Tuesday, 22 July 2008

Our press release is up regarding Free Part Day on August 6, 2008.

Some details:

* We will have two stock materials/thicknesses available for making your part on Free Part Day: waterjet cut aluminum 6061 1/8 (0.125) inches thick and laser cut acrylic plastic, 0.118 inches thick.
* There is a limit of one design (DXF/PNG/GIF or Big Blue Saw Designer file) per customer.
* Designs are limited in size to 9" x 9".
* We reserve the right to reject designs that are too complex or can't be made on the waterjet or the laser.
* You must pay the packaging and shipping costs.
* All orders must be completed through the online ordering process.

Start designing your parts now!

This is cool... I think I am going to order a custom fin for a water ski!

Big Blue Saw Free Part Day!

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man's dare went horribly wrong when he tried to play chicken with cars on a freeway wearing only his underwear. The 18 year old was critically injured after being hit by a four-wheel drive on a freeway in the southern city of Melbourne in the early hours of Wednesday, police said in a statement.

"Police are dismayed at the utter stupidity of a man who decided to play chicken on the Tullamarine Freeway," the statement said.

"It was lucky nobody was killed as a result and police couldn't believe anybody would be foolish enough to take such grave risks with their personal safety and that of other road users." The driver and passenger in the car were unhurt, though the vehicle was a write-off

Who the hell is this guy... Worth the ticket to fly there so I can finish where "un-natural" selection did not succeed...

Underwear chicken dare puts man in hospital

Full time job has me offline and school starting is a blast...

Nick & Tom give me an update, and let me know when you stop by the 'ville.

Gone, Gone, Gone

NNDB, a directory of important people and celebrities the two are not exclusive standing for Notable Names Database, has put together a mapping tool that lets you connect the dots to see how people are intertwined.

One example, featured in this demo video, shows the overlap of board members for large tech companies, including Apple, Intel, Yahoo, and Microsoft. You can use the tool to figure out who s worked where, then drill down to their personal histories--both work and play, with very little effort.

The backgrounds of each individual are maintained by the NNDB community and its editors. You can also go in to create your own charts, though you re limited to NNDB s directory of people and companies.

I was going to do one for CBS and CNET, but alas we re not there. You can, however, compare CBS to NBC, ABC, and even Fox Broadcasting. There s not a lot of overlap, but you can easily see people s positions at the company and where else they ve worked.

This reminds me a lot of Cogmap, a service that lets you map out the hierarchy of your workplace. It s got a little more flash, though, and is similar to They Rule, a site outdated about four years that chronicles the ruling class of corporations around the world.

For those who are less corporate-inclined, some of the celebrity maps are pretty amusing, including charts of who s been romantically involved with whom.

NNDB Mapper: Connecting executives/celebs

This project was inspired by Aftotech’s Hard Drive Speakers page 4 . Basically the voice coil drive circuit was located on the hard drive controller board and disconnected by cutting a trace. The voice coil was metered and was found to be 10 ohms, this was within range to be driven directly from my stereo speaker output.

This is bad ass... What a great (but useless) idea... time to get the VOM and some torx bits out...

Hard Drive Laser Oscilloscope

You may be wondering if this tax rebate will affect your 2008 federal return next year.

Let us try to answer this question for you. The tax rebate is an advance credit for 2008 and will be calculated on your 2008 return. Now this is important: you are receiving a portion of your 2008 credit EARLY and if you receive it once, you won t receive it again when you file your 2008 return.

And, this is important too: if you re due a higher tax rebate, you ll get the remainder next year when you file. If you received a higher rebate than you should have, you DO NOT have to pay it back. So far, so good.

A tax rebate is not interest, it s not income, it s not a dividend. Pure and simple, and this is worth saying again, the tax rebate payment is an ADVANCE CREDIT for tax year 2008 and will be calculated on your 2008 return when you file in 2009.

So for now, all you have to do is think about whether you will save it, pay down bills or splurge on something you ve always wanted.

So I still get it in the whoo-haaa in 2008... How Grand!
Thanks Prez. Bush!

Tax Rebate Defined ...

If anyone uses Suntrust be aware that they use your soical security number and your full name when sending you inter/ra company emails...

FYI...

SunTrust Security Problem...

Jim, an emotionally immature teen, learns to evaluate his personality and to better work out his problems.

Old videos that are great.. some funny ones...

Act Your Age

To kick off the third season of 30 Days, series creator Morgan Spurlock returns to his home state of West Virginia, to work as a rookie apprentice coalminer known as a "redhat" for 30 days.

Morgan goes to Bolt, West Virginia and lives with Dale and Sandy Lusk. Dale, the supervisor of the mine where Morgan works, has mined coal for 35 years and introduces Morgan to a miner's way of life. Morgan gains an understanding of the financial benefits that draw people to coal mining, but also learns, first hand, the dangerous conditions that miners must face every day.

As a new miner, Morgan is assigned much of the grunt work, including plastering, building wooden roof supports, shoveling coal and hauling heavy

Great show.... According to promos run during the season premiere of The Riches, Season 3 of 30 Days will premiere on June 3, 2008 and Spurlock has announced that each third-season episode will be an hour long.

Third season hit on these topics/dates...

Working in a Coal Mine June 3, 2008
Living in a Wheelchair June 10, 2008
Animal Rights June 17, 2008
Same Sex Parenting June 24, 2008
Gun Nation July 1, 2008
Life on an Indian Reservation July 8, 2008

If you have never seen 30 Days you should... :)

30 Days Returns to FX June 3rd 2008

A uCHobby reader informed us of a design contest Renesas is running with prizes of $15,000 in cash. Renesas provides a free $80 evaluation board to work with as part of the contest so no one actually looses. Thanks to Daniel Johnson for passing the news.

The theme of the contest is applications for their new Target Server COM object. Which is their name for a new way to communicate with their microcontrollers. Instead of adding another serial or USB interface to your design which uses up I/O on the processor you can take advantage of the built in debug interface as a communications channel. The possible applications should be endless as they are looking for a neat microcontroller application that works with a PC.

The free HTS demo kit includes a MC16C/26A hardware board, USB cable, and CDs with example code for both the hardware and the PC in C++ and Visual Basic. Also included is Microsoft Visual Studio Express C++ and VB.

There is also an opportunity to get a free H8/36077 kit just by filling out an application form. This is not part of the contest, just a celebration giveaway.

I also got my free brd today... I hope to see your projects there... and it is FREE! :)

Renesas Target Server Design Contest