Friday fun: Mars:2020:Springtime

Here a hilarious piece of animation to celebrate the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars:



This great piece of work by nickjsky was originally uploaded to YouTube in Aug 17, 2006.  Check out his comments regarding the video here, and give him a thumbs up for his excellent work.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: POrtal: Terminal Velocity

This video has been making the rounds this week, and even though it has been posted elsewhere it's so cool that I just have to repost it here:



You can be certain that I'll be playing Portal this weekend..

Thanks to Jason Craft for posting this video.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Real Tracking and Shooting Portal Turret

After watching this I find myself in a quandary. Do I go and play Portal for a few hours, or do I get cracking on my Arduino project(s).



I think I'll get cracking with the Arduino.

Thanks to kss5095  for post this on Youtube.  Best of luck on your project!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: How To Survive A Robot Uprising (aka Robopocalypse)

Hmm, so what about Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics?



Thanks to epipheo for post this on Youtube!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Darth Vader and the Imperial March on Bagpipes and Unicycle - The Unipiper

Umm, words fail me:



Thanks to squiddkidd for posting this on YouTube. Check out the Unipiper on Facebook: www.facebook.com/theunipiper

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino PIR Alarm

Here is another great project courtesy of makemagazine featuring John Park, host of Make: Television, showing how to build a PIR (passive infrared) based motion alarm using an Arduino.



More information on the Arduino PIR Alarm can be found here: http://makeprojects.com/Project/PIR-Sensor-Arduino-Alarm/72/1

You can buy the PIR here: http://www.makershed.com/product_p/mkpx6.htm

As John points out, because of their cold body temperatures this PIR alarm is ineffective against zombies, but may be useful against other beasties!

Have a great zombie free weekend ~ Jim
PS: I forgot to follow up the last post regarding the Sony SL-HF-2000 Beta VCR that is still in the box. I'll try to follow up later this weekend.

Friday fun: We Code Hard.mp4

As I have said before I am not a big fan of rap, but video is worth posting:



Thanks to my friend and fellow CoConut Rogelio for sharing this on FB and G+, and thanks to abdulshahbazkhan for originally uploading this to YouTube.

For those of you who read this blog you may have noticed that I haven't been posting much lately. Sorry, but work and other issues have a higher priority. I do plan to post more frequently in the future and hopefully I will have time to work on my Arduino project and post about it as well as my studies in networking (I am working towards some sort of certification).

Have a great weekend ~ Jim
PS: Anyone out there in need of a Sony SL-HF-2000 Beta VCR that is still in the box? I will be posting about that later in the weekend.

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

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: 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