The Gadgets Page

I had never heard of Nixie Tube Clocks until yesterday. I’m in love, but I’m far too cheap to buy them. I can’t bear to spend three hundred dollars on a timepiece when I can buy a clock just as accurate (if not as steampunky) for ten bucks.

Here is a great blog entry with links to a bunch of places that sell Nixie Tube Clocks:

• If It’s Hip, It’s Here: A Modern Take On Nixie Tube Clocks from BDDW, Chronotronix, Puhlmann and Peter J. Jensen

The neon tubes, when combined with blackened bronze, silver chrome, and stunning woods, become an unusual blend of science and art, making a functional item a pretty piece of home decor.

Here is a video of a clock in action:

If you don’t know what nixie tubes are, here’s a link to Wikipedia:

• Nixie tube – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A nixie tube is an electronic device for displaying numerals or other information. The glass tube contains a wire-mesh anode and multiple cathodes. In most tubes, the cathodes are shaped like numerals. Applying power to one cathode surrounds it with an orange glow discharge. The tube is filled with a gas at low pressure, usually mostly neon and often a little mercury and/or argon, in a Penning mixture.

Although it resembles a vacuum tube in appearance, its operation does not depend on thermionic emission of electrons from a heated cathode. It is therefore called a cold-cathode tube (a form of gas filled tube), or a variant of neon lamp. Such tubes rarely exceed 40 °C (104 °F) even under the most severe of operating conditions in a room at ambient temperature.

They look awesome and there are less expensive options if you are able to solder electronic kits. For me, I’ll just have to admire them from afar.

Via: The Steampunk Home: More Nixie Tube Clocks

I haven’t upgraded to a Blu-Ray player yet. I have a bunch of DVDs and I honestly can’t tell the difference between HD quality video on DVDs and HD quality video on Blu-Ray players. They look the same to me. Every time I walk into Best Buy, this video screeches and urges me to upgrade.

The problem with this video is that it’s FAR too similar to this one:

Only a few years ago, the movie industry screeched that DVD was the future of entertainment. Now that the future is here, it looks like they’ve changed their minds.

I’m NOT going to upgrade. I want to go on record saying that Blu-Ray is NOT the future of entertainment. The future of entertainment is going to look a lot more like NetFlix’s Instant Play feature on my Xbox than the Blu-Ray player on the shelf at the electronics store.

Quit screeching at me.

Via: Everything Is Terrible!: I’m not convinced…

• Rubbermaid: Making UR stickers so hard to remove is counterproductive. When I can’t remove UR branding, it reminds me how much I hate U. #

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This video from KhenaKara on YouTube caused a bit of a sensation. He appears to be taking a video with his iPhone 3GS when he accidentally drops it into a swimming pool.

His comments were:

Was trying video on my new iPhone 3G S at the pool and dropped it in the pool. Don’t know if it’s waterproof, but it still works fine. I had a few people comment on seeing a strap in the video. I have a rubber cover and had put a strap through the earpiece hole to avoid just this type of thing. I didn’t have it on my wrist at the time, but believe me, I will from now on!!!! Maybe the rubber cover helped with it not getting damaged.

You can see the wrist strap he was talking about at the 43 second mark. Here is a screen shot of it:

The problems with this video is that it wasn’t uploaded directly from the iPhone, so it was played with in iMovie a bit. I import ALL the video I take into iMovie so I can add headlines and other information, so this is very common. Additionally, the strap is something that is rarely included on an iPhone case. Here is KhenaKara’s video showing the case and strap he was using:

It looks like a typical rubber case with a camera strap added to it. I have a Sanyo Xacti E1 that can easily be dropped in the water and survive because it’s made to do that. It’s impossible to tell if he took this video with a waterproof camera and said it was his iPhone, or if he actually dropped his phone in the pool and lived to tell the tale.

What do you think?

Via: Don’t try this at home

Sims always seemed like a strange game to me and I never really liked playing it. Reading this blog, however, makes me interested in the new version of the game, Sims 3.

• Alice and Kev

The premise of the story:

This is an experiment in playing a homeless family in The Sims 3. I created two Sims, moved them in to a place made to look like an abandoned park, removed all of their remaining money, and then attempted to help them survive without taking any job promotions or easy cash routes. It’s based on the old ‘poverty challenge’ idea from The Sims 2, but it turned out to be a lot more interesting with The Sims 3’s living neighborhood features.

I have attempted to tell my experiences with the minimum of embellishment. Everything I describe in here is something that happened in the game. What’s more, a surprising amount of the interesting things in this story were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over.

The beginning of the story: Alice and Kev « Alice and Kev

Just wandering around the neighborhood and talking to the various animal characters was my favorite part of playing Animal Crossing. I wonder if Sims 3 is finally a game I could enjoy.

A few months ago, I talked about the Wham-O Fun Fountain. It had been one of our favorite toys of all time.

• Gadgets Page » Retro Gadgets: Fun Fountain by Wham-O

If you are unfamiliar with the toy, here is a commercial describing it:

With summer finally here, I’m wishing for a Fun Fountain, or something else to cool off my days.

In that entry, I had mentioned that we used the clown hat for every kind of dress up play. After months of searching, I finally found a picture of Stacey, my sister, with the Fun Fountain clown hat on. It was held on her head by some yarn passed through the holes on the sides of the hat where the water splashed out. We had a parade on our street that day, so I dressed up Stacey like a clown. She looks adorable, doesn’t she? (Click on the photo to see it full size)

It’s funny how versatile toys can be. I don’t think the Wham-O people ever thought that we would be using their toy all year round for sprinkler fun AND dress up play. The same toy can function in many different aspects of our play life, none of which were conceived of by the manufacturer.

We make our gadgets our own by the way that we use them, with or without the permission of the manufacturer.

Matthew Strebe’s Review:

The SKYLaser 125mW high-powered green laser is a fairly large sized laser pointer that uses an extremely high power green laser. How powerful is it?

In my testing, it’s powerful enough to:

• Cause temporary blind spots (dazzling) from the reflection. Do not point it at reflective surfaces. The FDA certifies that it is not powerful enough to cause permanent eye damage.
• See the beam. Yes, you can see the beam indoors and outdoors at night, not just the spot.
• Point to items outdoors in broad daylight that are kilometers away.
• See the spot on low clouds.
• Point the beam to stars and other astronomy.
• Damage itself if used for more than 100 seconds per burst.
• Scare away that damned crow from the power pole outside my bedroom.

The big question a reviewer has to ask, especially when they like a gadget, is why someone would buy it. Now, there’s a significant portion of gadget’s page readers who don’t need a reason to buy a high-powered laser, they only to know where to get a matching shark. But for you practical folk, here are the legal uses I’ve come up with:

• Outdoor guides, scoutmasters, and birders who want to point out plants or wildlife in broad daylight.
• Astronomy buffs who want to dazzle other astronomy buffs with their ability to point out specific stars.
• Safely scaring away birds and wild or feral animals away from a distance.

I came up with a much longer list of illegal uses, but I won’t repeat those here.

To be frank, high-powered lasers are marketed to people who need a reason not to buy them, and if you’re in that group, this is definitely the laser for you.

The laser also has a low power mode for boring things like PowerPoint presentations. $299 from Skylasers.com.

Laura Moncur’s Review:

When Mike and I tested the SKYLaser high-powered green laser, we could only think of testing it with our cat. He he enjoyed it greatly, but we were scared of blinding him, so we only let him play a little bit.

This is a VERY bright laser. Not only can you see the laser point, you can see the beam.

Warning: This laser is freakishly bright and can put a burn mark on your eyes if you look at it too much. I’m not talking turning the laser on your eyes. If you look at the laser point on the wall, you will have an afterimage on your eyes for a LONG time (several hours). It also can burn your skin if it is held in one place too long. It’s intense enough to pop balloons.

It’s intense enough to melt a credit card.

Additionally, it is a Federal offense in the U.S. to shine a laser pointer like this at an aircraft and illegal to shine at drivers of cars in some states.

So BE CAREFUL!

While studying abroad in Russia, Mutated Jellyfish had a difficult time finding wi-fi, so he made himself a wi-fi antenna using an Ikea strainer and his USB Wi-Fi adapter.

• Study Abroadovich: INTERNETS!

I brought with me a USB wifi adapter, which is just like the wifi card in your computer, but it plugs in to a USB port and can be extended with a usb cable. This card gets the same range on it as my laptop’s internet wifi card, so it can’t see a bloody thing either.

Parabolic kitchenware is well known to some as not only kitchenware, but also do-it-yourself directional dish antennae with which you can augment weak signals with the use of a receiver of some sort. Equipped with my new Swedish strainer, I used some scotch tape and one of my Prismacolor markers that I don’t like to mount my USB wifi receiver as close to the apex of the parabola of the metallic mesh as I could possibly eye-ball. I then plugged it in, held it up to the window, and started refreshing my wifi networks while I pointed it in different directions until I found an acceptable orientation.

Instead of no wi-fi connections available, his increased signal strength gave him four different connections.

Materials:

• A parabolic strainer (from Ikea or Oxo)
• A USB Wi-Fi adapter (Mutated Jellyfish said that the Motorola brand didn’t work, so here’s a link to a different one: Belkin ME1001-USB Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter 802.11g at Amazon.com
• USB extension cord: Dayton USB 2.0 Extension Cable Black 3.3 ft. at Amazon.com
• Popsicle stick or anything to mount the USB adapter: Freezer Pop Sticks at Amazon.com: Mutated Jellyfish used a marker.
• Black electrical tape: 3M 49656 “Scotch” Vinyl Black Plastic Electrical Tape at Amazon.com: Mutated Jellyfish used scotch tape, but electrical tape will look nicer, hold better and last longer.

Instructions:

• Connect the USB wi-fi adapter to the USB extension cable.
• Tape the wi-fi adapter to the end of the popsicle stick.
• Mount the popsicle stick onto the strainer with the USB wi-fi adapter as close to the center of the strainer as possible. Tape it in place wrapping the electrical tape around the stick, the handle of the strainer and the USB extension cord.
• Plug in the USB extension cord into your laptop and turn the wi-fi antenna until you are able to get the best wi-fi signal.

Via: ikea hacker: Ikea strainer Wi-Fi antenna

As if talking teddy bears weren’t creepy enough, My Home 2.0 DIY has made a Teddy Ruxpin be able to speak the tweets of your friends. Here is a video showing how they did it:

This appears to be a viral marketing video for Verizon, but it doesn’t make it any less cool.

My favorite Palm I ever owned was the Tapwave Zodiac.

A full two years before the release of the Sony PSP, the Zodiac looked like it could be the perfect gaming platform. If only the game manufacturers wrote games for the Palm, the Zodiac would have had a HUGE jumpstart on both the PSP and the Nintendo DS. The only games I saw available for the Zodiac was Duke Nukem and Atari’s Adventure, but apparently there were a bunch of others: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4; Mototrax; Spyhunter; Madden NFL 2005; DOOM II; and Warfare Incorporated.

Not only was it a good gaming machine, it had EXCELLENT video conversion to play videos. Before the iPhone was even a glimmer in Steve Job’s eye, I was watching bit torrented episodes of television on my Zodiac during my lunch break every day at work. I could also listen to MP3s using their media player. When my Zodiac finally had to be sold, I truly missed the media capabilities it had and was frustrated to no end that I couldn’t recreate that experience with my Palm Treo.

Of course, the Zodiac had all the normal Palm capabilities that any other Palm device had at the time, so there was a calendar, contact manager, notes and to-do list. I loved that I could do everything that my old Palm used to do AND watch videos on it. It wasn’t until I bought my iPhone four years later that I FINALLY was able to have the same capabilities as I had with the Zodiac.

Sadly, Tapwave had serious problems. Not only did they discontinue the Zodiac in 2005, but they also stopped supporting their warranties on their older models. I had severe problems with the directional pad on my first Zodiac. I sent it in to be repaired. It took several months to come back to me. We feared that we might never get it back because the company seemed to be going out of business. When it finally returned, we sold the returned model.

It came with all this stuff:

I loved my Zodiac and I wish Tapwave could have survived long enough to become a dominating company in the gaming market instead of a fond memory and a footnote.