Gizmodo: flux capacitor

54 Years Ago, Time Travel Was Invented By Doc Brown

Rosa Golijan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:55:15 EST

On November 5, 1955, Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown hit his head on the side of a bathroom sink. As his headache faded, an image appeared, an idea that would finally make time travel possible: the flux capacitor.

While the tools were invented that day, it took until October 25, 1985 for Doc Brown to put together all the parts for a time traveling automobile. Then finally, at 1:21 a.m. on that fateful autumn day he successfully pulled off the first first temporal displacement.

It was a great inventing process that began all those years ago, so let's take a moment to think of our fondest memories of Doc Brown, his Delorean DMC-12, and his time traveling companion, Martin McFly. [Wired]

Own a Flux Capacitor: No Concussion Required

Sean Fallon — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:55:57 EST

It used to be that if you wanted your own Flux Capacitor, you had to hit your head on a toilet. Fortunately, you can bypass that unpleasant experience and purchase one using your superfluous monies. Its functionality is limited to some cool flashing lights and "adjustable power settings," but nothing says you can't mount the thing inside your car and see what happens when you hit 88. Nothing except for the police and the mechanical limitations of that beater you call a vehicle that is. Available for $220. [Product Page via Uncrate via Wired]

Time Machine Flux Capacitor Patch Lets You Back Up to Any Drive in Leopard

Jason Chen — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:25:00 EST

Apple's limitation on what kind of drives (directly attached drives) can be used as a Leopard Time Machine backup disk can be overcome with a small command line utility.

All it does is make Leopard show unsupported drives as a supported drive for Time Machine, but Apple most likely removed support for these drives for reasons such as data loss or data corruption, so be careful if you're going to try this. Just head on over to 9to5Mac and download their aptly named Flux Capacitor automator script and you'll be on your way to network backups in no time. Or, you can just wait for Apple's official release that's sure to come soon. [9to5Mac via MacRumors]

LED City of the Future

blongo3 — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:37:15 EST

I guess the first step towards the future is new lighting. At least that's what Raleigh, N.C. is banking on. They are going to replace every single public light with brand spankin' new LED's. While it will cost a lot more to purchase LED's, the increased price-tag should be negated by a decreased energy & maintenence bill. Next thing you know you'll be seeing hover boards and Delorian's with flux capacitors all over North Carolina.– Ben Longo

Raleigh N.C. Wants To Become "LED City" [Treehugger]

Back to the Future DeLorean Flux Capacitor on eBay

gizmodo.com — Fri, 05 May 2006 11:31:58 EDT

If you've got a DeLorean and a few extra hundred bucks lying around, get your bad self over to eBay and bid on this gorgeous flux capacitor. The seller/builder used real glass tubes, accurate to the one that appeared in Back to the Future and long out of production (i.e. rare), and the gold bases were machined out of aluminum to match the movie prop. It plugs into any car battery and is guaranteed to fit into a DeLorean. Oh, and there are no nasty strobe lights in this baby, only white LEDs that chase to the center.

The highest bid out of 46 so far is $450.00, with two days and twelve hours to go. If you're broke or just cheap, you can always just make your own, but we doubt it'll be this pretty.

Back to the Future Delorean Flux Capacitor [eBay, via productdose]
Flux Capacitor [Wikipedia]