¿Dónde está la Perrera de Gaudí?

Some Andalusians overheard this afternoon seemed to believe that Casa Milà was built as the municipal dogs’ home. Other famous landmarks–Parky Gay, Sangria Familia, Sangrada Familia, Passage Gracias–here.

Para tener buenos melones

Querida amiga, ahórrate los honorarios del carnicero cosmético leyendo los Secretos raros de artes y oficios (1807): Para tener buenos melones. Se remojan las pepitas de melon por dos ó tres dias en buen, vino moscatel añejo. Se tendrá la paciencia, de ir abriendo con destreza un cierto número de pepitas por el agujerillo que…

Palm or similar as integrated sound control device

Rather than mucking around with Gumstix and stuff, the excellent Christian Blanchard runs his Orgautomatix from MIDI data and a MIDI reader on a Palm (pic here of the setup). Old Palms go for a tenner and the Z22 is around 70 quid at the moment. IttyMidi does a package including an old Palm (only…

Animated monkey

As you can see in the photo of the monkey under construction he sits on a circular ply board that is attached to a bar the other end of which runs in a gear-driven eccentric self-aligning bearing which rocks him with a circular motion. This motion is continuous and draws attention to him. If a…

Bike battery chargers

A couple of things found (a Topsy, for example, “runs for 7 hours on a 12 volt 30 AH battery“): http://www.mark-ju.net/bike_ride/equipment/charger.htm charges stack of 6Vs For about the same weight as a generator setup, you could get a solar charger that works whether you are pedaling or not. Batteries.com has one that weighs .28 pounds…

Gumstix

D says re controlling barrel organ valves using MIDI: Could probably do that very neatly using micro pc like a gumstix No need for hard drive for midi files – use flash memory. Power it off solar/dynamo, probably. Customer projects Do I want something like this? You bet: More random interesting stuff Roomba & Gumstix

Prostitution in 16th century Rome

There was a lot of it: Mirá, hay putas graciosas más que hermosas, y putas que son putas antes que mochachas, hay putas apasionadas, putas estregadas, afeitadas, putas esclarecidas, putas reputadas, reprobadas, hay putas mozárabes de Zocodover, putas carceveras: hay putas de cabo de ronda, putas ursianas, putas güelfas, gibelinas, putas injuinas, putas de rapalo…