odds and ends
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Spectacular stair dominates house, serves many functions
© Moon Hoon There is an appalling trend in house design lately where home elevators are, if not standard, certainly are becoming common. The Globe and Mail writes about a 41 year old homebuilder in Calgary who installed one from his basement garage to the main level because "Hauling groceries up a flight of stairs with two young sons in tow wasn’t going to work." Much of the justification for putting in elevators is that " demand is partly driven by baby boomers who want to “age in place.” In fact, the opposite is true; there are elderly New Yorkers living in walkup apartments that swear that the stairs are what keeps them fit and mobile. Dr.
Stalacpipe Organ
The Stalacpipe Organ Located in the Cathedral is the Great Stalacpipe Organ, the world's largest musical instrument. Stalactites covering 3 1/2 acres of the surrounding caverns produce tones of symphonic quality when electronically tapped by rubber-tipped mallets.
End robocaller, solicitation, and hangup calls with Asterisk & Raspberry Pi | Technical Intercession
Do you have a land-line that is constantly barraged with unwanted robo, solicitation, and “hangup” calls, even though you’re on the do not call registries? This project uses a Raspberry Pi and an OBi110 voice-bridge to create an Automated Attendant (AA) to screen calls for you! The annoyance calls on my line have dropped from five or six/day (with many more during political “seasons”) to zero . This is a low-power, low-cost solution with extreme expansion possibilities, and it’s a fun way to gain experience with the Pi & the Asterisk PBX software. As an added bonus, my wife “really loves it; our home is more peaceful”.
It seems like everything is antibacterial these days, from soaps and lotions to mattress pads and pizza cutters , which really makes you wonder how the world got along before the discovery of Triclosan.
Is Antibacterial Soap Bad For You?
CES 2013 proved to be something of a coming out party for consumer-facing 3D printers .
The shape of things to come: A consumer's guide to 3D printers
Following Eric Schmidt's remark to Kara Swisher in October that he wouldn't comment on the smartphone patent wars because he "doesn't understand all the details", we'd like to be of service.
Apple, Samsung, Google and the smartphone patent wars - everything you need to know | Technology
Security Flaws in the TSA Pre-Check System and the Boarding Pass Check System. « Puckinflight
I’m publishing this because I am seriously concerned with boarding pass security in the United States. The way TSA Pre-Check works is the organizations that participate transmit travel information for passengers who opt-in to the program to the TSA. Then the TSA in a way that randomizes security determines if the passenger is or is not eligible for Pre-Check and sends that information back to the Airline.
"We have to move from an engine of bureaucracy to an engine of innovation," said Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter, announcing this week that at least 1,000 high schools around the country will be opening up Makerspaces over the next four years. What is a Makerspace , you ask?
Lasers, 3-D Printers, And Robots: The New Shop Class
Matt Duncan has turned his attention from boat building to tsunami survival.
Flood of interest in tsunami pods Local Business
The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator
Salvation is here! Feeling inarticulate? Critically gauche?
Burning Man is flipping weird. The annual pilgrimage draws tens of thousands of attendees to the middle of an inhospitable desert where they enjoy a week of delusional mayhem, often in a haze of physical and spiritual intoxication (not to mention the dust clouds which frequently cover the sky). In this wild dimension where fantasy and reality collide, it’s not uncommon to see giant moving sculptures and “art-cars,” often spouting flames and exhibiting all kinds of mechanical wizardry.
There Goes the Neighborhood: Mobile Victorian House Sets Sail for Desert
Reading the dictionary
I have some amazing friends who tell me that when they were young, they read the dictionary from cover to cover. Other friends of mine have read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. My sister calls me an "interest driven learner."If the year is 2011, you are likely watching the above video on a Mac OS computer or a Windows computer. Those two obvious possibilities represent only the tail end of many not-so-obvious choices, the ones that determine, for better or worse, the direction that technology takes. Some things win and other things lose; some operating systems succeed, building on previous ideas, and others end up in the trash can of history.
TV: The Thorium Dream
How to Find Old Newspaper Articles and Magazines
In the past, the only way to get hold of an old newspaper or past magazine issues was your local library but with Internet, you can find old newspaper articles and magazine in the browser..Add and Subtract One of the mechanisms marked A is used for addition and subtraction, and both are used to tally the results of more complex operations. Carry the One Several sets of gears and wires labeled “Carriage” allow multiple wheels to be turned when a digit wheel turns above 9 or below 0. For example, adding the number 1 to 999 involves turning several wheels at the same time to produce 1000.