Hackaday Links: May 31, 2015

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Back in the mid-70s, [Paul Horowitz] (who has an incredible Wikipedia entry, by the way) started teaching Physics 123 at Harvard. Simple electronic circuits, solving problems with silicon; simple stuff like that. His lecture and lab notes started getting a following, and after Xeroxing a few dozen copies, he realized he had written a book. It was The Art of Electronics, and Ladyada interviewed this master of hand drawn schematics. A great interview and great camera work, too.

Like hackathons? How about one at CERN? It’s happening October 2 through October 4. The aim this year is to have a humanitarian and social impact thanks to technology. The projects last year were very good; everything from cosmic ray detectors to a $10 inflatable fridge for field operations.

You want viral advertising for your movie? This is how you do viral advertising for your movie. It’s Hackerman’s Hacking Tutorials, and we’d really like to know how they did the 80s graphics with modern computers. It’s not like you can just go out and buy a Video Toaster these days…

Previously available only through group buys, the Flir Lepton module is now available at Digikey.

We have hit the singularity. We have stared into the abyss, and the abyss has stared into us. There was a kickstarter to fund a trailer for another, bigger kickstarter. Relevant xkcd right here.

The Tymkrs had a lamb roast, and what better way to do that than with a huge lathe? Put some charcoal on the ways, turn it at a low RPM, and eventually you’ll have a meal. Bonus points for the leaf blower manifold, a gold star for carving it with a sawzall.

21 thoughts on “Hackaday Links: May 31, 2015

    1. Dr. Horowitz was an incredibly kind and gracious man. Anyone that has a “favorite graph” comes out tops in my book.
      I love Ladyada, but when you have a guest with a such wealth of knowledge you probably should do more prompting and less talking. That said I don’t blame her at all. She was like a giddy school kid next to her favorite teacher trying to make a good impression.
      What I would LOVE to see would be an Art of Electronics Coursera course. Even a recording of him interacting with his class would be pure gold. (Reference to the new edition’s binder color.)
      Even though I own the second edition and the student handbook, the 3rd edition and handbook are on my must buy list.

        1. Oh sure – there’s no reason we couldn’t clean it up for at the very least woodwork. I think we may have to fix some of the electronics though. I know the e-stop wasn’t working when we roasted the lamb.

    1. So I’m not the only one.
      While he was hacking the neck off with a sawzall, all I could think about was what the charcoal was going to do to that poor lathe. Good to know it was already messed up!

  1. What a waste of a beautiful animal, at least build a pit and do it right. I can’t even fathom how dumb one must be to think that was a good idea. Or that it is funny or whimsical, that animal lived and died for your sustenance the least you can do is give it a proper roast.

    It’s just like roasting a pig you build a pit same size as the animal spread eagle, on sand with some cinder blocks about 3 feet high. Marinade and rub the animal down over night with your choice of spices. Place aluminum foil on the bottom corners of the pit to which you will add handfuls of charcoal. Sand-which the lamb between some wire racks and slowly cook all day long, flipping a third of the way through, adding coals to each corner at regular intervals to where it is just slightly uncomfortable to keep your hand between the lamb and the coals. You also will baste it regularly with a high sugar portion glaze.

    If you do it right it will fall apart and you can leave the sawzall in the garage.

    What you don’t do is blast furnace it and ruin the meat, I am sure that was horrible with the residual oil from the lathe also baked into it.

    1. Haters gonna hate! The animal turned out delicious and we absolutely basted it every 10-15 minutes with a rich and succulent herb marinade. We also pre-cleaned the lathe with hardcore degreasers but unless you wanted to see hours of cleaning, we weren’t going to show that in the video.

      The meat wasn’t burned despite all attempts to assume it was and we ate from the entirety of the animal. We gave it, what I’d like to think, was an epic send-off and our stomachs were happier for it. So thank you for your candid comments but, it was some of the best lamb we have ever had!

    2. Utterly disgusting. -to char in the manner I saw- Would I be off-key to trickle water on the meat and while placing rock salt and not using a propane torch to sear the outside and quickly wiping off the salt and slow cooking was seemed shameful.

      *Desire to know more INTENSIFIES!*

      I can only hope they took the time during the second iteration to turn the lathe on it’s vertical axis and make some delicious gyros.

      It’s it wrong to reprimand my mother? She’ll pull the lamb directly into the standard oven and not use any herb neutralizing herbs (only garlic). The house smells, The meat smells. FFS. I end up growing fur and my canines elongated. The worst is I end up shedding all over the place.

      If I can reverse engineer the 17 secret spices and massage the lamb with them that would be magical.

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