Machine Thinking » design

Visualizing wealth/mortality history in 4 minutes

William — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:34:04 +0000

Hans Rosling illustrates the rise of wealth and lengthening of lives in this fantastic animation.

In his TED talk a few years ago, he did many similarly facinating animations.

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Tesla Turbine on steam

William — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 04:33:08 +0000

Warning! Turn your sound down before watching video!

As a long-time fan of Nikola Tesla and with access to lots of steam, it was only natural eventually I’d build my own Tesla Turbine.

I machined the entire turbine from scratch (except the bearings and fittings) and getting thin discs affixed to a shaft such that it would be safe with steam and well balanced proved difficult. Eventually, I machined the discs and shaft from a solid piece of 2.5″ aluminum round stock, cutting away probably 95% of the material.

I later used my laser tachometer and the turbine can easily spin up to 35K RPMs. Due to my non-ideal spacing between the discs, though, I’m not getting that much torque out of it. For the next version of the disc pack rather than using a lathe parting tool to cut the discs I’ll instead make a jig to hold a hacksaw blade in the cross slide and make much narrower slots.

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Robotic Privacy Curtain

William — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:45:10 +0000

Niklas Roy writes:

My workshop is located in an old storefront with a big window facing towards the street. In an attempt to create more privacy inside, I’ve decided to install a small but smart curtain in that window. The curtain is smaller than the window, but an additional surveillance camera and an old laptop provide it with intelligence: The computer sees the pedestrians and locates them. With a motor attached, it positions the curtain exactly where the pedestrians are.

The whole setup works really well. But in the end, it doesn’t protect my privacy at all. It seems that the existence of my little curtain is leading itself ad absurdum, simply by doing its job very well. My moving curtain attracts the looks of people which usually would never care about my window. It is even the star of the street, now! My curtain is just engaged. And because of that, it fails.

He publishes is plans and software on his website

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Turing Machine

William — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:43:26 +0000

Mike Davey writes:

In Alan Turing’s 1936 paper on computable numbers, he presented a thought experiment. Turing describes a machine that has an infinitely long tape upon which it writes, reads and alters symbols. He further shows that a machine with the correct minimal set of operations can calculate anything that is computable, no matter the complexity.

My goal in building this project was to create a machine that embodied the classic look and feel of the machine presented in Turing’s paper. I wanted to build a machine that would be immediately recognizable as a Turing machine to someone familiar with Turing’s work.

link

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The Third & The Seventh

William — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:07:27 +0000

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Highly suggested you watch the movie in HD and full screen! This CG movie while not particularly novel in terms of abilities of recent developments in software modeling/rendering, is wonderfully put together and arranged. Alex Roman has a good eye for design and architecture and has successfully blended a number of notable timeless elements with new.

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The Sound Sculptures of Zimoun

William — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:24:00 +0000

Zimoun : Sound Sculptures & Installations | Compilation Video V1.5 from ZIMOUN VIDEO ARCHIVE on Vimeo.

Swiss artist Zimoun creates kinetic sound sculpture installations which often use repetitive elements to magnify the impact of the sound characteristics.

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Polaroid SX-70 Promotional Film by Charles & Ray Eames

William — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:07:30 +0000

Polaroid SX-70 Promotional Film from Ekim on Vimeo.

A fantastic 1972 promotional film made by Charles and Ray Eames for the Polaroid SX-70

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Happiness (or else) Hat

William — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:36:51 +0000

happiness hat from Lauren McCarthy on Vimeo.

Lauren Mccarthy has created the Happiness Hat which promises Skinnerian style feedback on your smiling patterns. She writes on her Vimeo page:

The Happiness Hat is a wearable device that detects if you’re smiling and provides pain feedback if you’re not. An enclosed bend sensor attaches to the cheek and measures smile size, a servo motor moves a metal spike into the head inversely proportional to the degree of smile. Through repeated use of this conditioning device you can train your brain to smile all the time. This is the first in a series of Tools for Improved Social Interacting.

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Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace)

William — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:39:25 +0000

In a follow-up to a very early post regarding Fritz Kahn’s 1926 Der Mensch als Industriepalast, Henning M. Lederer has created industriepalast.com which includes the above animation and an interactive application.

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Musical Stairs

William — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:50:36 +0000

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