Categorized under I want to build this and Do It Yourself
Here is a great little instructable on how to build this simple plank chair. Comments seem to imply that is sturdier than it looks (which was my first thought). The design is apparently centuries old. If you end up liking the chair, it wouldn’t take that much additional energy to make a whole set of these. Go crazy!
So, you may be familiar with the mode of transportation called “walking”. To make human-powered transportation more efficient, bicycles were invented. To get exercise by walking without having to actually go anywhere, the treadmill was invented. Got all that? Well, obviously the makers of the Treadmill Bike didn’t get the memo. Besides defeating the purpose of a treadmill while simotaniously being an incredibly inefficient way to power a bicycle - the Treadmill Bike looks like it may be kind of fun to ride. Way stupid, mind you… and fun to ride.
I’m getting like 50+ spam comments per day now, so I’m shutting down comments until I can figure out a better way. Damn you Spam! So Delicious! So Annoying!
I just discovered VideoJug - which appears to be a site fairly closely resembling Instructables, but with video howtos instead of pictorial step-by-steps. It’s still in beta, but it already has a bunch of content, and you are able to “upload your wisdom”. So get to it, people! I think this is a great idea - and maybe it will take off just like Instructables did.
Categorized under Do It Yourself and Techno-logical
Here is an interesting product from Brookstone that may be an easy project for the enterprising furniture hacker who currently lives in such a small space that they cannot fit a desk and a coffee table in their small space: but wants both. I think this is a cool idea, but since I don’t really need one, I’ll leave the work to you. I would imagine that this kind of special hinge could be found readily. Now all you need is some box-style coffee table, a saw, some screws, and the tolerance for undertaking a project of this magnitude in your cramped, small-ass apartment. Perfect.
Download some paper monsters (8 to choose from) - cut - tape - and enjoy! They have such great names as “Preshaa the Fondler”, “Papercut of Death”, and “Brain Sucker” (shown here).
Show your spite for modern music mediums with these glasses made from old records. Or, I guess you could show your spite for old records by hacking them up into glasses. Either way, you’ll be making some sort of statement with these specs. If you are handy with a Dremmel, and not afraid of putting vinyl in your oven for a bit to make it malleable, you could whip up some of these for yourself. If not, you’ll have to drop $475 to have this guy make them.
Categorized under I want to build this and Techno-logical
Despite looking like an invention by somebody who REALLY likes scissors, this contraption may come in handy. And by “come in handy”, I mean when you need to shred incriminating confidential information, and you don’t have one of those overly-loud paper/credit card/CD/photo shredders handy. Simply take these Shredder Scissors, cut once one way, and once another way to create very small little squares - no power required! You could totally sell these as confetti making scissors as well. Cool - but it looks like this wonderful life-changing invention is only available if you can read Japanese. Or maybe a Babelfish translation will do:
The bill and the receipt book etc. of the bank approximately 35mm. You judge in the smallest size in angle because, Privacy and secret are protected. When furthermore it is small the paragraph wanting, in beginning vertically After cutting, if it cuts to side, approximately 35 Be able to cut to the fineness about in mm angle, secret It finishes to protect.
Well, since it doesn’t look like these things will be at Walmart any time soon, maybe i’ll just go out and buy 7 cheap-o scissors and hack a Shredder Scissor together myself, thankyouverymuch.
If anybody caught me in the middle of fiddling with the site - I’m sorry. But LQQK! DFD Blog has a new look and feel that more closely matches the main site, and the upcoming DIY site! Soon to be a coherent trifecta of interestingness.
Despite the not-so-original-concept name, I’m finding more and more awesome projects on cre.ations.net. Most recently, this really really really really cool “Time Fountain“. Pumping fluorescent liquid at a constant rate, combined with UV LEDs controlled to blink at a certain rate, results in instantaneous visions of water droplets. By changing the rate at which the LEDs flash, the water droplets can be visually slowed down, suspended in mid air, or even made to look like they are falling upwards. And what’s even better? They can be interacted with in real time! And, because you have to see it to believe it, I’m making this DFD Blog’s first video post.
In addition to being incredibly cool, cre.ations.net has complete directions online if you would want to make one yourself. Awesome awesome awesome.
Categorized under Geek Chic and Do It Yourself and Techno-logical
Here is a handy idea - embedding small LEDs into your wallet set to light up when it’s open. Seeing inside your dark little wallet at night is no longer a problem with this simple hack. This idea could also very easily be applied to purses, backpacks, or maybe even the very pockets of your pants ( it would have to be removable for washing of course. Or you could just not wash your pants.) Another mod I think would be handy would be some sort of small switch, such that your batteries aren’t wasted during daylight. Cool idea!
This is a very simple noisemaker - basically comprised of some flat long object connected to a string. If you spin this around fast enough, it makes a really cool noise that resembles a bullfrog!
This was posted to Make yesterday: it’s a bike modified to ride on ice. Cool! (haha - very punny). Maybe I would have realized something like this existed sooner if I didn’t live in California. I can see how, in some isolated-by-the-long-winter garage, some intrepid DIYer started hacking a bike, and came up with this incredibly useful (to them) contraption. From looking at it, I would think this would be a very unstable ride. But then again, anything I do on ice is unstable, so maybe it’s just a matter of being raised in a land where it actually snows during the winter. If you like this contraption, take a look at this collection of more ice and snow bikes.
Man, you know I’m weary of strapping a jet to anything that wasn’t meant to have a jet strapped to it… say, like YOUR BODY. And from what I see here this guy has all the makings of a disaster. For one, he has an awful cookie-cutter flash site set up here. This is your official Bad Music Warning. He is proposing to sell these guys for $200,000. WTF? Do you make these jetpacks in that shed we see in the background of this picture? On the website there is a section called “Test #2″ (I would link to it, but it being a crappyFlash site, I can’t). And there is even a video of him tied down to a wooden structure for “safety”. What ended the test? A wire got sucked into the intake. Great. Awesome. Maybe you should have checked for loose wires before you tested? Better yet, maybe you should STOP MAKING JET PACKS IN YOUR BACKYARD??
Ugh. Can you tell I think this is an idiotic idea?
This is a great idea. Dan Lockton, over at Instructables, has hacked up a small glue gun and made it into a precision glue gun. Hot glue is notoriously messy and hard to handle, and not very suitable for smaller applications. Giving this gun a smaller nozzle (from a ballpoint pen), the resulting glue stream is more manageable.
Okay, I totally made mini-matchstick-rockets as a kid, then completely forgot about doing it until now. Thanks for reminding me of my childhood, NASA! Tax dollars put to good use (and, oh yeah, thanks for bringing the shuttle back to earth as well). The NASA version is here, but there is a slightly different version over at Instructables, which includes a beefed up design and a video. Horay Friday!
Hey! Here’s something that you don’t see every day but looks easy to build if you happen to have an extra satellite dish laying around and tons upon tons of foil! Hey! (huh?). Yes, that’s right. I don’t really have anything to say about this other than it is clearly the awesomest way to cook a hotdog. Horay Deathray Hotdog Cooking.
As WiFi becomes more ubiquitous, more people will push it’s limits. And, heretofore henceforth, we get cool hacks like this WiFi Range Extender. Although there are many different types of DIY WiFi dishes out there, this one seems the simplest (and coolest looking?). The vegetable steamer is cheap, and no modification to the USB WiFi Dongle is needed, which makes this an easy hack for just about anybody willing to cut up a vegetable steamer. And if you disagree with cutting up vegetable steamers because you hold them in such high regard, well, then… what the hell is wrong with you?
Who-da-thunkit? My good friend, Carlo Rossi, has posted some interesting stuff on his webpage. Namely, DIY projects that can be done once you finish a bottle (or jug) of his fine wine. These project tutorials come complete with downloadable instructions in PDF, and howto videos. Cool! I guess that just makes this weeks unofficial theme “Cheap Jug Wine”.
Definitely way out of most people’s leagues, but it never hurts to be amazed and awed. This guy has a great walkthrough of how he made a really ugly his own watch. But, I cannot be to critical, whatever the outcome, because I have not made my own watch yet. It sounds like fun; but, at the moment, I certainly don’t have time. From his webpage:
In these days of “fast” and “convenient” I decided to commence a work of “painstaking” and “craftsmanship”, making my own wristwatch.
Well, props to you. And even if you don’t feel like jumping up and making a wrist watch, his site is still amazing to look through.
Instructables
del.icio.us - diy
