Seen above is an original Gristleizer, the custom audio effects unit that helped define the industrial sound of Throbbing Gristle (TG) in the late 1970s. TG co-founder Chris Carter made the device in 1977 based on a design printed in Practical Electronics magazine and sold in kit form by Phonosonics. (Cloned Analog Gear posted a PDF of the article.) Apparently, Carter is a quintessential maker. From an interview with him at Planet Origo:
When I was about 12 years old I was given a "Young Scientist" electronics kit that included instructions and parts to build a basic radio, a small amp, a flashing lamp and so on. Which I really enjoyed making. I then subscribed to Practical Electronics magazine and spent my pocket money buying electronic components to build the monthly projects. By the late sixties I was building synth circuits such as oscillators, filters, amps etc. from scratch....Chris Carter's Gristleizer (Throbbing-Gristle.com), From Which the Gristleizer Came (Matrixsynth), Interview: Chris Carter (Planet Origo)
When I joined TG I built an effect unit called a Gristleizer for each of us. This (now infamous) box of tricks consisted of a smallish metal case containing an LFO, VCF, VCA, a pre-amp, various front panel controls and LEDs. Certain settings on the Gristleizers were very distinctive and it's often regarded as imparting one of TG's trademark sounds. We used them on almost everything: synth, guitar, bass, violin, tapes, rhythms and of course on Genesis (P-Orridge's) voice. The beauty of the Gristleizers was that its range of sounds was so extreme, which also meant it could sound completely different depending on the instrument. The sounds included slow modulated filtering, a metallic ring-modulation effect , clipped and fuzzed distortion and tremolo. At the time there was no other battery powered effect unit capable of such a wide and weird range of sounds. When TG finished I was constantly being asked by musicians to build more Gristleizers but it was something I only did for a few friends . Ultimately I built about 10 units in total but I know there are at least two (just about) working


UPDATE: In the 
Part of my work this year has been helping with the launch of the UK’s National Videogame Archive, and it’s meant having a lot of interesting conversations with interesting people about what a game museum might look like. My favourite suggestion so far was that we recreate a childhood Christmas - that childhood Christmas, when whatever it was that changed your life arrived.

This year, we included two additional elders in the foundation's Christmas festivities in the Guatemalan highlands, which brings the total number of participating elders in our Ancianos de Honor program to 22. Two of the most recently honored ancianos are blind. You can see them in the photograph below. They both completed their hundredth birthdays this month. They were brought to our foundation's center by some very caring young people.
Our foundation works to reach out to them, document their existence and their needs, and provide basic support, bringing them back into the center of the community where they belong, with honor and respect.
“Walk in the shade of the clouds at night,"









Over at Boing Boing Offworld, Brandon posted about these joystick coat hooks. They're not DIY, but they certainly could be!
"We don't think he is a mutant squirrel but he may have had a mishap around the school.
"The old building where we have seen him nipping in and out is a bit of a graveyard for computer printers. He may have found some printer toners in there.


In the war for blue jean supremacy, there is no more worthy, yet neglected contender than the
My mother died four years ago, on a Christmas week. My father passed the next winter, when the light started changing and the warm days were gone for good.



For 72 years, Scientific American ran its popular “Amateur Scientist” column, which debuted in 1928. Projects included constructing an electron accelerator, making amino acids, photographing air currents, measuring the metabolic rate of small animals, extracting antibiotics from soil, culturing aquatic insects, tracking satellites, constructing an atom smasher, extracting the growth substances from a cantaloupe, conducting maze experiments with cockroaches, making an electrocardiogram of a water flea, constructing a Foucalt pendulum, and experimenting with geotropism. Who knew you could have so much fun at the kitchen table?
COOP and Ruth's new Boing Boing t-shirts featuring COOP's awesome artwork are now shipping! I can't wait until my order arrives. There were only 69 available and Ruth tells me they are selling quickly.
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