Eclectic junk from the four corners of the ‘Net. And pictures too!
I was looking around for pinhole cameras and came up with this. It’s got to be the most complex pinhole camera I have ever seen… I stand in awe of this creation… The translation might not be perfect, but you should still be able to understand all of it.
Looks as if there has been another setback in the mission of the little space probe that could, the craft has started to tumble and is not longer in a good position to receive communications from Earth. A small fuel leak caused it to spin in an unexpected way but the ground controllers have been able to calculate when it points in the right direction so communications could still continue. The new orientation still fulfils the com and power requirements but not by much. The overall mission has been extended by a few more years in a hope that they will be able to recover and head back to home with the sample of asteroid Itokawa
How clever, use the hexagonal cross-section of a pencils as dice. Mix it in with the kind of rules you would find in a card game like Pokemon and you have the latest Japanese craze that is heading to our shores. Expect a TV show based on this soon…
I would swear that when I was a kid there was a game a little bit like this so the entire thing may not be all that new.
[ via Boing Boing ]
Almost a year ago I blogged about these little critters but at the time there was no place in the US that you could buy them. That is not the case any longer! Compact Impact is now selling them for $10 so you too can have a cute pet cactus in your pocket. Just remember to water once in a while and give it some sun, after all it is a living thing.
[via Cool Hunting]
I remember seeing this on an episode of ‘Hey, Spring of Trivia‘ not all that long ago. There is was being used by Japan Rail to wake up their conductors at the station so they wouldn’t miss their shifts. The idea is that when the alarm sounds and air bag inflates and will wake even the most sound of sleeper. When you fist see this you thing it has to be a ‘Chindogu‘, or a an invention that has no real utility. Nope, it’s a real product that you can buy for your loved one or kid that is always late for the bus.
[via Red Ferret]
Researchers have come across a method for producing a flexible braille display that uses about the same power as a cell phone. The display can be refreshed in about one second and could be used to indicate the amount of money left on a prepaid card, household appliances, or even an e-book. It uses a plastic film with organic transistors and plastic actuators that expand when triggered. So far it will display 24 characters but researchers hope to take this up to 576 in a few years. Look for this to be on the market in five or six years.
[ via we-make-money-not-art]