3D Printed Kite

This is beautiful.  Follow the previous link for the full story.  Would love to see it flying in person.

Life Changes – New Family Member

With social media you find yourself making many friends you mostly can’t meet in person.  That is a very nice bonus of this world we are in, that you get a chance to make more friends more easily.  And at the same time you find yourself weaving thoughts about your own life into thoughts about what’s happening in the world at large and sharing those with your online world.  So these days you have a larger group of people who pay even small attention to what you do and say.  Which is cool.  Sometimes however, your personal life has elements that must, by necessity, proceed along a private path until a point where you can make them public.  I don’t really intend to make this into any kind of big announcement, but since there have been changes in my life that will influence what kind of presence I have online, it’s necessary to bring everyone up to speed.  In early December, our family added a new member when my wife and I adopted a 3-year-old bi-racial boy, and everything is going very well.  Today seemed as good a day as any to let you all know.  If you have any questions you can contact me directly through the usual channels and I’ll do my best to answer them.  It has been and continues to be quite an amazing journey and I believe from time to time you will now read and see items from me concerning what it’s like to suddenly be living with a 3-year-old. I can tell you now, it’s pretty wild!  (But I’ll bet many of you already know that.)

Robotic Flying Bird

A very cool solution to an age-old challenge. How do birds fly and can we build something that flies like they do? These guys did it with the help of some new technology.

Mission Zero House

An old house restored to use zero energy from the grid. A very cool creative achievement and wonderful for the environment. Congrats all!

Microsoft’s Model Builders

Wild Water Dancing

This is a very cool machine. Probably more challenging to operate safely than you think, but still very cool.

Clever Airplane Frames

One look is all you need to get this concept.  I would suspect that this would look best with pictures of the sky or the ramp at an airport, but maybe other things would work too.

Turning Air into Water

This is a great invention.  Winner of the James Dyson award, this device was envisioned by a Melbourne design student as an answer to Australian heat and draught situations.  It takes hot humid air and turs it into water for irrigation.  See how he does it in this linked article.

BMW Design – 1 Series M Coupe 2011

Say what you want about this particular car design, but in general you have to keep your eye on what BMW is doing with design.  It’s an interesting evolution that starts with one model, works it’s way through the entire line and then starts again.  So here is the BMW 1 Series M Coupe for 2011.  Read and see all about it.  Some are calling this ugly, but what do you think?

Elon Musk – Technology Inventor of the Year

He’s pushing the edges in many directions and carrying forth the creative torch necessary to improve our lives and solve some of our biggest problems.  So it’s fitting that this guy who’s put his own rocket into space and built a car with no gas engine that does 0-60 in under 4 seconds should be getting this inventor of the year award.  Here is the link to the full Wall Street Journal Article.