s1axter posted on Mon. December 3rd 2007 at 12:11 PM PST
The NASA website (NASA.gov 5.0) got a facelift on November 30th and now more closely resembles a Web 2.0 social site. I'm a frequenter of NASA’s "Image of the day" and I have to say the new, slick look and functionality is a welcomed change from the previous rather dull interface.
Visitors to the site can now bookmark pages and articles and submit them to sites like Digg. Members can also comment on the articles.
Check it out: http://www.nasa.gov
s1axter posted on Sat. December 1st 2007 at 09:30 PM PST
This is really funny. A friend sent me a link to this Microsoft Help and Support article titled "Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music".
The article says ‘During normal operation or in Safe mode, your computer may play "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small, Small World" seemingly at random.’
They say the BIOS is playing the music to indicate the CPU fan is failing...yeah OK. First, what BIOS developer said to themselves "I think I’m going to have the speakers play Fur Elise when the fan dies", because when I think dead CPU fan I think Beethoven. Second, why is this on the Microsoft Help and Support page? Third, there isn’t an explanation of BIOS, CPU or motherboard model affected, so some techno-idiot isn’t going to know WTF is going on anyway...way to go Microshaft.
s1axter posted on Wed. November 28th 2007 at 11:23 PM PST
Yesterday, a friend of mine sent a link to “Six major preproduction electric vehicles compared” on the http://www.diyelectriccar.com/ blog. I’ve been an electric car enthusiast for a long time. I’ve worked on three major EV projects including one of my own and always hoped a major car company would make a good attempt at a production EV.
Now I will be the first to admit, a lot of EV fans inflate range, speed and acceleration to push the EVs on interested parties, and I was worried this post would be like that. However I am glad to say it isn’t, it’s a rather objective look at proposed vehicles and a dialog about straight EVs, Hybrid and Plug-In Hybrids. Since all the vehicles are in preproduction some information isn’t available but the info that is all referenced with sources at the bottom.
On a technical note, it isn’t surprising all the listed vehicles use lithium-ion battery packs; with the exception of the Aptera, but most likely it too will be Li-ion. Even 5 years ago, lithium-ion was WAY too expensive to use for propulsion, however with the huge increase in mass production for portable electronics lithium-ion technology is within the grasp of high(er) production vehicles.
Blog: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/blogs/
Fourm: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/
Enjoy!
firewire posted on Mon. November 26th 2007 at 01:14 PM PST
I was browsing the net at work today and came across this article from www.engadget.com. A NJ teen apparently hacked an iPhone to unlock the functionality. The hacker found the iPhone on board JTag. a look at the article if you have some free time. You can find the article here and the teens personal blog here.
s1axter posted on Thu. November 22nd 2007 at 05:37 PM PST
I wanted to post something cool for Thanksgiving involving a deep fryer, turkey and microcontroller, but in the past 45 minutes of searching I can’t find anything.
However in my surfing I did come across Cooking for Engineers and had to post it. The guy who runs this site posts recipes in a format strongly resembling a manufacturing chart. The site has some interesting things, and some common dishes like a Traditional Pecan Pie. Good for those who "Have an analytical mind" or just want a laugh.
Have a good Thanksgiving everyone and don’t burn down the house with your deep fried turkey.
s1axter posted on Tue. November 20th 2007 at 08:13 PM PST
Wow, it’s been a while since I posted. Things at work were crazy the past few weeks and now family is in town for turkey-day. Today I got a chance to sit down and catch up on my news and sites.
First things first, Mike S is the winner of the October Tip contest and I shipped off the Olimex PIC-MT from Sparkfun Electronics at the beginning of November. Congratulations Mike, we hope you can use the board. Send us some cool projects!
Sunday Hack-a-day.com posted a project on a Morse code interface for a PC and it got me thinking. I’ve always thought Morse code was cool and after reading about the project I started browsing around looking for cool projects.
In my surfing I came across this Morse code to ASCII decoder circuit using a NE567 Tone Decoder, PIC16F84 and alphanumeric LCD to translate tones into characters.
http://www.hamradio-online.com/1999/feb/mdecoder.html
The project has a good write up on how the device works and it lists the complete source code written in PIC ASM, not bad for a 9 year old project.
firewire posted on Fri. November 16th 2007 at 05:45 PM PST
I was surfing the net today and came across this post from 2004 on the MSDN blogs. Yes, it's a little old but still a cool idea. Anyways Mike made a humanoid robot that is controlled from a Pocket PC. First I thought to myself why the heck would anyone use a Pocket PC to control a robot? I came to the conclusion that in 2004 it was probably a heck of a lot easier to do then control it using any of the other mobile platforms.
The robot needs some work but its a great start. Just click on the image on the page here to see the video. The robot movement isn't very fluid and there is also a balance issue but it is probably due to each leg using a different type of servo. Fun video to watch if your bored.
doomerz posted on Tue. November 13th 2007 at 02:58 PM PST
Now I am a big fan of Guitar Hero and I also play the guitar, but this guy took it to the next level. He turned his Actual Gibson SG into a guitar hero controller, I don't know if that it would be any easier to play but I bet it could be alot of fun. (I am not going to try this one, I'd rather not tear apart my guitars.)
His site covers a step by step picture tutorial which leaves a little bit of guess work but all the more fun. Check it out for yourself and be amazed!
http://picasaweb.google.com/willgilliland/2006_07_06?pli=1
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NASA gets social?
S1axter's Tech Log of Crazy Stuff
