These are things I fantasize about doing, but probably won’t. They are either impossible, or are things I may not actually enjoy if I had the chance. For example, people turn abandoned missile silos into homes all the time, but in reality, the homes are isolated, cold, and awkward to live in.

• Walk up (or down might be better) the Arch stairs. You can see the “forbidden stairs” as you ride the trams to the top. 630 feet is a long way, however. This would get really painful and boring. But I’m still annoyed that the best part of the Arch is off limits.
• Visit the inside of a Google data center.
• Live on a private island. Because I’m afraid of pirates. And too poor.
• Turn an abandoned missile silo into my home.
• Build a house with at least one hidden room and some secret passageways. This item seems attainable.

Crayon Physics kicks ass:

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

It’s in beta now.

Via Mario

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

One of the managers where I work turned 40. This is what his team did to his cube:

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.