Here’s a really simply way to re-use your rain gutter water for feeding your plants.

Why didn’t I think of this before?

Rain tanks collect and store rain water, and they’re a viable green alternative for lawn maintenance since landscaping represents a huge drain on water resources. Erin’s tank directs water from her gutters into a storage system that will support her lawn and garden.

via re-nest

- erincovert

a href=”http://vimeo.com/359554/l:embed_359554″>Launch and Retrieval from natrium42 on Vimeo.Check out this DIY Balloon that made it 30km!

High altitude ballooning is an emerging hobby, since price of GPS and communications equipment has gotten quite low. It is an excellent hobby for people fascinated by space flight and telerobotics and has many learning aspects — from systems design to electronics design to software engineering. There is also an exciting risk factor, namely, that you could lose your precious electronics if something malfunctions. In this project, many of my interest and knowledge areas came together. Also, I have verified that the Earth is indeed round and that space is black.

Bre Pettis of MAKE also built and launched a near-space balloon, but never found it. See his videos (part 1 and 2).

via Boing…Boing

I found this site on digg last night while having some beers with my friends and twitting all night. My friends and I were laughing so much playing this game. It’s a lot of fun.

Anyways, check out this cool typing game where you can test how fast you type and also it’s very good for improving your typing speeds. I came to be about 43wpm. What’s yours?

Oooh, make sure to check out these cool bike stands if you got a bike.

The patented locking mechanism effortlessly and securely supports your motorcycle in an upright position on the ground or on a trailer. See The Video

The Pit-Stop also serves as a Trailer-Stop and easily snaps onto trailers or pick-up beds with the adapter kit. With the Trailer-Stop, tying down a motorcycle becomes a simple and easy task for one person.

Here’s a cool simple DIY on how to make a noise-free headphone without spending $349 on brand new Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise cancelling headphones.

These home-made hifi headphones work as well or better than Sony or Bose noise-cancelling headphones.
Cost: $20
Time to make: one minute.
Difficulty: none.
As seen in my article in Make Magazine volume 5
Unlike the commercial products, these block outside noise instead of cancelling it.
Listen to music or books on tape without hearing traffic noise, screaming babies, etc.
I’ve been making these for more than a decade. People sometimes ask “isn’t it dangerous not being able to hear?” No. Talking on a cellphone shuts off most of the brain whereas listening to headphones is no more dangerous than say, being deaf.
Lots of my friends use these units and no harm has come to anyone.

via

Remember the “Smoke Bomb” Alarm System video? Well, here’s a commercial version called FogShield that will protect your car or they have nightclub version for smokin’ up your weekend pleasures.

ShatterGARD Inc., an industry leader in glass protection, today announced the launch of its most recent security offering, FogSHIELD. The FogSHIELD security fogger immediately stops burglars in their tracks by ejecting a dense, yet harmless wall of fog – virtually eliminating an intruder’s line of sight. Connecting seamlessly with an existing commercial or residential alarm system, FogSHIELD rapidly ejects a non-toxic fog capable of blanketing a space of 2,000 square feet in less than 15 seconds. FogSHIELD is triggered by an alarm system motion sensor or door trip, only ejecting a wall of fog after the alarm and one or more sensors have been tripped, thus eliminating false alarms. Standard alarm systems are designed to alert law enforcement of a crime in progress. However, using FogSHIELD, within 2-3 seconds of a burglar entering the premises, a blinding, but otherwise harmless, fog fully blankets the interior space, leaving the intruder with no option but to scurry for the door.

[via]

Video: Career in Computer Science - MS Research
Check out this cool little guy that will follow you around as you skateboard. This is the tightest thing we’ve seen from Microsoft so far. (Our take on Vista? it sucks…not even going to try it until they got service packs…call us old school…not an early adaptor exclusively for MS products…)

via ministryoftech

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Here’s a funny iPhone parody that shows you how you can use the iPhone as a cheese grater, shaver, mouse trap, lip gloss, condiment dispenser, mace, treadmill, thermometer, portable shower, bookmark, hand grenade, and more!

Here’s a really cool AI experiment. The moving head will talk to visitors while the head follows them…
Thomas says,

Sycophant explores the relationship between viewers and a human-like robot. The human head is mounted on a motorized base which moves along a track. As a viewer walks by, the head follows on the track, while plying him or her with a cornucopia of compliments such as “I really like your hair” and “You look really hot!”

via technological art