I was entertaining myself for hours this evening while perusing all of the crazy ways man has invented to move himself from point A to point B. After we mastered the most efficient methodology, apparently we turned our attention and energy towards also creating the most inefficient methods possible.

Why would we do this? Well, beyond the very basic primal need for horsepower… I’m guessing there was either a bet or a dare behind most of these creations. Either that, or they built em to attract the chicks!
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Ok. I saw like 5 seconds of this this clip on Cali and Neal’s GeekBrief.TV and then did a YouTube search to find the original video.

From the description:

I built the ball machine because I thought my dog Jerry, might like it and that it would be something fun for me to build. So after two years of on and off work, with many safety features such as IR proximity sensors to protect Jerry and my son from the machine, I finally complete.

Far from being a replacement for me, I was always right there with him enjoying his fun. And with all the troubles that I went through to build the ball machine, I still end up throwing more balls than that the machine could count! According to the computer, he played with the machine by himself only 3 times in his life.

I recently put this video on YouTube to keep alive my earlier memories of him and (hopefully) provide some “humorous distractions” for anyone that might drop by.

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Wow, folks this is exciting news! Months ago I registered with the Global Connection Project (a joint project of Carnegie Mellon University, NASA, Google, and National Geographic) for possible inclusion in their GigaPan beta program – a piece of robotic photography equipment that takes GigaPixel panoramic photos using standard digital camera equipment. Well, I just got notification that my application was accepted and I’ll be one of the first people on the planet to get my hands on one of these babies! Yee-haw!

Here is a little description of the GigaPan straight from the Web site:

GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas, and so the robotic GigaPan mount is recommended but is certainly not required to be part of this community.

What the heck does all this mean? Well, imagine looking at a digital photo and wanting to zoom in for more detail. You probably know that a 10 megapixel photo will give you pretty good resolution. Now just imagine 100 times greater resolution than that! No, wait! Don’t just imagine it – try it out yourself with the sample below! It reminds me of Harrison Ford’s character in the movie Blade Runner…
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I happened to catch a little blurb on G-4 TV about a tiny free video game called Sumotori Dreams and decided to check it out. I’m really glad I did because it is highly amusing and I played it for about 30 minutes even though I’m not a big fan of video games.

The concept reminds me of a digital version of Rockem Sockem Robots. Basically you’ve got two blocky little sumo wrestlers and you start the match and just go at it.

The only catch is that these sumo wrestlers are so drunk they can hardly stand up! So, there is as much luck in winning a match as there is skill.
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I know my buddy Hrafn over at Inkblot Earth is going to get a kick out of this (he’s an AI expert)… I just got finished getting the local weather update from MIT’s artificial intelligence weather forecaster, Jupiter.

All you do is give Jupiter a call on your phone and ask him for the forecast. He reads it off to you, and you’re on your merry way. Especially useful if you’re traveling somewhere and don’t want to have to find an Internet connection to look it up on the Web. I even made a recording so everyone could listen to a sample…
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Most people have probably seen those little white dinosaur robots you can get at Target, and some people may have seen Sony’s Aibo pet dog, but now there is a robo-pet that eclipses them all… Pleo is a one-week old infant Camarasaurus from the Jurassic period.

According to the marketing material, Pleo is an authentic Life Form. Treat him gently like any other living thing. Your Pleo will let you know how he feels at any moment. That’s because he is capable of actual emotions including joy, aggression, sorrow, and fear. He can also yawn, sigh, sniff, sniffle, snore, cough, hiccup, and sneeze.
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These are some of the first videos of intelligent parking systems in high end luxury cars. Now personally, being the master parker I am, I wouldn’t want to use them. But I must say it’s fascinating to watch the robots take over our world. :-)
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When I was about 13 my dad brought home my first computer, a TI-99/4a.

I remember programming it to run a BASIC program called “Mr. Bojangles” which created a little dancing stick figure. At the time I bet my pop looked at that and thought, “Is this what I wasted my money on?” Little did he know that just over a decade later I would found HTMLHelp.com, one of the earliest Web sites, which now receives over 25 million visitors each year.
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Over the past two days, I completed the setup of my new CNC Plasma cutting machine (also see PlasmaCAM Part 1), and man is it awesome!

After physically constructing the cutting table, I needed to do a little wiring in my Hypertherm PowerMax 1000 plasma torch so that it would interface with the control box of the PlasmaCAM in order to allow the machine to turn the torch on and off. The instruction video had me really worried because it kept talking about needing to have a professional electrician install the wiring and then perform a huge batch of tests in order to ensure everything was OK.
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Today a dream came true. For about two years now I’ve been planning, comparing, procrastinating… but today my new CNC Plasma Cutting machine arrived.

After comparing a wide variety of machines including DynaCNC, PlasmaCAM, Practical CNC, TorchMate, Dynatorch, and MultiCam, I settled on the PlasmaCAM for the following reasons:
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