Hand-tied paracord sling
I’m really digging all the manly knot-tying going on over at Stormdrane’s blog.
Green
Unpowered Mechanical Gate Opener, the Video
Reader captures footage of a car-powered mechanical gate opener.
Novel edge-collecting solar panels
This is a solar panel. Really. If you’ve observed that it looks a lot like a piece of live-edge fluorescent acrylic, you’re more than halfway to understanding how it works. Light entering the panel from the sides is absorbed by dyes and converted, by some fancy top-secret nano-metal whatnot ingredients, into a kind of internal re-radiation that is collected by conventional silicon applied only at the edges. Fair warning: Full science-hype disclosure rules apply here.
Vertical panorama of redwood tree
How do you photograph a 300′ tall tree in a dense forest with no clear sight lines? Wildlife photographer Michael Nichols did it by taking a bunch of close-ups using a special camera rig and stitching them together digitally. NPR has the full story. [via Hack-a-Day]
Don’t have a chair? Grow your own.
Almost 100 years ago, John Krubsack made this amazing chair by growing a bunch of box elder trees together.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind — fantastic new book about a how a Malawian teenager harnessed the power of the wind
I reviewed The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind for Good. I think it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Here’s an excerpt of my review: William Kamkwamba’s parents couldn’t afford the $80 yearly tuition for their son’s school. The boy sneaked into the classroom anyway, dodging administrators for a few weeks until they […]
How-To: Embroidered Face Cloth Napkins
Holly of Chez Beeper Bebe embarked on a summer-long project of crafting a wardrobe of cloth napkins for her home, and recently reached her goal of 40 napkins. Along the way, she’s shared tutorials for several of the napkin variations she’s used, including ruffled napkins and ric rac-trimmed napkins. She’s concluded her series with a […]
