So maybe you don’t have enough time to do this before Thanksgiving, but I can’t think of a cooler way to keep your recipes than this Atari Punk recipe box. From Make:
Hey, you want to make some chunky 8-bit music? In a recipe box? With Atari paddles? Using a Dremel tool? We thought you might. The “Atari Punk Console” is the name given to the wonderfully retro-sounding stepped tone generator, designed by hobby electronics pioneer Forrest M. Mims III. It is a 556-based timer circuit oscillator that generates a square wave. More importantly, it sounds like Atari 2600 music and is fun to build into a cool enclosure.
When the iPad went on sale, a few people complained about the idea of paying several hundred dollars and then having to stump up some extra cash for a case. They should count themselves lucky.
An Italian man has just paid more than $200,000 for an Apple computer without a case. And this time we’re not talking a carry case: the machine literally had no casing.
To be fair, this wasn’t the latest MacBook Pro. Instead it was an original Apple-1, the first machine Apple ever sold and one of only 200 units ever made.
The device, which was only on sale for a year before being discontinued, originally retailed for $666.66. (Insert your own anti-Steve Jobs gag here.) Yesterday Marco Boglion paid £133.250 (approx $213,600) at a technology auction to buy an Apple-1, complete with original components, such as 8K of RAM, packaging, and a letter from Jobs.
Not only was the Apple-1 the company’s first computer, but it’s birthing process was a perfect microcosm of the company’s success over the next 23 years. Steve Wozniak came up with the idea of building the machine, while friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling it to the public.
Ironically for the company that went on to popularize the tablet PC, the computer didn’t ship with a keyboard. Then again, it didn’t ship with a screen or a power supply either. But as the auction listing notes, it did still offer a nod towards a casual audience, albeit in a very comparative sense: “Because the motherboard was completely pre-assembled, it represented a major step forward in comparison with the competing self-assembly kits of the day.”
Among the other items on sale at the auction were an Enigma (a German encryption machine used in the second world war) and papers belonging to computer pioneer Alan Turing.
Youtube user klapstoelpiloot built this AMAZING Star Trek-like touchscreen computer for this home. The system’s GUI is based on the LCARS interface from Star Trek. Check it out:
Shown in the video are:
Agenda/Calendar
Shopping list (Groceries)
Rain radar
Train departure times (because the train station is nearby)
Library & Media player (connected to home cinema set)
The 24″x 36″ illustration by Kevin Tong is titled “A Linch Pin Droid” and features glow in the dark ink for an out of this world experience when viewed in the dark.
Unfortunately, only 400 of these beauties will be made available upon release.
“A Wave of Reason” is the seventh installment in the Symphony of Science music video series. It is intended to promote scientific reasoning and skepticism in the face of growing amounts of pseudoscientific pursuits, such as Astrology and Homeopathy, and also to promote the scientific worldview as equally enlightening as religion. It features Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Lawrence Krauss, Carolyn Porco, Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Phil Plait, and James Randi.
