video of an awesome pop-up Lego building



Just amazing in all sorts of ways.

Touchable Holography

"A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo led by Hiroyuki Shinoda has developed a display that lets users "touch" objects that appear to float in space in front of them.



The virtual objects appear in mid-air thanks to an LCD and a concave mirror. The sensation of touching the objects is created using an ultrasound device positioned below the LCD and mirror. The airborne ultrasound tactile device used to produce the sensation of touch was demoed at SIGGRAPH in 2008."


Amazing what they are doing with Wii-motes and a little creativity.

I swear this should be made a mandatory part on all table saws.
Sawstop
I saw it last night on the Timewarp show on the Discovery channel. The inventor was showing it off for the high speed cameras. He even used his own finger. Said it tickled a little but didn't even break the skin on his finger. The saw blade stopped immediately and yeah it broke the stopping mechanism, but I'd rather pay $60 for a new sawstop instead of the huge cost of a lost finger.

video from Timewarp

(  full article )

This is the embroidery piece for my apprentice's new belt.

Detail shot of the center of the medallion. center gold border is 2.5 x 2.5 inches

Closeup of couching, bullion stitch, satin stitch, split stitch, detached button hole stitch, wrapped stem stitch
Ground is green silk dupioni, couched 22K gold wrapped silk cords, Kreinik silk mori floss

It is nice to be doing proper embroidery again.

preheat oven to 350
Take
1 pack of Pillsbury ready made sugar cookie dough
half a round of mexican hot coco (the lovely spiced kind)
chunks of candied ginger, however much floats your boat I like lots
pop coco in a ziplock and pound it to powder (I like my rolling pin for this)
knead the coco into the cookie dough
flour your hands to keep it from sticking to you
roll out and cut into amusing shapes with whatever cutters you have on hand
cut candied ginger into mini-morsel sized bits and top the cookies with it

place on cookie sheet with 1 inch clearance around cookies

bake for 12 - 14 minutes or until golden brown on edges.