Technology Review - laser sensors for wind turbines...

A new fiber-optic laser system can measure wind speed and direction up to 1000 meters in front of a wind turbine, giving the massive machines enough precious seconds to proactively adapt to gusts and sudden changes in wind direction. The device, developed by Catch the Wind, a startup based in Manassas, VA, could improve the efficiency of wind turbines and keep them from breaking down.

More:

Wind Powered Generator. With a motor and some piping, it's suprisingly easy to build this inexpensive, efficient windmill generator--and enjoy free energy forever. Read this article in MAKE: 05: Science, Weather, and Outdoors, Page 90. To get MAKE, subscribe or purchase single volumes. MAKE: Digital Edition subscribers—read this article now in your digital edition!

HOW TO Build a 17-ft Wind Turbine.

DIY 1000 watt wind turbine.

HOW TO - Build your own wind turbine.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There were all sorts of amazing and wonderful costumes at Steam Powered. I found myself stopping people in their tracks, in hallways and in the vendor area, asking them to back it up so I could take in their get-up. Now normally, people might be a little creeped out if you stopped them so you could ogle their outfit, but here, everyone was more than happy and enthused to show off everything, explain how they made it, how many hours in took, etc. Some people even had a different outfit for each day of the convention. Crazy.

While all of the outfits were cool, and I love the geographical, historical, and time-period mash-ups, the playfulness and humor of steampunk cosplay, there definitely is a standard steampunk look and feel. And that can become a bit too uniform-y.

And there's Holly Conrad. I spotted her the first time I entered the vendor area. She was behind the Etsy Steam Team tables, probably deploying her tattered and moth-eaten Da Vinci-esque wings for the umpteenth time. The wings are amazing. I went over to see them close up. By now, she was pulling on their ripcord handles, ratcheting them back into place. So cool! Then I started to take in the rest of her outfit. There were layers and layers of it and obsessive levels of detail. E.g. There was a burn patch on one of her leather gauntlet gloves. Inside the burn hole I could see exposed wires, suggesting that there was even more going on under the surface. Later, I noticed that there were blackened rocket nozzles at the bottom of the wing-pack, and realized she'd probably *really* thought this through and put the scorching on the glove as the work-a-day wear and tear on a steampunk faerie's flight systems. She was so laden down with layers of stuff, there was little of Holly peering through. As she talked, she struggled to keep her ornately-decorated goggles on her forehead and the feathers, baubles, and leather flaps from her flight cap out of her face. It was simultaneously comical, charming, and cute.

I really enjoyed talking to Holly, who also goes by the character name Fyriel and sells on Etsy under the name Orpheus Alchemy. She's a 22 year old medieval studies major from USCB. She's fascinated by alchemical texts, occult grimoires, and crypto-history and incorporates much of this design style and iconography into her work. The name for her Fyriel persona came from a medieval manuscript were it was written, without explanation, as marginalia. The mysteriousness of this appealed to her. Holly grew up playing D&D, other RPGs, and World of Warcraft and credits these game worlds for much of her sensibility and inspiration. The Fyriel costume involved a laundry list of craft and construction techniques, from leather work and resin casting to metal work and electronics. She says that she gets home every days between 4 and 5PM, heads into her garage studio and doesn't emerge until 3AM. Every day. She makes a point of "every day." Somehow, I don't doubt this.

Holly won the Steam Powered costume contest later that night. I heard that the Weta Workshop folks had been talking to her. Given the impact she made, the way she stood out from an already creative, talented crowd, they should be talking to her. She *is* looking for a job. Somebody should snatch her up, 'cause I have a feeling that, if she can keep the goggles out of her eyes, Holly Conrad is going places on those shabby, but o' so chic, faerie wings.

[The drawing above is by the amazing Suzanne Forbes. She did this sketch within the 20 minutes or so it took me to interview Holly. Amazing. Photos are by Kathleen of Figments.]

More:

• Steam Powered reaching pressure
• "Maker" is what I do, "steampunk" describes the style
• The Etsy Steam Team
• Steampunk conference report, part II

This MAKE-made-looking self balancing unicycle will go on sale soon, $1,500 looks like a lot of fun, love it!

During filming of the latest set of episodes, I gave Maker's Notebooks to some of the wonderful crew members on the set of the Make: television show. We got to talking about modding them, and someone said, "I wish the thing had a reading light". My idea is to use the embedded bookmark ribbon as a reading light platform. I've never worked with conductive thread or surface mount LEDs before, so any tips/warnings before I go down that road would be welcome!

This is an LED, battery, and thread from the new Lilypad e-sewing kit I just got. That thing puts out a pretty bright light!

Wow, makers like map visualizations! JB (and a couple other folks) sent in this map of the boroughs of NYC and the populations of entire states that fit inside them!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

That is our copyright and Apple is one of the richest firms in the world.

Wow, here's a giant widget that has... everything - I put it on the extra hacked up display here until I couldn't take the info overload via RW.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My friend Eric Spitznagel took on the Bigfoot beat for Vanity Fair and filed: "Everything's Bigfoot in Texas." From the Texas Bigfoot Conference in Jefferson, Texas, he reports:

Drawing on interviews with dozens of eye-witnesses, [Sasquatch expert Dr. Henner] Fahrenbach went on to say that Bigfoot’s diet is rich in mussels, clams, peacocks, and the “hindquarter” of deer. He insisted that Bigfoots enjoy wrestling, tickle fights, and, most surprisingly, gangbangs. He assured us that even a horny Sasquatch has an impeccable sense of orgy etiquette.

“When an especially large male came onto the scene,” Fahrenbach said, describing a sexual pileup involving one willing female and lots of dudes, “he didn’t try to buck the line but simply stood there and took his turn in good time.”

In the beginning of his lecture, there was some nervous giggling from those in the audience. After a while, they just stared at Fahrenbach, a few with jaws agape. Somewhere in the back row, a woman turned to her husband and whispered, “I can’t tell if he’s kidding.”

It’s been a rough few months for Bigfoot true believers.

At the Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they initially thought was a computer virus—a case of "phishing," a form of hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it." The Feds told Obama's aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised. A top McCain official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the campaign's computer system had been hacked and that the FBI had become involved.

Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy positions—information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese.) A security firm retained by the Obama campaign took steps to secure its computer system and end the intrusion. White House and FBI officials had no comment earlier this week.

One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards.

A new video from Beck for "Gamma Ray," starring Chloë Sevigny and a lot of groovy visuals. Rex sez: "Pretend it's 1995 again." Not recommended for those of you who are on acid. (Via Some Notes on Napkins.)

Check out this Instructable on converting an army surplus bag into a bike pannier. $5 at a flea market is a bit cheaper (and cooler) than the commercial panniers I've seen.

Here are some other DIY panniers we've covered:

• Bike pannier from messenger bag


• DIY panniers from ammo containers

From the BFI National Film archive, via YouTube:

"Tibetan Scenes was made by Tsien-Lien Shen in the early 1940s - he was resident Chinese Commissioner in Lhasa from 1942-47. The colour film records many of the ceremonial events that took place in Lhasa, including the New Year ceremonies, and Shen himself appears in the film. There is also evidence of the presence of the Chinese in Lhasa.

Although the majority of the film focuses on Tibetan ceremonies, there are some invaluable scenes capturing everyday life in Lhasa, as monks, porters, market stall sellers and the occasional yak compete for space."

Another related film from the same archive:

"This film was shot by Sir Basil Gould who succeeded Derek Williamson as Political Officer of Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet in 1935. His films record two visits to Lhasa. The first, Lhasa (1936), shows his Diplomatic Mission to the Tibetan capital. His cameraman Frederick Spencer Chapman was commissioned by the BFI in 1937 to write an article for Sight and Sound magazine describing that visit ("Tibetan Horizon"). The film features an intriguing sequence of Tibetan women playing darts.

And more:

These extraordinary scenes were filmed in Tibet in the 1940s and include shots of the current Dalai Lama (then still a very young boy) and his family. The opening scenes show the Dalai Lama's parents and siblings, and a procession of high-ranking men and women. This is followed by a clip of a procession with the Dalai Lama in a golden palanquin, his presence indicated by the peacock feather umbrella being carried alongside. The final scenes, in contrast, show ordinary children dancing and ice-skating in Lhasa."

CIVIL LIBERTIES We don’t know all of the ways that the administration has violated Americans’ rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Last month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed out new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use chillingly intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

Agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and lie about their identity while questioning a subject’s neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends. The changes also give the F.B.I. — which has a long history of spying on civil rights groups and others — expanded latitude to use these techniques on people identified by racial, ethnic and religious background.

The administration showed further disdain for Americans’ privacy rights and for Congress’s power by making clear that it will ignore a provision in the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security. The law requires the department’s privacy officer to account annually for any activity that could affect Americans’ privacy — and clearly stipulates that the report cannot be edited by any other officials at the department or the White House.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has now released a memo asserting that the law “does not prohibit” officials from homeland security or the White House from reviewing the report. The memo then argues that since the law allows the officials to review the report, it would be unconstitutional to stop them from changing it. George Orwell couldn’t have done better.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Vintage poison labels - high res files available, perfect to print out and put on your projects and things in the refrigerator at work! via LoL.

I'm John Park and I've been invited to blog here at Make. I'm thrilled that Phil and the rest of the incredible team are letting me join them.

By day I'm a character rigger making animated movies; by night (and early morning), I'm a father and husband, Maker, and freelance writer. Thanks to a chance encounter at the 2008 Bay Area Maker Faire, I'm going to be the host of the Maker Workshop on the upcoming Make: television show airing on PBS in January.

Topics I'm likely to post about:

• Coffee hacking


• Needlessly complex electromechanical contraptions


• Diving into projects with an imbalanced enthusiasm-to-knowledge ratio


• Shocking behind-the-scenes tales of making the TV show

• Hydroelectric power plant overclocking


• The undiscovered "Soilpunk" gardening technology genre


• Arduino-based marital aids

Ok, Vader - you have a toaster now... but the DIY rebels have been cooking up some stuff too...


CNC toast!

Play with your food: Rework your toast.

MAKE: toast...

Toast art...

Dale burrito, ok - not toast.

Wow, this might be the coolest thing ever - The astrometry pool on Flickr automatically adds labels to the astronomy photos you upload. Brought to you by the folks at Astrometry.net...

If you have astronomical imaging of the sky with celestial coordinates you do not know—or do not trust—then Astrometry.net is for you. Input an image and we'll give you back astrometric calibration meta-data, plus lists of known objects falling inside the field of view.

We have built this astrometric calibraton service to create correct, standards-compliant astrometric meta-data for every useful astronomical image ever taken, past and future, in any state of archival disarray. We hope this will help organize, annotate and make searchable all the world's astronomical information.

More:

Astronomy Hacks. Why use the traditional approach to study the stars when you can turn computers, handheld devices, and telescopes into out-of-this-world stargazing tools? Whether you're a first timer or an advanced hobbyist, you'll find Astronomy Hacks both useful and fun. From upgrading your optical finder to photographing stars, this book is the perfect cosmic companion...

Cover up to see in the dark... MAKE 03 - page 190.

'Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders'--get out under the stars. If you're interested in observing multiple stars and astounding deep-sky objects (nebulae, galaxies, and clusters), this book shows you how to do it--everything from choosing your equipment to actually finding the objects when you are out there in the field.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gorgeous.

Ladyada writes -

If you have an Arduino project where the dev board is stuck inside a machine, or attached to the rafters or is inaccessible in some other way, a wireless programming/debugging link will save you tons of time. This tutorial is an extension on Rob’s version. In this version, no extra firmware or hardware (other than a capacitor) is necessary. Just use the default bootloader. I demonstrate it with a ‘classic’ Arduino but of course this can be easily adapted to any version or clone.

You will need 2 XBee adapter kits, 2 matching-protocol XBee modules, an FTDI cable (or other FTDI breakout board, if you can wire it up correctly) and a 0.1uF capacitor (although sometimes a 1.0uF capacitor worked better)

The big trick is turning on “Digital I/O passing” where the reset pin is wirelessly mirrored from one XBee to the other. I spent a few hours reading the datasheet to figure it out!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Newman's, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan election maps based on population via Waxy. I suspect in 4 years we'll see these on all the networks doing "live morphs" from geographic view to population view on a big touchscreen with a hologram operating it...

Most of us are, by now, familiar with the maps the TV channels and web sites use to show the results of the presidential election:

The states are colored red or blue to indicate whether a majority of their voters voted for the Republican candidate, John McCain, or the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, respectively. Looking at this map it gives the impression that the Republicans won the election handily, since there is rather more red on the map than there is blue. In fact, however, the reverse is true – the Democrats won by a substantial margin. The explanation for this apparent paradox, as pointed out by many people, is that the map fails to take account of the population distribution. It fails to allow for the fact that the population of the red states is on average significantly lower than that of the blue ones. The blue may be small in area, but they represent a large number of voters, which is what matters in an election.

We can correct for this by making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states are rescaled according to their population. That is, states are drawn with size proportional not to their acreage but to the number of their inhabitants, states with more people appearing larger than states with fewer, regardless of their actual area on the ground. On such a map, for example, the state of Rhode Island, with its 1.1 million inhabitants, would appear about twice the size of Wyoming, which has half a million, even though Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island.


Here are the 2008 presidential election results on a population cartogram of this type...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's not really for hamsters, but it's about the right size. Mydogellen made this awesome knitted bike - she made an Instructable that explains her approach and the techniques she used.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

?These urban camoflauge sculptures by LA-based artist John Callaghan are brilliant ways to hide the typically undesirable city objects such as utility boxes and power sources. Check out all of the photos of these projects and more at the link below.

Joshua Callaghan via Today and Tomorrow

MAKE author Steve Lodefink remade one of those cool n' fancy vapor projection screens you've likely seen in used for special effect video display -

If you’ve ever ridden the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, you will remember how, right before you hit the first drop, you are greeted with the ghostly image of the tentacle-faced Davey Jones creature warning you that “dead men tell no tales”. I certainly did.
[…]
I have no idea how the commercial fog screen makes those glass-smooth sheets of air, but all I could think of was to shoot the air through some drinking straws. I made a little box-jig and hot-glued up some bricks of 2 inch straw sections. I then chained those bricks together into long vents. It does straighten out the airflow quite a bit, but certainly does not produce a laminar flow.

Good article from 10/07 - "The new Sputnik Crisis"-

Fifty years ago today, the first satellite launched into space set the nation on a course that ultimately made the United States the technological envy of the world. It also changed my life in ways that I never could have imagined at the time.

I was 7, living in St. Louis, when our family first saw Sputnik-1 orbiting the Earth on Oct. 4, 1957. It was an awe-inspiring and frightening experience. Awe-inspiring, because the United States was then assumed to be the leader in missile technology and sending a satellite into orbit was clearly an amazing technological feat by another country. And frightening, because Sputnik was a visible reminder in the sky for all of us during the Cold War that the Soviet Union had now pulled ahead in the nuclear arms race. If the Soviets had the technological know-how to build missiles capable of putting a 184-pound, basketball-sized satellite in orbit, it was only a matter of time before they could launch nuclear weapons in our direction.

The Sputnik Crisis, as it became known, prompted our nation to invest heavily in scientific research and in the education of scientists and engineers. In 1958, President Eisenhower created NASA, starting the space race that eventually put the first astronauts on the moon. In 1959, Congress appropriated $134 million for the National Science Foundation, a huge amount at the time, considering that it was nearly $100 million more than the entire agency's budget the previous year.

More:
Pictured above... HOW TO - Build your own Sputnik.

...and new president promises new era of scientific innovation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DIY Security systems @ NYTimes... via /.

WHEN Ken Jongsma built his new house, he found that the builders had already installed a basic security system — sometimes called a prewire. A tinkerer and engineer, Mr. Jongsma, 50, decided to upgrade and monitor the system on his own.

“What most people do not understand is that a residential alarm prewire is a come-on by alarm companies to get you to sign up for their — usually expensive — monitoring,” he said.

Until recently, Mr. Jongsma’s attempt to install and maintain his own security system would have been impossible. Now, however, with a little knowledge, even nonengineers can add a security system to their homes for less than a standard prewired installation by a professional.

Most security systems consist of two parts: the hardware and the monitoring service. For decades, the hardware (window and door sensors and motion detectors, for example) was often installed by professionals, as it required some wiring and cabling.

?This sculpture was made from several dozen bicycles that were connected to each other at the wheel hinge by a simple seperation of the quick release lever that typically allows one to exchange or remove tires. Pretty interesting structure that somehow manages to balance using the seats as feet.

Aiweiwei.com via FFFFOUND!

I've found the power jumper on Arduino (Diecimila, NG, etc.) comes in handy for quickly powering down a project - helpful when you'd rather not disconnect the DC or USB power. Even handier if you actually replace the jumper with a little slide switch, like so -

And who can resist the super-bonus leftover jumper! Well, it's good to have an extra around anyway ;)

Arduino Diecimila

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Some kind of agreement between rightholders and ISPs can be reached. Everyone wants to work together to make legal online models work."

• It's not everyone who is working together here. Consumers are entirely left out of the equation. Consumers end up being worse off in these scenarios, and open to losing their internet access or potentially other charges due to weak evidence. Plus they end up paying more for less music.
• Musicians in many cases (the labels certainly don't represent musicians' interests) are being left out here -- especially those musicians who have learned how to embrace free music and use it to their advantage. Those musicians will end up getting punished for their innovation by having industry agreements backstop obsolete business models.
• There's no reason why ISPs should be involved. The recording industry's problem isn't that ISPs aren't helping out, but that the recording industry refuses to recognize the changing market that necessitates a different business model.
• An agreement, inevitably means both sides gave up something, and it continues the myth that business models in this market are antagonistic. It ignores the fact that there are win-win business models, such as those employed by Trent Reznor, where no one is worse off. Instead, these sorts of agreements make everyone worse off.

Rooting the Googlephone round up... via HaD.

What with its open source operating system and developer-friendly nature, cracking open phones running Google's Android was always going to be easier than the full-on assault that was required to hack the iPhone, but we're still impressed by the speed with which hackers have broken the T-Mobile G1. First is full access to the file system on the phone. This part is easy, but you could potentially break everything with an errant rm -r. You need to grab PTerminal, a command line tool, from the Android marketplace. From there, you navigate to your system/bin folder (where the binaries are kept) and type telnetd to launch the telnet program which lets you login to the phone remotely.

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Anthony and his son created these Wall-e costumes using mostly recycled materials - giving them some awesomely unique character! - EVE and WALL-E on Flickr

www.CircuitBoardsToGo.com looks pretty cool, anyone use them?

CircuitBoardsToGo produces single layer circuit boards from your design. This service is typically used by students and hobbyists who need 1 or more simple boards for a project or testing.

I really like automatons, and this piece by Pablo Lavezzari is no exception. Some day I have to try and make one, although I doubt it will be as good as The Death Trick.

More about The Death Trick automaton

In the Maker Shed:


More on our Designing Automata Kit

Hah! Looks like LED "Art Object" is the new LED throwie!

Kit consisting of a small 3V BR2032 Lithium battery, a 10mm clear lens blinking red LED and a small rare earth super magnet. No soldering necessary -Just connect up the LED to the leads of the battery. Use clear tape (not included) to attach the super magnet to the battery. You are now ready to throw your miniature bright red "piece of art" onto any steel structure where it will flash for days. Complete with magnet, LED, battery and diagram.

Make - Volume 06 - LED Throwies (Page 116).

Since when can fish mix music better than I can? OK, they always could!

Submersed Songs is a sound installation that generates mp3 player remixes through the movements of four live fish. The animals' movements and the proximity among them work as a parameter for mixing and spatializing the audience's music tracks in real time.

More about Submersed Songs: Fish that make music

On a cold night in January of 2005 I set out to find a magazine stand. One of my students, Michael McKinley, now a Mechanical and Industrial Engineering senior at UMass Amherst, had shown me an announcement in Wired about a new publication from O'Reilly. The new magazine was called Make, and though I had been using O'Reilly's books for years, somehow I hadn't figured out the connection. Basically, I went to every shopping mall with a bookstore, checking the magazine racks as I went. Eventually, I found myself in Harvard Square, where legend has it that a young Bill Gates first glimpsed a photo of the Altair kit computer. My timing was not quite as good as Bill's. Make # 1 had yet to hit the press, let alone the street. I figured out what O'Reilly publications was when after another reading of Wired I found the article again and looked up O'Reilly, "oh, the one with the animals!"

Rather than going out on another quest, I decided to subscribe. Then I just had to wait. Fortunately, there was the Makezine.com and the blog. Rather than just one hack a day, now I could have a bunch. I started feeding links and ideas to Phillip. I opened a Flickr account to join the Make photo pool. I tried out and really got into pbwiki for my classroom websites. I wrote up online descriptions of projects, added links to the pictures of the work by my students. Before I had an mp3 player, I burned a disk of audio podcasts and listened to them on the highway from Seward to Anchorage during the Summer of 2005. I passed on just about every cool link to an interesting project I could find. Instead of running out of online resources, I found more.

Students came into my high school engineering program familiar with projects that had been done the year before because of what they saw on the Make blog. Students in the program got more excited about their work because they saw that it could have a much wider audience than the walls of the school could provide.

So, now I find myself with a wonderful offer. If you are a teacher or work with kids or adults on Make friendly projects and would like to share them, Make and I would like to help. We would like to see how we can provide resources for educators. Did you try a project from the magazine or blog with a class, or other group of people? How did it go? What did you find out? You can post photos to the Make Flickr Pool, make a blog or wiki posting or provide other resources that would be handy for another teacher venturing into a project with a group of clever people. I will be trying out some of the projects and writing them up to share as well. You can post in the comments to help spread the word about great school and education projects.

TeachMake!

Chris Connors

Duxtech Wiki - Link

Fussing With Stuff - Link

Some of my Make submissions- Link

Relays are used in a lot of electronics projects, but did you ever actually think about what makes them work? This website has a ton of information on various relays and how they work.

Read All about relays

In the Maker Shed:


DIY Design Electronics Kit

Pretty spiffy, plans for a robotic fish via imakethings.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm loving Susannah Breslin's guest posts on BoingBoing. Here she writes about Gwendolyn Huskens' medical-themed footwear:

Created by student designer Gwendolyn Huskens, the set of six sick shoes aim to "reveal the taboos associated with physical deformities." Couture for the clubfooted? Reminds me of Romain Slocombe's medical fetishism, "Crash," and stumbling supermodels. More images at designboom.

Photo by René Van Der Hulst.

I'm loving Susannah Breslin's guest posts on BoingBoing. Here she writes about Gwendolyn Huskens' medical-themed footwear:

Created by student designer Gwendolyn Huskens, the set of six sick shoes aim to "reveal the taboos associated with physical deformities." Couture for the clubfooted? Reminds me of Romain Slocombe's medical fetishism, "Crash," and stumbling supermodels. More images at designboom.

Photo by René Van Der Hulst.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lilypad E-Sewing Kit

The LilyPad e-sewing kit contains the bits to sew LEDs into any piece of clothing. Add turn signals to a jacket, accentuate a t-shirt, or light-up your favorite pair of jeans with this simple to use kit. This kit contains the very basics to the LilyPad system. It's a great entry-level kit for people who want to experiment with wearable electronics. Consider adding the LilyPad Pro Kit to extend control and use of the LilyPad system.

Features:

• 5 LilyPad Bright White LEDs
• 3 LilyPad Button Boards
  
• 2 Coin Cell Batteries 20mm
  
• 1 Coin Cell Holder
• 1 Spool 4Ply Conductive Thread

LilyPad Pro Kit

Think of this kit as an 'add-on' to the LilyPad E-Sewing Kit. The LilyPad Pro Kit gives you the full flexibility and power of the LilyPad system. Program the LilyPad main board to respond to physical changes in light, sound, or motion. Create displays of light, sound, and get physical feedback using the various LilyPad periphery boards.

Features:

• LilyPad Mainboard
• LilyPad Power Supply
• LilyPad USB Link
• Mini USB Cable

Here are some project we've featured on the CRAFT/MAKE blogs to get you inspired:

Electronic Embroidery - CRAFT Video Podcast

HOW TO - Make a Turn Signal Bike Jacket

Dress with Electronic Flapping Butterflies

TV-B-Gone Hoodie and Zipper Switch

WAY more projects after the jump including how to make soft sensors! If I forgot your favorite soft circuit project, post it up in the comments.

OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready, BuyCoffeeForCuteGirlOverThere?, HaveYouTriedCoffeeCake?, BuyAnotherCupYouCheapskate, TodaysSpecialExpresso1.60Euro and BuyaLargeLatterGetBrownieForFree

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This Instructables details the construction of a PICAXE-based digital oscilloscope designed to meet most hobbyist's needs and which can be built for under $100 (the author spent about $70 on his). Cost varies depending on what you might have hand.

LCS-1M - A Full-Featured, Low-Cost Hobby Oscilloscope

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Massachusetts Question 2: Remove the threat of arrest or jail for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, replacing it with a $100 fine, which could be paid through the mail without lawyers or court appearances, just like a speeding ticket. WIN 65%-35%

Found on Next Nature:

19th century people needed some explanation to understand the difference between the regular candlelight and the electrically simulated candlelight. Note the disclaimer at the bottom: “The use of Electricity for lighting is in no way harmful to health, nor does it affect the soundness of sleep.”

I'm Learning to Share was kind enough to share this delightful and gentle version of the Kingston Trio's 1959 hit folk song, M.T.A., by French singer Eileen Grayam.

There's a dearth of information out there regarding 'Eileen Grayam' and The Storytellers, but one possible theory suggests that this Eileen could be the same American-born yé-yé girl Eileen who recorded in France in the 1960's and had a hit with her French-language version of Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots Were Made For Walking' in 1966.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Nick Reynolds, RIP

The Gomi Style guys have built a new edition of their telepresence robot, incorporating the Make Controller:

Build instructions, including a custom Skype plug-in to control the robot via text messages, here.