Got a lot of tomatoes? Looking for some thing different to DIY? How about
DIY ketchup? "Whether it's pickles or preserves, DIY food is all the rage. But when I told a group of food-loving friends that I was planning to make my own ketchup, their response was muted. First, there was an awkward pause. Then, one piped up with the question that everyone must have been thinking: Why? Ketchup, apparently, is an exception to the everything-is-better-if-you-make-it-yourself ethos. "
posted by Xurando
on Aug 11, 2010 -
61 comments
"In April 2010, Ashley Rawlings and I used community fundraising to raise nearly $24,000 to breathe new life into our book,
Art Space Tokyo. My goal [
in this blog post] is to outline what we did and why we did it, with the hope of inspiring anyone with an itch, gumption and a good narrative, to do the same. To bring beautiful, well-considered things into the world."
posted by dobbs
on Aug 8, 2010 -
9 comments
So, you always wanted to be a musician, but your pops wouldn't send you to music school? And you can't afford a decent instrument? Aw, quit yer whining and go get a
garden hose.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Jul 30, 2010 -
25 comments
"We’re living in a disposable world. It’s just not worth it to repair things; it’s not worth it to build things from scratch. The magic of that seems to have passed.” The
death of Radio Shack.
[more inside]
posted by woodjockey
on May 10, 2010 -
123 comments
Do It Yourself:
The Story of Rough Trade (goog vid, BBC, 1:28) The history of the legendary indie label/shop, home to such bands as Scritti Politti, The Smiths, The Fall, Cabaret Voltaire, The Feelies, Robert Wyatt, The Slits, and many more.
posted by puny human
on May 4, 2010 -
11 comments
I have been working on and off for about 2 years building our "D&D ROOM" to hold most of our collection and give us a cool place to play...
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 24, 2010 -
61 comments
Window Farms is a DIY urban agriculture project started in New York. It's not just about changing the way we think about plants in urban contexts — it's also about creating a kind of "open-source" approach to solving eco-urban challenges. (
Treehugger has some more context.)
The folks behind Window Farms are
now trying to take it to the next level using everyone's favorite new funding platform, Kickstarter. (Including a cute intro video which is worth checking out.)
And if window farming ain't your thing, maybe
one of their other DIY projects is more up your alley...
posted by chasing
on Dec 5, 2009 -
14 comments
Electric Junkyard Gamelan is the brainchild of bandleader and composer
Terry Dame, and fuses Dame's passions of composing, inventing and building. Originally inspired by traditional
Gamelan music from Bali, the group recycles and repurposes
everyday objects into musical instruments. While some of their songs do indeed resemble the hypnotic percussive melodies of a Balinese/Javanese gamelan orchestra (
The Nutbutter Challenge), other tunes strike out into new, distinctly urban American directions (
Ode to Fred Beans). Following the band's motto, "
Reuse, Recycle and ROCK," instruments are fashioned from coat hangers and rubber bands, bed frames, old farm equipment, turntable platters, clay pots, saw blades and truck springs. The "
Big Barp" rubber-band harp makes a particularly unusual sound.
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Oct 12, 2009 -
5 comments
bonus level is a new flash gaming portal.
Games include
Captain Dan V Zombie Plan, reminiscent of Berzerk,
Push, an unusual platformer that combines level manipulation with quick-reflex timing and jumping,
Jump Gear, an acrobatic timed racer and a ton more I haven't even tried yet.
What sets bonus level apart from other gaming portals is that it's headed by three great names in game development, Wouter Visser (Wouter), Tõnu Paldra (tonypa) and Jean-Philippe Sarda (JP). Part of their philosophy is allowing anyone who registers to make and share levels for their games, as well as giving budding designers
access to the flash APIs used to create all of bonus level's games.
posted by boo_radley
on Jul 8, 2009 -
7 comments
Pencil Rebel is a little bitty point-n-click interactive adventure hand-wired with LEDs and simple circuit boards, and made with hand-cut and decorated cardboard, plasticine, string, and other household odd and ends. The artist, Grzegorz Kozakiewicz, has also made a (with spoilers!)
video showing his process.
posted by tula
on Jun 9, 2009 -
12 comments
Inspiration to do something with your holiday weekend: Steven K. Roberts is an interesting guy with a bit of a hobby problem. In 1983 his
recumbent bike sported "only" a security system, lights, a CB radio and a state-of-the-art
TRS80/100 laptop.
Winnebikeo would eventually evolve into
BEHEMOTH, the "Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine... Only Too Heavy". BEHEMOTH incorporated (amongst other things) HUD, cooling system,
small Sun SPARCstation, HAM Radio, credit card verifier, bubblejet printer, hydraulic disk brakes...
[more inside]
posted by Ogre Lawless
on May 21, 2009 -
28 comments
Sunscreen's a pain, but sunburn is worse.
UV-
protective clothing is expensive and not to everyone's taste. Instead,
treat your own cotton, rayon, or silk clothing to make it sun-protective. Some clothing is inherently protective, but you can easily burn right through a new shirt, especially if it gets wet. A couple of boxes of either of two
different brands of a wash-in UVA/UVB blocker will invisibly increase the SPF of a whole washer-load of clothing from 5 to 30 (repeat for an SPF of 50). The stuff wears off after a season's worth of launderings, so use a permanent marker to note the year of treatment inside the collars.
posted by Ery
on May 19, 2009 -
52 comments
