🎭 | "The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." ~ George Washington Burnap

Lasers, Cameras and Mirrors Turn You Into a Pool Shark

•December 12, 2008 • Leave a Comment

Do you suck at pool? [not me, ahem] Well if you do, this fancy system involving lasers and cameras shows you exactly where each ball on the table will go depending on where you’re pointing the cue:

Digitally Assisted Billiards

The whole thing is a little slapdash due to the budget limitations of the students who made it, but it’s even more impressive when you consider the means they had to work with.

The limiting factor of our implementation was hardware. Unfortunately, projectors and web cameras with adequate wide angle lenses are priced outside of our means, and as such, we found that we needed to use key-stoning algorithms to correct for the fact that the camera was located in the corner of the room, rather than above the pool table, and had to use a very large mirror mounted to the ceiling to allow enough room for the projector to display on the whole table. The mirror introduced further issue insomuch as a mirror, glued to a large piece of plywood and hung upside down does not tend to be flat. And as a result, we had to account for those distortions in our code as well.

If they had better cameras and projectors running through a faster machine, it could be a pretty amazing teaching/cheating tool. It’s also worth noting that the code was designed using Microsoft Visual studio 2005 as an embedded OS project for an e-Box 2300.

Visit: Project Page

Posted in 🔬 S C I E N C E/T E C H : N A T U R E 🌲, 🕶️ C O O L : S T U F F
Tags: billiards, Digitally Assisted Billiards, diy, ECE 4180, Embedded Systems, Georgia Tech, in-game visualization, lasers, Mirrors, neat, pool, Pool Shark, projector, Very impressive, YouTube video

Know That Movie?

•December 12, 2008 • Leave a Comment

My sister really digs this film [crazy cracker]

Posted in 🍿 F I L M : M O T I O N, 👽 [F]-F I L E S
Tags: 2005, Ask!, Directed by Dave McKean, Guess, Know That Movie?, Mirror Mask, Name, Question?, Rent It, Watch

Realization / Exacerbation / Masturbation

•December 11, 2008 • Leave a Comment

I couldn’t think of a better title than that… Sounds like it should feture in an INXS song.

There is so much fresh wonderful information circling the web every day; that I often forget about the news in my own back yard don’t cha know? Well my friend Chris recently posted a small entry on his blog that woke me up to this realization:

“this year’s 48 Hour competition[is apparently out now on DVD] …And an article for those wHo want to test some sex toys. here.“

How he learn’t of the sex toys before I is unheard of…

Here is Chris’s 48Hour Award-Winning Hamilton Short:

Sum Of All Parts

Guerrilla Monkeys’ entry for the 2008 New Zealand V 48 Hour Furious Filmmaking Competition, where one had to make a short film in 48 hours from conception to completion and had to incorporate elements of a brush as a prop, dialogue of “wait a minute” and a character Kerry Post, a perfectionist. [Regional entry for Hamilton]

Best Film / Best Score / Best Use Of Prop / Best Cinematography

And his Light-hearted Instructional Video:

Spit-Takes: A Mouthful of Comedy

Spit-Take: the act of forcibly ejecting liquid substances from the mouth. For centuries it has been the staple of stage and cinema comedy. But it’s not as easy as it looks. We’re going to take you through the “do’s” and “don’ts” of the surprise spray.

UPDATE: IT CAME FROM THE SWAMP! National Tour ended today.

Job Opportunity: [Kiwis Only] Testers Wanted/ YouTube: Xris / Blog: Guerrilla Monkey

Posted in 🍿 F I L M : M O T I O N, 👽 [F]-F I L E S, 📰 N E W S, 😂 F U N N Y : J U N K, 🥝 K I W I A N A
Tags: 48 Hour Filmmaking Competition, 7 short films from the waikato, Chris Xris, Comedy, Directed/edited and shot by Chris Tan, Director, explained for beginners, exuberant exacerbation’s of quenchables, Funny, Guerrilla Monkey, Guerrilla Monkeys 2008, Hamilton based movie-mogul drunken master, INXS - mediate, INXS - No I am Not a Fan, IT CAME FROM THE SWAMP! National Tour, Music by Thomas Bullock, New Zealand, New Zealand Filmmaker, Realization / Exacerbation / Masturbation, REM, Sexy Man Balls Penis!, Short Film, South Seas Film & Television School, Spit Takes - Chris Tan, V, Writer, Written by Ross MacLeod, YouTube video

Encouragement [12]

•December 11, 2008 • Leave a Comment

Posted in 👽 [F]-F I L E S, 🕶️ C O O L : S T U F F
Tags: 12, 12th Set, Blues, BOOOOOOOM, Consideration, Daily Encouragement - Twelfth Set [12], Darondo - Didn't I Scrabble, Earth, Encouragement, Encouraging Words, Feel, Findlay Donnan & his Friends, Free Encouragement, Future, Heart, Humanity, Jeff & Erin, Kind-heartedness, Kindness, Love, Now, People, Present, Real, Soul, Thank You, Thoughts, Truth, Twelve, Wake Up, You & Me

It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!

•December 11, 2008 • Leave a Comment

So I was watching Family Guy on the telly last night when Brian started doing the “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time” song & dance to cheer-up Peter. Hilariously comical:

Here’s the original:

Peanut Butter Jelly!

Posted in 👽 [F]-F I L E S, 😂 F U N N Y : J U N K
Tags: Banana, Family Guy, It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Kevin Flynn, Peanut Butter Jelly, Ryan Etrata, The Buckwheat Boys

APPETIZING BENTO! Game/Anime/Movie Inspired

•December 11, 2008 • Leave a Comment

AnnaTheRed makes these delicious lunches for her boyfriend, who might very well be the luckiest guy in the world:

…I’ve discovered a love for making bento (lunchbox in Japanese)!

In Japan, a lots of moms wake up early to make bento for their kids and their husbands. And often, they make cute animals or characters from anime shows out of food, so that kids will enjoy eating healthy food. Those bento are called “Kyaraben” or “Charaben” (character bento).

So, I’m going to write about bento, plush, food and anything I create in my blog. Nothing serious, just for fun.

I made a list of video game characters my boyfriend liked first, and looked at each character to see which ones could be made out of food.
I knew that he LOVED Yoshi from Super Mario World when he was young (and still does!)

The hardest part of making a bento isn’t actually making it. It’s how the food/color is placed in a bento, so I drew some sketches before making this bento, and tried to visualize it in colors.

Flickr: Obento! / Blog: Bento Factory

Posted in 🎨 A R T : A U D I O 🎶, 🕶️ C O O L : S T U F F
Tags: Anna The Red, Appetizing, APPETIZING BENTO! Game/Anime/Movie Inspired, Art, Artist, BENTO, Big Daddy, BioShock, Character Bento, Creativity With Food by Hong Yi, culinary prowess, Delicious, Eat It, Eat your Vegetables, food art, Game/Anime/Movie, good woman, Greens, healthy, How To Make, Inspired Bento Boxes, Japanese, kick in the head, kirby, Kyaraben, Little Sister, Love, Lucky boyfriend, Lunch, Lunchbox, Mario Stars, mmmm, mouth candy, My Neighbor Totoro, neat, Pikachu, Pokemon, SSBB, super smash bros. brawl, Video Games, Wall-E, wordpress blog, Yoshi, Yoshi’s Island, Yum, yummy

Celestial Threesome: The Moon, Venus and Jupiter

•December 10, 2008 • 1 Comment

The moon shines over the Taj Mahal hotel, one of the scenes of a terrorist attack last week, in Mumbai, India, Monday, Dec. 1, 2008.

The planets Venus, top left, and Jupiter, top right, came in close proximity with the moon as seen from Earth Monday. In reality, Venus is almost 100 million miles way and Jupiter nearly 550 million miles from our planet. The moon is 252,000 miles away. The exact combination of planets and the moon in the right place to appear together, even when they aren’t high enough in the evening sky to be appreciated, won’t happen again until 2052. [AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade]

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Tags: 2052, ALIGNMENT, astronomical event, astronomy, best planetary gathering of the year, brightest objects in the sky after the sun, conjunction, Converge, crescent moon, Dec. 1 2008, December 1 2008, Frown, Happy Face, India, Jupiter, million miles away, Moon, moon+venus+jupiter, Mumbai, Photo, Photography, planetary occultation, planets, Rajanish Kakade, Sky Show, Sky Trio, Skywatchers, smile, southwestern sky, space porn, stargazing, Taj Mahal Hotel, terrorist attacks, twilight, Unhappy Face, Venus, World

Terminator Salvation Trailer

•December 10, 2008 • Leave a Comment

Finally!

Earlier today a Japanese trailer leaked for Terminator Salvation. Well now Warner Bros has released the Official second domestic trailer for the film, and its an extremely different cut. We get a better look at the Moto-Terminator and the gigantic transformer-like Harvester. Even the detractors need to give McG some credit, this film is looking better and better:

Haha, Man I am getting sick of having to change to a new Trailer every 10mins. They keep getting removed by Skynet I MEAN, YouTube.

Flickr: Trailer Screencaps

Posted in 🍿 F I L M : M O T I O N, 🕶️ C O O L : S T U F F
Tags: Action, action hero, actor, Anton Yelchin, Barnes, Bryce Dallas Howard, Christian Bale, Common, death dealing, Director, Entertainment Tonight, Film, footage, Future, Harvester, I'm John Connor!, Japanese, JC, Joseph McGinty Nichol, Kate Connor, Lead Character, Marcus Wright, McG, Moon Bloodgood, Moto-Terminator, Movie, Movie News, Movie Trailer, New, Official, post-apocolyptic, preview, Resistance, Robots, Salvation Soldier, Sam Worthington, sci-fi, science fiction, Skynet, T-800, T4, T4 on ET, tangent Skynet timeline?, Terminator, Terminator 4, Terminator Salvation, This is what I've been waiting for, time, Trailer, war, Warner Bros

ROBOTS: The First Robot That Can Jump Like a Grasshopper and Roll Like a Ball

•December 9, 2008 • Leave a Comment

There are robots that can jump and there are robots that can roll, but the Jollbot is the first robot that can do both. These skills could be vital for future space exploration.

The University of Bath’s work on the Jollbot was first brought to light last year by PhD student Rhodri Armour, but it appears that their design has evolved considerably in that time. Not only can it roll and jump over difficult terrain, it can do it without the awkward drawbacks of leg-based contraptions—which makes it ideal for space exploration. Plus, it is super light [making the logistics of getting it into space that much easier] and cheap to produce.

One of the major challenges that face robots designed for space exploration is being able to move over rough terrain. Robots with legs are generally very complex, expensive to build and control, and encounter problems if they fall over. Wheels are a simpler solution to this, but are limited by the size of obstacles they can overcome.

To solve the problem, Rhodri and colleagues in the University’s Centre for Biomimetic & Natural Technologies have been looking to nature for inspiration – designing a robot that jumps obstacles in its path like an insect.

Read Full Article: Global News Network

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Tags: Biomimetic & Natural Technologies, engineering, Future, Global News Network, jollbot, Jollbot Jumps Like a Grasshopper, jumping robot, neat, PhD student, Rhodri Armour, Robots, Rolls Like a Ball, rough terrain, science, Science & Technology, space, space exploration, Technology, University of Bath, YouTube video

UltraNeko’s Voicemail – Part 1 [Birthday Wishes]

•December 8, 2008 • 1 Comment

Sadie/UltraNeko, who blogs, Sadie’s Gaming Infection, swears these are real voicemails by bona-fide voice actors, Solid Snake, Otacon and Duke Nukem wishing her Happy Birthday:

I know what you’re thinking; she’s either got tremendous pull — or friends with outstanding voice impression skills. Well rest assured, you are wrong and these were not pieced together from game dialogue. Sadie got these guys to leave her birthday wishes when she interviewed them earlier in the year.

Kudos to the actors, who sound like they put some work into it.

“Thank you all for your wonderful birthday wishes. It’s something very small, but it means a lot! So thank you all very much for that!

…I have always had a deep appreciation for that they do, because it makes a game 10x better when you’ve got quality voice acting. Same thing with anime. A lot of English dubs are terrible, so when you’ve got someone that you can actually listen to, you gotta praise them!

…voice actors rock! And that’s why I love interviewing them. They just don’t get enough praise!”

So when can we expect a Part 2?

YouTube: UltraNeko/ Blog: Sadie’s Gaming Infection

Posted in 🎨 A R T : A U D I O 🎶, 🕶️ C O O L : S T U F F, 😂 F U N N Y : J U N K
Tags: Ambition, Anime, Aspiring, Birthday Wishes, blogger, Console, David Hayter, Dubs, duke nukem, English Speaking, entertaining, gamer, Gamer Girl, Games, Girl Gamers, grand theft auto, Happy Birthday, Lucky, metal gear solid, neat, Niko Bellic, novelties, Otacon, Parodies, Player, Pro, Professionals, Real Gamer Girls, Reporter, Sadie, Sadie's Gaming Infection, Sadie's Gaming Infection - Left 4 Dead, Skits, Solid Snake, UltraNeko, UltraNeko's Voicemail - Part 1, video game, videogames, voice acting, voice actors, wordpress blog, youtube

Watch This Space: Dweller R 1 3

•December 8, 2008 • 6 Comments

If You Like Your Hip Hop Conscious, Hardcore,
Political, Independent and Underground; Watch This Space!

My Moroccan-Portuguese brother Ray, since completing Film School in 2006 mastering in editing, has gone onto work for Lucasfilm Animation Singapore in the Visual Effects Department as a 2D/3D Motion Graphics Artist. [Yeah, Star Wars: The Clone Wars]

If that isn’t ambition enough, R 1 3 [R ONE THREE] [Ray] is soon to be releasing his debut EP entitled: Dweller

“At the moment I’m going under my own record label – Thirteenth Worrier Recordz – [Dweller]’s got 6 tracks and will have two guests [Also Independent from USA] Can’t give the names yet bro but I will as soon as I get the clearance.”

Awesome.
Keep Your Eyes & Ears Open and I’ll Keep You All Posted.