Category: Random Nonsense

Sometimes I just feel compelled to share nonsense, random thoughts, and sometimes just stuff I want to save

Your mamma was so rusty

I recently watched this bit from Doctor Who.  Cybermen and Daleks insulting one another?  Heck yes!

  • Our species are similar, though your design is inelegant.
  • Daleks have no concept of eh-leh-gance.
  • This is obvious.  But, consider – our technologies are compatible.  Cybermen plus Daleks.  Together we could upgrade the universe.
  • Request denied.
  • Hostile elements will be deleted.
  • Exterminate.
  • Open visual link.  Daleks be warned.  You have declared war upon the Cybermen.
  • This is not war.  This is pest control.
  • We have five million Cybermen.  How many are you?
  • Four.
  • You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?
  • We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek.  You are superior in only one respect.
  • What is that?
  • You are better at dying.

I had a dream last night…

And, it isn’t the first time.  I was going into excruciating detail about calculating and calibrating a good Skeinforge profile.  Well, we can use a thread thickness of such-and-such, a layer height of such and such, oh, and what plastic are you using?

Admittedly, just before bed I had chatted with several MakerBot/RepRap guys and was tinkering with ProfileMaker v3.0, so math and SCIENCE must have been dominating my thoughts.

How not to ask for tech support

DISCLAIMER:  This has nothing to do with MakerBot, MakerBlock, or anything you see on this site.  This is me venting my frustration at a user of a totally totally different website that has nothing to do with awesome cool robots.1

“Oh, yeah, you know, it’s just not working for me.”

Great.  Thanks for that.  I don’t know what you tried or how.  Did you take your computer out of the box it came in?  Is there a keyboard?  Plug your computer in?  Take the sheet off of your monitor?  Are you wearing a blindfold?  Is your hair too long and obscuring your vision?  Do you have an internet connection?  Are you surfing from your phone, a laptop, desktop?  Could you bring the web page up?  Is the program too slow or are you not able to use it at all?  What happens when you try to use it?

  1. But, damn, I sure wish it did have something to do with awesome cool robots! [↩]

Another interesting project – Tater Tot Gun

This is a project I stumbled across a few years ago.  It’s a “Tater Tot Gun” – a pneumatic gun which uses a small bike pump to pressurize a chamber and hold a semi-rigid diaphragm in place.  When the chamber is very slightly decompressed, the diaphragm falls out of place releasing all of the pressure and accelerating your projectile.  Apparently it’s capable of more than 350 ft/s versus 1000 ft/s for an actual firearm. If this project at all interests you, definitely check out the two or three different models he describes.

Bottom line:  it’s crazy dangerous.  So, naturally, I bought two mini-bike pumps.  I not going to be completing this any time soon. 1

  1. I bought those bike pumps about three years ago… [↩]

Dear Movie Studios… would you like to borrow my glasses?

…’cause you are apparently as nearsighted as I am.

I netflix’d the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World a few weeks ago.  It was pretty entertaining.  I don’t often check out the “special” features on movies, but I went to that menu option after watching the movie.  In doing so the DVD notified me that the disc contained only the movie itself – but that I should purchase the DVD myself to watch the extras.

Here’s the thing.  I don’t want to buy your movie.  I’m never going to want to buy your movie.  It was good, not great.  But, really, that’s why I have Netflix.  I’m not going out to invest $20 in your movie and then have another DVD case clutter my life.  I’ve already paid for the privilege of watching your movie – I’m not going to run out and pay $20 (or more) on top of that to watch 15 minutes of people screwing up their lines.

Let’s look at this from a wider perspective.  The sorts of people who are willing to pirate a movie don’t really care overmuch about the DVD extras – they’re content to watch the main movie.  So, now you’ve created a system where the people who are actually paying for the privilege of watching your movie are getting the same content they’d see if they pirated the movie??  Shouldn’t you be doing the opposite?!  Doesn’t it make more sense to add more content to DVD’s, not less?  Why not make the actual DVD so incredibly enticing with extra features that those people who would normally pirate a film want to either (a) Netflix it or (b) buy it?  I mean, it’s not like the Netflix business model is going anywhere.  They’ve only gotten bigger in the last ten years and basically put brick-and-mortar movie rentals out of business.

Anyhow, for all you film execs who closely hang all over my every word – if the film industry wants my $20 directly, here’s what they have to do:  Make a movie so freaking awesome I’m going to want to watch it again – and soon.

Google, what the hell?!

Apparently I can’t access Google Groups.  Which sucks.  I have several different Gmail accounts and I can’t use any of them with Google Groups.  As a result, I can only read what’s going on in the Google Groups on my RSS feed – and not respond to anything.

Google, this may not be evil…  But it is just plain mean.  Cut this out, please, and restore access to Google Groups to Gmail users.

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