Porsche 918 factory

Christian Gingras - the man who fixed Robotron

This is a cool story about how Robotron was disassembled, analyzed, and fixed by a genius hacker. Now that is dedication.

per Eugene Jarvis- Around 1987 a kid in Canada named Christian Gingras completely analyzed the machine code in the ROMS and synthesized an entire Robotron source listing from the Roms. He then sent a list of 7 bugs he found in the game just by reading the code, and we fixed them. One of them was the infamous diagonal shot crash bug!

http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/christiangingras/

The history of the remote control

Here's an interesting bit of history about the remote control: Steve Wozniak formed a company to make a universal remote.

Wozniak's high-powered, 20-button remote, released in 1987 with a thick user's manual and its own programming language, was far too complicated for the mainstream consumer. His idea split the remote-control market into its two long-standing constituencies—the hackers and the loungers. Now the former had a device that was just for them, a remote that could be loaded up with macros and reprogrammed. (Its descendants live on today.)

The CL9 Core Remote.

http://www.ktronicslc.com/core.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/design/2012/06/the_history_of_the_remote_control_why_are_they_so_awful_.2.html

Omron Pedometer HJ-720ITC

I like to use this pedometer to see how much I actually walk in a day. The Omrons have little accelerometers inside which are very accurate. It's so much better than the el cheapo pedometers that have a mechanical switch that audibly clicks when you shake it up and down. The omron works really well when you just drop it in your pocket. It also doubles as a pocket watch as it has a clock built in.

What I've found is a few things: I walk around 100 paces a minute. I average around 7500 steps/day which is around 3 miles assuming 2 feet per step, and it takes 75 minutes of walking to do it.

My all time record is something like 22000 steps, which is at least 8 miles. Man, was I tired.

I usually only wear the pedometer when I leave the house, so I probably get more steps than is recorded.

Since I keep it in my pocket with keys I worry about it being scratched, so I put some package sealing tape cut to size on the front to cover it. (Note: I use good package sealing tape like Manco that doesn't leave a residue when you remove it. There are horrible cheap package sealing tapes that leave the worst hard-to-remove reside on things.) I also put some scotch magic tape on the back to make sure I didn't lose the screw for the battery compartment, as I've done that before.

The only problem that I've had with it is that it has corrupted the memory once and I had to wait 41 days for that to resolve itself. I think it had to do with letting the battery run down. Now when I see that the steps aren't counting and the display shows --, I immediately either take the battery out (if I don't have a battery handy) or change it (if I do have a battery handy.) My theory is that it writes the data to flash memory when it rolls over at midnight and if it writes corrupted data to flash then it won't download properly.

Whoever wrote the downloading program, it would be nice if it could handle errors more gracefully than to just quit. It should be able to work around such an error and at least give you the option to skip the bad data.

I've had other omron pedometers and carried them simultaneously in my pocket and they're fairly consistent, within 5-10%.

If you want to read more about the omron, here's a few pages I've come across.


https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/my-favorite-pedometer-omron-hj-720itc/

http://blogannath.blogspot.com/2010/08/first-impression-review-of-omron-hj.html

http://omronpocket-pedometer.blogspot.com/2010/07/omron-hj-720itc-pocket-pedometer-with.html

Starring the Computer

Starring the Computer is a website dedicated to the use of computers in film and television. Each appearance is catalogued and rated on its importance (ie. how important it is to the plot), realism (how close its appearance and capabilities are to the real thing) and visibility (how good a look does one get of it). Fictional computers don't count (unless they are built out of bits of real computer), so no HAL9000 - sorry.

http://starringthecomputer.com/

Real Life Buckaroo Banzai

I remember this old movie from 1984 called Buckaroo Banzai. It was a terrible movie, probably because I couldn't believe that the lead character could be so awesome.

The wikipedia article describes Buckaroo as:

"A renaissance man, the character is a top neurosurgeon, particle physicist, race car driver, rock star and comic book hero, and probably the last hope of the human race."

Well, Forrest Bird is pretty cool. He's not a neurosurgeon, but he did invent the respirator. He's piloted just about every kind of plane that you can imagine. The guy is about as close as you'll find to a real life Buckaroo Banzai.

He has a huge collection of cars and planes, and shares his collection with his own museum, open to the public called the "Bird Aviation Museum." If you're ever in Sandpoint, Idaho, you should check it out.

And his wife is pretty talented too.

http://www.inventone.com/founder.asp

"Dr. Pamela Bird is a licensed building contractor in both commercial and residential construction. She is also a licensed pilot with interests in aviation, horseback riding, snow skiing, gardening and boating."

I guess I should make that plural: Real Life Buckaroo Banzais.


http://www.birdaviationmuseum.com/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/forrest-bird-the-birdman-of-idaho/

Runaway Golf Cart goes in circles

Joke Atari 2600 boxes

I thought these Atari 2600 joke boxes were amusing.

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/04/21/fun-from-yesterday/

http://www.consolecity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93113

I also saw the Venture Bros season 3 box that pays homage to atari 2600 cartridge boxes.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Venture-Bros-Season-3/dp/B001NOMO2Y

Jake Lloyd - the downside of fame

It's sad to see how fame can really destroy people. Jake Lloyd played Anakin Skywalker as a child and it was a curse.

"Jake Lloyd was charged with failing to stop for officers and reckless driving after hitting speeds over 100 miles an hour."

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/Star-Wars-Actor-Charged-in-High-Speed-Chase-Jake-Lloyd-Anakin-Skywalker-Phantom-Menace-308872741.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2110383/Anakin-Skywalker-actor-Jake-Lloyd-Star-Wars-fame-turned-life-living-hell.html

Walk like the Amish

A pedometer study of an Old Order Amish community showed that their average man logged 18,000 steps per day and their average woman logged 14,000 steps per day, and they had one of the lowest rates of overweight and obesity of any community in North America.

http://walking.about.com/cs/measure/a/amish010704.htm

Haunted Roms

There’s only one reliable way to determine which chips are the ROMs. This is a picture of the same board taken at midnight:

The low green phosphorescence you can see in this image appears at the witching hour due to the fact that almost all masked ROMs are haunted. THIS IS COMPLETELY TRUE

http://www.nycresistor.com/2012/07/07/stick-a-straw-in-its-brain-and-suck-how-to-read-a-rom/

The Jets - 80s flashback

I would listen to the album Magic by the Jets over and over again. They had a nice sound to their music.

The woman who could not forget

Jill Price remembers *everything*. Is it a blessing or a curse?

NBA traveling - two steps are better than one

In the conversation that follows, Borgia unravels one of the NBA's great secrets.
"We really don't reference the rulebook."

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/6035/nba-traveling-we-really-don-t-reference-the-rulebook

So they changed the rule to allow two steps.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4563546

Why do all cars look alike?

https://5thcolor.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/why-do-all-new-cars-look-alike/

http://blog.jimgrey.net/2014/02/26/lookalike-cars/

Brazen taggers

I don't know what city this is, but I couldn't believe how brazen the taggers are in this video. They ruin a bunch of buses with the drivers watching.

Y'know these buses aren't cheap. Some of the 60 foot hybrids can cost almost $800,000. You just can't have anything nice it seems.

IBM Proprinter - design for assembly

I thought this was an interesting article on how the IBM Proprinter was designed to be simple to manufacture and assemble. This video shows it assembled in 3.5 minutes.

http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Case-Study-The-IBM-Proprinter



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_for_assembly

The Two-tiered society

"Is this the end of America's middle class? Study warns families are either rich or poor in new 'two-tiered society'"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062224/End-Americas-middle-class-Two-tiered-society-families-rich-poor.html

Alive Inside

Just watched the documentary Alive Inside, where they play music for Alzheimer's/Dementia patients. It's amazing how they respond to this music therapy. It makes you wonder how something so simple doesn't get more attention.



https://musicandmemory.org/

This Redbox is full

So I rented Chappie from the Redbox yesterday, and I thought it was pretty entertaining. I liked the concept and there were some good dramatic moments. It was kinda funny watching him set up the PS4 supercomputer cluster. Boy, the movies make all this tech look easy. Uploading consciousness.dat...

Anyway, when I returned it the Redbox gave me the message "This Redbox is full." What?

After listening to some whirring, I tried it again and this time it worked. I wonder if the Redbox machine has a place to dump excess discs.

http://consumerist.com/2009/08/14/what-should-i-do-when-redbox-has-indigestion/

New Clippers logo...

So the Clippers have a new logo, and man is it lame. I could've designed that. And I thought that the Cavaliers had bad uniforms. I guess it's supposed to look like a paper clip.

I think they should've gone to this webpage for the Clippers logo.


http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/6/17/8802337/new-clippers-logo-revealed-steve-ballmer-conan

Talking to Siri

Sometimes its fun to just say random stuff to Siri and see what it says back. When I say "I can't believe it's not butter" in my best Fabio voice, Siri replies "If you can't, you can't."

High Wire Act

I get a feeling of heights from watching this.

Sniffing out graffiti vandals

Taggers can ruin a train car in just a minute or two.

Curviest roads

How about the Hana Highway in Maui with 620 curves? Here's a collection of curvy roads.

http://www.designfloat.com/blog/2011/02/21/curvy-roads-inspiring-photoset/

Mr. W

The Straightest Roads in the World

http://jalopnik.com/5963917/the-longest-straight-roads-in-the-world

Monitor Test Dongle

There's one thing that I wish was built into every computer monitor: a self test feature. You'd turn it on, and if a computer wasn't hooked up it should generate a test screen. Some of the newer monitors have it, however it's usually a small square that bounces around the screen.

What I really want is to have it generate a screen full of red, green, blue or white so I can see if there's anything wrong.

I thought this XGA monitor test dongle was pretty cool. Just plug it in and it'll generate VGA signals so you can tell if the monitor is working correctly.

http://www.cdadapter.com/vgase10.htm

Two Monkeys Were Paid Unequally

RedBox reviews

Sometimes the reviews are more entertaining than the actual movie. I've found that the reviews by RedBox users are pretty honest.

Pretty bad movie. Waste of time and money. Very disappointing

garbage, glad it was free.

Movie not even worth 1 star. DO NOT waste your money or even a free play!!

Turned it off after 20 minutes and only left it on that long because I was busy doing something else. Very disappointed.

This is such and odd movie. I had to stop and ask myself WTF was going on? Plot was all over the place.

OK for $1.60, but I'll never get 2 hours of my life back!

Could not recommend in all good conscious.

Commodore Amiga Still Controls Heat and A/C At 19 Michigan Public Schools

Commodore Amiga Still Controls Heat and A/C At 19 Michigan Public Schools

A 30 year old Amiga is controlling the heat and aircon in Grand Rapids.

I like this part: "If the computer stopped working tomorrow, a staff person would have to turn each building’s climate control systems on and off by hand."

"Parts for the computer are difficult to find, Hopkins said. It is on its second mouse and third monitor."

"A new, more current system would cost between $1.5 and 2 million."

I can buy a lot of parts for 2 million. 8-)


http://slashdot.org/story/15/06/12/1917208/commodore-pc-still-controls-heat-and-ac-at-19-michigan-public-schools

original article:

http://woodtv.com/2015/06/11/1980s-computer-controls-grps-heat-and-ac/

Berzerk creator Alan McNeil interview

I always thought the arcade game Berzerk was awesome. Here's an interview with its creator, Alan McNeil, who went on to greater things like creating Macromedia Director.

"I believe that my rule of thumb helped make Berzerk a good value coin-op game. The rule was take the current price of a movie theater ticket and divide it down to pennies per minute then figure out the time you should get for a quarter - it was between 3 and 5 minutes back then depending on where the theater was located. So my goal was a 3 minute game for a beginner. "


http://a9k.info/qna.html

The Cannonball Loop Water Slide

"From 1978 to 1996, the Action Park of Vernon Township, New Jersey provided thousands of teenagers with the white-knuckle thrills only inattentive employees and poorly conceived amusement park rides can deliver."

Behold the water slide so dangerous it was shut down immediately.

http://io9.com/5904307/behold-the-water-slide-so-dangerous-it-was-shut-down-immediately

Bench seats on a plane? The morph seat

I hope they never put these kinds of seats on planes. I can just see what happens when the fabric sinks down and you make contact with the hard frame below. It is an interesting concept, but it'll never fly.

A simpler idea: Put in a bench seat and take out the arm rests.

http://blog.seymourpowell.com/2013/11/seymourpowell-designs-morph-a-concept-economy-seat-for-airline-travel/


http://jonathanturley.org/2014/11/07/now-passengers-are-advised-to-bring-your-own-seat-airlines-to-move-to-bench-seating/

NBA finals history - How the Lakers won in 1985

Here's a bit of history that I didn't know: Larry Bird hurt his finger in a bar brawl before the finals.


http://www.celticslife.com/2012/08/thanks-mike-harlow-for-blowing-1985.html


http://www.si.com/longform/2015/1985/nba-finals/

And an interesting footnote from the SI article about Jerry West being robbed in the Forum's parking lot:

POSTSCRIPT: On an August morning in 1992, West, still the Lakers’ GM, was robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot of the Forum. (Ponder for a moment the cosmic indecency of robbing the Logo in his parking lot.) Two thieves demanded his wallet and told him to remove from his finger the 1985 championship ring, the only one he ever wore. They were never caught.

AirBus Electric Plane E-Fan 2.0

Airbus has got a new prototype electric plane, it seats two, flies at 136mph, and the battery lasts for an hour.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3117977/World-s-plug-plane-takes-Bright-sparks-Airbus-unveil-electric-two-seater-E-Fan-aircraft-Paris-Air-s-nearly-silent-flight.html

Target Basketball NBA Finals edition

This is more entertaining than the actual finals. 8-) His girlfriend has the patience of a saint.

http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/6/1/8701563/couple-target-basketball-shopping-cart-nba-finals-warriors-curry

The Paper Clip Dentist

Wow, here's a wacky story. This dentist was using regular paper clips instead of stainless steel posts in his root canals. Maybe he should've used stainless steel paper clips.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091123/Dentist-Michael-Clair-admits-using-PAPER-CLIPS-root-canal-procedure.html

A few bad apples

I always wondered how many graffiti taggers there actually are in a large city. Let's take a hypothetical city of a million people. I would wager there's probably 100-200 active taggers doing most of the graffiti. So as a percentage it's really small. 200 / 1e6 = .0002 or 2 hundreths of a percent.

A small group are responsible for most of the ugly graffiti all around the city.

What percentage of the population has to be "bad" before neighborhoods become "bad" and people start fleeing them?

In the city of Richmond CA, they are targeting the small group of people who are doing the most damage. Not graffiti, but homicides and violent assaults.

http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/the-town-where-it-literally-pays-to-be-a-criminal/story-fnh81jut-1227328371404

It was this that led Devone Boggan to establish the ONS and it was one key piece of information that caused him to implement his controversial strategy. Upon learning that 70 per cent of the homicides and firearm assaults in 2009 were directly linked to just 17 people, Boggan had an epiphany.

“I thought, ‘Wow, if we can wrap our arms around that and just engage the 17 people in a different way, that could have a significant impact on the narrative of what’s really going on in the city of Richmond.

The baffling death of Rob Bironas

The Baffling Death of Rob Bironas

This is such a strange story. It reminds me of these other stories where people have done bizarre things while on Ambien, like sleep driving, sleep eating or sleep shopping.


http://mmqb.si.com/2014/10/01/rob-bironas-tennessee-titans/


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/15/ambien-side-effect-sleepwalking-sleep-aid_n_4589743.html