Slashdot Mirror
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Quickies
It's been a long time coming, so lets start off the quickies with some acts
of senseless damage. Old Wolf
sent us a link to a bunch of pictures of someone Defrosting a Freezer in the best way ever, and an
anonymous reader sent in a site that shows what happens if you put a
CD in Microwave.
Don't use AOL CDs., send them to this lady who collects them
(from gr8fulnded). On to the sex! An anonymous reader submitted a story
about the Robot
Pet Vibrator which is I guess AIBO gone wrong.
elkm discovered
Computerized Contraception. And with
all this digital doin' it going on, its good know that
MITs Erotic Computation Group is here
to research it (thanks
Chris Moon)
The world is full of strangeness, but little of it is as scary as
MissNachos's link to the
Hello Kitty laptop, srini's
link to the Single Pixel Webcam, and aneanti's link to a collection of the
strangest canned foods you'll ever see.
Finally, since it is the holidays, check out mrv's link to LED Christmas Lights which sure beats the hell out of finding the broken bulb.
I've had some since around 1992... but that's innovation for you.
first, about the microwave thing...tis old. :) But, very cool! I love using grapes/blueberries in the microwave..you cut them in half most of the way, leaving a tiny bit of skin attached in the middle and put it in the microwave for a few moments....huge flames shoot out...tis super cool. Not entirely sure why, but it is definitely neat.
another thing, always poke holes in your hamsters before microwaving.
The anti-salmon
Contrary to that method, the traditional action involves putting a boiling kettle into the empty freezer. This removes the ice quite nicely. If you ever try to de-ice an upright freezer by any method, MAKE SURE you put some sort of vessel in the bottom to catch the water dripping, otherwise you'll turn around and see water flooding out of the freezer and ruining the floor. Yes, this is from experience ;-)
Despite my best efforts to throw them all away, AOL keeps trying to grow my collection with their latest offerings...
It's like those blasted music clubs - spend nothing now, but if you sign up you'll pay through the nose later. No matter what, their gonna keep sending you cd's until you wish you'd made a better choice!
RC
How can you include an article on strange Canned food that doesn't include my all time favorite (I have a can sitting atop my monitor): PORK BRAINS in Milk Gravy.
Yes, this little 5.5 oz can has a whopping 3500 calories, and over 1000% (Yes, one THOUSAND) of your RDA intake of cholesterol.
The recipe on the back? Pork Brains and Scrambled Eggs. At least Eggs have alot of the 'good' cholesterol, otherwise you'd have a heart attack halfway through your second can! Yum!
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
May I suggest to you, and all you AOL CD haters, to save up your CD's and ship them to nomoreaolcds.com? They have over 7,000 already, but need alot more to reach their goal of one million!
pronoblem
See my reply to your parent for what to do with your AOL CD's to help end the waste.
If you put pop tarts in the toaster for too long you get a 20 inch flame!
http://www.sci.tamucc.edu/~pmichaud/toast/
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Who will be the last site standing under the Slashling bum-rush? Who can continue serving pages the longest? What site will be the first to return only an apology?
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I think they are trying to prevent that, its much harder to slik your wrists with an AOL CD, than the little metal door from a floppy. god knows I would do it, right their at the mail box if I get another
In theory, if the pixel's color were deep enough, you could imagine that it showed a whole scene, just extremely anti-aliased.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I think he was hoping that we would forget that this has been posted before. Then it would be fresh and hilarious, once again.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
I regularly buy Cento anchovies, because it helps with the fresh breath problem. I never thought I'd see it in a weird canned foods collection, let alone linked from slashdot!
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
The new URL is http://www.exonome.com/fj/phkl/.
Please use the new URL. The owner of the site of the old URL would probably rather not be slashdotted.
Incidentally I know the guy who did this, he's utterly cool. You should check out some of his other stuff at http://www.exonome.com/fj/ such as ToriAntiTori and Virginity At Last. (ObDisclaimer: I had a hand in the latter.)
Slashdotted... so web.archive.org to the rescue!
e cg.media.mit.edu/
http://web.archive.org/web/20011201213554/http://
-- Yoz
So who comes when this thing is called?
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
Shame on that woman for hoarding all the rare and valuable AOL disks, when this poor sick little girl is trying to break the Guinness record.
Sure, you could do that, but that AC is going to be 50-60 Hz, far too fast to be perceived as flashing by the human eye.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Folks, folks, that's not what Hello Kitty is all about.
Check out this vibrator !!
I've never looked at Hello Kitty quite the same way...
It's about how the Yugoslav army used microwave ovens as decoys against NATO troops. Quote: "It was funny listening to NATO claiming to have destroyed some 20-30 MiG-29s when I knew that we have had only 16 of them at the beginning of their attacks."
I'm mildly interested, but none of the links seem to have them available. Are these things actually reasonably priced, and has anyone seen them in stock anywhere?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Sounds like they changed the definition of "forever" while I wasn't paying attention.
And then it goes on to talk about N and P silicon, and so forth. I guess they changed the definition of "easy to understand" too.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
remember what the d in led stands for. diode. an led running off 60hz ac will only be on half the time, i think it would noticable.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
The canned food link reminds me of the time I went shopping at the Super 88 Asian food store in Boston and saw for sale packages of "Cock testicles" in the meat section. I didn't pick them up to see if there was a recipe on them, or if satisfaction was guaranteed. At least you can get a discount card for them: http://web.mit.edu/cssa/www/year01_02/services/sup er88_shopping.html
Take a bunch of mini-marshmallows and spread them out evenly on a plastic tray, covering the whole tray with a single layer. Put this inside a microwave, making sure that the tray doesn't rotate. Turn the microwave on for ~30 seconds on low.
Now, take the tray out of the microwave. You'll see a repeating pattern in the marshmallows, going from puffy to flat and back to puffy again in an array. What you're seeing is the standing wave of the microwaves reflecting off of the sides of the microwave.
Now, measure the average distance between peaks in the standing wave. This is the wavelength of the microwaves. Now, here's the cheating part. Look on the back of the microwave for the frequency of the microwaves. It's usually around 2540 MHz. Calculate the speed of light from
c = frequency x wavelength
Heh. Now that I've written that all out, I've found a link. Here's another, very similar method on : bowle's physics.
Brant
It would be worth modifying my Thinkpad 600X to a PHKL, just to see the face of the IM guy when I return it next year for memory upgrade. That'd be priceless!
Sigged!
that microwave dude is like the next Marie Curie.
Seriously, I would not want to live next door to someone doing that shit without a dentist's wall of lead in between.
Can you imagine all those messed up things that happen, and yet we eat food that comes out of it?!
- passion
OK, maybe the baby conch is a little offbeat, but in my neck of the woods there's nothing unusual about Vienna Sausage, Beany Weany, or Underwood Deviled Ham. No fishing expedition is complete without a few cans of the above, along with a sleeve of soda crackers, a couple cans of beer or Coke, and a few sticks of beef jerky tucked in a mini-Playmate and stowed under the console of your bass boat. If Vienna Sausages are strange, then where's the tin of sardines or the smoked baby oysters? As the other poster said, Pork Brains in Milk Gravy: now that's strange!
--Jim
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/17055.html
It's got Crusoe processor in it.
And guess what? It dual boots to Linux. There is a switch on the right side, Set it to A and it boots Windows (2k I think) set it to B and it boots a very stripped down Linux that only runs Winamp. (for obvious reasons)
A series curcuit direct to 120VAC with LEDs would make me nervous -- one good spike and you have a string of Noise Emitting Diodes.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Another neat MW trick is building a sustained plasma ball
it is done w/ a pencil led and a microwave-safe glass ball... very cool, must try.
see here also.
This?
There are lots of cool science you can do with your microwave, like creating floating plasma balls for instance. They make cool filming/photographing material.
Check here for more wacky fun with that kitchen appliance. It has even more links to microwave science and stuff you can do with your microwave.
DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER:
If you _do_ one of these experiments, make sure you get all the safety precautions right, and don't over-experiment. If you go blind and everything looks fuzzy you should stop IMMEDIATELY, since you are busy boiling your cornea and the inner fluids of your eyes solid. This is a sure sign that your microwave is leaking and you are standing too close. Luckily, his is a temporary infliction if you're out of the way quick enough, but certainly not healthy for your eyes. This same thing happened to a bud of mine who was messing with microwave antennaes and signal-amplifiers. He actually took a microwave apart to hook up to his amplifier. And yes, he was standing too close. It took a few months until he had his full vision back.
It was never better than when AOHell was shipping its sh*t on 3.5" floppies. I went a couple of years without having to buy any floppies...peel off the label, reformat the disk, and you were all set. Much more useful...that's probably the only good thing that could ever be said for AOHell.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Diodes and LEDs are fundamentally current mode devices... the forward voltage is relatively constant and the output depends on how much current the external circuitry allows. Somewhere, something needs to be in series with the LED(s) to establish the current, since what you get from the power company is (fairly) constant voltage. The most "efficient" thing to use to limit the current is an inductor (or perhaps a capacitor, but high frequency noise and spikes become problematic)... at least outside some EU countries that have power factor regulations.
Perhaps they're using a transformer, but an application like this has no need for voltage isolation (just like normal xmas lights running at about 3 volts each).
There's no need for DC. Don't forget that most LEDs have a very low reverse breakdown voltage, so you'd need to connect them in parallel in criss-crossed pairs so that the forward voltage drop on one "protects" the other from seeing a substantial reverse voltage. This also keeps the current from having a DC bias, which means much smaller magnetic components, if there is undeed a transformer or inductor somewhere in the current loop.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I can't wait. Hello Kitty is already on everything else, I'm sure the Segway won't escape its evil grasp, (if it lasts long enough.)
BTW, forget the eBay post, the evolution of the "Hello Kitty vibrator " is going strong, their new version looks to be quite a bundle of joy, (for the kiddies, I'm sure it just mixes hot coco, oops, sorry for the pun.)
That reminds me. I'm all out of pickled fish cakes.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Dear Santa
I want to be an AIBO in Japan in my next life.
yeah dude, we used to get about one quickie posting a week. Definately a cool part that i miss. Also: look out for the april first articles =) welcome to /.!
sig?
I bought the white, which looks fine, I was standing next to a tree covered with the white LED lights when I asked a salesperson where I could see the LED lights, so I could tell if they looked normal or not. They look just fine.
As for the colors, they're pretty damned good too, though the yellow is well... yellow's just a weird color for christmas lights altogether.
You know, I swore I was going to see the next inexplicably popular collectible item coming - classic arcade games, those postcards for defunct dotcoms from the free dispensers in coffeeshops and bars, etc. But sure enough, I miss out on the next big thing, the mighty AOL CD that has been keeping my coffee table ring-free. Just goes to show you. I'll never throw anything out again, ever.
No, most men have one of those.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
...is it bad if I've eaten half those "odd" canned foods before?
;-D
...is it bad if I actually *liked* them?
...is it bad if I actually eat some of them regularly?
...oh my...is my life not sad or what? You know you're in bad shape when the company that makes the stuff you eat can't even afford a product name, so they have to call it exactly what it is, even though nobody, not even them, is really sure of exactly what it is...
DennyK
I love spam as much as the next Minnesotan doesn't, but "Treet" is the most disgusting thing ever made. Makes spam look like fine gourmet rost beef. It can't even hold its shape like Spam can.
The approximate quote went something like "I actually really like the quickies too, but they take a lot of work. You need at least a half dozen links, and people just don't send in many interesting, small things for me to use. So send in more quickies, and I'll post them more often." I think it was in a Geeks in Space episode (which are highly entertaining, I listened to most of them while playing Half-life).
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Seriously, with a bit of money and research, modern technology really ought to be able to develop amazing new sex toys. Or for that matter, what about a porno made by the team behind Final Fantasy? That would be obscenely cool.
I guess, when you come right down to it, I just want a holodeck, with "the safeties off," if you know what I mean...
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Can someone explain to me why tinfoil sparks in a microwave? I've thought about this a bit, and had a few bull sessions with fellow physicists about it, but I've never heard a convincing answer. The first thing everyone says is photo-electric effect, but that can't be right because the work function for most metals is ~1 eV, and that's in the visible or near-infrared.
My only other guess is induced eddy currents. Anyone have a good answer?
Thanks,
Brant
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/technology/03ERO S.html?searchpv=nytToday
E RO S.html?searchpv=nytToday
or copy/paste:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/technology/03
I can't get it to work, though I did ruin a pretty good plate. I think it sparked but no explosive flames, I'll just have to go try it again...
Twitter.com/TrentonHyatt
Microwave oven seems to do quite a lot of tricks on
a rr os/sam.html
anything conductive. Here I found a plasuible explanation. Not sure if it makes scientific sense....
http://members.tripod.com/~hochwald/microwave/b
And here is the website of the grad student behind the hoax.
Damn. I went to grade school with that guy...and I'm nowhere near as...well...creative? (Monzy, if you're reading this, congrats, you crack me up.)
My link to start the game is; Nirvana MIDIs. Post a reply once it's nuked.
Who gives a rats arse about all the other stuff on this site? MORE QUICKIES!!!!
Just remember - don't drink the /. Kool-Aid!!
Yuck.
Spam spread?
Dear God, who on earth would eat such a thing?!? And I thought Marmite was foul...
In the Pink Hello Kitty Laptop article, it recommends going to FAO Schwartz for the appropriate volume of Hello Kitty merchandise. For those of you in or near New York City, Sanrio (makers of Hello Kitty) has an entire store on 42nd street (they even carry the Hello Kitty coffee maker!).
:-)
For the definitive list of places which carry Hello Kitty Stuff, try here.
Hello Kitty, Destroyer Of Worlds
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Back in the day, AOL was once called AppleLink. I used to beta test for them, and one day they sent me a letter and two new disks for the new renamed service.
"We're renaming AppleLink to America Online..."
Thus, I have two floppys for the Apple ][ that say America Online, and an accompanying letter. I think I even keep it in the original mailing package.
I've figured that I'll keep it around and one day I'll sell it on eBay or something. Just curious what that would draw...
Oh well...
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Yeah, except they must have used the cheapest floppies they could get their hands on. Those things were going bad constantly.
"The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
Perhaps there are two brands of LED Christmas lights, one removable, one not?