I’ve been on a “they don’t make ’em like they used to” kick lately, replacing a bunch of my new, flimsy, designed-for-disposal household appliances with old, battle-tested, designed-for-repair type stuff scored on eBay. Posted in By-lines, Electronics, Print | Tagged EMSL, halloween, PopSci Retrofitting a Classic Desk Fan With Leather Blades Here’s Popular Science Projects Editor Sophie Bushwick building the project on camera: Their online store remains the best place to buy candle-flicker and other specialty LEDs in the known universe, as well as tons of other cool open-source electronics you can’t get anywhere else. My breadboard is really just a simple mash-up of their dark detecting jack-o’-lantern and solderless flickery flame designs. I’m indebted to Lenore and Windell at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories for the two circuits on which the electronics are based. It carves easily with a special tool which is somewhere between a paring knife and a fine-tooth hacksaw. There is, however, a high quality brand of carve-able fake pumpkin, called a Funkin, which is apparently the industry standard for this sort of thing.
Fun fact: Halloween magazine content has to be in bed in the summer, when nobody is selling pumpkins. Besides designing the circuit, writing the copy, and building the solder-free breadboard-based device shown in the photo, I also carved the pumpkin. It opens the “Manual” section of the October 2015 issue. This piece marks my third by-line in Popular Science. I will let the photos speak for themselves. I bought it simply because it turned up in one of my “boring” eBay searches and I doubted very strongly that I would ever see another like it. The object pictured here is the most amazing breadboard I have ever seen. But the fact remains that I naturally tend to do so. As long as it does the job without exploding or giving you anthrax, why waste time thinking about it? Honestly, I don’t have a good answer to that question. A solderless breadboard is ephemeral by nature, so most people never really stop to think about whether theirs could be better in any way. My habit of staking out eBay for seemingly boring stuff - AA batteries, pull tabs, empty bottles - comes from a similar place. Especially if you mud-wrestle for it afterwards. The thing itself costs maybe fifty cents, and if the hunting is good, can become a treasured prize and keepsake. The point, besides having fun, is to practice appreciating the infinite variety that even the most mundane objects and experiences offer us.
Having someone else along makes the game that much more interesting because, not only do you have to find the best one, you have to agree on it. Often I’ll take a friend, if I have one handy, and she is the sort who does not immediately hang up when I ask for help buying a single used fork.Įveryone takes some persuading, at first, so I explain that it’s a really a game, with one goal: to pick the single best fork from among dozens or hundreds of random examples of the type. Knives and spoons are also fair game, but forks are my favorite.
When I’m bored on a Saturday, I sometimes like to go to Goodwill and buy a fork.
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