CONTRIBUTE TO THE ADAM & JOE CHRISTMAS PODCAST 2015!

Hello Adam Buxton podcast listeners and loyal Black Squadroneers! I’m seeing Joe this weekend (19th December 2015) and the plan is to record some burbling to put out on Christmas day as a special Adam & Joe edition of my podcast. It’s been 5 years (I think) since we did a christmas podcast, so it’s ...

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Laser Cut-and-Weld Makes 3D Objects

Everybody likes 3D printing, right? But it’s slow compared to 2D laser cutting. If only there were a way to combine multiple 2D slices into a 3D model. OK, we know that you’re already doing it by hand with glue and/or joints. But where’s the fun in that?

LaserStacker automates the whole procedure for you. They’ve tweaked their laser cutter settings to allow not just cutting but also welding of acrylic. This lets them build up 3D objects out of acrylic slices with no human intervention by first making a cutting pass at one depth and then selectively re-welding together …read more

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C.H.I.P. vs Pi Zero: Which Sub-$10 Computer Is Better?

Now there are two capable, sub-$10 computers for Makers — the $5 Pi Zero and the $9 C.H.I.P. — we compare the specs of each.

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The post C.H.I.P. vs Pi Zero: Which Sub-$10 Computer Is Better? appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

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The Solitude of Barcelona: A Bird’s Eye View...

PODCAST EP.10 – LOUIS THEROUX

Podcast number 10 (the last in the current series) features a conversation between myself and Louis Theroux. I’ve known Louis since I was 13. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a video of me, Joe and Louis dancing to Deee-Lite 25 years ago to illustrate the profound nature of our bond. The conversation was ...

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Cycle Revolution at London’s Design Museum

Tim Dawson has the lowdown on a major new exhibition of bicycles at London's Design Museum, including cargo bikes, city bikes and the bikes used by Merckx, Moser and Wiggins to break the Hour Record. He speaks with the shows curator Donna Loveday and consider the show's strengths and weaknesses. Tim and host Jack Thurston then wonder if it's right and proper to fall in love with a bicycle and discuss other great cycle collections in the UK and overseas.

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Can you solve it? The crossword that counts itself

Here’s a self-referential puzzle for our self-obsessed age.

Hello guzzlers.

First I’d like to introduce my friend Lee Sallows, who is a master at writing sentences that count the number of letters they contain. Like this classic:

Continue reading...

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PODCAST EP.9 – CAITLIN MORAN

Didn’t do one of these for Rob Delaney last week. No disrespect to Rob. I was just struggling to stay afloat so cut myself some slack. Podcast number 9 features a conversation between myself and Cailtin Moran, fast talking writer of funny and thoughtful things about how we treat each other in the modern age. ...

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Five-Day Forecast

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How are cyclists most likely to die?

Nearly 90 cyclists were killed riding their bikes in England and Wales last year, but how are you most likely to come a cropper while cycling? And are you more likely to die falling off a ladder? Helen Pidd sifts through the figures

Would you have guessed that 70 people died in England and Wales in 2014 from falling off a ladder? That 15 fell off a cliff and yet just one man died falling out of a tree last year? Five women died from “pain and other conditions associated with female genital organs and menstrual cycle”; nine people passed away from a “foreign body entering into or through eye or natural orifice”. The list of ways to die, detailed in Office for National Statistics (ONS) annual mortality data published, goes on.

But as a cyclist, I was most interested in looking at how cyclists died. The stats make sobering reading.

Continue reading...

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PODCAST EP.7 – SCROOBIUS PIP (DOUBLE HELPING)

Podcast 7 features conversations with British rappulist and podcaster Scroobius Pip. We talked about podcasting (of course), forgetting people’s names, stuttering and rudeness. It was fun. On regret though: my hilarious off the cuff comment referring to an excess of Marc Maron as being ‘over Maronated’ would have been better if I’d said ‘over MaronADED’, ...

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Y-Stop 'stop and search' app will instantly hold police to account

People stopped and searched by police are able to record them and instantly send the footage to lawyers by shaking their phone, as part of a new app designed to hold officers to account. 

The Y-Stop app has been created as a response to police use of stop and search powers and its creators say it will make the police responsible for their actions and improve interactions between the public and officers. 

By: Matt Burgess,

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Victoria Road plans

There are now two options for a redesign of Victoria Road in the south side available to view on the Glasgow City Council web site. Option 1 The first design has unidirectional cycleways on each side of the road: This looks like a reasonable effort. I’m very happy to see zebra crossings (replacing two-stage staggered […]

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Installing Libraries and how to write a Library for Arduino

Libraries are files written in C or C++ which provide sketches with extra functionality, for example the ability to control an LED matrix, read an encoder, connect to a sensor, display, or module, etc. They are very useful to lower the barriers for creating amazing interactive projects and use a wide range of components.  Libraries […]

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Did you solve it? How many will the zombie outbreak infect?

Will we all be eating brains by sunset, or will the virus die out of its own accord? Here’s the solution to today’s puzzle about the zombie virus

Earlier today I set you a Halloween puzzle with the following set-up:

An infected zombie has a 1/3 chance of passing the infection to a single human, a 1/3 chance of passing the infection to two humans, and a 1/3 chance of passing the infection to no one. No one in the UK is infected by the zombie virus until a single zombie arrives.

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Can you solve it? How many will the zombie outbreak infect?

This year’s seasonal flu is the zombie virus. But how far across the population will it spread?

Greetings, guzzlers.

As it’s Halloween this week...

Related: Can you solve it? Are you smarter than a maths jammer?

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Tim Dowling: It's checkmate. My wife's got no next move

But can I back down without losing face?

It’s Saturday, just after lunch, and there is something unsettled at my core. It’s nothing specific, yet; just a combination of jumpiness and exhaustion, and a certain skin-prickling sensitivity to my surroundings. It could be anxiety in search of a corresponding crisis, or it could be the day-one orientation of some actual approaching illness. It could also be nothing, but in my experience it pays to keep your eye on these things, because no one else is interested.

I wander from room to room for a while, and eventually end up in bed with a book. When I next open my eyes, the windows are dark. Well, I think. That’s Saturday taken care of.

Continue reading...

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PODCAST EP.6 – GARTH JENNINGS

Podcast 6 features conversations with film director Garth Jennings, an old friend who filled in for Joe on several occasions back at 6 Music, and worked with me on the Radiohead webcasts back in 2007. I occasionally pop up in Garth’s projects, the his video for The Wannadies -- Little By Little and he occasionally ...

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Play-By-Play

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PODCAST EP.5 – ROB BRYDON AND PLATFORM SHIFT

This week’s podcast is a conversation between myself and Rob Brydon. We spoke about the enjoyable ‘art’ of voice overs, Paul McCartney (can’t find anything on line to link to for him, sorry) and ‘The Trip’. Here’s a link to the ‘to bed for we leave at daybreak’ bit that Rob mentions (though the uploader ...

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Citizen Scientist: Forrest Mims

Before the modern notion of the citizen scientist lies the earlier ideal of the independent scientist. Scientists outside of the academic community but engaging with it. These days citizen scientists are often seen as valuable assistants in the scientific process, helping collect and process data in a quantity which would be otherwise intractable.

In the past however, independent scientists had a far more central role. Galileo, Kepler, Darwin and Hooke were all self funded at various points in their careers. More recently independent scientist Peter Mitchell won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1978 for his foundational research into cell …read more

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Should bike helmets be compulsory? Lessons from Seattle and Amsterdam

In Seattle, helmets have been mandatory for 12 years – but many cycling advocates argue such laws discourage cycling while doing nothing to improve road safety. Should cyclists in London be fined if they don’t wear a helmet?

Every day, Elizabeth Kiker cycles to her work through the streets of Seattle. As the executive director of a big bicycle club, she wants to show people that you don’t need fancy gear to ride a bike – so she rides in her skirt and office shoes. But she does wear a helmet. If she didn’t, she would risk a $102 (£67) fine.

Seattle is one of the few big cities in the world where cyclists of all ages are legally required to wear a helmet. “There’s an interesting conversation going on about this, because it could dissuade people from cycling,” says Kiker. “And yet, it is safer if you fall. I once slipped with my bike and fell on my helmet and I was glad I was wearing it.”

Cycling without a helmet is something I take for granted, I never give it any thought

It was feared the helmet law would hurt our new bike share programme, but it hasn’t

Related: The most cycle-friendly cities in the world – your pictures and stories

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PODCAST EP. 4 – JON RONSON & JAMES BOND SONG

Howdy. Podcast number 4 features a conversation I recorded with Jon Ronson (author of ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’, ‘The Psychopath Test’, ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’ etc.) in March 2014 when I was in New York. We talked about about dealing with criticism, Woody Allen, neuroses and other podcasts. Towards the end of ...

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Controlling Guitar Amps With Servos

[fichl] plays electric guitar, and with that hobby comes an incredible amount of knob twisting and dial turning. This comes at a cost; he can’t change the settings on his small amp without taking his hands off the guitar. While larger, more expensive amps have multiple channels and footswitches, this tiny amp does not. Instead of upgrading, [fichl] came up with a device that turns his single channel amp into a completely programmable one, with just an Arduino and a handful of servos.

The amp in question – an Orange Dark Terror head – has just three knobs on the …read more

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Why You Should Be Using a Linear Voltage Regulator

If your project requires stable voltage but you have an unregulated input, you'll want to use the right kind of linear voltage regulator.

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The post Why You Should Be Using a Linear Voltage Regulator appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

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Latest Raspberry Pi Images have Improved Scratch

Not everyone likes Scratch — the block-oriented programming language that MIT developed to help kids program. While dyed-in-the-wool programmers probably find it limiting, it can be an effective way to teach basic programming to newcomers and there are some people who enjoy the graphical style of programming.

The latest Raspbian release (the operating system image for Raspberry Pi) has a new and improved version of Scratch for those who want to use it on the Pi. According to the Raspberry Pi blog, the new version is up to ten times faster than previous versions and also includes an improved method …read more

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PODCAST EPISODE 3 – ‘DR BUCKLES’ COLD SAFARI’

In episode 3 of my podcast I take you on a journey through a week suffering from a cold via voice note diaries recorded during a recent bout of illness. It was a few days before he I supposed to be doing a handful of live shows in London, so I was worried I wouldn’t ...

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Sex and Blinky LEDs At Burning Man

[Bunnie] was at Burning Man this year, and to illuminate his camp members in the dark and dusty nights of the playa, he created a blinky badge. This isn’t just any badge stuffed with RGB LEDs; each of the badges were unique by the end of Burning Man. These badges were made unique not by twiddling dials or pressing buttons; all the color patterns were bred with badge sex.

This social experiment to replicate nature’s most popular means of creating more nature is built around a peer to peer radio. Each badge is equipped with a radio, a circle of …read more

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PODCAST EP. 2 – LIANNE LA HAVAS & SPONSOR THOUGHTS

Hello. Episode 2 of my podcast is more of a straightforward interview kind of situation and once again, it's something I recorded last year, when I was first thinking about getting a new podcast together.

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St Brides

I visited St Brides, East Kilbride earlier in July this year. I had planned to do some drawings or paintings of it but have never got round to it but thought i’d upload some of the photos I took in the meantime. It was just a off the cuff visit but John who helps look […]

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The Kindness of Strangers

And now for something completely different. Well, not completely different. I’d like to invite all of you, warmly and persuasively, to come to an event I’m speaking at in London on the 30th of September, to raise money (and collect winter clothing) for the refugees at Calais. Of all the talks I’ll give this year, […]

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NEW PODCAST

Hello. Well, it’s been over a year since my last post. I’m a disgrace. However, I have finally got it together to edit some of the conversations I taped with a handful of people last year and my plan is to put them out as podcasts over the next few weeks. This first one is ...

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The Corbyn factor: shocking the political system through sheer normality

A sense of political intoxication: the enthusiasm, the detail, the debate, and the understanding of the issues was unlike anything I had experienced.

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An Uber for bicycles? The grand ambitions of Danish startup AirDonkey

It aims to bring a network of instantly-available bicycles to cities around the world – if enough people want to rent out their spare bikes for cash.

When you’re launching a new business, having big aspirations is usually the done thing. For the distinctively-named AirDonkey the ambitions are bigger than most: to be something of a combination of Uber and Airbnb, but for bicycles.

If that wasn’t enough, the Copenhagen-based startup, which is soon to launch a Kickstarter appeal for about €100,000 of funds, hopes to be as much of what co-founder Erdem Ovacik calls “a movement” for more liveable, bike-filled cities as a commercial company.

Continue reading...

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Transcontinental: On the right track

For the first twelve hours of the ride (race, it’s a race, Chappell), I barely stopped smiling. Because, after all, cycling along quiet roads through the cool night air, with no human company beyond some occasional twinkling red lights ahead of me, is one of the things I love most in the world. Excellent photograph by Schollaert Xavier […]

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Footprints

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Pre-order Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra’s new album Into Forever

Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra’s Into Forever album will be released on Gondwana Records on Friday 2nd October 2015 in CD / DL formats. The vinyl will be released in mid October. Pre-order the album via Bandcamp now.

The post Pre-order Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra’s new album Into Forever appeared first on Gondwana Records.

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Sending Serial Data from… Excel?

When you think about serial communications, Microsoft Excel isn’t typically the first program that springs to mind. But this spreadsheet has a rather powerful scripting language hidden away inside it, which can, with a little coding, be used to send and receive data over your serial port. The scripting language is called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), and it has been a part of Microsoft’s Office suite since 1993. Since then, it has evolved into a powerful (if sometimes frustrating) language that offers a subset of the features from Visual Basic.

It can be a useful tool. Imagine, for instance, …read more

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Product Design Engineer

Product Design Engineer Edinburgh To £32,000 + Package The Company This is an excellent opportunity to join a fast growing dynamic design consultancy. They are looking for a talented Product Designer who will play an important role in working with highly creative and innovative design projects. The position You will be responsible for creating concept designs quickly and efficiently in CAD, produce complex surface models and present concepts using digital visualisation techniques. The person You will be highly creative with a degree in Product or Industrial Design and have experience of Soildworks and must be able to demonstrate knowledge of the product design process. Exposure of low volume prototyping and manufacturing is preferred. This is a great opportunity to join a growing consultancy. CAE People are acting as an employment business in relation to this vacancy. ...

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How to overtake cyclists – the video all drivers should watch

The Highway code requires vehicles to give cyclists at least as much space as a car - but many cars endanger lives by ignoring this. Chris Boardman features in a new YouTube video that aims to help change that

“Socialism,” wrote the 1970s Chilean politician José Viera Gallo, “can only arrive by bicycle.” That’s why Jeremy Corbyn cycles everywhere. And come the revolution, prime minister Corbyn will see to it that this land of ours will be festooned with bike paths. Not the usual “crap” ones, oh no, the Corbynite cycleways will be clause IV bike paths, nationalised, surfaced with butter-smooth tarmac and wider than a wide thing.

Until then, we’ve got to make do with less then wholesome conditions, and that means sometimes sharing the road with tonnes of tin driven by texting, speeding, tweeting motorists.

Continue reading...

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Mechanical Design Engineer

Mechanical Engineer | Scottish Highlands | Permanent | £neg. The Client This producer of batteries, chargers and accessories for markets requiring high reliability and robust product design is situated in the stunning Highlands of Scotland. With the opportunity to live in one of the most desirable locations in the UK, this position will also ensure that you are playing a key role in the development of safety critical technology to the global defence industry. The Role The Mechanical Engineer will be responsible for the design of mechanical and electro-mechanical components and assemblies for power electronics, battery and charger products. Specifically, he/she will: · Produce designs, detailed component drawings and assembly drawings using 2D & 3D CAD tools. · Component and assembly design. Particularly related to Electronics enclosures, cabinets and consoles; Mechanical structures; Design for maintainability; Design for manufacture ...

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A Breadboard In A Browser

[Flownez] sent in a tip that a port of the venerable Falstad circuit simulator is now available that doesn’t require Java (it uses HTML 5). This is a welcome port since some modern browsers (particularly Chrome) make it difficult to run Java applets and prevented the Falstad simulator’s execution.

Like the original simulator, this one is great to show a classroom circuits and encourage building or studying circuits in the browser. There’s no extra software to install, which is handy for an impromptu demo. Another cool feature is the visualization of current flow as animated dots. The dots move in …read more

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Automatically Designing 3D Printers From E-Waste

No one wants to design consumer electronics that last longer than a few years. This trend is an ecological disaster, with millions of tons of computers, printers, fax machines and cell phones ending up in landfills. In these landfills, all the lead and chemicals used to extract minuscule amounts of gold plating leech into the environment. Turning it all around is monumental, but reusing some of this waste can help make a difference.

[Masterperson] and [Maaphoo] have been working on a way to turn those tons of e-waste into something useful. They’ve come up with a framework for turning e-waste …read more

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Hackaday Prize Entry: A Better Bench Power Supply

Back in February, [The Big One] started building the bench power supply to rule them all. His previous power supply was just an ATX computer power supply. It worked, but that didn’t give him fancy stuff like different channels of individually adjustable voltages. Since then, we’ve spun up the 2015 Hackaday Prize, and [The Big One] has changed his DIY power supply into a Hackaday Prize entry that competes well against $1000 mid-range commercial units.

The single most expensive component in this power supply are a pair of isolated switched power supplies rated for 15V and 7A. This is a …read more

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Should You Use Blender for 3D Printing? i.Materialise Thinks So

3D print service i.materialise published a pretty decent guide showing how to prepare 3D print files using Blender, but...

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Instrmnt 01 Watch by Instrmnt

Instrmnt 01 is a minimalist steel watch collection that takes inspiration from industrial design of the mid-20th Century.










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IBM chip breakthrough shows Moore's Law isn't dead

IBM has unveiled a new ultra-dense chip design that is four times as powerful as the best silicon of today. The company has built a test processor of the chip, which is two generations more advanced than current technology.

By: Katie Collins,

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3DPrinterOS Hits Milestone Twice As Fast As 3D Hubs

3D printing cloud service 3DPrinterOS hit a big milestone: they now have over 2,000 participating 3D printers in their...

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Eastern Fire Music

Here is  a piece of music I wrote over a couple of years.  Im not even sure which part of the world inspired it, maybe South America, maybe the Balkans, maybe somewhere else, or a mixture.  I find it really difficult to come up with names for my music because I find it difficult to describe the space where it came from.  If it was up to me they wouldn’t have names, but in the interest of keeping things simple I have named this one after the play of the fire element… and since it sounds a bit Eastern…. I’m open to suggestions…      

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An Insider’s Guide to Shenzhen Manufacturing

The Chinese have a saying: “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white as long as it can catch mice.” While often attributed to the late Chinese leader and architect of economic reform, Deng Xiaoping, it is older. But it is fitting that people attribute it to Xiaoping […]

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New Project: Skill Builder: How to Find the Center of Any Circle

If you need to drill a hole in the center of a circular material, you’ll have to find it first. You could buy a fancy center-finding tool, or you can use simple measuring tools and these easy methods to mark the point. Carpenter Square Step 1: Place a carpenter square […]

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