Category: Cool Stuff

Console sales at 6 months

Some clever person has put together a chart showing sales figures for the first six months for recent consoles. The numbers are rather interesting, I think, and suggest last year’s claims about the Wii being a certain-to-fail doom and downfall plan for Nintendo were off base. Of course, I also think everyone who pays attention to the gaming market already realize that the Wii is beating up on everything else out there except for the Nintendo DS, and that last year’s predictions of Nintendo’s death were very wrong.

firstsixmonths.jpgTo steal a term coined by Kotaku, I put together the above charticle juxtaposing the first six month console sales of Wii, 360, PS3, PS2, Xbox, and GameCube. First, the Wii has sold better than the mighty PS2 after the first six months. Amazingly, both the PS3 and 360 sold worse than the GameCube for the same period (!). Cumulative first six month totals in units sold are as follows:

  1. Wii (2,470,000)
  2. PS2 (2,200,000)
  3. Xbox (1,900,000)
  4. GameCube (1,540,000)
  5. Xbox 360 (1,384,000)
  6. PS3 (1,271,000)


The article doesn’t specify initially that these are measures of US sales, but later verbiage in the article makes me think that’s the message. I’m guessing Sony isn’t that happy with these numbers, given that the PlayStation 3 sold around 81,000 consoles last month, putting them way behind Nintendo and Microsoft.

[tags]Recent console sales for first six months[/tags]

The IT crowd coming to US television

Last year, I downloaded the entire &ldquot;The IT Crows&rdquot; British television show via BitTorrent and watched it after reading numerous recommendations for the show from the various geek sites I visit. Tonight, while catching up on my boingboing reading, I find that the show is coming to the US market on NBC this fall. If you are a geek and haven’t seen this show, you really need to watch it. If you aren’t a geek but ever have to deal with tech support, you might also enjoy the show.

The struggling NBC network is turning to science fiction this fall in a bid to lift ratings and appease advertisers and investors, announcing several new dramas whose story lines range from robotics to time travel.

. . .

Later in the year, NBC will roll out &ldquot;The Lipstick Jungle,&rdquot; based on a best-selling book by &ldquot;Sex and the City&rdquot; writer Candace Bushnell. It will also introduce the &ldquot;IT Crowd,&rdquot; a comedy about misunderstood techies, during the 2007-08 season.

The show is well worth watching. I’ll be watching the US released episodes for sure, even though I’ve already seen all the British versions. (via boingboing)

[tags]The IT crowd coming to US television market, Geek TV show on NBC this fall[/tags]

Do it yourself air conditioning zone controls

Hack-a-day recently had a link to a project for doing your own zoning and computerizing your air conditioning system.

servo-zone-damper-had.jpgI’ve been planning to computerize my A/C once I buy a house. I stumbled across this simple vent mod. A $10 servo was added and controlled with some off the shelf computer servo controllers. Personally, I have visions of doing this along with several 1-wire temperature sensors. Check out the DIY zoning project for more ideas along these lines.


I’d love to have the time, energy, and drive to do something like this. I’m a huge computer geek, which contributes to my desire to computerize and/or automate everything, but automated or computer controlled home climate conditioning would just be so damn handy. (via Hack-a-Day)

[tags]Do it yourself home climate zone controls[/tags]

The truth of Truthiness

I’ve been using the term Truthiness for years now. I’m not sure where I picked up the term, but I’ve always used it as a word indicating something full of absolute truths. It turns out that a couple of years back, Stephen Colbert started using the word in a different context. Since Colbert has a few more viewers than I have readers, I suppose I’ll have to switch over to his meaning of Truthiness and come up with a new word for my now out of date meaning of Truthiness.

“Truthiness is what you want the facts to be, as opposed to what the facts are. What feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support.” – Stephen Colbert

So Colbert wins this round.

[tags]Colbert steals Truthiness from me, The real meaning of Truthiness[/tags]

11 year old hero

The only thing missing from this story is a single hunk of metal, delivered mafia-style execution from very close range. Hail to the 11-year old boy who is the hero of the day at Disneyworld in Florida.

An 11-year-old boy helps police catch a child molester during his family’s vacation at Disney World.

. . .

“Well the beginning was pretty good until we ran into this little big bump”, says David.

That bump was convicted sex offender William Bishop who 11-year-old David and his sister ran into out by the pool at the Swan Resort on the property of Walt Disney World.

David says, “He was asking my sister some very strange questions like where are your mom and dad? Do they know where you are? Do they know you are going on the slide? Can you point your mom and dad out to me?”

Continue reading “11 year old hero”

Have you had your head checked lately?

Have you ever wondered if your spouse is dead or just not interested in putting out for you? Have you ever wanted to check someone for epilepsy? Shoot, have you ever just wanted to see the brain waves of someone you know while they slept?

Well, thanks to the tireless efforts of hardware and software hackers from around the world, you now have a way to build and use your own EEG for home use. Of course, I doubt you’ll be able to use the information for any valid clinical diagnosis. Still, it’s a pretty cool project, and completely open-source.

Many people are interested in what is called neurofeedback or EEG biofeedback training, a generic mental training method which makes the trainee consciously aware of the general activity in the brain. This method shows great potential for improving many mental capabilities and exploring consciousness. Other people want to do experiments with brain-computer interfaces or just want to have a look at their brain at work.

Unfortunately, commercial EEG devices are generally too expensive to become a hobbyist tool or toy.

The OpenEEG project is about making plans and software for do-it-yourself EEG devices available for free (as in GPL). It is aimed toward amateurs who would like to experiment with EEG. However, if you are a pro in any of the fields of electronics, neurofeedback, software development etc., you are of course welcome to join the mailing-list and share your wisdom.

On the other hand, it’s a pricey project to try out:

The designers have done their best to create a safe device, but knowing whether the effort is good enough is a completely different matter (an $8000 matter actually). Therefore: everything is provided as is, without any warranty of any kind, expressed or implied.

If you build one, let me know – I’ll volunteer to try it out for you.

[tags]Open source EEG, Check your own bravewaves with this make-it-at-home project[/tags]

Hawking weightless at last

Apparently, weightless flight has long been one of Stephen Hawking’s dreams. I’m not quite sure of the logistics in setting up the experience for Hawking, but I see it was good for him.

Free of his wheelchair and tethered only to heart rate and blood pressure monitors, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking on Thursday fulfilled a dream of floating weightless on a zero-gravity jet, a step he hopes leads to further space adventures.

The modified jet carrying Hawking, a handful of his physicians and nurses, and dozens of others first flew up to 24,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean off Florida. Nurses lifted Hawking and carried him to the front of the jet, where they placed him on his back atop a special foam pillow.

The jet then climbed to around 32,000 feet and made a parabolic dive back to 24,000 feet, allowing Hawking and the other passengers to experience weightlessness for about 25 seconds.

I wish I could afford a weightless flight. It sounds really cool.

[tags]Hawking’s weightless flight, Hawking experiences weightlessness dream[/tags]

Jellyfish lights

Utterly jellyfish_lights.jpguseless for me, what with having no pool and all, but how cool are these floating jellyfish lights?

All show and no sting, these battery-operated Floating Jellyfish Pool Lights unleash a kaleidoscope of color as they float in the water. For larger pools, unleash a flotilla to create a crowd-pleasing effect.

  • Crafted of durable PVC
  • Realistic, fiber-optic tentacles emit a vibrant glow
  • Top changes colors throughout the light show
  • Controlled by a simple auto-off switch

Uses four AA batteries (included).

laser_show.jpgAnd while you are there looking at lights I don’t need, check out the underwater light show projector they have. Should be cool for pool owners. (via boingboing)


[tags]Jellyfish pool lights[/tags]

Stick fighter demo

stickshot02.jpgEverybody is Kung-Fu fighting, stick style is this little demo. Text grab from the hosting site:

This demo is the same we sent to ArtFutura. It gives you access to the first level of the game. Please read the readme.txt file before playing. Remember, this is a work in progress.

System Requirements:

  • Windows ME/2000/XP/Vista Operating System, with DirectX 8.1 or higher installed
  • Intel Pentium 3 / AMD Athlon or higher processor
  • 512 Mb memory
  • 3D card compatible with DirectX 8.1
  • Recommended: Gamepad or other game controller for greater game experience

Continue reading “Stick fighter demo”

WKRP on DVD Tuesday

You may remember last year that I wrote how WKRP in Cincinnati was an unlikely DVD release.  Well, it looks like WKRP in Cincinnati will be available on DVD this week on Tuesday.  However, as I reported last year, it is unlikely that much of the original music will make it to the DVD release intact.  Roughly ten years ago, the replacement music was already well entrenched on the show.  I’m not sure what else will be changed in the newest releases, but you can be pretty sure little will remain from the original show.   Expect cut or changed scenes and dialog to even remove references to popular music that was originally in the show.

I got a copy of the first season of WKRP in Cincinnati and the news is not good. Which is disappointing to say, because I was lobbying for this release and believed – and still believe – that it would have been possible to reduce music costs without damaging the integrity of the show. That’s not what’s happened here.

So someone has already taken the time to put together the changes list.  Check it out and see if you are interested in the  changed version on DVD or will just remember the show as it was 30 years ago.

[tags]WKRP in Cincinnati on DVD Tuesday 2007-04-24, WKRP now on DVD but with much changed music, Recording Industry continuously working to make consumers less and less interested in their product[/tags]