Character LCD Megademo
Hedelmae made a character LCD demo for the Assembly 2003 wild competition. It uses a 20×4 character LCD. Nice work!
I used a modified LCDproc (for Linux) as the backend. Only the character set and the update speed were changed. All the actual graphics and animation was custom code. The effects were written into a 1bit 20×12 buffer then converted to 20×4 and finally LCDproc updated the image on the display.
Tech Details on ET’s “Phone Home” Beacon Rig
Later, in describing the keying device, Henry wrote: ” The surface of the saw blade was coated with several layers of spray paint, which served as insulation, preventing the bobby pins from contacting the metal blade. The message was programmed on the blade by carefully etching through the paint. “
Measuring Acceleration Due to Gravity in the Super Mario Brothers games
We determined that, generally speaking, the gravity in each Mario game, as game hardware has increased, is getting closer to the true value of gravity on earth of 9.8 m/s2. However, gravity, even on the newest consoles, is still extreme. According to Wikipedia, a typical person can withstand 5 g before losing consciousness, and all but the very latest of Mario games have gravity greater than this. Also, with gravity that great, it is a wonder Mario can perform such feats as leaping almost 5 times his own body height.
This isn’t beyond any first semester high school physics class, and yet I bet it was much more fun than textbook exercises or even playing with Matchbox cars.
Acceleration Due to Gravity: Super Mario Brothers via Mario Physics: measuring Mushroom Kingdom gravity
Ze Frank on inspiration, ideas and execution
This is a little video clip of Ze Frank on inspiration, ideas, and execution.
It’s not really worksafe.
[via]
Thriller in 64 a capella tracks
This guy, François Macré, recorded 64 tracks of himself singing the different parts of Thriller, and then combined the videos into a mega video. It took around 350 hours, and was done solely “to make people smile.”
Amazing.
YouTube – François Macré – Thriller 64 tracks a’cappella version
Honeycrisp Apples
But the Honeycrisp, developed in 1991 by two researchers at the University of Minnesota, really is kind of amazing: firm, wonderfully flavorful, tart and sweet at the same time. It’s no wonder that they often sell for twice as much as other apples and that growers sound like used-car dealers when they talk about them.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and there’s nothing that’s come close to this,” said Tre Green of Chazy Orchards in Chazy, N.Y. He was one of the first people in the state to try them and now has them on about 80 of his 800 acres. “It’s a hard apple to grow, but it has such a spectacular taste, I think supply is going to take a long, long time, if ever, to catch up with demand.”
And if nothing in his experience selling apples is comparable, how about in other businesses? He paused: “Well, maybe the development of the Internet for information exchange.”
From the comments:
I think of Honeycrisps as being sort of like the Blue Moons of the apple world. Mass market, not as good as the real artisanal stuff, but about a thousand times better than the red delicious/Coors options. So while I prefer to buy a box of just-in-season artisanal apples, at the grocery store I’m happy to buy a Honeycrisps rather than the depressing other choices.
The sentences of Sarah Palin, diagrammed
“I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.”
I didn’t stop to marvel at the mad thrusting of that pet political watchword “families” into the text. I just rolled up my sleeves and attempted to bring order out of the chaos:
I had to give up. This sentence is not for diagramming lightweights. If there’s anyone out there who can kick this sucker into line, I’d be delighted to hear from you. To me, it’s not English—it’s a collection of words strung together to elicit a reaction, floating ands and prepositional phrases (“with that vote of the American people”) be damned.
The sentences of Sarah Palin, diagrammed. – By Kitty Burns Florey – Slate Magazine
We Have Lasers!!!!!!!!!!
You begged your mom to pay the extra $4. A tribute to the greatest school photo backdrop there ever was.
I was completely unaware of this phenomenon. However, now that they’ve released some backgrounds [lightning lasers] [classic lasers], maybe I’ll retouch some of my elementary school photos…
KazooKeylele – Ukulele – The final countdown
KazooKeylele–kazoo, baby keyboard, and ukulele.