Learn about Diabetes
Lets Learn about Diabetes
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Learn about Diabetes
Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life. The cause of diabetes continues to be a mystery, although both genetics and environmental factors such as obesity and lack of exercise appear to play roles.
There are 20.8 million children and adults in the United States, or 7% of the population, who have diabetes. While an estimated 14.6 million have been diagnosed with diabetes, unfortunately, 6.2 million people (or nearly one-third) are unaware that they have the disease.
In order to determine whether or not a patient has pre-diabetes or diabetes, health care providers conduct a Fasting Plasma Glucose Test (FPG) or an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). Either test can be used to diagnose pre-diabetes or diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends the FPG because it is easier, faster, and less expensive to perform.
With the FPG test, a fasting blood glucose level between 100 and 125 mg/dl signals pre-diabetes. A person with a fasting blood glucose level of 126 mg/dl or higher has diabetes.
In the OGTT test, a person's blood glucose level is measured after a fast and two hours after drinking a glucose-rich beverage. If the two-hour blood glucose level is between 140 and 199 mg/dl, the person tested has pre-diabetes. If the two-hour blood glucose level is at 200 mg/dl or higher, the person tested has diabetes.
There are 20.8 million children and adults in the United States, or 7% of the population, who have diabetes. While an estimated 14.6 million have been diagnosed with diabetes, unfortunately, 6.2 million people (or nearly one-third) are unaware that they have the disease.
In order to determine whether or not a patient has pre-diabetes or diabetes, health care providers conduct a Fasting Plasma Glucose Test (FPG) or an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). Either test can be used to diagnose pre-diabetes or diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends the FPG because it is easier, faster, and less expensive to perform.
With the FPG test, a fasting blood glucose level between 100 and 125 mg/dl signals pre-diabetes. A person with a fasting blood glucose level of 126 mg/dl or higher has diabetes.
In the OGTT test, a person's blood glucose level is measured after a fast and two hours after drinking a glucose-rich beverage. If the two-hour blood glucose level is between 140 and 199 mg/dl, the person tested has pre-diabetes. If the two-hour blood glucose level is at 200 mg/dl or higher, the person tested has diabetes.
Reader Feedback
nipahutgardens wrote...
Got Diabetes and Wondering How Your Blood Glucose Monitor Actually Works?
Are you one of the increasing number of people with diabetes who needs to monitor their blood sugar levels at home. If so, it is important to know how the tests work and what can effect the results giving
Posted August 07, 2007
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- Flying furniture
- These are some fascinating uses for airplane components from MotoArt.
Blow your friends away with the MK-84 Aqua Bomb. This piece will compliment your environment and will add a little tranquility to any home or office. Fabricated with an MK-84 bomb tail fin assembly, a 10-gallon Plexiglas fish tank and a spun aluminum dome cap. Standing at 80" tall, the AquaBomb is completely self-contained with a built-in pump, filter and lighting. Fish not included.
The B-52 ejection chair is a festive option for seating.
via Gizmag
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Digg this! - DIY fireworks in action
- I made some fireworks on the 4th of July from the TurboPyro kit I received. The text, photos and in-line videos in the .pdf file made it easy to follow the recipe for big, fat, awesome tube sparklers. The process was simple and fun, and I had my son write up this handy checklist:
First, you weigh out, screen, and mix potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur to make gunpowder. Allow me to repeat that: To make gunpowder! Bill Gurstelle once told me that everyone should experience making their own gunpowder; now I see why. It is exhilarating!
Next, add ferro titanium powder (that's what makes the sparks), tamp it into a little tube, put a fuse in it, and carefully impale it on a bamboo skewer. Add a flame to the proceedings and big smiles quickly emerge.
A follow-up to the thought that my younger self would have been impressed by all of this: I was talking to my mom the other day, telling her about making sparklers. She laughed and reminded me about a secret shipment of fireworks I tried to smuggle into the house when I was in middle school. It was intercepted by my parents, and my dad drowned the whole lot of it in the bathroom sink. I can still hear the terrible screams of that gross of lady finger firecrackers; I was devastated. Well, this is my revenge mom and dad!
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Digg this! - Maker Shed weekly wrap-up
- We added a few more kits to the Maker Shed this week, including the Wee Blinky by Dale Wheat. We carry a few of Dale's kits and hopefully he is busy designing more so we can carry them too! His kits are perfect for anyone learning to solder since they are inexpensive and go together fairly quickly.
Earlier this week I made another How-To Tuesday video, this time focusing on interfacing a PING ))) ultrasonic sensor with an Arduino.
If you are new to the Arduino, don't forget to check out our other Arduino 101 videos. We have covered a lot of the basics and are getting ready to start some more complicated how-to videos. How-to Tuesday: Arduino 101 blink an LED
How-To Tuesday: Arduino 101 potentiometers and servos
How-to Tuesday: Arduino 101 Accelerometers
How-to Tuesday: Fun with the Arduino Starter Kit
Thanks for all the positive feedback! If you have a suggestion for another Arduino 101 video let me know in the comments. Thanks!
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Digg this! - How-To: Reclaim your hijacked search bar
- The other morning, I clicked on an upgrade button for Winamp. Generally, I like the program, it seems to load faster than Media Player, and doesn't bother me too much. In the afternoon, I did a search by typing in the address bar of Firefox. Normally, this type of search brings me to the Google results of the phrase, but this time it brought me to the Winamp results of the search term. Grrrr. Winamp hijacked my search bar.
This wasn't the first time that this had happened, a few months ago, I encountered a similar phenomenon while looking for a way to convert the .3gp files that come from the audio recorder on the G1 to .mp3, .wav or just about any other format that can be used on a standard player.
As it turns out, Winamp hijacked three settings from my browser. Bad software....sit.....stay.... I successfully changed the location bar search, the search bar in the upper right, and my home page. Here's how:
Location bar:
If this is the first time you have done this, it'll be a bit more complex than normal setting changes.
Here is how to get it done:
Open up a new tab
type about:config in the location bar and press enter
You may see a warning message that discourages you from going further. Make your choice and live with it.
In the filter field, type keyword. As you type it, fewer values will be listed below
The one you are looking for is keyword.URL
The value I like is: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q= Which searches google and returns the result. You can also have it search through other vendors, and return different amounts of info.
When you close it, the settings should be changed.
Test it with the term of your choice to make sure it is working properly.
Search bar:
This is an easy fix. Click on the arrow to the left of the field and select the search engine you want.
Home page: This one I didn't notice until later. It's also pretty straightforward. Go to the EDIT menu, choose preferences, then go to the MAIN section. Home page should be up in the top third of the window. Below it are a couple of buttons, including Use Current Pages. That one can be a pain, because every time you hit the Home button, it will load all the tabs you have open currently. If you are addicted to tabs, this will really send you over the edge with a zillion tabs open in no time at all. It is easier to just pick the one page that you want to be your home page, and go from there.
This process should work for Mozilla-based browsers. What are your favorite tricks with web browsers?
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Digg this! - Mower motor generator
- Got an extra mower handy? You can build a generator from it using an automotive alternator. There are designs for horizontal axis and vertical axis motors.
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Digg this! - Motorized grandpa chair
- This ought to help you enjoy your quality time roughing it in the great outdoors! Too bad there's no build info...
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Digg this! - Robotic prosthetic arm
- Check out this robotic arm created by Dean Kamen's company DEKA. Kamen was featured in MAKE, Volume 04.
Via MIT-ers
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Digg this! - Arduino class in Pittsburgh July 25
- Learn to build your own Arduino board (and learn to solder while you're at it) at this introductory class being offered by Hack Pittsburgh. The class is hardly more expensive than an assembled board would be, and you walk out with more skillz than when you came in.
Arduino 1: Building an Arduino
Hack Pittsburgh
1936 5th Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15219
$30 members/$40 non-members
July 25, 2009 2pm
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Digg this! - Thoughts on lawn mowing
- So why is the grass nearly up to the window? Even if you just lived through the rains of 2009, your neighbors probably expect you to do your suburban duty of maintaining your piece of the neatly trimmed green ribbon of society. Since yours is likely a four-stroke gasoline engine, you might enjoy this visualization of the motor. Check out this troubleshooting guide to determine which end of the mower needs attention. If you can get that lawn beast going yourself, you can hopefully keep it out of the shop.
According to Greenscapes, by keeping your blade sharp and your lawn a bit on the high side, the ground will retain moisture, helping it to be more drought-tolerant.
If you're looking for some real lawn fun, maybe you can figure out how to make your own lawn crop circles, or try this lazy lawn mowing technique. Of course, using a robot to mow the lawn could be more fun than vacuuming the floor.
Where do you look for good troubleshooting help on repairing your mower?
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Digg this! - More on Nikola Tesla
- You can thank Nikola Tesla for helping you read this. Before his harnessing of the energy of Niagara Falls, most electricity was transmitted via direct current. Tesla pioneered the use of alternating current that is used in our electric grid. Check into the documentary film excerpted above for more info and links.
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Digg this! - PICnome and pad kit
- Here' a lovely stand (pad) for the PICnome OSC (open source controller). The maker (in Japan), of both the PICnome controller and the pad, is selling a limited number of kits.
tkrworks
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Digg this! - Happy birthday, gentle pigeon lover
- Today marks the 153rd anniversary of the birth of a man who quite literally illuminated the world. Inventor of the radio, the AC power distribution system, the AC motor, wireless power transmission, the Tesla turbine, and a score of other technologies too numerous to list, Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in the tiny village of Smiljan, which is now in Croatia. He died, impoverished, at the age of 86, on January 7, 1943, alone in a Manhattan hotel room, having contributed more fundamental technological innovations than any other person in the history of humanity.
More: High voltage Tesla coilTabletop Tesla coilTesla turbine from a CD disc packLost Knowledge: Save Tesla's lab!How to build a 15,000 rpm Tesla Turbine using hard drive plattersTesla coil car protection system will fry any thiefSinging Tesla coilNew Tesla statue...
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Digg this! - Happy Birthday Tesla - from ArcAttack (and MAKE too!)
- The members of ArcAttack send Birthday wishes to Nikola Tesla the best way they know - with crackling bolts of electricity. [Thanks Joe!]
Consider that sentiment very much seconded! Happy 153rd B-day Nik!
More:
Tesla guitar
High Voltage Tesla Coil
Lost Knowledge: Save Tesla's lab!
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Digg this! - Homopolar motor
- MAKE subscriber "Cobbler" sent us this video and a note:
Remember the first issue? Here's my video of the homopolar motor project that was featured there. The motor works like a charm. It is mesmerizing to watch and makes a cool conversation piece for your cubicle.
Update: The motor Cobbler built is actually different than the one featured in MAKE, Volume 01. The one in MAKE is not homopolar, it is, as Windell Oskay put in in the comments below: "a wonderfully simple single-pole variant on the (typically multipole) mechanically commutated (brushed) DC electric motor." See the comments for more info and links to a some other homopolar motor projects and info.
Unexplained Phenomenon - Simplest Electric Motor
From the page of MAKE:
The "Motormouth" HowToons piece from MAKE, Volume 01.
Subscribe to MAKE here.
Here to access our Digital Edition (subscribers)
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Digg this! - Hacking Life contest winners
- The Spanish company and Arduino shop Libelium just finished their second-annual Hacking Life Arduino contest. This year's winners are:
Francisco Reinoso, Remote-control printer
Joe Cochran, Sketchduino (a computrer-controlled Etch A Sketch)
Carlos Tricas, Musical fan
You can see videos of the projects, and download docs via the link below.
Winners of the Arduino Contest 2009
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Digg this! - Make: Projects - No-holes poster hanger
- I'm a great admirer of Jørgen Møller's Posterhänger design. It's great for those in-between prints that are too valuable to put thumbtacks through, but not valuable enough to have framed. Plus it's considerably cheaper than framing, and looks a lot better than thumbtacks. And it's easier on your walls, requiring only a single hole to hang a poster of any size. I own six of them, myself.
But they're not perfect. The black rubber end-caps are easy to lose and hard to replace, as are the white plastic clamps that actually grip the poster and slide into the aluminum tubes. What's more, I have one poster which, due to whatever combination of size, weight, and thickness, a posterhänger will not support. I came home three times to find it lying on the floor. The problem, I realized, was that the plastic clamps did not grip the poster hard enough, and it was slipping out.
It eventually occurred to me to replace the plastic clamps with binder clips with the wire handles removed, which have much greater gripping power owing to their spring steel construction. My balloon rapidly deflated, however, when I realized that even if I used the smallest binder clips available (3/4"), they would not fit into the aluminum tube that came with my posterhänger. Using binder clips would require remaking the whole system. Too bad, so sad. Maybe someday, right?
Now fast forward to last week, when my Moms presented me with this nifty quilted portrait of, ah, myself. Normally I wouldn't hang pictures of me on my own walls, but hey, it's from my Moms, and I want to display it, preferably without damaging it in any way. Seemed like the perfect opportunity to try my hand at DIY posterhängering. Here's what I did:
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Digg this! - Simon Mwaura's junk-built home automation system
- The really cool thing about the maker featured in this YouTube video is that his home automation system is cobbled together from salvaged components and bits of junk. My advice is to ignore the insipid voice-over and fast-forward to 0:23, where the good stuff starts. Via AfriGadget.
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Digg this! - How-To: Cheap standoffs from nylon tubing
- CuriousInventor points out this head-slappingly simple substitute for standoffs - likely of interest to anyone whose marvelled at how much these bits of hardware can actually cost - Tan Tran came up with a cheap substitute for aluminum standoffs: nylon tubing. Polyethylene does a decent job too, and can be had for under $.10 a foot at your local hardware store. The 1/4" OD (outside diameter) stuff shown in these pics accommodates up to #8 size screws.
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Digg this! - Computerized Twitter Embroidery
- Rachel @ CRAFT points us to a project by Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi Called Pa++ern, which takes user input and transcodes it into wearable messages. Pa++ern program will be on display at the Beams Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. Their Twitter plugin launches on July 11.
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Digg this! - 3x3 button-animated matrix
- Nick Hardeman's 3 x 3, big-button LED matrix goes by the name "Nove Bit" and looks about as easy to porogram as possible. I'm guessing one of these (or even a wall-full of them) would go nicely as interactive art for the home. The simple/universal appeal would likely make them a hit with most.. More info and other project pages on Nick's site ... and just so you know, Nove Bit was on display @ the last Maker Faire.
More:
Compact LED matrix wearable
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Digg this! - The Brie that ate Sheboygan
- How could I resist something called "Blowing Up Cheese With Nitrous Oxide"? It's a piece, in PopSci's "Kitchen Alchemy" column (which, as an on-again/off-again geek foodied, I've started following), on aerating Brie with Nitrous to create delicious cheese foam (and you thought aerosol cheese was fun before!).
I'm surprised there aren't more of these sorts of fun, geeky, makery molecular gastronomy how-tos outside of the hardcore food media. I love trying things like this in the kitchen, and I bet lots of other makers do too.
Turns out, in order to maintain the texture of the foam once created, they had to use agar:
In order to create structure in our aerated cheese while still keeping a soft, melting texture, we looked towards agar, which would form a gel at a relatively high temperature, thus ensuring that our bubbles remained trapped in the cheese. The downside to using agar by itself is that it has a hard, rubbery texture and can fall prey to syneresis--expulsion of liquid--over time.
Fortuitously, agar has synergistic properties with locust bean gum. Research shows that when agar and locust bean gum are combined at a ratio of 9:1, their gel strength and elasticity increases. This solved both of our issues: increased strength and a desirable soft smooth texture. Finally, we needed to figure out how much agar and locust bean gum we needed to make this experiment work. When using hydrocolloids, it is always best to use the minimum amount necessary so as to get the maximum flavor impact from the dish. In this case we determined that 0.3 percent by weight of the total base worked perfectly. Try it yourself.
Blowing Up Cheese With Nitrous Oxide
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Digg this! - Using piezos for sound pickup
- Nerdkits shares their process for designing a big LED VU meter, and repurposing piezo buzzers as microphones in the process. I did notice it covers in detail one topic that is surprisingly absent from most electronics project vids - Math! Great to see real live equations put to work in a design from the ground up - shed some much needed light on this process for the uninitiated.
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Digg this! - Weekend Project: Kinetic Remote Control
- Get rid of your batteries and power your remote control with just a shake.
Thanks go to Dhananjay Gadre for the original article in MAKE, Volume 12.
To download The Kinetic Remote Control MP4 click here or subscribe in iTunes.
Check out the complete Kinetic Remote Control article in MAKE, Volume 12 "Kinetic Remote Control" and you can see that in our Digital Edition.
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Digg this! - Weekend Project: Kinetic Remote Control (PDF)
- form>
Get rid of your batteries and power your remote control with just a shake.
Thanks go to Dhananjay Gadre for the original article in MAKE, Volume 12. View the PDF of this project. and then subscribe to MAKE Magazine for other great projects
you can do over the weekend.
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Digg this! - Designing walls for robot bricklayers
- The folks at The Wolfram Blog sent us a link to this story about using Mathematica to design unconventionally shaped, but (hopefully) structurally sound, brick walls that robotic masons might build. The author of the piece, Chris Carlson, Wolfram's Chief Interactive Graphics Developer, writes:
A few groups have begun to experiment with the idea of robotically laid brick construction, most notably the Swiss firm Gramazio & Kohler (Facade Gantenbein Winery, Structural Oscillations), and recently, students at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (On the Bri(n)ck). Inspired by these efforts, I set out to investigate the possibilities of robotic brick-wall construction with Mathematica....
...
There are lots of possible effects to investigate: displacing bricks, rotating them, leaving gaps between them, creating ledges of various depths for shadow effects, combining bricks of various colors, and so on.
Not really sure how feasible or sound these walls would be to build in the real world, but it certainly shows you some cool possibilities for design and special F/X in brickwork.
Designing the Brick Wall of the Future
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Digg this! - Eee atTiny45 USB LED message notifier mod
- Maker Justblair managed to cram an atTiny45, 2 diodes, a half-dozen resistors, and a 5mm RGB LED, "deadbug" style into the screen housing of his EeePC901, so he can receive email, Twitter, and Pidgin notifications. As messages arrive the led will glow a different color depending on the service.
This is an interesting little modification that i have completed on my EeePC901. Based on an Atmel aTiny45 processor it's function is relatively simple, but as it is built from scratch, the build took some interesting twists and turns. Not only that, but it also has a nice little social story that for me was part of what made it such an engaging little project.
The atTiny45 USB LED E-mail, Twitter and Pidgin Notifier [via liliputing]
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Digg this! - Automating homebrewing (now with Arduino!)
- Open source suds, anyone?
Halfluck Automated Brewing System (HABS)
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Digg this! - Salvaging solar cells for your projects
- This is a great how-to for reclaiming solar cells from old, or broken, electronics. It looks like a fairly easy process that can save you some money on your next solar powered project.
More about Salvaging solar cells for your projects
Related:
In the Maker Shed: SolarSpeeder 2.0 Kit
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Digg this! - Ask MAKE: Pull-up resistor
- Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to becky@makezine.com or drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!
So what's a pull-up (or pull-down) resistor, anyway? Well, it's used when you're reading an input voltage from some kind of sensor as a "default" value. Say you're using a pushbutton with your Arduino and want to know when the pushbutton is depressed, so you connect the digital pin to ground through the button. When the button is depressed, ground is connected to the pin. But when the button is not connected, the Arduino is looking at the signal connected to that pin, which is "floating," and therefore subject to interference and static, things that are probably not desirable in a deliberately triggered system. You need a way to keep the signal consistent, like connecting the pin to power, unless the button is depressed. Since you shouldn't connect power directly to ground, you need a load in there to prevent a short, so you use a resistor. The Arduino pin will still read 5V even when connected to a 10K-ohm resistor, but when the button is depressed it will read the connection to ground. This is a pull-up resistor. I can remember it because I think of the pin being "pulled" up to power. If you had the circuit wired the other way around, with the pin connected to power through the pushbutton and using a resistor connecting the other side of the pushbutton to ground, this is called a pull-down resistor.
There are lots of great tutorials online for implementing simple circuits with pull-up or pull-down resistors:
Digital input/output at NYU ITP (photo above)
Pull-up resistor at Mad Scientist Notebook
Understanding pull-up and pull-down resistors
Pull-up resistor on Wikipedia
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Digg this! - Urban planter
- Interesting urban design pops up in Toronto. A really creative approach to guerrilla gardening. The planter is made from layers of old advertising flyers!
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Digg this! - Shed of the Year
- Nothing beats the joy of having a shed of one's own, and the folks over on Readersheds and its Shed Blog (out of the UK) have mad love for the humble shed. They have forums, pictures, shed plans, and more. Not all the sheds are necessarily workshops, but they are all cool little structures in backyards.
Of the user-submitted sheds, they choose one to be the Shed of the Year. This year's award goes to The Kite Cabin (pictured above) created by "sheddie" Steven Harwood from West Wales. Harwood designed the structure "in his head" and built it by hand.
And while the Shed of the Year award goes only to sheddies from the UK, this year they've designated an International Shed of the Year award that goes to Chuck Witmer of Silver Spring, Maryland (his hand-built shed pictured below).
Be sure to also check out the awesome video featured on Readersheds' homepage: "In Me Shed" by "Punk's Not Dad" (yes, the lead singer goes by Sid Life Crisis). Love the little girl's voice at the beginning: "Dad? Dad? Are you hiding in the shed again?"
And of course no conversation about sheds could be complete without a shameless plug for our very own Maker Shed.
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Digg this! - How-To: Cryptex
- Instructables user merijnvw made this cryptex, and shows you how as well.
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Digg this! - Is the Leatherman Fuse a dud?
- On the heels of our Toolbox column on knives and multitools comes news of a new tool in the Leatherman family, the Knifeless Fuse. The tool is marketed for "knife-prohibitive situations" and has everything you'd expect on a similar multitool (needlenose/regular pliers, two wire cutters, wire stripper, small/large/Phillips screwdrivers, scissors, file, can/bottle opener, 8? ruler) except for a blade. But as Steven Leckart says on BB Gadgets: "...The thing's still potentially-lethal and probably won't get through TSA. So really, I don't get it." We don't either.
Leatherman Fuse [via Toolmonger]
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Digg this! - EV dragsters!
- Design News has an article and slide show piece on electric dragsters. The car pictured here is Mike Willmon's electric Pinto, the Crazyhorse. The infamous Pinto gas tank (and the back seat) has been replaced with 848 lbs of lead-acid battery. The car is powered by two nine-inch diameter brush DC motors, coupled back-to-back. The Crazyhorse uses the Cafe Electric Zilla motor controller, which allows you to slam huge amounts of current (up to 2,000 amps!) into the motors to blast the car off the line like any respectable fuel-based dragster. Last year, the Crazyhorse did a quarter-mile in 12.47 seconds.
Drag Racing Goes Electric
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Digg this! - Party with Barbot the bartender robot
- This Saturday, let a robot serve your booze at NYC Resistor's Barbot party. Barbot, the bartender robot knows how to make a variety of mixed drinks. Like all great hacks, sometimes it gets its drink mixing protocol confused. Last time, my gin and tonic was 4 parts gin 1 part tonic.
Date: Saturday July 11th, 2009
Time: 9pm-2am
Where: 397 Bridge St, Floor 5, Brooklyn
Cover: $20 gets you as many drinks as you'd like made by a robot
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Digg this! - Greenhouse made of glass negatives
- An old friend of mine, photographer Billy Baque, once told me of a rumor about gardeners in the early 20th century reusing unwanted glass plate negatives to build greenhouses. This idea--a sunlit glass room full of growing plants, dappled with the accidental shadows of unwanted memories--is to me almost too beautiful to explain.
So I tried to track it down in the tubes, and discovered that the story is apocryphal, likely originating in the tale of American Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, who is rightly famous for being one of the first journalists to bring images of the true horror of modern warfare into the homes of the taxpayers who fund it. During reconstruction, however, Brady's graphic images of "the late unpleasantness" were decidedly unwelcome--so much so, the story goes, that he eventually sold the negatives to gardeners who needed cheap glass for their greenhouses.
I have found no online evidence of the existence of any such period greenhouses. However, in the summer of 2003, collage artist and assistant professor Michael Oatman, together with a class of architecture students at Rensselaer Polytechnic, undertook the construction of the greenhouse shown above. It incorporates about 2500 glass negatives culled from a database of more than 15,000 criminal mug shots from the turn of the 20th century. I have no word on the fate of the work, titled "Conservatory," so I can't say if it's still possible to view it. If anyone knows, do please drop me a comment below.
More: Greenhouse from old windowsHow-To: Greenhouse from old carportPlastic bottle greenhouseGreenhouse hoop bender
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Digg this! - Visualize your heartbeat by gluing a straw to your neck
- I recommend doing this in a crowded, public place. Perhaps an airport or a police station. Ignore all who question you.
More:
The posterity eradicatorLife improvement devicesMAKE fashion technology show photos
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Digg this! - ATtiny2313 breakout board v1.1
- Upgrading their ATiny2313 breakout board business card, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories writes:
There are a couple of nice improvements for the new version. First, we made the board single sided to match our original ATmegaxx8 board-- this means that it's relatively easy to print out the layer separations and make your own at home, if you like to etch your own boards. We also changed around the configuration of the prototyping areas, making it so that you can now fit up to two DIP-8 packages, breadboard style, on the board.
As usual, it's open source with files included to make your own at home.
More:
Business card AVR breakout boards (for ATmetaXX8)
From the pages of MAKE:
Printed Circuit Boards. Step-by-step instructions for making your own PCBs at home. MAKE Volume 02 - Page 164. Check out this article now in the digital edition!
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Digg this! - Frayed Wire, Seattle, Saturday, July 11th
- Josh Kopel, of Dorkbot Seattle, wrote in to tell us about the latest db event, called Frayed Wire. The event is a collaboration with the Youngstown Cultural Center and 911 Media Arts Center, a one-day conference, unconference, and workshop series. Check out their amazing roster of speakers and workshop presenters. Looks like a lot of fun. The event is $50 for the day.
Frayed Wire
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Digg this! - Peter Semmelhack, of Bug Labs, on "Hacking Health"
- Peter Semmelhack, Founder and CEO of Bug Labs, sent us the following piece on creating an open source movement in health care technology. We thought it was interesting and something MAKE readers might want to chew over and chime in on. - Gareth
This is my first attempt at putting into words what I've been contemplating for several weeks, so you'll have to forgive me if it seems a bit rough around the edges. But I've learned that when an idea bangs around in my head long enough, it's usually a good idea to share it with others and either start a larger discussion or euthanize it. So here it is. Tell me what you think.
I believe we need an open source movement dedicated to health care. In essence, I want to rally the same fanatical zeal that has helped build some of the best, most complex software systems (LAMP, etc) ever devised to help address some of the world's thorniest health care problems. I understand that's a very easy thing to say and enormously complicated to actually do, but I'll try to provide a simple example of how I think we could start. After all, open source as we know it today did not start with Linux.
Right now, if you have someone in your life with Type 1 diabetes, I bet it's safe to say that you'd want notification (email, txt msg, IM, etc.) if he or she experienced a life threatening low or high blood sugar level. You'd especially want to know if they experienced one of these events and then fell down. It's also a safe bet that you know getting this type of alert is virtually impossible today. There isn't a device or gadget you can go buy that provides it. Building a wireless glucometer with an integrated accelerometer would not be too hard technically. In fact, I know a few people who could hack it together in a week.
The same could be said about a device that helps monitor the breathing of kids with juvenile asthma, or the whereabouts of someone suffering from Alzheimer's. I could go on, but you get the point. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of specific (and specifically precise) tools that could be developed to help everyone lead healthier lives, and help communities take care of one another. If you look at all the active communities devoted to open source software - games, music, programming languages, etc. - I'd like to hope that it's not too far a stretch to believe we can inspire the same energy and passion around improving the health and well-being of others. Think of the benefits associated with groups worldwide sharing their discoveries, methods and processes to achieve better results. This is not new territory. It happens everyday right now with FOSS communities.
One of the biggest hurtles is economics. Building these types of systems are expensive. But maybe there is a way address it. There are approximately 1M children suffering from juvenile diabetes in the US (29,000 new occurrences each year). If the community could design, build, and certify an open source prototype device that could potentially reduce mortality by even 5% per year, you would have a huge impact. Potentially, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundationa (JDRF) could sponsor its manufacture and sell it/give it to any/all sufferers. Assuming a reasonable price for making 1M devices (say $90 --> $90M to equip every child with a device, though, of course that wouldn't be necessary) it would be within easy reach of any number of foundations and/or government programs. Or sell it at a profit with the proceeds going back to JDRF. Communities have worked this way in the past. Why not apply it here?
This is just one example. I'm sure there are better ones. But the point is, you could make the same case for virtually any health issue. The key to living longer, healthier lives, and lowering the costs of providing care is via better information. Getting better information is what good tools are designed to do. I'm arguing that we should explode the creation of these tools. But rather than rely solely on the world of business to lead the charge, why not organize and energize communities of hackers to create the technical foundations for a health care revolution unlike anything we've seen before? It can't be any more complicated than hacking a Linux kernel ;)
P.S. For a list of some of the activity going on now around health care and open source, check here
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Digg this! - Interactive LED wall in Montreal
- Vimeo poster Steve Bulhoes writes:
This is a project I worked on with Marc-André Baril while I was at Moment Factory. They created an interactive wall for the tourist information office, La Vitrine in Montreal.
The installation includes tracking devices and low-resolution LED displays and is capable of showing many different visualizations based on the presence and movement of people.
Visitors can interact with the installation every night from 7 PM to 11 PM. La Vitrine, 145, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Montréal
La Vitrine - Montreal [Thanks, Katie Wilson!]
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Digg this! - Arduino solar tracking
- I really like the idea of using an inexpensive micro-controller for this project. There are commercial solar tracking devices, but those are a lot more expensive and aren't nearly as satisfying as making your own. Check out the web site for a lot more information.
This is just the first part of my overall project idea which I will keep posting about as I progress further. I was able to power up my 65? HD TV, cable box and Wii with the solar panel I am using by adding my scooter battery and an invertor. So I want to pursue some of this idea but make something that is more effecient. I am going to start keeping a better track of our energy bill each month, and see if I can bring it down. I wont be able to go of the grid just yet, but I think it will be interesting to experiment with.
More about Arduino Solar Tracking
In the Maker Shed:
Make: Arduino
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Digg this! - NYC Subway Cuff
- This NYC Subway cuff by Tiffany Burnette would be a reasonable remake for a beginning metalsmith using a toner-transfer etch process (or a laser cutter) and a bracelet mandrel. Via Core77.
More:
Moleskine map preserves your street cred
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Digg this! - Geometric reactive bioforms
- Some incredible artwork from Meridith Pingree.
My artwork physically tracks human behavior and traffic patterns using quasi-scientific, homespun, reactive sculptures. I use sensors to pick up on people's energy and movement throughout a space. My work exists as amplifications of this subtle energy, creating unconventional, complex portraits of people and spaces. For example: kinetic links of a centipede-like creature respond individually to create a live mutating curve. Robotic, rainbow colored gel pens selectively record human traffic patterns. Personalities captured by subtle head movements are frozen in rapid-prototyped sculptures.
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Digg this! - Flashback: Convertible Jockey Box
- It's no mystery that warm weather and cold beer go mighty well together. Which brings me to our flashback for this week: the DIY Convertible Jockey Box by Carlo Longino from MAKE Volume 07. For those not in the know, a jockey box is a funny little cooler with a built-in beer tap on the outside. Inside, the cooler houses plumbing to draw beer from a keg and a metal coil or cooling plate to chill it. Warm beer in a keg becomes cold beer in your cup. Great, but ready-made versions run about $150 or more. This homebrew version is not only cheaper but more adaptable. Longino writes, "In jockey-box mode, the convertible cooler houses the heat-exchanger coil while the keg stays outside. In mini-keg mode, the entire keg goes inside the cooler, and you don't use the coil. Standard compressed-air coupler and plug fittings let you easily swap internal parts to change the cooler's beer operational mode."
Here is the entire project shared through our Digital Edition, so you can get the good times flowing.
We are sold out of all back issues of Volume 07, including The Next Year box set which includes it. Luckily, if you subscribe to MAKE, you get access to all 18 volumes on our Digital Edition.
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Digg this!
Children With Diabetes - On The Rise
An article which looks at the increasing statistics of diagnosed diabetes cases in children, including a huge increase in Type 2 diagnoses, and asks, 'why?' Are our habits hurting our children?
Children will be children, of course, and they can make poor health choices by eating the wrong foods. But isn't it really up to families to encourage and incorporate a healthy lifestyle at home? And when they don't, children are more likely to fall prey to health problems and are more prone to diabetes.
At the end of the day, everyone in the family needs to pull together as one team on the same side -- the side that keeps illnesses like diabetes and other unhealthy issues at bay.
Most people groan and moan at the thought of healthy living. But it doesn't have to be such a grind. Physical exercise can be fun when done together as a group. Family members can take turns in coming up with new and interesting, but healthy recipes to cook every day. Slowly but surely, the benefits of healthy living will rub off on everyone.
This is an important issue to discuss with the entire family.
Having diabetes as a child is difficult, along with often painful treatment, there is often a sense of deprivation and "not being like the other kids." A new study has found that children may lose up to an hour a day because of their diabetes.
Diabetic children spend up to an hour a day managing their condition, adversely affecting their attitudes towards treatment, new Australian research shows. A study by University of Adelaide researchers tracked 160 children with chronic illnesses over two years to find out how much time it takes to do their daily treatment tasks.
The results, published in the latest Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, show children with cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic disease, spend 57-74 minutes a day on treatments like physiotherapy.
Therapies for type 1 diabetes - including daily glucose testing, insulin injections and dietary changes - took 28-58 minutes out of each child's day.
Also, even to kids without diabetes, spending more time in front of the TV makes them sedentary, increasing their risk of becoming obese.
How much more if your child has type1 diabetes? More TV time will do no good in controlling their blood sugar levels.
As confirmed by a Norwegian study:
...diabetic children who spend a great deal of time watching television had a tougher time controlling their blood sugar.
... encouraging children with Typ
Children will be children, of course, and they can make poor health choices by eating the wrong foods. But isn't it really up to families to encourage and incorporate a healthy lifestyle at home? And when they don't, children are more likely to fall prey to health problems and are more prone to diabetes.
At the end of the day, everyone in the family needs to pull together as one team on the same side -- the side that keeps illnesses like diabetes and other unhealthy issues at bay.
Most people groan and moan at the thought of healthy living. But it doesn't have to be such a grind. Physical exercise can be fun when done together as a group. Family members can take turns in coming up with new and interesting, but healthy recipes to cook every day. Slowly but surely, the benefits of healthy living will rub off on everyone.
This is an important issue to discuss with the entire family.
Having diabetes as a child is difficult, along with often painful treatment, there is often a sense of deprivation and "not being like the other kids." A new study has found that children may lose up to an hour a day because of their diabetes.
Diabetic children spend up to an hour a day managing their condition, adversely affecting their attitudes towards treatment, new Australian research shows. A study by University of Adelaide researchers tracked 160 children with chronic illnesses over two years to find out how much time it takes to do their daily treatment tasks.
The results, published in the latest Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, show children with cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic disease, spend 57-74 minutes a day on treatments like physiotherapy.
Therapies for type 1 diabetes - including daily glucose testing, insulin injections and dietary changes - took 28-58 minutes out of each child's day.
Also, even to kids without diabetes, spending more time in front of the TV makes them sedentary, increasing their risk of becoming obese.
How much more if your child has type1 diabetes? More TV time will do no good in controlling their blood sugar levels.
As confirmed by a Norwegian study:
...diabetic children who spend a great deal of time watching television had a tougher time controlling their blood sugar.
... encouraging children with Typ
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