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In this “Will It Blend?” Tom takes on neodymium magnet balls.  This is a fun one to watch because the balls spark up while flying around.  Some really good slow motion replay work here.

If you aren’t familiar with “Will It Blend”, it is a video series presented by the blender maker Blendtec.  Tom Dickson attempts to bend various items.  Not only the star of the clips, Tom is also the Founder of Blendtec.  You can find all their videos at willitblend.com.

Go back to 1975. The idea of a computer at home was something that only happened in Science Fiction books. When the Altair 8800 was introduced, not only could you have a computer at home–you could build it yourself!

For some “computer” is a bit liberal. Based on the Intel 8080, the “computer” supported some toggle switches and LEDs on the front panel.  As Gates explains in this video, there wasn’t even any kind of interactive terminal.

Check this MAKE article on the history of the Altair 8800.

The Gecko Zero EFM32 Weather Station Evaluation Board from Silicon Labs is intended to show off the low-energy or energy harvesting capabilities of the EFM32 Zero.  The ARM-based board has physical and cap sensitive buttons along with the LCD.

It comes pre-loaded with a demo program, which is the classic Space Invaders.

If you’re interested in more about the board, I wrote a road test of Gecko EFM32 on element 14. (Spoilers: I wasn’t impressed.  Not a bad board, but rough development environment.)