subdermal

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/hackaday/LgoM/~3/4QpLk1g8HMg/

http://hackaday.com/?p=75095

We think it’s a bit to late to show up for a screening of The Avengers in full costume, but an arc reactor T-shirt would be pretty cool. [4ndreas] built a chest strap that looks much like [Tony Stark's] chest-mounted power source. It has a 3D printed enclosure which hosts the ATmega8 and 22 LEDs which provide the pulsing goodness. The thin cellphone battery helps to keep the size of the package to a minimum and a strategically placed hole in a black T-shirt completes the look. It’s even bright enough to shine through the fabric of this black T-shirt.

But if you insist on head-to-toe regalia you’ll appreciate [James Bruton's] Ironman suit replica build. Not only does he look the part, but he’s trying to build as much functionality into the project as possible. Most recently he finished the helmet. It’s got a motorized faceplate and LED edge-lit eye plates to impress hackers and cosplay fans alike.

Find video of both projects after the break.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/hackaday/LgoM/~3/-NemPfU7YjE/

http://hackaday.com/?p=75086

Many of us have had this exact thought and wondered if it was feasible. As it turns out, you can, in fact, just buy a bunch of magnets and make a levitating bed. Those magnets need to be extremely strong, so [mememetatata] used some rather large Neodymium magnets. This frame involved some careful planning since these magnets can actually be quite dangerous if not handled properly. [mememetatata] did manage to get everything spaced correctly and now has a bed that can levitate holding up to about 250 lbs. We really want to know what it feels like. That kind of thing seems as though it would be difficult to describe.

As usual, more information might be available in the reddit thread.

[thanks poisomike87]!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/hackaday/LgoM/~3/IvGTXtedOLI/

http://hackaday.com/?p=75069

[Jeri] built this really cool C64 bass Keytar from a commodore64 and a cheap bass guitar. She’s using an FPGA to do the string detection and the key scanning, it then sends everything to the original 8bit sound chips. The reason that she is using a bass guitar is that the commodore sound chip only has 3 channels. There’s an interview with her from the maker faire, and if you keep watching, there are some other interesting projects too.

She notes that the implementation she went with has many performance issues due to the overtones the strings create when played. If she did it again, she’d go another route. Since [Jeri] has previously created the fully functional C64 games on FPGA, maybe she’ll add some video synth to this down the road.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/hackaday/LgoM/~3/RDrd3VucdKI/

http://hackaday.com/?p=75066

We’ve been eagerly anticipating the first launch of our new space era. Like it or not, NASA isn’t going up anymore, so someone else has to. When we posted that the launch event was going to be broadcasted live (which ultimately failed), there was a lot of debate in our comments on the subject of private vs government entities doing the space traveling. There was also a lot of childish bickering.

Just to clarify, Hackaday’s official stance is, “Go to space”. We do not care if it is the government, [Elon Musk], The russian space program, a hackerspace in a home made rocket, or an evil billionaire. We just want space research to continue. Sure, there are drawbacks to some of these, most notably that the evil billionaire would most likely be doing this to kill us all, but at least the research would be funded.

You can watch a short clip of the launch, and while you do so, remember that on board that ship are the ashes of actor [James Doohan] also known as [Scotty]. That’s pretty awesome.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/hackaday/LgoM/~3/f82CB2WkZh4/

http://hackaday.com/?p=75037

The T-1000 was the shape-shifting robot from T2 (the second Terminator movie). It was so amazing because it could assume the form and texture of anything; humans, piercing weapons, inanimate objects. This robot doesn’t even compare, except for one small trait. When it needs a tool, it can build it as its own appendage. This really is nothing more than making tools with a 3D printer. However, the normal boxy infrastructure is missing.

The print head is mounted on a single robot arm, and the tool is printed using hot melt glue in order to stick to a plate which makes up the business end of robot arm. In this case the robot needed to transport some water. It sets down the plate, uses the hot melt extruder to print a cup on that plate, then picks it up again and uses it to move water from one bowl to the other. You can see it all in the video clip below the fold.

Sure, it’s just baby steps. But hot melt glue sticks are light weight, and don’t require much energy to melt. This makes for a perfect combination as a portable tool shop.

[via DVICE]

http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity4894.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/freethoughtblogs/pharyngula/~3/SesKAocGLgI/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/?p=4721

I am an atheist because of my personal experiences. I am not an atheist because I am a rationalist or because I am a student of the sciences. Indeed, the opposite is likely true. I became a rationalist and enthusiastic about science after my scepticism about gods emerged. It was my attempt to find reasons why gods probably don’t exist that led me to logic and empiricism.

I was raised by agnostic parents. As you can imagine they taught me about religion, but did not teach me religion. They taught me about science, but they didn’t teach atheism. I was taught what my parents knew, not what they believed. This gave me the tools to decide whether or not gods exist, without being taught whether or not they exist. You might expect that this would inevitably lead to atheism. However, I did not absorb the rationalism and scientific thinking my parents probably wanted me to have until my teenage years. I did not identify myself as an atheist until I was seventeen years old.

The story of my becoming an atheist starts when I was in primary school. Between being eight and thirteen years of age I got up very early in the morning, before my parents or my brother. Consequently, every morning there was a period of a couple of hours in which I went unsupervised. Early morning television in Australia on channel 10 at that time was the Benny Hinn Show (This Is Your Day), and for some unimaginable reason I watched this instead of whatever else was on television. The consequences of a child of my age watching such dribble unsupervised are easy to imagine, I ate it up. At some time, when I was nine or ten years old I think, I actually attempted to reach out to God/Jesus with faith. From my first year of school until that time I was a victim of bullying, and I prayed for it to stop. As absolutely all the empirical studies on the effects of prayer would predict, absolutely nothing happened. The bullying persisted long enough for me to decide God did not exist in the form of a prayer answering, loving, omnipotent being (and long after). Bullying only really stopped midway through high school, at the same time I was becoming known at my school for not being Christian.

By the time I was fourteen years old I identified myself as non-religious. I only really became aware of this after a girl I sat next to in Society and Environment class tried to evangelise me. The experience seemingly universal amongst atheists of trying to justify their lack of belief in the personal god of whoever they are talking to began for me with this girl, and persisted until high school ended. We used arguments as inane and overused as can be expected for fourteen year olds. My teacher didn’t want to seem like he was ignoring his duty to stop us talking and make us do our work, so he made sure to tell us to stop arguing and get back to work before he pulled up a chair to spectate. I continued to call myself non-religious until a sudden bout of self denial.

When I was fifteen I suddenly got into the philosophy of Spinoza. I became interested in it because Spinoza’s lesser known idea of not expecting anything from life helped me get out of the all too common depression which many teenagers experience. Unfortunately I also took up the idea which his name is usually connected with, pantheism. Pantheism let me feel like the universe was magical and caring while still not believing in deities. It represents one of the most attractive beliefs someone who cannot believe in gods can have. I think of my short time as a pantheist as being a failing of my mind. For a couple of years I avoided the prejudice against atheists and the lack of divine feeling at the expense of better thinking. Just before finishing high school this stopped, and I finally reached what I hope is the conclusion of the evolution of my spiritual beliefs. I started to identify myself as an atheist.

It was the internet which helped me become okay with labelling myself an atheist. Names like Thunderf00t, dprjones, AronRa, Matt Dillahunty, and PZ Myers were to thank for reinforcing my belief that theism is nonsense. Also to blame was how creationists at my high school would use their Christianity to attack science. I think I demonstrated to the people at my high school that I was never going to be ‘saved’ when one of them said to me that science is a tool of Satan. I spent the whole night researching the tangible effects science has had on the world, sent him an email outlying these things science has achieved, and concluded by labelling the removal of science as the most evil and cruel thing any person could possibly do.

Now I am at university studying science. I have been able to surround myself with fellow rationalists and have never been happier. I am constantly reminded of the power of science now that I have access to peer reviewed literature and am given wonderful practicals from the life sciences department. The constant nonsense of the evangelists and creationists at high school is now just a bad memory. Atheism has taken me to a place where I am welcome and happy. I am sure religion has taken the Christians from my high school somewhere which feels the same way for them as well. But I am being taken to a lifetime of learning, while they are taken to a lifetime of blind belief.

Jacob Davis
Australia

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/diMlEIVI03E/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-05-23/

http://xkcd.com/1059/