Overall, I didn’t think much of the commercials that played during this years Superbowl, but just in case you missed one that everyone seems to be talking about during your coffee break, you can surf on over to Google Video and see what you missed.
Super Bowl XL Commercials on Google Video
[tags]Superbowl Commercials,Google Video[/tags]
I beat Josh by a single point, which probably will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.
Courtesy of the Make Blog, go surf over and check out these instructions for building your own projection digital clock. The idea is pretty simple: modify a cheap digital watch from the dollar store by mounting a couple of bright LED lights behind the LCD display, and then use a lens to focus the enlarged version on the wall/ceiling. Neat!
The author, Raphael Assénat, has lots of other cool projects as well: of particular interest to me was his neat article on extracting the sound hardware from a Super Nintendo and wiring it to his PC. I’m gonna have to keep an eye out for one of these at Goodwill.  Cool stuff.
[tags]Hacks,Make,Hardware,Super Nintendo,Clock[/tags]
I saw some of these little cars while in Paris, and of course wondered what they would be like in collisions. Check out the video of a little Smart Car mashing into a barrier at 70mph.
[tags]Google Video,Smart Car,Collision[/tags]
If you haven’t mastered the cool Japanese way of folding T-shirts, you could always watch this video (complete with Nintendo soundtrack) on making a jig out of cardboard to help out.
Formidable!
I must admit: I love sushi. Even basic nigiri and sashimi show a degree of concentration that we don’t often see in the west.  Precision. Freshness. Balance. Everytime I have a meal of good sushi, I can’t help but feel better. The flavors of fish, rice, soy, wasabi and gari are all just… I love it. I’ve grown to appreciate it so much that it now seems very strange to cook certain fish like salmon.
That being said, I’m no expert: I’ve never been to Japan and the only Japanese words I know come from menus. Â But like most things, the more you know, the more you enjoy the subtlety of it all, so I’ll just provide this link to the informative and useful Sushi Eating HOWTO.
Nice notes on building a panoramic video system. It hooks six firewire webcams together to record full motion video over 360 degrees.   Neat!
[tags]Panorama,Quicktime,Webcam[/tags]
Burning a hole in a car with thermite
Best quote:
This is a car. It’s been chosen for destruction because it’s old, it’s white, but most importantly: it’s French.
[tags]Destruction,Thermite,Google Video[/tags]
This is just completely nuts, an 8 bit computer constructed entirely from 12 volt relays. It consumes 12 amps at 13.5 volts (160 watts). Hilarious.
[tags]Retrocomputing,Hacks[/tags]
SimplyPhysics has a nice page of objects which have close encounters with the magnets inside MRI machines.  Now I know why people with stints and other metal in their bodies can’t have MRIs. 🙂
[tags]Bizarre,MRI[/tags]
Another of those musical projects, this one comes via the Make blog. Paul reprograms old dot matrix printers (does anyone younger than me actually remember these?) to play musical notes. His description of the project:
I’ve got an ongoing project, reprogramming the firmware in these 1985 Epson LQ-500 printers to turn them into musical instruments. I originally just wanted to make a sort of homemade mellotron, but it’s evolved into a much deeper project.
Nutty. Check out his writeup of three iterations of this project, and be sure to check out some of his other synth projects.
[tags]MAKEzine,Music,Synthesizers[/tags]
Yesterday I mentioned the live webcam views of the Augustine Island volcano, today I thought I’d give you a link to Google’s satellite view of the island, since it is still dark at this moment and all you can see in the webcam is black. A quick bit of Googling to find the volcanos latitude and longitude and then going to the sunrise calculator at the US Naval Observatory reveals that morning twilight should just be beginning, with sunrise officially at 9:39 Alaska standard time.
Update: Apparently an eruption is actually underway, with some ash falling. From their website:
Level of Concern Color Code: RED
Several explosive events occurred at Augustine Volcano this morning: at approximately 3:55 AM AST (13:24 UTC); 8:47 AM AST (17:47); and 11:22 AM AST (20;22). Pilot reports and satellite imagery confirm ash clouds in excess of 30,000 ft above sea level moving eastward. Seismic data suggest that pyroclastic flows and lahars (volcanic mudflows) are occurring on the flanks of the island and possibly extending beyond.
Similar short-lived explosive activity is expected to continue over the next several days or weeks. Individual explosions are expected to produce ash plumes accompanied by pyroclastic flows and lahars (volcanic mudflows) on the flanks of the volcano.
[tags]Volcano,Google Maps,Sunrise,Sunset[/tags]
Courtesy of the new forum section of the Make blog, check out Jake von Slatt’s incredibly impressive conversion of a 1989 Thomas Saf-T-Liner bus into a family camper. He apparently got the bus for about $2000 on eBay, and with six months of work it’s shaping up into quite the stylish home/ride. Me? I’m happy when I fix a windshield wiper.
Oh, and the Make forums have an RSS feed too, so I’ll be keeping an eye on them too with bloglines.
Courtesy of the Make Blog, here is a construction article on how to construct your own 1/4 scale Dalek. I’ve podcasted about creating your own Dalek voice simulator before, so you can see that I’m crazy about Dr. Who already. I should build one of these and fit it with a voice synthesizer.
Via metamerist, some new thinking to jumpstart the new year: The World Question Center asked lots of smart folks “What is your most dangerous idea?” The answers are wide ranging and thought provoking. Check ’em out.