Antikythera Mechanism + Legos

Engadget Points to a lego built replica of the Antikythera Mechanism, a computer to predict when solar ellipses would occur.

"Andrew Carol, who has lovingly pieced 1,500 Lego Technic blocks together, creating 110 gears and four gearboxes in total."

Consumer Reports: ATT Worst

Consumer Reports now rates ATT the worst carrier in the US. Not really earth shatering news, but worth noting.

Sky Lanterns

Got friends over, and want to do something cool at night? Get some of these "sky lanterns". It's basically a paper bag with a candle in them. Light them up and they take off in the sky. They go up really high, so by the time the candle goes out, so when they come back to earth, there's nothing hot. ... It is actually neat to watch...

Free Schooling

Top Marks:
These are really great, high quality training m

• Khan Academy: (Math, Sciences, and growing) BEST YET. See some background on Salman Khan and why we should worship him.
• Marketplace Whiteboard: Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch explains all the different kinds of financial topics from Quantitative easing, to short selling, to Shadow banking and very much more.
• MITOpenCourseWare: Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required.
• Stanford Engineering Everywhere: some free engineering classes from the left coast. (and their AI Class) 
• Coursera : Online classes from many different universities.
• UCLA: and their Science, Magic and Religion Corses.
• Getting started in Electronics (by Forrest D. Mims III.) A Classic RadioShack Into to electronics book.
• Nerdkits: icrocontroller kit, with fantastic tutorials on how to build stuff and how it works.
• Norm Wildberger's YouTube videos on Geometry: "WildTrig"

Getto versions:

• Arduino Tutorial: LED's. It's no EE11 (RLC) but has some good overviews

(more to come later...)

RC Goodness!

Much goodness in the remote controlled aircraft with movable video cockpit display and weponary department:

From the HackADay website:

"An unemployed electrical engineer can be a very dangerous thing. [Cybrown] has turned his skills toward darker, more awesome applications by building an armed unmanned aerial vehicle. This is a remote control airplane that has a movable camera mounted in the cockpit. Video and GPS data are sent back to the pilot who views the picture via a wearable display. "

Magic and science: Together again at last

Worthy 11 min video from Scientific American about "neuroscience and the art of illusion".

"Martinez-Conde, along with her husband and fellow scientist Stephen Macknik are the subject of our recent video on the neuroscience of magic. Joined by master pickpocket Apollo Robbins (who is not really a criminal, of course; he calls himself a "gentleman thief"), the trio gives us a new perspective on how the brain works as we watch the tricks and manipulations of the magician."

Along that note:

In the March 2012 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine, "Teller" reviles his basic methods for deceiving the human mind (and thus performing magic tricks). 

The Great Chemical Unknown

Scientific American has a nice diagram and summary of the # of restricted chemicals used in in production in the US, the number tested, and the number used.

"Chemicals used by the US consumers and industry: 50,000
Tested: 300
Restricted: 5"

"The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act does not require chemicals to be registered or proven safe before use. ....it has managed to require testing of only about 300 substances that have been in circulation for decades. ... Stricter scrutiny in Europe and Canada suggests that “10 to 30 percent of U.S. chemicals would need some additional level of control,”

oh... and then there's this:

• Everyday BPA Exposure Decreases Human Semen Quality: The more bisphenol A men were exposed to--at work or through the environment--the worse off their sperm were, according a new study that finds the link in humans. By Katherine Harmon October 28, 2010

The joys of engineering leadership

Good Google I/O presentation from Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Ben Collins-Sussman : "How to loose friends and alienate people: The joys of engineering leadership". Good presentation on ways to be a good leader.

Guide to Greener Electronics

Greenpeace posted their list of the most environmentally responsible major electronics manufactures.

The guide ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Last updated: October 2010.

Our three goals for this guide are to get companies to:

* Clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances.
* Take back and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.
* Reduce the climate impacts of their operations and products.

Guerrilla Trucks

Newsweek reporter Ravi Somaiya has an article on "Why rebels and insurgent groups the world over love the Toyota Hilux pickup as much as their AK-47s."

"It’s the vehicular equivalent of the AK-47. It’s ubiquitous to insurgent warfare. And actually, recently, also counterinsurgent warfare. It kicks the hell out of the Humvee.

[...]

An experiment conducted by British TV show Top Gear in 2006 offers one explanation. The show’s producers bought an 18-year-old Hilux diesel with 190,000 miles on the odometer for $1,500. They then crashed it into a tree, submerged it in the ocean for five hours, dropped it from about 10 feet, tried to crush it under an RV, drove it through a portable building, hit it with a wrecking ball, and set it on fire. Finally they placed it on top of a 240-foot tower block that was then destroyed in a controlled demolition. When they dug it out of the rubble, all it took to get it running again was hammers, wrenches, and WD-40. They didn’t even need spare parts."