Monthly archives: March, 2012

Online streaming of Movshon-Seung debate

Sebastian Seung has a new book out, and to promote it he’s having a debate with Tony Movshon. The event sold out in less than two hours. So they added a simulcast in…



Flyer seen in the physics building



Numberfactory: extremely useful reference

Numberfactory is a very useful, clean reference site. Unit conversions, formulas, bolts, nuts, screws, and more.

More…
Bolt sizes



Axial resolution and numerical aperture, part II

To recap the previous post on axial resolution and numerical aperture in two-photon microscopy:

For excitation deep in scattering tissue, higher NA can actually be detrimental because the light cone at the…



Axial resolution vs numerical aperture

Recently, microscope manufacturers have been releasing ever higher NA objectives for multiphoton imaging. Although higher NA objectives should give better axial resolution, they might not be ideal for imaging deep into the brain…



Wire gauge frequency ratings

As previously noted, homemade cables are to be avoided. However, stock cables are not always up to spec. For example, if one wants to drive stepper motors using a 9-pin serial…



Multimeters with IR temp

I thought I needed a $30 multimeter. But then I saw that for just a few bucks more I could get some more features. This process repeated itself until I ended up buying a $98…



3D Printed iPhone-to-Eyepiece adapters

Thanks go to commenter ybot for this one. They pointed out this handy iPhone-to-Microscope mount iPhone case.

From the pictures, it looks like the prototype was printed on a Makerbot, which isn’t terribly high resolution…



CircuitLab: Google Docs for circuits

CircuitLab is an online circuit design tool. This is my new favorite way to jot down circuits. The interface is clean and simple and even has some test/simulation facilities. It also has a sharing/GoogleDocs type…



Meanwhile, at Labrigger Labs



Visual stimuli for mice

By virtue of their small eyes, mice enjoy a large depth of field. In a classic experiment (buried in the methods section) Balkema and Pinto put +6, 0, and -7 diopter lenses in front of…



Optical recognition of resistor codes

This is an iOS/iPhone app that uses the camera to optically recognize resistor color code bands. I find this interesting because I tried writing something like this one time. I couldn’t sleep at 3am after a…



Poster design tips

These two sites have a bunch of poster design tips, case studies, and other links.
Designing conference posters
Better Posters