Online Home of Derek Meister
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This little mobile percussion bot uses on-board sensors to find an object to drum on, then proceeds to beat out some entertaining rhythms before moving on to its next target.
Find out more about Yellow Drum Machine at letsmakerobots.com, along with additional videos.
Having passed my Apple Certified Macintosh Technician exams, I realized that the training I received courtesy of my company was only going to go to waste if I didn’t keep up with the technology on a daily basis. While I do have a G4 Mac mini at home, I simply wasn’t using it often enough to be able to answer those day to day use questions that the few Mac clients I have will ask.
So I took the plunge, but with a small bit of cost reduction, by going with a certified refurbished unit from the Apple Store. I ended up saving over $300 on a refurbished 2.2GHz Macbook, which allowed me to upgrade the system memory to 4GB with the possibility of nearly tripling the hard drive size.
It’s a beautiful unit, with it’s glossy white case and glowing Apple logo on the lid. I did opt for some protection, though, in the form of a $50 Incase Hardshell. The rubberized plastic looks great and feels very substantial, all while not adding any real weight to the unit. Although I went with the black case, because it’s somewhat translucent, it actually ends up looking like a very dark, eggplant purple, which I’ve come to like very much.
For a mouse, I went with the Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000, mainly because it’s one of the cheaper mice that are fully compatible with the Macbook’s built-in bluetooth capabilities. Also, the black and white color scheme matches well, not to mention that there’s something amusing in using a Microsoft mouse with an Apple notebook.
I’m still getting used to using the OS X operating system on a daily basis, rather than the experimental and intermittent use my Mac mini receives. Mostly, I’m trying to learn how the average person would use the system so that I can answer those average user questions about every day use. Overall, however, the experience is going great.
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It’s been an interesting weekend here in northeast Ohio, with the local media declaring this one of the biggest snowfalls since the great blizzard of ’78. I’m not sure if I would say it was anywhere near that scale, but it was pretty amazing to see that much snow hit in a single day. Some parts of the area reported up to 20 inches of snow on Saturday.
All of that made for plenty of adventure during my work day in the field with the 2006 Volkswagen Beetle. The snow came down quickly enough that the snow plows simply weren’t able to keep up, and many cities stopped the use of salt until later to conserve their supply. During my 9 hour shift, I came across numerous vehicles stranded on the side of the roads, including a police cruiser, a semi truck and several snow plows.
I was able to make it through the day by using the slow and steady approach, making sure to stick to the main roads whenever possible and avoiding any routes that involved hills. Probably the biggest threat came from all those independent snow plow operators who would come darting out of a residential drive way without looking, or who often drove with their big yellow snow plow blades leaning dangerous across into my oncoming lane.
Of course, with the way Ohio weather is, we’ll probably be back to 50°F weather by the end of the week, then have another snow storm the next. Is it summer, yet?
Toshiba’s announcement of the discontinuation of HD-DVD production marked the end of the HD disc format wars, which gave me the final push to purchase a Sony Playstation 3.
I already have a Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360, so there really was no compelling reason to get one prior to this point. I have the HD-DVD add-on for the 360, which served well during the brief period it was still viable, and the majority of games I was interested in were available on the systems I have. However, I’ve always been at least watchful of the PS3 technology, particularly considering that it’s reportedly one of the better Blu-Ray players and only about $50 more than the current cheapest standalone player.
Having purchased the unit, I also got one of the few exclusives to the system, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. The series is something of a comfort thing, having played many of the previous R&C games on the Playstation 2. I wouldn’t say it really does anything revolutionary, but it does stand up to the level I at least expected for the series from previous games.
I suspect that the death of HD-DVD will continue to push others like me into PS3 purchases, which should mean we’ll start to see a steady increase in sales of the system. Time will tell, however, if software sales for the platform will make the same upward progress, or whether many gamers who have more than one system continue to purchase the large number of cross platform titles for their 360s.