Är du förberedd om krisen kommer? Så här packar du en krislåda med grejer för att klara dig i upp till en vecka - till exempel om du drabbas av ett långvarigt strömavbrott.

A database of paper airplanes with easy to follow folding instructions.

How to build a 6-node Raspberry Pi "Dramble" cluster.

The USB Weather Data Receiver USB-WDE1 wirelessly receives data from various weather sensors of ELV at 868 MHz. The receiver is connected to a USB port on the computer, so no additional power supply is required. The data is transmitted via a simple serial ASCII protocol, which is well documented by ELV. The RasberryPi running Raspbian is used for the data acquisition allowing very little power consumption while being completely flexible.

Think for a second how much energy is literally washed down the drain when you take a shower. Not the water itself — just the energy that’s lost when you heat up said water, pump it through a series of pipes to your showerhead, and then let all that warm goodness run straight down your body and into a hole in the floor. By some estimates, 80 to 90 percent of the energy it takes to heat that water ends up going straight to the sewer. Considering the fact that the energy required to heat water is one of the biggest energy expenditures at home (right behind heating/cooling/ventilation), that’s a monumental waste of juice. But not to worry; there’s a new device on the market that could help to recapture some of that wasted energy.

It’s called EcoDrain, and while it’s definitely not a new concept, it’s a fresh new take on an old idea, and finally makes waste heat recovery a viable possibility for regular homeowners.

There are many designs for efficient stoves, and gasification is only one way to boost the efficiency of a cooking fire. The wood gas stove in this article is an elegantly simple gasifier design called a TLUD stove (for top-lit updraft), also known as an inverted downdraft stove. If you don’t care how it looks, you can build it with a can opener, a punch, and a big rock. This design, which I’ve adapted from one I first saw on Instructables, is built around a 1-quart paint can. It easily boils enough water for a small pot of tea or a bowl of noodles, using nothing more than a fist-sized charge of scrap wood.

They’re not just used by behavioural scientists: a Skinner box can be a useful device for training pets, especially pets with a reasonable amount of smarts, like parrots or rats. It can automate the process you may have already used with your pet, where “correct” behaviour is rewarded – walk to heel, get a doggy snack.

...

Skinner boxes are also pretty expensive. So Katherine Scott, computer vision and robotics expert, electronics ninja and rat owner/trainer, has built her own, which she intends to release as an open source device when she’s finished refining it.

The Lego calendar is a wall mounted time planner made entirely of Lego. Take a photo of it with a smartphone all of the events and timings will be magically synchronised to an online, digital calendar. It makes the most of the tangibility of physical objects, and the ubiquity of digital platforms.

Our USB Typewriter circuitry can transform your old manual typewriter into a retro-futuristic marvel. Use a gorgeous vintage typewriter as the computer keyboard for your Mac or PC, or type with ink-on-paper while electronically recording your keystrokes! The USB Typewriter also makes an outstanding keyboard dock for your iPad or tablet PC.