Category: Stuff I want

Where’s my humanoid robot?

Looking back through the Blahg, I noticed that I haven’t heard anything about the Nao robot since I first mentioned it in 2006.  I tried to find out more, but there’s still no word on availability of this robot which was planned for a 2007 release.  Now I’m not criticizing the company for failing to deliver in the expected time frame – I’m a techie and a gamer, and accustomed to promised tech coming in late.  In fact, I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided the reason for the delay was probably so they could upgrade the visual system to include a killer-death-ray laser option, or maybe a frikkin’ sharks with frikkin’ laser beams on their frikkin’ heads shooting from a frikkin’ shoulder-mount cannon add-on.

Sadly, the robot is originally specced for only 22 inches in height, so adding the cannon would almost certainly require a form-factor upgrade.

[tags]Frikkin’ Sharks, Frikkin’ Laser Beams, Killer-death-ray, Aldebaran Robotics, Nao[/tags]

Celebrity geeks

Cracked.com routinely cranks out great articles, and their recent “8 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were Geeks” is no exception. I first opened this up (courtesy digg) figuring it would just be of interest to me. But since the first celeb listed is the uber-sexay and even smarter Natalie Portman, I figured I could post here just so I could post an eye-candy pic of Ms. Portman.

natponerd3_clip.jpgWhen Golden Globe winner Natalie Portman was 10 years old, a representative of Revlon found her at a pizza parlor and asked her if she wanted to model. Portman turned her down and said that, all things considered, she would much rather act.

. . .

By the time she got her bachelor’s, she had studied four languages in addition to Hebrew, the language of her birth, had been published in professional science journals twice, killed an ass-load of aliens, and generally made us look like big human-shaped piles of poo. Seriously, when we were 10 years old, we wanted to be doctors or space cowboys or, at the very least, fire fighters. The closest we’ve gotten so far is one of those little shiny red fireman helmets.

I’ve been a fan of hers since watching Léon (aka The Professional for us in the US – which, BTW, is when I became a fan of Jean Reno as well). And I’ve long know she was intelligent. But I had no idea just how brainy she was. Smart, way damn sexy, so, so, so very pretty, and she can deal an alien ass-kicking to make your eyes pop out. And have I mentioned she super hot?

[tags]Natalie Portman, geeks, Stuff I want, Eye Candy[/tags]

I want to be Neatorama!

One of the absolutely greatest sites on the great wide intarw3b is Neatorama. I like it almost as much as I like boingboing (which gets bonus points because of Cory Doctorow – one of my favorite online peoply-persons – and Xeni Jardin – one of the sexiest online weblishly-folks), particularly because the frequent oddities that get posted like this Ultimate Geeks compilation.

Tracking down and posting all this greatness is inspiring, and I wish I had the time, tenacity, and skill to find and put together all the cool stuff that they give us over at Neatorama.

[tags]Neatorama, Ultimate geeks, YouTube, boingboing[/tags]

The ultimate in LCD durability

I can’t help you with the spoken portion of this video, but I assure you that visually all your questions about the durabilty of Asus’ new sapphire-crystal protected LCD are well covered in the crossbow testing portion of the video.

I don’t know what it costs, but given how pricey watches are with sapphire crystal protection, I’m betting a big screen covered with the same is really expensive.  On the other hand, that’s a damn fine looking bit of protection. Probably because sapphire crystal is pretty frikkin’ hard. Sadly, the monitor is not widescreen, the only really noticeable flaw for the display. (via /.)

How it’s made – Jawbreakers

I love chomping on jawbreakers.  Pretty much any sugary treat is fine by me, but the durability/long-lasting nature of jawbreakers make them really good treats.  So when I saw the How It’s Made segment on jawbreakers, I thought it would be worth sharing.  Pay attention to how they form the compressed powder centers, particularly.  They use 5,000 pounds of pressure to compact those so they can start forming the harder shells around that.

Yummy. Just watching that makes me think I need to buy some more jawbreakers.  There’s nothing quite like sucking on some sweet hard balls for a long time, is there?

Hot wife makes lesbian pics for hubby’s birthday. He calls for divorce

You’re 50 years old. You’re married to a woman half your age who is a self-described bi-sexual. She looks like this:

For your birthday, she poses in some lesbian pictures which she gives you as a birthday gift. Is the appropriate response:

  1. fap repeatedly
  2. request another photo-shoot, with you in attendance this time
  3. both 1.) and 2.)
  4. whine and ask for a divorce

Pesonally, I’m going for option 1.) for sure, and 3.) if I can get the O.K. However, if instead you are a former Brady star, the real response is 4.) with the inclusion of complaints that the photos are a manifestation of your worst fears and that they creep you out. Since we are not, however, former (nor current nor future) Brady stars, we’ll celebrate this event with another picture of Ms. Curry along with mention that she has since repeated the momentous photo-shoot with another gal-pal for an upcoming issue of Playboy magazine. (via Fark)

[tags]Hot lesbian action, Adrianne Curry, Lesbian, Happy Birthday[/tags]

For sale: One Magna Carta – gently used

Folks, I know some of you are collectors.  And some of you probably have a few million dollars to spare.  Of that small group of my amazing collected readership, I’m sure at least a few thousand are also historical artifact fanatics.  For those few, I would like to point out the impending sale of one original, signed, limited edition Magna Carta documents, up for auction by Sotheby’s.  It is one of only 2 copies known to exist outside of Britain – the other in the land of prisoners, kangaroos and dingoes known as Australia.

In the year 1215, a group of English barons handed King John a document written on parchment. Put your royal seal on this, they said. John did, and forever changed the relationship between the monarchy and those it governed.

. . .

While that original edict was initially ignored and John died the next year, its key ideas were included in other variations over the next few decades, most notably the right of Habeas Corpus, which protects citizens against unlawful imprisonment.

Of course, that most notable right is no longer honored in America, but many other democracies around the world still have ideas originated in the Magna Carta as the basis for their rules and rights.

So, how much will it be to take this treasure into your own home?

The document, which Sotheby’s vice chairman David Redden calls “the most important document in the world,” is expected to fetch a record $20-30 million.

Personally, I’m guessing it will go for more than that.  In recent years, so many things of real or imagined import seem to have gone for far more than expected by the auctioneers.  I’m going to peg this at $44-45 million.  What say we check back in two weeks and see how much this will cost Santa to deliver to some lucky and wealthy collector?  Same web-channel, same web-dork.

[tags]Magna Carter, Writ of Habeas Corpus, Birth of democracy,  Sotheby’s[/tags]

A watch I want

Those who know me already recognize my high-level of geekiness. Those that don’t know me figure out how much of a proud dork I am pretty quickly. I’m hoping to combine my lack of time-keeping device with my poor fashion sense to go to the next level and let people who see me but don’t meet me understand how non-functional I am in proper society. The solution to the needs-fix I have is this morse-code based watch.

If you want to deter that pesky friend who’s always peeking over you shoulder to check the time, then put a stop to it with the Morse Code watch from Tokyo Flash. This first ever design has three modes for telling time. Using a built in speaker that refracts sound off your wrist through the solid stainless steel case it sounds out the time in Morse code! But if that’s too hard to follow, you can easily press a button to see the time in Morse Code on the LED.

There are other cool watches that speak to my geekiness. But few combine the dorkiness I need with my desire to have something that keeps other people away while fulfilling a utilitarian function for me.

Wi-Fi detection via shirt

Walking around looking for a Wi-Fi connection to leech off of, you’d probably wish for some kind of portable wireless network connection detection device. But those suckers are bulky, not very good, a little pricey, and often have poor user interfaces. Thanks to ThinkGeek, you now have the answer in the ultra-portable, easy-to-understand, take anywhere Wi-Fi detecting shirt.

wifi_shirt_anim.gif

Here at ThinkGeek we’re pretty lazy when it comes to technology. We expect our gadgets to do all the busywork while we focus on the high level important tasks like reading blogs. That’s why we hate to have to crack open our laptops just to see if there is any wi-fi internet access about… and keychain wi-fi detectors, we would have to actually remove them from our pockets to look at them. But now thanks to the ingenious ThinkGeek robot monkeys you can display the current wi-fi signal strength to yourself and everyone around you with this stylish Wi-Fi Detector Shirt.

The shirt isn’t available yet, but should be in just a couple of weeks. You can pick one up at the product page for just $30 (minus a penny).[tags]Wi-Fi, Wireless detection, Think Geek, Geek shirt[/tags]

Thermaltake case

This one is just for the case geeks in the audience. My current favorite case is a Thermaltake, so I’m already a fan of the hardware. Here’s the next big thing to come from the company, and I have to say – if I had the dough, I’d probably buy one.

I’m a sucker for a pretty case, and that sure is a fine looking box.

[tags]Thermaltake, Computer case, Case geek[/tags]

.

DIY – build your own portable MP3 player

If mp3-stick-complete.jpg you have some real talent with hardware project building, you might be interested in this article about building your own portable mp3 player. Just be aware that it is not for the meek.

Project description – This is not a beginner project!

mp3-stick-partial.jpg

The MP3stick is a simple and small portable MP3 player. A microcontroller Atmel AVR ATmega128 is the heart of the circuit. MP3 decoding is done by an VLSI VS1011b decoder IC. A MMC/SD card works as memory medium for MP3 files, playlist files and skin files. The player is designed to draw his power from a LiIo/LiPo battery with 3.6V. a charger cicuit, based on MAX1811, is included. All information will be shown on a Nokia color LCD with 128×128 pixel and 256 colors. The player will work in text-only mode and if a skin file is available, also with nice graphic skins. A docking port allows outside connectivity for serial control signals, audio signals and charger voltage input.

All the necessary hardware is detailed in the guide following the introduction. A number of pictures are included to see various phases in the build. Firmware information is given. Even finaly build size (22x39x64mm) and approximate battery life guidelines are included. The work on this is impressive, and if you have the talent to build, this looks like a great project to get involved with.

[tags]mp3, DIY, MP3 player, Hardware project[/tags]