Observe The Banana

Electron Love

ohm-my, I find you so irresistible,
I just don’t know watt to do,
Currently I ampere in your power.
You act so coil,
to induce me into your field,
its beyond my capacity to avoid.
please integrate me into your circuit,
I won’t be a load.
don’t leave me feeling like a dip.
Without you I could just diode
I know I am biased,
but you look so farad to me.
I just want to volt you all night,
and cuddle you in my armature.
You complete my circuit.
I’m not interested in your transistor,
don’t even want to meter,
I only have polarize for you.
How can I cell you on the idea,
the potential is there.
I need to switch you over.
Please don’t tune me out.
I can’t stand your impedance,
you know we were meant tube.
How can I bridge the gap?
How can I amplify my signal?
Help me rectify the situation.
There is nothing to sine,
just a wave will do.

A pun poem by ObserveTheBanana. Inspired by Breakfast Blues, by Trout Fishing in America.

My son B drew this funny little cartoon depicting the elderly iPod Nano telling the new youngin’ Touch how it was back in the day . . .

This was on the envelope containing my amazing new robot bookmarks which I will have to scan and share another day.

Pi day (March 14 or 3/14) rapidly approaches once again. Last year we celebrated with . . . a pie. This year we are going to be in Minneapolis for my son B to play in a state piano competition, so I was not sure how we would recognize the day short of buying some pie. But now, salvation! Make: TV is having a Make: Day at the Science Museum of Minnesota.  We are SO there. As a subscriber to Make magazine, and the Make philosophy I often lament that all of the Maker Faire events take place in far off Texas or California, so I am very pleased to be able to attend a Make event right here in my home state of Minnesota, and even on a day when I will be driving to the Twin Cities anyway.

Celebrate the ingenuity and inventiveness in our community. Make: television, Geek Squad® and the Science Museum of Minnesota join forces to create a new event giving local engineers, artists, tinkerers and inventors the opportunity to showcase their DIY creations to museum visitors.

This family-friendly event features arts, electronics, musical performances, green technology, crafting and more!

Happy Pi Day!

The Many Faces of March 14

Another joke from the mind of B:

What do you call a role playing game that moves around and changes a lot?
.
.
.
.
ADHD&D !

The students at Ohio Northern University put together an ice cream serving system with two Kuka robots and an Allen Bradley Micrologic 1500 PLC. While this kind of educational automation project may be common in university robot labs across the country, being a big fan of both ice cream and robots I thought I would give a nod to these students’ excellent work. They report that it took 26 students and 5 weeks to fabricate the system including writing all of the code and machining custom effectors. It takes 2 minutes to serve a cup of ice cream complete with spoon and toppings of choice. The students did not want to speed up this cycle time so the user could enjoy “an experience watching the system” and not just get fast ice cream. A nice touch is the way the robot arm moves a little, then lowers the cup under the soft serve machine to produce a nicely shaped point on the top of the ice cream serving. Watch it in action below.

[Dvice via TechEBlog]

. . . or better parenting through Unix. My son B really got a kick out of this xkcd comic:

So now I have learned to put the concept to good use:

Me: Time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed

B: No, I’m reading

Me: SUDO, brush your teeth.

B: Okay! (jumps up and runs upstairs.)

Works great for now, at least until the novelty wears off in a few days.

Every year the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM) holds a student film festival (video making contest) they call the UMMys. The entrants vary widely in quality and subject matter and tend to include a lot of teen angst and zombies. Several years ago one entrant stood head and (large metallic) shoulders above the rest. It was called “Rumspringa! The Musical” and was about an amish girl going on her traditional rumspringa to the city and falling in love with a recently unemployed phone answering robot. All songs are written (except the Electric Slide) and performed by the students and it is clever, funny and totally worth watching, cheesy robot costume and all.   Sadly the entire 30 minute production appears to no longer be available on YouTube, but two of the best (IMHO) musical numbers from it are still available for your viewing pleasure.

Your robot overlords command you to click the play buttons below…

Every film needs an internet trailer…..

[Rumspringa! The Musical on MySpace]

“Large 1970s banana-shaped resin floor lamp by Louis Durot, with one light.”

Over at 1stdibs.com they are selling a giant banana lamp from the 1970′s. At close to 7ft tall this is one serious banana to have in your house. I want it. They won’t even show the price without registering and logging in first, and there is shipping from France.

[1stdibs via BoingBoing]

This guy has redirected the water output from a jetski through nozzles on a jetpack. This is an amazingly awesome idea that I am surprised no one else had come up with yet (or had they?). I think you could do the same thing on land using a firehose or some other high pressure water source. This video makes it look like SO MUCH FUN, a jet pack that doesn’t run out in 30 seconds. Who cares if you can only go 25 feet high or so.





[ Reddit via Crunchgear]

Firefighters: Flaming Squirrel To Blame In Jones Wildfire

I guess I could come up with some clever joke about swishy homosexual squirrels starting wildfires, but I think the headline speaks for itself. Actually I was at first picturing a squirrel with fur ablaze in flame running though the tall grass leaving a trail of fire, but alas it is not quite so interesting with it merely dropping to the ground after being electrocuted by touching two power lines. But the good news is, it seems to have boosted the educational level of the local kids:

Students Moved From Elementary To High School

I know, wildfires aren’t funny – so stop chuckling ok?

The story:

JONES, Okla. — A squirrel caught fire, sparking a blaze Wednesday morning that resulted in the evacuation of an elementary school in Jones, fire officials said.

Investigators said the squirrel touched two power lines at the same time and fell to the ground near Britton and Hiawassee roads.

That fire burned 5 acres in the Jones area, forcing the evacuation of the elementary school. Those students were taken to Jones High School.

As of May 2008, Owners of the Nintendo Wii game console can now download free game demos to their Nintendo DS game system at home just like the Download Service available at some stores. The service is available as part of the new free Nintendo Channel on the Wii. You can purchase the Nintendo Channel (for free) through the Wii Shop Channel. The Nintendo Channel features Wii game videos and trailers. To find the DS Download service you will need to agree to allow “Data-Sharing” service that sends data on what games you play to Nintendo (Under Nintendo Channel settings, Data-Sharing Settings). Then go to “Find Titles for You” and the bottom choice will be “DS Download Service”. If the option is grayed out as unavailable, then you have not agreed to the data sharing. Once in the DS Download Service you will see a list of available demos, some of which appear to be permanent, some of which seem to be available only temporarily. I have noticed the “Distribution Ends:” date they give is not always accurate and the list does not update until at least a day after that date. After you download a game you can keep it on your DS until it is powered off. If you want to save a demo to play the next day, just close the DS to suspend it without turning it off (and consider plugging it in since the battery will slowly drain in this suspended state).

Since I have been unable to find a list on the web of what demos are available, I will post the new list on this blog as they change (which is usually a day or two after the “ends” date).
Enjoy!

Click here for the current list of available downloads

Today’s YouTube banana sighting – Dr. Bunson Honeydew is tickled pink to announce his solution to “the banana problem”. And here I didn’t even realize there was a “banana problem.”




Goodbye forever to dull bananas!

A little over week ago I was finally lucky to win myself a Bag of Crap from Woot. Well, it finally arrived and with much fanfare and to-do the great unveiling commenced.

The box. Pretty big, that’s a good sign, but kind of light . . .

Air pillows, some little boxes, oh oh what’s inside? what’s inside?

First item a mysterious box of “4 sets”, but sets of what?

Ahhh, 4 iGo car chargers. Potentially useful for my iPod or cell, but they don’t come with any tips for devices. A quick search on Amazon reveals the tips are not so cheap at around $10-$15 each. If I get lucky I can sell 3 of them to buy 2 tips.

Second item, some weird little soda can charm thingy. Why? ‘Cause it’s crap! (Crap with a straw! -though I do wonder why such a thing is even manufactured in the first place)

Next item, three nice little camera cases, not too crappy.

Last item, now what’s this? A Palm computer? This may have potential . . .

but it is a Palm Zire – bottom of the line Palm in 2002. Works fine as it ever did, but has a crappy monochrome unlit LCD display. Resale value on eBay appears to be under $10. Oh well, I will try to download some game apps for it, or use it as a remote control.

As it was written:

“shalt thou not get the crap you want, want the crap you get.”

The anticipation was fun, and we enjoyed making up lots of B O C phrases all week….

Bag Of Carrots  Big Old Cat  Bozo, Original Clown  Brrrr Outside Cold  Big Ornery Cephlapod  Break Open Crustaceans  Ball Of Cotton  Broken Old Computer  Bad Old Crabs  Bring On Clowns  Bagel Or Cereal  Butter Or Creamcheese  Bowl Of Cereal  Bumpy Old Carpet  Big Old Camera  Bag Of Cookies  Box Of Cabbage ….

It’s a Woot thing. What is Woot? Woot.com is a different kind of online shopping site. Every day they have just one thing for sale. It remains for sale until they sell out, or the until the day ends. The next day they have one different thing for sale. They have great deals, and wacky descriptions of the items, usually making sure to point out not only what a great deal it is, but also honestly pointing any weaknesses or shortcomings in the product. Every once and a while things get interesting when they have a Woot Off! On these special hallowed days they have offer many things, still one at a time until a preset quantity sells, before moving on to the next item. An item might be available for hours, or for only minutes. It inspires compulsive refreshing to catch new deals throughout the day (as their song goes, “giving me an F5 complex, refreshing just to see what comes next!”). There are even third party web sites dedicated to tracking Woot Offs and notifying you when new items appear (mywoot.net is my favorite). The highlight of the Woot Off is the “Bag of Crap” (referred to as BOC, bandolier of carrots, etc) which is a random item grab bag. For some reason this is the most popular of items and instantly causes their servers to overload as it appears. This is despite their adamant assertions that you really don’t want one (see below). It is a true miracle of modern marketing genius. Having shopped on Woot for several years now, and purchased several items during Woot Offs or otherwise, I have just for the first time today managed to secure my very own Bag of Crap! It may be a dime store trinket, it may be a valuable electronic item left over from a previous day, I just have to wait and see. I will announce its contents when it arrives. – See what I got: I Got Crap!

And it was written…..

If we allow you to give us your money, we shall grant you some sort of bag and some quantity of crap. We promise nothing more. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll be grateful for that.

THE HOLY CRAP COMMANDMENTS v2.0:

I. Thou shalt expect nothing beyond one bag of some kind and your chosen quantity of crappy items (which should be THREE).

II. Thou shalt not whine and complain when some people’s crap turns out to be nicer than yours.

III. Thou shalt take a moment to consider whether you might be better off just not buying this crap.

IV. Thou shalt not order just one crap and blame it on anything but your own inattention.

V. To paraphrase Stephen Stills, shalt thou not get the crap you want, want the crap you get.

Another Roomba fan



Link icanhascheeseburger

Wouldn’t the world be a better place with more chickens keeping the peace? I love the end where I can just hear that chicken saying, “Now don’t make me come back here again!” as he walks away.

Here is a fun little diversion to waste some of your time. Check out Akinator, the Web Genius. It is an online “guess what you are thinking of” game like those little electronic 20Q  games. This one guesses characters, real or otherwise – anything from celebrities to cartoon characters. It works surprisingly well, starting with broad questions, then throwing in some odd details, then – hey wait a minute is it getting close? then Wow! He got it! These must use an interesting algorythm that seems to be more advanced than a straight decision tree. The questions do not start the same every time, and it will frequently surprise you with the correct answer after seemingly not asking anything very specific to your answer. This one in particular is interesting in that it has more options than just yes or no. You can also answer ‘probably”, “probably not” or “I don’t know”.

Go check it out!

LINK

Over at London Bananas they have a collected a surprisingly large collection of photos of banana peels spotted laying around the London cityscape.

“I see them everywhere. They’re languishing on doorsteps, hanging out in the middle of the road, dangling off street signs, peeking out of piles of garbage, reclining in the middle of the sidewalk, riding the bus for free. A great number of them are bright yellow as if they’re fresh and have just been dropped, although they appear in all states of decay.”

Two original (I believe) jokes from the mind of my son B

–

Sometimes when my old hound dog talks in his sleep he doesn’t tell the truth,
but I figure what the heck, let sleeping dogs lie!

–

My friend is sooo confused!

How confused is he?

When I got sick he sent me a bowl of rose soup . . .

. . .

and a bouquet of chickens!

I have been enjoying playing Lego Star Wars II with my son on the PC. He has a version for his Nintendo DS, but the little screen is hard on my old eyes. If you haven’t seen it, this is actually quite a fun game that lets you play out all the major story line scenes from the Star Wars movies, all as a LEGO minifigure. Whenever the Evil Emperor (Palpatine/Darth Sidious) is in play you hear this periodic evil cackling laugh sound.   The funny thing is for some reason it always reminds me of our current Vice President. Maybe it’s Jon Stewart’s impersonation of him that does it. So now we have taken to just calling him Evil Emperor Cheney in the game.

Please excuse my rather primitive graphics work, didn’t have any decent software tools on this game pc.

Todays YouTube Banana sighting – Banana Phone! Catchy tune, clever lyrics, and bananas; what’s not to love?

Update: Okay, I just learned that is a Raffi song from 1994 which has been the basis of quite a few internet videos, but I still like this sped up version more than several others I have seen. Enjoy

Q. Dear Banana, I just bought a new house and I want to replace the top floor carpet right away as it is old and ugly and dark. Looking at carpet choices. Any recommendations? You’ve had the same carpeting for years, no? Do you recall anything about what sort it is? I really liked the wool in our last place, and there’s a place here that has it for actually quite cheap. It feels nice, its a renewable resource, very durable/long-lasting…but…(big but) it stains pretty easily. There’s a new carpet from Dupont called Smartstrands made out of corn fiber, renewable…stain resistant guarantee, supposedly durable, very soft feeling… a bit more expensive…in the medium price range. Anyway, if you happen to have any recommendations, let me know!
-Confused in Colorado
A. First of all, let me say that I am glad that you asked that question. We understand that carpet is a very important issue to all Americans today, and is something we here all take very seriously. As matter of fact, and not very people know this about me, carpet is an issue very near and dear to my heart as I myself had carpet in my home when I was just a young child growing up in the great state of Indiana, the backbone of the heartland of America. I have personally pledged to form a panel of experts to select a committee to further research this issue until we get to the heart of this important matter. We will not stop until we have reached an answer that is both just and fair to all Americans, in all walks of life. No longer is the carpet issue just an issue for the working man, this issue cuts to core of what makes us all Americans, and should be addressed at the highest levels. I personally will travel to the carpet centers of this great nation to find the truth behind the plush pile. We need a strong and courageous leader who is unafraid to lift the corners of that berber mat, even to peak under that mildew resistant padding, and reveal the true flooring that supports this great nation, as it has since the time of brave founding fathers. In these troubled times we cannot afford to rest our bare feet upon a cold wooden floor, and neither can we afford to trip over the deceptive folds of a cheap polyester pile. Straw mats may have been good enough for our struggling ancestors, yet we cannot accept that for our great nation today. Today we call upon the strength of wool, the honesty of cotton and the justice of true stain resistance for all Americans. For when even one American has to suffer the injustice of a stained floor covering, are not we all lessened as a great nation? Our founding fathers suffered the chilled feet of hard wood floors, so that we today can rise, together, as the greatest nation in the world, barefoot, upon the plush pile that is our true birthright as Americans!! As a nation we have room in hearts to embrace equally all colors and fibers of quality floor coverings. Let us not turn our gaze away from the honesty of wool, while equally embracing the bravery of stain resistance! Our national carpet policy must be firm, yet fair. It must be soft, yet resilient. Brightly colored, and yet stain resistant! We can no more afford to divide this great country between those with Stainmaster, verse those those with Smartstrands, any more that we could turn away from those choosing the simple truths of cut pile verse those who walk among us on luxurious deep shag! Now is the time for all true Americans to join hands, and walk hand in hand, barefoot, on the luxurious carpet of truth, justice and the American way!

VOTE BANANA IN ’08 !!

oh wait a second, did you say carpet? ohhhhhhhh carpet. hmmm. nope, sorry, I don’t know anything at all about carpet….

I just discovered you can get your daily dose of childhood joy with Calvin and Hobbes over at calvinandhobbes.com where everyday they re-release another days strip. They are in order so you follow the story lines, and if you are so inclined you can even order fancy reprints. Go check it out, and embrace your inner tiger.

B: Why do astronauts wear those bulky suits when they go out on an EVA?

T: Ummmm, to protect them from the extreme cold of space?

B: Then why don’t they just bring a space heater?

bidumpbump

Lately I find myself wondering, if I was going to time travel back to the year 1800 in North America, what could I take with me to use in the place of currency to trade for goods? The tricky part is, ideally I would like to take advantage of inflation to increase the value of my money. For instance, $1 in the year 1800 had the purchasing power of around $14 in the year 2000 (http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/). So if I could bring back currency from the year 2000, it would greatly increase in purchasing power from its face value. The problem is of course, I can not bring back modern currency because it is, well, modern. What I need is something that I can bring back that will not stand out as inappropriate and draw attention to me as a time traveler.
The choice of some basic precious metal like gold immediately comes to mind, and while it would work, it unfortunately loses its modern higher value when brought into the past, effectively undoing the advantage. The price of an ounce of gold in December 2000 was around $275 (http://www.finfacts.ie/Private/curency/goldmarketprice.htm), in 1800 that same ounce of gold would sell for about $19. That $19 of 1800 money had the purchasing power of about $170 of 2000 money, so you come out behind.
So perhaps what I should be looking for instead is some basic commodity that is cheap and plentiful in modern times, but was more scarce and valuable in 1800. Maybe even something that can more easily made to a high quality today, like perhaps iron or steel. I am not sure of the current and past prices of steel, and while there might be an advantage to be had on industrial scales, it is not something that could be easily carried and traded at the general store for basic supplies (is it?). Another possible contender would be salt. I have heard that it was sometimes used as a currency in the past. Let’s see, according to http://www.clarkemuseum.com/html/salt_works.html before refrigeration salt was used for preserving meat, and during the early parts of the Civil War the north blockaded salt shipments from England from reaching the south, forcing the the creation of new and expensive means of harvesting salt from springs. It states “Salt prices escalated so high, that workers were paid in salt rather than money. Prices rose from $1.25 per bushel of 50 pounds in 1861 to $50 by the end of the war.” These time periods are a little later target than my 1800, but may still be relevant. I see that a 50lb bag of fine sea salt goes for about $11 wholesale currently, so that might be a reasonable option, if not a little bulky. (As an aside, a good history of salt can be found at http://www.saltinstitute.org/38.html)
So other that salt, what other good options might there be that have not thought of? Maybe something more compact? How about modern metal hand tools? I think they are relatively cheap and high quality, if you chose carefully to avoid items that would be out of place in the past. You can buy some nice knives pretty cheap these days, but stainless steel wasn’t invent until the 1900′s. I wonder how a 1800 merchant would react to stainless steel? Blue Jeans were not invented until the 1870′s, maybe some other clothing items, or even just some good unbleached cotton fabric? I poked around http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ at other mineral price histories (thought they only go back to 1900) and although I didn’t read every one (there are lots) it looks like most have only gone up in value.
Please let me know your ideas. Something that has dropped in value significantly, that would not be out of place in 1800. I chose 1800 somewhat randomly and I think that the answers would change dramatically for other time periods, or geographic locations.