The Microdrone 2.0 is a pretty sweet little quadcopter. Surprisingly stable and cautiously responsive for its small size, it’s also able to whip around outdoors in a bit of a breeze, high in the sky.

The unit I have, however, has an overly tight socket union for the powercord to the battery. So tight that a while ago, I accidentally yanked the wires out of the plug on the quadcopter.

I’ve had this on my desk with intentions to fix it for some time, and finally found a few spare minutes this weekend to do so.

First, rather than just crimp the old plug back on (which seemed unlikely to work well), I had purchased a new power cord with the appropriate plug connector on it. This isn’t entirely straightforward — lipo batteries have a number of different connector types and it took  some internet sleuthing to feel somewhat confident about the one to order. When it arrived, I discovered the coloring of the wires is reverse that of the drone, something I decided to overlook.

Despite having a batch of new tools to test out as well from Dremel (Versa-Tip butane soldering iron), Craftsman (12-in-one multitool), plus my Vise-Grip wire strippers (these are the greatest), and a can of Bernz-o-matic butane, I still didn’t have the right tool to do a perfect fix — I was missing a desoldering iron to get the broken wires out entirely and put the new one in through the Microdrone’s PCB, to help give them a long-term solid connection. So instead, I currently have the new wires soldered to the board on the surface, a fast, dirty, and inelegant fix that nonetheless got me back in the air in minutes, rather than putting off the repair for more days while promptly getting too busy to track down my desoldering tool.

I did, however, make sure to doubly reinforce the new power cord with a dual layer of heat-shrink tube. This had an unintended consequence as it forces the wires to be very straight and stiff, but they still have enough give to connect to the battery.

After the quick soldering job, I plugged in the battery and watched the LEDs blink back to life. Then I took this guy outside and raced it around the street for the rest of the afternoon. Too much fun.

Horsehead Nebula Original image & credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Assembly and processing by Robert Gendler. http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/HH-HST-ESO.html

Galactic structures a billion, billion miles wide look like squirts of food coloring into a bowl of water with these tilt-shift photos.

Typically used for architectural purposes, tilt-shift (or perception-control) lenses move the plane of focus from being parallel to the cameras’s sensor or film, and instead places it at an angle by physically tilting the lens itself.

When applied to a landscape, the photographer can put a long, sweeping area into focus.

But when used the opposite way, the focal plane narrows down into a thin band, horizontally spanning one part of the sensor. The unfocused top and bottom part of the photo are thrown out of focus. It’s a similar look to that of a macro photo, when something small is taken at close proximity and is only in focus in a narrow plane, because of the way lenses tend to work (especially those left at wide apertures). And while the tilt-shift lenses are pricey, a similar result can be created with simple photoshop or smartphone app filters.

Pencil Nebula
Original image & credit: ESO http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1236a/

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We’ve trained our our eyes and brain with these types of photos to the point that tilt-shifted images of large items, especially those taken from above at an angle, appear as though they are a macro photo of a small image. When done really well, the item shrinks from humungous size to that of a model miniature.

These shots of some of the most famous cosmic bodies — Horsehead Nebula, Andromeda, etc — made to look like something you could reach out and wrap your hand around rather than something that spans lightyears of distance, using a faux tilt-shift effect in Photoshop. They come courtesy Imgur user ScienceLlama, and are some of my favorites yet, although I think the top honor still remains with the tilt-shift video below.

Fantastic documentation of a 1974 Land Rover Series III restoration. Anytime you’ve got a heavily used utility vehicle that’s pushing close to four decades in age, you’re likely going to have a fair amount of rehabilitation work on your hands to get it into a reliable and comfortable state. Firman Ni of Indonesia chronicles the complete teardown and rebuild, with some after-restoration mud fun. Makes me want to loosen some bolts.

Earlier this week, the much anticipated Arduino Due microcontroller was released. Improved in almost every regard, the prototyping community is thrilled with the possibilities that it creates.

The new boards are already shipping, and Jon Gottfried sent me some photos that compare its size with the ever-popular Arduino Uno.

“Just got my Arduino Due from @adafruit — pretty neat, much larger than the Uno,” he tweeted, following up  that it “Looks like the layout is similar enough to fit old shields.”

Gottfried, a Developer Evangelist at Twilio, has put together a few interesting Arduino projects of his own, including setting up a home automation system that let him control his AC remotely.

He also sent photos of the new board with the Raspberry Pi and diminutive Arduino Fio for further size comparison.

Keychain-sized, shoots 4k video. Photo: Mike Senese

In addition to amazing specs, an improved lens, and cool new connectivity options like wifi control (that seem to actually be arriving this time), the GoPro Hero3 shaves 30% from the already svelte body of the Hero2. It actually makes the older Hero look like an outdated, clunky dinosaur.

Check out this side-by-side pic for a comparison. This camera just popped onto the top of my “must have” list.

One of my favorite magazines to skim through at vintage bookstores is Mechanix Illustrated — a now-defunct Popular Science/Mechanics-style periodical that oozes with charming nostalgia. On a recent store visit, a headline about the Mars Lander caught my eye, as I’ve recently been monitoring the upcoming Curiosity rover’s approach to Mars. I plunked down 50 cents and headed home to read the article.

The write-up is fascinating piece of 37 year old history. It shows our uncertainty about the unknown Martian world that we were preparing to land on for the first time. It also gave an overview of Vikings I and II, stationary research platforms that were highly advanced for their time, but a far cry from the mobility and power that the latest Mars rover, Curiosity, is taking to the red planet.

On Sunday night, 10:31pm PT, Curiosity will enter the Martian atmosphere and begin its descent to the surface. Using a new landing technique called the Sky Crane, it will hover above the surface and lower itself down on a cable hoist. Its array of cameras, digging tools and high powered lasers are unprecedented, but the mission remains largely the same as from our first visit: to look for signs that the planet might have been able to support life at some point.

If you haven’t yet, make sure to immerse yourself in the NASA site about the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) to watch the progress of Curiosity’s approach and attempt to land. I’m thrilled about this, and, I have to brag, I’m thrilled that I will get to be at JPL to watch the scientists track the final descent.

More Harbor Freight online coupons, to save you a ton of money on their weirdly low tool prices – sometimes concerningly low (remember, “you get what you pay for”).

Take advantage by printing the best ones before you drive to your nearest location, or have stuff shipped if you don’t live near one of HF’s many stores.

So what’s the story? Harbor Freight sends out at least two coupon mailings each month – their general monthly specials, and a batch of coupons for members on their coupon mailing list (which seems to expire if you don’t use it often enough). Often times the coupons’ discounts are significantly deep, so this is a good list to be on for those with a penchant for dirt-cheap tools.

I had missed one of the big Harbor Freight sales last weekend, but needed some project supplies (at their prices, the tools are useful for repurposing into unrelated projects – palm sanders make great vibration tools for helping settle concrete). I checked the HF site to see what general specials they’re running this month, but wasn’t blown away; after being on the mailing list for a while you start to get an idea of what the real prices you should pay for these tools.

Still hungry to save some money, I did a searched online a bit and found something interesting: pages and pages of  printable coupons – the member’s stuff, the “Inside Track” stuff, and more. Each grouping I found has its own batch of items, and there were a variety of useful deals for most of the things on my list.

I didn’t want to print out each page’s full list of coupons (taking about 6 pages of regular printer paper per group), so I copied the coupons I needed and pasted the image of them into a Word document. Six coupons, two pages, and I was ready to shop. I spent $69 and got two bags of tools and supplies; I’ve got 90 days to think about how much I need them and decide if a return is needed.

These sections seem to be used and updated monthly for their common specials — if you’re going tool shopping, check these before you leave and print out what you need.

Digital Savings http://www.harborfreight.com/digitalsavings.html
Extra Savings http://www.harborfreight.com/extra-savings.html 
Clearance http://www.harborfreight.com/clearance 

They almost always have a 20% off coupon, in case the specific item you need doesn’t have a coupon that month – and make sure to bring the free flashlight coupon too.

Now, to just get them to stop requiring a print out. It’s wasteful, and most companies these days let customers scan the image from their smartphone.

Domes, towers and spires – something felt familiar about the above photo of Westwood, circa 1940. And then it hit me: Mos Eisley, the wild spaceport that hides some of the biggest scourges in the galaxy. Twin cities, separated at birth.

Let’s make a quick comparison:

Westwood Village
Situated next to UCLA, this affluent section of Los Angeles was established in the mid-late 1920’s, with many of its most distinct buildings built between 1929 and 1937. It was designed with a deliberate Mediterranean style, and at the time was considered one of the most beautiful planed urban areas in the country. Towers, spires and domes. Tile roofs and winding walkways. It’s an area unlike most other cities, and although now overshadowed by towering glass buildings of a more modern vintage, it is still a very enjoyable and unique center, especially when compared to the sea of mundanity that comprises most of Los Angeles.

Mos Eisley
A city of 40,000 – 60,000 inhabitants, most living underground to avoid the ravages of Tattoine’s twin suns. Like Westwood, the city streets are a criss-cross of various angles, moving around landmarks rather than a strict grid. In the original Star Wars movie, scenes set here were filmed on the Tunisian island Djerba; in later films, much of the city’s footage was built digitally. Fans still travel there to scout out the leftovers from

Just a little something to fall asleep to tonight.

Best comment on the video:

9:46 wish i could get the wife to move like that

And if you still want more, here’s another good one — 5-axis CNC milled aluminum motocross helmet:

These machines are awesome — and the ones you’re watching here are as expensive as a house. I can’t even bring myself to write how much the lower-cost “big” models are.

Fortunately, as my Wired Tormach 770 review revealed, the prices for smaller, serviceable CNC mills is starting to drop to attainable prices. Attainable for those who already bought their Sunday Porsche, perhaps, but still…

Hard to believe that it’s been half a decade since the early-morning tanker crash and ensuing fire on the Macarthur freeway exchange in Oakland. The devastation was fast and intense — the entire overpass melted into a Dali-esque mess of withered steel and draping asphalt. Amazingly, builders were able to repair the overpass in just 26 days.

From Wikinews:

Tanker truck fire causes collapse on Oakland Freeway

 
Sunday, April 29, 2007
 
A tanker truck carrying approximately 8,600 gallons of unleaded gasoline caught on fire on the Interstate 80/880 interchange in Oakland, California early Sunday morning around 3:40 AM. The fire resulted in the collapse of at least two sections of bridges at the interchange, including one carrying I-580. The multi-level freeway interchange known as the MacArthur Maze connects the Bay Bridge (Interstate 80) to Interstates 580, 880, and 980 and California State Highway 24, and as such it connects several major cities in California, including San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.
 
The driver, James Mosqueda, 51, of Woodland, California, escaped from his truck before the fire. He was the only person reported to be hurt, suffering second-degree burns. No other vehicles were involved in the crash.
 
The driver was believed to be speeding, resulting in a loss of control of the truck, causing it to flip over and subsequently burst into flames. As the truck was traveling on the interchange of I-80 eastbound to I-880 southbound near the San Francisco Bay Bridge, it is speculated to have hit a guard rail or column during a turn. Shortly thereafter, it exploded into a fire that lasted several hours.
 
Caltrans officials have announced that repairs will be fast-tracked, but will still take several weeks. Public transit has responded with plans to increase service and re-route buses that used the destroyed interchange.
 
Gov. Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency that in addition to expediting repairs will suspend restrictions on truck traffic hours and provide free use of area public transportation on Monday, April 30.

 

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