Energy: USA and China
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In America, things have gone differently. In April of 1977, President Jimmy Carter warned that the hunt for new energy sources, triggered by the second Arab oil embargo, would be the “moral equivalent of war.” He nearly quadrupled public investment in energy research, and by the mid-nineteen-eighties the U.S. was the unchallenged leader in clean technology, manufacturing more than fifty per cent of the world’s solar cells and installing ninety per cent of the wind power.
Ronald Reagan, however, campaigned on a pledge to abolish the Department of Energy, and, once in office, he reduced investment in research, beginning a slide that would continue for a quarter century. “We were working on a whole slate of very innovative and interesting technologies,” Friedmann, of the Lawrence Livermore lab, said. “And, basically, when the price of oil dropped in 1986, we rolled up the carpet and said, ‘This isn’t interesting anymore.’ ” By 2006, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. government was investing $1.4 billion a year—less than one-sixth the level at its peak, in 1979, with adjustments for inflation. (Federal spending on medical research, by contrast, nearly quadrupled during that time, to more than twenty-nine billion dollars.)
Scientists were alarmed. The starkest warning came in 2005, from the National Academies, the country’s top science advisory body, which released “Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” a landmark report on U.S. competitiveness. It urged the government to boost investment in research, especially in energy. The authors—among them Steven Chu, then the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and now the Secretary of Energy, and Robert Gates, the former C.I.A. director and now the Secretary of Defense—wrote, “We fear the abruptness with which a lead in science and technology can be lost—and the difficulty of recovering a lead once lost, if indeed it can be regained at all.”
Fantastic article.
Curds and Whey
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2 decks. Average. No redeal.
Curds and Whey solitaire uses one deck (52 cards). You have 13 tableau piles. Four rows of 13 cards are dealt.
The object of the game
To build 4 sequences down in suit within the tableau (each running from King to Ace).The rules
The top cards of tableau piles are available to play. You may build tableau piles down in suit or in the same rank, ending at Ace. Groups of cards either in sequence downwards in suit or of the same rank may be moved as a unit, provided that where they join it follows either rule. (But the moved group cannot contain both descending suit sequence and cards of the same rank). You cannot build a King on an Ace.Empty tableaus may be filled with a King or group of cards headed with a King.
There is no redeal.
Comment
This game was invented by David Parlett.
things
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Wikileaks needs help. wikileaks.org
M. showed me this strange music site. thesixtyone.com
Watched this talk about Kurt Gödel's work. Slow TV
Madeablog.com is remodeled and alive again! "Whaddya Wanna Know" - Cloud Nothings
Also, my good friend D. is currently sharing his last decade in music here. carlosantenna.com
An intuitive site, but he just added an RSS feed here and I can't decide which is more awesome. Subscribe!
