Jay Rob took an old-school Star Trek phaser gun toy, cannibalized the innards of a Blu-ray player to get at the laser diode, and pulled off one of the kewlest hardhacks I've ever seen. The result: a phaser that seriously works!Okay, it doesn't actually disintegrate anything and there's no "stun" setting... but Jay's phaser is powerful enough to pop balloons from across the room.Watch it in action...And if you're of the tinkerin' sort, Jay has posted...
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Want to help those in Haiti? Consider giving to New Directions International
All two of this blog's regular readers know: I never endorse anything here unless I can sincerely trust a person or organization to the utmost. Well, in light of what's going on down in Haiti right now in the aftermath of this week's earthquake, many folks are wondering what they can do to help out the people of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area.So if your heart is...
YouTube called: I beat Comcast
Okay, YouTube didn't really call me, but you know...Last month I reported that Comcast was giving me grief about how I posted a clip from E!'s show The Soup where they used MY commercial from the school board campaign in 2006... without asking me, but I was fine with that. I just expected the same courtesy from E! and its ownership that I have given them. That's not too much to ask, in my mind.And of course, this whole thing is too much like that...
Best idea I've read in a LONG time about reforming government
Good friend of this blog J.R. Hafer has posted some excellent thoughts on his own site this afternoon. The subject? The apathy of the American people about their government, and J.R. goes into a lot of what's causing it.The entire thing is an excellent read, but I wanna focus y'all's attention on something that J.R. suggests in his essay. An idea that I've never thought of before but is instantly the very BEST suggestion that I've found in a long...
Danny Glover blames global warming for Haiti earthquake
This is an even dumber thing to say than Pat Robertson's sick statement two days ago.Here's what Danny Glover has declared about the earthquake in Haiti..."When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I'm sayin'?"So Haiti got hit because the "climate change" conference in Copenhagen last month didn't go like Glover wanted it to?Either Glover is horribly ignorant/uneducated...
"And nothing of value was lost..." ... or gained
Feelin' extra cynical and disgusted about some things this morning...So the Republican party thinks it can "win back" control of Congress from the Democrats in this year's election.How does that matter? Really... how does that matter?I have been observing politics for most of my life. I'll admit that once upon a time I did believe that there were fundamental differences between the Democrats and Republicans and that those were "the only" parties...
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A thought before signing off for the night...
Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet Him in pers...
British government finally apologizes for Thalidomide
Fifty years after Thalidomide was taken off the market in Great Britain, that country's government is finally owning up to its role in one of the most horrific disasters of modern medicine.Thalidomide was a drug approved to combat the symptoms of morning sickness in pregnant women. And when I say "approved" I mean that the British government didn't perform proper tests on...
8-year old Cub Scout is on TSA's terrorist watch list
In today's performance of "Security Theatre", it's 8-year old Mikey Hicks of New Jersey: a Cub Scout who is on the Transportation Security Administration's terrorism watch list.Mikey has been on the list since the age of 2, when he was first examined by TSA goons to see if he was carrying any explosives, guns or stabbing weapons. And Mikey doesn't appreciate his constant...
General Larry Platt sings "Pants on the Ground"
I've given up on American Idol, and not because this is Simon Cowell's final season (and if you ask me, Simon is among the most brilliant minds working in entertainment today). So I didn't see "Pants on the Ground", the original song performed on last night's show by 62-year old civil rights activist General Larry Platt of Atlanta.But having seen it now... I can't get it out of my head!!Here it is: "Pants on the Ground"!If American Idol had allowed...
Obama sending $100 million to Haiti... and why he's very wrong to do so
Haiti is still reeling from a 7.3 earthquake two days ago that destroyed Port-au-Prince. A half-million people there or more might be dead in the rubble. The tiny island nation was already one of the world's poorest economies and even that has been shattered beyond belief.This is very much one of the worst natural disasters of modern memory. Some are saying that the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami pales in comparison.As I wrote here yesterday, our thoughts...
Steve Ballmer celebrates 10 years as Microsoft CEO
It was ten years ago yesterday that Steve Ballmer succeeded Bill Gates as the CEO of Microsoft.Mash down here for the story at Slashdot.In honor of the occasion, software developers around the world will be throwing chairs across the rooms of their workplac...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
CIVIL WAR-style Leno/Conan banners!
Inspired by Marvel Comics' "Civil War" storyline from a few years ago, I made these banners that you can put on your own blog or website or whatever declaring whose side you are on! Yes, it has come to this: the entire western world dividing up into Team Leno and Team Conan. There are natural disasters across the globe and corrupt politicians taking us for a ride......
Same chemical composition... but different structure
How the heck is the chemical notation for a formula like this thing gonna wind up?!
From the abstract at the Royal Society of Chemistry's website...Usually, you'd expect two compounds with the same composition, atom-to-atom connectivity and symmetry to be chemically identical too. But scientists investigating metal-organic frameworks have discovered a surprising exception...
Pat Robertson says Haiti suffered earthquake because its people "swore a pact with the devil"
Oh crap. That demented fool is again engaging his mouth before using his mind (or what little is left of it anyway). This time Pat Robertson of The 700 Club is blaming Haiti's earthquake on how that country's citizens "swore a pact with the devil" to get free from the French.I've said this from darn nearly the very beginning of this blog, and I'll say it again: Pat Robertson is, according to the strictest biblical definition, a false prophet. ...
The trees of Mars
Not really trees, but an optical illusion captured by NASA's HiRISE camera in orbit around the red planet. What appears to be a scattering of pine trees is actually several trails of debris near Mars's north pole, left behind as the ice cap goes on its seasonal retreat.Mash down here for more about the "trees" of Ma...
Freaky news: Human-faced lamb born in turkey
Click here if you want to see the photo of it. I'm too wigged-out by it to post here. Consider yourself duly warned.The story also cites a human-faced goat that was born in Zimbabwe a few months ago. The goat lived for a few hours before frightened villagers killed it (and the governor of the province it was born in insists that it was the result of a human man having sex with a female goat).Crazy stuff, no doubt. But it does make me consider...
