Ivan is looking for an image tool to make an image into a pcb board. Does anyone know of any programs that will do this? Post a note in the comments! [Ivan] - Link

During World War II, GIs in the field built really amazing simple radios to listen too. These were made with materials that they could get their hands on and were small enough to carry around in a big pocket. You can modify this design if you want to set it up so that it’s tuneable too!

The first time I tried this, it didn’t work. It was frustrating, but I just went through my materials, blued the razor blade and it worked. The second time I tried to get it to work, I couldn’t get a station, I just got buzz. I played with everything and finally figured out that the ground connection wasn’t very good. When I fixed that, I was able to hear sports talk radio! One of the interesting things is that it works better or worse depending on where you put the pencil lead on the razor blade. If it doesn’t work the first time, don’t give up! Every project you work on can have 100% success as long as you don’t mind mistakes and redoing things!

Download the PDF to get the full instructions! - PDF Link

Rudy and Casey got wind of a movie about vloggers… It’s a cast of stars!

Richard Gere is going to play me. He’s going to need glasses!

VLOGGING: THE MOVIE!
starring

ROSARIO DAWSON as ZADI DIAZ
ODED FEHR as STEVE WOOLF
THE ROCK as LAN BUI
REESE WITHERSPOON as BONNY PIERZINA
RICHARD GERE as BRE PETTIS
RICKY GERVAIS as HAYDEN BLACK (sorry Hayden)
LUKE WILSON & OWEN WILSON as THE REY BROTHERS
SEAN CONNERY as RICHARD HALL
CAMERON DIAZ as AMANDA CONGDON
STEVEN WRIGHT as MARIO LIBRANDI
JACK BLACK as CHUCK OLSEN
JACK NICHOLSON as TIM STREET
DAN MCVICAR as … DAN MCVICAR
GINA TORRES as MISS BEHAVENS
BEN STILLER as MICHAEL VERDI
MATT DAMON as JAY DEDMAN
ANGELINA JOLIE as RYANNE HODSON
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN as ROBERT SCOBLE
MAE WEST as IRINA SLUTSKY (we’ll use digital manipulation)
TOM HANKS as EDDIE CODEL
TOPHER GRACE as JOSH LEO
MACAULAY CULKIN as TIM SHEY
JOHNNY KNOXVILLE as CLINTUS MCGINTUS
JENNIFER ANISTON as VERONICA BELMONT
COURTNEY COX as CASEY MCKINNON
BRUCE CAMPBELL as RUDY JAHCHAN (Casey’s choice)

This isn’t a band, it’s a company! - Link

The folks who are into making stuff in Philadelphia get together every month to show a presentation and have a maker challenge. This was their 9th meeting (on 9/9)!

Slavko Milekic spoke about eye-tracking. If you know the context that the person is in and you know about eye movements, you can infer some interesting things about what someone is thinking. The gaze is a way of pointing, expressing emotion, regulating conversation flow, indicating intimacy and attraction, showing interest, provides feedback and can indicate social hierarchal positions. According to Milekic, Eyes only acquire information when they are stable. Which is only for 200-300 milliseconds at a time called fixations. (The jumping around is called “saccades) Milekic also mentioned that in 1967 a Russian mounted suction cups with mirrors attached to folks eyes and then light was reflected off of it which made it possible to document someone’s eye movement by having the reflected light expose s piece of film on the wall. If you know more about this, leave a note in the comments!

At every meetup, they have a Make: challenge where you have about an hour to make something. This time, each group had to build a section of a Rube Goldberg machine and use a bunch of junk lying around to make it all work! This project was so fun. It’s great to see such a vibrant, vital Make: community doing such cool stuff! - Make: Philly Link

Jake recorded another angle that shows the action clearer - Link