Hobbies

I like mechanical devices - which is one reason I like motorcycles.

But watches are in a class of their own. I love cool watches.

I MUST have one of these: The Jaeger-LeCoultre Gyrotourbillon

Make sure you watch the video at the bottom.

Then read part two, where the watch gets even cooler!

Continue to part three - where my head explodes with the coolness of this watch!

From what I can find on the fourms, they made 75 of these and they cost about $315,000.

Total insanity.

Before the day of computers and pocket calculators all mathematics was done by hand. Great effort was expended to compose trigonometric and logarithmic tables for navigation, scientific investigation, and engineering purposes.

In the mid-19th century, people began to design machines to automate this error prone process. Many machines of various designs were eventually built. The most famous of these machines is the Babbage Difference Engine.

Because of engineering issues as well as political and personal conflict the Babbage Difference engines construction had to wait until 1991 when the Science Museum in London decided to build the Babbage Difference Engine No.2 for an exhibit on the history of computers.

Babbage's design could evaluate 7th order polynomials to 31 digits of accuracy. I set out to build a working Difference Engine using LEGO parts which could compute 2nd or 3rd order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits.

Link

From Boing Boing of course

Stellarium is an open source desktop planetarium for Linux/Unix, Windows and MacOSX. It renders the skies in realtime using OpenGL, which means the skies will look exactly like what you see with your eyes, binoculars, or a small telescope. Stellarium is very simple to use, which is one of its biggest advantages: it can easily be used by beginners.

It's Beautiful!

Look at these beautiful radio controlled steam powered things!

Yes, steam powered!

The steam powered centipede is teh bomb!

Also Sci Fi and other stuff! From the Lower Hudson Valley Paper Model Club's gift shop.

Highlights include:

• A working hydraulic crane!
  
• A beautiful Tie fighter!
  
• The bridge of the original Enterprise!
  
• The Flying Sub!
  
• A 4 foot tall Saturn V rocket!
  
• A Mercury Capsule!
  
  

Amazing and FREE! I need more spare time...

I think I know what I'll be doing during the Olympics!

From Boing Boing comes a link to a review of a wooden gear clock kit.

This looks really cool and for $149 it's not unreasonable.

Might make a fun project.

Here is the site that sells them.

A week before Christmas I got a $100 gift card from work as a thank you for doing a bunch of hard work for the Olympics and some other stuff.

So I went out and bought a bunch of DVDs.

I also got a few for Christmas (including one duplicate - that's what I get for buying things so close to Xmas!)

So here is what I ended up with:

• The Ghostbusters Gift Set -
  
  • Ghostbusters
    
  • Ghostbusters II
    
• The Back to the Future trilogy:
  
  • Back to the Future
    
  • Back to the Future II
    
  • Back to the Future III
    
• Hang 'em High - Classic Clint Eastwood
  
• Terrence Hill's Trinity trilogy - classic spagetti westerns:
  
  • Boot Hill
    
  • My Name is Trinity
    
  • Trinity is Still My Name
    
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit
  
• The three Wallace and Gromit shorts - with the ten Cracking Contraptions shorts!
  
• Chicken Run
  
• The Thin Man collection - Includes
  
  • The Thin Man
    
  • After The Thin Man
    
  • Another Thin Man
    
  • Shadow Of The Thin Man
    
  • Song Of The Thin Man
    
  • The Thin Man Goes Home
    
  • Alias Nick & Nora Bonus Documentary Disc
    
• Groundhog Day
  

That's a lot of movie watching to do!

All the links are to the Internet Movie Database

I've also updated my Online DVD list at Intervocative. This is free software that allows you to catalog your DVDs AND upload your list to their server where they will host it for you!

Pretty cool.

And I still have some credit on the gift card and a movie to return, so there will be more DVDs soon.

What to buy, what to buy?

Some useful stuff here - and links off to more information.

Link

The rest of the blog is pretty good too.

And I found a link to this: How to make a lab power supply from a PC power supply. I figured this was possible, but didn't know about loading it with a power resistor.

I've wanted a good 5V/12V power supply. Now I know what to do!

Make Your Own Droidel Dreidel!

The Star Wars site has a papercraft Dreidel that you can make that is decorated like a droid.

As usual, thanks to Boing Boing.

Robert Sabuda has a whole bunch of simple pop-ups that you can make. Including a popup Christmas Card.

Canon (yes, the printer manufacturer) has a whole pile of papercraft you can make!