Seeking Sphericity

Did you know that the most perfectly smooth and accurate spherical object ever created by human kind was a 1.5" diamter piece of fused quartz (glass)? 

I did, and so did Wikipedia (This round is a draw, Internet)! 

It's true, this little marvel of modern material engineering was made by NASA for use in "Gravity Probe B". Gravity Probe B was one of the most remarkable, elaborate, and ultimately triumphant examples of experimental physics that confirmed Einstein's assertions about effects of gravity on space-time. It also has nothing to do with rest of the content of this blog post, except for the part about glass spheres. 

This past Monday, just before becoming horribly ill (again), I spent the evening in the hot shop making a whole bunch of little glass spheres. At the end of the night, just before 1:00am, I thought that the process might make some good internet. So, I propped my camera on a brick and shot this video outlining the process of making a "perfect" glass sphere out of hot glass, by hand. In this case, "perfect" is being used quite subjectively, but you get the point (You win this round, NASA)!
Check it out: 

Personal Material

Every wonder: what does my DNA looks like?
Or think: Man, I wonder if I could be extracting DNA in my kitchen right now?

Well I do, probably more than I should.

So, when I came across this video this morning, I just had to share. Enjoy.

Set-up Breakdown

I've been mostly home sick this week, so decided to edit a little video about setting the blade of a wooden plane. Yes, this will explain the jump in posts over the next couple of days. The process isn’t overly complicated, but that’s not to say that it isn’t entirely simple. After a little practice, I can almost get the blade set without any test cuts. Anyway, the clip is after the jump.