Friday, January 30, 2009

shipping container as store

From Futurismic we get this interesting photo.



Its a small shop made from a shipping container. Pretty cool. Throw in a small generator and you have a nice little mobile store. Generally those containers are just bare steel with no insulation so they get hotter than midget sex in the full sun. But I am sure that it could be insulated pretty cheaply.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

water jet pack

Cool!
I have no details, just the below video. BUT it looks like there is a massive pump in the boat that the feeder hose is attached to. What a GREAT idea!
I
want
one




Amazing New Water-Powered Jet Pack - Watch more free videos

Explain this image

dot com is a site of just really weird photos, some are staged and ridiculous, but some are just snapshots of weirdness.
take this for example


Not staged. Kid came up with a creative way to cross the pond while his friend on the other side encourages him. Why is his friend dressed like that on a miniature three wheeler? Who knows.

Or this clearly staged photo


that still makes me say "huh?" I understand the two individual concepts here. But the juxtaposition makes my head ache.

Or this:


CLEARLY this is staged, but WHY?

Reason #1 to carry a pocket knife

OR
"Why we need the economic stimulus package NOW!"
If this guy had a job he would not have time to (almost) kill himself. Well, at least he had the common sense to video tape it...

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Fringe on fox


I am loving the new(ish) Fox series "Fringe", I am a HUGE Walter (2) fan, he is awesome! And Olivia, I mean, WHEW! So I was excited to hear that DC Comics has a series of 6 comic books dedicate to Fringe, and specifically Walters back story!

It has been decades since the last time that I was tempted to buy a comic, but this review of the Fringe comics from DC comics has me hoping that the snow stops soon so that I can head on over to Tower Records.

I am much bigger than most pets...

Too Soon?

TSL230R to Arduino interface

This may appear to be somewhat of a non sequitur, but here we go.

Thank you c.a. church for the great tutorial no how to get the TSL230R to interface with the Arduino. He did a great job showing how to interface and calculate the frequency. However, his approach required both an interrupt AND a separate poll of the results every second to calculate the frequency.

This tutorial has been moved to the TeamPaulC Arduino page.

Gotta Laugh...


Why hate? Why not just have some fun with the idiots? Its like road rage, when someone flips you the bird, just smile and wave enthusiastically.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

January 27, 1967


Today is the 42nd anniversary of the Apollo 1 tragedy that claimed the lives of Virgil "Gus" Ivan Grissom, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF, Edward Higgins White, II, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF and Roger Bruce Chaffee, Lieutenant Commander, USN

The crew of Apollo 1 was performing launchpad tests when tragedy struck; a spark from the electronics ignited the 100% oxygen environment in the capsule, the crew could not get out and died of smoke inhalation within minutes.

While this tragedy set the space program back slightly, it did not stop NASA from winning the race to the moon, and on July 20th, 1969 Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Neal Armstrong landed on the surface of the Moon while Michael Collins stayed in orbit.

Other than this tragedy that led up to the first Moon landing, it is also worth noting the "Moon landing hoax" conspiracy. I only mention it as a segue into this video of a 70 year old Buzz Aldrin knocking a guy on his ass! The guy talking smack and taking the punch is the ringleader of the conspiracy nuts (I refuse to name him, he doesn't deserve the fame.) The guy calls Buzz a coward, a liar, and a thief, then POW! Down he goes. While I certainly don't condone violence, including punching reporters, I applaud Buzz for this one. Buzz IS an American hero and deserves to be treated like one.