00585 Day 115, the Rake Thing

There is a time and a place to go out to the beach.

There is a time and a place to draw circles in the sand in the rain.

There is an appropriate time and place in which to indulge in sand raking tomfoolery.

And there is, sir, a time and a place to take pictures of this ephemerality.

DUDE! THIS IS THE TIME AND THE PLACE!

00584 Day 114, Solargraph

Hi. When I've come in from a long bike ride around a neighboring island and it's dark and windy and rainy outside, I like to treat myself to a little something special.

And that's why I head straight out to the cliffs with a flashlight. What could be better than looking around for a tiny plastic box left at the top of a 200foot drop in the pitch black, while the storm force winds lash the rain at you and the spiky brambles and gauze bushes rip at your legs? I know there isn't a thing in the world I'd rather be doing.

But then again, I have been chasing buses and licking windows.

And how better to unwind than to find out that your (does quick calculation: 114-74) 40 day experiment does indeed work, although you should have pointed the camera down a little?

Note: those are the tracks of the sun and the dark bit at the bottom is the headland on the other side of the bay)

00583 Day 113, Collage

Destiny. It's everywhere.

Take for example this simple collage made by spending too much time with a block of mdf, a coin battery, surface mount electronic components and some superglue. Can you see the paths of destiny entwining together in a dance that reaches across time? No?

Well then come with me on a journey through the numerate region of the cosmos and marvel as the integers of fate combine and change one another until they reach the one inevitable truth:

We live in a universe where EVERYTHING is connected.

It's simple. We have arrived at day 113 - and 113 is the 30th prime number.

Subtract 30 from 113 to give 83.

add the digits of 83 to give 11.

Deduct 11 from 113 and we have 102.

There are 102 components in the collage.

COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!




Join us next time when we discuss the meaning and implication of tenuousness.

00582 Day 112, Jacob's Ladder

It was only relatively recently that we first started experimenting on U.S. Servicemen.

we had reviewed a large range of media concerning the subject in the course of our research and became interested in the idea of Jacob's Ladder.

After a number of laboratory-based tests, we finally moved onto clinically trialling the procedure.

Although initial results were promising, we found that prolonged exposure eventually led to significantly high "Meh".

And that's where the search for toys designed to increase combat effectiveness reached it's conclusion.

If this makes no sense, watch the film "Jacob's Ladder", but be sure to seek counseling immediately afterwards.

00581 Day 111, the Shield

Part 2: The Board

The thing about addiction is that its soooooo morish. The itch that couldn't be scratched was from the early 90's and had "NEC SuperScript 610" embellished on the front of it.

This was never going to be easy, the plans were waaaaaay more complicated that before and because of the new CAD software, much higher levels of complexity were now possible. And so began the search for the modular microcontroller board, something you could program to turn things on and off and then plug it into something that needed to be turned on and off.

Turned out lovely:

Just needed a bit more tweaking.

00580 Day 110, PCB via NEC

Part 1 - The Laser Printer

It was two O'clock in the afternoon when he got back home with the printer. An old man had placed an advert on a local website looking fro someone to take it away. It must have been really old, because he had to use an old laptop running windows '95 and using hacked drivers. And so it was that after much to-ing and fro-ing, the first prints started running off the printer.
It wasn't quite as simple as that, of course. In order to make the whole thing worthwhile he'd had to learn how to use a printed circuit board CAD program which cost him most of a weeks early nights.
But the results were worth it, because as it turned out, what you really, really need to make the most successful prints which could then be ironed onto copper-clad boards, was FRESH LASER PRINTS.
And so it came to pass that the first of the kick-ass PCB's rolled off the production line.

The first of many.

Hell, this was so huge, he just looked at it and then tossed it aside and moved onto more complex matters, as we will see in part 2.

00579 Day 109, Spaced

I heard a story once about a man who was printing high volumes of raffle tickets for a PTA event. He had to sit in the school secretary's office loading the printer and pressing the "Print" button until he had amassed 6000 tickets. So, safe to say, he had some time to spare.

At around 11pm, the caretaker came in to lock up and found him hunched over a piece of paper, listening to his iPod. On the piece of paper were hundreds of scavenged electronic surface mount components along with a cluster of batteries and mdf, all stuck together with superglue. The caretaker watched for a minute as the man picked up one of the tiny components, carefully applied a small amount of glue and stuck it onto the cluster with a pair of tweezers. There were a lot of components stuck to the cluster, so he must have been doing it for a very long time.

It was only after several minutes that the man looked up and noticed that he was being watched.

"I can explain", he pleaded.

But he couldn't.

00577 Day 108, Haiku

Finding words to post
Can be a little daunting
When you don't have much


(Curses!)

00577 Day 107, Quicksa...

"liquid underneath with a sort of dried crust on top, rather like a mouldy rice pudding."

00576 Day 106, the Podcast

Here's the blog traffic report:

There's been a huge pileup with the massive podcast HGV grinding to a halt (mainly because of something inherently wrong with it's chassis) in the middle of the MAD carriageway. Stretching out behind it is a tailback containing a large number of the recent daily projects and it looks like none of them are going to be getting home anytime soon.

The Police (that's me) are on the case and by this evening they hope to have pulled the stalled vehicle onto the hard shoulder, which should allow the backlog to clear.

Now if I can just get the AA (that's me too) to turn up and bump start the HGV (remember, that's the podcast), then the traffic (that's the posts, if you didn't get that already) will be able to flow freely and normal service will be resumed.

Ironically, this is a massive car crash of a metaphor.

00575 Day 105, Maker Roulette

It's simple. Make a game.

Establish the objectives, number of players and the rules.

In this case one player, a dice throw and some outcomes based on the dice throw.

The outcomes:

• 1-5 Go to bed

• 6 Make something really BIG

Phew.

00574 Day 104, Scoreboard 1.0!

Tired of losing? Argumentative, but ineffectual? Fighting a rising tide of failure?

Then you need Scoreboard 1.0!

Scoreboard 1.0 holds all the promise of Scoreboards 2.0 and 3.0 without providing the functionality of either.

“But how does it work?” you ask. It’s easy. The voltage regulator feeds the right amount of power to the PICAXE chip, the 7-segment decade counter and the single digit.display and the whole thing is tied together by a home-made PCB. Simply plug in a 9V battery and let Scoreboard 1.0 take all the agony out of keeping tabs on who’s winning. Press the button and the score will increment by one, when it gets to nine, just go back to zero and start again!

Here’s the beauty of it: Because there’s only one score, you always be a winner. Don’t waste time worrying about who’s in front. Tests have shown that if you’re losing, simply ignoring the opposition immediately puts you in pole position every time.

But don’t take our word for it, listen to what these satisfied customers had to say:

“I used to lose all the time, now Ii just keep one score and I haven’t lost since.”

“I was really down. It was 2-1, 4-2, sometimes even 7-0. Now it’s just 4, 6, 9 and I’m on top of the world. Thanks, Scoreboard 1.0”

So don’t delay, order your Scoreboard 1.0 today and by the time we’ve processed your request, it’ll be obsolete.

Scoreboard 1.0 – “Yesterday, but Tomorrow”.

00573 Day 103, the Joule Thief

In the dead of night he creeps unknown into the dark recesses of my home and quietly strips me of all I have.

Would I were different, I'd take him on, rip him apart and send him packing. But I have so little energy left and what little I have, he has taken away.

I am a battery, he is the Joule Thief.

Did I mention that I'm a talking battery?

Did I mention that I've not been sleeping well and it's all coming apart at the seems?

No? Not to worry, it should be pretty obvious.

00572 Day 102, the iPad Stand

102 is a semiperfect number,a sphenic number and the sum of four consecutive prime numbers (19 + 23 + 29 + 31). It is the sum of Euler's totient function φ(x) over the first eighteen integers. It is the third base 10 polydivisible number, since 1 is divisible by 1, 10 is divisible by 2 and 102 is divisible by 3 (this also shows that 102 is a Harshad number). It is, of course ironically the amount of times that I have lost count of the number of days the MAD project has been running (in my defence, I forgot twice on the second day, meaning I fully remembered that I had started on Day 1 - I'm not thick, y'know).

It should be abundantly obvious that there is little to be said about the production of a stand for an iPad, beyond the drawing of extravagant curves, the cutting of thick card with a scalpel and the fitting together of the pieces into a rigid structure which can then be broken down for travel purposes. I now use it every day and can confirm that it has an awesome rating of 6.234x10**14.

00571 Day 101, the Piktcha Holdas

Please note that the scarcity of MAD Project updates does not mean:

1. The integrity of the Project has been compromised and control of quality has been lost.
   
2. Your statutory rights are affected.

So then, to the meat.

Problem: A large number of pictures to display

Solution: Glue miniature wooden clothes pegs to strips of maple to facilitate hanging.

Conclusion: Success insofar as the original remit of the project was concerned, but a newly acquired interest in the possibilities of wall hanging media using magnetic paint and neodymium magnets has surfaced, meaning that the overall project brief must be increased dramatically.

00570 the fight goes on ...

There is life beyond 100.

While the celebrations fizzle away and the after party hangover kicks in, scientists, engineers administrators and janitors have all been working away behind the scenes both day and night to ensure that, even with the century milestone now complete, the MAD project continues.

Yes, we all thought that it had reached a crescendo and faded away, but even as I type, Day 108 is underway and the backlog of posts for days 101 to 107 is being dealt with.

It may be that, because of time constraints, we will go into publishing a weekly post to keep up to date, but that will only mean more juice and more vim. Now that would be a cocktail! (although I think it might cause internal bleeding and vomiting).

00567 Day 100, Cocktail

It's a party! And everyone who has the same name and has made all the exact same things as me on the same days is invited!

OMG, there are five of you? But I've only got enough of this cocktail mix for one.

What's that? Because you've been making the exact same things on the exact same days, you've brought your own. Well, hallelujah!

Gin, ginger and tayberry coulis and crushed ice cocktail.

Not too much ginger and make sure to add a fair bit of icing sugar when you make the coulis.

Oh, and don't spend too long photographing it afterwards. That Ice won't keep forever.


Schplendid.

00568 Day 99, Rolr Skatr

It's the 99th Day of the MAD project and we move from the more socially acceptable two digit couple to the wild and raucous treble digit threesome.

Man I hope one of the three doesn't get jealous and start a fight. I'd probably have to look at some kind of decimal notation, just to keep the peace.

BTW, that's a picture of me up there with the boombox and the skates from waaaaay back in the day. Do you like the ankle warmers - they're the 560 Ohm ones, warm, but not too much for a hot day.

00567 Day 98, Helix

A Helix is described as a type of space curve, i.e. a smooth curve in three-dimensional space. It is characterized by the fact that the tangent line at any point makes a constant angle with a fixed line called the axis.

At no time is the Helix to be used for enjoyment.

Ever.

00566 Day 97, Feathertail

Made with a Mini Featherman.

Part of the "Tiny Planes" set, soon to be a subset of the "Tiny Hangars" project.

00565 Day 96 Laser Cut Binary Dominoes

There was once a man who liked dominoes so much that he would have given anything in the world to have the very best dominoes that ever there were. He decided to make his own, so he set about designing a very special set. And instead of the the usual dots, he decide that he would learn enough new skillz to design and create a set of dominoes that displayed their denominations using binary notation, squares for ones, circles for zeros. This way his dominoes would be unique and he would stand head and shoulders above everyone else who owned a set of dominoes. He set to the task with unparalleled zeal and worked day and night until he had produced, with just his hands and a simple hammer and chisel and set of dominoes so wondrous that the world was filled with the collective sighs of all the people who really like to play dominoes (and who are omniscient).

But, tradgedy, he awoke to find it had all been a dream. What he had actually done was to email his mate the designs so that they might be laser cut from acetate and mdf to create samples from which a choice of materials could be made and a price arrived at. Naturally the price was a squillion pounds and when the man discussed the matter with his wife, they decided that dominoes, while being a nice game, was not worth a divorce and several years of remunerative litigation.

They were lovely dominoes, mind.

00564 Day 95, the Card

If you were to make cards and those cards were to be sold in shops all over the place and those cards had words on them like "Happy Birthday" or "Get well Soon" or some of that other stuff like that, wouldn't it irk you, even just a little bit, that these deep and sincere sentiments, written by you, would be sent to someone you didn't know from Adam.

It'd bug me to hell. That's what I learned from making THE CARD

00563 Day 94, Shove Piggy Shove

"You join us at the world famous Warehouse Tavern in the heart of the illustrious North Enfield Industrial Estate for what's shaping up to be the greatest contest this wildly popular sport has seen for over a decade.

I'm Alpen Shickler and joining me in the commentary box is three times World and European SPS Champion, Jesley Finknuts. Jesley - quite a competition lining up."


"Sure is , Alpen, although what you have to understand is that we are just the result of a fantasy dreamed up by a man who's been burning the midnight oil making one thing every day and, well, I think it's finally broken him."

"Well, interesting stuff there, Jesley. I think the question on everyone's mind, though, is can the reigning champ come through again, or will the young up-and-comers manage to unseat him?"

"No, Alpen, I think you're missing the point. This is all just made up. The board is a piece of 18mm plywood some guy found lying around outside. He just cleaned it up a little, varnished it, stuck a copper strip to one end and penned in lines and numbers at the other. Then he flicks three coins up the board and reads off the score. Even the rules were only devised last night."

"Right you are, Jesley! So let's turn our attention to the first match between the Norwegian, Fenster Monkeychump and his German rival, Heinrick Clausenbacker. Both seeded from last year, but Fenster with the advantage here. Just look at those stats from training this morning:"

"I can't see the big Gewrman getting through this time - Jesley?"

"You're not getting this are you, Alpen? Look, here's some video and images the guy took while he was playing the game on his kitchen table:"

"He even wrote down the rules in a post on Flickr. Listen:

'2 players
Each player has three turns
Each turn progresses as follows:
- the player places the coin on the rather natty copper strip and flicks each of three coins up the board
- the score for each coin is added up and this total is noted down
- coins that fall short of the first mark or fall off the board score 0
When all three turns are complete, the highest score out of the three is noted and play passes to the other player
When the other player has completed their three turns, the highest score of each player is compared and the difference between the two scores is called the points score for the round and is awarded to the player with the highest score
The process is repeated until one player reaches 10 points.

E.G.
player 1 scores 6, 12 and 8
player 2 scores 7,14 and 3
Here player 2 wins and is awarded 2 points (14-12)

The reason for playing it this way is that the better players will score consistently high, but the other players will still be in with a chance, making the game much more competitive.
The reason for awarding the points based on the difference in the highest scores is to encourage the players to try hard for a high score on all of their turns and not just give up if they're not doing so well.'

See? I mean, what kind of a name is 'Funknuts' anyway."

"I hear you, Jesley. Well, the ref nods to Clausenbacker and the match is underway."

"I'll get my coat.

oh, I don't have one"

00562 Day 93, Henry's Handle

Right then, that's the register. Now can any one tell me what this is?

SMITH, STOP BADGERING FISTUP AND GET YOU FINGER OUT OF YOUR CREVASS!

If you could all turn to page 17 of the Fall 1995 edition of the Aerial Eye, we can begin.

What d'you mean, you don't have it?

WHAT?!?!? NONE OF YOU ?!?!?! ARE YOU MEANING TO TELL ME THAT NOT ONE OF YOU OWNS A FULL COPY OF THE AERIAL EYE ON CD!?!?!?

Right then! You can all stay in over lunch until you have written out "Henry's Handle was designed by Henry Jebe in order to solve the problem of temporarily anchoring a one line kite to a point on the ground (or seaborne platform), in order for the KAPer to ready his camera equipment before attaching it to the kite line" 2 x 10**5,000 times.

Until we break for lunch, you will all study these pictures and we will try to get by without the original text:

SMITH, TAKE YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF THE CODLINGS!!!

00561 Day 92, Stone Face

What are you staring at?

Nothing, we are the reincarnations of two of the most evil men to walk the earth. For all our many sins we pay penance by living this unbearable life. Existing, yet rendered motionless. Conscious, yet unable to sense our surroundings. Immortal, yet trapped inescapably in a prison of stone.

Wow ... that's a huge bummer. That whole Zen thing really messed you up.

Yeah, you can say that again.

Hey ... wait ... if you can't hear and you can't move, then how come we're having this conversation?

Well?

Oh ... I see. I'm alone on a beach, talking to myself (again). I must have built you by balancing a load of rocks and then got an old pen, cut open the cartridge with a knife and daubed in the black of your eyes onto small white pebbles with the ink. It's all coming back to me now ... yeah, that must be what happened.

Ok. Time's up, I'm off.

...

Bye beach.

...

Best get back before lunch, gotta send all those emails and pick up the shopping.




...




...




...





has he gone yet?