Monthly Archives: November 2005

Gutenberg Gem: The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 by Popular Mechanics

Wow. Very cool to take this step back in time and see what young hackers in 1913 were doing. A lot of lame stuff, but some gems, like a line harmonograph, a “key card” for writing secret codes on post cards, handcutting gears and racks for models, a miniature “Pepper’s Ghost”, and a homemade water wheel. And that’s just in the first hundred pages, there are almost six hundred! Be sure to check out the PDF file.

More on Pat Robertson

Jim Rogan writes in the Philadephia Enquirer:

Pat Robertson, bless his pointy little head, has done the good people of the Dover Area School District a big favor.

Last week, he lashed out against them, saying they no longer merited the mercy of God. In the true spirit of Christian charity, he hinted that they deserve whatever heavenly misfortune might befall them.

Whenever you have someone like the Rev. Pat on your bad side, you know you’re doing something right.

Ramen, brother.

Pat Robertson Displays his Christianity, again…

The people of Dover, Pennsylvania recently had an election for their local schoolboard. In a fairly close election, every member of the school board that supported the addition of intelligent design to their school curriculum was voted out, all eight of them. What did Pat Robertson have to say about the free exercise of people’s rights to hold elections?

I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there.”

I… just… am speechless.

Aren’t gnomes supposed to be tiny?

Look at this dump from the system monitor on my box at work:

System Monitor

This box has a staggering 4gb of memory, and half of it is listed as occupied, and I’m not running any applications of my own. I mean honestly, a clock applet requiring 119 megabytes? The mixer, 133 megabytes? The panel, 135 megabytes?

What the heck is going on here?

Fun with ball bearings…

A couple of days ago I published some images that I made by shooting video of a shiny metallic juggling ball. I went out yesterday in search of a better reflector. I visited a couple of specialty industrial suppliers, hoping to score some nice shiny ball bearings, maybe 2″ in diameter. Unfortunately, 1″ ball bearings seemed to be the largest that they had in stock. They were also a bit dingy, and didn’t seem to reflect very well (although they are much more spherical, the tolerance on this is 0.0000256 inches). When I got home, I dug out a batch of cerium oxide polish, and hit one up with a bit of it on a rag, which brightened the reflection quite a bit. I then snapped the following picture (shrunk here):

Macro Photo of a Ball Bearing

with my Nikon 4500. While of a boring subject, and in poor light, it showed good detail. Good enough to make the following virtual environment:

Much better than my previous attempt. A 2″ ball bearing would be even better.

Partying in the for Street

Athletics closer Huston Street has won the 2005 American League Rookie of the Year. Street finished 2005 with a mark of 5-1 and 23 saves in 27 opportunities, with an astonishing 1.72 ERA. I think that it is safe to say that Street saved the Oakland Athletics from a very possible sub .500 mark on the season, and he’s only 22 years old. I look forward to seeing him close games for the Athletics in years to come.

Congratulations, Huston. Well deserved!

Bad Video Panorama

I’ve been playing a bit of with video taping reflections from a shiny reflecting ball, and then undoing the map to construct a 360 degree view. You can either view these as normal jpeg images:

Or you can load them into a java applet like PTViewer:

Or, you can use the individual frames to make a really boring movie.

Chicken Little

This weekend’s movie was the new Disney animated film Chicken Little, starring the vocal talents of Zach Braff. Young Chicken Little is, well, a little chicken who panics the town with the claim that a piece of the sky fell and hit him on the head. Now the entire town views him with contempt and disdain, except for a few friends: Runt, a huge overweight piglet, Fish out of Water (who wears a diving helmet so he can interact with the air breathers) and Abby Mallard (aka Ugly Duckling) his female geek friend. Chicken Little is trying to regain the respect of his father and the town.

If I have a generic complaint about this film, it’s that it’s tiresomely familiar to the point of being stereotyped. Do we really need to have another film about the town nerd who tries out for the high school sports team to gain the approval of his father who is trying to raise a child by himself? Do we need to have the overweight comic relief, the homely girl with the heart of gold? It’s not a bad film, I just don’t think that it shows a great deal of imagination as far as plot line goes. It’s basically a cartoon version of Lucas, and somebody already went to the trouble of making that movie once.

The film also features a number of musical interludes which I thought were basically a distraction. When done cleverly (like in Shrek) music can be a fun, energizing way to advance the plot of the movie. In this case, they seemed entirely contrived.

On the other hand, the film looks great, has a bright, imaginative design with lots of cute vibrant characters and backgrounds. The animation is clever and well done. I thought that plot did pick up in the second half of the film, and the resolution (while predictable) was reasonably satisfying. I went in after hearing mostly mediocre reviews, and I came out feeling more positive than I thought I would. I’d give it about a 7.5 out of 10. It was fun if not amazing. Kids will probably like it more.