Category: Random Nonsense

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

A friend of mine was talking about homeopathy…

… the other day and how he liked natural solutions and remedies.  I asked him if he knew what homeopathy is.  He thought about it and said, “You know, natural stuff.”  I told him that homeopathy is the belief that exposing yourself to very small doses, parts per million, of a harmful or toxic substance will in some way provide you with a resistance against such compounds.

Astonishingly to me, this did not appear to phase him at all.

I just don’t get it.  How in the world is a small shark bite supposed to protect you from a big shark bite?

@giseburt, if you hated the circus…

…then don’t go to Disney On Ice.

It’s hard to say which would be worse.  I’m not sure if I hate clowns because I fear them so, or because I fear them because of my deep and abiding hatred for them. 1  On the other hand, Disney On Ice is miserable, miserable, miserable.

  1. That said, I like balloon animals.  And red noses.  Face paint?  Not so much. [↩]

Clockwork spiders

I’m so freaking happy with the design, print, and assembly.

You can assemble the entire thing by hand in just a minute or two with no tools or hardware.  Turn the center wheel to make it walk.  Right now the gears are a little rough – but I have an idea on how to fix that in the next revision.  But, if the gears turned even slightly better, I think this design is almost ready for the big time.

I cannot wait to have a printed wind up rubber band powered clockwork spider skittering across my desk at work.

*skritch* *skritch* *skritch*  “Oh, don’t mind leggy.  She can smell fear.”

Flobots?!! Heck yes!

Pandora just suggested this band and I heard their song “Handlebars.”  It sounds like CAKE making sweet sweet love to Beck.

Oh, and the name of the band is Flobots?!  I love robots!

I’m sold.

Update: They also are reminiscent of Maroon 5, Fugees…   but mostly CAKE.  Seriously, it’s like accidentally finding a CAKE album I didn’t know existed.  Yay for horns!

Spiders + Robots = two great tastes that taste great together

I just uploaded my latest designs to Thingiverse.  I’m working on a RoboSpider using a set of gears run in an elliptical cycle.  I’ve been through a few revisions already and just came up with a new idea on how to design it with a thinner profile and hopefully work more reliably.

Unfortunately, the snap-together system I had designed just wasn’t working very well.  Also, my very VERY DIY gears are a poor substitute for using a legit gear script.  They don’t mesh that well and it shows.  I think I’ll give Cbiffle’s spur gear script filter for Greg Frost’s gear script a shot.

In the meantime, is anyone interested in designing a little rubber band powered motor to drive this thing?

Still got it

I just helped my wife start her own blog.  She wanted to include a license for some of things she’ll be publishing, so I whipped up a little WordPress plugin that will insert some creative commons license language with a small shortcode.  Although I haven’t tinkered with one of my plugins for a while now (five or six months?) I uploaded the plugin, activated it, and it “just worked.”  That’s a good feeling – writing a piece of code and having it work straight off with no bugs.

I wish I could say the same for my 3D design skills. 1

  1. Wakka wakka! [↩]

Yay for March!

So, yesterday someone who works for one of my competitors told my boss that I was a “feisty one.”

This made my day for two reasons.

  1. This guy is a jerk and it really came across in his letters.  I ignored every single one of his snarky and caustic comments and never responded to a thing he did.  Instead, I just got to work.  It’s nice to know my efforts made an impression.
  2. If he thought I was feisty before, now I’m going to double my efforts.  Seriously.  I’m totally bringing it now, baby.
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