Clever way to make screws that have no visible screw-head utilizing the tolerances possible with EDM machine tools.
Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) tools are capable of machining part with tolerances of 40 millionths of an inch ( 0.00004″) (. 001 mm) and some up to 10 millionths of an inch (0.00001″). Effectively making seems between pieces practically invisible.
Shibuya is trying something interesting to deal with the annual gathering of Halloween revelers during COVID. They’re making the event, concerts, fan groups, color pages, and lots of other activities free online.
You can attend events for free online and even attend the festivities in VR:
Japan has never traditionally celebrated Halloween. During the 1990’s, a bunch of Halloween loving foreigners started wearing costumes and riding the ring trains around Tokyo. Unfortunately, drunken behavior cause the police to ask the riders to disembark (please don’t be one of these ugly tourists – I don’t care how cool you think you are. It’s rude to go to another country and act like that).
Revelers soon started gathering in the neighborhoods around the train stations and the street parties grew and grew. Shibuya soon became one of the major stops for these festivities – and has grown to be the focal point. Unfortunately large amounts of trash, drunken disturbances and destruction have become all too common. Which is really unfortunate since it could be such a good chance for people to have fun and share some cross-cultural exchange.
More links:
Staying at remote fire watch towers in the Pacific Northwest is kind of a thing for me. Above are two of the ones I stayed at. After getting lucky enough to land a near-impossible reservation, they usually require you to hike in to remote locations at the top of mountains. No power, no plumbing, and sometimes no cell service. You have to hike your own food and water into these remote locations – making them amazing experiences in living off the grid. The views, solitude, quiet, and beauty can be jaw dropping experiences for the lucky.
Keeping track of which ones are closed for repairs, inaccessible due to landslides, fires, blowdowns, snow, learning about new regulations and seasons of operation has never been easy.
Fortunately I’ve found another person with the same passion and she posts updates on some of these towers as well as her progress on visiting every one before they are gone.
One of the more notable postings was of my favorite tower Gold Butte which was recently wrapped to protect it from wildfires that ravaged one side of the peak.
We all know the trope: the hero has to defuse a bomb while sweating out the timer. As I kid I fondly remember the season 1 episode of MacGyver called “Countdown” where he defuses a bomb on a ship.
Now you can have your chance. Puzzle expert Andy Gilker spent hundreds of hours creating this challenging bomb defuse style puzzle that you and your friends try to defuse. It’s a pretty awesome idea but with an estimated 90 minute solve time – the price is a little explosive at $1100.
No word yet on what would happen if you tried to take it on an airplane.
Here’s the MacGyver episode I mentioned:
Well, that was….wow.
Want to stay at some truly unique places around the world? How about an abandoned island fort off the coast of England, underwater rooms in the middle of a lake, drawbridge towers in Amsterdam, an oil rig turned into a dive center, an ice hotel, a harbor crane, a palace in Morocco, or over river bungalows in southeast Asia?
Go Unusual offers really unique stays and experiences all over the world.
Motion designer Chris Lavelle created this short fractal animation Creation 1. It has a disturbing quality, especially for those who suffer from trypophobia
Though, personally, I think it looks more like a close-up of the iris of the average human eye…
One way of making curved and round surfaces out of steel is to use hydroforming. By welding different shapes completely closed and filling them up with high pressure water – the incompressibility of water pushes on all the surfaces to bend them in unique ways.
But if water isn’t cool enough, one can always try explosives…
I come to these vending machines every time I get to Tokyo and buy at least one thing from them.
In the past, I have gotten a written story (in Japanese and I still need help translating it), a wind up giant stag beetle, and numerous other trinkets I keep on my desk to remind me of better days of travel.
Here’s are two pretty good write-ups on what to experience if you decide to go yourself. But do be aware of the uncharacteristic graphic warning signs posted there.
If these items aren’t your fare, maybe find some of the exclusive vending machines that sell one of a kind and delicious, products.
One of my favorite pastimes is reading and listening to classic spooky stories. There’s no better time for curling up with a spooky story than a cold, fall evening in front of the fire.
Here’s a collection of my all-time favorite scary stories by the best readers I could find:
Scary-comedy
This is a unique group – and old stories of this genre are very heavy on dry British/deadpan humor and often require a little bit of understanding of the times in 1800’s England. I highly recommend.
Plays/Dramatizations
Good general scary classics channels on YouTube:
Books
Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories – Michael Cox, R.A. Gilbert
Playlists:
Honorable mentions/others:
Links: