We're 99% certain this is the most beautiful footage of Earth's auroras yet recorded

We're 99% certain this is the most beautiful footage of Earth's auroras yet recorded

“World’s Smallest” Working V-12 Motor

“World’s Smallest” Working V-12 Motor:

A Spanish craftsman named Patelo skillfully designed and fabricated this tiny working V-12 motor from stock stainless steel, aluminum, and bronze for his grandchildren Sara, Carmen, Jose and Pablo. It took more than 1200 hours of work. Not counting the 222 screws, he machined all 261 pieces himself. The engine operates via compressed-air injection, has 12cm³ total displacement, 11.3mm cylinder heads, and a 10mm stroke on each piston.

His video log of the project is fairly long, at almost ten minutes, but includes some really amazing footage. It’s divided into four main parts:

1. 0:10 – Machining the connecting rods (photomontage)


2. 0:50 – Machining the crankshaft


3. 2:28 – Assembly


4. 8:05 – Operational testing

If you just want to see it go, click here for Part 4. Part 2 shows the turning, grinding, and polishing of the tiny crankshaft in some detail, and is my personal favorite. [via nerdstink]

Hillbilly Horror Rules

Hillbilly Horror Rules

Hack an Old LCD Monitor into a Polarized Privacy Monitor [Video]

Hack an Old LCD Monitor into a Polarized Privacy Monitor [Video]:

If you have an old LCD display you can remove the polarized and anti-glare films from the inside of the monitor's glass surface and reassemble it; this will make the screen look bright white to the naked eye. To see the actual display you just need to use a bit of paint thinner to remove the anti-glare film from the polarization film and cut that to match the frames of an old pair of glasses. This produces a monitor that can only be seen when you're wearing the polarization filter glasses.

Instructables user dimovi provides step-by-step instructions and photos that describe how to remove the polarization filter from the display and cut that filter to make lenses for disposable 3D glasses or old sunglasses. I'm curious to see if regular polarized sunglasses would also be able to view the hacked display.

Privacy monitor made from an old LCD Monitor | Instructables via Hack-a-Day

Basement Cat � The Adventures of Vincent the Zombie

Basement Cat � The Adventures of Vincent the Zombie

A time-lapse video of a creeping brine icicle, freezing to death all sea life it touches [Video]

A time-lapse video of a creeping brine icicle, freezing to death all sea life it touches [Video]:

For the first time ever, BBC nature photographers have captured footage of an underwater brine icicle (also known as a "brinicle") slowly expanding underneath the ice of Antarctica's Little Razorback Island. Woe to be a starfish or urchin that encounters this briny deathtrap! More »

Porn Folder

Porn Folder:

After 12: Just Like The Girl At The Bar You Bought It For

After 12: Just Like The Girl At The Bar You Bought It For:

Updates

Updates:

Sorry for my silence. jJob work has been crazy busy, but that’s no excuse. I just have bad communication skills.

Have had some time to work on hive and have a nice long weekend coming up.

New things added

-like 90% there but instead of polling (going and asking if your blog have new stuff), I’ve added pubsubhubbub. This means that 90% of your feeds (all wordpres, tumblr, blogspot, and a ton others ) will update in near REAL TIME. This provides a better user experience and also cuts load on server. Anything without pub sub will still check like normal, so no worries.

-the sharebookmarklet works, I think better then the google reader one did.

-commenting works and is awesome

-you can put feeds in to a folder and then click the folder to display all entries from feeds in that folder.

-profile page of your shares and a nice follow button so you can send it out. ala twitter

Killer things that need in.

-fancy entry loading. it currently just loads 40 most recent posts. That’s no good.

-you can put your feeds in an order. but this shouldn’t be a huge blocker

-list view for feeds. but thats another non blocker

Ok, now for beta keys. I plan on putting a system in place where I give out keys to people and that key is good for inviting X number of people. That way you can invite most of your community so you are not just sharing alone and I can still control number of users coming in to see what breaks.

I know I keep saying it but this is a hard deadline now. I will have some beta invites by Dec 1st.

Also plan on going though a ton of questions on tumblr over the next couple days and making a nice faq response.

A Photo Op Not to be Missed…

A Photo Op Not to be Missed…:

…if you happen to have a vehicle with about 300,000 units on the odometer.  From Alan Parekh’s always-delightful Hacked Gadgets.

Math Monday: An Octahedron in a Balloon

Math Monday: An Octahedron in a Balloon:

By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

You may know how to make a ship in a bottle, but how would you make this octahedron in a balloon? The twelve edges of the octahedron are made of strips of blue balloon rubber, glued to the inside of the clear balloon at the six vertices. Think of how you might make this before reading my solution below.

I did it by first making a spherical octahedron on the outside of the balloon. It is glued with rubber cement at the six cardinal points: top, bottom, left, right, front, back.

Then I untied the slip knot to let the air out of the balloon, carefully turned it inside out, and reinflated it.

If you master this technique, the next step is to try to make a nice cube. And be sure to send me a photo if you can make the compound of five tetrahedra in five different colors.

More:

See all of George Hart’s Math Monday columns