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That cold, dead look in his eyes as he relentlessly attacks the village; that menacing bellow as he terrorizes the sky; the unforgiving nature of his assault. The legends are true.

Miley Cyrus came in like a wrecking ball this year, especially with her controversial music video for the song "Wrecking Ball." It sets the perfect ambiance for the Christmas season, don't you think? So make one of these tree ornaments using the instructions provided by Instructables member mikeasarus.

First, he found a screenshot from the video. He printed it out, along with a mirror copy, and cut out Miley. Mikeasarus then took a glass bulb ornament and primed and painted the surface with gray paint. He attached a cheap necklace chain to serve as the chain for the wrecking ball.

R. Kelly just can’t get out of the closet.

The R&B singer announced this week that he plans new chapters of his seemingly endless hip-hopera Trapped in the Closet out next year, debuting on the cable channel IFC.

The channel announced the extension of the series this week, promising an escalation of the already outlandish series:

“The ultimate hip hopera returns in 2014 with brand new chapters, which means more R. Kelly, more drama, more crazy situations, more tumultuous relationships, more Sylvester, more Pimp Lucius, more Reverend Mosely, more everything that you love about Trapped in the Closet.”

IFC has not given a premiere for the new chapters of Trapped in the Closet, but on Saturday night gave fans a chance to catch up on the first 33 chapters of the series with a special broadcast.

R. Kelly has been quite busy of late, with a new album Black Panties due out on Tuesday and more music in the works.

“I’m already working on my next album, which I’m six songs deep into. I haven’t named it yet, but it’s going to be a follow-up to Black Panties,” Kelly told Billboard in an interview in which he also announced the next 10 chapters of Trapped in the Closet. “I’m going to start putting out music like Jordans after ‘Black Panties.’ I don’t want people to get it twisted: R. Kelly is going to be R. Kelly.”

The singer also commented on a career that has remained strong for more than two decades.

“It feels good to still be on people’s mind after 23 years in the business,” R. Kelly told Billboard at the AMAs. “I’ve got all the younger cats following me and calling me to get on their tracks. It’s a blessing.”

Those who may have missed out on Trapped in the Closet can catch R. Kelly in all the craziness online — the entire series is available online for streaming by clicking here.

R. Kelly Announces 10 New Chapters Of ‘Trapped In The Closet’ is a post from: The Inquisitr News

Like my heart

[David] has created a four cable drawing machine for the Telus Spark Science Centre in Canada. Hackaday has featured [David's] unconventional drawing contraptions before, specifically his center pivot pen plotter. The drawing machine is a new take on a drawbot, and could be considered to be close cousins with [Dan's] SkyCam. The premise is simple: A stepper motor with a reel of string is placed at each corner of a square. The strings for all four motors come together at a center weight. When all four strings are taut, the weight is lifted off the drawing surface. When a bit of slack is added into the strings, gravity pulls the weight down to touch the sand.

It’s at this point that a simple premise becomes a complex implementation. Moving the weight in one direction is a matter of reeling out string on one motor, and reeling in string on the other. But what about the two “un driven” strings? They have to be slack enough to allow movement in the driven direction, but not so slack that the weight can dig in and tumble on the sand, causing a tangle. To handle some of these questions, [David] called on [Kevin] to write some software. [Kevin] created a custom kinematics module for LinuxCNC to control the drawing machine. The drawing machine runs on Gerber Code, similar to a CNC. Simply feed the machine Cartesian coordinates, and [Kevin's] module converts to steps.

The hardest part of the building the machine was creating a homing system. Be it a CNC, 3D printer, or a four cable drawing machine, any stepper motor based system has to have a home position. Stepper motors are open loop systems. They are very precise to move, but there is no way to tell where they are at any given moment in time. The most often used method is to get to a known “home” position and use software to keep track of steps. [David's] problem was getting to the home position in the first place. If he doesn’t know where the weight is, he can’t reel out too much string or he’ll wind up with a tangled mess. His solution was actually pretty simple. He commands one motor to reel in and tells the others not to move. The moving motor is stronger than the holding torque of the other motors, which allows it to pull the weight up until it hits a switch on the pulling motor’s mount. This type of “tug of war” makes all sorts of noise, and requires a stoutly built machine. The results speak for themselves though – [David's] machine looks great!

“This technique is guaranteed to be a ‘blast’ at parties, and will certainly turn heads and get you a reaction. For better or for worse!” — Grant Thompson

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It’s always nice to see something new from Valeria Orsini.

f0o0od:

Coconut crunch chicken strips with creamy honey-mango dipping sauce