Cult of the Done Manifesto

Posted: May 13th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: , | Comments Off on Cult of the Done Manifesto

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This from Bre Pettis’ blog I Make Things. You may know him from Make Magazine’s Video Podcasts. It’s a very accurate representation of how to make things – anything. James Provost designed the incredible poster.

The Cult of Done Manifesto
1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.


National Semiconductor’s Dimmable LED driver

Posted: May 13th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: , , | Comments Off on National Semiconductor’s Dimmable LED driver

National Semiconductor has just released a new integrated circuit, the LM3445, that will be a game changer in the world of LED Lighting. From what I’ve seen one of the tougher challenges for LED integration into standard interior lighting has been dimming. LEDs need very strict power to be maintained and are finicky on how dimming works for them. Pulse Width Modulation seems to be the best way to dim them, but how to control a PWM module from a standard wall dimmer? With only 2 wires running to the light fixture, you’d have to modulate the dimming signals into the AC (like a X10 system) and that gets complicated. National’s new IC helps solve this problem. With some additional circuitry, the voltage from a standard Triac dimmer can be used to control LED dimming without flicker. No additional power supply, only 2 wires powering everything. Only bummer is that the chip can only source for seven 1-Watt LEDs but hopefully that will get solved soon. Hope to see these on some cascadable LED light strips soon. Check out this demonstration done by Arrow Electronics.


Vegetable Instrument

Posted: May 2nd, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: , | Comments Off on Vegetable Instrument

Here’s a video of a VERY meticulous Japanese man making an instrument – an ocarina – from a carrot. Aided with an electronic tuner, he is able to tune the instrument to the C major scale. Very impressive!


Our Exponential Era

Posted: April 28th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Comments Off on Our Exponential Era


To enrich your appreciation of how truly fast the world is changing, upload this video into your brain. The video is already 6 month old so goodness knows what is happening RIGHT NOW.


More LED info

Posted: March 23rd, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: | Comments Off on More LED info

Here’s another good article from BBC News about LED research and what might be coming.


LED Production Innovations

Posted: March 22nd, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: , | Comments Off on LED Production Innovations

LEDs are great. They’re bright and last forever. But are they ready to replace light bulbs?

Last year we tried to come up with an economical way to put LED lights into fixtures for a designer but there really wasn’t much out there that fit into a good budget. There’s a ton of products out there for LED lighting but so far none have seemed to provide enough illumination at a price that can compete with incandescent or compact fluorescent. What is more, LEDs require pretty advanced circuitry to dim them and they require expensive power supplies. Though we might have missed something, LED lighting as a practical solution seemed a few years away.

This article in the Economist provides a glimpse into how LEDs work and what the future of LED lighting may be. It details some new developments in production methods of LEDs which could lead to significant cost reductions. Most significantly it tells about a new process which can replace the (expensive) sapphire substrates with (cheaper) silicon ones.


Prototype this!

Posted: January 11th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: , | Comments Off on Prototype this!

Okay. This Discovery Channel show is my new favorite – these guys are terriffic. Here’s a little clip.

See Their Website


David Bryrne’s Building

Posted: September 12th, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: , , | Comments Off on David Bryrne’s Building

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What is there to Say? very impressive. Even more so when you see it up close.

Oh…. What’s that… you don’t know what this is? Well its an “organ” installed in the Maritime building down in southern Manhattan, way down there at the tip. Mr. Byrne’s installed Pipe “flutes” in the building and rigged solenoids to knock & vibrate the building in key locations. Not just cool concept, It actually sounded good in the right hands.


Intelligence of Crows

Posted: September 12th, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: | Comments Off on Intelligence of Crows

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I read a headline on the NY Times website about the intelligence of Crows, and I didn’t think much about it until I saw this video on the TED Talks website. Truly amazing to see a video of a crow make a hook so it can retrieve food out of a vase. Oh and the crows in Japan that crack nuts by dropping them into busy traffic. Then the crow waits at the curb until the light changes so it can walk into the road to retrieve its snack.


Iphone controls an R/C Car

Posted: September 12th, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: , , | Comments Off on Iphone controls an R/C Car

Pretty cool to see this iphone control an RC Car. Uses Max/SP and an Arduino. Not sure how the link is made though… Check it out here