Man Made DIY

While there are plenty of cool, affordable tech gifts to give your friends and family this season, there are a few you should avoid. Cause they're bad. Like, worse than coal.   … read more

The DIY scene has certainly changed in the last ten years, and a big component of that shift is the availability of small-scale manufacturing tools like CNC routers, laser cutters, and most recently, 3-D printers. Now, loyal readers know that ManMade is not a hacker/maker/tech site, but rather, a craftier companion to those. But, anyone in the scene can attest that these things are popping up everywhere, so I figure it might be good to learn about 'em a bit. … read more

Popular culture is filled with killer robots, most famously The Terminator. Unpopular culture, science fiction novels, are filled with all sorts of robots.

Isaac Asimov, in his years of writing science fiction, wrote a lot about robots. He wrote so much about robots he ended up having a series of laws about how robots should and would function. They go a little something like this:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Not too bad. I would have put in a fourth law about robots needing to look super cool, and always have guns for arms, but what do I know? I will say this. So far, deep into the future years of the 2000s, i have not seen one frightening robot... until today.  … read more

The folks at Hunch have been researching the different ways the Mac OS and Windows users understand themselves and the computer products they use everyday. They've presented their findings in a fascinating infographic that's definitely worth checking out. 

Of course, exercise is good for you. Movement is best. Being sedentary all day is, of course, the opposite. Duh, right?

But it's not just non-activity that's harmful. The actual position of sitting, like in a chair, is, basically, the worse thing you can do to your body. Even if you engage in regular exercise, even daily, it might not be enough to counteract the damage from resting on your rump all the livelong day.   … read more