Very cool video of an Atlas 5 launch [launch details here] that leaves ripples in the clouds as it breaks the sound barrier.  If you notice there is a “Sun Dog” there too that gets dispersed from the sound shock waves.

Really Cool.

Sonic Boom Meets Sun Dog from barbara tomlinson on Vimeo.

Video from Kennedy Space Center Apollo Center February 11, 2010. Launch of Solar Dynamics Observatory on an Atlas V rocket. About 1 minute 14 seconds after liftoff the vehicle went supersonic. The shock wave obliterated a sun dog. It was really beautiful, and poetic for this mission. A sun dog or parhelion is a bright rainbow effect in the sky caused by refraction of sunlight through ice crystals.

This is a fascinating video of Circa 1964 Livermore Data Systems "Model A" Acoustic Coupler Modem.  What is most fascinating is that our intrepid tinkerer, K.C., had the modem but then he had to scrounge for the other pieces necessary to enable his experiment.

1. The Serial Adapter.
2. The circa 1980 phone.

So above and beyond the modem itself, all the other pieces are leaving the world as well.  His observation about how the USB port wouldn’t send the correct voltage to change the tone of the modem appropriately is telling.  Does your computer have a serial port on it?

I especially love the technical equipment necessary for completing the job.

exhibit a

Check it all out at phreakmonkey.com

This is a very neat little tool to see how the inside of a simple computer circuit works.

Just click on the “1”s or “0”s at the top of the circuit to change the input and watch how it computes the decimal number.  Pretty cool.  Now imagine something a billion times more complex as that and you approach a modern CPU.

http://www.falstad.com/circuit/e-7segdecoder.html

This is very cool.

Popular Science - Ever Wonder What Every Space Mission From the Last 50 Years Looks Like on One Map?

Go check it out.

Huge step for them and a milestone for private space endeavors.

Way to go SpaceX!  Elon Musk you are the MAN!

SpaceX link.

I don’t even know how to categorize this…it’s just stunning.

To quote Elvis: “Technology is Cool!”

Update: So you say, “Big deal, that’s neato, but what would I use that for.”  Well take a look at this video.

That’s so cool it made me cry.

You think you have a hobby?  Steve Eves has a hobby.

Read all about it here: One man's quest to honor America's Saturn V rocket

'Star Wars' Laser Kills Mosquitoes

Now this is the way to get rid of those pesky mosquitoes, none of this mamby-pamby citrus candles.  Instead, just fire up your laser targeting and elimination system and kill them with extreme prejudice!

w00t!

Here's how it works: first, to locate individual mosquitoes, the flashlights shine into the tank from across the room. Each mosquito creates its own silhouette on reflective material behind it. The zoom lens picks up the shadows and feeds the data to the computer, which controls the laser and fires it at the bug.

Die! Mozzee! Die!

http://spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=38

First full duration burn of all 9 engines so there’s going to be 9 engines running at 95,000 pounds each so that’s a total of 860,00 pounds for about 170 seconds. So this will be quite a test.

I want it.

I know, I know, CRAAAZY you say.  But it’s true.  There is now a port of the KDE desktop for Windows.  What was once the domain of only Linux may now be run on Windows as well.

Article:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/01/testing-kde-42-release-candidate-on-windows.ars

How to do it:
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KDE_on_Windows/Installation

Just watch the movies

I don't know WHAT this is, but obviously the clear container is filled with a heavier than air gas, on which the tin foil boat "floats"

This one appears to be some kind of room temperature "ice".  The solution crystalizes when it is disturbed, "freezing" instantly.

Mythbusters, Adam + Fire = sculpting with methane.

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/themoment/

Brilliant use of technology.

CNN takes all submitted pictures from the public and stitches them together using Microsoft’s Photosynth technology.  Go check it out.

The sun is on the Orion spur. Just one of Billions...

Great video here from the NASA EPOXI spacecraft.  This is a re-purposed mission that originally was the one that impacted a comet with a projectile so we could see what was inside said comet.  After that it has been out doing other things.

In this video it was looking back at earth and caught the moon transiting the Earth over a period of about one full day with the pertinent pass in front of the Earth taking approximately 5-6 hours.

Lot's more information over here: HOLY FRAK! Moon transits Earth!

All that's missing is a big fiery explosion.

Skip to the 7:55 mark for the cool stuff.

I for one welcome our new Yellow Drum Machine overlords.

...and here is what makes the internet so cool. You go to letsmakerobots.com and right there are all the instructions to buy and build your own YDM (yellow drum machine for those "in the know").

MC. YDM

Taken from the NASA STEREO Mission.

Here's some background on the NASA STEREO mission: NASA Page.

They [The twin STEREO satellites -ed.] will reveal the 3D structure of coronal mass ejections; violent eruptions of matter from the sun that can disrupt satellites and power grids, and help us understand why they happen.

And intro video for the mission:

This website: http://isstracker.com/ is en example of so many technologies and trends in this world, I find it beautiful.  But then I'm a geek.

1. The ISS.  I know, I know many people argue it doesn't have a compelling mission beyond just being a space station but I still think it's vital.  We are continuing and extending our knowledge about how humans can live, work and build in space.
2. Global mapping tools that are now available at our fingertips.  Like cell phone cameras, maps.live.com and maps.google.com and mapquest and all the others are now ubiquitous in our world.   Remember the Thomas guides to find where you were going? 
3. Mashups: Information and tools put into the hands of ordinary Joes.  Anybody with a modicum of skill can build this site.
4. Now we have a 2+2=5 type of equation.  And you as a member of the intertubes viewing public have an ISS live tracker system at your fingertips.  Think of that.  You don't have to be in the control center of NASA to track the space station.  You can be in your pajamas, click click click.  Oh yeah there she is, over Bermuda.

Cool.

Discover magazine article about it here: badastronomy @ discover.com

It's a gravity lens.

Arcs are common results of lensing. That’s what you’re seeing here; the distant galaxy image split in two, arcs surrounding the spherical galaxy between them. An eye!

Related posts: Hubble Discovers 67 more "lensed" galaxies.

...er manbag.

Is that a computer in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Look at the features:

Options and Pricing

fit-PC Slim is offered in four configurations.
With configurations sans HDD, the buyer can easily install a hard disk of choice.

 

fit-PC Slim Barebones (256MB, no WiFi, no HDD) - $220

fit-PC Slim Diskless (512MB, WiFi, no HDD) - $245

fit-PC Slim Linux (512MB, WiFi, 60GB hard disk with Ubuntu and Gentoo pre-installed) - $295

fit-PC Slim XP (512MB, WiFi, 60GB hard disk with Windows XP Home SP3 pre-installed) - $335

Tell me that doesn't perk your interest a bit.

Jet Man flies across Channel on a wing

As he crossed the White Cliffs of Dover just after 1.05pm Rossy even had enough fuel left in the four kerosene-burning turbines powering his self-designed, homemade device for some celebratory aerobatics to entertain the crowds gathered below.

Can an Atlantic crossing be far behind?

Here's the psycho crazyman daredevil in flight.

He's not alone, here's another jetman with mini jets strapped to his ankles.

At least they aren't as crazy as these guys.  Base jumping in Norway.

/embed>

The video ends with a tribute - "In memory of Steve-o"  I wonder if Steve passed away quietly in his bed from old age....

Cool.  From what I can tell it is a complete floating tour of the inside of the International Space Station.

Paolo gave a pretty good demonstration of the flying technique right there you pretty much gotta look at your target and your body will figure it out if you're not deliberate about it you're liable to go catywampus en route.

Very odd and strangely beautiful.

http://www.semiconductorfilms.com/root/Brilliant_Noise/BNoise.htm

Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. After sifting through hundreds of thousands of computer files, made accessible via open access archives, Semiconductor have brought together some of the sun's finest unseen moments. These images have been kept in their most raw form, revealing the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise.

cool.

heh.

Computer in a Bottle

Of Ballentine's scotch no less.

I think I'm going to have to test this out...well at least drink some scotch and think about it...or maybe just drink some scotch.

Most excellent.  We here at the rivet give it a full five Larry's for originality and un-poseur-ness.

Electric motocross bike.  Zero X.

Cool bike.  Cool tech.

A low-speed mode limits the bike to about 30 mph and is good for tooling around. Switch to high-speed mode and you get unfettered acceleration to about 57 mph. The Zero X will hit 30 mph in under two seconds and 57 in about twice that. Juice comes from a proprietary li-ion battery that weighs 40 pounds and provides about two hours of riding time. It recharges in about two hours using any household socket

Road bike in the works.

Company site: [linky]

Let me tell you something about Air Canada: It Rules!

I'm flying business class to China and boy do I feel pampered.

This is very different than my expectations of current-day plane travel.  The chairs are pivoted to allow for sleeping, they served scallops for dinner, and some stiff pours of port.  The seat has more settings than a dentist chair, in flight entertainment system, USB ports, a 110v receptacle,

Take a look at this thing...it's got an electric foot rest for Pete's sake.

World War II relics and one time off-shore pirate radio station broadcast points.

...with a catchy pop-music beat.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska explosion.

...just thought you'd like to know.

Good link here: Science News - Tunguska, A Century Later

Wikipedia link: Tunguska event

Testimony of S. Semenov, as recorded by Leonid Kulik's expedition in 1930.[9]
"At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara trading post (65 kilometres/40 miles south of the explosion), facing North. [...] I suddenly saw that directly to the North, over Onkoul's Tunguska road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest (as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up - expedition note). The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire Northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few yards. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn a part of the iron lock snapped."

Well technically it is ancient Romans but nevertheless now we know that geekness pre-dated Gary Gygax's birth.

A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE

This is an old auction being up for sale in 2003.

This is a movie made and released for free under the creative commons license.  Made with free software [Blender] by regular (very talented) people.

It's about 60% of the way there in comparison to a Pixar movie.  No words, slightly simplified graphics, slightly amateurish acting.  But I'm splitting hairs, it's great.

Here is the project Blog: http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/

Ties right in with Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus speech: [linky]

Very comprehensive review of the capabilities of this Neural Impulse Actuator device.

Review :: OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator

Reading through the review it appears that a lot of the control comes from the headband interpreting facial muscle movements.  There appears to be more bio-feedback type of signal receptors on the device but the reviewers struggled to make that portion work.

The review will be updated over the next month as they have handed the N.I.A. off to one of their testers to get fully immersed in the use of the headband.

the nia has now been passed over to our Gaming/Software reviewer - Chris Buer for a full month of testing with weekly updates. These updates will be posted as additional pages in this review, so be sure to check back on a weekly basis or register over on our forums for an automatic update on when new content is added to the review.

I'll check back later.

Here's the homepage of OCZ: OCZtechnology.com

And a brief description of what the device tracks from the site:

The biopotentials include electro-myogram, electro-encephalogram and electro-oculogram, that is, electrical signals that are generated by activity patterns in muscles, brain, and eyes, respectively.

Poster of the Apollo 11 radio transcript.

The red line you see in the middle there?...

Found over here at Baekdal.com.  He's gone through the whole thing and pulled out some interesting tidbits.

All you need is a web cam and you're golden.

Here's their blog...not much there.

Anything that has explosions in it has to be cool.

Go check it out: Top 10 Amazing Chemical Reactions.

This is a great, fun, intuitive website that walks you through choosing a list of tags attached to Flickr photos and displays them to you in a neat globe like UI. [linky]

Kinda feels a bit like Photosynth-lite.  All online and well worth the visit.

So this goes down as one of those "if-you-can-think-of-it, someone-has-already-made-a-website-for-it" things on the Internet.

I wanted to put together a blog entry detailing all the locations of all the space launch facilities in the world and well wouldn't you know it someone has already done so.

Check out this link.

It's pretty cool.  Every Lat|Long listed is linked to a google map (I woulda used maps.live.com but no big deal).

Go Download It!

Just so you know, you need a beefy machine.

But OMG is it cool.  I'll play with it over the next day or two and let you all know what I think.  But here are some brief observations.

1. it's REAL time.  The planets move.

2. It's very very smooth.

3. The UI is incredibly intuitive. 

Here is a little guided tour for you of a simple zoom in to Saturn.  We start out fully zoomed out and looking at the constellation Leo in the center.

In we go, we see Regulus come into focus, one of the key stars of Leo.  37 Leonis is the second brightest in the middle top third of the picture.

Further in still too close now and Regulus has moved off the screen.  37 Leonis is just out of the picture above the center.

And now you can make out Saturn finally.

And there she is.

This little experience in and of itself was enjoyable.  This makes me want to go out and buy a machine for this software only.

This is a compelling reason to upgrade your system.

Just type in a zip code number by number and watch it drive down to the specific location on the map. [linky]

Example: 90210

The black part in the middle of the picture is the Pipe Nebula.  It is not a dark window into the background, but a foreground BLACK cloud of dust.

Info here: panther observatory

At first you may think Clay Shirky is stretching the analogy between the industrial revolution and the interactive computer experience of the 21st century, commonly called Web 2.0.  But as he continues and fleshes out his argument in the second half of the video, and especially the example of the 4 year old, I flipped my interpretation and thought the industrial revolution example may still be the wrong analogy, but because it is not STRONG enough.

if the video doesn't show, right click and click on play in the context menu.

A couple of key quotes:

On comparing WOW and Gilligan's Island:
"However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure out if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter."

Television is the "heat-sink" of cognitive surplus:
"And this is the other thing about the size of the cognitive surplus we're talking about. It's so large that even a small change could have huge ramifications. Let's say that everything stays 99 percent the same, that people watch 99 percent as much television as they used to, but 1 percent of that is carved out for producing and for sharing. The Internet-connected population watches roughly a trillion hours of TV a year. That's about five times the size of the annual U.S. consumption. One per cent of that  is 100 Wikipedia projects per year worth of participation."

Another quote:
"I was arguing that this isn't the sort of thing society grows out of. It's the sort of thing that society grows into."

You can read the whole text at his website: Gin, Television, and Social Surplus

ht: Clay Shirky on the cognitive surplus

http://www.touchspin.com/chem/SWFs/pt2k61012.swf

From RFC 2606, and I quote:

There is a need for top level domain (TLD) names that can be used for creating names which, without fear of conflicts with current or future actual TLD names in the global DNS, can be used for private testing of existing DNS related code, examples in documentation, DNS related experimentation, invalid DNS names, or other similar uses.

There are four such domain names set aside that are un-claimable by anyone.  One of them is obvious: .test.com [.org, .net, etc]

But there are three more:

It's a good list.

But let's take one category for instance.

Publishing:
They list 10 entries ranging from Picassa to WordPress.  The two problems with this list (and the rest of the categories) is that some are there due to size and first mover status (eg. blogger) and some are missing even though they might have superior flexibility and functionality (eg. typepad or blogEngine dotNet).

And with this list of 100, how in the heck is anyone supposed to make a decent evaluation of even one category.  I mean you should spend some decent amount of time fiddling with the app.  Could be hours or it could be days depending on the use.

So you'll end up using the app with a network effect in place or the one that is "coolest" but maybe sub-optimal.

Still...good list.

Look! In the Sky. It’s a Rocket Racer.

eh...what?  It wasn't you?  Oh it must of been one of the other many daredevil astronaut/test-pilot types that read the rivet.  It's one of our core demographics you know...the astronaut.

Racers in rocket-powered aircraft will fly four laps around a five-mile “track” at anywhere from 150 feet to 1,500 feet above the ground. The planes, designed to fly at 340 miles an hour, will start side by side, two at a time. The pilots include professional test pilots who received their training in the military and a former astronaut.

This is a great idea...

Red Bull Air Race already has a competition with acrobatic prop planes.  I guess that isn't hairy enough.  I mean 240+ miles an hour, doing flips and stuff...not enough.

Add rockets.

Race 'em together.

50% faster.  100% louder.  100% more dangerous...what's not to like.

Case in point.

In our research for ever more interesting facts and factoids to keep techRivet's vast readership entertained we dug up this little gem.

»»»

Pretty cool huh.  Apparently the graphic is from Esquire magazine from a few years ago.

This is pretty interesting for a couple of reasons.

1. I've done something similar to this as a child.  My friends and I used to catch bumble bees and tie them to a string and go around with them flying on a leash.  It's pretty cool.
   
2. At one point we had a pet spider.  Not one of the fancy dancy store bought models but one like this: Well she lived for more than two years in a little terrerium and we fed her spiders that we had at first frozen and then dropped inside her cage where they woke up and were eaten.  It was gruesome and my daughter, the bug collector, thought it was awesome.
   
3. Oh I've also taught my nephews how to catch and "fly" your own bees.

So I wanted to see if there was a more definitive site out there regarding how to freeze and fly your own flies or bees.

Low and behold there is:
Flypower - These guys want to sell you a kit.

...

I have some extra space down here...

...

How ya doin?  <whistle>

Ok...good to see you to...um...talk to you later.

So I found this link out there on the fabulous intertubes. Teh r0><or (that's translated into "the roxor", [that translates one layer further into "That Rocks!"]).  But I digress...where was I again?

Oh yeah space shuttle.

Well being the proud owner of a 3rd grader and a 1st grader the first section of the document regarding the Space Shuttle that I drilled into was the how-do-they-go-to-the-bathroom section:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts-eclss-wcl.html#sts-eclss-wcs

You're welcome.

You can go over the rest of the document here: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/

heh:  Ironically named software platform upon which to build your Shuttle OS -

The software programs are written in HAL/S (high-order assembly language/shuttle) especially developed for real-time space flight applications.

I saw this episode on Top Gear (which is an awesome show BTW) wherein they raced a Bugatti Veyron against a Euro-fighter.  The fighter jet had to go 1 mile vertical and back and the Bugatti had to go 1 mile horizontal and back. 

Well here is a home video of the event.

Pretty cool.

Oh alright, here's the original:

This is a great chart showing the different energy transfers that occur in the universe.  From the smallest wiggle of a photon to all the energy expended since ever in the whole Universe...

http://www.circlon-theory.com/HTML/joules.html

Some notable items on the chart:

• 2.6845 * 10⁶ - One horsepower per hour
• 10¹³ - Titanic fall to the bottom
• 10⁴⁸ - yearly output of the Milky Way

The folks over at Dolores Blog have put together a dataset of Wisdom-of-Crowd named colors.  Essentially asking what the people out on the intertubes would name each color.

They have also create a tool into which you can enter a descriptive word and which then returns the colors that are correspondingly titled.  Kinda neat.

Try It!

...umm that's it, if  you were looking for more...well...

ooooooh look kittens:

We did this in a marketing class for my MBA last fall.  It is pretty neat.  I can tell you that you will fail and you can do nothing about it.  We'll talk about it in the comments.

Turn it up.

Are you a fan of James Bond? 

Yeah me too.

Do you dig the scene "The Spy Who Loved Me", where bond and lovely agent "triple-x" take their lotus and drive it right off the dock into the water and it becomes a submersible? 

Yeah me too. (even when dubbed in Italian)

Well Rinspeed has made a concept car submersible out of a Lotus Elise.

eh...so I think I might have mentioned in passing here once or twice that I'm a geek.  So don't say you haven't been warned.

Here is a PDF of a Ringworld model.  Just download, print and assemble.

Isn't this just cool.  It so deserves to be built and hung from your ceiling.  [do it, ignore your wife, she told me she digs geeks, trust me.]

Download this link and print this.

Well naturally if we have the International "Talk Like a Pirate Day" then obviously we need the "Annual Day of the Ninja". 

December 5th is the Day of the Ninja. Plague your co-workers with ninja-ness and wear a ninja mask to work! Got the day off? Run wild in the streets, or dress like a ninja at the mall! Just show the world that YOU ARE NINJA!

December 5 - Annual Day of the Ninja

Now go flip out and wail on guitars!!  Be Awesome!!

Man it's cool.

Could we make fully functional mechanical beasts?  I mean think about it.  We just need to design a way for it to search for a power source to get energy.  A way to syphon said electricity.  The procreation thing is the hard part.

Air Ray PDF

Air_ray is a remote-controlled hybrid construction comprising
a helium-filled ballonett and a flapping-wing drive mechanism. The
ballonett is a gastight bladder of aluminium-vaporised “PET foil”
with a specific mass of 22 g/qm; it can be filled with up to 1.6 cbm
of helium. Since 1 cbm of helium generates approx.1 kg weight of
buoyant force, Air_ray’s overall mass must not exceed 1.6 kg.

Air has a density of 0.0012 kg/m3 at 20° Celsius at sea level;
by comparison, the density of water is about 1 kg/dcm3. In the
design of Air_ray, the difference in density between these two
media necessitates an extremely light construction. This enables
Air_ray to almost hover in the air by means of the buoyant force
of the helium ballonet, floating through a sea of air just as the
Manta_ray does in water.

The propulsion is effected by a flapping-wing mechanism. The
wing module, which can be moved up and down by a servo drive
unit, has a structure like that of the tail fins of many fish. This
structure consists of two alternating pressure and tension flanks
flexibly connected by ribs.

Cool

I'm not sure why they made it...except it's cool.

So I found this little trick over here --> http://www3.webng.com/redtophank/cit.html

But here it is for you:

Crazy Cool Internet Trick!
by Justin Benton

Try this crazy cool internet trick in your browser!

Go to Google images. Search whatever you want. Then copy/paste this code in your internet address bar:

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI= document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i<DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5 ); void(0)

Hit enter. Crazy, huh?

Hit refresh over and over to make it go faster. It also works on the main Google images page, as well as many other web sites if you just look around!

To see the YouTube video of this being done, simply Click here. Enjoy!

it's safe...I've checked it out.

What it does is

1. sets up an algorithm for moving pictures using cosign and sign for circular'ish positioning. 

2. Then it goes and finds all the images on the page. 

3. Then it changes their positioning to be absolute instead of just in the flow of the page. 

4. Then it makes them fly around the page.

neato.  pointless but fun.

The blog that pins me to the wall with its fine darts of nerd lightning.

If you are a geek or a nerd or afflicted with some similar...affliction, you are encouraged, nay, required to go read the Rands in Repose.

How I came this far without reading it is a mystery.  Frankly I  blame all the rest of you for not sending me a link to the blog sooner than now.  How dare you hide such witty wittiness from me.

Don't let it happen again!

recommended entries:

http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_handbook.html

http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2003/07/10/nadd.html

You know it.

So I previously pointed to this: [The Best Rube Goldberg Machine] as the best Rube Goldberg machine.  That may be...for amateurs, but this commercial by Guiness is awesome.

Too bad it is not a TRUE Rube Goldberg machine.  There were many sequences spliced together.

The advert took a week to film, with some of the sequences having to be reshot up to 15 times.

New Guiness Advert: Giant domino village

Still it's a fun commercial.

Ok...maybe not quite, actually, precisely a win...ok maybe we were a bit off the pace of engadget and gizomodo...ok a lot.  But we weren't in LAST place.

w00t! techRivet Rules!

http://2007.weblogawards.org/polls/best-technology-blog-1.php

-bump-

-bump again-

vote here

We here at the palatial headquarters of techRivet.com would like to thank the academy and all the little people.

the 2007 weblog awards: Finalists Announced

This is an honor that proves the old maxim of "Vote early and vote often"...I mean "the cream will rise to the top."

Some people really need to get a life.

So there are a tonne of Rube Goldberg machine videos out on the web, some quite good some mediocre.  The most famous one is the Honda commercial where every part of the car becomes part of the contraption. 

This one is exemplary.  It may not be the best...but it is dang close.

From here: [Ontario Science Center]

Check this out.  Very cool flash simulator of the Solar System.

Cool Little Miniature Stove! - The funniest home videos are here

Succinctly put in the comments over at Metacafe: "Holy Crap"

The Internet Oracle

Lookit how old this is... a .cgi extension. It's like uncovering a rock and finding a goldmine.

A sample:

The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> What is the biggest misconseption about anime?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} That it's good.
}
} You owe the Oracle the collected works of Tintin and his many
} adventures on DVD.

Comedic gold.

How did I miss this all those years? Here's the wikipedia article: [linky]

and just so you know, you shouldn't really ask the question: "How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood."  It's verbotten.

heh...heh heh... ... ... ... heh

You tell me...This is WAY cooler than suicide doors, butterfly doors, canvas doors and any other car door I've seen.  But don't you take one look at it and think: Man there's a lot of things that could break with that.

Then I start thinking about safety.

Then about the side window, I bet you'd break a few of those.

But it is dang cool.

So I love the Stumble Upon toolbar. I like it as a user, it can be a real time suck. I like it as a blog owner because it can drive traffic like nothing else I've ever encountered. It is simple, easy to comprehend and just plain fun.

I was curious as to what other competitors might be out there. And I found a few.

Stumble Upon toolbar - http://www.stumbleupon.com/

The market leader. They have a well designed toolbar, website and backend system. The sites can be rated with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down button. Lots of additional features but they are all superfluous. The only thing that matters is that you can submit a site easily, rate a site easily and view a random site at the click of a button. Simplicity drives the success of this toolbar.

Streakr - discorveryBar - http://www.streakr.com/

A direct competitor to the stumble upon toolbar. The one problem I have with it in comparison to StumbleUpon is the handling of categories. SU allows you to choose a subset of categories from which to return a site. Streakr lets you choose All categories or One category. Neither one of those choices is exactly what I want. A bit nitpicky of me I think.

The Random Site toolbar - http://therandomsite.ourtoolbar.com/

Bills itself in the same space but it is not quite as good. It pulls you back to TheRandomSite.com with a featured content link. It is also slower than stumble upon. This is a sub-optimal solution and we should not pursue this technique.

Google random site button - http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-04-18-n70.html

This random button is a secondary install for the google toolbar. It returns a random site based on your previous search history. The returned sites don’t seem to be as interesting as an anecdotal review.

I've been looking for this game again: Line Rider.

I found it over at Flashpedia: [linky] Go check it out.

I'm gonna dig in there a bit to see if I can find a couple of things I've been looking for. A good "Lode Runner" flash game and this cool game from a couple of years ago that followed this guy flying up into the sky...I can't really explain it but it was pretty cool.

Honory mention: Vogon Poetry

For although it is not actually a weapon, it does induce pain and vomitting and in some rare cases death

10. Cohe-Wand of the Paratwa

From the book Leige Killer by Christopher Hinz. This is a great book. I read it years ago...I think I'm gonna go buy it again...The Cohe wand is used by the Paratwa, a race of super humans. It is kinda like an energy lasso. And the Paratwa can use it to DEADLY affect.

9. Flashlight Laser - Ringworld

Swiss army knife of weapons: cook dinner, fry a Kzinti, miss a Pac Protector, all in one. Louis Wu is also one of the coolest characters in Sci Fi history.

8. The cute little Cricket gun from Men in Black

Awesome contrast between the ultra-cool Will Smith and the dinky little gun...that packed a serious PUNCH!

7. Green Lanterns Ring.

What's not to like? Need a big hammer, zabamm, there you go. Need a bubble to protect your superhero friends as you zoom through the outer reaches of space after some super villain, bzzzz, not a problem, need to heat up that bag of popcorn but the microwave is AAAAALLLL the way over in the kitchen, poppity pop pop pop, done and done.

6. Thermal Detonator - Star Wars

Purely for negotiation purposes.

5. Tron Disc.

They can act as a frisbee like weapon, a shield, you can dip them in pure energy to get a hit, you can use them as a way to communicate with your user...I mean what more can a program ask for.  And when Tron throws his disc and it splits the head of Master Control's servant, Sark...man that was cool.

Money Line: [Tron] - "I'm also BETTER than you!" throw disc, kill Sark, easy.

4. Blaster

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." - H. Solo.

It's awefully hard to argue with Mr. Solo on this one. Although I don't want one of the ones that's used by the stormtroopers, I think the sights are off because they can't hit a damn thing.

3. Plasma Caster - Predator

Well technically anything that a predator uses should be on this list but we'll go with his shoulder mounted plasma gun. When the Predator shot the arm off of Apollo Creed...Action Jackson...Dillon...man that was cool.

2. Spetsdod - The Man Who Never Missed

Not the deadliest, not the easiest, but just plain cool. A little dart gun you wear on the back of your hand that's activated by pointing your index finger. BTW it's also from one of the best pure Sci Fi Novels of all time.

...and like Louis Wu, Emil Khadaji is just dang cool. The author, Steve Perry's Blog: [linky]

1. Lightsaber

I mean c'mon it blocks all sortsa stuff and cuts things and remember its an elegant weapon from a more civilized age. 'nuff said

And don't even talk to me about those stupid phaser guns from Star Trek. They were always overloading and the fire rate on them was slow as molasses. Although the little handheld one Kirk used on a few older episodes was sorta cool for its formfactor, it'd slip in a pocket real nicely.

Let me know what you think.  Leave a comment.

Update: Scooter over at Gadget Grid posted a great Lightsaber duel in response to the list go over and check it out: [GadgetGrid.com]

Started on this thanks to Stumble Upon:

Then to here:

[www.robot-fan.net - dangit it's in japanese.

So let's check that - translated [hmm...not so good english is] for example: The robot & the fan net, "the robot ahead favorite" "this, the robot how probably will keep becoming? ?

Ok then on to google with the search term : "robot sumo wrestling"

SFGate.com has an article from six years ago [old news].

Sumo Wrestling rules - [linky]

And finally something that might be cool and relevant.  Seattle Robotics Society. [linky]

I've been wanting to see this for awhile.  Here is the map that lays out the whole course that the Mars Rover Opportunity has taken in its mission so far.

cool

So.

Online racing for free. Download it and go.

[trackmania nations]

3,051,431 online player registrations.

I often say this phrase: "In the future everything that is simple will be complicated."

I think I can also now say, "For everything online that costs money, you can find a substitute for free."

I'm not sure if this is off-topic or not, but it just seems noteworthy that you can go and download and play this game for free.  Heck it comes with a level editor, multiplayer capability, lan capability, personas, tracking, ranking and a world wide competition...

cool.

Update: OK, this is a cool game.  Thoroughly addicting.  Reminds me a lot of the old sega genesis game "San Francisco Rush - 2049".  The plus it has is the level editor, the minus is there is no battle mode.

Is there a cooler conference to attend than TED?  I gotta get there one of these days.

Semantic connections between pictures.  All the pictures online interconnected.  Your picture that you upload could immediately get enriched with all the data, images, information, perspective, beauty...everything of all the other pictures of the same place.

Truly incredible.

Go here to try it FOR YOURSELF! [photosynth]

This technology along with the recently released surface from Microsoft sure makes me wonder if the king is truly dead.  It sure doesn't look like it to me.

techRivet.com has posted several articles on new interfaces focusing on the new multi-touch technologies: [here's the list]

And now the godzilla has entered the market. Microsoft: Surface.

Double Secret Probation

In all the speculation that the computer is leaving the desktop and migrating to the web. And with all the hype around how Google is positioned better for the future with its business based in the web app market. And with how Microsoft has struggled to move in that direction to head off Google. Along comes this

This is right up Microsofts forte'. It exposes the weakness in Googles business plan. If...and it is a big if...the desktop does not move to the web, but instead moves to an integration-within-our-environment application...well who is in the catbird seat now?

But then I guess Google could just buy out Perceptive Pixel and all that would be solved for them. Right?

Surprise turns to outright astonishment

It is also astonishing in two respects.

1. How under wraps Microsoft has kept this
2. How their timing appears to be very good in this space (unlike many others recently)

Technology continues apace. We have NO IDEA what we will be doing with it in 5 years time. This is only a glimpse into the future

...and Ray Kurzweil continues to say I told you so

1. Cool blog

If you haven't read RoughType by NIcholas Carr well...you should...Always insightful. He writes about the topics that I wish I had thought of first. Sometimes I do think of them first but usually not.

Definitely a daily reader

2. Cool Web Thing: Fractal World Gallery

Are you tired of the average wallpaper? do you want something different? Then go over here. These are incredible. Fractal World Gallery

I read a book series by Tad Williams a couple of years ago called: Otherland. I don't know why exactly but these fractal pictures remind me of those books.

3. Cool Real World Thing

So to jump back to a post from a few days ago [linky - SR71] I went and found a couple of videos of the SR-71 Blackbird. video. It looks like something out of Star Wars.

4. Cool Science

Ruben's Tube: real live sound visualation with flame.

Umm...actually I don't know exactly what they're doing.  But it looks like something at the far ends of the normal distribution of intelligent occupations.  It is either a punishment or a fantasy.

Money quote:

There's only three I've ever been afraid of

1. Electricity
2. Heights
3. and women

...and I'm married too.

Update: This is so interesting that I couldn't just leave it as a video only.  I did a bit of searching and here are some links that I came up with.

Danger! High voltage!: Here's a good article fromthe Reader Wayne Fort that talks about it.

The arc is the burst of light created by the transfer of electricity. Electricity streaking between the wand and the wire is incredible. Viewed from the ground the arc appears to shoot from the lineman’s hand like lightning from an electrified comic book hero. For an Agrotors Powerline crew that’s just part of bonding on so they can get to work.

Up in the air with the blades whirling overhead, getting to work is a delicate aerial dance between the pilot and the wires. If he doesn’t get close enough the lineman can’t bond on but getting too close to the wrong wire can cause a flash-over in which electrical clearance is violated.

Whew! crazy!

And here's a company that does the work: [linky]

The benefits of Aerial live work

• Production up to ten times faster than conventional techniques, depending on applications.
• All work is carried out under “live” conditions, therefore no need for the customer to switch out lines.
• Exponential improvement of network quality of supply due to economies of scale.
• Smaller work force required carrying out pro-active preventative line maintenance.
• Only the safest world-best practices are employed ensuring the customer’s power line integrity is not compromised in any way.
• Access to areas previously regarded as inaccessible.
• Rapid reactive response to repair line faults during outages.

Just cool.

As the launch of the iPhone approaches, I've been thinking a lot about the strategy behind the pricing and realizing how absolutely brilliant it is. The vast majority of people believe the device is over-priced at $499 and $599 for 4GB and 8GB models. I think they've hit the real sweet spot.

1. New blog discovered: Sci Fi Tech 

Better than Gizmodo with a 100th the traffic.  Go and enjoy.  Where else are you going to find the transparent car.

2. Cool Thing:

I don't know what it is about this, but it just looks really cool.  It kinda reminds me of the steampunk keyboard.  Wouldn't the set just make your workspace ultimately cool.

This would make you the coolest kid on the steampunk block. The envy of your wire rimmed glasses wearing, top hat sportin' crowd.

3. Cool Website: The size of things.

So this grew out of my last "4 things" post while I was trying to dig up the original source for the size of our world email I got [linky] I found this which shows the size of things ranging from the univers down to the smallest of the small, the quark.  All in flash pretty cool. [linky]

4. Cool Tangible Thing: Fastest Sailboat in the World

47.6 knots! That's about 60 Miles per hour, in a sailboat. Albiet a state of the art hydrofoil sailboat but a sailboat nonetheless.

And it did this in 25 knots of wind.  This can be confusing to some people, "How can a sailboat go faster than the wind?"  You just have to remember that it isn't the speed of the wind but the energy it provides and how it is harnessed that is important.

And OH MY but how the L’Hydroptère harnesses that power!

Picture of the day.

just cool.

1. New blog discovered: Lord Matt

Lord Matt is this guy from England. [linky] I like his style, anybody that can self title themselves "Lord" has got it going. His blog is a bit esoteric and chaotic but I think that's what makes it a good one. Don't go changin' Matt. Oh and by the way does wikipedia know you are using their style sheet?

2. Cool Thing: The International Space Station in Second Life.

I've been skeptical about second life up until now, [linky]I mean there are many different online communities out on the web that you can participate in and they have all been niche markets, what makes Second life different? Well now it has its own space station, so that's something.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17841125/

3. Cool Website: The size of our world

Somebody sent something cool to me via email and whenever anyone does that I feel the need to search for the original source, here it is: [linky]. This is a really neat representation of the different sizes of celestial bodies, running from the Moon and Earth all the way up to Betelgeuse aand Antares. It is interesting to see them laid out side by side.

4. Cool Tool: The Enigma Cypher Machine in Flash.

I'm not sure how useful this is [linky]...unless you want to pass love notes in class...but it is pretty cool none-the-less. Here we have the great ENIGMA machine of NAZI fame from WWII, de-mystified in flash. Made into a toy as it were.

I don't want to belittle the effort of the team that put this flash implementaion together, but still, here it is, on the web for anyone to use. A very fascinating statement about our technology as compared to the generations that have come before us. Accellerating change indeed.

So I'm not going to put together a big comprehensive list of free software applications available for you, that's been done many times here are some links for that:

• Martin's List of Free Stuff.
• Best Free Utilities
• Scott Hanselman's 2006 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows
• PC Mag - The Best Free Software
• 121space - Ultimate list

Update here is a great list of everything.

• Mohawke's Best of the Best Free and Open Source Software Collection

In fact there are too many ones to choose from.  How do you know what to use?  Well I may not know the best (and if you have suggestions please let me know) but I have some that work great for me.

What I am going to put together is a media pack.  A suite of applications, if you will, that satisfy all your media needs.

techRivet's Free Media Pack

1. Audio:
   1. Listening: WinAmp. I've tried a bunch. Windows Media Player, iTunes, Media Monkey, MusicCube, Songbird...etc. And I keep coming back to WinAmp. It simply works. It synchs with my Creative:Zen flawlessly and is easier to use than the software that came with the player. I guess it doesn't have a few of the bells and whistles...but to play music it's king.
   2. Ripping: Free Rip MP3. Fight the power. No MS or Apple empire here man. Just rip at the bitrate you want, where you want it. Easy.
   3. Burning: I actually use a non-free app for this so I am looking for suggestions.  I use Nero because it came with one of the CDR drives I purchased last year. Suggestions Welcome.
   4. Manipulating: Audacity.  You can record anything you want with this.  I record my vinyl records onto my computer.  I have even recorded a song from a DVD onto my comp as an MP3 (a barbie song for my daughter)  I just took the line-out from the dvd player and voila'. Easy.  I am surprised how often I end up using this app.
2. Video
   1. Watching: Use what you want, no big deal in my opinion.  But the best free non-commercial app out there is VideoLan's VLC media player.  This thing plays ANYTHING.  The UI is very 1995 but everything else about it is golden.
   2. Converting: Just found this one and it has been the impetus for this post - Super.  This app will apparently convert anything into anything.  I had been trying to convert this one MP4 file into a DivX file using Dr. DivX but I just couldn't get it to pick up the audio track.  Well I downloaded Super and BANG! done and done.  DivX sa-weet.
   3. Ripping: eh?  Nero again.  Suggestions Welcome.
3. Graphics
   1. Managing: Picasa, duh!
   2. Manipulating: For the quick and dirty use Paint.Net.  If you have some skillz and want to do more use The Gimp.  I actually have a for pay app for this (Paint Shop Pro from Corel).   I'll include both in the pack.
4. 3D
   1. Now I don't have the time to mess with this but I'm just gonna throw it in cause it's so cool. Blender. You wanna make your own 3d movie? Well here you go.

And just so you know how helpful we are here at the Rivet I've gone ahead and put all these files together in one handy ZipFile. 

Here it is: techRivet Media Pack - (75 MB so you may want to get the pieces you want...).  That link appears dead, I will work on a new location today.  Anyone have any suggestions?

This is a living list so any and all advice and comments are welcome.

Update: While in the process of writing this little article I wanted to find a place to put the techRivet Media Pack without impacting my download restrictions at godaddy.com.  I thought it even money that I could find a free place for online storage.  I thought there might be someplace, but no way would it allow for a 75 MB file...Well there is a place: openomy.  It was touch and go as I uploaded, but I tested the download and it looks like it works fine.

Interesting it appears to be backed by Amazon's S3 storage service.

Update: Well openomy appears to not like that file anymore, I will find out what is going on.  Meanwhile I'll look for alternate locations.  Anyone have any great ideas?  Free online file storage and download?

Update: I know the issue now.  You need to sign up with openomy and be signed in and then you can download the entire pack.

Talk about amazement...

Here is a presentation of the multi-touch interface from Eric's post: new user interfaces

Straight out of "Minority Report"

As soon as Best Buy has it in stock, I'm buying it.

This reminds me of Eric's post: Will New User Interfaces Change the Way I Work?

Way more here: http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/ 

Way Way more here: youtube

1. New blog discovered:

No Idea But In Things.: No Ideas But In Things is a library of controls, animations, layouts, and displays that might be a source of inspiration for interaction designers. Dan Saffer is the curator.

Title is from this poem: A SORT OF SONG by William Carlos Williams.

It has more impact taken as two lines together:
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!

...and I actually like the line "but in things Invent!" better...but I digress. Go check out the blog, it's cool.

2. Cool Thing:

Space Tether test to launch on March 27. I couldn't decide if I should put this into Big News or Cool thing. But it is a thing so I finally put it in Cool Thing.

For those of you not in the know, the barrier to cheap space travel is our damn gravity well. It takes a huge amount of energy to get something up and out of it. Chemical rockets are the only feasible way we have right now of getitng things up there. Well people are actively working on a space elevator and making progress. In theory this would reduce the cost to put stuff in orbit by a factor of 100.

Well here is another test going up next week. Keep in touch with the latest over here: Space Elevator reference.

3. Big News:

Viacom vs YouTube heh, They got their own verb!.

4. Cool Tool:

After seeing this [linky] and the example of NASA World Wind inside the video I went out and installed it. It's from NASA, it's gotta be cool. Right?

NASA Whirl Wind

So we have Virtual Earth from Microsoft and Google Earth from, well, Google, what does Whril wind offer us extra. Well how about the Moon and Mars and Jupiter, flippin' cool.

SpaceX had a successful launch yesterday [linky] of their Falcon 1. This is an extraordinary acheivement. We are truly seeing the comercial private space launch programs take off.

All in all, this test has flight proven 95+ percent of the Falcon 1 systems, which bodes really well for our upcoming flights of Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, which uses similar hardware. We do not expect any significant delay in the upcoming flights at this point. The Dept of Defense satellite launch is currently scheduled for late Summer and the Malaysian satellite for the Fall.

SpaceX is the less sexy, more practical private rocketship competitor to Spaceship One. These gyus are serious: Q3 2009 - 3 days - Full cargo mission profile including mate to ISS, with empty capsule , woah, docking with the ISS. Sa-weet! Space tourism here we come.

A typewriter keyboard mod?  How many of you kiddies know what a typewriter is?  I guess with this mod you wouldn't have to worry about the key arms getting tangled.

Some guy named Jake creates really neat things that are inspired by the concept of steampunk. Allright with me, keep at it Jake, this is pretty flippin' cool.

Anyways head over to the steampunk workshop and check it out.  It was certainly a labor of love.

I wonder what it's like to type on it?

Found this link over at: the programmable web. It's a pretty cool demo around using the Wii as a presentation and preso/collaboration tool.

Check it out over here: Wii Goes Enterprise

Being the enterprise geeks that we are, it wasn't too long before we asked ourselves if this same kind of technology would ever be applicable in the business world. After some research and hacking by Mark, he actually found all the necessary components to get the Wiimote to simulate a PC mouse. Yep, that's right, there are the tools available to cheaply turn your Wii remote into an interactive interface for controlling the PC.

This is just a neat user interface thing put together by a couple of geeks...which is awesome. But what I think is very interesting is the off the cuff comment at the end where Edward Herrmann makes the comment about the potential of two or more poeple using two or more Wii remotes to cooperate on the document in real time up on the big screen.

Very intriguing

Hopefully you all have seen this.  For more info go over here: Where in the Hell is Matt?

Well Matt has a new video out, showing his outtakes.

He interjects comments as to why he didn't include each little clip.

This is actually quite fascinating and will spurn a follow-up post.  How do you make a career where there was no career just five years ago?  Well one way is the way Matt does it...travel around, do a goofy dance and get paid.

Jeff Han blew people's minds last year at the TED conference with this presentation on multi-touch computing. He showed us what could be accomplished when interfaces just get out of the way and we get to manipulate our data with our own hands, rather than through crufty intermediary devices.

So, while the Han video is insanely cool, I was trying to come up with an idea of how this technology could help me in my day to day work environment. I don't use maps. I don't need an interactive lava lamp or to manage mountains of photos all day. I sit in a cubicle in front of three separate computer monitors (2 for my laptop - the onboard and a separate one, and one for my desktop development box). My work revolves greatly around email, Microsoft office products (blech), and some organizational webapps that I use to remember and manage what's important. In general, I think I have pretty good systems for what goes where, especially on my computer and network drives.

As I looked at the mess that was my desk, however, an idea finally began to emerge. I could use the new interface to completely replace my entire desk! Now that a sizeable screen has the ability to access any amount of virtual space and I have the ability to navigate that space with simple gestures there is no need to keep mountains of paper (half of them with huge "confidential" reminders printed all over them) stacked out in plain view or in little file folders.

It also opens up the possibility that I can use smaller interfaces to access my virtual workspace remotely. As long as an input device is large enough to gesture and the scaling technologies allow us to navigate at any scale, there's no reason I can't use an iPhone or an ereader during a meeting to access files on the network, distribute them to others in the room, and generally replace all the paper cruft which would normally be going on. No more printing PowerPoint decks, OK?

What I'm really talking about is the merging of multi-touch computing with something like the 3D BumpTop Desktop below:

Maybe the combinations of these new interfaces spell the death of my messy real-world desktop and the birth of my messy virtual desktop? Dare to dream.

1. New blog discovered:

901am.com
901am is a website covering new media news. and blogging.

Pretty cool blog dealing with the whole media thing. Pronto-like updating too.

2. Cool Gadget: Lego Chaingun

I know I did a lego thing last time too, but this is too bitchin' to pass up:

3. Big News: as in BIG.

Google's master Plan:

3. Cool Tool: Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer

eh...what?

Come on don't you know of the EMaVaHA?! If you absolutely need to find out how sucky your headline is and how crappy a copy writer you really are go here and find out.

1. New blog discovered:

I am going to start this with one blog. At the rate that blogs are created in the world and the associated lower percentage of good blogs made I assume that I will have to add more then one. But for now you get one.

thinkJOSE.com - The flavor of new ideas
Well the first thing that jumps out at you is the design kicks ass! This is a reason why, even though I use an RSS Reader a lot, I still prefer to read some sites in the browser, some designs (like Jose's) are just great. And his logo is pretty cool too, although looking at his pic from his bio I would recommend he put a smile on his face...

But what keeps me coming back (like any good blog) is the content. His posts are often quite incitefull: Spicy Spiral Video.

Keep up the good work Jose.

2. Cool gadget

Ok, not exactly a gadget, but you have to admit this is just cool...A lego Toilet Paper Extractor

3. Big news

I have to come back to the story I reported yesterday, which was Microsoft losing in the patent infringement suit with Alcatel-Lucent.

There is some interesting speculation already brewing on my fourth point in the afformentioned post regarding whether ogg vorbis will get some luvin' out of this verdict.

4. Cool tool

Web Accessibility Toolbar
So I used to use the web dev toolbar for IE but it changed for IE7 and now it's different and bigger and more of a console. It's still neat, but the feature I want to use most often is "view partial source" and I want it easily accessible, and it isn't with the other tool bar.

Well this one has it right where I want it. Good little toolbar.