micebase

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the momentary

The Momentary from mikey tnasuttimonkol on Vimeo.

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biomimetics

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/04/biomimetics/tom-mueller-text

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perception / animals / design

http://www.woebken.net/

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survival straps

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tokyo jungle

"Some time in the twenty-first century, humankind is extinct, leaving animals to fend for themselves. The once busy streets of Tokyo are now home to lions, tigers, chickens, and various other animals. All of them are now fighting for survival.

In Story mode, the player plays through missions centered around various animals. Eventually, the player will discover the truth behind humankind's disappearance.[2] Pomeranian dogs are key characters in the story,[1] as well as a Sika deer, beagle, Tosa Inu, spotted hyena, lions, and a pair of robotic dogs similar toAIBO.

In Survival mode, the player, or players (there is a local multiplayer), takes control of an animal and fights for survival against other animals for as long as possible. Tokyo Jungle has online leaderboards so the players can compare their survival skills against one another.[1] Smaller animals will fight in groups, and the player's group can win fights against larger animals as long as one member of the group survives the fight.[2]

The player will have to build up a pack of animals. This is easier for some herbivores, which means the player may not necessarily be at a disadvantage even if they choose a weaker type.[2]

There are 50 breeds and 80 types of animals expected to be in the game.[2] Animals confirmed for Tokyo Jungle include Pomeranians, lions, crocodiles, tigers, giraffes, hippos, cheetahs, chimpanzees, gazelles,chickens, beagles, Dilophosauruses, hyenas, Deinonychus, and Sika deer.[1] As the player plays through the game, additional playable animals will be unlocked.[2]

There are other animals which are available for the player to download as downloadable content from thePlayStation Store, which include an Australian Silky Terrier, a Smilodon, an AIBO, a Peking Man, a (human) office worker, white and black Pomeranians, a cat, a panda, a crocodile, a kangaroo, and a giraffe."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Jungle

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animal presentiment

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2084017/A-Cambridge-scientist-believes-seen-beginning-animals-telepathic-powers.html

"In 50 per cent of dog-owning households and 30 per cent of those with cats, the animals were said to anticipate the arrival of a family member"

[micebase]

peltier cooler

About a week ago, I have never heard of such a thing called a peltier cooler. When my housemate bought a CPU cooler that cools using electricity from lowyat, I was very surprised and amazed. I kept thinking to myself on the way back home how such a thing can work. I’ve heard of using compressors and feron gases to produce subzero temperatures. But using electricity alone? You can imagine my curiousity.

Subzero 4G for rm50 at lowyat.

The main component of this cooler is the peltier plate. It’s a plate that, when voltage is applied, creates a a temperature difference between its top and bottom plate. In short, when electricity is applied, the top plate becomes hot and the bottom plate becomes cold.

The peltier plate.

The peltier plate does this by transferring heat energy. And the interesting thing is that if you reverse the polarity, the hot and cold sides will switch. The more interesting thing is that if you apply more voltage, it gets colder.

Stuff that came in the package. Heatsink with peltier plate, casing fan, microcontroller to control the temperature.

The peltier cooler.

This thing is very cold when running. It’s not like normal cool, but it’s cold. It’s like touching ice. If you can’t take my word for it, look at the picture below.

You can see drops of water forming on the plate due to condensation!

This peltier technology has been around for a long time. It’s just that it’s not too pratical for some applications because it’s not very efficient. Anyways, some links for further reading:

Peltier coolers The heatsink guide – Peltier cooler information Peltier beer cooler

A really cool piece of gadget. Pun intended.

UPDATE: How to make ice using your peltier cooler.

Put something hot on it and ice will form.

 http://tzywen.com/2006/04/22/

[micebase]

hmmm

http://technabob.com/blog/2012/10/09/facebook-like-hug-jacket/

Like-a-Hug Jackets Give You a Hug for Every Facebook ‘Like’ You Get

[micebase]

http://www.woebken.net/animalsuperpowers.html

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bat detector tutorial

Cylindric Ultrasonic Bat Detector

By SCOTT | APRIL 10TH, 2005

African heart-nosed bats can hear the footsteps of a beetle walking on sand from a distance of more than six feet. – [Amazing Bat Trivia]

That’s really got nothing to do with echolocation (the sonar system used by bats) or the device I’m about to describe, but it’s a pretty stunning piece of trivia.

Bat’s are fascinating creatures and here in Melbourne they are a common sight. At dusk streams of grey-headed flying foxes leave their camp in the Royal Botanical Gardens to plunder fruit and nectar from suburban flowering gums. The number of urban bats have swelled in recent years, giving the impression that the grey-headed flying fox is thriving, but in reality Australia’s bat population has decreased by 30% over the past decade. The increase in urban bat colonies is the result of ongoing destruction to the bats native feeding grounds. The Melbourne Royal Botanical Gardens is now the only breeding colony of grey-headed flying foxes in the state of Victoria. In 2001 the Royal Botanical Gardens started shooting these animals in an insane attempt to curb the local bat population. Thanks to public outcry and a dedicated group of protesters this practice was stopped. The grey-headed flying fox has since been classified as a vulnerable species by the Australian government.

I was once passed by a grey-headed flying fox while travelling down a deserted Punt Road at 2 am. The bat had a wingspan of about a metre, it was a mesmerising and beautiful experience. Yes, I’m quite a fan of this fellow mammal, however I’m not so obsessed that I go out at night with the specific intent of tracking them down; or at least I wasn’t until I discovered there was such a thing as a bat detector.

A bat detector is an instrument that will detect the presence of bats by tuning into the echolocation ultrasounds they produce. There are a variety of commercial bat detectors available but what excited me were the numerous internet sites with home-built detector circuits. I stumbled across these sites while trying to decide what to do with a 1968 Braun Cylindric T2 cigarette lighter. What resulted was the Cylindric Ultrasonic Bat Detector.

My friend Gareth found the Braun Cylindric T2 cigarette lighter in a Canberra op-shop; it’s a stunning object. Designed by Dieter Rams in 1968 it was (according to this site) one of Rams’ favourite products. It is quite heavy, this particular version is chrome plated steel, but it balances nicely in the hand and the large black ignition button is a pleasure to use (in fact it’s oddly addictive, if I have the thing in my hand I often find myself obsessively pressing the button and I have to put the lighter down in order to stop).

Gareth gave me the lighter with the suggestion that I may want to turn it into something. I thought it would make a great something so I started searching for what that something might be. And then I found this site, and this site, and this one, andthis one, and this one, (and the list goes on...) all of them dedicated to the construction of bat detectors. This is the sort of obsessive social behaviour I love, I just had to join in.

After looking at more than 15 different circuit diagrams I decided to tackle the Enhanced Simple Bat Detector design by Tony Messina. This design is based on two audio amplifier IC’s and a 7 stage binary counter. It’s a variation on Tony’s Simple Bat Detector with a few extra components to control amplifier gain and electrical stability.

The circuit operates as a frequency divider. Ultrasonic signals are collected by the transducer and amplified by the two LM386 audio amplifier chips. The signal is then fed to the CD4024 binary counter which divides the frequency by 16. Output from the frequency divider is passed through a variable resistor (for volume control) and on to a high impedance ceramic earphone. This circuit treats the ultrasonic waves as a series of binary pulses; it’s basically a 2 bit analogue to digital convertor, the wave is either on or off. The CD4024 counts (in binary) 16 pulses and then outputs a single pulse. The resulting sound is kind of like a Geiger counter, i.e. a series of clicks. As the amount of ultrasonic noise increases so do the number of clicks. The binary nature of the circuit means that the amplitude of the ultrasonic sound is not translated (the sound is either loud enough to trigger the counter or it’s not), hence the volume control is useful for adjusting the clicking noises to a comfortable level but it does not make a quiet bat louder (to achieve amplitude translation a different and far more complicated circuit like this one would be required).

Tony Messina has a useful list of parts suppliers here (he even lists Australian suppliers) but I had trouble finding a local source for the ultrasonic transducer he recommended. I decided to substitute it for a T/R40-16B (purchased from Jaycar for AU$4.95; part number AU5550).

This ultrasonic transducer can operate as both a transmitter and a receiver; I didn’t use the transmitter function. The specifications for the transducer give a centre frequency of 40kHz, this is a standard frequency for most ultrasonic devices and luckily it’s also a common bat frequency. Tony suggests de-tuning the transducer with a 6.8mH RF choke. When wired in parallel across the transducer the choke flattens the transducers frequency response. The transducer will be less sensitive at 40kHz but will have a larger frequency range (possibly as great as 20 to 50kHz) and will respond to a wider variety of bats. Unfortunately introducing an RF choke caused my circuit to oscillate so I left it off (it may be a problem with the type of transducer I’m using). I also omitted the stability components (the 10 ohm resistor and 50nF capacitor) from the amplifier IC’s because of problems with oscillation; and I removed the 220uF power capacitor because I ran out of space inside the lighter (With the 220uF cap. removed you could also omit the 220 ohm resistor, mine was already soldered in so I didn’t bother. The missing components are shown greyed-out in the circuit diagram above).

Disassembling the lighter took a couple of minutes; there were just two screws holding it together, it’s a very impressive design. With the fuel tank removed the lighter was a hollow shell; I needed some kind of internal structure to mount the circuit and switch assembly. I turned to my boxes of miscellaneous crap and I found this.

Actually I found 12 of them. I wouldn’t call myself a hoarder but I guess I have to ask myself just how many spent ink cartridges do I need. Right now I just need one.

The ink cartridge wedged firmly into the lighter’s shell and by inserting a metal tag into the cartridge’s outlet I was able to screw it in place. With the cartridge installed there is just enough space to slide a 9V battery down beside it. Opposite the battery I mounted an extra large micro switch. The micro switch is positioned under the lighter’s large black button and gives a nice audible ‘click’ when pressed.

I also installed a second switch in the circuit; a mini slide switch. Both switches can be seen in the above image. The micro switch is a momentary type and is designed for hand held operation of the detector. The slide switch is an on-off switch that provides for hands free operation (i.e. when the detector is sitting on a table).

When I started the mod I decided that I didn’t want to damage any of the existing components (in case I ever wanted to return the lighter to its former glory). This placed some interesting constraints on the mod. I wanted the bat detector to have; an exposed ultrasonic transducer, a headphone socket, a volume control, an on-off switch and a power indicator LED. Locating this functionality within Rams’ minimal interface design was at times quite a challenge.

And at other times not. The installation of the ultrasonic transducer was totally straight forward, the existing flame outlet on the lighter seemed made to order (the transducer can be seen here set in black foam to isolate it from handling noise). Apart form the large momentary button on the side all other controls were located in the base of the lighter.

There was a small hole here for refilling the lighter. It was too small for a standard 3.5mm audio plug but could accommodate a 2.5mm plug (with a few modifications to the plug). The problem with locating the headphone socket here was that I wanted the detector to work while sitting upright, in this position the base of the lighter has a clearance of only 2mm from the table surface. I needed a right angle 2.5mm headphone connector with a depth of just 2mm, not the sort of thing Tandy have lying around.

So I attacked a standard 2.5mm plug with a file,

and ended up with this.

I had to do similar mods to the slide switch and LED, cutting and filing them to fit the air vents in the base of the lighter.

For the volume knob I reused the lighters flame control dial. With the help of some heat shrink tubing I attached a squashed aluminium rod to the dial.

The rod passed through the circuit board and into the centre hole of the volume trim pot.

Here you can see the battery, ink cartridge and switch assembly being fitted.

With everything installed there was very little space left over.

The completed bat detector is almost identical to the original Braun lighter. The only visible difference is the ultrasonic transducer on the top,

and the controls I’ve added to the base. It even weighs about the same.

And it actually works (I’m always surprised when that happens). If you don’t have a bat on hand you can test a bat detector by pointing it at fast-running water; just turn your kitchen tap on full and start the detector. The faster the water, the more ultrasonic sound produced.

The bat detector has just spent 3 weeks at VCA gallery in an exhibition called slave curated by Christopher LG Hill, Kain Picken, Rob McKenzie and Nick Selenitsch. (No bats were found).

Update 17th September 2009:

Steven has been experimenting with the circuit (see the comments) and reports to have increased sensitivity by adding a 0.1uF capacitor from the amplifier stage (Steven has connected to pin 1 on the binary counter) to the potentiometer. He reports:

here is the picture of the cylindric bat detector i made from the cylindric bat detector site  i spread the parts out a little so theres less likely to be any interfearence . ive shortened the wires from the board to the jaycar electronics transducer so that eliminates the need to bround myself to the positive like i did and ive added a 0.1uf mkt cap from pin 1 of the binary counter to one of the pins i have the pot wires solderd to  works excellant have yet to do some outdoor testing  away from the suburb and  out in the bush

Nice work Steven, thanks for the update.

http://www.openobject.org/objectsinflux/?p=16

[micebase]

ultrasonic noise detectors

listening to rats laughing: 

http://blog.makezine.com/2007/03/21/listen-to-rats-laughing/

When you play it, you’ll hear the tickled rats chirping — an ultrasonic noise that’s audible thanks to the special equipment that enabled Dr. Panksepp and his colleagues to discover this phenomenon. Young rats make the same chirp when they chase and play with one another, and they like to hang out with other rats who chirp at this frequency (50 kHz). It seems to be a happy sound: rats will run mazes and press levers in order to be tickled, and they’ll emit the same chirp when the dopamine reward circuits in the brain are stimulated.

[micebase]

bowlingual

Ever wished you could, on a Tarzan-like level, communicate with fearsome beasts of the wild to make them do your bidding? Well, for folks who want to know what their dogs are thinking, TakaraTomy has revealed the BowLingual Voice device that is touted to feature a 100-word vocabulary and an LCD display that lets you know just how your pooch is feeling at the moment. Too bad only the Japanese language is supported at the moment, although we’re pretty sure it won’t take too long before other languages are released for the BowLingual Voice. Available in three colors when it arrives at store shelves this August in Japan, the BowLingual Voice is tipped to retail for $220.

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2009/07/bowlingual-voice-translates-barks/

[micebase]

really cool work by rob strati

http://www.robstrati.com/

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phosphorescence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorescence

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animals

Animals and their Special Abilities

We’ve all heard the stories. A pet gets lost in wilderness on a family camping trip and finds its way home through hundreds of miles of unfamiliar territory. Your family pet becomes alert at the front door ten minutes before your spouse comes home. Turtles return to the same beach they were hatched to lay eggs after spending years away and traveling thousand of miles in the open ocean. How do they do it? I can’t even find the shop on Main Street with the aid of GPS and my wife can sneak up on me in a lighted room.

In your own home a pet has probably exhibited some extraordinary behavior; predicted an event or noticed something undetectable by normal human senses. Maybe they tried to tell you about it, but you just didn’t understand them. Wild animals exhibit behaviors that defy human logic. Through research we have learned that they are based on complex interactions with the earth such as sensing magnetic fields. To date no special glands have been discovered. Does that mean that animals use their brains in ways we haven’t figured out or has the evolution of human speech and civilization left our minds too cluttered to connect to these abilities? I believe humans can learn from animals and their special abilities.  The special skills that animals possess can be divided into three categories: communication, navigation, and intuition.   

  Communication The basics of communication state that there is a sender and a receiver (or retriever if you’re talking to your Labrador). Between the sender and receiver is a message that is verbal and non-verbal. It’s the specifics of communication that become complicated.  

In humans, verbal communication makes up 45% of the message sent. This is split into intonation and words. Of the aforementioned 45% only 7% of the message is determined by the words used. That means 38% of verbal communication is intonation. Most people can tell the difference between a dog’s warning bark and a playful bark. Cats are more expressive with their voice using upwards to 120 variations in their tone to communicate. Other animals, both domesticated and wild, have vocal intonation abilities. Therefore, animals have the ability to use at least 38% of human communication skills.     

Non-verbal communication makes up the other 55% of human communication. It is intuitive to state that animal’s use of non-verbal communication is much higher. When one sense is diminished, another sense is heightened.   

Cats are highly expressive non-verbal communicators. You can tell the mood of a cat by looking at the way their eyes are set, ear position, arch of the back, placement of paws, and set of the tail. Dogs and other quadrupeds use similar non-verbal communication. Other forms of animal life have developed their own unique form of non-verbal communication; rattlesnakes rattle, fish blow bubbles, bees dance and whales use tail slaps.   

A highly specialized form of non-verbal communication is pheromones, chemical releases that send specific messages via odor. Dogs marking territory with urine is a familiar example of pheromones in use. Chemicals in the urine tell other dogs about the sex, dominance, and the state of health. Other animals use pheromones to mark trails, warn of danger, initiate sexual activity, and a myriad of other information. It is unclear how humans used pheromones in the past. The evolution of hygiene and perfume has masked our pheromones. Often when presented with human pheromones we find them offensive since the main source of pheromones in humans is hypothesized to be from underarm sweat. One possible cause and effect of pheromones in humans is believed to cause females living in close proximity to develop synchronized menstrual cycles.  

The form of communication usually not considered by humans is silence. The sound of silence speaks volumes in the animal world and it speaks across species. When one species goes quiet everyone stops to listen. Something important is about to happen. 

  Navigation

  Another part of animal behavior that amazes us and has baffled scientist for ages is how animals navigate. Even today little is known about how animals find their way, but our knowledge is slowly expanding. Birds migrate thousands of miles annually, turtles and salmon spend years at sea before returning to the exact beach or stream where they were born. Whales congregate in small areas of the ocean to breed after living solitary lives for the rest of the year.   What are the clues that tell them where to meet? How do they know the time of year? Last time I looked, my whale friends weren’t referring to the calendar on their smart phones.  Scientists have not reached agreement to how this happens though there are many hypotheses.   The three most popular are that animals use visual navigation, odor maps, and magnetic fields.  

Visual navigation is mostly associated with birds and is exactly what it sounds like. As the birds fly overhead it is like looking down on a map. They fly along rivers, mountain ranges and ocean shores. In one experiment pigeons were fitted with GPS devises. When released they found major roads and followed them back to their home. When released in an unfamiliar area, the pigeons would fly in a circular pattern until they found a familiar landmark and then fly along previously established routes.  

Navigation by odors has been hypothesized in birds. It is believed that every area of the world has a specific smell or olfactory signature.   Birds fly over the patchwork of odors and memorize their location, creating an odor map. When looking to navigate from one area to another they simply catch hints of odor in the breeze and fly to the odor. Several experiments have been conducted and the results are suggestive that odor mapping is possible though not conclusive.   

The earth is covered with magnetic fields. In experiments with loggerhead sea turtles is was discovered that they were directed by the direction of the magnetic field. It is known that the turtles upon being hatched instinctively swim from Florida north along the United State coast toward Newfoundland, across the Atlantic towards Europe, south along the coast to Northern Africa, and across the Atlantic again to Florida. A circular current flows along this path and it was long thought that the loggerhead sea turtles were simply following the ocean’s current.   

In experiments, the magnetic signatures of the earth were imitated in controlled tanks. When the turtles were exposed to the magnetic fields similar to Florida they swam north in the direction of Newfoundland. When exposed to the magnetic fields similar to Newfoundland the turtles turned to swim east in the direction of Europe. Every time the field was changed the loggerhead sea turtles would swim in the direction of the next location on their circular route. No currents influenced their choice.  

To date, no specialized organ has been discovered in the loggerhead sea turtles or any other animal that would explain how they detect the magnetic fields or how they know to follow them in a specific order.           

  Intuition

  Intuition is the ability to understand something without conscious reasoning. Pets have been observed mimicking specific pain in their guardian. Pets seem to know when your spouse is arriving home ten minutes before he/she comes through the door. Just before the Tsunami that ravaged Indonesia and surrounding areas, animals were seen moving to higher ground as if they knew what was coming. Do animals have extra senses, a kind of telepathy, that humans do not or are they using the same senses more affectively?  

Studies conducted in Britain by biologist and author, Rupert Sheldrake conclude that pets often become emotionally bonded with their guardian and sense what they are feeling and when they are coming home. Many scientists have questioned Sheldrake’s conclusions stating his experiments were poorly devised with no hard evidence to back his claims. Even with the lack of hard scientific evidence, the fact remains that many animals exhibit behaviors that astound us.   

Could animal intuition be an extension of the communication skills noted above? A blind man is known to have heightened hearing and tactical sensory skills. Doesn’t it make sense that animals that aren’t consumed with higher thought patterns seen in humans are better adept at using their brains and sensory organs to interact with the world around them? 

It seems like magic that a pet would mimic the pain of a human that it is closely bonded to. Think about the combinations of senses that we hardly pay attention to that your pet has at its disposal. Back pain for example. You give non-verbal signals that your back is in pain; you move slower, brace your back when sitting, groan with position changes and those are just a few of the visually observable clues. Not much is known about human pheromones, but it is known that there is a chemical reaction in a body in pain. What if your dog can smell the chemical change in you? Your dog has at least five clues that you are in pain and the location.  

Take the second example of knowing when your spouse is coming home. Dogs have heightened auditory and olfactory senses, plus the have the ability to judge time. If you doubt that, start feeding your dog at the same time every day. They’ll remind you if you’re even a minute late. Take all this into consideration. Your dog knows the time, not in hours and minutes, but this is the time of day your spouse comes home. They become excited because they love spending time with your spouse. As the car gets closer to the house, they can hear the distinct auditory signature of the car. The last clue is that they can smell you in the driveway. By this time your dog is alert at the door, anticipating interaction from someone they care about.  

  On December 26, 2004 hundreds of thousands of people were killed by a tsunami resulting from an earthquake near Indonesia. Yet reports indicate that no animal that was free to move was killed by the natural disaster. What did they sense that humans could not? No one knows for sure how the animals managed to predict the danger. Educated speculation range from the ability to sense the vibrations of the earthquake long before humans could, to the ability to sense a change in barometric pressure.   

Stories of super animal abilities are fascinating to us. But what can these stories teach us? I think there are two main lessons. Lesson one is that we need to observe and learn from animals. Millions of dollars in research on disaster detection and preparedness have not yielded the results that have been observed in animal behavior. The second lesson is that humans need to become more in tune with their bodies. Learn to quiet the mind and listen. To illustrate my point, how many of you were aware of your breathing and heartbeat before I said anything about it? Now take a second to close your eyes and quiet your mind. How much more pronounced was your breathing and heartbeat? It filled your senses. What would you notice if you concentrated and listened intently to all your senses? 

source: http://www.petacularusa.com/component/content/article/76-cover-story/236-animals-and-their-special-abilities.html

[micebase]

Fangshi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangshi

Fangshi (Chinese: 方士; pinyin: fāngshì; Wade–Giles: fang-shih; literally "method master") was a category of Chinese technical specialists that flourished from the third century BCE to the fifth century CE. English translations of fangshi encompass alchemist, astrologer, diviner, exorcist,geomancer, doctor, magician, mountebank, monk, mystic, necromancer, occultist, omenologist, physician, physiognomist, technician, technologist,thaumaturge, and wizard.

[micebase]

turtles can sense magnetism... somehow

migratory sea turtles have now proved capable of sensing longitude, using almost imperceptible gradients in Earth’s magnetic field.

“We have known for about six years now that the magnetic map of turtles, at a minimum, allows turtles to … detect latitude magnetically,” said biologist Ken Lohmann of the University of North Carolina, who describes the turtle’s power Feb. 24 in Current Biology. “Up until now, that was where the story ended.”

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/turtle-navigation/