Google Video has video of an amazing set of Rube Goldberg machines from Japan. 13 minutes long but worth every second. Wow. Check it out.
April 13, 2006
Rocket Boys
Here’s a video of our rocket exploits from the other day. I can’t believe Sean used the “burp-take”. Requires Quicktime and may take a few minutes to load.
April 11, 2006
Business 101
Steve Pavlina offers some good advice to people starting a small business. I have to admit, I’ve made just about every mistake he lists (spending too much, spending too little, being too formal, depending on contracts and not relationships, sacrificing my personality quirks). This is a very realistic look at mistakes and how to avoid them. If you’re in business for yourself, or consider yourself “self-employed” to any extent, this is a good article to read.
April 10, 2006
Mad Scientists- Water Rocket
I had another great mad scientist day with my good friend Sean today. We built and launched a water rocket. The rocket itself is built out of a 2 liter Coke bottle and the base/launcer is constructed from PVC pipe, rubber O-rings, and cable ties (yes, cable ties). The whole contraption is powered by compressed air that is supplied by a cigarrette-lighter powered air pump. At first, we didn’t the silly looking thing would even work. We figured that it would leak too much water, that the seals wouldn’t be tight enough, or that the flimsy looking release mechanism (those cable ties) would do the trick. Skeptically, we set the thing to 40 psi with about 1/3rd of the inverted bottle filled with water. *WHOOSH*. What a surprise to see the thing go up probably 50 feet!
After several tries, we finally maxxed out the pressure at 100psi and about 1 liter of water. By this point Sean’s kids had gone home and we were cowering in the car like scared little girls while holding onto the release rope. Unfortunately, it was after 10pm so we couldn’t get good video- or even any pictures, but we did have a couple of Cyalume glow sticks duct taped to the bottle acting as locators and impromptu rocket fins. I think we easily bypassed 100 feet and probably came closer to 150. It was quite an impressive show.
This project was dirt cheap, costing us each about $15 to buy enough materials for two rockets (it’s kinda hard to buy a 2″ section of PVC pipe, so we’ve got lots extra). The most expensive parts were probably the brass fittings and air line hose. So I brought the extra stuff home with me and will build my own version later. I’ll document with pics and post some video when I shoot it off at the park. What a great time.
for plans and more discussion of water rockets, visit this site.
April 8, 2006
Bad View
Last week, a Microsoft data security guru suggested at a conference that corporate and government users would be wise to come up with automated processes to wipe clean hard drives and reinstall operating systems and applications periodically as a way to deal with malware infestations. What Microsoft is talking about is a utility from SysInternals, a company that makes simply awesome tools.
The crying shame of this whole story is that Microsoft has given up on Windows security. They have no internal expertise to solve this problem among their 60,000-plus employees, and they apparently have no interest in looking outside for help. I know any number of experts who could give Microsoft some very good guidance on what is needed to fix and secure Windows. There are very good developers Microsoft could call upon to help them. But no, their answer is to rebuild your system every few days and start over. Will Vista be any better?
I don’t think so.
Bob Cringely. He has some good speculation about Boot Camp as well.
Lost Again
A call to Lost fans out there. Does anyone have season 2 Tivo’d or taped? We’re a little behind.
We tried downloading a couple of episodes from iTMS, but the quality isn’t as good as we’d like and we have to watch on the computer monitor with the crummy speakers. Plus, free is better than $35.
April 7, 2006
Get Lost
Giles loaned us the first season DVD set of Lost a while back. Erin and I finally got around to watching it last week.
Well.
It only took us six days at four episodes per night for us to tear our way through this thing, and we’re wishing that season two was on DVD. We see now what the hype was about, though hearing that season two isn’t as good as season one takes some of the anticipation away.
We’ve bought the first episode of season 2 on the iTMS, but Erin doesn’t like to “watch” shows on my computer monitor. Can’t blame her, really.
Back when I didn’t think I’d ever watch this show I talked to my friend Jan about it whenever interesting stuff would happen. So going into this marathon of DVD watching, I already knew some of the major plot points and spoilers. Bummer. It was fun to see Erin so surprised, though.
The only real complaint I have about the show is that sometimes the production values will be inconsistent from shot to shot. I’m picky, and it’s an occupational hazard, but the lighting will change dramatically in two different shots (same time of day, same characters, same conversation even). I think it’s probably a result of them shooting on the beach in Hawaii and dealing with changing cloud cover. Sound has been wonderfully consistent and creative, especially the background ambient stuff. They also usually do a good job of looping the actor’s voices when they’re next to the pounding surf on the beach. Still, when they shoot a conversation between two characters in bright sunlight in the middle of the day, and then go back and shoot an insert wide shot at sunset (with fill lights), then go back to the close-up shot and it’s noon again…. you tend to notice.
Out on Safari
My Safari browser has gotten really buggy lately. It refuses to load this very web page (Firefox does it very well, thank you). Also, Safari has started to ignore imbedded .mov files and can’t locate digg, though the Fox doesn’t have a problem with either one.
The most frustrating thing about OS X to me is that I can’t lobotomize individual apps as easily as I could in OS 9. Sure, it’s relatively easy to just dump a non-Apple app by dragging the package into the trash, but there are preferences hidden about in various different library folders that should (or should not!) be deleted as well. And with something like Safari-something that comes with the OS itself- it’s not just the simple matter of downloading the “Safari x.x.x installer” and double clicking. Apple occasionally wraps the app in an overall system install so it’s hard to “part out”.
When I mention stuff like this to knowledgeable OS X friends, I’m often told that the problems I’m seeing in OS X can’t happen because of the way the system is designed. But like William Shatner before me, I see them- they’re there. Little gremlins that gradually find their way in and begin dismantling the port-side engine.
I usually elicit gasps of disbelief because I like to reinstall the whole OS every year or so to exorcise these imaginary demons. I’m assured that a reinstall of X is unnecessary because of the way the system is designed, but all I know is that the problems go away after a relatively simple reinstall (and doing this in X is sometimes way easier than rooting out a bad pref file somewhere without breaking something else). Registry anyone? Blasphemy, I know.
Still, Safari sits there, refusing to load a page that Firefox sees without a complaint. All hail the Fox.
April 6, 2006
April 5, 2006
Happy Anniversary!
Today Erin and I celebrate our 9th anniversary together. It’s been a wonderful almost-decade and I couldn’t imagine spending it with anyone else. I love you, Erin.
April 4, 2006
Nobody Says It Like Lileks
I’ve been listening to a lot of old jazz piano – stride, boogie woogie from the masters – James Johnson, Bud Powell. It’s all new to me, and a source of great delight. Intimate and cheerful and spontaneous and so damned human. We’re left with the sound, the hammer on the string; the flesh that punched the ivory is long gone. But it quickens again every time you hit play. It’s like a rush of conversation with someone you haven’t seen in a while. Of all the instruments, maybe the piano best captures the human mind. The clarinet can copy the sound of the voice, but so can a clever bird. The electric guitar speaks for the hips, the violin for the heart, the flute for the eyes, but when you think of yourself sitting somewhere at 2 AM with a drink and a cigarette and a date in a black dress (or a fellow in a dark suit with thin lapels, if you’re so inclined) nodding in agreement as a man on a stage makes it all up on the spot, there’s always a piano present. Even if the star of the stage has a horn. The horn is editorial. The piano is the news.
I couldn’t agree more.
Timely
Stay up late tonight and you’ll see this
01:02:03 04/05/06
hat tip to Scott (who doesn’t have a website-lame!)
Current Reading
Improbable, by Adam Fawer. Just finished it. Great finish (woody with a hint of charcoal, yadda…)
April 3, 2006
Think Your Password is Safe?
Think again. Here’s a list of password lengths and how long it takes a computer to “guess” them. First time I’ve seen “Octillion” used for real.
April 1, 2006
Ted Turner, Intellectual Giant
Ted Turner: “I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There’s really no reason for them to cheat [on nukes]….I looked them right in the eyes. And they looked like they meant the truth. I mean, you know, just because somebody’s done something wrong in the past doesn’t mean they can’t do right in the future or the present. That happens all the, all the time.”
Wolf Blitzer: “But this is one of the most despotic regimes and Kim Jong-Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn’t that a fair assessment?”
Turner: “Well, I didn’t get to meet him, but he didn’t look — in the pictures that I’ve seen of him on CNN, he didn’t look too much different than most other people I’ve met.”
Blitzer: “But, look at the way, look at the way he’s, look at the way he’s treating his own people.”
Turner: “Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but–”
Blitzer: “A lot of those people are starving.”
Turner: “I didn’t see any, I didn’t see any brutality….”— Exchange on CNN’s The Situation Room, September 19