Stuff I want – Page 5 – Blah, Blah, Blahg

Blade Runner Ultimate Collection DVD set

I must admit, I missed this movie when it was first out in theatres. I didn’t catch it until a few years later when I got the video and then again a couple years after that when I got the DVD. Now, I can get the Ultimate Collector’s edition DVD set of Blade Runner for a mere $55. That’s not bad, considering all the geeky greatness you get.

In celebration of Blade Runner’s 25th anniversary, director Ridley Scott has gone back into post production to create the long-awaited definitive new version. Blade Runner: The Final Cut, spectacularly restored and remastered from original elements and scanned at 4K resolution, will contain never-before-seen added/extended scenes, added lines, new and improved special effects, director and filmmaker commentary, an all-new 5.1 Dolby(r) Digital audio track and more. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Edward James Olmos, Joanna Cassidy, Sean Young, and Daryl Hannah are among some 80 stars, filmmakers and others who participate in the extensive bonus features. Among the bonus material highlights is Dangerous Days, a brand new, three-and-a-half-hour documentary by award-winning DVD producer Charles de Lauzirika, with an extensive look into every aspect of the film: its literary genesis, its challenging production and its controversial legacy. The definitive documentary to accompany the definitive film version.

The Ultimate Collector’s Edition will be presented in a unique 5-disc digi-package with handle which is a stylish version of Rick Deckard’s own briefcase. In addition, each briefcase will be individually numbered and in limited supply. Included is a lenticular motion film clip from the original feature, miniature origami unicorn figurine, miniature replica spinner car, and collector’s photographs, as well as a signed personal letter from Sir Ridley Scott.

That qualifies for w00tness in my book. Hit the Amazon item link for the disc-by-disc details. The disc 3 offerings look most interesting to me.

[tags]Blade Runner, Ultimate Collector’s edition, Harrison Ford, Ridley Scott[/tags]

Tetris via hook-to-TV controller

I doubt we will be able to get one of these any time soon, but this hand-held controller with TV-out for playing Tetris on your TV looks pretty cool to me.

I have no idea the price though, as I didn’t run the Yen to US dollar conversion. (via Kotaku)

[tags]Tetris, hand-held gaming, portable games[/tags]

All your robot needs – until they take over, at least

Is there much in life cooler than robots?

Well, I guess frikkin’ sharks with frikkin’ laser-beams on their heads. And robots with chainsaws for hands. And fire-breathing amphibious zombie shark robots with lasers and chainsaws.

And ninjas or pirates or ninja pirates or pirate ninjas. But that is just about everything that that could be considered cooler than robots. And once the robots take over, none of them will be allowed to exist, so it will become a moot point.

[tags]Robots, Ninjas, Sharks, Pirates, Robots will take over[/tags]

Refrigerator LED signs

On Instructables, there is a guide to making your own refrigerator LED light kit, so you can put up cool (no pun intended) signs or images. It seems to be a pretty easy project, requiring just a few out-of-the-ordinary things to make.

Turn your fridge into a canvas for LED art. Any passerby can place and relocate the magnetic LEDs any way they wish to create illuminated pictures and messages.

It’s great for high traffic kitchens and It’s fun for kids and adults alike.

. . .

Super Shield conductive nickel paint

1/4″ copper tape used for circuit board repair (optional)

Spray Paint

10mm LEDs in quantities and colors of choice

330 Ohm surface-mount resistors

One 4.5 Volt, 500 milliamp AC power supply

1/8″ diameter x 1/16″ NdFeB Nickel plated disc magnets

1/4″ diameter x 1/16″ NdFeB Nickel plated disc magnets

5 minute epoxy

Masking tape

1/4″ Quilter’s tape

More details on the ingredients listed above as well as necessary tools for the project are available in the full Instructables guide.

As a side-note to those few readers who know much about the late life of the Tandy Color Computer, this project was done by none other than the amazing Sock Master, creator of some of the most amazing (at the time) demo-scene style work ever seen on the CoCo.

[tags]DIY, LED, LEDs, refrigerator lights, Sock Master[/tags]

That LEGO thing seems to be catching on

I am not sure there is anything else that needs to be said. Go there now!

Given how well done the LEGO Star Wars games have been, this is one I already look forward to playing. (via Joystiq)

[tags]LEGO, Indiana Jones, Lucas Arts, LEGO Indy[/tags]

Colorful Book of skulls

I’m artistically inept, but I love looking at good art. Of course, for me, good art often differs from what many others think is good (and no, I’m not talking about pr0n). As an example, I think the colorful skulls in this awesome book, Skull Project, are amazing and very artistic.

Skull Project, a book based on Skull Reference by Matthew Amey, is a collection of finished pieces created by artists from all over the world. Each artist was given a page from the Skull Reference book and asked to create a finished drawing or painting based on the unique position of the skull they were given. Skull Project is the culmination of those efforts is available here as a limited edition hardbound copy. Each book is individually numbered and comes with a slipcase to protect this fantastic collection of artwork.

I’d try to put more from the site or make all the links work, but the fuck-heads running the site put in extra “protections” (easily worked around, but I spend enough time just getting posts together to bother with that extra effort) against having their work used. I’m taking a fair use clip here to let my readers know why I think this is a project worth spending money on. If the sellers want any more help from outside, they might consider making it easier to provide enough information to my readers to drive some of them to the project.

I had to spend far too much time just to get that image so you could see why this project is worth checking out. At this point, I’m not even sure I care if anyone goes and thinks about buying. I want to buy one of the books for myself (they are $150), but I don’t even care if anyone else is interested enough to look now. I suppose in the future I should just make my HTML img tags point to their servers so I can leech bandwidth instead of assuming responsibility for my digital footprint. (via boingboing)

[tags]Skull Project, Skull Reference, Sellers who make it hard for bloggers to send visitors their way[/tags]

Digital art software for really reasonable price

I lack any actual artistic talent. Though my recent fixation on Blender or GIMP is merely a representation of wishes for skills I lack, I still really dig art software like Art Rage 2. The features this program offers are pretty cool to my unskilled eye. They have a user gallery area to their forum so you can see what others are doing with the tool.

This is the homepage for ArtRage, the easy to use, stylish painting package that lets you get painting from the moment you open it up. You can paint with oils, sketch with pencils, sprinkle glitter, and more. You can paint with gold leaf, silver foil, and other metallic colors. You can even load in your photos as Tracing Images to help you recreate them as paintings.

For the professional user, ArtRage also offers multiple Layers for painting, and layered PSD document import and export so you can easily use it alongside your existing tools.

That image is something I snagged from the features page. It shows the brush options you have for different painting styles. If you get an urge to try out the program, it’s freely downloadable limited feature trial version and the full version only costs $20. In addition, they have a really slick tutorial to help you get going on the basics of Art Rage 2 use.

Eye candy – I dig Amy Lee

Again with the freaky chick thing. Man, she’s so sexy.

[tags]Eye candy, Amy Lee, Freaky chick, Evanescence[/tags]

Why I should be playing World of Warcraft

As you may remember, I’m a bit of a gamer. My current addiction is City of Heroes. But another poster in the CoH forums linked to this little screenshot that shows why I should have been playing World of Warcraft instead.

As much as I play my MMO, I probably would have had enough gold for that exchange had I been playing WoW all this time.

Not adverse? I can at least confirm my wife isn’t secretly playing WoW. Might have to give up CoH and start playing WoW so next time I can take advantage of a chick trading anal sex and was in to costumed nasties for in-game money.

[tags]WoW, World of Warcraft, Anal, Group, I’m playing the wrong MMO[/tags]

Online open courseware

If you are looking to learn something new on the techie side, here’s another site worth looking in to.

Open-Of-Course is a multilingual portal for free online courses and tutorials. By “free” we not only mean free as in “free beer” but also published as open content. Our focus is on educational information where you can benefit of in daily life.

You will find here lots of free courses and tutorials and you can join a community of over 5000 students. All the courses have their own forum for students to interact and help each other out. You can join the fora after registration. Our privacy policy can be viewed here .

People can also add their own courses or tutorials to our system for free. Open-Of-Course runs on the open source electronic learning environment “Moodle”. Read more about that here.

One of the new tools I’ve picked up lately is Scribus – a layout processing/desktop publishing tool (think PageMaker or InDesign). While looking for some tutorials on learning how to better use the tool, I found open-of-course, and felt that I should pass it on.

[tags]Desktop Publishing, DTP, Open-of-course, Open courseware, Scribus[/tags]

Make your own cotton candy machine

Every once in a while, I find the stuff that would make your kids vote for you in a “Coolest parent of the year” contest (for the record, *I* would vote for you every time, but sometimes the kinds need a reminder of how great you are). Follow this cotton candy machine build guide (or if you don’t want all the instructions on one page, start at the intro page)and you’ll get back high on their list for votes.

Here’s a bit to help you see if you are ready to start:

step 1:Materials / Necessities
Okay, so here’s what you’re going to need to make your own cotton candy machine!
Materials:

1- standard electric motor (preferably 1/4″ motor shaft)

1- 3.25″ X 6+” Aluminum extruded round bar (3.25″ diameter)

2 – 1/2″ bolts of any size diameter (smaller = better, but you need the tap for it)

2 – 1″ bolts of any size diameter (need the tap for the right size)

1 – average toaster heating element

? – .25″ diameter copper pipe (or crimping connectors for wiring)

1 – radio-controller “floppy” antenna

? – lots of miscellaneous screws, nuts, and bolts

1- 3″ (dia) X .125″ piece of wood

1- Light Switch Dimmer or Adjustable power supply ( needs to be able to handle high voltage and amperage output)

Teflon Tape

Conductive Tape

A large, plastic or metal, circular object (if you don’t have one, make one)

Some wire mesh (usually used as gutter covering)

A Few Sheets of paper

Some tape

Some heavy gauge wire

A small bit of fast drying concrete

Tools:

Lathe

Tap

Electrician’s pliers

Band/Hack saw (if using copper pipe)

Drill press (and the smallest drill bit you can find, at least 1/16″ or smaller)

metal working clamps

Tin Snips

Alibre Design Express (free at www.alibre.com)

The entire instruction set is a bit long, but we’re talking home-made cotton candy here, folks. You just can’t pass up awesomeness like that.

[tags]Instructables, MAKEzine, Cotton Candy, DIY, Do it yourself, Build your own cotton candy machine[/tags]

Watch with phone – Dick Tracy style

Come on – you know you want the SMS M500 GSM Watchfone now.

. . . Now we can all get a little Dick Tracy with “the world’s smallest mobile phone” — or so says SMS Technology Australia. Unlike Dick’s 2-way Wrist Radio which emerged in 1949, this pup goes quad-band GSM while packing a 1.5-inch touchscreen with itty bitty, built-in stylus; Bluetooth 2.0; and all the 120 x 160 pixel MP4 video (or MP3/AAC audio) you can pack into its 128MB of storage. The watch weights just 60-grams and should hold-up to about 200 minutes of talk or 80 hours standby before needing a USB recharge. . .

And you can tell the phone is super cool because phone is spelled fone in the name!

[tags]Watchfone, Dick Tracy style, A phone on your wrist[/tags]