You know it’s been 15 years and I still can’t get all those damn rings. Build this paper model and let the celebrations begin!
Author: John
Alpha Radiation Visualizer
Have a webcam and a smoke detector? If you do you can make a clever alpha particle visualizer. An alpha particle is an ionizing form of radiation that is made up of two protons and two neutrons. It’s powerful but doesn’t penetrate very far, paper or your skin is enough to stop them. Inside smoke detectors is a tiny chunk of americium that produces alpha particles when it decays. If you place some of this near the CCD of a web cam you can see flashes of white light as the particle strikes the capacitors and over charges them. Over time this could destroy the device, as radiation can do to space craft or robots that work near harsh radioactive sources, but in this case it makes for a good practical visualization of radiation. This would make for a fine science fair project.
[via hack-a-day]
An Appreciation of the Camera Obscura
I had a friend that was living in England for a while tell me about these remarkable buildings there that housed camera obscuras. If you didn’t know, a camera obscura is the primitive forerunner of the modern camera. When rays of light pass through an aperture they will tend not to scatter but cross over themselves and form an image on the back wall. This effect can often be seen in nature under trees as the leaves can create thousands of tiny opening that will project sun circles on the ground. This effect is even more pronounced when there is a solar eclipse. In the 19th century camera obscuras became a form of entertainment for many people. The effect of standing in a darkened room and seeing the surrounding landscape projected before you can be breath taking. Realizing that your standing in a giant camera can feel amazing, I know that the first time I encountered one at a science museum when I was young I was mesmerized by the entire thing. Anyway, I was quite pleased to discover a web page devoted to the camera obscura. On this site you will find all sorts of stuff about these fascinating devices. Who knows, you might be living next to one of the old attractions.
The Magic Mirror of Life: An Appreciation of the Camera Obscura
New HDTV Satellite Reaches Orbit
It’s not just the fact that a new HDTV satellits was launched, it’s the fact that it was done from a floating platform. Now that’s cool.
A new broadcasting satellite for high definition television across the United States roared into space Sunday from a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean.
The commercial Sea Launch Zenit 3SL booster began the successful 60-minute ascent carrying the Galaxy 16 spacecraft at 3:50 a.m. EDT (0750 GMT) from a converted oil-drilling platform positioned in equatorial waters of the Pacific about 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) south of Hawaii.
No Spying For You!
Just when I read about the Los Angles police department getting all reved up to deploy it’s latest new toy, the ‘SkySeer‘, they get shut down by the Federal Aviation Administration. What’s all the rhubarb about you ask? Well its over a 2.3 Kg bundle of high tech joy. The SkySeer is a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can loiter for over an hour and send back live video feeds to a laptop. It can also be programmed to fly a set course, navigating on an internal GPS. The ‘eye in the sky’ is being tested to see if it can be used in every day policing of the streets.
You know, to test an airplane you have to fly it. And when you fly an aircraft you have to obey the rules set forth by the FAA so you play nice with the other kids and don’t end up getting ingested by a commercial jet liner or smack into a traffic plane. Especially if on your big demo for the press your UAV crashes into the ground a few hundred yards from a group of reporters. I guess that didn’t impress the feds as they grounded the program citing air safety concerns and lack of authorization. Oops! Bad cops, no donuts!
MacMINI in an SE/30
How can you case mod an Apple Mac mini? Car mount, Millennium Falcon, kitchen-ized, G5-ized,even turned into a toilet paper dispenser (!). This mini mod brings back on of the classics of Apple history. The SE/30 was quite the computer for it’s time. With it’s 16 MHz 68030, 9 inch screen, and a max of 128MB or RAM it was able to be a server as well as a desktop machine. Remember when those were specs you would drool about? Yeah, those were the bad old days… Well, this SE/30 is back on the A list with the transplant of a shiny new Mac Mini. The mini was wired into the case along with a new grey scale monitor to make a truly cool computer.