Author: John

Catapult and Trebuchet Kits On The ‘Net

Trebuchet and Catapult Kits

I saw today that ThinkGeek is selling a few seige machine kits. Pretty cool if you ask me. How often have you wanted to practice your indirect fire skills in the cube farm?
However, once you get tired of these little kiddy kits, go shopping over at CatapultKits.com for some real fun. I’d suggest getting the Mini Desktop Mangonel. The sucker looks dead cool!:

Mini Desktop Mangonel

Hardwood, real leather, low price and a range of 20+ feet are just a few of the features of this high quality kit. I personaly want the Floating Arm Trebuchet kit, but I know I’d get in trouble with it.

[via Uncrate and Google]

ThinkGeek :: Catapult and Trebuchet Kits

CatapultKits.com

Wi-Spy Spectrum Analyzer

Wi-Spy 

This is like the holy grail of after hours computer techs, Do you have any idea how hard it is to diagnose Wi–fi reception problems? You have to do trial and error equipment placements for ever. The same setup in one place is totally worthless in another. It wold be darn cool to be able to pull this out of your kit and show the customer what the local environment is like.

Wi-Spy is the world’s smallest 2.4 GHz spectrum analyzer, and has been designed specifically for troubleshooting and analyzing Wi-Fi networks. It shows the signal strength for all Wi-Fi networks as well as Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz cordless phones, microwaves, Zigbee, and all other 2.4 GHz transmitters. At a glance you can see what Wi-Fi channels are quiet and what channels you should avoid if possible. This makes it easy to pick a quiet channel for your access point instead of picking your favorite number between 1 and 11.

ThinkGeek :: Wi-Spy Spectrum Analyzer

UltraPod Mini Tripod

Ultrapod 

I’ve blogged about a number of tripods in the past, window mounted tripods, walking stick tripods, and even tripods made out of string, but when it’s all said and done the tripod that I use the most is the venerable UltraPod. It’s small and folds shut, it’s got a Velcro strap to wrap around posts and such, and a ball head to point your camera in the right direction. Now it’s not perfect, many times the side of the ball joint will stop you from getting just the angle you want but because of the strap you can try to get a better orientation. Barring that, for the price it’s a perfect thing to have in your camera bag for those slow shutter speed exposures.

[via OhGizmo! and Coolest-Gadgets]

UltraPod Mini Tripod

Subwoofer of the Gods

60 inch subwoofer

I’m not a big fan of cars with woofers so loud that their cheap chrome trim rattles lose but this speaker is worthy of respect:

Unfortunately, Tim and his crew didn’t realize just how much acoustical power the sub could generate, and didn’t build the vehicle to contain it appropriately. Even at less than 1/2 output, the doors were blown off the tracks, and the entire vehicle ballooned in and out several inches.

That is one hell of a speaker!  

[via OhGizmo]

The 60 inch subwoofer

HDRI – a photoset on Flickr

I was browsing my favorite links  when I discovered an enchanting selection of HDRI (high dynamic range imaging) images of Japan. I’m working on a few of my own using a PC tool called Photomatrix. So far it’s been easier to use than the tool in Photoshop CS2. It provides better control over your image when your stacking the images up. The tone mapping of RAW images looks unbelievably impressive, I figure that I’ll have to go back and re shoot a bunch of my photos with this method. Sounds like a good excuse to go back to Toronto, New York, Japan and Bangkok. 🙂

[discovered via Nipponkan] 

HDR – a photoset on Flickr