Yard Sale of Fury

This always cracked me up.

(you'll have to click on the link as embedding's disabled)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUp1BAd7WWE

The Borg are a rip-off of the Cybermen from Doctor Who

Years ago, I was watching the Tomb of the Cybermen from 1967 and I realized how eerily similar that the Borg and the Cybermen were. The Cybermen used the phrase "resistance is futile". The Cybermen take humans and turn them into Cybermen, a fusion of man and machine. Sound familiar?

I suppose I should be glad that ST:Next Gen took the idea of the Cybermen and put it into far more entertaining storylines and packaging. The Borg were really good villains.

http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/6128/did-the-cybermen-influence-the-creation-of-the-borg

Haven't we seen this before?

Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan - are they the same person? It's amazing how similar their moves are.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Diikkq-cmA

The 800,000 mile Mustang

This lady really loves her '68 Mustang. She's had it 42 years. I wonder how many cars made today will be still running in 42 years!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZAboQfcULM

All he does is Lin

My favorite NBA player is Jeremy Lin. I miss the days of Linsanity. It was a unique moment in time. It's really a shame that he hurt his knee.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O40UFJi4OE0

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

The $15,000 Elastic Batman

When I was a kid, I had a stretch armstrong and stretch monster. Great fun. I found this interesting website made by a serious collector. http://www.stretcharmstrongworld.com/

He paid $15,000 for a stretch batman. Wow.

http://www.stretcharmstrongworld.com/photo2_1.html

More signs of the times

Save your hearing from turbo hand dryers

One of the modern things that drives me crazy are these turbo hand dryers. Every time you go into the bathroom, these things blast your ears. I figured out an easy solution: carry ear plugs. They're cheap and I always keep a pair in my pocket. Just put them in before you go in. They're also handy to have when walking near construction noise too.

Prevention is the best remedy.



http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tom-rokins/damaged-hearing-super-fast-hand-dryers_b_3633942.html

http://www.philpalombi.com/2012/07/my-earplug-odyssey/

Infinite Mirrors

For some reason, when I upload my 3d iframe page to googledrive it doesn't seem to work right. I only seem to be able to access locations on googledrive. So why not do an infinite mirror effect, by putting the URL of the page into the box.

Paste this location into the URL box of iframetest_enterurl.html Then click in the iframe and do it again...

https://googledrive.com/host/0B7Vet6dn3-GweXRIN3B4MWdUZ2M



https://googledrive.com/host/0B7Vet6dn3-GweXRIN3B4MWdUZ2M


iframetest_enterurl.html http://googledrive.com/host/0B7Vet6dn3-GweXRIN3B4MWdUZ2M

3d iframes

Howabout putting an iframe into a div in 3d?

Some pages don't load in an iframe thanks to "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN".

What's strange is that it doesn't seem to work now that I've uploaded it to my blog...I just get an empty iframe. Weird.



you can enter a URL to set the src of the iframe

iframetest_enterurl.html

Well, if this page doesn't work, this demonstration from html5rocks does work.

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/3d/css/

Secure all loose items before takeoff

The only car in the world that has an "insane mode".

Swim in your living room

This mansion is insane. Can you live in 25,000 square feet?

sign of the times

The $1 million foldable apartment

Can you live in 420 square feet?

The extremely short shelf life of movies

Movies are very perishable. They make the bulk of their money in the theater in the very first week, around half of the total gross. After the first week, the revenue drops off rapidly. I like to look at the website Box Office Mojo and it's very instructive to see just how rapid this dropoff is.

Just for fun, let's look at the Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. To date, its domestic US gross is $255 million. In the first week, it grossed $113 million.

The decay rate from week to week keeps relentlessly trending downward. That's why there's so much pressure to have a good opening. If the movie doesn't open big in the first week, it never recovers. As the revenue drops, fewer and fewer theaters will keep showing the movie.

One of the trends is that interval between the time the movie goes out of the theater and when it comes out on DVD is becoming shorter and shorter. The Hobbit: BOTFA came out on Dec 17, 2014 and according to amazon the DVD Release Date is March 24, 2015. So only about 3 months between opening in the theater and hitting DVD.

The interval between film opening and hitting DVD/Blu-ray (and before that VHS) used to be far, far longer.

If we look at the original LOTR, it was about 9 months.

December 19, 2001 (USA)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Release date
August 6, 2002
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Initial DVD release

It's interesting that the bulk of the revenue is being made outside of the US. Domestically, BOTFA grossed $255 million but 3 times that overseas, something like 700 million for a $955 million gross.

I'm sure that the death of the movie theater has been predicted many, many times but with Redbox and internet streaming services I wonder how the theaters will survive. Why go to the theater when 60 inch televisions, 7.1 stereo systems, and soon 4k TVs are commonplace?

If you're patient, the movie that just hit the theater will be on DVD in 3 months, and Redbox in 4 months. And Redbox charges $1.50 versus $8 per ticket (searching google for "cost of movie tickets").

Star Blazers - The Universe Spreading to Inifinity

I loved Star Blazers growing up. The music was so awesome. It really had a great theme. The lyrics were really memorable and rousing. I also loved the piece "Universe spreading to infinity". Just beautiful.

On the high seas - more stupid browser tricks

Put this into the web console/javascript console:

You may want to get your dramamine first.

var rotcounter=0;rotpos=0;var stopit=0;function quickfunc(){rotcounter+=3;rotpos=Math.sin((rotcounter)/360)*20;document.body.style.transform="rotateZ("+rotpos+"deg)";if(stopit==0)window.setTimeout(quickfunc,10);document.title=rotpos;}quickfunc();

stopit=1


When you want it to stop, just type stopit=1

When 24 people drive the same car on one day

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/10/06/when-24-people-drive-the-same-car-on-one-day/

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/26/phone-booths-bah-how-many-people-can-you-fit-inside-a-smart/

Little Boxes all the same

Really good reference on perspective css transforms

I was searching on the terms "document css perspective" and came across this great reference at apple's website.

Using 2D and 3D Transforms - Apple Developer

https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/documentation/InternetWeb/Conceptual/SafariVisualEffectsProgGuide/Using2Dand3DTransforms/Using2Dand3DTransforms.html

Story of Star Wars

I taped this off the radio and listened to it over and over while reading Giant-Size star wars #1 and #2. Star Wars had such an incredible soundtrack and Roscoe Lee Browne did an awesome job as the narrator. As one of the commenters says "this was my star wars VHS back in the day".

Everything is spinning

More stupid browser tricks, this time the document spins in realtime.

Type this into a Javascript console in chrome or Web Console in firefox:


var myrot=0;function quickfunc(){document.body.style.transform="rotateZ("+(myrot++)+"deg)";if(myrot<=360) window.setTimeout(quickfunc,100);document.title=myrot;document.body.style.transformOrigin="right top"}quickfunc();

It will spin the document once around.

The way things are going these days

Windows 8...ugh

I bought this laptop with windows 8 and I really hate it (Windows 8 that is). The laptop is great. I can't stand software that wants to hide details from me and makes me work hard to find things because they've been hidden. Having progress bars that shimmer and little spinning stars are pretty but I want to get something done #$%!@#$! I honestly can't figure out what I'm doing half the time.

The built in apps are really lame. Like Scan for instance, or the other one "Fax and Scan". They couldn't put in basic editing functionality? Like rotating the scan 180 degrees?

I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but for now I can't stand it.

A different way of programming...time limited functions

Programming web browsers requires a different way of thinking. I always like to think in terms of linear progression, sequences that run from beginning to end. Web browsers want you to run a javascript function that has a time limit. If you exceed the time limit, the browser doesn't like it. While your function is running, the browser won't update the screen.

So you have to break up your long-running function into small enough bites that will run for a bit, then give control back to the browser. Of course, this plays havoc with any kind of structured programming, like being in a complex if-then block or somewhere inside of a for loop. One has to figure out a nice way to bring the function back to what it was doing. It makes my head hurt sometimes.

It'd be nice to just call a function like "coop_sleep(x);" which would cooperatively give control back to the browser for x milliseconds so it could update the screen and then allow you to continue execution.


Instead, we have to orchestrate workarounds for javascript's single threaded nature.


A couple of webpages about the issue:

http://javascript.info/tutorial/events-and-timing-depth see Script taking too long and heavy jobs

http://www.sitepoint.com/multi-threading-javascript/

3 perspective planes

So why not do 3 planes?




perspective_test_3.html

Star Wars style scroller

So I figured if you can do planes in 3d, why not a Star Wars style scrolling text display.



Star_Wars_scroller.html

Stupid browser tricks

Type this javascript into a URL bar in firefox to rotate everything a bit:

javascript:alert(document.body.style.transform="rotateZ(45deg)");

(you may need to disable URL bar JS protections)



In chrome, bring up the Javascript Console (Tools/Javascript Console) and type:

document.body.style.transform="rotateZ(45deg)";

You can use the Web Console in firefox too.

More Canvas experiments - two rotating planes

Now with another plane, rotated by 90 degrees.




Perspective_test2.html

Robotech OST

As a kid I loved Robotech. I really liked the characters, the visuals and especially the music. It had a great soundtrack that had a distinctive sound. I liked it so much I bought the Robotech BGM record and listened to it over and over. Some anime purists think that Carl Macek was a hack but I really enjoyed the Robotech story. Isn't that what matters anyway, whether people enjoy it or not?

So here's a youtube clip of Robotech OST, 16 minutes of great listening plus updated visuals.




and these guys do a pretty good rendition of Robotech OST - sounds just like the real thing!

More Canvas experiments - perspective test

I wanted to make a canvas do 3d rotations. This should work with firefox and chrome. It's interesting that firefox seems to have some precision problems and makes the corners of the box "wiggle" (at least on my linux box anyway).




Perspective_test.html

Got $25 million? Here's the house for you.

This house is ridiculous. Originally listed for $65 million, then $50 million, this can be yours for the low price of $25 million. It's the Sierra Star built by internet millionaire Tom Gonzales. What I really liked about it was the disappearing garage.




http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/04/real_estate/unique-homes-lake-tahoe/index.htm


http://sierrastarlaketahoe.com/

Blogging is harder than it looks

I find that this blogging stuff is pretty time consuming. I'm still learning. So if links don't work and things are wonky you know why.

Self driving cars

One of the things that I eagerly await are self-driving cars. But the real revolution will not be in moving people around, but in automated delivery of things. That will really spell the death of the retail store. Instead of you going to the store, the items will come to you.

As a preview of the future, check out these Kiva Systems warehouse robots. Now imagine a whole city full of self driving vehicles making deliveries.

My new toy - Brother PT-D600

I was browsing staples.com and found that they had the PT-D600 for 49.99 which is a really good deal. Good until tomorrow (3/21). It's kind of nice because it has the color backlit screen, will print 1" labels and it's PC connectable (vista and above). I couldn't pass it up. The only thing I didn't like was that it uses TZe tape...because I've got a bunch of TZ tape.

It's interesting that the AC adapter is 12V - tip polarity. (Who uses negative tip polarity except for Brother P-touches?)

http://www.staples.com/Brother-PT-D600-Label-Maker/product_1075641

Canvas experiments

The HTML5 canvas is really awesome to fiddle with. I always wished I'd had this. What's really cool is that you can do all sorts of neat transforms on your canvases. What I ultimately want to do is to have the simulated printjob with a printhead moving back and forth.





Spinning canvas test

Stainless Steel Fords

I've always liked the look of stainless steel and was amazed to see that they made cars out of stainless steel way back in 1935. They still look great!



http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/stainless-steel-fords.cfm

Full Size RC car - BYD F5

How cool is this? A full size car that can be driven by remote control. I want it.


BYD F5: Remote Control Parking






This guy could really use it.

Old Man Parks Tiny Car In Small Garage

Lamp Commander

I haven't been posting for awhile, been kinda busy. I think I'll try to post some stuff on here in the next few days. One of the fun things I've bought is this remote voice operated voice switch, Lamp Commander. First you get Lamp Commander's attention by saying: "Lamp Commander!" Then you ask it to turn the lights on with "Lights On!". To turn the lights off you say "Lights Off!" and to dim the lights you say "Lights Dim!" There's a little wheel on the side to set the sensitivity.

Of course, Lamp Commander is kind of finicky. Sometimes he won't listen. Or sometimes he won't get it right, thinking you said "Lights Off!" instead of "Lights On!" Actually, part of Lamp Commander's charm is that he doesn't work right all of the time. My Dad and I have fun trying to mess up each other by "jamming" the other's commands with a well timed "AHHHHH!". "Don't listen to him Lamp Commander!!!"

Sometimes saying "Lights Onnie!" works better than just "Lights On!".


Lamp Commander responds to other commands too. I've found that "Abracadabra!" works just like saying "Lamp Commander!". "Hocus Pocus" works like "Lights Off/On" It reminds me of the Bugs Bunny merrie melodies cartoon "Transylvania 6-5000" where he gets Count Dracula to change from Dracula into a bat.

Abracadabra! Hocus Pocus!


and here's a video showing some other people having fun with lamp commander.

Great fun and really useful when your hands are full with a plate of food. Now all I need is "TV Commander" where I can change the channels, etc. I like the way they did it with Star Trek: Next Generation where they could tell the computer to "set the lights at 50%" or "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot!"