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RainyDayMagazine's content can now be licensed for your print magazine or web site. Please contact us directly here. If you want to see something reviewed, then drop us a note with a link and we'll be happy to take a look.
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November 18,2011- $20 Kindle Fire... |
The cost of the Kindle Fire is $199, but we managed to get it for just $20. At $199, it is an amazing price considering how much tech Amazon packed into the tablet. So how did we get ours for $20? The secret is we have an Amazon credit card . Instead of getting a card which gives us free airline miles, we picked the Amazon card because everyday purchases like gas, food, and groceries will automatically earn us points toward the purchase of anything on the Amazon site.
We don't pay much attention to how much has accumulated in the account as we would just apply the accumulated points toward the purchase at checkout time. So, when we placed the pre-order for the Kindle Fire, we paid for it using the available points and made up the difference with a... [more] - $20 Kindle Fire unboxing
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November 17,2011- Craftsman Project Center... |
Five years ago we purchased a rolling toolchest to house our growing collection of tools. A few years later, we went with a more industrial unit because we needed a bigger one. When the interns wanted their own tool cabinet, we looked around to see what would be appropriate. What we found (on Craigslist, of course) was a rolling Craftsman Project Center which is a hybrid between a tool cabinet and a workbench...perfect!
The Craftsman Project Center is a five-drawer rolling cart with a reversible medium-density fiberboard (MDF) work surface. Underneath the removable work surface are moulded wells for tools, screws, and misc bits. Next to the work surface is a holster for an electric drill. The cart also has a... [more] - Craftsman Project Center
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November 16,2011- Leonardo da Vinci... |
Tesla, Edison, Jobs are names we all know well. We associate them with inventions which forever changed our lives. However, hundreds of years before them lived an inventor the likes of which we have not seen since and may not see again (ever). That genius was, of course, Leonardo da Vinci.
Aeronautics, architecture, art (The Last Supper, Mona Lisa), biology, engineering, geology, physics...these are just some of the fields in which da Vinci made ground-breaking/significant contributions. We know this because he kept detailed notes of his thoughts and... [more] - Leonardo da Vinci collection
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November 15,2011-iOptron Telescope... |
Meade and Celestron are the two dominant players in the telescope market. In the past, the astro gear (LX200GPS, ASGT tripod, HyperStar, etc...) we looked at was more suited for advanced amateurs. Some readers have asked if we would recommend some quality telescopes for beginners and youngsters. We thought it was a reasonable suggestion and began looking around. Turns out, finding a good quality beginner telescope was more difficult than we thought it would be. If we saw large colorful close-ups of planets, galaxies, or comets on the box, we skipped it; there is zero chance one will see ANY of them with a low-power telescope. We think it is blatantly false advertising and sets a completely false expectation of what one may see with that instrument. We wanted no part in perpetuating such falsehood.
One telescope company did catch our eye. That company is iOptron. iOptron offers a range of mounts and telescopes for both beginners and serious amateurs. They are a new player who has been steadily gaining traction because their gear strikes a good balance between... [more] - iOptron iExplore 70 AZ Telescope FirstLook
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November 14,2011-UFC on FOX... |
Those of us with an interest in the martial arts have been following the rise of the UFC mixed martial arts (MMA) with great interest. We started watching MMA contests about six years ago. UFC has been the primary driver of the sport in the US for the past two decades, and while MMA fights have been around for a while, it has never broken into the mainstream. Until last Saturday's Heavyweight Championship fight between Cain Velasquez and Junion Dos Santos that is.
The fight was just the first of many as Fox Sports and UFC's parent company Zuffa recently agreed to a seven-year, ten fights/year deal. If you have not heard of MMA or the UFC, you will before too long.
MMA is a full contact fighting sport that allows the participants to employ striking and grappling techniques while standing or on the ground. The "mix" in MMA is because fighters combine the most effective techniques from wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, karate, judo, and anything else which works. When the sport first started, it was basically "two men enter, one man leaves." Over the years, rules have evolved as there was a clear need to strike a balance between "anything goes" and the health of the fighters.
MMA has exploded in popularity mainly because of the efforts of one man, Dana White. Recognizing the potential appeal of MMA as a spectator sport, White and two partners purchased the struggling UFC franchise in 2000 for $2 million and transformed it to a hugely successful enterprise. The sport has seen exponential growth in its fan base these past few years and is about to... [more] -UFC on FOX
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November 11,2011-Amazon on Fire... |
We like underdogs. We like the fact that an underdog's survival depends on them doing more, being better, and responding to changes quicker. Perhaps this is why we have been an Apple cheerleader since the days of the 128K Mac. When Apple introduced the iPad, we were strong proponents of the product. We made early claims that they would dominate the tablet ecosystem. Now that the prediction has come to pass, we are happy to see that a serious contender (not you HP, or you Xoom, or you Toshiba) is finally emerging to challenge Apple's position in the tablet market. Not because we want to see Apple fail, but because we want to see them do even better. The contender, is of course, the 7" Amazon's Kindle Fire color tablet.
One of the many reasons why Apple has been so dominant in the tablet space is that they have control over the three key pressure points: hardware, software, and content. Hardware-only manufacturers are dependent on too many external factors outside of their control to mount a credible challenge against Apple. No small advantage in speed/features/price will sway a pontential customers to their offerings if it also does not include a great... [more] -Amazon on Fire
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November 10,2011-Eibelshaeuser on Lighting... |
Lighting is one of the more difficult topic to master in photography. Our eyes see a scene very differently than a camera. Seeing the light and capturing it are two very different things. Understanding how light interacts with the subject, the environment, and the camera are basics which every good photographer must understand.
Once those basics become second nature, the next step is to be able to manage or manipulate the light so one can "get the shot" even under challenging conditions. If you are serious about increasing your... [more] -The Art of Photographic Lighting
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November 9, 2011- Brando Vintage Radio... |
Recently, a radio showed up at the RainyDayMagazine office. It wasn't a dock for the iPhone. It does not have WiFi. It was just an AM/FM radio. However, we liked its looks so we hooked it up and dialed into our favorite local station...WBUR. Coincidentally, the story on at the time was about how radio broadcasts were helping to win the hearts and minds of those in isolated regions of the world.
In those remote regions, news is only available via word-of-mouth or from travelers passing through. When a radio is made available to these remote regions, they connected the groups to... [more] -Brando Vintage Radio
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November 8, 2011- Ceiling Tile Installation... |
Recently we got a call from one of our editors in New York asking if we would be interested in coming down for a RainyDayRenovation project. Apparently, the tiles of the ceiling in one of the rooms in their house had started to fall. The project would be to put up a new ceiling using similar tiles. The renovation looked simple enough so we said "Sure. The interns would be happy to help...provided that the materials are supplied and the interns get fed." The RainyDayInterns go to great lengths to get out of the office, especially if there is a possibility of free food!
It looked like the he ceiling tiles had started to fall because an insufficient number of staples had been used to secure each panel. The pressed-fiberboard tiles had been up for a few decades, and because of their age had begun to buckle. Since they were only suspended by just one or two staples, the tiles could no longer support their own weight and started to fall. Once one tile gave way, its started a... [more] -Armstrong Ceiling Install
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November 7, 2011- Pixeet FirstUse... |
There are many ways to shoot panoramic images. One way is to take multiple images and stitch them together into a larger photo. That approach is great for landscape and scenic photos. However, the problem is that things can change or move between shots. Those motions can show up as blurs in the final image.
A single-shot approach is often better when shooting a crowd or where there may be a lot of movement. A fisheye lens, with its 180º field of view, is used to make such a shot. Obviously, due of the extremely wide-angle, the scene captured is quite distorted. Up until the last decade, fish-eye lenses were used more for their artistic effects than for... [more] -Pixeet Panorama Kit FirstUse
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November 2, 2011- Celestial Globe Setup... |
The Earth-centric model of the Solar System was first proposed by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy around 150 AD. That logical, but foundationally incorrect, model endured for 1500 years until Copernicus suggested a simpler explanation for the movement of the planets. It took over 200 years before most people came to believe that Copernicus was correct. Discoveries made by Kepler, Galileo, and Newton all helped to show that a Sun-centric model was how things really were "in the wild."
When we gave a FirstLook of Hubbard Scientific's Celestial Globe in September, some readers were confused as to how that globe could properly represent the heavens. The question reminded us of something Sensei Gleason often says in class when explaining an... [more] - Celestial Globe Setup
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November 1, 2011- 550 Paracord Belt... |
Maybe it was the buckle with the rescue whistle. Maybe it was the idea of having quick access to 50' of rescue rope. But when we read the excellent Instructable posted by Stuwegie, a firefighter out of Edinburgh, we filed it away for a future RainyDayProject. The Instructable was how to weave a belt out of 50' of 550 Paracord. The Nor'easter which kept us inside this weekend gave us plenty of time to give the project a try.
Paracord (also parachute cord or 550 cord) is a lightweight nylon kernmantle (German for coat protected core) rope originally used in the suspension lines of US parachutes during World War II. The inside of the rope is... [more] - 550 Paracord Belt
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