Describes the process and chemistry behind chocolate tempering

from TEDTalks (video) http://www.ted.com/talks/list

An essay about cold reading and the Barnum Effect

A MIT class about advanced data structures

Ed is the standard text editor!

Generates a custom boilerplate website with a few different frameworks and options to choose from

Paper on color quantization that uses a model of human perception

Python implementation of color quantization that uses k-means clustering

Color quantization is what's used to extract a palette of colors from an image

Matlab implementation of mean shift color quantization algorithm

The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking. The Truth: When your beliefs are challenged by…

Stephen Colbert dressing for a rehearsal of "The Colbert Report." More Photos » Correction Appended There used to be just two Stephen Colberts, and they were hard enough to distinguish.…

More resources The best book I know of for console hacks is Linux Server Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools . It's loaded with fiendishly creative scripts and shortcuts. (Almost all of…

WASHINGTON (AP) – The No Child Left Behind education law was cast as a symbol of possibility, offering the promise of improved schools for the nation's poor and minority children and better…

Search Engine Marketing: The essential best practice seminar . Spend a full day up close and personal with expert consultant Mike Grehan for this seminar and workshop at a unique science village in…

(Redirected from RAMPS1.4) RAMPS 1.4Release status: Working Description RepRap Arduino Mega Pololu Shield Arduino MEGA

LAST year, I flew to Singapore to join the writer Malcolm Gladwell, the fashion designer Marc Ecko and the graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister in addressing a group of advertising people on…

Playboy, January 2012On a hay-mown crest, dozens of people are crouching in the dark. The Earth has turned away from the sun, and the sky has flowed down a color chart, from light gray to orange to…

David Lang, something of a reluctant maker, is on a journey, intensively immersing himself in maker culture and learning as many DIY skills as he can, through a generous arrangement with our pals at…

Preliminaries Before I go into any of the specific details of the different techniques, let's first standardize our notation and terminology. In the introduction to this writeup, I used the term…

Zombie Fungus Rears Its Ugly HeadPhotograph courtesy David HughesA stalk of the newfound fungus species Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani, grows out of a

HOLD IT RIGHT THERE From the fedora to the Afro, styles have changed with the times. Unless you’re living in the 21st century. The past is a foreign country. Only 20 years ago the World Wide…

"Know anyone who has any needs?" "I'm not sure, I can ask around for you." "Don't you have any needs?" "I just want to be with someone I love." "Really, I'm not bad. Give it some thought." It was…

In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy Simon and Schuster, 424 pp., $26.00 I m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 by Douglas Edwards…

"If you aspire to use computer network power to become a global force through shaping the world instead of acting as a local player in an unfathomably large environment, when you make that global…

from Hack a Day http://hackaday.com

Longform Best of 2011

Longform Best of 2011

Longform Best of 2011

Longform Best of 2011

Longform Best of 2011

Longform Best of 2011

Can you believe that [hpux735] pulled this satellite weather image down from one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather satellites using home equipment? It turns out that they’ve got three weather satellites in low earth orbit that pass overhead a few times a day. If you’ve got some homebrew hardware and post processing chops you can grab your own images from these weather satellites.

The first step is data acquisition. [hpux735] used a software defined radio receiver that he built from a kit. This makes us think back to the software-radio project that [Jeri Ellsworth] built using an FPGA–could that be adapted for this purpose? But we digress. To record the incoming data a Mac program called DSP Radio was used. Once you do capture an audio sample, you’ll need something to turn it into an image. It just so happens there’s a program specifically for weather image decoding called WXtoImg, and another which runs under Linux called WXAPT. Throw in a little post processing, Robert’s your mother’s brother, and you’ve got the image seen above.

[Hpux735] mentioned that he’s working on a post about the antenna he built for the project and has future plans for an automated system where he’ll have a webpage that always shows the most current image. We’re looking forward hearing about that.

Filed under: radio hacks

kkleiner writes "Two developers from Shapeways and i.materialise have designed a 3D printer for your ten year old . The prototype, named Origo, would allow children to easily design objects in 3Dtin and then print them safely in their home with minimal adult supervision. Could be the last toy you ev...

Recently, I’ve had several opportunities to meet up with some of the people active in MakeIt Labs in Nashua, NH. This relatively new hackerspace was created just over a year ago, and has undergone some happy developments. Over the summer, I carved out some time to visit their new digs while at a workshop for teachers at UMass Lowell.

It’s been exciting  to meet members of MakeIt Labs at the Cambridge and Rhode Island Mini Maker Faires, and to see their projects shared with people at World Maker Faire where I chose them for an Editors’ Choice award. Below is an interview with Joe Schlesinger, founder of the space.

Chris Connors: Why did you start MakeIt Labs?
Joe Schlesinger: I had just left college, and didn’t have a place to work on stuff anymore. I’m really into all forms of making, especially robotics, and it was becoming clear fast that an apartment wasn’t going to cut it. Apparently people frown upon you trying to weld in your bathroom. I’d heard about hackerspaces, and was convinced that was the way to go. So, I found a small contractor’s garage, signed a lease and posted it to hackerspaces.org. MakeIt Labs was born.

CC: What ways would you like to see it grow?
JS: We’re getting to a point now where most of the build-out is done at our new location, and its a fairly full-fledged, self-sustaining shop for members to work on their own projects. Now that we’re stabilized, I’d like to see it do more in turns of education and outreach. We’re working with a number of nearby schools and FIRST teams at the moment, and that’s pretty fulfilling. There’s nothing like seeing the look on someone’s face when they ‘get’ that they, too, can make almost anything. Hopefully we’ll have more events and some formal classes coming out soon.

After the break, you can read more from Joe and see Joe and Christian St. Cyr’s video tour of the facilities.

CC: How is it different working in a group of makers vs. operating solo?

JS: The support you get from others equally as dorky as you, the regular kick in the pants to actually get stuff done and the people who know how to make every aspect of it possible really set group-making a world apart. Its great to have a crowd to turn to that, when someone announces their intent to build a fire-breathing penguin, the first statements are “awesome!”, “how?” and “can I help?”. The community is easily MakeIt’s biggest asset.

CC: What are some ways that your projects have been influenced by the space and its’ people?
JS: I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been stuck on a problem for hours, and had someone come up with a solution near instantly. Either because they’ve had the same problem, seen it solved somewhere else, or just looked at it a totally different way. I always find myself amazed by the people in the lab, and how much they offer in terms of knowledge and viewpoints.

CC: How do you see people learning in spaces like yours that is different than what you saw in school?
JS: There’s a lot more focus learning to make, rather than making to learn. People learn what they need to make things happen. People are far more passionate about learning here because they’re learning for something they care about, like finishing their projects, rather than for a test. People are focused less on the minute details than the general ideas and principles and how they can apply them. There’s a lot less focus on learning every detail and equation, because those can just be looked up.

CC: What have you learned about your projects from demonstrating them at Maker Faire?
JS: The age of passive consumption is over. In order for people to care, experiences now need to be engaging. You can have all the signs and pictures of the coolest project in the world, but people are going to ignore it all to play with the knobs on your 8-bit noise-maker, or to chase the wheelchair-robot around. And if you have a six-legged robot sitting on your desk, it better be able to walk, or you’ll disappoint every kid that sees it!

CC: What is the best thing you have seen come out of creating MakeIt Labs?
JS: A group of friends that are just a big as nerds as I am. Making things is way more fun with people that ‘get it’, and are doing things just as dorky as you are. Even if it weren’t for the tools or the space, I’d put in all the sweat, blood and tears its taken just for the people.

CC: Any other thoughts you’d like to share on making and makerspaces?
JS: Making awesome things makes the world more awesome.If you’re near a makerspace, visit it, join it, hang out. If you’ve got that idea, start it. That project, finish it. The most important thing is to just get out there and MakeIt. (pun very intended!)

You can visit MakeIt Labs online, or if you’re in Southern New Hampshire, they have open houses on Monday and Thursday evenings.

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Anil Dash shares his observations and insights into the development of the Maker movement. He sees it as a kind of political movement that is apolitical in nature but also radical and inclusive. This conversation with Anil and Dale Dougherty, founder of MAKE magazine and Maker Faire, touches on the social context of making, and what it means for individuals, families and communities. How will a “long, slow make” transform our society?

Subscribe to the Maker Faire podcast in iTunes, or watch it on YouTube.

Check out more videos from Maker Faire.

Over the next month or so, David Lang, something of a reluctant maker, is immersing himself in maker culture and learning as many DIY skills as he can, through a generous arrangement with our pals at TechShop. He’s regularly chronicling his efforts in this column — what he’s learning, who he’s meeting, and what hurdles he’s clearing (um… or not). –Gareth

One thing you learn very quickly about the maker community is that it’s very diverse. Going to my first Maker Faire, in 2009, was a lot like my first day of high school: there was so much going on and so much to take in that it took awhile to make sense of it all. Just like the stereotypical groups that make up a high school cafeteria, Maker Faire’s can be loosely classified by the self-organizing communities that inhabit the fairgrounds. There are the robotics geeks, the steampunks, the DIYbio folks, the Burning Man/installation artists, and many more. Unlike high school, silos are not encouraged – people easily drift between these communities as skill sets and interests overlap and compliment one another. This a world of curious people, and curious people like to learn from other curious people.

So far on my Zero to Maker journey, I’ve spent a lot of time with the technical aspects of making, with a heavy emphasis on learning the necessary skills to help boost my robotics knowledge. However, this has caused me to overlook one of the most important groups of makers: crafters. The craft area of Maker Faire is always a favorite area of mine, one that I never miss. I’m always inspired by the creativity that the different makers possess, and within crafting, it’s a sure-fire way to find an incredibly unique gift. In this column, I wanted to take a closer look at the crafting community and reflect on its relevance to my Zero to Maker process for three main reasons: the low barriers to entry, the pure creativity that it requires, and the incredible infrastructure that supports it.

When I talk about the barriers to entry being low, I mean really low. It’s easy to make excuses for not making things when you don’t have access to expensive machinery or the specialty tools, or an engineering degree, but those excuses start to fall apart when you see what some of the creative crafters at Maker Faire are doing with little more than paper, scissors, and a glue stick. There’s no reason not to get started. To follow up on this declaration, I made arrangements to spend an afternoon over at Teahouse Studio and mold myself from a wanna-be crafter into a full fledged beginner. I met Tiffany Moore, aka Crafty Fanny, around mid-afternoon. She decided that today would be a good day for stamping, and proceeded to teach me everything one could possibly learn about stamps. My first stamp attempts were quite pitiful, but Tiffany gave me some pointers that helped me improve my technique. She taught me that it was much more effective to gently pad the ink on from above instead of just punching the stamp down onto the ink pad (which is how we think of stamping). She showed me how to emboss the ink – applying heat and an additive to raise and gloss the print. By the end of the afternoon, I had filled notebook pages with stamping experiments and had completed two surprisingly beautiful cards, one for my girlfriend and another for a couple whose wedding I was attending that weekend.

Besides reinforced the initial hunch about low barriers to entry, the afternoon also brought about a tremendous amount of unexpected anxiety. The little voice inside my head that steps in to insist that I’m not creative. It’s downright uncomfortable, especially when you’re surrounded by people who can seemingly create such beauty on demand. Lucky for me, I had Tiffany there to continually help me overcome such creative doubts as well as serve up an endless supply of tactics for hopping over any creative hurdles. Even though I only had two completed cards to show for it, I felt like I’d stared down my creative demons, which is a uniquely satisfying experience in and of itself.

With their combined experience, coupled with the innovative experiments they are running at Teahouse Studios, the three women were able to give me a tremendous amount of insight into what I find to be the most fascinating part of the crafting world: the infrastructure. When I talk about the infrastructure, I’m referring to the wildly efficient tools and opportunities that crafters have to turn their work into a little side money or even a full-blown maker business. In my mind, no other maker group has figured out the business-side of DIY as well as crafting creatives. Of course, the crux of this efficiency is centered around Etsy and the incredible community they’ve fostered. Believe it or not, I even have my own Etsy store (admittedly, sales are poor). I first began to notice the remarkable effectiveness of Etsy businesses while I was working for ProFounder, helping small businesses raise money from their communities. I was struck by the natural advantage the handmade artisans had in the ever-changing economy. Crafters pour their heart into their work, expect to be paid for it, and they are! Of course, it’s not as easy as that, but the important part is that it can be – the tools are there and they’re easy to use. I caught up with Kyla Fullenwider and Adam Brown of Etsy, two of the folks working hard to set up for this weekend’s Hello Etsy event. They summed up the event beautifully by describing it as bridging the gap – trying to get more micro-enterprises into the community and having a healthy conversation about the needs of those businesses.

If you’re not able to attend World Maker Faire this weekend, attending a Hello Etsy event at one of the TechShop locations or tuning into the livestream are your next best bets.

And, I’m sure you know that MAKE has an incredible crafter community through its CRAFT website. This is a great place to start your explorations of the craftier side of making (and check out the Crafts area of Make: Projects, too).

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Follow David’s Zero to Maker journey

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Over the next month-plus, David Lang, something of a reluctant maker, is immersing himself in maker culture and learning as many DIY skills as he can, through a generous arrangement with our pals at TechShop. He’ll be regularly chronicling his efforts in this column — what he’s learning, who he’s meeting, and what hurdles he’s clearing (um… or not). –Gareth

Prototypes for the OpenROV project that David is involved with

Some advice takes a while to sink in. Sometimes it takes a later moment of realization to bring it full circle, or as I like to call it the “So THAT’S why they told me [Insert Advice]” moment.

I had one of those moments after the Make: SF meetup I wrote about in my last column (where we soldered together the MintyBoost kit). Even though it was a fairly simple kit to assemble, I was able to learn a great deal because I was starting from scratch. I learned simple things like which way to hold the soldering iron and how to clean the tip before soldering — trivial to an experienced maker, but nerve-wracking to the newbie. As important as such subtle learning was, the big lesson didn’t hit me until the following day while I was showing a friend my MintyBoost: the journey from Zero to Maker was going to be primarily-project based. As much as I wanted to learn, I wouldn’t really absorb anything unless I had a project (or series of projects) to center that learning around.

Sounds obvious, maybe, and a number of experienced makers had told me exactly that piece of wisdom. However, when you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s tough to have a perspective on what project (or projects) to pick. Even though I fully recognized the importance of such learning, I still need to figure out which projects will suit my skill level. I also wanted to make sure that I have a project goal that’s audacious enough to keep me interested – something that seems out of my league and forces me to push my boundaries.

The way I see it, maker projects can be split into two main categories: Known and Unknown. A Known Project would be something that’s been done before, and fully documented, like assembling a MintyBoost. Known Projects seem ideal for beginners, an opportunity to learn to use new tools while simultaneously building confidence. If it’s a Known Project, all you need are the tools, materials, and instructions to get started. Unknown Projects, on the other hand, lack any instruction manual, and sometimes, even a clear outcome. With Unknown Projects, the challenge of true problem-solving can be both inspiring and engaging (and highly intimidating). Unknown Projects require a different way of design thinking.

Based on those two types of projects and what I hope to learn, I’ve decided that building my own OpenROV will be my audacious goal. Even though I’ve been tagging along with the folks involved in this project for awhile, I have contributed absolutely nothing to the design or production of the prototypes. I want to change that. A good amount of work has been done, but there are still a myriad of design challenges that need addressing. It’s definitely still in the realm of an Unknown Project. The completed aspects of the ROV design will be ideal Known Projects for me to learn new tools and processes from and the outstanding design challenges beyond that will require me to find new solutions and push my creative boundaries.

I’m planning to meet with a “Dream Coach” at TechShop to help flesh out the idea and break the big, unknown project goal into a series of smaller, achievable milestones. I’ll have more on that in a future column. Meanwhile, I’ve started a list of project-idea resources. I’m sure there are numerous others, what am I missing?

Known Project Ideas

Make: Projects – DIY project sites like Make: Projects are a great place to start. There’s everything there: from electronics to crafts, fabrication to food. Each project is categorized, so you can start at an area of interest and work your way down to a specific project you feel comfortable with.

Take a class – The great thing about classes is that, in addition to getting hands-on instruction from an experienced instructor, you’ll be supplied projects that are proven to be well within your skill level. For me, hands-on learning is the only way I’ll ever remember anything. I’m going to be taking classes at TechShop, which is a great option if you’re in the Bay Area. Community colleges are another way to gain the skills you want.

Unknown Project Ideas

Start with a problem – Is there something you want to do, but can’t? A tool you wish you had? Often times, this place of necessity is where the best Unknown Projects spring from. A good example of that would be these Desktop Jellyfish Tanks. Alex wanted his own aquarium for jellyfish, and when he couldn’t find one on the market, he went about building it himself. [Editor's note: Read an interview with Alex Andon, featured in MAKE Volume 27, here.]

Improve upon an existing project or product – Trying to figure out how to do something with less, or modifying a product for your specific needs, can be another great way of developing an Unknown Project. OpenROV is definitely not the first submersible ROV, but our goal is to make it much cheaper and more accessible than commercial versions.

What are your feelings about the best means of project-based learning? What are some other project-based learning resources? Please share in the comments.

By Super Awesome Sylvia and her dad, James

Today we’ll show you how to make your own groovy lava lamp, no heat required! All you need are a few things you just might have in your kitchen. Lets go!

For this groovy build, we’ll need:

Powdered sodium sicarbonate (baking soda) and powdered citric acid (from the canning section at the grocery store) or, some fizzy antacid tablets [more expensive, but easier to find])
Clean empty bottle (plastic or glass)
Water based food coloring
Vegetable oil (at least as much as your bottle holds)
Water
Funnel (optional, but really useful)

Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo.

First, take your bottle and fill it with about three centimeters of water (you don’t have to be exact). Then take your funnel and while tipping the bottle, carefully and slowly fill it with oil to just near the top (not too high though), making sure it doesn’t bubble too much. Don’t worry if it mixes a bit, it’ll separate eventually. Oil and water just don’t mix!

So, why don’t oil and water like to mix? Oil and water are made up of molecules, little groups of elements bonded together. Water molecules have one big oxygen atom, and two little hydrogen atoms. These give each side an opposite charge, making it a “polar” molecule. Polar molecules love to stick to other polar molecules. Oil is made up of carbon and cydrogen atoms formed into what are called hydrocarbon chains. The oil molecule’s charge is spread out, so it’s a “non-polar” molecule. Non-polar molecules like to stick to other non-polar molecules (but not as strongly as polar ones).

When a water molecule and a oil molecule come together, oil is what’s called, hydrophobic (it’s scared of water!). Because the oil is non-polar, it has no attraction to the water molecules, and they just don’t stick to each other. Water is also a lot more dense, so the oil sits on top of the water happily.

Back to the build, take your food coloring, and put about four to eight drops in. Watch as the drops fall through the oil as perfect little spheres. As soon as the drops hit the barrier between the oil and the water, they will either sit happily on the water’s surface tension for a bit, or they’ll pop and color the water immediately. If you’re using powdered ingredients, take equal parts of baking soda and citric acid, mix them together, then spoon them into the bottle. If you’re using antacid tablets, break them up a bit, then drop them in. Wow, Look at it go!

The sodium bicarbonate and citric acid only react in the water. As soon as they get there, they let off tons of little carbon dioxide bubbles that each grab their own bubble of colored water as they breach the oil/water barrier on the way up. These “double bubbles” fly up through the oil, then hit the surface, where the CO2 bubble pops, allowing the water drop to fall back down, and the whole cycle begins again. Amazing!

Remember: don’t put a cap on the bottle till the reaction is complete, otherwise pressure will build up and give you a nasty surprise when you open it later. Once it’s done, you can put the lid on and store it for as long as you want, and when you’re ready, just drop in some more fizzy stuff and enjoy the show! As an added bonus you can also put a light underneath, add some sparkles, or anything else that’s fun and buoyant.

That’s all we’ve got for this episode, remember to experiment with different colors and baking soda/citric acid mix ratios, show your friends, and get out there and MAKE something!

Check out more episodes of Sylvia’s Mini Maker Show.

Leo Firebrand wrote in with his papercraft Mal’s gun from the TV show Firefly.

The first challenge was the wood grips both in painting and building. To achieve the curve shape of the wood I first carved the grip shape from floral foam and then stretched some lightly wetted paper over the form. Once the glue dried I cut off the excess around the edges and I was happy with how it looked. I used this same technique throughout and I am quite happy with the effect. I also had to really make sure to sand and keep all the edges of my cuts flush with the model since the final gun had to look like a single piece of cast metal.