- Space Elevator (Also, from the same site: Password game)
- The Amazing Story of How Philly Cheesesteaks Became Huge in Lahore, Pakistan
- Early computer art in the 50’s & 60’s
- Maryland License Plates Advertising Filipino Casino
- My Benihana, Myself
- How much does animation cost? A price guide
- Cats apparently recognize their names
- A rubber block that can count
- SmarterEveryDay takes a tour of a Progressive die stamping facility (YouTube)
- From back in 2018: DOOMBA: Automatically generate DOOM level maps for your house from Roomba tracking data
- The mystery of the Bloomfield bridge
All posts by Windell Oskay
Hidden line removal for AxiDraw
We’re pleased to note the release of AxiDraw software version 3.9 this week, with a couple of neat new features. One of them is that the “preview mode” button — which lets you simulate plotting to see how the results will come out — is now accessible no matter which function is selected. The other, the big one, is that AxiDraw now supports hidden-line removal as a standard feature.
There’s a full changelog up on GitHub, which also notes a few new features for users of the AxiDraw CLI (command-line interface) and AxiDraw Python library, including the ability to resume a plot a little before where it was paused.
But, let’s talk more about hidden-line removal.
Continue reading Hidden line removal for AxiDraw
Linkdump: April 2023
- The CRUMB Circuit Simulator, a breadboard simulator
- Deep Fried Coffee Beans
- Conserve the Sound: “Your Museum for endangered sounds.”
- Furby source code
- What is the price of a Big Mac across the country?
- Floppy disk costumes for SD cards
- De visdeurbel (Fish Doorbell; Dutch language.) When a fish in the canals needs the lock opened, you can send the lock keeper a photo to let them know.
- Near infrared, in situ imaging of chips: An inexpensive method to see inside certain types of integrated circuits.
- An Aperiodic Monotile, and a talk about it, from the National Museum of Mathematics.
- The Tabloid Programming languate, and an implementation in Racket.
- The Electronics Flea Market returns to Silicon Valley this weekend.
Open Circuits: Now available
Earlier this year, I wrote about my then-forthcoming book, Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components, co-written with our regular collaborator Eric Schlaepfer.
Open Circuits is a coffee table book full of close-up and cross-section photographs of everyday electronic components. And, it’s now shipping! As of today, it’s available in hardcover from your local bookstore, as well as to purchase online and in electronic versions.
We also just launched a new website for the book, with links of where you can purchase it as well as lengthy galleries of images from the book and of outake photos.
We put up a list of sellers on the website, including direct from No Starch and our own store, where signed copies are available.
Open Circuits
I’m very pleased to announce my forthcoming new book, Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components, co-written with Eric Schlaepfer.
Open Circuits is a coffee table book full of cross-section photographs of electronic components, along with photos of those components in context, and descriptions of how they work. It’s coming this fall from No Starch Press, and is available now to pre-order.
From the rear cover:
Open Circuits is a photographic exploration of the surprisingly beautiful design waiting to be discovered inside everyday electronic devices. Through painstakingly prepared cross-sections and stunningly vivid close-up images, the book reveals a hidden world full of elegance, subtle complexity, and wonder. From simple resistors and capacitors, to cutting-edge circuit boards and retro Nixie tubes, the authors’ arresting imagery transforms more than 130 electronic components into awe-inspiring works of art that will delight engineers, artists, designers, and photography enthusiasts alike.
My co-author Eric Schlaepfer has been our regular collaborator on projects such as the Three Fives and XL741 soldering kits, as well as the MOnSter 6502 and our Uncovering the Silicon project.
Open Circuits is coming this fall in hardcover, and is available now with a pre-order discount and early-access PDF from No Starch Press.
It’s also available to pre-order at your local bookstore — who we sincerely encourage you to support — as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major booksellers.
Linkdump: December 2021
- Inkarnate: RPG-oriented map building tool. (Via Elecia White)
- Unisexual salamanders perform kleptogenesis, stealing other species sperm packets
- Larson Camouflage is a pioneer in cell tower disguises
- Fossilized reefs in the Nevada Desert
- Ten years after the original, a new 555 Contest from Hackaday
- Dekay King’s Innovative Shop Furniture
- TinyNES: Classic NES games on open source hardware
- Animated Reconstruction of the 1915 Ford Model T Assembly Line
- Was NASA’s Historic Leader James Webb a Bigot?
Linkdump: January 2021
- Using a Sharpie can make gummy metals easier to cut. And we’re learning why.
- Online Digi-Comp II emulator (via The Computer Museum)
- Analyzing Solorigate from the Microsoft Security blog
- Exploring with Microscopes + Drones: San Rafael Bay, part of a new video series by Ariel Waldman
- The story of a community cannery in Portland, Oregon
- Quickly Sketch Escher-type Repeats Using Inkscape
- Pompeiian snack bar with guard dog excavated
- Reverse Engineering the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine
- The Fighter Plane That Shot Itself Down
- Desktop Wind Tunnel (via The Prepared)
- Monitoring municipal water quality with clams
- A green flash while observing Jupiter at SpaceWeather
- CMYK Embroidery
The AxiDraw MiniKit 2
Today we are introducing a major refresh of the smallest member of the AxiDraw family of pen plotters: the new AxiDraw MiniKit 2. The AxiDraw MiniKit 2 is our special compact DIY-kit version of the AxiDraw lineup.
Versus the original AxiDraw MiniKit, the MiniKit 2 has been redesigned for easier assembly, better precision, and higher performance. The key change is that the long linear rail that forms the base of the machine — a custom aluminum extrusion in the original — has been replaced with a solid bar of 6061-T6 aluminum, machined in the same precision process as our top-of-the-line AxiDraw SE/A3, and then anodized to a satin-silver finish. This change simplifies a number of the assembly steps, but more importantly has a cleaner overall look and tighter manufacturing tolerances for improved precision.
In addition to be being “Mini”, the MiniKit 2 is also still a kit.
Unlike other models of the AxiDraw family like AxiDraw V3 and AxiDraw SE/A3 (which come assembled, tested, and ready to use), the AxiDraw MiniKit 2 is a machine that you assemble yourself.
We’ve taken great care in designing a kit that is rewarding to build, own, and use.
The new version is also heavier than the old one, which helps it to stay stable on your desk at higher speeds and gives it a small boost in effective speed, in addition to the upgrades in precision. Small but sturdy, The MiniKit 2 is built with machined parts, just one custom aluminum extrusion now, attention to detail, and care.
Linkdump: September 2020
- Lego Interface UX
- Are there dead wasps in figs?
- ONO: How the Biggest 3D Printing Scam of All Time Unfolded
- This promotional video from Exco, a maker of aluminum extrusion dies, shows a lot of what goes into manufacturing an extrusion die
- New Supergiant Isopod Discovered
- Slide show of How Cork is Made
- Joe Rinaudo’s Fotoplayer Corona Virus Quarantine Concert. (A photoplayer is a specialized player piano used for scoring cartoons and silent movies.)
- You can apparently reverse engineer a key for a lock from the sound that the key makes upon insertion.
- A few of the 507 Mechanical Movements, beautifully 3D printed by Sam Schmitz
- A Refrigerator magnet clock
- The MINI PET DIY Computer Kit
- A demo of the Weav3r LEGO Loom by Jerry Nicholls showing how the heddles are set for each row for a zig-zag pattern. He’s gradually adding build instructions for it to his blog which holds a wealth of LEGO mechanisms.
Linkdump: August 2020
- ISS solar transit showing the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the Canadarm2 by Thierry Legault on YouTube
- A DIY Neon Pixel Display
- Ramelli’s Rotating Reader built by RIT students who called it a 16th century version of a multitabbed browser
- FBI Motivational Posters from WW2, obtained via FOIA request
- Graffiti covered e-bike, designed to blend in with urban architecture
- Why The Docking Adapters On The Space Station Are Shaped Oddly
- ThreadPlotter: punch needle embroidery on the AxiDraw
- How eggplant got its name
- The COMIX-35: an improved clone of the COMX-35 RCA 1802 home computer
- Circuit Scupltures by Leonardo Ulian (more on instagram)
- Kipp Bradford and Adam Savage build a Refrigerated Cooling Suit
- IMSAI 8080 replica front panel kit by The High Nibble