Lars Jansen » Design

Perpetual Futility

Lars — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:17:19 +0000

Popular histories too often present perpetual motion machines as “freaks and curiosities” of engineering without telling us just how they were understood at the time. They also fail to inform us that even in the earliest history of science and engineering, many persons were able to see the futility and folly of attempts to achieve perpetual motion.

Sometimes a particular device comes to us with a label, such as “Bishop Wilkins’ magnetic perpetual motion machine.” Popular articles leave the impression that the inventor believed it was a perpetual motion machine. In fact, very often the device was presented and described to illustrate the futility of the quest for perpetual motion.

via http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/people/people.htm.

Nice and Free CSS Layouts

Lars — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:34:15 +0000

This site contains free css layout templates.

via Nice and Free CSS Templates.

The Smashing Book

Lars — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:49:34 +0000

The Smashing Book.

Quick Overview

The Smashing Book is a printed book about best practices in modern Web design. The book shares technical tips and best practices on coding, usability and optimization and explores how to create successful user interfaces and apply marketing principles to increase conversion rates. It also shows how to get the most out of typography, color and branding so that you end up with intuitive and effective Web designs. And lastly, you will also get a peek behind the curtains of Smashing Magazine.

Get it here.

Geneva Drive

Lars — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:09:41 +0000

The Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a mechanism that translates a continuous rotation into an intermittent rotary motion. It is an intermittent gear where the drive wheel has a pin that reaches into a slot of the driven wheel and thereby advances it by one step. The drive wheel also has a raised circular blocking disc that locks the driven wheel in position between steps.