Arduino

I found out about this board from FLOSS. It looks pretty cool. Just have to think of what I'd like to make with it.

Forebearer

These are pretty cool. Jeff and Alex do them.

http://www.forebearer.com/

Google SketchUp

This looks like pretty cool software.

Ark

Man Builds Noah's Ark (exact scale given in Bible)

Working Replica of Noah's Ark Opened In SCHAGEN, Netherlands . The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was opened the first crowd of curious townsfolk to behold the wonder. Of course, it's only a replica of the biblical Ark , built by Dutch Creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible. The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide That's two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house. Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold. A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine. Biblical Scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been. Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and with occasional help from his son Roy. Construction began in May 2005. On the uncovered top deck - not quite ready in time for the opening - will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs and chickens, and goats, and one camel. Visitors on the first day were stunned. 'It's past comprehension', said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw the ark looming over the local landscape. 'I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big.' There is enough space near the keel for a 50-seat film theater where kids can watch a video that tells the story of Noah and his ark. Huibers, a Christian man, said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands, where church going has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.

BYU and UCLA - MWC and PAC10

This article was a great summary of what is happening this year with the MWC and PAC10. Including the stupid TV problem.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/57903-byu-to-ucla-pac10-bcs-espn-and-ap-fu

by J. Michael Morris (Columnist)

September 15, 2008

After looking at the AP rankings, watching the Tennessee Volunteers get kicked in the groin by Rick Neuheisel, and seeing Washington quarterback Jake Locker nearly stage a classic comeback two weeks ago, I decided to write an article about how good a conference the Pac-10 is.

I spouted off about how USC would destroy Ohio St. and then even picked UCLA to win against BYU. What I didn't consider in the article is that USC was only going to play a lowly Big Ten team (like the one Utah abused earlier in the season), but many of the other Pac-10 teams weren't.

This is my official apology: It will never happen again.

Okay, maybe just once more—but this time it is for the Mountain West Conference. Wow, they're really good. Why aren't they a BCS conference?

They went 7-1 on Saturday with only pathetic San Diego State losing. Better, though, is that MWC schools were 4-0 against the Pac-10 and completely ruined both Arizona State's and UCLA's football seasons.

SEC fans can thank them later, maybe by scheduling some games against them. I think this is the real image problem with both conferences.

The Pac-10 often plays Mountain West Schools because they are geographically close and share some media markets. But the PAC-10 schools think that MWC football teams are the mentally challenged little brother of BCS conferences.

It helps nobody to be pummeled by shortbus football teams. If the Pac-10 was honest about how good the MWC actually is, these annual beatdowns wouldn't hurt quite so bad.

The Mountain West, for those of you who don't watch anything but ESPN, is a football conference in flyover country with a 15-5 non-conference record so far this season, which includes a 5-0 record against Pac-10 schools.

The top teams in the MWC are arguably as good as any in the country, with No. 11 BYU, No. 20 Utah, and TCU, who should be ranked but falls around No. 27 in the AP. That's better than the Pac-10, Big East, or ACC.

The reason you don't know this is that they actually started their own television network instead of bending over to the boys from Bristol. It's called the Mountain Network.

Good luck finding it unless you have the $239 per month, every channel in existence package.

The Mountain network has terrible commentary and worse camera work, YouTube quality local commercials, and pretty good ratings on Saturday in the fall. They play the MWC games that Fox Sport Rocky Mountain and ESPN won't—basically all of them.

I know, football games aren't played by conferences, so let's talk about teams.

BYU humiliated UCLA on Saturday and in the process made Lee Corso, who picked UCLA (like I did) to win, pretend that Alzheimer's was setting in. Maybe he wasn't pretending?

Seriously though, that game might have been 100 to nothing if Urban Meyer was coaching instead of Bronco Mendenhall. Max Hall tied the school record with seven touchdowns thrown and then came out of the game with almost eight minutes left IN THE THIRD QUARTER!

This performance snagged an NCAA Offensive Player of the Week honor. BYU's third string defense shut out UCLA for the entire fourth quarter.

Mormons do have sympathy for the less fortunate.

No, Norm Chow and Rick Neuheisel didn't quit trying to score. Are you kidding? I think Rick was punishing his starters by never taking them out. In fact, UCLA missed a late fourth quarter field-goal attempt. Oh yeah, BYU blocked an earlier attempt from inside the 20 without controversy.

Utah rolled the worst team in college football at Utah State. TCU beat Stanford, Air Force beat Houston, New Mexico gave Arizona its first loss, and highly touted Arizona State lost to UNLV, arguably the worst MWC team.

Don't worry though: With non-conference play all but over for the season, ESPN and the rest of the nation can return to ignoring the Mountain West. The BCS schools can get back to playing with themselves to determine a champion.

Unless you live in the high desert Rocky Mountains, the next MWC team you'll see will probably be playing in the Rose Bowl in January.

Photo courtesy of LA Times and a completely overmatched cornerback.

This is Bazaar/Amazing

Click on the graphic with the pink dots.

If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, the dots will remain only one color, pink.


However if you stare at the black " +" in the centre, the moving dot turns to green.

Now, concentrate on the black " + " in the centre of the picture. After a short period, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see only a single green dot rotating.

Fly like Superman

This is from MSNBC. This guy has some guts...and it's pretty cool.

Fly like Superman

Flight is perhaps Superman's most enviable and famous superpower – and humans have labored hard to mimic it. Airplanes, of course, are a reasonable solution, but they don't allow individuals to take to the skies on a whim. Since the 1950s, rocket-powered backpacks have been a viable option for short-lived jaunts, and their future could look even better: Jet Pack International says it will soon release a model that promises 9 minutes of flight time and an estimated speed of 83 mph. The rocket man in this photo, 48-year-old Yves Rossy, lived out his Superman dream in May 2008 when he demonstrated his self-made jet-powered wings on a flight in the Swiss Alps.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25690554/?pg=4#Tech_WeirdScience_080718

Rip DVDs and put them in a useful format

This will allow you to rip DVDs so you can put them on your IPOD or whatever.

http://handbrake.fr/

Synchronize bookmarks with firefox

Since googlesync is no longer going to be supported as of firefox 3 this is a great alternative.

http://www.foxmarks.com/

Magic Jack

This is about the size of a USB memory stick with a phone jack you plug into your computer. Then you can make all the calls you want through that phone.

It looks pretty cool. I think I might get one and try it out. I have a PC I use for TV and it's always on so I'll probably just connect this to it if it works.

Right now you can't keep your number but apparently that's coming. As soon as they have that then I'm sold.

Kiva - Small Loans

http://www.kiva.com

I had never heard of this before until I read an article in Fortune Magazine about it.

This website connects entrepreneurs in developing countries with people willing to give micro loans to them. The minimum amount you can loan is $25. I decided to try it and did two micro loans.

The way it works (more or less) is someone applies for a loan of say $250. Then that would take 10 different people donating $25 each to make that loan. You can optionally donate 10% to Kiva the company or you can by-pass this amount. I kinda messed up and accidentally by-passed that when I checked out. But I'll probably do that in the future. 10% is much more reasonable then the 40% others offer.

The nice thing about this is it's a loan and needs to be repaid. Then I believe you can re-loan that money...we'll see how that goes. I found two in the Dominican Republic since I have ties there.



It's also got some really cool statistics on the people you loan to and also the local partners who handle the loans.

Glenn Beck Conversion Story

Popularity of programming languages

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

Java is still the most popular but this is an interesting list. Ruby is much higher then I would have thought. So is Python. Java, Perl, and PHP are still the languages I'm the most interested in.

Novell 2nd largest contributor to Linux Kernel

Right behind redhat. Novell is making some great contributions to the open source community.

http://linux-foundation.org/weblogs/press/2008/03/31/linux-foundation-publishes-study-on-linux-development-statistics-who-writes-linux-and-who-supports-it/

Awareness Test

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

This is a cool little test. Takes five seconds and it's pretty interesting.