- Source code for the famous Williams arcade game Defender
- Nanostructured materials may provide lightweight armor against microparticle impacts
- SVGnest: Open source SVG nesting software
- Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device Simulator
- Shark spiral intestines may operate as Tesla valves
- One Man’s Amazing Journey to the Center of the Bowling Ball
- Designing a “magic window” caustic image device
- Inside the MK-35D Soviet school calculator
- Cell Biology Candy on Kickstarter by Kristin Henry
- Beatboxing in an MRI (YouTube)
Linkdump: July 2021
- Antique Fractal Vise Restoration
- Acoustic tissue manipulation (and other sound-related research at Stanford)
- Microbes are being used to stop mosquitos from spreading the virus that causes dengue fever
- The first integrated circuits to orbit Earth
- The 3 Simple Rules That Underscore the Danger of Delta
- 3D printable fractal vise @ thingiverse.
- Quantum Computer meets Pen Plotter
- BBC Micro Bot: A gallery of tweet-sized programs written in BBC BASIC
- Pottery Sherd Cookies
Linkdump: June 2021
- Quiltimation is a quilted animation of the Muybridge horse photos (via JS)
- Clocko is a font that uses ligatures to set the positions of the hands of a clockface (via Nick)
- Lockdown, a sculpture by Nemo Gould
- First Chips On The Giant Cincinnati Milling Machine (YouTube)
- The National Audubon Society clarifies the Difference Between a ‘Borb’ and a ‘Floof’
- Tools, Tricks, and Hacks: Exploring Novel Digital Fabrication Workflows on #PlotterTwitter (YouTube)
- An optic to replace space and its application towards ultra-thin imaging systems
- The Fundamental Question of the Pandemic is Shifting
- Still File: Photographs recreating computer renderings as physical scenes
- American grown truffle breakthrough
Linkdump: May 2021
- Interactive Conductive Thread Art (YouTube)
- Stenophylla: coffee for a warmer climate
- A 142 year old experiment on seed viability
- How to grow alum crystals at home
- How Microfishing Took the Angling World by (Very Small) Storm
- Embroidery animation by Alexis Sugden
- How Covid-19 helped redefined airborne transmission
Linkdump: April 2021
- Beatrice Finkelstein, the Woman Who Fed the Astronauts
- Bend-It: Design and Fabrication of Kinetic Wire Characters from Disney Research
- Vacuum tube 555 timer
- Mafia fugitive located via his youtube cooking videos
- Ghost Sign Map of the San Francisco Bay Area
- How a Glass Terrarium Changed the World
- A calculator zine inspired by Ken Shirriff reverse-engineering an early calculator
- Unusual Japanese Butter Tableware @ Core77, via The Prepared
Linkdump: March 2021
- Illusion art by Odeith
- You can help catalog UV fluorescent organisms on iNaturalist
- Early American Motorcycles Exhibit at the SFO Museum
- London bomb shelter agriculture and Paris underground parking garage mushroom farming
- A list of illegal 6502/6510 opcodes (via)
- Bangladesh revives production of traditional muslin
- Ice carousel in Roihuvuori, Finland (YouTube)
- Sushi made from polished stones
- Chain is the first episode in The Secret Life of Components, a new video series from Tim Hunkin
- The incredible boxes of Hock Wah Yeo, video games retail boxes of the 80s and 90s
- A Closer Look at the Mars Perseverance Rover’s Incredible Cameras
Lenore on Meet a Maker
I had the privilege of talking with Billie Ruben and Geeky Faye on Meet a Maker, and the show episode is now live. It was great fun to chat with them on all kinds of topics around making from sewing to 3D printing and even where they overlap. Thanks so much, Billie and Faye!
Featured Artist: Michelle Chandra
Michelle Chandra is an interactive and generative artist who currently works primarily with AxiDraw making often radially symmetric art reminiscent of spirograph drawings.
Her work can be found on instagram and twitter as well as at her website, Dirt Alley Design.
She wrote up an excellent article full of tips and tricks on how she draws generative art using the AxiDraw. She shares generous documentation on many of her explorations on her blog, which can be useful to anyone interested in generative art. Each post is chock full of explanations, such as this one on her favorite pens and techniques for alignment for multiple color plots. (I’m definitely biased, but “Should you buy a pen plotter?” won my heart.)
I enjoy her dramatic use of color, with deep fills or combinations of cyan, magenta and yellow that bleed into reds, greens and blues where they overlap.
She has prints available on her site, and many more beautiful artworks she shares there as well.
Thank you, Michelle, for sharing your art with us!
Linkdump: February 2021
- A look back at the beginnings of dam removal projects in the US
- A Site For Nutmeg Grater Collectors
- Bump (iOS) (android) is an app version of the mechanical Blip game
- The Signal Path looks inside the Starlink phased array dish (YouTube)
- Jane Zhang sings The Diva Dance from the Fifth Element (YouTube)
- Accent tour of English in North America (YouTube)
- YInMn is a new blue pigment that is becoming commercially available
- MOON in Real Time I: Four hours of video orbiting the moon in real time, compiled by Seán Doran (YouTube)
- Data analysis on 67 Years of Lego Sets
- Three-dimensional model of electricity consumption in Manchester, 1954-1955
- Newly discovered “nano-chameleon” is world’s smallest known reptile
- How to Clear a Path Through 60 Feet of Snow, Japanese Style
- Humorous instructions for feeding Venus flytraps
Lenore on Hackster Cafe
Alex from Hackster invited me to join her on Hackster Cafe today! We had a wide ranging conversation about running a small business, projects and products, and the AxiDraw MiniKit 2. Thanks, Alex!