If you’ve ever ridden latest iteration of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, you will remember how, right before you hit the first drop, you are greeted with the ghostly image of the tentacle-faced Davey Jones creature warning you that “dead men tell no tales”. I certainly did. The effect uses rear-projection video, [...]

Stereo pair set up for Cross-Eyed viewing.

Taken – read Flickr notes. ”The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk is a progressive lending library of electronic components. An internet meme in physical form halfway between P2P zip-archive sharing and a flea market. It arrives full of wonderful (and possibly useless) components, but you will surely find some treasures to keep. You [...]

Although coconut shells do have some well established niche market uses such as novelty swimwear and small caged-pet shelters, I can’t help but to feel as though too many of them are going to waste. The New Altoids Tin? No I don’t mean as a mint holder, but as an improvised homebrew electronics project enclosure. [...]

I think that I may have just out-nerded myself. You see, the 2-minute dueling sabers were fun for a couple of days, but they weren’t the most durable things in the world and were a bit lacking in the realism department. So I decided to build a nicer set of “elegant weapons from a more [...]

Here are 3 hyperstereo views of Seattle, taken from the observation deck of Smith Tower. These stereo pairs are set up for cross-eyed viewing. Hyperstereo Hyperstereograms are image pairs that are made using a larger than human interocular spacing. Huh? You know, the cameras are further apart than your eyes. The effect on a landscape [...]

Last night I found myself in a remarkably Ratatouille predicament. It is rare that our cat Rudy brings an animal into the house in anything but either a dead, or mortally wounded condition. Last night we were hanging out in the basement to escape the upstairs heat (Seattle houses don’t have AC). We kept hearing [...]

They’re falling all the time

You see, just becuase you’re not awakened at night by a crashing sound, then wander into the living room to see a smoking crater in the floor and a hole in your ceiling that you could drop a refrigeratior through, doesn’t mean that a meteorite didn’t land on your house.

There is looking at life’s debris (see finkbuilt masthead), and then there is encapsulating it in one-inch diameter clear plastic balls and selling it in gumball machines. D.C. junkman/artist Christopher Goodwin does the latter with his wonderful Trashball! project. Mail Order Trashballs If you’re not in the D.C. area (currently the only city that has [...]

[1] [2] [3] [4] There it is, the Tamiya Sand Hopper. It’s a Grasshopper sporting a Blitzer Beetle body, painted in Sand Scorcher box-art livery. Conspicuously absent are the rear cage and stinger exhaust, but I’m calling it done for now.