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

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: 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

Friday fun: Arduino Weather Station / Power Meter Receivers

Even before I purchased my Arduino I had decided to use it for a weather station project that I had been thinking of for some time. This video from PracticalArduino is definitely inspiration for me, and I hope it is for you too:



Here are the links for PracticalArduino web site, YouTube channel, and the book: PracticalArduino.

I know I am getting way ahead of myself here, but I am thinking it would be really cool if a bunch of Arduino enthusiasts got together to link their Arduino based weather stations together through some sort of service that offered virtual servers such as http://www.gogrid.com/ to analyze the data that all their stations gathered. To what end? Well maybe the data could be used with Google Earth or Google Maps to display the data for an amateur meteorological project. Students, DIY'ers, and geeks in general could contribute to the project regardless of their skill level or specialty.

Like I said I am getting ahead of myself, but it is food for thought. Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Ghost Phone

Friday fun for this week is another great weekend project from makemagazine that is ideal for this upcoming Halloween - The Ghost Phone:



Build one of these and you'll have lot's of fun, even when it's not Halloween. You can find the PDF for this project at the URL below:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/05/weekend_project_ghost_phone_pdf.html

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

CircuitCellar: Sci-Fi Inspirations

Just a quick note that the latest issue of CircuitCellar arrived in the mail a few days ago, and as always it was loaded with lots of geek goodies! One of the treasures in this issue is the PRIORITY INTERRUPT column by Steve Ciarcia entitled "Sci-Fi Inspirations" where he writes about how the original Star Trek influenced many technologies that we take for granted today. Some good examples are the Cell Phone, the PDA, and Large-View Screen.

Give the column a read, and I think you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Cheers ~ Jim

Friday fun: Wireless Covert Listening Device

Here's a great weekend project from makemagazine for all you snoops out there - A Wireless Covert Listening Device:



Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Lego printer fun!

I know this video of a Lego printer has been featured on Digg, PCWorld, and Geekosystem, but this is so cool I just had to post it here again. Depending on your tastes the music may be a little too loud so adjust your speakers accordingly:



Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: BigDog Beta

I thought I would finish off my binge of BigDog robot videos with this video from pantlessknights showing an early BigDog prototype (read parody)



I wonder what the BigDog left on that beach in Thailand?

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

BigDog Beach'n

Here's another video from BostonDynamics featuring the BigDog robot. This time the BigDog is strutting his stuff on a beach in Thailand:



Imagine working on a robot such as BigDog and then going to some exotic beach to test it out. Talk about dream jobs! Cheers ~ Jim

Friday fun: Boston Dynamics BIGDOG Robot

If you are in any way interested in robotics then you have to check out this video from boingboingvideo of Boston Dynamics BIGDOG Robot:



The BIGDOG is designed for military use and is one of the most advanced quadruped robots out there. It's a pretty interesting concept, and the Boston Dynamics and BIGDOG links provide a lot more information.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Portable computer commercial from 1977

This week's Friday Fun may be a little redundant in that I already posted this video on my 8-Bit Retro Computing blog, but I just get a kick out of this classic commercial for the IBM 5100 Portable Computer courtesy of MrClassicAds:



The commercial is from 1977 which happens to be the same year that I graduated from high school. I guess back then that a computer weighing about 50 pounds really could be considered a portable. By comparison my netbook is about 1/50th of the weight of the 5100, and orders of magnitude more powerful. It's incredible to see how technology has progressed over the years.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Evasive Beeping Thing

Here is another weekend project from makemagazine. I am quite certain that those of you who enjoy playing pranks on your coworkers will enjoy building the Evasive Beeping Thing:



If you plan to build this little beastie then you should check out this link at the makemagazine site which includes errata, user comments, and further links including one for the updated schematic.

And if you have a moment please check out the Geeks Who Care blog, and drop me a line or leave a comment if you have any suggestions.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Bohemian Rhapsody Remix

While last weeks clip on reusing Zip Drives was good, I have to say it pales in comparison to this weeks video clip on creative ways of reusing old technology. Check out bd594's fantastic "Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix" below:



Pretty cool huh? By the way I have been meaning to write a post about a project I worked on recently with my friend Chuck Goolsbee, but due to a case of toxic pizza I have just been too sick to write anything. I am feeling better now, so I will get something up soon. In the mean time swing on over to Chuck's blog and read his account of the tachometer mod I helped him with for his E-Type Jaguar.

Also if you have a second then please swing by my Geeks Who Care blog, and take a look. It's a blog set up to help coordinate efforts between geeks and groups who need their services, but it's doesn't seem to be getting too much interest. Please drop me a line or leave a comment if you have any suggestions. Thanks!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim