the wonderful world of lego

y'know, there's no cooler convergence of geeky things than robotic hands made out of lego... i've always liked lego and i've always been interested in robots and duplicating the articulation of a human hand was one of those things i worked on as a kid...

it would seem i'm not alone in my interests, just check out this


by comparison, my own lego hand is just sad... mine doesn't even move on it's own... what can i say? some folks have a lot better lego than i do...

bowling, bowling, bowling

so last night a bunch of folks from work got together and went bowling... i haven't been bowling in years, and i'd certainly never been bowling with any of these folks...

and i'd never bowled while drinking before...

they were trying to convince me that drinking makes you bowl better, and it seemed to be working too... for most of the first game i was winning with a comfortable margin after having a couple strikes in a row...

then in the last frame the ball slipped out of my hand in the wind-up (or whatever you want to call it) so the ball went backwards instead of forwards (good thing the bowling computers are stupid and didn't know anything about that)... then i started out the next game by hitting myself in the leg with the ball (because i'm just a big bowling pin, dontcha know) which resulted in an immediate gutter ball... it didn't really improve much from there... so much for 'drinking makes you bowl better'...

pancakes

so i was all set to make myself pancakes this past sunday, as i've done just about every sunday since i was 13 (i know, i'm such a creature of habit), only to discover i was all out of mix and i needed to make more...

yes, make more... i'm not talking about some store bought crap, there's been a general purpose mixture (not unlike bisquick in it's ability to be used for lots of things) recipe used by my family for many moons and i needed to make more..

and as is often the case, my memory failed me... so i'm going to write it down for posterity...

9 cups of flour
1 cup + 2 tablespoons of milk powder
1/3 cup of baking powder
4 teaspoons of salt
1 3/4 cups of vegetable oil

you mix them all up thoroughly - you don't want any chunks (at least nothing bigger than a pea)...

pretty simple, i just couldn't remember whether it was 1/3 cups of baking powder or 2/3 cups...

and then i made my pancakes... people seem to like my pancakes - and i don't mean crepe-style pancakes either, i'm talking about pancakes that rise like bread, that are at least a half inch think and light and fluffy... pancakes that emphasize the cake part... they're also simple to make...

1 egg
~1/2 cup of milk
~1 cup of the aforementioned mix

the measurments are approximate because i like to tweak it to get just the right consistency (like a really thick milkshake, only this isn't something you'd want to slurp up through a straw - well you could do it, i suppose, the batter tastes fine the way it is)... i also double everything because i really can eat a tower of pancakes all by myself...

anyways, you mix it thoroughly (again, you don't want lumps) and you drop 1/4 cup amounts in a non-stick pre-heated frying pan (sorry, you'll have to experiment with temperature - 6 1/2 on my stove is probably something entirely different on yours) and cook till several bubbles rise to the top and then flip.. you should be looking at a nice golden brown pancake at this point (though only half cooked) and if not that's your cue to adjust the temperature... if, at this point, your pancake rises so much that the already cooked side splits open then you've got yourself a really good pancake...

if you want you can throw some apple slivers into the mix too, but i'd suggest making the batter more watery for that.. thicker batter doesn't cook as easily when apple chunks get in the way...

the public discourse

i was reading al gore's comments on what the threat to american democracy and found it to actually be very interesting reading about what has happened to the public exchange of ideas that american democracy depends on...

al gore mentions trying to address the erosion of the public forum with his own television broadast and to that end i have an idea for him...

in canada, specifically on citytv, we have this thing called speaker's corner - it's the starting point for the idea... consider the possibility of having kiosks (like speakers corner) spread around the country with live video (screen in screen) from other kiosks showing people engaged in debate... consider further opening up the
conversation(s) to being accessed over the internet by webcam and/or text-based chat sessions... obviously there will need to be some sort of moderation facility to prevent abuse of the facilities that would interfere with the public forum...

if you then broadcast the resulting conversations on network television you could quite conceivably bring the 'marketplace of ideas' to the television airwaves...

apparently he's already taking in and broadcasting 'viewier content' but that's hardly the level of interaction necessary to truely have a public debate - you need to multiplex feeds together in real-time so that people can interact with each other in the debating process...

me at work

recently i happened upon a picture of fred von lohmann in his office at EFF and i was struck by how small his space was - it's no bigger than my own space at the office...

now, i'm no famous EFF lawyer - and i don't have the kind of razor sharp wit to come up with things like "more carrot, less stick" but i thought folks might like to see me at work... thanks to the office shutterbug, alex, that is now possible..



alex will probably wonder why i chose to show the bad picture but it's kind of a running gag with me - i don't take good photos, i'm not photogenic and i find that humorous... besides, now that i'm working in a reclining position, don't you sort of expect to see me with my eyes closed?

i've been naughty

i've been neglecting my blog - bad, bad kurt...

ok, well i went to a club on friday - first time in a long time and that's a shame because it means i forgot all those things i said i'd do the next time i went to a club...

like wearing ear protection... i don't know how people can enjoy that volume - i could feel my hearing deteriorate as the minutes went by...

another little trick i've found (not specifically related to clubs, but it does apply) and forgot to apply is to not eat before going... what's that you say? you're not supposed to drink on an empty stomach? well i'm a weirdo because that's pretty much the only way i can drink... if i try to drink with food in my belly i don't get a buzz i just get nausious...

but there were still interesting things - plenty of pretty girls, some (though not a lot) good music, and a glassed in smoking room where we could watch darwin in action, real-time, and with a musical score...

i beat Grow RPG!

woo hoo! i did it, i beat Grow RPG from EyezMaze and i did it without any cheat codes...

so what you say? ah well, i know it's not really a big deal - it's just the first time i've been able to beat any of their Grow games unassisted...

and if you've never heard of EyezMaze before, go check it out - there aren't a lot of games there but they're all good and the Grow ones especially are unlike anything else out there...

(and if you want to know what the correct sequence is, read the comments)

[edit] now that that's accomplished, i'm going to go make pancakes and eat 'til i don't feel like moving anymore...

bathtub toys

do you remember playing with toys in the bathtub? i know i do... i wonder if girls play with bathtub toys - i'll have to remember to ask a few when i get a chance...

anyways, these remote control laser-tag submarine tub toys make me want to reconsider that whole shower thing and go back to taking full baths like i did when i was little...



of course laser-tag isn't really fun for just one person, so i'll have to find someone to share a bath with, i think...

[edit] doh! of course i'd forget to give the link...

birthday 'person' absenteeism

it sucks to lose track of friends - i wish it didn't happen but it does...

oh well, nothing says i have to let that stop me so:

happy birthday karylin smith, wherever you are...

on the dangers of phones in kitchens

having a phone in the kitchen is a convenience, i know, i understand, but there are some dangers involved...

"what dangers?" you ask... well, i could have meant ordinary, conventional dangers, but no what i'm talking about is the danger that someone might spill something on the phone... some food stuff might get spilled on the phone...

and it might not be obvious just by looking at it...

and it might be that you only find out when you go to check your messages and get an ear-full of goo...

just you wait and see... i'm not special, this can happen to any one of you as well...

too many dollars, not enough sense

wow!

there's not much more to say about this except that if he paid anything (and there's one quote that says it would have cost in excess of $200,000 for all the surgery and prosthetics) then he paid too much...

then again, maybe it's just me... maybe some people are comfortable with their environment but uncomfortable in their own skin - personally i'm the other way 'round... i can't get over how profound the ramifications of something like that would be...

more fun with the mighty potato

i knew it! i just knew that one of the many, many things you can do with the world's most versatile vegetable (aka the potato) was shoot it out of a gun.... here's directions how to do it:
MAKE: Blog: The Night Lighter - Spud Gun FREE PDF

i like me some fireworks

[special thanks to Putfile for being able to handle the animated gif - it was too big for imageshack]

that's just one of the things i found in this great Fark thread about fireworks...

there was also funny stuff, stupid stuff, and stuff you don't ever want to see up close...

file this under 'things i think you should know'

have you ever heard of the creative commons? do you know what it is and why it's important? if not, creative commons australia has an
animation explaining what's what...

[via Creative Commons, where else?]

the world's most perfect food

you can eat 'em, you can drink 'em, you can shoot 'em, you can remove broken light bulbs with 'em, you can make car parts out of 'em and now you can power a webserver with them... that's right, i'm talking about the potato...

it's so useful, can there be a more perfect food than the spud?

[via MAKE]

rock star scientists

have you ever thought to yourself 'i wish i could have sat in on a lecture given by einstein or newton or some other big name'?

well, you can, of course... stephen hawking is still around - a few years back he was in toronto and a friend of mine was bound and determined to see him talk at convocation hall at the st. george campus of the university of toronto... i passed on the opportunity because, well, he's just not my preferred 'flavour' of physicist - i'm really more of a feynman fan... also because i'm not really inclined to get so excited about a person that i have to see them give a talk in real life...

even if i were, i'm never going to get to see richard feynman give a lecture in real life because, like einstein and newton, he's dead - but his lectures on quantum electro-dynamics live on in book and apparently also in
video form... now i read one of his books, "QED: The Strange Theory Of Light And Matter", back when i was a teenager in highschool and it was a good book, not just because it explained a great deal without being overly complicated but also because feynman himself seemed an engaging personality... in fact, i believe i've marked the book down as one of my favourites in my profile here...

anyways, the videos seem to be a video version of the same lectures that the book presents, only in the videos feynman does have a tie to look at (however it's a solid colour so you still can't count on it to keep your interest)... also, it's a much more visceral experience to watch him talk and draw diagrams, to see him crack jokes, and there's a Q&A portion at the end the videos where he answers questions from the audience (he gave these particular videotaped lectures in new zealand)...

hmmm... maybe i would have gone to see him talk, i don't know... definitely some good viewing, though...

[via MAKE]

edu-tainment at it's finest

y'know as a kid i loved watching jacques cousteau shows (? i don't remember the name of the actual show(s) i just remember he was in them) as well as a show called "struggle beneath the sea"...

this is kind of like that, but with a surprising twist - it's an octopus that eats sharks...

[via All Things Christie]

it's official - my childhood was deprived

i mean really, what else can i conclude from the fact that these kids got to go to explosives camp and i didn't?

[via Fark]

The World's Smallest Co-axial Helicopter

it's not quite like the mini-helicopters i've seen before, but that's ok - those other helicopters couldn't lift people...



also, those other mini-helicopters probably didn't cost $30,000 for the kit to build them...

here's a question though, didn't they have one of these on the flintstones? i seem to remember they did...

[via Red Ferret Journal]

you are now a ninja!

so you want to be a ninja... well now you can be in 7 easy steps...



the thumbnail doesn't really do it justice though, you have to look at the full size version...

[via Populicious]