Category: Mad Science

Linux on Laptops

Tux!

Lets suppose that your tired of your current operating system and want to try something new. It happens, nothing wrong with that. The problem is that you’re a laptop owner and as we all know laptops are a delicate little box of hardware. Part computer, part monitor, and part strange alien technology that breaks when you look at it wrong. You have a friend that said ‘Get Linux, it’s kewl!’ Well, you know darn well that your sleek exotic beast was barely able to take an install of Microsoft Windows let alone some free OS made by people with more time that you ever remember having. Face it, Microsoft has enough programmers to build an Egyptian pyramid (hey, Gates is going to die someday…) So the notion that free software is going to install might be as crazy as open source XP. But as with many things on the ‘net, other people have forged into this unknown territory and have left notes as to their experiences.

This is an index of information and documentation of interest to those who now use or are considering using the Linux operating system on a notebook or laptop computer.

All in all a very handy site if your thinking of making the switch and want to push your laptop into a new dimension. Heck, I’m downloading Debian right now and have a 20GB drive ready to go into my Toshiba Satellite. Live free, use Linux! 🙂

Linux on Laptops

laptop, linux, OS, cool

Panoramic Camera Made From a Flatbed Scanner!

Last December I posted a note about the Panoscan digital panoramic camera and Mr. Sharpless was kind enough to make a comment about how he had built a few cameras that did pretty much the same thing but at a far lower price. Well I asked if he had a web site and I just got a reply saying that he was inspired to put a site up about his creations.
Thank you!!!

My “ScanCams” are panoramic cameras made from old flatbed document scanners and photographic lenses. They take images one vertical line at a time while rotating under control of the scanner’s electronics and drive motor. An attached laptop computer decodes the scan data and records formatted image files, using software I developed.
This kind of camera can have very high resolution and can make very wide images – up to 360 degrees or even more. The vertical field of view, and hence the angular resolution, depends on the lens focal length and the length of the linear image sensor.

I’m used to using a swing lens camera, I use a Russian Horizon 202pretty often, so the ‘limitations’ of such a camera are familiar to me. I don’t have a problem with the whole moving lens thing, it can make for some cool effects.

On the right is my second ScanCam, and the only one currently operational. Its CCD is 42mm long — the length of the diagonal of a 35mm film frame – and it uses Pentax screw mount SLR camera lenses. The sensor has 10,600 pixels, giving an effective resolution of 49 megapixels over the 35mm frame. I usually scan at one-half, one-third or one-quarter of the maximum resolution – roughly 12, 5 or 3 megapixels per frame.

GHAA… 49 megapixels per 35mm frame? Oh yeah… I am eyeing the screws in my HP 7400c scanner even as I type this…
So have a look at his site and go out and build one yourself! Make some art, why don’t ya… 🙂

TKS Digital Scanning Panoramic Camera
panoramic, photography, scanner, cool, digital, DIY

Storm Chasers

A chance meeting with storm chasers in Aberdeen, SD.

Mad Max is tornado proof?

On the way back to Sioux Falls, I ran into a group of storm chasers filling up on gas and donuts at the local Gas Stop. Among the cool doppler equipped vehicles was a strange MadMax type vehicle appearently equipped for storm chasing. I saw this on the news a few nights ago, and the guy that built and drives it claims it is tornado proof…..yeah, I’d like to see the tests 😉
Here are a few pics I snapped as I stood around gawking like a local that just saw a two headed cow being beamed up by aliens.
(Why are we so fascinated by weather!?)

Lego-Tronics

LEGO

I saw this on MAKE today. I used to dream about building this sort of thing. However, due to time and a billion other things I never did.

Using LEGO bricks, soldering nails, various electronic components to build an “Lego Electronic Lab Kit”.

Exactly! a concept so simple and cool that it’s a wonder that LEGO themselves have not already produced the. Ok, if your old enough to remember the Dacta line they had some sensors and such, but nothing like this. Makes me want to get my electronics parts bin out and do some building…

Lego Electronic Lab Kit Main

DIY, science, electronics, lego

I Feel My Mind Going…

Desktop HAL

I found at on Gizmodo tonight:

The face needed to be a black material, so I chose black ¼-inch acrylic, but it couldn’t go flush, so I removed the plastic face of the case and built a ¾-inch-thick square ring to bring the face of the HAL out enough for my drive to be stealthed and to allow for differences in the case. To make the ring light up, I put green LEDs behind it and cut the two face-plate pieces out.

Personaly I think this is bunches better than the first place entry. Star Wars is over rated…

HAL9000–ExtremeTech’s Science Fiction Case Mod Contest
computer, DIY, mod, case

AntWorks

Antwerks

Once you put aside the fact that the ants are living in their food, its pretty neat. This has ‘Father’s Day’ gift all over it!

This miraculous gel, derived from a NASA Space experiment, serves as both habitat and nutrition for your ants – allowing you to watch in awe as they turn a brick of aqua-blue gel into a fascinating colony of tunnels. Never before have you been so capable of watching these awesome creatures at work.

AntWorks – Space Age Ant Habitat

science, gift, ant farm, natural