The Science Book / Encyclopedia of Sensors

Issue No. 112

THE SCIENCE BOOK – THE GREATEST HITS OF SCIENCE

The Science Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)
by DK
DK
2014, 352 pages, 8 x 9.6 x 1 inches

Buy on Amazon

The Science Book is DK publishing’s “greatest hits” of science. Laid out chronologically and full of diagrams and photos, it gives you a coffee table book experience but in a manageable way. No book clocking in at 350-ish pages could be totally comprehensive, yet it includes most of the major scientific milestones from 600 BCE to today without being dry or overwhelming.

I found that I was able to gain a better understanding of principles that I only marginally understood, like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which is clearly laid out in layman’s terms and with genuinely helpful visuals. Genetics is a particularly complicated topic that has always fascinated me, so I was especially drawn to the chapters that tackled it and found a diagram using bees to explain recessive traits to be one of my favorite features. The individual chapters are broken up into sections and use sidebars and trivia to keep things interesting, so no matter what topic you land on the information is always accessible. I haven’t read it cover to cover, but rather peruse whatever topic catches my eye and always find something I didn’t known before. Textbooks devoted to science have an unfortunate tendency to be dry and technical, so I am especially excited to share The Science Book with my son as he gets older, with the hope that it may help him develop a real interest in science and an appreciation of its value. – Amber Troska

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SENSORS – THE FINAL VOLUME IN AN IMPRESSIVE SERIES OF ELECTRONICS GUIDES FOR 21ST-CENTURY MAKERS

Encyclopedia of Electronic Components Volume 3: Sensors
by Charles Platt and Fredrik Jansson
Maker Media
2016, 256 pages, 7.9 x 9.6 x 0.4 inches (softcover)

Buy on Amazon

With this somewhat slim but jam-packed volume, Make: contributing editor and electronics columnist, Charles Platt (here joined by Fredrik Jansson), completes his detailed explorations of the modern, common electronics components most useful to today’s electronics hobbyists and other DIYers.

The first volume, which Wink reviewed earlier, covered batteries, power supplies, motors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, switches, encoders, relays, diodes, transistors, and more. Volume 2 covered LEDs, LCDs, audio, amplification, digital logic, and related components. This third and final volume examines common (and a few not so common) sensors for detecting location, presence, proximity, orientation, oscillation, force, load, human input, liquid and gas properties, light, heat, sound, and electricity.

Like all of the volumes in the series, each component section in Sensors is divided into what it does, how it works, variants and values of the component, how to use it, and what can go wrong with it. Each entry is generously illustrated with clear color photos, charts and graphs, and cut-away diagrams of the components (all done by Platt). Thoughtfully, the component images are all photographed on a graph paper background, so you can get some idea of their actual size.

One of the things that I think has made the Make: Electronics series such a great success is that Charles Platt is a smart, endlessly curious, and details-oriented electronics enthusiast who knows what questions fellow enthusiasts might have about how a component functions and what it’s useful for. He is not an engineer, he is a professional amateur and I often find that such amateurs write better tech books than professionals. In Volume 3, he and Jansson do another admirable job of writing in a style that is non-intimidating to the beginner, but no less rigorous to the more seasoned circuit designer/builder.

These three volumes, taken together, provide you with the reference material you need for spec’ing components for most common hobby-level electronics projects. Or, if you wanted to, you could significantly increase your understanding of basic electrical engineering by working your way through them, one component at a time. And given how lovely the books are, how well photographed and illustrated, how readable, doing so would not be a hardship.

Over the course of the past seven years, Charles and Maker Media have released five books in the Make: Electronics series and two component packs. I’m biased (I helped instigate this series as an editor at Make:), but I think this collection is one of the most significant things Make: has done. We set out to create the Getting Started in Electronics [http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Electronics-Forrest-Mims/dp/0945053282] for the early 21st century. The success of the series speaks for itself. I’m now just waiting for a new generation of high-tech innovators to tell us enthusiastically how they cut their teeth on the Make: Electronics series. I like to imagine that they’re teething on the resistors, capacitors, and ICs as we speak. – Gareth Branwyn

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Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

04/7/26

Folding Bikes

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 184

Quick folding bike

Brompton

My new best friend is the Brompton T6, a foldable 6-speed bicycle made by the Brompton company in England. Living in an urban area and having a bike that folds is basically like having wheels for feet; and in the world of folding bikes, Bromptons simply cannot be matched in their compactness and riding quality. They ride beautifully and smoothly thanks to a conical rear shock absorbing block. They take about 10 seconds to go from fully unfolded to fully folded and are compact enough to take inside anywhere — metro, hotels, restaurants. I, at least, have never had a problem storing it. There are other makes of folding bikes (like Dahon) but time and time again I see people that own Dahons who simply won’t bother folding them and chain them up outside because they’re so cumbersome. What’s the point of owning a folding one? Brompton spare parts are amazingly easy to install yourself (the manual is very comprehensive and detailed in how to upkeep the bike). I bought mine six months ago and it has completely transformed my day to day existence. It’s a true lifestyle changer. Check out the front carrier accessories too. Fill that with other cool tools and that’s basically all you need.

[*Today, the closest available model to the T6 is the M6R.] — John Root

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Premium folding, touring bicycles

Bike Friday

A folding bike is a compromise between ride quality and foldability. Moulton makes great artisan folding bikes with very unique design. Brompton also makes lovely folding bikes (previously-reviewed), but kind of artisan and pricey. I like the previously-reviewed Strida if all you have to do is ride 1-2 miles to the transit station. It’s not much good if you have to ride for more than 15 minutes. Citizen Bikes are awful, but some people who have never ridden a nice bike seem to be able to tolerate it. Dahon is starting to make some pretty damn good folding bikes at reasonable prices.

But my favorite is Bike Friday. It can fold into a suitcase that won’t incur over-charges on airplanes. Super light. Rides like a real bike, in some ways better. They have a few different models (even tandems!); I’ve ridden most of them — they are all good. I optimized my choice for quality of ride, but you can build them with ease of folding in mind by specifying what you want in terms of tools/no tools. For instance, some models require tools to fold for airline travel, but not for folding to stash on cars/buses. The Tikit models, on the other hand, explicitly requires no tools for folding at all.

These bikes are not cheap. I am a self-admitting bike snob. I value ride quality. Most low-cost folding bikes just feel cheap. The difference is in the custom-fitted frame, and better design details, higher-quality components and etc. (Bike Friday has been doing it for years). But you can get on a good Bike Friday for $1200. If you want, you can spend up to $3000 or even more for extras, but the frame is the same. These guys have great customer service, too.

I love mine. When it was recently stolen, I was heartbroken. Bike theft is like pet death. If you see my yellow Bike Friday (it has my wife’s name “Arwen Griffith” on the top tube), throw rotten fruit and stones at the asshole who stole it. — Saul Griffith

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Portable transit for urbanites

Strida Folding Bike

This folding bike has won both design and race awards. I’ve used it for seven years to traverse New York City, commuting two miles one way: in and out of Grand Central, the subways, buses, etc. A lot of folding bikes break down so that they’re bulky and awkward. The Strida is long and narrow, and carries like a photographer’s tripod — I can fold it while running down the platform at Grand Central. An easy way to visualize it is to picture three tubes in a triangle. Two points are hinged, and the third is a latch. When unlatched, the tubes fall together to look like a group of parallel tubes with a seat and wheels. Assembly is just forming the triangle, then click and go. This design is very clever, yet simple and robust.

The bike is unusual because there isn’t much maintenance (tire pressure and brake adjustments only). Unlike the Brompton, the Strida is a single gear with (dry) belt drive, which means no shifter or greasy chain, no tension adjustments and no caught pant legs. Even though there is only one speed, I can still climb reasonable hills. The tires are mini fat tubes, so you can jump curbs and hit potholes without any problems. The bike has a very, very tight turning radius, and while riding, your posture is quite upright – like a boulevard bike, not humped over like a road bike – so you can see traffic while riding in a suit and tie. The construction is solid, not flimsy in the least. I stripped mine down for size: removing the luggage rack and fenders so that it would easily fit in the overhead rack on the train. No one has ever bothered me for a bike pass on the trains or buses. If you buy one, be prepared: people will stop you often to ask what it is. I once had two teenage girls run out of a restaurant (and hang up their cell phones) to stop me and ask what it is. For a brief moment, I actually felt trendy! — Bruce Hartleben

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Bike hacking

Atomic Zombie’s Bicycle Builder’s Bonanza

A fun and detailed guide to hacking unusual bicycles from old bike parts. With a bit of welding here and there you can take castoff bicycles and repurpose them in dozens of imaginative ways. Here are notes for customizing choppers, tandems, unicycles, and crazy stunt bikes with frames found at the dump. How to strip down a bike to its useful components, and what to keep in mind as you modify its design and performance. — KK

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

04/6/26

Retro Recomendo: Followable

Recomendo - issue #508

Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started nine years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 9 years.

Home DIY videos

How To Home is a YouTube channel with excellent videos that demonstrate how to complete common household repairs, such as wiring switches, fixing faucet leaks, and threading wire through walls and ceilings. Unlike many DIY videos, these feature high-quality audio, are well-lit, and aren’t blurry. — MF

Culinary curiosities from around the world

Gastro Obscura is an Instagram account with photos and descriptions on unusual foods from around the world. You’ll find Japanese cream puffs that look like kittens, fruit that looks like an exploding planet, fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding, and lots more. It gave me a greater appreciation for just how diverse the world’s culinary options can be. — MF

Laugh out loud caricatures

Watch sidewalk artists in Waikiki draw extreme caricatures of customers, and their customer’s hysterical reactions. The drawings are much more exaggerated than typical caricatures yet they look uncannily like the subjects. I was laughing along with the people who bravely sat for the drawings. A guaranteed mood lifter. — MF

Quick research explainers

Two Minute Papers is a YouTube channel featuring short videos (sometimes 5 minutes long) created by a professor who reviews new research papers in visual programming, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer graphics, simulations, and other state-of-the-art computer science. He explains the research’s significance, while running very cool graphics demo-ing the results. I find it a painless way to keep up in this fast moving field. — KK

Strange images

The instagram account Welcome.jpeg calls itself a digital museum. It’s kinda art, kinda meme, kinda kitsch, kinda weirdo. It collects oddball, strange, unorthodox, found images and delivers these misfits as little visual collections. It’s my guilty pleasure. — KK

Joyful social media

I’ve intentionally cut down on my social media time, but there’s one account I never scroll past because it always makes me smile: Official Stick Reviews on Instagram. It’s the internet’s go-to spot for stick reviews submitted from around the world. Initially, I thought it was satire, but I soon realized the enthusiasm for finding cool sticks is both genuine and contagious. Here’s a good example. — CD

04/5/26

Book Freak #204: Living for Pleasure

An Epicurean Guide to Life

Get Living for Pleasure

Wake Forest philosopher Emily Austin rescues Epicurus from centuries of misunderstanding, revealing that his philosophy isn’t about wild hedonism but something more radical: the pursuit of pleasure without anxiety. The result is a practical guide to tranquility that speaks directly to our age of overwork, social comparison, and endless striving.

Core Principles

Pleasure Means Absence of Anxiety

Epicurus’s insight was counterintuitive: the greatest pleasure isn’t intense sensation but ataraxia — a state of tranquility free from mental disturbance. True pleasure comes from what is absent: anxiety, fear, unsatisfied longing. Being satisfied with having what you need is itself the highest pleasure. The goal isn’t to add more but to remove what disturbs.

Sort Your Desires

Not all desires are equal. Austin identifies three categories: Natural desires (food, shelter, friendship) — pursue these freely. Extravagant desires (fine dining, enriching experiences) — enjoy occasionally without dependence. Corrosive desires (wealth, fame, power) — these are insatiable by design and generate more anxiety than they relieve. The key is recognizing which category a desire falls into before chasing it.

Friendship Is Essential, Not Optional

Nothing diminishes anxiety more than a community of trustworthy and supportive friends. Epicurus considered friendship the most important ingredient of a good life — more valuable than wealth or status. Deep relationships aren’t a nice addition to a well-lived life; they’re the foundation of it.

You Can’t Separate Pleasure from Virtue

It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly. Epicurus wasn’t offering a shortcut around ethics — he was showing that genuine pleasure and ethical living are inseparable. Dishonesty, cruelty, and injustice create anxiety; integrity creates peace.

Try It Now

1. Identify something you’re currently striving for. Ask: Is this a natural desire, an extravagant desire, or a corrosive desire? How would satisfying it actually change my daily experience?
2. Notice a moment of anxiety today. Pause and ask: What am I afraid of losing, or failing to get? Is that fear proportionate to reality?
3. Think of a pleasure you recently pursued that left you feeling worse afterward. What category of desire was driving it?
4. Consider your friendships. Are you investing in deep, trustworthy relationships — or spreading yourself thin across shallow connections?
5. Try Epicurus’s thought experiment: Imagine having “enough” — your needs met, anxiety absent, good friends nearby. What would you actually add? Maybe you already have more than you think.

Quote

“Nothing diminishes our anxiety more than a community of trustworthy and supportive friends.”

04/3/26

Happiest Countries/Monthly Flight Pass/Favorite US Airports

Nomadico issue #200

The Happiest Countries in the World

It looks like paying high taxes and spending half the year in cold darkness is a recipe for happiness: Finland is the world’s happiest country for the 9th year in a row and its Scandinavian neighbors all made the top-10. Meanwhile, the scores dropped again among the large English-speaking countries. Researchers are blaming that, in part, on too much social media scrolling, especially among the young. The apps that are really social (like WhatsApp and Facebook) have the least impact though, while the most problematic platforms are those heavy on visuals, with algorithmic feeds (like Instagram and TikTok). See the details here.

Rental Car Gas Tank Side

If you’re in a non-electric rental car and need to fill up, you can see which side of the car the tank is on by looking at the fuel indicator on the dashboard. It seems to be standard among all manufacturers now that there will be a left arrow or a right arrow beside the icon. So you know which side of the pump to pull up to without getting out to look.

Monthly Airline Pass From the UK

If you make a regular flight from the UK each month or get to travel that often for fun, Wizz Air has a subscription plan for you. “After a one-time First-Month fee, Multipass subscribers pay a fixed monthly amount for the remaining 11 months, providing certainty over travel costs.” After that first month’s fee, it’s 55 pounds sterling one way, 110 return for any destination, plus a set price for baggage if you choose to add it. See the full details at the Wizz website.

Favorite US Airports

If you want to avoid the current government-inflicted airport woes in the United States, you might want to drive to a smaller market. In this survey where travelers rated their favorite airports, small and medium market ones scored the wins. Rhode Island, Portland (OR), and Indianapolis snagged the top three spots and I was happy to see Tampa at number eight since I got through security in five minutes on Monday. (The Starbucks line was a different story…)

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

04/2/26

What’s in my NOW? — Elisa Michelet

issue #248

I’m a Californian-French artist based in Tokyo. My practice is medium agnostic, recently exploring film photography, bookmaking, and printmaking. I’m also a designer and founder of Studio Kaki, a branding and graphic design studio, and founder of Yuba, a free sustainable food guide to various cities in France. — Elisa Michelet

LINKS:

• Substack
• Instagram
• Website
• Studio Kaki
• Yuba

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PHYSICAL

• MD Notebook [A5] — I’ve never kept a consistent journal or diary, but this year I’m trying out some morning pages, and I’m loving the weight of this notebook, the smoothness of the paper, and the fact that it always lies flat.
• Olympus AF-1 Camera — I pulled this camera out of my storage box last summer; it belonged to my grandpa. Normally, I don’t love point-and-shoots and prefer more control while shooting, but it’s actually been quite liberating to shoot with. It’s got a great built-in flash, and it’s lightweight, which makes it great for travel or pocketing for a night out.
• Hinomoto Konbu Bag — I thrifted this bag in Tokyo and have since fallen completely in love. It’s functional, durable, has no external branding, and has the most satisfying zip.

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DIGITAL

• Only 8 — a brilliant website about Barcelona streets and who they’re named after.
• Never Too Small — A YouTube channel featuring beautifully thought-out apartments, houses, cabins, all roughly under 60 m² (646 ft²). It’s an excellent source of inspiration for interior design and architecture, and covers spatial problem-solving. It’s also fascinating to observe the distinctive ways in which individuals decorate their homes in cities across the globe.

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INVISIBLE

“Coming back — so many pathways through the spring grass.” — Yosa Buson

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04/1/26

What’s in my NOW? — Elisa Michelet