Industrial strength dance pad (think DDR here)

(via Hack-A-Day)

Invent Geek has posted a really high quality (and quite honestly, good looking) dance pad.  It is built for the XBox version of DDR, but with an XBox to USB adapter, it should work on a PC.  From the information available so far, build time looks to be just half an hour or so.  The big downside to this is the $250-$1000 cost (not really sure why such a large range, though).  I have a decent non-metal dance pad for my DDR gaming, but I’m seriously considering trying to build one of these.  Of course, my wife doesn’t know that yet.

With the introduction of the dancing gaming systems here in the states there has been huge growth with in the community. The problem that anyone who is truly interested in the fitness gaming revolution will face at some time is the gross difference between the home console and arcade dance pad quality. Even the super high end home use dance pads that cost 500+ are not considered a long term or heavy use choice. So I set out to create a dance deck at an affordable price range that would even trump the arcade quality units. This is just the “prototype” and we will be putting up a full article with detailed instructions and even a full part list and plans for the final version that we are in the process of writing up now.

[tags]DDR, dance pad, gaming[/tags]

Nintendo DS MMORPG

While perusing my RSS feed from DSFanBoy, I found this little gem about the upcoming (to US shores, at least) MMORPG Maplestory for the DS.  Naturally, my interest was sufficiently aroused to try to find out a bit more about it.  This lead me to the Wikipedia entry on the game.

As in any typical MMORPG, gameplay centers around venturing into dungeons and combating monsters in real time. However, MapleStory’s 2-D side-scrolling viewpoint more closely resembles a platformer than the typical 3-D or top-down view of other games. Though the 2-D graphics don’t give the player a more realistic feeling, it is an important part of MapleStory, for the 2-D effect helps the game have larger levels. MapleStory characters fight monsters through a series of attacks and skills. Along with combat, jumping is an integral part of the game.

. . .

New players are sent to Maple Island, a floating island specifically designed to be beginner-friendly. Unlike a collection of other MMORPGs, players in MapleStory can not choose a character class or job when they create the character. Rather, every character starts with the job Beginner until they meet the requirements to complete the first job advancement.

When a player creates a new character, he or she is able to spread 25 ability points amongst four different statistics: STR, DEX, INT, and LUK (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Luck, respectively). Players can not manually choose where these points will be placed, as the distribution is randomly generated by a dice roll, to which an infinite number of rolls are possible. The minimum possible point level scored when the dice is rolled in a statistic is four and the maximum is twelve.

Aside from the 2-D scroller thing, it sounds like a typical MMO.  I will have to try it out, though, whenever I can get my hands on it.  Ever since I got hooked on City of Heroes (July 2004, BTW), I’ve tried to keep up with MMO news.  And since this one plays on my portable of choice (I still want a PSP, but I can’t afford one right now), I’ll probably buy it and try it.

[tags]Nintendo DS, MMORPG[/tags]

Silly/Funny molecule names

Ohhhh, this is a looooonnnnngggggg page. Check out some of the silly names given to molecules by various scientists. Sometimes, the names are comical all by themselves. Sometimes, it takes reading the site’s commentary to get the laugh.  Here’s a tiny sample (there are so many covered, that this really is a pretty small sampling).

Draculin

Draculin is the anticoagulant factor in vampire bat saliva. It is a large glycoprotein made from a sequence of 411 amino acids, but I haven’t been able to find a picture of it yet.

DEAD

DEAD is actually the acronym for diethyl azodicarboxylate, which is an important reagent in the well-known Mitsunobu reaction which performs a stereospecific conversion of an alcohol to a primary amine. It’s quite a good acronym, as DEAD is an orange liquid that’s explosive, shock sensitive, light sensitive, toxic, a possible carcinogen or mutagen, and an eye, skin and respiratory irritant! A version of diethyl azodicarboxylate mixed with acid and triphenylphosphine has also been termed DEADCAT.

Fuchsite

Fuchsite is a mineral, and is the green form of Muscovite, KAl2(AlSi3O10)(F, OH)2. It is used as an ornamental stone, and apparently has perfect cleavage…

Erotic Acid

No, this isn’t the world’s best aphrodisiac. Its correct name is orotic acid, but it has been misspelt so often in the chemical literature that it is also known as erotic acid! Another name for it is vitamin B13. Apparently, if you add another carbon to it, it becomes homo-erotic acid…

[tags]Molecules, Chemistry[/tags]

How lasers are going to work for you

Another Modern Mechanix moment here on Blah, Blah, Blahg. I’ve gotten hooked on this site, and find great articles from days past that are interesting to me. This latest is a 1970 Popular Science article reproduced for your edification.

The light fantastic is no longer a scientific curiosity: It’s now being used for just about everything from moon measuring to tire checking

By C. P. GILMORE / PS Consulting Editor, Science

. . .

Modern use of lasers

Today, lasers are working for you in ways you may have never suspected. For example, they’re . . .

  • Guiding tunnel and trench diggers
  • Welding microcircuits
  • Drilling holes in rubber nipples for baby bottles
  • Spotting tire defects
  • Machining parts to ultra-fine tolerances
  • Helping predict earthquakes.

How lasers work

Naturally, this last line is followed by a write-up of how lasers actually work.  The explanation might have been fairly technical at the time, but now it seems a little primitive.  Or maybe I just know more about lasers than I realized.  Regardless, the article continues:

First lasers

The laser first appeared as a glint in the eyes of physicists Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow. In 1958 they wrote a paper saying that it should be possible to build a device in which photons, individual packages of light, could be used to stimulate excited molecules to give off yet more photons in step with the original ones. In 1960, physicist Theodore Maiman, then of Hughes, built one. Despite the high-powered physics that led up to its design, it was a deceptively simple device—a rectangular chunk of ruby surrounded by a bright photo-flash lamp. Every time the lamp flashed, its photons jiggled certain atoms in the ruby, causing them to give off photons and stimulate yet other atoms to radiate, just the way Schawlow and Townes said it would happen.

The new device was called a LASER—which stood for Light Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation. Since then, other investigators have made hundreds of liquids, solids, and gases lase, giving off hundreds of different wavelengths or colors of visible light, and hundreds of other wavelengths of invisible infrared and ultraviolet. Some generate power continuously, others in bursts or pulses.

Because laser light is coherent, it can be focused to an extremely small spot. The energy density of such a spot can be a billion watts per square centimeter or more—enough to vaporize any substance in existence.

Whoa.  That’s a lot of power in a single square centimeter.  I believe that’s even more concentrated death power than the Solar Death Ray!  After all this, there is a lot of information on potential practical uses for lasers – Military uses, highly accurate measurements, photo manipulation (particularly clearing up fuzzy images), and so on.  One of the most interesting to me is for large TVs.

Television. Another promising area: big-screen color TV. The current color TV tube has about reached its limit. And that three-color dot system doesn’t produce the sharpest pictures. A much better TV system could be built using three laser beams—red, blue, and green—projected on a screen. The screen could be any size—it could cover a living-room wall or the end of a theatre.

At least two such systems have been built. General Telephone and Electronics has demonstrated a four-foot-wide TV picture. And now, at Expo 70 in Japan, Hitachi has on display a system with a picture 9 by 12 feet. People who have seen it say the picture is more brilliant and lifelike than the one we see on regular color TV sets.

Ultimately, such wall-to-wall TV may be practical in our homes. But right now, there’s a problem. Most lasers are highly inefficient. The big-screen laser display in Japan uses three lasers, each putting out about 7 watts of power. But it takes 30 kilowatts to run the equipment—too much for use in the home.

They had me right up to 30 kilowatts.  I don’t think my wife would let me run  a 30 kilowatt TV in our house.  Of course, think of the reduction in heating costs for the winter when such a beast was running!  Anyway, I think this concept of large televisions in the home is worth pursuing.  Someday it might be nice to have a screen large enough to function as a home theatre…
Sadly, nowhere in the article is there any guidance on how to mount these technological wonders on the heads of frikkin’ sharks for offensive use – I really thought such an idea would have been covered under the military research section.  Although maybe that information is classified.

[tags]Modern Mechanix, Lasers, Frikkin’ Sharks[/tags]

Movie physics – the good and the bad

One of those “How did I get here?” sites I found recently is the Intuitor Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics page. The site covers a lot of the bad physics we see in movies, and then gives a brief review of the quality of the physics displayed in some recent movies. What kind of things are covered on the site? Well:

Flashing Bullets

The terrorist unleashes a lengthy burst of submachine gunfire as the hero runs along a gangway in an industrial plant. Bullets bounce everywhere. This would be a dramatic event for almost anyone, yet moviemakers feel it must be enhanced. The special effects representing impacting bullets give off bright flashes of light. Normal bullets, especially handgun bullets, do not.

. . .

Problems with Windows

No, we’re not referring to Bill Gates’s woes (or lack of them), but to the ways movie windows refuse to obey simple laws of physics. Apparently no one in Hollywood has ever picked up a piece of broken glass and suffered the inevitable bloodied finger.

Saying that shards of broken glass are razor sharp is an understatement. A shattered window contains thousands of incredibly sharp edges and dagger-like points. It takes almost no force for one of these points or edges to cause a laceration. However, people in movies routinely jump through plate glass windows without receiving a single scratch.

All told, there are nearly a dozen descriptions of bad physics in movies, and the reality behind the false portrayals. My favorite, which has a few simple diagrams that show the Hollywood and the reality behind it, is the issue of lasers.

Visible Laserbeams
From security systems to space adventures, conveniently-visible laserbeams are a common part of our movie experience. Too bad they often don’t reflect reality.

Multi-beamed laser security systems are a frequent Hollywood plot device. Again and again movies feature tension-filled scenes in which characters snake their way through mazes of laserbeams artistically arranged in random patterns by professional security fools to entertain us by making would-be thieves do contortions. A simple arrangement of closely-spaced parallel beams would be contortion-proof but certainly not as much fun.

[tags]Physics, Movies[/tags]

Dry ice in your mouth

I’m on a bit of a retro kick, I suppose. This post at Modern Mechanix highlights a device made so an actor’s breath would show up while filming scenes that were supposed to take place in a cold location. This was done waaaaaay back in 1934, even. Hey, it sounds neat. But I’m just too much of a paranoid freak to actually try it. Why? Well, see how it works:

Motion pictures of winter scenes may be made realistic by a device that makes the actors’ breath visible, just as it would be at low temperatures. The device resembles false teeth. It enables the actors to keep Dry Ice in their mouths without harmful results. The warm breath causes the Dry Ice to give off vapor not unlike that produced by persons breathing in cold weather. The device does not interfere with speech.

I’m kinda funny about not putting dry ice in my mouth. Call me crazy, but that’s just something I don’t do.

[tags]Modern Mechanix, Dry Ice[/tags]

Sometimes, you are just born too late

According to this post at Modern Mechanix, I was born just a couple of decades too late.  Being born in 1970, I missed out on my chance to get a high-paying career going in guided missile automation.  The July 1957 issue of Popular Electronics has the following details:

Outstanding Employment Opportunities Open to Central Graduates!

No matter what you’re doing now . . . whether you’ve ever had previous technical experience or not, you can begin right now to prepare for a great career in these fascinating, rewarding fields!

Capitalize on the fact that Central’s nationally recognized, proven training methods, top instructors and long record of educational achievement have put Central-trained men in high demand throughout America! . . . that Central’s graduates are periodically interviewed and employed by many of the Country’s foremost industrial giants and leading employers of electronics specialists. Hundreds of radio and TV stations look to Central as a reliable source for competent, thoroughly trained technicians . . . and the nation’s major airlines and aircraft manufacturers have hired hundreds of Central-trained technicians for important communications and electronics positions.

So instead of making my riches blowing stuff up, I have to make my money keeping computer systems running.  I like what I do for a living, but it would be way cooler to make missiles work.

[tags]Missiles, blow stuff up[/tags]

Batwoman and I share a common interest

batwoman.jpgJust got notice of this from a cow-orker. DC Comics has deciced to bring back the Batwoman character. She’ll show up in July as part of an ongoing weekly series. Upon reading the article, folks will probably notice:

The 5-foot-10 superhero comes with flowing red hair, knee-high red boots with spiked heels, and a form-fitting black outfit.

Naturally, some will think that’s the common interest she and I share. But the truth is deeper. Batwoman, reborn after the death of the original in 1979, is coming back as a lesbian. So our common interest is a great appreciation of hot chicks.

DC Comics is resurrecting the classic comic book character as a lesbian, unveiling the new Batwoman in July as part of an ongoing weekly series that began this year.

. . .

The original Batwoman was started in 1956, and killed off in 1979. The new character will share the same name as her original alter ego, Kathy Kane. And the new Batwoman arrives with ties to others in the Gotham City world.

“She’s a socialite from Gotham high society,” DiDio said. “She has some past connection with Bruce Wayne. And she’s also had a past love affair with one of our lead characters, Renee Montoya.”

Montoya, in the “52” comic book series, is a former police detective.

The folks at DC have asked that people wait until the character is seen in the series to pass judgement, though. They are saying this is part of an effort to provide more diversity to their superhero universe. I guess we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see how the public receives the new character. Personally, as long as she is a great hero, I’m not that concerned with her bedroom preferences. That is, unless they make a pr0no with her and release it for fans’ viewing pleasure – I’m totally downloading the video if that ever happens.

[tags]DC Comics, Batwoman, Lesbian superhero[/tags]