The Perpetual Clock

Atmos clock

 

 

 

 

When I fist read the description on how this worked I was totally amazed. The clocks never need winding by hand because the mechanism is powered by a difference in temperature. A variance of a degree between 15-30 C is enough to cause a liquid (ethyl chloride) in a sealed container to expand or contract and in turn wind a spring with a ratchet. The clocks are exquisitely made and are fairly rare. If you find on, even a non working one you can expect to pay over $2,000 US for it. I find the concept of a temperature driven clock fascinating. I can’t help but wonder if the dynamic properties of ethyl chloride could be used in other projects.

THE ATMOS CLOCK PAGE

Wikipedia – The Atmos Clock 

Network Attached Storage, a DIY Story

Network Atached Storage

If your like me you have way too many files on way too many hard drives. One way to help this is to have a network attached storage (NAS). Yeah, you could just stuff a bunch of hard drives in a beige box of death and load up XP. A few network shares later and you have a NAS. You could do that, sure, if you wanted to take the easy way out. But I can tell you want to live a little, be on the edge. Yeah… The Edge. It’s where the alpha nerds meet for a midnight snack of Jolt Cola and double stuffed pizza before going back to their tricked out 733t hax0r boxes. It’s where you want to be. Building your own NAS out of the cast offs from the junk bin of a local thrift store will get you closer to that edge.

So gather up your hard drives, your mother boards, your USB key drives (you want all the IDE channels open for drives man!) and grab a copy of FreeNAS (just about the coolest software for this sort of thing) and go to town. I’m working on consolidating my collection of hard drives (everything from 20GB to 120GB) into a big pile of storage that is at least running in RAID 1. RAID 5 is my goal but that’s only if the hardware gods smile upon me.

Like me, soon you will be on the Edge. 

NAS DIY

What is RAID? – Wikipedia 

FreeNAS – The Free NAS Server 

Now Open, iPodShop.ca

iPodShop

As my family has just become the proud parents of a bouncing baby iPod Nano (2GB) we might have to use this service in a year. I love the idea that someone has opened a store front to fix these handy devices. His rates are quite good and the wait times are darned short. i just wish there was one near me. Oh well, another reason to visit my favorite Canadian city, Toronto!

Matt Bremner has created quite the buzz with his iRepair services, using good parts from broken iPods purchased from eBay. Bremner’s tiny 250 sq. ft. Toronto store front services walk-in and mail-in "patients," averaging about 30 per day at a 10 minute average wait time.

[via core77] 

iPodShop.ca

Car Camera Obscura

To document a journey across Australia, a photographic duo turned their car into a moving camera…

For over ten years we have been working with pinhole and camera obscura imagery. An important notion in our activities has been the thought of linking of the pinhole device, or camera, to the subject photographed. A biscuit tin would record an afternoon tea party; a flowerpot would be used to image a garden. Blacking-out and converting the car seemed a logical way to image our journeys.

The Carcamera Obscura

Car Camera Obscura photo gallery on Flickr 

Floating Nuke Plant

Nuclear sub

 

Ok, I can kind of see how this might cause some people to run in terror. The basic idea here is to take a nuclear power plant (the kind that would have run a nuclear sub) and stick it on a big ‘ol raft. That would be moored in remote locations of the Arctic circle and used to power what have you. Research stations, small towns, your guess is as good as mine. Sounds cool, except if it sinks. Or if someone makes off with it. Yeah…

Core77 Design Blog

Floating atomic plant for Russia