bed frame

if i were to make a frame for my double mattress, it would end up looking like this.

"democracy"

people in the US think the US is the greatest democracy in the world. but what is democracy? i think a key tenet of democracy is the selection of government officials (who perform the duties of government) by holding a vote and electing the candidate that gets a majority of the votes.

however, this is not how US democracy works. the candidate that wins only has to get more votes than any other single candidate (no majority is necessary).

can you imagine the outrage if this is how something as important as homecoming queen of high school were chosen?...

generator, 3

a couple more attempts, neither of which resulted in much (~.2V). it is very hard to understand how to produce a generator that does what it should do.

generator, 2

with a wooden frame for better stability, thinner wire (actually the "gauge" of the wire does not affect the resulting voltage), and 100 turns now, the generator achieves an average of .45 volts AC (i dont know how to figure the current (amps) which my multimeter only gives for DC). almost to the 1.2 volts i need to light my LED...

generator (of electricity)

a current american obsession seems to be discussing the need to reduce "dependence on foreign oil". some want to replace this on dependence on domestic oil. what about dependence on domestic renewable energy? or better yet, producing energy locally, independently, and renewably?

generating solar energy is considered ("prohibitively") expensive with high initial investment. how about wind? this can be produced with little upfront costs.

before creating the blades, you need a generator. i made one with a couple of small magnets which spin around inside a coil of wire (18 gauge, wound 22 times around).

connected to a voltmeter, i produced .06 volts of AC. a long way to go still...

aluminum can stove

instead of buying an 80 dollar backpacking stove that burns gas and that weighs a lot, a lightweight alcohol (denatured) stove can be built using 2 aluminum soda cans. building it takes only ~15 minutes assuming that the builder knows how to. this stove brings 8 oz of water to a boil in 4 or 5 minutes using 1.5 tablespoons of fuel.

book-shelf

sometimes you need a book shelf. why dont you just buy a 10 foot board, cut it three times, screw the pieces together, sand it, and paint some polyurethane on it? this only takes a few hours and costs 20 bucks.