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