Archive for the ‘Toys’ Category
You know, I’ve been giving some thought …
Monday, October 25th, 2010Taking the easy way out
Saturday, August 7th, 2010I read, years ago, about an iaido exercise involving the attempt to split a falling dewdrop with a simultaneous draw-and-strike of a samurai sword. This requires much less skill to deal with dripping water.
I’m not Tim the Toolman …
Saturday, July 24th, 2010… but I do appreciate tools. Some are beautiful, some are special-purpose, and some are just fun.
And some are beautiful, fun, and strange:
I guess I’m not the target market
Monday, March 22nd, 2010I don’t see much point in adding “toys” to a computer using the USB port, unless it’s something that either reports to the computer or can be controlled by the computer. Just using the computer’s USB port as a power outlet seems rather pointless to me, given that you really can’t get much power out of a USB port.
That being said, it’s obvious that there’s a market for all sorts of useless gadgets, such as the USB disco ball (can you set it to operate only when you’re playing Donna Summer or The Village People in iTunes?) and the USB drink cooler (which actually isn’t quite useless, even if they don’t say how long it takes to actually cool a drink).
There are design concepts here and here for USB toasters. Given the power restrictions, I wonder how long it takes to actually produce a piece of toast using one of them. Although the first one looks more like a printer, it appears that the second one is the one that operates as a printer.
I wonder if there’d be a market for slices of bread with an image of Jesus printed on them?
Hey, Rube!
Monday, March 8th, 2010Catchy music, and a wonderful video:
No catchy music here, but some impressive work (still in progress):
Update: CWCID – both videos are via Gizmodo.
New toy
Sunday, January 24th, 2010I just upgraded my cellphone. I’ve been using a Blackberry Pearl for a couple of years, and although it was nice enough, I was getting frustrated with it. I’ve now got a Motorola Droid, and I’m liking it a lot better. I’ve already decided that it’s got its own set of annoyances, but they’re different, and there are two things that the Droid does that I find to be much better for the way I do things.
First, you have to deliberately put the Blackberry Pearl into “ignore the buttons” mode; the Droid does that automatically and must be unlocked to operate. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve inadvertently dialed someone because my reading glasses or a pen pressed against the Blackberry keyboard.
Second, the Droid does GMail and the web so much better than the Blackberry Pearl that it’s an entirely different experience.
It’s also got a host of features that the Pearl doesn’t. Marion is quite taken by the map capabilities, especially the GPS information that enhances it. In any case, I’m having a grand old time learning what it can do.
Oh, this looks like fun
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009I got off on a tangent the other day
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009After seeing an episode of How It’s Made that showed them, and remembering seeing reproductions sold at the local Renaissance Festival, I looked up astrolabes online. For a long time, it was the state-of-the-art astronomical instrument. You can duplicate my search without much trouble, but I’ll put two links here that I found interesting:
The Electric Astrolabe is a web app you can use.
This site at the University of Hawaii allows you to generate customized astrolabe templates that you can download.
Who’s afraid of the big bad
Monday, August 3rd, 2009Vortex cannon?
EMBED-Giant Vortex Cannon Destroys Everything – Watch more free videos
Via Viral Footage.
A few miscellaneous links
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009Bits & Pieces links to a flash-based “police sketch artist” app. Looks like fun.