Classic Out Run game cabinet becomes a drivable car

[Garnet Hertz], a professor and “artist in residence” at UC Irvine, built a drivable Outrun arcade cabinet for an experiment in augmented reality.

The old fiberglass and wood cabinet was hacked up and the motors, wheels, and drive train from an electric golf cart were stuffed inside. The original steering wheel and pedals were used for the controls. Although the top speed of the in-game car is about 180 mph, that was brought down to a reasonable 13 miles per hour.

 

The build doesn’t run on the original 68k processor. Instead, custom software is used to take real-world image data from two webcams on top of the cabinet. These images are then converted into Outrun sprites and displayed on the monitor. The software proportionally changes the speed of the in-game car, but it seems the difference between the game speed and real-life speed would be a little disconcerting. Although it’s not a real world track with the corkscrew loops of Race Drivin’, it’s still an interesting experiment in augmented reality.

Right now, we’re trying to figure out how to put this in our car. Outrun is now being reverse engineered, and the road layer code is complete. Does anyone want to take a stab at that build?

Fool proof diet

Did you hear about the heavyset guy who had tried every diet in the world in an attempt to lose weight? He tried the Scarsdale diet, the Navy diet, Weight Watchers, and many more. None worked. One day, he was reading the Washington Post when he noticed a small ad which read:

"Lose weight Only $1.00 a pound Call 1-555-555-5555"

The man decided to give it a try and called the number. A voice on the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?', to which the man responded, 'Ten pounds.' The voice replied, 'Very well, give me your credit card number and we'll have a representative over to your house in the morning.'

About 9:00 am the next morning the man gets a knock on the door. There stood a beautiful redheaded woman, completely naked except for a sign around her neck stating, 'If you catch me, you can have me'.

Well, the hefty fellow chased her upstairs, downstairs, over sofas, through the kitchen, all around the house. Finally, panting and wheezing like a dog, he did catch her. When he was through enjoying himself, she said, 'Quick, go into the bathroom and weigh yourself!'. He did just that and was amazed to find that he had lost ten pounds, right to the ounce!

That evening he called the number again. The voice on the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?', to which the somewhat less overweight man replied, 'Twenty pounds.'

'Very well', the voice on the phone told him, 'Give me your credit card number and we'll have a representative over to your house in the morning.'

At about 8:00 am the next morning the man receives a knock on the door. When he opens the door he sees a beautiful blond dressed only in track shoes and a sign around her neck stating 'If you catch me, you can have me'. The chase took a good while longer this time and the man nearly passed out, but he finally did catch her. When he was through she told him, 'Quick, run into the bathroom and weigh yourself!' He ran to the bathroom and found he had lost another 20 pounds!

'This is fantastic!', he thought to himself. Later that evening he called the number again and the voice at the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?'. 'Fifty pounds!', the man exclaimed. 'Fifty pounds?', the voice asked. 'That's an awful lot of weight to lose at one time.' The man replied, 'Listen buddy, here's my credit card number, you just have your representative over here in the morning!', and he hung up the phone.

About 6:00 am the next morning the man gets out of bed, splashes on some cologne and gets all ready for the next representative. At about 7:00 am he gets a knock on the door. When he opens the door, he sees this large gorilla with a sign around his neck stating,

'If I catch you, I'm going to screw you'

Taiwan's Foxconn to use one million robots by 2014

Ok, this is how it begins... the robot revolution

 

Taiwan IT giant Foxconn -- hit by a spate of suicides at its Chinese plants -- plans to replace 500,000 workers with robots in the next three years, state media reported.

Taiwan IT giant Foxconn -- hit by a spate of suicides at its Chinese plants -- plans to replace 500,000 workers with robots in the next three years, state media reported Monday.

Foxconn -- the world's largest maker of computer components, which assembles products for Apple, Sony and Nokia -- plans to use one million robots to do "simple" work, China Business News quoted chairman Terry Gou saying.

Gou announced the plan to 10,000 staff at a company event in Shenzhen on Friday, various media reports said.

Read the rest HERE

Hacking the lottery, gaming the game

 

Due to a quirk in the design of the Massachusetts state lottery game Cash WinFall, a handful of players — including MIT and Boston University statisticians — has been able to invest piles of money into the game at strategic times to claim the vast majority of the prizes.

The quirk works this way: in weeks after the grand prize jackpot hits $2 million, the payouts for smaller prizes grow. By purchasing over $100k in tickets during these “rolldown weeks,” a player is guaranteed a huge return on investment without ever winning the top prize — which has been awarded only once in the game’s history.

Now that the hack has been discovered, the state has started policing the game, and suspended a few stores that broke the rules to sell more tickets to the power players, but Cash WinFall is still in business for now.

 

Heh.

Light LED’s with FIRE!

Awesome... this is “cool” (harhar) a Copper Oxide Thermoelectric Generator. All you need is a bit of solid copper wire and a gas torch. Burn the wire so it gets a nice coating of oxide. From there, it is a matter of making the 2 sections of burned wire cross at a point and heat up only one of the wires. Whichever is hotter forms a cathode and whichever one is cooler is the anode.

Just one of these junctions is enough to produce a few hundred millivolts, but the author takes it a step further, well 16 steps further. He made a ring of these junctions in series, which is enough to light a bright blue LED. While the author notes that this thing is producing a considerable amount of voltage, its not producing much amperage. This could come in very handy in the future, like if you need some additional LED lighting for your camp stove.

Oxygen molecules found in deep space

Awesome! That is all.

Astronomers searching for oxygen can breathe more easily

This dramatic image offers a peek inside a 'cavern' of dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region, called the Orion Nebula. More than 3000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. The Orion Nebula is 1500 light-years away, the nearest star-forming region to Earth. Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five colors, to make this picture. They also added ground-based photos to fill out the nebula. The ACS mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of the full Moon. These observations were taken between 2004 and 2005. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

ESA's Herschel space observatory has found molecules of oxygen in a nearby star-forming cloud. This is the first undisputed detection of oxygen molecules in space. It concludes a long search but also leaves questions unanswered.

The have been found in the nearby Orion star-forming complex. While atomic oxygen has been long known in warm regions of space, previous missions looking for the molecular variety – two atoms of oxygen bonded together – came up largely empty-handed.

See the rest HERE

IQ level tied to choice of internet browser

Interesting... I can't really see this being tied to IQ however general understanding of technology, as the uninformed would use whatever browser was on their machine and most accessible...

In a study that is likely to incite controversy, AptiQuant, a Vancouver, British Columbia based Psychometric Consulting company has released a report that it says shows users of Microsoft Internet Explorer have lower Intelligence Quotient’s (IQs) than do users of other internet browsers. The company is basing its claims on scores online users received when taking the online Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (IV) test.

The results were collected from over 100,000 English speaking people from New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Canada and the United States, over a span of four weeks and the score results were compared with the browser used to reach the site offering the test, which were offered free to random users.

See the article HERE

My Gym Progress

Nothing terribly impressive, but hey I'm seeing results and sticking with it so that's something!

 

6-11-11
Fly 110lb 12, 12, 6, 3
Chest Press 50lb 8, 8, 8, 5
Row/Rear Delt 50lb 12, 12, 12, 15
Pulldown 70lb 12, 12, 10, 7
Shoulder Press 30lb 9, 7, 7, 5
Bicep Curl 50lb 12L 12R, 12L 12R, 12L 12R, 12L 12R
Tricep WASNT DOING


8-1-11
Fly 130lb 12, 6, 8, 6
Chest Press 70lb 12, 12, 12, 12
Row/Rear Delt 90lb 12, 12, 9, 7
Pulldown 110lb 12, 12, 12, 12
Shoulder Press 50lb 12, 12, 12, 12
Bicep Curl 110lb 12L 12R, 12L 12R, 12L 12R, 12L 12R
Tricep 110lb 12, 9, 8, 8


6-12-11
Seated Leg Press 90lb 12, 12, 12, 12
Calf Extension 90lb 12, 12, 12, 12
Leg Extension 90lb 12, 12, 7, 7
Seated Leg Curl 70lb 12, 7, 7, -


7-27-11
Seated Leg Press 170lb 12, 12, 12, 12
Calf Extension 150lb 12, 12, 12, 12
Leg Extension 110lb 12, 12, 12, 10
Seated Leg Curl 110lb 12, 12, 12, 12