A high-tech tumbler that transforms rough rocks and minerals into smooth, shiny gemstones.

I like the idea… you throw in some raw stones that you got on your last day in the countryside, you then wait some time and voila, you get a handful of beautiful polished beads. You may want to spend a little more and get into a more serious, professional looking tumbler, like these ones from lortone. Anyway, keep in mind that tumbling is made for the patient one as it takes many days for stones to gradually polish. You may take a look at this page for more info on the whole thing.

www.glest.org

Fixed a bug involving double sided and custom color in exporter/viewer/game.

If in every business and venture we previously plan the stages of our action, we will achive success with ease.

http://www.zcorp.com

The ZPrinter 310 System creates physical models directly from digital data.

It may be “the ideal entry-level rapid prototyping system”, but at a price of $25900 (Options, shipping, local taxes and duties not included), it´s just a little too expensive for my budget. Yet it is so sweet! Just take a look at the technology video (skip some corporate blah blah) and see for yourself what it can do. With one of these and a 3D scanner, you´ll be able to replicate just everything! (evil laugh*). Ok, but I guess that any 3D-er would love to see these machines down to an affordable price.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any misuse of these technologies, may it happen now or many years from now when everyone will be able to copy objects with ease. I´m just saying that it could happen. The evil laugh is intended to be a joke, it´s not really evil. I do my best to be a good citizen. Really.

Today I got an explanation on this technique. It is basically an iterative method that allows to approximate the measures until a satisfactory value is achieved; this comes to mean that you make an initial guess, you apply an operation on it and then repeat that same operation over and over, taking the result of the previous step as the starting point for the next, which will give you more accurate measures each time.

For instance, if you want to divide a segment of paper in thirds, you would do the following:

1.-Fold one side the paper into what you guess could be the right measure for a third of it. Don´t mark the folding completely, just mark the end of it so that you know where it is.

2.-Fold the other side so that it reaches the point you just marked, and mark the folding.

3.-Fold the other side so that it reaches the point you just marked, and mark the folding.

Keep doing this. In a few steps you should have accurate thirds.

Now for fiths:

1.-Fold one side of the paper into what you guess could be the right measure for a fith of it. Mark it just enough to know where it is, as I explained for thirds.

2.-Fold the other side so that it reaches the point you just marked, and mark the folding. Now make and mark a fold which is the half of this.

3.-Fold the other side so that it reaches the point you just marked, and mark the folding. Now make and mark a fold which is the half of this.

Keep doing this. In a few steps you should have accurate fifths.

… Now that I think about all these thirds and fiths, this looks a lot like the way one would tune a musical instrument

Thanks to my friends of the origami group in Santiago de Compostela for sharing these techniques with me.

Related Article: Origami cd case

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

http://www.nuloop.com

Online Record Store

Not only they have a huge catalog of cds/dvds and vinyls (and some gear too), but they offer excerpts of every single song in real audio format. If you like electronic music, this place is a must visit.

Last Updated 25.06.06

http://www.papercdcase.com/

Use this website to create a PDF file which can be printed and folded to create a paper CD case.

Actually it´s better to learn how make the case by folding since you never know when you´ll need one. But actually there´s a tricky thing about it, as you have to divide the top in five equal parts. How do you do this? Well, the instructions say “use the fujimoto approximation technique or something“… A friend of mine taught me a way to get the first segment, as shown in this little step-by-step guide.

Update 25.06.06 I just found these other instructions to make a case -simpler and less precise, but it does the job

Related Article: Fujimoto technique explained

Related Article: Origami envelope

http://www.hlj.com/product/GAK366439

This kit allows you to build your very own gramophone, which will let you record and play back your very own record disks!

And that´s how, thinking that it could be very cool to record my own “lo- fi” memos and sounds, I bought the Gramophone, which arrived soon and in perfect condition as the packaging was excellent. It also came with instructions in english, and building it was quick and fun. It looks very nice over the piano… but that´s all. I tried to make several recordings on the supplied disks and on spare cds, and the results were very disappointing, to say the least. In brief, if you manage to record something, which involves you almost shouting at the horn, in order to play it back you have to place the needle very accurately over the groove that was carved while recording: don´t make any mistake or it will get out of the path and ruin everything with no possible recovery. If everything goes right, you may hear what you recorded in a very very low volume (no amplifier other than the horn), and to make things worse, the mechanism is very noisy. Maybe it was my fault or more experiments should be done, but I didn´t like the overall results.
I think I was expecting too much from this thing. If you like it and want to give it a try, keep in mind that it will work for the purpose it was made, that´s to show how a gramophone works, and little more. Anyway, the carved cds look like space- era vinyls, which is actually cool and decreases the frustration

True wisdom consists in knowing that you know what you really know, and that you ignore what you really ignore.

http://www.incompetech.com/beta/plainGraphPaper/

I cannot anticipate all needs, but the grids below should cover most common ones.

http://www.crbond.com/score_paper.htm

Here you will find a set of Acrobat (*.pdf) files which will print out music score paper on your printer.

Print this over the previously printed grids to finish your empty notebook

;)

http://www.sff.net/people/Brook.West/bind/bindit.html

Make or repair books with this easy technique.

Related Article: Make a notebook, and make it easy: pocketmod

http://www.atcsd.com/tl_hss.html

Since the sound that we hear is created right in the column of ultrasonic energy, it does not spread in all directions like the sound from a conventional loudspeaker, instead it stays locked tightly inside the column of ultrasonic energy. In order to hear the sound, your ears must be in line with the column of ultrasound.

Hypersonic Sound. Kinda redundant (”hypermusical music?”), but the concept is actually cool. Besides the examples given in the site I was thinking on an installation where people would wander around an empty space with hidden speakers placed in the ceiling, pointing to spots in the floor and changing positions slowly over time. It would be interesting to see how people react for the first time to these unexpected sounds, and how they do interact with them (for instance, if they try to catch up with them as they move, or try to find new ones). I wonder if we would get accustomed to the effect (I mean, when not warned of the sweet spot) if this technology ever got into everyday life: walking down the mall could be like crossing a “sound mined” field. And I wonder what would happen if two sound beams crossed in space…

http://www.shmups.com/
http://shmup.com/

the last real classic game genre still alive - games in which score, skill, technique, replayability, and finely honed 2-dimensional gameplay are all-important.

Underrated by some as if they were reliques from ancient times, the truth is that shmups are everlasting, because in their core lies the essence of the videogame: easy to understand, hard (but rewarding) to master, challenging and enjoyable. From time to time I would go back to the old black&white (yellow and green?) gameboy to see if the experiences of life have made me more skillful and I´m finally able to finish R- Type (you already know the answer, save me the shame); but then, if someone asked me for an example of a high- quality modern videogame with all the lusty graphics and powerful sound, my trouble would be whether to answer ikaruga (Dreamcast and Gamecube) or rez (Dreamcast and PS2)… I think I´d say ikaruga and save rez for if I was asked if videogames can be art.

Wait… dunno what a shmup is? Look it up in the dictionary. C´est facile á lire!

No men leave a track of their existence that, having started to practice a virtue, don´t persist in it.

http://aiplanet.sourceforge.net/

A virtual world for artificial intelligence.

Even though its development seems to have been stagnated for quite a long time, aiplanet is still a delicious piece of software which will always be worth downloading. The initial screen shows an empty blue sphere (actually covered by some water and an atmosphere too), which can be transformed into a living ecosystem by raising land, planting trees and placing animals on it. Are your oceans empty? just add some fish. Too much fish already? let the shark do its work. You can make all sorts of experiments in and with your small planet, from draining the ocean to flooding the lands, from modifying the climate to smashing asteroids (unless you place a missile defense, that is). All of this results in an experience which is half documentary, half game, and all fun. Thanks Dave, and good luck with your music!.

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Aiplanet: back on air

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