http://brentbushnell.com Main Site Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:45:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The brilliant minds of Syyn Labs spent the past three months building a huge, two-story Rube Goldberg machine during which a piano gets dropped and a TV is smashed with a sledge hammer. Why? It's the centerpiece for the latest music video from the band OK Go ... http://brentbushnell.com/2010/03/01/ok-go-rube-goldberg-music-video/ Step 1: Pick something you like. Step 2: Think of as many ways as possible to make it better, more efficient, more durable, cheaper, longer lasting et cetera. Step 3: Which solution from step 2 are your skills or connections the best fit for? Step 4: Figure out the least expensive ... http://brentbushnell.com/2010/02/25/steps-to-profit-by/ Information on funding resources: TheFunded.com: A site for entrepreneurs to share experiences with funding sources Crowd-sourced funding platforms: Kickstarter.com: A site where users can propose projects and the public can pledge funds to them IndieGoGo.com: A competitor to Kickstarter Loans: Prosper.com: Lend or borrow money at varying rates. Angel Networks: Tech Coast Angels: A southern California network. ... http://brentbushnell.com/2010/02/01/entrepreneur-resources/ Tyler Bushnell and I spent Saturday at a party at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Westwood. We were slated to bring our Laser Maze but the fire marshall thought the particulates in the fog machine would anger the smoke detectors. We fell back to bringing the party table ... http://brentbushnell.com/2010/01/27/ucla-hammer-museum/ Eric Gradman, Tyler Bushnell, and I have been collaborating on a platform for social gaming that uses a handheld wireless RFID reader and a bunch of RFID tags scattered around a venue. We tested an early prototype at the H+ conference the beginning of December and will bring the ... http://brentbushnell.com/2009/12/14/puck-hunt/ Wow! What a weekend. The Virsix showroom was alive and packed during the biannual Brewery ArtWalk. We had five of our games available and people ages 5 to 70 competing away! Players tested their cat burgling skills in the Laser Maze, avoided traffic in our ... http://brentbushnell.com/2009/10/26/artwalk-fall-09/ I've been on the hunt for a truss solution that could be easily reconfigured for different applications. It turns out the options are not immediately apparent, but with a little searching there are some gems. Here are the results of my research thus far: UltraBeam Unistrut 80/20 Kee Klamps SpeedRail Global Truss Thanks ... http://brentbushnell.com/2009/10/16/modular-truss-solutions/ There are many different phonetic alphabets out there, for various applications including telecom, military etc. A variety are covered here. I'm fascinated with what a hodgepodge the English language is and how often the spelling or pronunciation of its words are counter-intuitive. In appreciation, here's a start at ... http://brentbushnell.com/2009/09/05/the-non-phonetic-alphabet/ There is a small set of English words that have 4 consecutive vowels, such as "sequoia" and "Kauai". After trying in vain to come up with more than a few, I brute forced a solution and enjoyed reviewing the results. I got a huge English word list from here ... http://brentbushnell.com/2009/08/26/4-vowel-words/ I've occasionally sent out an email to recent LA transplants to help speed integration. I'll put it here in case it's useful to others. For art, music and fun subscribe to Flavorpill: newsletter, Twitter For cerebral stimulus, networking (and an open bar), come to the monthly Mindshare event If you're ... http://brentbushnell.com/2009/08/09/what-now/