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Category: Gadgets & Technology (page 2 of 2)

Pun-Cam

June 2, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 1 Comment

I just found out the little camera-pill was developed in Israel, and the camera name “M2A” is kind of a pun.

It’s shorthand for the pill’s journey.

Ha!

Now, the greater surpise to me was that the camera was developed in Israel. I thought miniaturizing was the sole responsibility of the Japanese—a generalization tattooed on my brain when I was 8 and saw my first transister radio.

Well, I did a little more searching and found out Israel is quite the technical hotbed. Intel has a major plant over there, in Jesus’ earthly stomping grounds, no less: Jerusalem, and has developed a chip that allows info to transfer at the speed of light.

“Today, the fast processors operate at the speed of 3 GHz,” Elstein said, “but their surroundings still work at speeds of hundreds of MHz and, therefore, don’t succeed in exploiting their speeds. When the chips, the processor, and ports of the computer all speak at the same speed, which will be about 10 GHz, the computer’s capability will be totally different.”

I think that’s kind of cool.

Roughly 2000 years ago the Speed of Light changed the world right there in that same area, and it’s happening again on a very small, and relatively insignificant level.

Of course, back then, the marketing team was only 11 men (who really ticked off the competition). Eventually they won over the head of one opposition faction, became a 12-strong Board of Directors …and the rest is history.

A Developing Story

May 27, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 0 Comments

A camera you swallow?

My oldest sister would still crush it between two spoons and drink it down with sugar water.

My first thought is “what’s the resolution?” I mean, what if I want an 8 x 10 of whatever is in my bowels? Not likely, of course. “Hey is that that steak from last week?”

Wouldn’t it freak you out to see a small spacehip in there with a family of scientists pounding on the windows?

But honestly, how small are cameras going to get? One you take before bedtime… reminds me of a joke from my childhood:

A guy calls the doctor and tells him he accidentally swallowed a roll of film, and the doctor tells him not to worry, “let’s wait and see if anything develops.”

Five more years and that will be as funny as jokes that refer to music storage media as “records.”

Seedy CD

April 30, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 1 Comment

I have backed up so much stuff onto the known Permanent Storage medium known as CD-R, that I now keep my archives on the last spindle I emptied, instead of in a flip book. Yes, I am talking about 100 CDs of data in a very inefficient stack on a plastic spindle.

Today, a friend in Italy e-mailed this link to me. It’s a site full of info about CDs and which ones last.

“They don’t last?!” you might ask incredulously, as did I.

It turns out this “permanent” storage medium — in some cases, from certain manufacturers — has a shelf life just a little longer than one urban legend attributed to a Hostess Twinkie.

Now I need to order 200 good CDs and back-up my back-ups.

How To Erase A CD
In a related tid-bit of minutiae, my son Drew showed me a great way to permanently erase a CD without cutting or scratching it. Place it data-side up in a microwave and cook it for 3 seconds on High. Nothing happens for the first two seconds, and then on the third second, you’ll see blue lightning (a la the evil Emperor Palpatine from the Dark Side of the Force zapping poor Luke Skywalker as his evil father Darth Vader looks on whilst caught in an emotional tug of war, clearly brought on by the paradox of harboring love for his own offspring and hate in which his cold, dead heart has simmered for decades under the decaying and putrifying influence of the Dark Side, into which he beckons the impressionable Luke to join him) cover the surface of the CD and it will make a great science fiction electrical sound*.

The resulting “erased” CDs look so cool, I made a clock out of one with a $5 battery-operated clock motor.

You can read the time, but never the data!

Disclaimer
*No one under 18 should try this without the supervision of a parent, guardian, or member of the armed services. I assume no responsibility for the safety of such an experiment. Some settling may occur. All data irretrievable through standard methods. Void where prohibited. Electrical fire odor can be detected upon opening microwave door. You must be this tall to ride this attraction. Caution, our coffee is very hot! Pregnant women or people with eating disorders should not cook CDs without first consulting a doctor, or nutrition specialist. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. This process works on all CDs except those recorded by Brittany Spears or Clay Aiken. For some reason they come out of the microwave unharmed. You must be 21 to enter. You must be present to win. Not responsible for lost rebate requests.

So Back To My Site

February 22, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 0 Comments

Well, to get back into mind-numbing, high-focus stuff, I decided to return once again to my second favorite self-medication of choice: playing with CSS. (see my main css file).

I really like what one can do with CSS but it’s taken me a couple of years to start to get the concepts. What’s the difference between CSS names, elements and classes, and how do div tags differ from p and span?

Did you notice my new navigation column at the left? (If it’s not showing, click here).

I re-did all my nav/menu items yesterday with CSS.

Hey, I could be a drunk instead… But you don’t get much done.

Don’t you have to have a personality?

February 6, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 5 Comments

Personality Disorder Test Results

Paranoid

Slow Death = Slow Resurrection

February 2, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 0 Comments

OH – MY – GOSH

I am in a mess.

My hard drive problem is worse than I thought. Here’s what I now think: My drive is not going bad; my directory (catalog) is hosed.

While researching more about why my presumed solutions were not working, I ran into a MacFixIt Forums post that suggests that “If an HFS+ volume is more than 85% full and is heavily fragmented, any further data added to the disk can result in irreparable damage to the disk directory.” Both conditions were true about the time I started having trouble.

And copying everything over to a new, replacement hard drive has put me in the computer equivalent of the Stone Age.

I feel like I have a Timex Sinclair and a 2 x 4 mouse.

Choosing A Slow Death

January 25, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 0 Comments

My hard drive has a fatal disease.

I thought it was a mental condition, that, with the correct analysis and rigorous corrective treatments, could be remedied.

A month or so ago, I noticed my computer was acting differently. It started forgetting where it had put important things. Sometimes it would wake up ‘not in the best of moods.’ Other times it would just freeze, with a blank stare on it’s face.

But now, I am seeing paralysis take over other parts of the machine. The numeric keypad on my keyboard has ceased to take input—oddly, though, it’s only the numerals. The mathematical symbols all still function properly. That’s a plus (pun intended).

Two experts—one at Apple and one at Millennium Technologies—tell me that the symptoms indicate a physical problem. I have been having a variety of problems with my computer, requiring running Apple‘s Disk Utility, Symantec‘s Norton Utilities, and Micromat‘s TechTool Pro.

All to no avail.

Fortunately, I bought a 3-Year AppleCare Package when I bought my computer in December 2002. So I get a new, free hard drive today or tomorrow—whenever it comes in. I have already been backing up client data, applications, etc. in anticipation of having to have my Boot Drive put down. But after all, it’s 80, and it’s causing me problems. 80 gigabytes is too much to lose all at once.

Unlike my own death, which, if I could choose how it is to happen, I would prefer to die instantly in a crash, for my hard drive I choose a slow death. Like some science fiction mad scientist, I need the time to transfer everything it knows to a younger subject.

How sick is that?

Flash Animations

January 23, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 4 Comments

Several months back someone sent me a link to some amazing Flash Animations. They take a few moments to download, but you should turn your speakers up and listen to the sound at the same time. I didn’t know you could do this over the Internet, before I saw this. Ready? Click here to view.

And here’s another by the same artist.

SuperRetro

January 16, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 1 Comment

I was talking to my daughter tonight about the most amazing toy I could remember from my childhood—and the most easily lost, too.

The Wham-o! SuperBall.

Someone else thought it was amazing, too, and created, as I now know, a website devoted to the SuperBall: www.SuperBalls.com. I never knew there were so many kinds!

I heard a rumor or saw a TV show about them several years ago (20, maybe?)—about the demise of SuperBall sales, and how there were so many SuperBalls left over, and there was no way to destroy them because of the material they are made from (Zectron™)…So they were relegated to some big barn somewhere. I sure would like to know if I am recalling the story correctly.

I’d love to see the picture of that barnful of Superballs.

Maybe that barn is where they all mystically landed after that world record bounce attempted by every kid, back then. That’s eaxcactly what I was trying moments before I never saw my ball again.

Then again, they are more likely in Sedona, Arizona.

I found out this evening, that Wham-o! is reissuing the SuperBall!

Magical Ties

January 13, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 0 Comments

Lenny Lipton is being talked about on MSNBC right now. He’s the inventor of CrystalEyes, the ‘glasses’ scientists are using to guide the explorer Kron 4 on Mars and actually see in 3D. It involves a camera in the Mars remote vehicle that sends back an image that is split via a prism to give two separate views from vantage points aligned horizontally but apart, much like our eyes, and then viewed with glasses that allow visual focus on small screens creating the illusion of what our minds perceive as 3D space.

Lenny claims that start-up funding for his technology was made possible by royalties from a little poem he wrote in 1959.

I just had to verify this, to see if I heard correctly.

According to a story I found by Tom Simon, on his site:

Lenny Lipton grew up in Brooklyn. In 1958 he graduated from high school and headed off to college at Cornell in Ithaca, New York. Lenny came to the realization that he was not a little kid anymore and never would be; that made him sad.

One night in the Spring of 1959 Lenny headed for the Cornell library. He had just turned nineteen. He found a book of poems by Ogden Nash, one of which discussed a Really-o Truly-o Dragon. After he was finished he left the library, walked down the hill from Cornell into the town of Ithaca, and went to visit his friend Lenny Edelstein. The two friends were supposed to have dinner together that night.

No one was at home, but the door was unlocked so Lenny Lipton let himself in; this was not an uncommon practice in Ithaca in the late 50’s. Lenny was thinking again about the loss of his carefree childhood days, and he was inspired by the poems he had been reading earlier in the evening. He sat down at the typewriter of Edelstein’s roommate, Peter, and decided to write a poem of his own. He wrote for about three minutes and felt somewhat soothed. He left the poem in Peter’s typewriter, and then left.

Peter returned and saw the sheet of paper in the typewriter. He was a singer/performer/concert organizer around Ithaca, in addition to being an undergraduate and doing some teaching. He liked what he saw and put some music to it, and later began to use it in some of his performances.

Peter later joined a group and used the song. It became more and more popular, and eventually the group recorded it. Within a few years it had become a top ten pop song. Peter went back and tracked down Lenny Lipton, who was by that time a counselor at a summer camp. Peter added Lenny Lipton’s name as a co-writer, and Lipton has done well with the royalties he has received ever since.

Peter was Peter Yarrow, and his group was Peter, Paul and Mary. The song, which reached number 2 on the charts early in 1963, was Puff The Magic Dragon. According to Lenny Lipton, it is a simple, sentimental song about the loss of childhood and nothing more.

Well, I’ll be darned.

Hair Supply

January 11, 2004 / David R. Darrow / 1 Comment

Every now and then I get a haircut. It’s almost always on a whim: I decide one day that I don’t like my hair the way it looks–what’s left of it–and decide on the only reasonable solution: shorten it in strategic places and at strategic lengths.

I’m not as good at this as Karima, so, usually, I drive over to her franchise of Fantastic Sam’s, and have her whack down the weeds with her skill wielding ice-tempered salon scissors.

Yesterday I upgraded this aging melon with a free haircut. And according to Karima, my future has a few more in store for me.

See, I was sitting there looking at my expressionless face in a mirror as Karima was trying politely but desperately to make me a better-looking man. I figured I could probably improve the overall effect of what was staring back at me if I began talking (my solution in every one of life’s perplexing problems), so I started chatting with her about, well, stuff.

Karima is originally from Iran, and has a bit of an accent, and we don’t always get stuff right the first time, so it’s easier to keep it simple so when I inevitably have to repeat myself I can remember what I said… add to that: I mumble with an American accent.

Stuff wound around to her computer box sitting against the wall plugged into nothing. “What’s up with the computer?”

“It just stopped working yesterday,” she sighed.

Realizing “stopped working” is a very relative term, I prodded, “How, exactly, did you determine it stopped working? Did it freeze, or did the monitor turn off, or did the power stop…”

“No power.” She was sure.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I turn on computer in the morning and it makes horrible noise. Customer turn off power button for me. Turn it back on–no power.”

“Did the power button make a different-sounding click?” I asked, wondering what she would think of the question.

“Button click is no more,” she insisted. “Different.”

“Sounds like your power supply died on you.”

Now, you have to understand, I love sounding like I know what I’m talking about–but mostly only when I know what I’m talking about. A year ago, I was able to fix a woman’s computer that had this same cryptic symptom. I called a local store I found in the Yellow Pages and described the symptom over the phone to the man on the other end. “Sounds like your power supply died on you,” he said. (I tried to say it to Karima with the same assuredness I heard in his voice). Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a computer tech to offer help over the phone? Right then and there, Computer Circulation Center (CCC) had my business for life.

When my haircut was completed, I asked if I could open the box. She was fine with that. I poked around a little… it looked easy enough to access all the inputs, connectors and screws necessary to change out the power supply, so I asked her if she would spend $30 on a new power supply, if that would fix it. She looked skeptical at the low price, but agreed.

I drove two miles over to CCC and walked in with Karima’s open box. “If this box made a funny noise until it was turned off, and now won’t turn on, is it reasonable to assume the power supply is dead?” He nodded. “How much is a new one?”

“$18 — if we have them. That’s an old AT.” He heads to the back of the store, returns in 15 seconds with a shrinkwrapped bundle of metal and wires. “We do have one–and they’re $13.”

He scans it in and says “Oops, wrong again. They’re $10.”

I paid for it and drove back to Fantastic Sam’s.

It took me 8 minutes to remove the power supply, install the new one, and replace the floppy drive with a refurb I also bought at CCC for $8, since the existing one was full of dust-bunnies and hair bits—and I was still under budget. Another 3 minutes to hook it all back up, clicked the on button and ding, it worked!

Karima was stunned. “My husband took this to a computer repair store yesterday and they tell him ‘No good. You have to buy new one.'” she said, shaking her head. “Six hundred dollars they want. Fantastic Sams wants $900 for new one. How much do I owe you?”

“Well, the parts were a little less than $20,” I said. She turns around and grabs a twenty off the counter in front of the mirror.

“And how much for your time?”

“Nothing. I am glad to help,” I smiled.

“Then I will give you some free haircuts when you need them, and today’s is free, too.”

“Alright. I’ll take you up on that.” I said. “And I want you to rename the place Fantastic Dave’s.“

Cam-a-lot

December 19, 2003 / David R. Darrow / 0 Comments

When I was 10 (thirty-six and a half years ago) I remember going to Disneyland with my family, and we’d always go into that Theater In the Round and see the presentation that was always interesting, and, as I recall, didn’t “cost any tickets.” If it did, it was only an A-ticket, and everyone had plenty of those, because you could bring your left-over tickets from your last Disneyland visit, but, really, A-tickets were for dumb rides anyway: Horse and Buggy, Slow Train to NoWhereLand, or Electric Maintenance Cart.

Sidebar: My wife told me last week that she was having a conversation with a couple of the young gals in her office and used the term “E-Ticket” to describe her experience riding with one of the other women in the office whom she’d accompanied as a passenger, subsequently vowing to never, ever, under any circumstances, ride with that woman again. To avail myself of another Disneyland reference: the referenced woman flunked Mr. Toad Driving School.

The younger ladies laughed appreciatively but not really all that knowingly, so Teresa asked “Do you know what E-ticket means?” After taking a few stabs at it, my wife had to tell them all about how when we were kids, Disneyland was not all “free rides like it is now.” Oh sure, you pay about a month’s rent in Lawton, Oklahoma [today’s dollars] to take a family of four there and actually gain entrance, and another month’s rent will gain you lunch, but back in my childhood, Disneyland was about $5 to get in, but if you wanted to ride anything, or do anything more fascinating than watching those guys walk around sweeping up popcorn and monster-sized lollipop sticks with a broom and one of those contraptions that looks like a side-opening mailbox mounted on the bottom of a stick you had to buy Ride Tickets, which came in tear-out coupon books. The best rides were the Matterhorn, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc., and to ride them required spending one of the three prized E-tickets in your coupon book. Oddly, the rides are still there, and still amass enormous lines of people, but I would give all my E-tickets to ride just once more the long-gone rides, like the Flying Saucers (bumper cars based on air-hockey technology), the Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland, or even the live Pack Mules, or have a chance to dance with the Real Indians in Indian Village, or dance with my older sister Jan to the “groovy sound” of The New Establishment at the Space Bar Cafe and Dance floor or walk through the Monsanto House of the Future, which, running full circle and booting us out of this sidebar, was right across from the America The Beautiful Theater in the Round.

Now, when we were done looking at the America the Beautiful thingie, I remember walking past these really large phone booths, in 1967, that had–I am not making this up–push-button dialing! As if that was not jaw-dropping enough, people were using “picture phones” (black and white screens) and were talking to people across the world somewhere. I don’t remember where the other end was–which also had cams and video phones–but my assessment of it, at age 10, was that only Japanese people use these phones: very time we walked by, there were Japanese people using them at our end, and Japanese people using them at the other end (you could see the screen when you walk by) and I would think to myself two things: 1) That looks so cool, and 2) why are they spending all that money to talk to someone they don’t know across the world?

Well, last night, I plugged my Canon ZR60 Mini-DV camcorder into my firewire port and attempted an iChat video conference with my buddy Steve Amerson whose house is 125 miles away from mine. After perfroming some highly adept fiddling around, and talking him into grabbing his camera, we got it to work, and suddenly, there we were talking to each other, and seeing each other at the same time! (When his moving image appeared, he was chomping on some pizza–and seeing this made me feel eerily voyeuristic, but I quickly got over it.) By the way, camcorders do work, but because they don’t have the “dual element noise-suppressing microphone” technology of mic/cams such as the iSight, they echo badly, and if you want to have a regular conversation, you need to each wear headphones.But last night was the culmination of thirty-six and a half years of wanting, waiting and wishing. With no long-distance charges, my friend and I talked with video and audio, seeing and hearing each other.

And an assessment error was cleared up, simultaneously: neither of us is Japanese.

Down the Drain

November 26, 2003 / David R. Darrow / 0 Comments

I used to make fun of people like the man I was yesterday.

No, I’m not talking about “years ago.” I mean literally “yesterday.”

See, it all started a couple of weeks ago when I walked by a trash can set out at the street for collection and found a baggie sitting right on top the lid with, shall we say, items of addiction in it, and plainly visible. Now, I know this stuff is plentiful in America–and I already know it can be addicting, so I’ve stayed away from it. Oh sure, I can get it easily enough in my own city… all I have to do is ask the right high-schooler where to score some, and I’m in.

But these were free. They were just sitting there on top the trash can in a baggie. I really had no use for them. I’d never really been a user before. I’ve seen what these things do to people.

I looked around and then just grabbed them, and walked on. Brought them home. Set them on the table near my computer.

There were three of them: Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Cruisin’ USA, and Starfox. Three Nintendo 64 game cartridges.

I jumped onto eBay a few days later and secured myself the proper hardware. I sniped an N64 system out from under a hapless junkie for 2 bucks under a Jackson, and closed the deal in minutes.

Yesterday afternoon, it arrived.

I’m not going to detail what happened to my life between 3 and 10 pm. But it isn’t pretty.

I’ll do better today.

My Thoughts... Exactly!

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