Hello L.A. : driving
All it takes is an overturned van, burning in the middle of the highway, to ruin your commute.
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Loading ...My experience with Ponoko (Part 2 - Reality)
Some stories are best told through pictures:
The flat box:
I guess this is unboxing porn.
6mm Italian Poplar. It’s got some kind of adhesive on it for protection.
Poked-out:
But does it fit together?
I know you like close-up shots:
Holy crap:
Receiving package to putting final product to use? 10 minutes:
All of the pieces fit snugly and no glue or extra fastening is needed - just like I hoped. It isn’t obvious from the photos but there is one piece that doesn’t fit correctly. It’s the 3rd support beam that should be in rear. I miscalculated the depth of the groove. No biggie - it is the least important piece.
Overall I’m very impressed. It’s extremely sturdy, looks cool (vaguely like an elephant), and smells like a camp fire. I was hoping the keyboard (not pictured) would create a little more space while stowed, but that’s the way it goes.
(Rate it!) Loading ...Cancer cancer
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Fun Chess - variation of traditional chess
Fun Chess is very similar to traditional chess, except it is more like Mortal Combat.
1) In this variation of chess, each piece has a point value, and you collect those points each time you take an opponent’s piece.
(Pawn: 1 pt, Rook: 2pt, Knight: 3pt, Bishop: 4pt, Queen: 5pt, King: 1mil. pt)
2) Each piece has its own power-move (fatality) associated with it.
3) During your turn you may spend points to perform a power-move.
That’s it.
The Fun Chess Power Moves:
PAWN: may attack one square farther than normal (ie. may attack 2 diagonal squares away)
ROOK: Teleportation. If at an edge of the board, may attack the square on the opposite edge.
KNIGHT: may attack in a larger L-shape than normal (ie. move 3 spaces up and 2 over)
BISHOP: Ricochet. When clear of obstructions, may bounce off the edge of the board (like Breakout) and keep going.
QUEEN: she may perform the special moves of the other pieces.
Fun Chess has not actually been played yet, so I don’t know how balanced the special moves are. But since regular chess is inherently balanced, Fun chess should be just as fair. I guess the question is really if Fun Chess is fun or if it sucks.
Other thoughts: maybe add an extra defensive turn to the game where during an attack the defender could choose to spend points to move/defend themselves.
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5) Loading ...Crematorium Power Plant
Dead people. Please. I’m tired of hearing about them. Day in and day out it’s always the same: he’s dead, she’s dead, 50 just died over here. I get it. They’re dead. Let’s just get rid of those gross corpses.
Here’s an idea: create centralized crematoriums outside all major metropolitan areas. Outfit each facility with a steam-generator to turn the burning-corpse energy into clean, renewable energy. It could be called the gray revolution.
Dead people are an untapped resource that the average person’s moral obligations prevent them from noticing. There is no real demand for dead people, but an unlimited supply. Like Ford cars.
Filed under: Amoral Energy Generation
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...My dream stole my idea!
After writing about the combo sugar/cream packet idea, I started feeling a little paranoid that maybe it already exists. I make it a point not to do any research, so I still don’t actually know. Besides, I’m not going to the library to find out what’s real or not.
Then, last night someone in my dream was using a sugar/cream packet, and I felt really dumb for proposing an invention without doing any research first. Now that I’m awake I feel dumb for feeling dumb.
(Rate it!) Loading ...Invention: Sugar/Cream Sugar Packet
Imagine: sugar granules.
Now imagine: granules of dehydrated cream.
Really push the envelope here: sugar granules and dehydrated cream granules inside a single packet.
Note:
Dehydrated cream granules may need to be invented for this invention to work.
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5) Loading ...Meat Shaker
Goes great on everything.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Jesus Week - thank god that’s over.
Ok. I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of my ideas are kind of awesome.
Which reminds me about the Jesus painting: I’m not going to say what it’s all about. Sorry. Every time an idea is revealed it takes some of the magic away; some of the initial spark and fire - the potential. And I lose at least a half dozen brains cells each time I do it. This time I’m just going to keep it to myself. Savor the moment. The secret. And you will suffer, eternally, hopefully, until I actually paint the painting, which could be any time, or never ever.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Loft Bed Design
I became obesessed with the idea of a lofted bed for my bedroom in San Francisco. Actually, I was more obsessed with the designing than making part. I don’t have any carpentry skills that I know of, but I would have built it anyway if I had lived in that place longer. It’s designed to scale and all fastening elements are invisible from the outside.
Image created with Maya.
(Rate it!) Loading ...Captive Straw - Soda Bottle with Built-in Straw
I don’t like to use straws, but luckily for this invention, other people do.
This is how it works: when you uncap your bottled beverage, the straw springs to full length. If you’re unable to finish your drink all in one sitting, just push the straw back in and re-cap.
Now do my bidding, Captive Straw!
(Rate it!) Loading ...Zodiac Murder Map
Here’s an idea I’ve already done, so good luck stealing it.
I created a map with the locations of each Zodiac Killer attack, as well as the possible attacks, that occurred in California around 1969. I thought it’d be interesting to see how far he traveled during his deathcapades. I’m guessing he lived in the Vallejo area, or another crappy area in the east bay. Vallejo is a good place to breed serial killers, in my opinion.
Click on the image to experience the total Zodiac Murder Map Experience experience.
(Rate it!) Loading ...Betterama?
The last one was created with Photoshop CS2’s automatic panorama maker tool. After noticing it looked like garbage, a person recommended a freeware program called Hugin because it’s ‘easy and automatic’. That might be true, but not for me. The program crashed a lot, but after 2 days of trial and error, I was finally able to produce a significantly awesomer result:
How it was done:
- Canon xti mounted on a tripod, placed in the center of the room, mounted vertically.
- 18mm lens (28.8mm in reality).
- Snapped shots at about 30 degree increments (13 shots in a circle) with the camera level.
- Snapped another set with the camera tilted more at the floor (12 shots that time).
- Threw the shots into Hugin and 2 days later produced a 700MB tiff.
- Final resolution: 10,655×2957
(Rate it!) Loading ...Invention: Helium Backpack
Remember my promise for hundreds of backpack inventions? Well, I’m following through kind of. I stopped bugging Forrest, so he stopped producing sketches of my ideas. Too bad. But, at least I got 2 drawings out of him…
Anyway, here’s another backpack:
The fact that it isn’t even a backpack is even better.
(Rate it!) Loading ...Invention: Wrist Watch with Built-In Bottle Opener
Just like it says.
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