They let me loose in the Maker Shed, so I grabbed a tinyCylon kit, built it, and embedded it in a busted Nerf gun! Please enjoy the video, and watch out for the noisy lamp.

To modify the kit for flexibility, I soldered the LEDs in at full height; you could extend things further by adding some wire between the switch and board, or make an extension for the battery pack. I'd love to hear about other kit modifications people have done.

These kits are great for adding effects to props and costumes. For more details on building the kit, check out Marc de Vinck's excellent build notes here.

tinyCylon kit in the Maker Shed

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Alexander Kobulnicky paints molecules. His large portfolio of acrylic paintings focuses mainly on substances that interact with the human body: caffeine, dopamine, psilocybin, even ritalin, but so far I think my favorite is chlorophyll (pictured above).

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Seller Moonlight Bindery offers these cool hand-stitched books with upcycled green Lego baseplate covers in three different sizes. Shown here is the small version.

This funky book is made from two 5" (16 X 16 dot in geek speak) square green LEGO® base plates. The paper is 70 lb. 100% recycled white paper suitable for writing or drawing. There are 10 signatures with 8 pages a signature for a total of 80 pages (or 160 if you count front and back sides.) Also included are 20 flat LEGO® pieces (the pieces may differ from the picture) AND a LEGO® separator so you can create the cover of your choice! ...All of my books and albums are made by hand in my home-based studio. So my creations will last I use acid free paper, cloth, and glue.

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The MidiVox shield turns a basic Arduino board into a standalone MIDI synthesizer with parameters tweakable via MIDI CC messages. Hook up a MIDI keyboard controller via the onboard 5-pin DIN (aka MIDI) jack, upload a sketch and play. You may be surprised what sweet sounds can be generated by a single channel of 12-bit digital-to-analog conversion (I definitely was).

A test drive of the kit's example sketch can be seen synthing just below this sentence ...

MidiVox shield for Arduino

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If you want to make your own candles, it is really easy to do. This is a fun way to express your artistic nature. It's a cool arts and crafts project to work on with your children and a great way to express your creative side that can be... Recent Article published on 1/1/0001 by niebs

Engine turning is a decorative metal finish applied to bare metals to provide an interesting visual effect. For years it has been painstakingly applied to a variety of metal objects, from watches and knives, to large parts of automobiles and... Recent Article published on 3/16/2010 by Chitownbound

This recipe will make a good homemade art paste for pasting paper. Make it from ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen. It is a good paste for young children, because all of the ingredients are not only non-toxic but they are... Recent Article published on 3/16/2010 by K Aqua

This is a really fun craft for your children and also can make a great party favor. Recent Article published on 3/16/2010 by Anewton

Dyeing Easter eggs can be as much fun for adults as it is for children. With a few simple ingredients the possibilities are unlimited! Recent Article published on 1/1/0001 by The pen is mightier than the sword

Here you will find instruction on how to create your own 5" x 7" Accordion Scrapbook using reused cardboard. It fits 24 - 4" x 6" pictures or 48 - wallet size pictures. Decorate and embellish. Recent Article published on 3/16/2010 by yukiyu

Do you have tons of photos? Are a person who still likes to leaf through an actual album of photos rather than rifle through many emails to see pictures your friends and family sent? Are your photos all over the place - in boxes, saved online to... Recent Article published on 3/16/2010 by juliewimmer

If you love making miniature food with polymer clay then this how-to is for you. Making cupcakes, cakes, and other sweet treats with clay is fun and rewarding. Have you ever wondered how to make realistic looking icing to top your sweet treats?... Recent Article published on 3/16/2010 by pokeyoats

Instead of throwing that tin can in the trash, turn it into something useful by recycling it into a patio lantern. It's a cheap, easy craft that will light up your patio for those summertime cookouts. Recent Article published on 3/16/2010 by 4dogday

Making miniature furniture from a tin can may not sound glamorous right off the top, but it is an interesting accomplishment that is a kick for young and old alike. Whether you are summer person in for the winter or a winter person in for the... Recent Article published on 3/16/2010 by Max Stout

I love stitching on paper, so this card from Emily of Red Bird Crafts makes me really happy. She walks you through the steps of freehand machine sewing on paper so you, too, can whip up a sprout card of your own.

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If you'll recall, there was a lot of industry flap when DVRs were becoming available because of the effect that automatic pre-recording of programming would have on TV advertising. Automatic commercial-skipping features introduced the possibility that viewers could watch TV for the rest of their lives and never have to see another ad. ReplayTV, an early and promising competitor to Tivo, was basically destroyed by industry legal action over its automatic commercial-skipping feature. The fact that you have to fast-forward through commercials on your Tivo today, using that clunky pop-goes-the-weasel scan routine, is basically a concession to TV advertisers who would not abide a system that didn't require you to at least watch the ads on fast-forward.

But there is an easier and better way. And while it may be old news to some of you, it was a revelation to me and all my Tivo-using friends when we discovered that there's an unadvertised instant-30-second-advance feature built into the Tivo that can be activated by a simple "cheat code" from the remote.

While playing a recorded show, press select-play-select-3-0-select. If you do it right, you'll hear three chimes from your Tivo indicating success. From then on until the Tivo reboots, your forward "chapter skip" button will instantly jump forward 30 seconds, which is the length of a single TV commercial. If the announcer says "we'll be back in 90 seconds," just punch it three times and they'll be back right now.

This article at Lifehacker describes the process, and includes similar tricks for Comcast and DirecTV DVRs. Thanks to Melody Klingler and Benjamin Bagnaschi for helping me verify that it works.

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If you'll recall, there was a lot of industry flap when DVRs were becoming available because of the effect that automatic pre-recording of programming would have on TV advertising. Automatic commercial-skipping features introduced the possibility that viewers could watch TV for the rest of their lives and never have to see another ad. ReplayTV, an early and promising competitor to Tivo, was basically destroyed by industry legal action over its automatic commercial-skipping feature. The fact that you have to fast-forward through commercials on your Tivo today, using that clunky pop-goes-the-weasel scan routine, is basically a concession to TV advertisers who would not abide a system that didn't require you to at least watch the ads on fast-forward.

But there is an easier and better way. And while it may be old news to some of you, it was a revelation to me and all my Tivo-using friends when we discovered that there's an unadvertised instant-30-second-advance feature built into the Tivo that can be activated by a simple "cheat code" from the remote.

While playing a recorded show, press select-play-select-3-0-select. If you do it right, you'll hear three chimes from your Tivo indicating success. From then on until the Tivo reboots, your forward "chapter skip" button will instantly jump forward 30 seconds, which is the length of a single TV commercial. If the announcer says "we'll be back in 90 seconds," just punch it three times and they'll be back right now.

This article at Lifehacker describes the process, and includes similar tricks for Comcast and DirecTV DVRs. Thanks to Melody Klingler and Benjamin Bagnaschi for helping me verify that it works.

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“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” -Theodosius Dobzhansky

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple.

As wild animals with massive brains and the ability to respond to sensory stimuli with more than just base instinctual behavior, we humans have the tendency to overthink pretty much, well, everything.

Don’t blame yourself. You can’t escape your head. It’s always there.

Everything you perceive or ponder is filtered through a dense network of constantly firing neural synapses. And whether you’re a strict materialist who thinks it’s all meaty wiring and circuitry up there, or you’re of the opinion that consciousness exists independently of your physical brain, we’re stuck with that consciousness filter – whatever its origin. It’s a blessing and a curse. Technology and science begat both the Internet and the atom bomb, after all. Or, both Youtube and the Youtube comments section.

Our hyper-consciousness often separates us from our surroundings. It erects a barrier that severs the pleasure and immediacy of visceral experience. Imagine the bird watcher who spots a rare woodpecker and immediately buries his nose in his bird ID handbook to confirm the find. The bird flies away. He gets to add a bird to his logbook, but he missed out on seeing a rare animal peck for grubs, stretch its glorious wings, and take flight in search of the next tree. Does a checkmark in a bird logbook compare to the memory of a majestic feathered beast? Ever take a literature course that was so chock full of analysis and essays that you were never able to actually enjoy the great books you were reading? Ever go to the movies with that guy who simply cannot suspend an ounce of disbelief and won’t shut up about the admittedly glaring plot hole the entire ride home? Seeking a deeper understanding of a fascinating and important subject is one thing; over-analysis is another entirely, and it can remove us from the enjoyment of a pleasurable pastime.

Human health and physical fitness are important, crucial things to consider, and millions find them fascinating subjects to discuss, analyze, and optimize. I’m one of them. Millions more overanalyze; they make things harder than they need to be, and they generally get poorer results in the long run. Or, they may get objectively good results, but their lives are consumed by the minutiae of calories, miles, reps, and nutrient counting. I’d say there’s got to be an easier way to do things. There has to be a path that utilizes our big brains without them getting in the way. There’s got to be a balanced, rational method to obtain optimal health and fitness that successfully marries our tendency to think with our animal instincts. Getting fit and being healthy should be simplistic, intuitive, and, most importantly, enjoyable.

Does wildlife obsess over calories eaten or reps performed? How do deer maintain their trim figures and impressive athleticism without a dietitian and weekly personal training sessions? Conversely, why does the house cat grow obese and lethargic, while a bobcat with nearly identical genes stays fit? It isn’t just the simplistic calories in/calories out model. It couldn’t be. Wild animals don’t count calories. They don’t worry about eating before bed, or getting enough exercise to burn off that squirrel they had for breakfast. They just are. They simply exist in an ecosystem hundreds of thousands of years in the making. Evolution has made sure, by its impartial, unconscious hand, that the flora and fauna live in harmony with each other and internally. The bobcat thrives on rodents and small birds because its digestive system and metabolism evolved eating these things; the house cat gets fat because its digestive system and metabolism aren’t suited for grain-based kibble. If the balance is upset in a given environment, organisms die out or move on, but things always reset. This is simply how nature works. When thinking about how to optimize our health and physical fitness, perhaps we should consider how animals do it – and how our ancestors did it.

We’re animals – no one disputes that. We are subject to evolution and natural selection – that one’s a bit more controversial, but it’s true nonetheless. If you keep those two facts in mind while noting the lesson of the fit, lean bobcat, a thread begins to emerge. Shouldn’t the same concept hold true for us? Isn’t there an evolutionarily suitable, effortless lifestyle for us humans, too?

There is, and I call it the Primal Blueprint. It eschews complicated workout regimens, tedious calorie counting, and weight loss gimmicks. My Primal laws are based on a rock solid foundation: evolutionary biology and anthropology mixed with modern human ingenuity. I take what worked for tens of thousands of years throughout human prehistory and incorporate contemporary science to confirm its veracity. When you go back and look at the fossil records of our hunter-gatherer, pre-agricultural ancestors, you find that they were healthy, strong, and largely free of degenerative diseases – especially compared to the health of post-agricultural and even modern humans.

The result is an incredibly simple, incredibly effective way to live, move, and eat: eat the things our ancestors ate, get the amount of sleep our ancestors used to get, and make the same movements our ancestors used to make before agriculture.

Take Action

If you take anything from this post remember these two action items:

1. The ideal human diet should consist of only whole, unprocessed foods – meat, fish, fowl, plants, fruits, and nuts. Whatever you can kill, pick, or dig up and eat on the spot. This is what your ancestors ate and what your body is meant to consume.

2. By the same token, the best exercise consists of natural, full-body movements – lifting heavy things, sprinting, walking, swimming, hiking, climbing, crawling. This is how your ancestors moved and how your body is meant to function.

Amazing Results

The results of following these simple rules are numerous and almost immediate:

• The weight melts off, if you have some to lose, or added muscle appears, if you could stand to gain a few pounds.
• You reset your taste buds. Sugar becomes cloying; processed industrial vegetable oil tastes unnatural.
• You realize you don’t need grains, beans, and potatoes to feel full.
• You crave real food, and you realize that real food tastes good – better than anything you could find on a convenience store shelf and more satisfying than anything in a fast food restaurant. Hunger no longer dictates that you eat every few hours.
• You get stronger and faster, sure, but you learn to move again. You regain lost mobility.
• You get sick less often as your immune system begins to function more effectively.
• You take pleasure in real movement and become more confident in your own skin.
• Eating and moving becomes intuitive, easy and fun.
• The world becomes your gym. Can’t make it to the weight room? Pick up a rock, toss it a couple times, pull your own body weight, then go running in the park. As long as you can manipulate your own body weight, you’re strong enough.

Man is an opportunist above anything else. We love the easy way out, but we tend to make fitness and nutrition so incredibly complicated. Just cut out the foods we’ve only been eating for a few hundred generations (and do eat the things we’ve been eating for thousands of generations), drop the ridiculous fitness contraptions to focus on natural movements, and streamline your health. And don’t be afraid to turn off that big brain every once in awhile.

Read more from Mark Sisson at his popular blog, Mark’s Daily Apple, or check out his new book, The Primal Blueprint.

This pin cushion can be made in a short time from a few small pieces of felt. The model is red and black with a green shamrock; however, other combinations can be used. Cut 2 circles from black felt for top and bottom, the shamrock and the side piece from green. Applique the shamrock to top section. Sew [...]

• Also See These Tips:
• Free Laundry Bag Pattern – Vintage (1944)
• Free Vintage Sunbonnet Pattern: {Sewing}
• Cowboy Boot Pillow: Cute Vintage Pattern

Open Camera Control is a project from HDRLabs to build a custom cable to interface your DSLR with a DS.

The OCC project arose from our need to shoot HDR images for film production using Canon cameras. Canon has stubbornly chosen to stick to its standard 3-shot method for bracketing shots - one metered shot and two additional shots one or two stops above and below the metered shot. For texture shooting, it is sometimes necessary to shoot 5,7,9 or even 11 or more stops of bracketing around the metered exposure. We've since found that the OCC system can work with other brands like Olympus and Sigma cameras.

The project includes a full rundown including schematics, source code, and shooting guide. [via techchee]

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