Friday fun: Simon's Cat in 'Santa Claws'

Apparently I missed this Simon's Cat video from last year, so here it is for 2011:



You'll find more Simon's Cat videos here, and be sure to check out the Simon's Cat homepage.

Happy Holidays ~ Jim

Friday fun: What Up Dog (Chill I'ma Cat)

I am not the biggest fan of Rap, but being a cat person I must say I enjoy this video from czg123 - What Up Dog (Chill I'ma Cat):



Check out czg123's YouTube page for more great videos.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Mr Bean goes to the dentist

Ouch! It's been almost a month since my last blog entry. Just before that last entry I visited the dentist to get a crown on the #4 tooth, and because of the damage it was necessary to install a pin in the tooth in order to secure the crown. Apparently this increases the chance of eventually requiring a root canal from 8% to 16%, but unfortunately it increased my chances for needing a root canal to 100% due to an infection and I ended up having an emergency root canal the Thursday before last.

Now you know the inspiration for tonight's Friday Fun video:



Things are getting back to normal and hopefully I will be able to start moving forward with my Arduino project(s) as well as another project involving cutting the cable and the alternatives to cable TV.

That's it for now, have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Steve Jobs - His Funniest Moments -

We all lost a champion of technology with the passing of Steve Jobs. The video below is a tribute to both Steve Jobs, and his humor:



(NOTE: Sound varies, so you will need to adjust as you watch)

Many thanks to Randyvdmeer for posting this video on Youtube. Here is the original URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beIZ04uOT1E

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: 1958 Newsreel: Army's Explorer satellite is launched

Today (Sept. 9) is my 53rd birthday and being a space geek I know that NASA also turns 53 later this year so I thought it would be neat to post the newsreel below that features the launch of the Explorer 1 satellite:



According to this Wikipedia article NASA officially became operational on October 1 of 1958, so I guess we have a few more weeks to prepare for the party. Any thoughts on how to celebrate NASA's 53rd?

By the way, thanks to HistoryReDefined for posting this video on Youtube!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Representatives of the three largest groups of tuna consumers gather to reach consensus.

It looks like the cats and dolphins may have reached a consensus, but the humans just stood around and babbled:



Thanks to viper18276 for posting this on Youtube, and the usual suspects on Facebook who pointed it out to me!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: uncovering static (64k) by fairlight & alcatraz

A friend of mine recently posted this video on facebook, and I thought I would share it here. The video was originally posted on YouTube by AssemblyTV and was an Assembly Summer 2011 Demo competition entry. While the animation is impressive what is even more impressive is that the executable code is less than 64KB. Take a look and enjoy:



This boingboing article has more information about the video. If you want to learn more about the Assembly Computer Festival then go here: http://www.assembly.org

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Team Fortress 2 - Yeah Toast!

It's been a few weeks since I have posted anything here because I have, ahem, been a little distracted. Yeah, I went and purchased the Orange Box, and I have been drawn in to Team Fortress 2. This video from RadioactiveCaffeine seems appropriate since I am constantly getting "toasted" by a pyro:



I just happened to get my copy of the Orange Box two days before Team Fortress was made available for free. I along with a gazillion other noobs jumped in to the fray and provided some nice target practice for the more experienced players.

Anyways, TF2 has been a lot of fun, but I have spent too much time away from my projects, and studies. I'll just have to limit my toasting and target practice opportunities for just a few hour a week for now.

Have a great weekend, and watch out for the pyros ~ Jim

STS-135: The Mission

Instead of the usual Friday Fun video I thought I would post a video of today's launch of the Shuttle Atlantis. Unfortunately embedding is not enabled on the official NASAtelevision video of the launch, so I decided to post this mission overview instead. Below the video is more information about the STS 135 mission:



Source - NASAtelevision on Jun 27, 2011

"STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program, is detailed in this overview of Atlantis' flight to the International Space Station targeted to launch on July 8. Commander Chris Ferguson; Pilot Doug Hurley; and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim Engineers want to understand why the pump failed and improve designs for future spacecraft.

This is the final flight for shuttle Atlantis and the Space Shuttle Program. NASA's workhorses for the past 30 years have completed their mission to build and supply the orbiting outpost, and the agency is now looking to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit."

While I am sad to see the Space Shuttle program end I am hopeful that NASA will continue with manned missions to explore space. If you have an interest in space exploration and astronomy then feel free to check out my Cloudymidnights, and Astrolinks blogs.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim:

Friday fun: Gameduino

Earlier this week I saw a post (somewhere) about the "Gameduino"; a gaming shield for the Arduino that has video and audio outputs. After some searching I came across this article from PC World that featured the video below:



The Gameduino is produced by James Bowman, and you can find out more about it at: http://excamera.com/sphinx/gameduino/

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino-Based Laser Controlled Wireless Automatic Cat Food Dispenser

It has been some time since I posted about the Arduino, and I thought this video would be a great one to post given my fondness for cats:



Thanks to andresleon72 for posting the video. You can find out more about this project and others at: http://andres-leon.blogspot.com/

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Address by Secretary of Geek Affairs Wil Wheaton, PAX 2009

I just started reading Wil Wheaton's "Just A Geek" and thought this would be a great video to post for tonight:



Thanks to adhesivemedstrip for positng this jiggly, but fun video from PAX 2009. I am ashamed to admit that even though I am a gamer and live in the area I have never made it to PAX. Maybe I will make it this year.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: My Blackberry Is Not Working! - The One Ronnie, Preview - BBC One

This classic piece of comedy featuring Ronnie Corbett was posted on YouTube by the BBC back on Dec 20, 2010, and I am embarrassed to say I have never seen it until now:



Many thanks to the BBC for posting this and allowing others to embedded it, and many thanks to Ronnie Corbett for all the great laughs he has brought us.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Hard Drive Data Recovery - Western Digital Head Swap

So what was my inspiration for today's Friday Fun video from acsdata on swapping the heads on a Western Digital drive? Well it has something to do with my scrapping out 15 or so drives today, and having some fun with the magnets afterwards:



The people at Acsdata (http://www.acsdata.com/) are pros at doing this, so don't try and salvage one of your drives based on this video.

Now if you have a trashed drive and you want to have some fun then get some Torx drivers (usually T10, T8, and T7), several sizes of both Phillips and standards (flat blade) screwdrivers, and go to town tearing that puppy apart!

I must caution you to beware of the magnets. Having a pair of magnets from a hard drive snap together on to the tip of one of your pinkies is no fun.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino Relay Driver

RuthJ180 produced this video of her using the the Arduino relay driver to control a doorbell:



On the page where this video was posted RuthJ180 referenced these two sites:

• An article from Maurice's Hobby Robotics "Using Relays with Arduino – Turning on the Lights": http://www.glacialwanderer.com/hobbyrobotics/?p=9
• And here is the schematic she used: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/uploads/Learning/relays.pdf

I was going to throw in some lame "keep it ringing" comment, but decided not to because I am not in a ding-dong kind of mood tonight.

Any ways, I hope you all have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Help Desk Technician

This video from CollegeGradCareers is for all the Help Desk Technicians out there:



And now that you watched the video you can go here!

Feel free to leave a comment and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino Park

If you are a fan of the Arduino then you enjoy this mildly humorous introduction to the Arduino's layout courtesy of engineerzerochannel:



Unfortunately due to "life" (or lack there of) I haven't been able to take of tour of my Arduino lately, but recently I searched around for other Arduino fans in my home town of Seattle and came up with the following sites:

• Metrix Create:Space: http://metrixcreatespace.com/
• Arduino Blog - Teaching Arduino in Seattle: http://arduino.cc/blog/2011/04/07/teaching-arduino-in-seattle/
• Arduino Meetups - Seattle: http://arduino.meetup.com/cities/us/wa/seattle/
• SeattleArduino: http://arduino.seattleandrew.com/

Hopefully when I get some free time I can jump back in to working on my Arduino and start moving forward with my weather station project. Who knows, maybe meet some of the other Arduino fans here in Seattle. Feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment if you are an Arduino fan in the Seattle area (or even if you are not in the Seattle area).

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Computer Virus TV News Report 1988

Computer viruses and other malware need to be taken seriously, but this news report from 1988 definitely goes overboard with the melodrama:



Thanks to Sashazur for originally posting this clip on Youtube. By the way, I hope everyone had a fun, and safe April Fools Day.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

The best anti-virus application around.

See more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!


This is so damn cute!

Friday fun: Grace Hopper on Late Night

Grace Hopper was one of the pioneers in the field of computer science, and as this clip from Late Night with David Letterman shows, she was a great wit too:



Grace Hopper retired from the US Navy with the rank of Rear Admiral, and in the USS Hopper (DDG-70) is named after her. Check out the links below if you want to learn more about Grace Hopper and remember the famous quote often attributed to her: "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission".

• Wikipedia article on Grace Hopper: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
• USS Hopper - DDG-70: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hopper_(DDG-70)
• Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing: http://www.gracehopper.org/

Thanks to JanPB for posting the clip..

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Collin's Lab - USB Hacking with Arduino

Are you interested in using your Arduino as a USB host? Well then check out Collin Cunningham's video from makemagazine for some inspiration:



Here are the links related to the video:

• Collin’s Lab: USB Hacking with Arduino: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/11/usbhacking.html
• Circuits@Home: http://www.circuitsathome.com/

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Simon's Cat in 'Sticky Tape'

Have you ever had one of those days? Well it looks like Simon's Cat is having one. Cat vs. Tape = Laughs:



Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Herding Cats @ IKEA

Given the way this last week has gone I feel it's time for another cat herding video, and this video from IKEAcats fits the bill:



IKEA - The furniture for DIY'ers - You build it, you take the blame :)

I've got a really good start on my day off, so I am going to spend some serious time on the Arduino and quite possibly setting up a Free BSD boxen for an unrelated project.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino EMF detector

Here is another fun Arduino project from makemagazine. This time the project is a EMF detector:



Here is the URL for the original EMF detector project: http://www.aaronalai.com/emf-detector

More information including the Arduino sketch can be found here: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/05/making-the-arduino-emf-detector.html

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Klepto Kitty the Cat Burglar

Nothing like a Klepto Kitty to make your day:



Thanks to FrownsUpsideDown for posting this on YouTube. It made my day.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino Rumble Robots

Do you have an old toy robot lying around that you feel like dropping an Arduino in and then let loose around the house? Well then this video from makemagazine is for you:



Here is the URL to DinoFab (http://www.dinofab.com/), and in case you haven't memorized it by now here is the URL for the Arduino homepage (http://www.arduino.cc/)

You may also be interested in this post on Slashdot about the Arduino, and why it has become such a big hit with hobbyists. The post itself was inspired by this Makemagazine blog post:

Why the Arduino Won and Why It’s Here to Stay.

The Makemagazine post makes an excellent point as to why the Arduino is becoming so successful.

That's it for now, and as always feel free to comment or drop me a line if you are interested in the Arduino.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino 101 potentiometers and servos

So how's my Arduino project going? It's not :( I've been buried at work and I am still dragged down by this cold that I have been fighting for over three weeks now. Yeah, I know.... excuses, excuses. Hopefully this video from makemagazine will get me moving:



Here is the URL for the Arduino homepage: http://www.arduino.cc/ Feel free to comment or drop me a line if you are interested in the Arduino, and especially if you are have or are working on an Arduino based weather station.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: I AM A GEEK! by The Society for Geek Advancement

This video from GeekAdvancement is for all you Geeks out there:



Check out the GeekAdvancement home page at: http://geekadvancement.com/

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: The I Have a Cold Song

I have been fighting a cold for over a week now, and I am just trashed from dealing with it. As I a matter of fact I am so trashed I was going to skip posting anything for this week's Friday Fun and then I came across the video below. Thanks bigedude33:



Hopefully I can get over this cold soon and get moving on my Arduino project. If anyone else out there is working on an Arduino based weather station please fee free to drop me a line. I would love to hear from you.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Seattle, snow, and sliding. Well, maybe not so fun.

** Caution: This weeks Friday Fun video may not be work safe due to some profanity at the end, so use your own judgment. **

Everyone knows that Seattle has a perpetual rainy season (wink, wink, say no more, nudge, nudge), but Seattle has another dubious distinction. That other distinction is for having some of the worst traffic for when it snows. To be honest our topography has a lot to do with it as well as the fickleness of our weather. Below is a video from November 22, 2010 that was taken by fsayre of a car crashing on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill:



Hopefully no one was hurt in that accident, but it does show how much the weather can impact our lives and this is one of the reasons I am becoming more interested in meteorology. This interest is why I am choosing a weather station as a project for my Arduino.

Seattle also has some very interesting personalities in the field of meteorology and to me the most interesting of them is Cliff Mass who's blog I routinely read. One recent post on Cliff's blog really caught my attention. In the last paragraph of "WeatherFest, Money, and the Aftermath" Cliff writes on the topic of "nowcasting" (describing what is happening now and during the next few hours), and how he is working with the city of Seattle to develop a series of nowcasting applications to help provide up to the minute weather information. The concept of nowcasting is really intriguing to me, and I am going to be watching Cliff's blog to see how the project moves forward. If you are interested in the concept of nowcasting then check out Cliffs blog.

Well that's it for this Friday's Fun post. By the way, I am sorry I missed posting last week, but I had several emergencies to deal with.

Take care and have a great weekend ~ Jim