Monthly Archives: March 2004

Playing with food…


On Tech Now! this morning, I found out about the Octodog’s Frankfurter Converter. When there are products this silly in the world, can the Apocalypse be far behind?

The webpage includes a justification for the existance of such a silly novelty item.
According to them.

The method of slicing a hotdog linearly can reduce the chances of choking during consumption. A sliced hotdog is a safer way to serve hotdogs to children. Octodogs are not only fun, but may be a safer way to serve hotdogs.

Hard to argue with that. although I doubt Alton Brown would approve of this pitiful unitasker.


Riding a motorcycle through Chernobyl

One of the most bizarre and macabre websites I’ve seen recently is GHOST TOWN, the story of Elena, a young woman who rides her Kawasaki Ninja in through the surrounding countryside of Chernobyl. While other sites may contain more information, the pictures snapped by Elena are eerie and compelling. The events of April 25th and 26th, 1986 uprooted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to evacuate.

Looking at the pictures and reading Elena’s broken English makes it seem somehow more real.

Advertising Saturation

Today’s Quote of the Day comes from Steve Ballmer of Microsoft.
According to
this report, Microsoft spends 12% of its budget on online advertising. Said Ballmer:

I want to make sure (a user) can’t get through … an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.

Welcome to the vision of the future proposed by Microsoft: an Internet whose sole purpose is for their billboard space.


The Rapture and Armageddon

A couple of days ago I was driving around and caught an interview of Tim LaHaye on NPR’s Fresh Air program. LaHaye is the author of a 12 volume fictional series called Left Behind which centers around the Christian fundamentalists belief in Armageddon and the Rapture. He’s written a billion other books, including this self help guide to surviving the Rapture. LaHaye believes that the current generation will see the Rapture and Armageddon.

Let’s make no mistake: Christians of this ilk want the Rapture and Armageddon. They think that they (the true faithful) will be transported to heaven to be with God, while the rest of the atheists, Jews, Muslims, and Catholics battle it out with each other for Armageddon). They look forward to it. They wish it would happen tomorrow. Try listening to Jack Van Impe and his wife Cruella on TV some time. They speak in gleeful hushed tones about the fact that they will be safe but that millions will die in Armageddon. They support Israel because they think that Biblical prophecy requires Israel to be formed before they get to go
to heaven, but they aren’t doing Jews any favors: they expect all of them to die at Armageddon.

This would be funny except for the fact that:

  • Hoping for the death of even one person, much less millions doesn’t have much humor value.

  • People like author Tim LaHaye have founded organizations that carry considerable clout, particularly among conservative Republican groups.

The only thing that comforts me is the certain knowledge that each of these people will ultimately be placed in the ground as we all are, their prophecies unfufilled, and they will have wasted their lives pursuing a distorted, warped, twisted, and ultimately false view of the world.

In the mean time you can amuse yourself with the flowchart for Armageddon and its more sensible revision. You might also look at someone else’s view of humanity’s path to salvation. There is a nice page on snopes.com which details an Internet myth about a woman who jumped the gun a bit on the entire Rapture thing.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

One liner…

Ever wish you had a simple webserver on a machine? You can do it in a single
line with Python. 

python -c "import SimpleHTTPServer ; SimpleHTTPServer.test()"

This will start a webserver on port 8000 in the current directory, and allow you to serve content for any files in that directory.

Embedded PC


While chasing down a fairly pedestrian story on Slashdot about building your own LCD picture frame (seems rather obvious, use a box, a VIA motherboard, some minimal carpentry) I did find an interesting link to Mini-Box.Com.
The link was in reference to their small power supplies, but they also sell a cute little embedded PC called the mini-box M100. It’s a mere 20cmx4.4cmx22cm and weighs only 1 kilo. If it had two network ports, it would be idea for an embedded gateway/firewall box, but it also has enough power to do PVR or jukebox functionality well.

Price is around $400, which is high but not insane. I can’t justify gettting one for myself (I have a surplus of computing equipment at the moment), but if you have need of such a thing, you might give it a look.


Grand Challenge, Modest Failure?

Today the DARPA Grand Challenge was run. The course was shortened to only 142 miles from its original design goal of 250 miles. Fifteen robotic teams were selected to run. The best robot made 7.4 miles before mechanical failure called a halt to its day. The majority of teams made it less than a mile.

I don’t know whether to view this as a failure or a success. It seems that cross country navigation in real time is quite difficult: I suspect that even a reasonably inexperienced rally driver could easily drive the course in one third the time required.

Addendum: you can look at the preliminary results which I’ve thoughtfully converted from a silly Microsoft Word file to a somewhat more paleteable (but still proprietary) PDF file.

Do it yourself laser scanner…


While doing one of my usual bored browses of the web looking for odd science projects, I ran across a page detailing a homemade 3d laser scanner. This is another of a long series of projects that I thought would be fun to do, but never have gotten around to working on. I’ve also seen a similar cheap setup done without a laser, but instead just using a simple light source and shadows. You can also look at another implementation of this idea here or
here.


Cobb’s Comedy Club


Late on Saturday Night, my charming wife walked into my office and proclaimed “Robin Williams is doing a special set at Cobb’s on Monday Night. We’re going!”. Apparently she’s on the Cobb’s email list and got advanced warning for this special show. WIth the general philosophy of “when you get a chance to do something a little unusual, you do it”, I agreed, and we were off.

The show was scheduled to begin at 8:30, so we carpooled in directly after work. We were in SF by 6:30, which left plenty of time to get some decent eats. We went to Joes Crab Shack, where much seafood drenched in clarified butter was consumed. I guess I’ll have to watch those Weight Watchers points for the rest of the week. By 8:00, we were fed and back in line at Cobb’s.

The old Cobb’s was in the Cannery in downtown SF, the new location is actually much nicer, quite a bit larger and just a short ten minute walk away. We were seated toward the back, (the price of getting fed first), but the view was fine. The only prioblem with being that far back is that occasionally you’d overhear the waitresses ordering drinks behind you.

I must say, Robin is one of the hardest working comics there is. He did over an hour and a half set and consumed about 8 bottles of water, most of which apparently immediately left through his shirt. I doubt he’d work up more of a sweat working on a chain gang. His comedy ranged over all sorts of topics: outsourcing, politics, gay marriage, world history, sex (of course), and he even managed to slip in a joke about Michael Eisner and his recent dealings with Pixar.

Goodbye Pixar, Who needs a billion dollars?

I gave his set about 8 out of 10, but only because we all know just how great Robin has been
in the past. I’ve seen him funnier, but few other comics as funny.

All in all, a pretty nice evening of comedy. We’ll have to go back soon. I like their new digs.

My Wishlist…

Hey, if anyone has a spare 10 grand that they want to
waste on me (your soon to be best friend), how about a VersaLaser, a USB controlled laser cutting/etching
machine. Clink the links on the page to see a nifty demo like they showed on a recent edition of TechTV.

Too much fun.