When approaching a Death Star landing bay, it usually looks like a side approach:

Unfortunately, your artificial gravity generator is broken. From your perspective, as you approach the landing bay, does it feel more like a vertical drop?

As you get closer, does your perspective immediately “flip” from the horizontal to the vertical sensation, or does it feel more like a sickening plunge over the edge of a giant roller coaster?

And how about those people working in the landing bays. For them, it seems like the bay is on the “side” of the Death Star. So I guess Death Star gravity must be machine-generated, because it always pulls “down”, rather than towards the center of the sphere.

If, like Twitter, the gravity generator fails, wouldn’t people fly towards the center of the station? For people on the top level, this is no problem. But people working in the side landing bays would fly towards the inside walls, and people on the “bottom” levels would fly toward the ceiling.

Is there zero gravity at the center of the station? (again, assuming the artificial gravity is temporarily broken)

I spent more time than I care to admit designing this Adirondack chair in Sketchup:

I then built a prototype, which consumed an entire weekend.

Unfortunately, my chair is not remotely comfortable. Maybe I should stick to tables.

Here’s what the IBM 5100 Portable Computer looked like:

From the look on that guy’s face, I bet that thing was damn heavy. I scanned this from the November, 1975 issue of Scientific American. Here are the specs:

I just received a whole box full of Scientific Americans from the 1970s. I’ll scan and post some of the Apple and Radio Shack ads in coming days.

The March, 1979 issue looks really cool — it features detailed descriptions of ancient catapults with lots of diagrams showing their construction. The whole magazine had a distinctive hands-on feel back then.

I’ve probably deleted about 3 comments from this blog due to either extreme profanity or blatantly stupid personal attacks. I think two of those deleted comments were from this guy.

He’s all riled up again and now I’m having some fun with it. Go let him know what you think.

I guess his logic goes something like this:

• USA SUCKS!

It’s deep, I know.

According to Maxim, Sara Jessica Parker is the unsexiest woman alive. Think about that. Out of BILLIONS of women worldwide, they claim she is absolutely last. Here is an MSNBC article; the original Maxim list seems to have gone missing. Maybe they backed down?

I tried contacting Maxim Editor in Chief Guido Selenko, pictured below, but he will not return my phone calls.

This is just a hunch, but the guy who puts Sara Jessica Parker on this list probably hasn’t visited Dirt Cheap Cigarettes and Beer in O’Fallon, MO on a weekend night.

It all started with some scrap MDF:

UPDATE: Here is the ebay listing.

I cut the circular base using a router and some scrap wood as a circle cutting jig:

Resulting in a perfect circle:

Using the router, I then cut a rabbet around the edge of the base:

Here is the completed rabbet with the motherboard and fan. This is a mini-ITX motherboard:

Next Steps

Here is a picture of the 12″ diameter steel hemisphere:

And here’s a little jig to route out the fan hole:

I used my drill press to cut the circles, which provide ventilation as well as holes for wires:

Here I’m gluing the four feet on the underside of the base:

Primer and Paint

Painting was very time consuming. Here is some primer on the hemisphere:

And some paint on the base:

Metal Brackets

I used some aluminum stock to fabricate the front panel (power, reset, and LEDs):

And the hard drive brackets:

Here we see the Raptor hard drive and fan mounted to the base:

I used threaded rod, washers, and nuts to suspend the motherboard above the drive:

Nearing completion:

With the painted cover, with holes for eyes and salvaged antenna:

Here is the final product:

All of these pictures are on Picasa Web Albums.

For Sale

Here is the ebay listing.

Now that Android is done, I don’t have much use for it. The specs are as follows:

• JetWay J7F4K1G5D-PB VIA NanoBGA C7 Processor VIA CN700 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
• Western Digital 74GB 10,000 RPM Raptor drive
• 1 GB RAM
• picoPSU-120 Power Kit (this is REALLY cool - check out the link)
• 12″ diameter steel hemisphere case
• Ubuntu 7.10 installed

Keyboard, Mouse, and monitor are NOT included.

By now you’ve seen the shuttle picture showing an iPod in the window:

I’m no Photoshop guru, but this had to be done:

Go read the real news here.

Here is what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. My Google Android custom PC:

I posted additional pictures on this photo album.

This is a fully functional computer, including a JetWay Mini ITX motherboard with a Via C7 CPU, 1GB RAM, Ubuntu 7.10, and a 10,000 RPM 74 GB Raptor.

Here’s the back with the cover on:

The cover is a 12″ steel hemisphere (yes, you can order ANYTHING online). I had to cut out the holes, sand, and paint; painting was the hardest part of this project. All of the wires come out through the holes in the bottom, which is a circular piece of MDF.

I’ll follow up later this week with additional photos showing the construction and assembly process. I plan to sell this, so let me know if you are interested. I’ll probably put it up on EBay in a week or so.

Here are some of the more popular comics from my blog…or maybe not so popular, but some of my favorites:

• James Brings Closure to the Debate
• Java is the New COBOL
• Scala Will Do (this one pissed off a lot of people, beware…)
• Java Upgrade Hammer
• In the Zone
• Comic Tribute to Java Versus Ruby
• Wide Stanced Programming (my favorite)

All of my comics are tagged, also. You’ll have to keep clicking the Previous Entries link to see everything.

Least Successful Shirt Design