David E. H. Jones is a.k.a Daedalus, the crackpot inventor of the eponymous column in New Scientist and Nature in years gone by.

To those of you who are fans of Randall Munroe's What-If I heartily recommend the out of print classics The Inventions of Daedalus and its sequel The Further Inventions of Daedalus which are in a losely similar vein.

Last I heard (a few years ago) he was still alive and a documentary largely about his ingenious "perpetual motion" machines was made. I hope he's still hearty but fear he may have passed.