Hot damn! Our DVD is now available as a rental from Scarecrow Video, one of the baddest (goodest) video stores in the world. I wonder what we’re on the shelf next to? Hopefully we’re sitting between some old Thundercats episodes and The Wizard of Speed and Time.

Masen sent me this great picture of a Dimetrodon today.

The Dimetrodon was a synapsid who lived during the Permian Period which was around about 260-280 million years ago.. a good 40 million years before the dinosaurs hit the scene.

Dimetrodon was an apex predator (top of the food chain) and pretty much ruled the school. He spent his spare time chowing down on all those pesky little critters trying to evolve into Dinosaurs. Yummy… meat!

Thanks Mase!

Goge Chort meet Aaron Soring! Thanks to Dani who chased this guy down on her bike and snapped the picture. I saw him from across the street and thought it was Aaron with a moustache.

I don’t know which one to shoot!

The goal of Robot Soccer:

By the year 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team.

RoboCup 2005 has a small, medium, humanoid, and robot dog division. The Sony ABIO robot dogs are a little creepy because their movement is a too lifelike. Kind of like mutant babies crawling around nudging the ball with their heads. They look like great fun to program though. Hmmm… I always wanted a dog.

In the small division I like the Carnegie Mellon team. They’ve got a good media archive so you can check out all the best robots in action.

GOOOOAAAALLLLL!!!!!

I made it out to the cabin last weekend with John Mackinnon, Joe Smith, and my cousin-in-law Danny Pardee on his boat the Sentry. She’s a stout little fishing vessel with some good speed to her and apparently the same make as the boat my dad used to own. We were only out for a couple days but I got some brush cleared, took apart the sink and started scheming for my next trip. I’m going to try putting together a micro hydro device to power the 12volt. I’m using the hampster wheel alternator as a basis for my design.

I read an article yesterday about how Yahoo is overtaking Google, I think that’s akin to proclaiming Real Player better than Quicktime but whatever, you can use your search engine and I’ll use mine. Why do I like Google? They might not have the best API or live traffic reports but this April 1st they have unveiled a great new beverage line that’s bound to crush the competition… Google Gulp.

From the Google Gulp F.A.Q.:

Wait – you’re saying Auto-Drink™ changes my brain chemistry?
Um, yeah – but for the better.

What if I don’t want to use Auto-Drink™?
No problem – simply turn off Auto-Drink™ on your Google Gulp preferences page.

Well, shouldn’t Auto-Drink™ be default-off?
You mean we should cripple a perfectly useful feature just because of a little bad PR?

I hate magazines. They only exist to hack and spew inserts into my lap. I don’t know why I thought I should subscribe to a new one, it was probably due to my American consumer brainwashing. Thank god for that because I got the first issue of Make Magazine yesterday and it kicks ass. A hefty 181 pages of do-it-yourself projects published quarterly by O’Reilly and edited by Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing. I can’t tell you how amazingly cool this magazine is.. yet.. I must… try.

This magazine makes me feel like I’m a wide eyed, buzz cut kid from the fifties who has nothing to worry about but Sputnik. It’s all the goodness of erector sets, model rockets, and those little electronics kits that you could build radios out of but you only used to shock your sister. The first issue has iPod hacks, plans for a $14 camera stabilizer, a magnetic stripe reader and how to make a Desktop Gauss Rifle.

“A linear accelerator for studying high-energy physics costs around $5 billion. But you can make one for about 30 bucks with four strong magnets, a wooden ruler, some plastic tape, and nine steel balls.”

So go order a copy of Make and rent October Sky while you’re waiting.

I’m going to be posting both current and past projects to this site so I’ll get things started with some inspiring words dredged from the ARP quote bucket:

“This is the day of the penguin… Come.”
“That makes religion more like Robo Rally.”
“Cupid doesn’t have teeth.”
“First of all, mad props to me.”
“You were made to fly, Jos” (more…)