Blogjam presents: Neil Armstrong - The Truth
In 1969, did Neil Armstrong really utter the (now cliche) phrase "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." ?
Or was that a quick editing job, due to the conversation that truly played out....
Don't drink coffee (or anything else) while trying to listen to this. You've been warned...
Mike May regains his sight after 43 years of blindness
Mike May has had an experience that very few people ever will....regaining some of his vision after being blind since the age of three. What follows is a journal account of how his vision has improved, how his brain has "learned" to see again, and how vision plays (or doesn't play) a role in everyday life.
For more accounts of this amazing story, see his full journal at Mike May's website, where his company also produces GPS and other technology aids for the blind.
Almost exactly what I was looking for -- blank manuscript (sheet music) paper in PDF format. Lots of combinations too....solo, piano, guitar tab, jazz band, brass quartet....excpet there was no Banjo Tab!
So, out comes Adobe Illustrator, a few minutes of design and test printing, an export to a PDF and voila, instant Banjo Tab / Manuscript.
Download it, use it, distribute it. Enjoy!
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New! Banjo Manuscript paper without the Chord Boxes
Download it, use it, distribute it!
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09/04/03 Update:
Found this link to some other Guitar / Chord and Mando / Chord paper and manuscript for all you multi-instrumentalists out there.
Shag (aka Josh Angle) has become a top selling artist of retro / tiki / hipster / beatnik pop art....and I think it's great! Check out some of his collections to see what I mean all you space-pad bachelors ~~
Mr. X's Valet
She Dreams of the Alps
The Yawn
Dead Musicians Suite
Lustful Artist
Full Moon Serenade
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought (washingtonpost.com)
Read the article. Enough said.
This guy (kid? - he *is* in college) has made some serious upgrades to toys I used to build....in particular the spud gun. His latest model is semi-automatic with a bolt-action style loader and removable CO2 tank for power.
Random page I stumbled upon detailing the exploits and tinkerings of "Steamboat Ed" Haas. A few interesting things here, including some battle-bots exploits and some interesting science toys.
Hokey Spokes - Bicycle Safety Lights with LED spoke lights for your bike
When I was back getting my BSEE, I built a circuit for my Digital Logic class that exploited this fun concept.....that a quickly moving row of LEDs + persistence of vision can make for lots of fun! This guy took it one step further and mounted them on bicycle wheels -- there are numerous patterns to cycle through, a customizable text message, even a way to program them from your Palm.
SCIENCE HOBBYIST: Interesting Toys
This is a nice list of some recent tech / science / cool toys including:
- Airzooka (fires an invisible air ring)
- Coffee Cup Stirling Engine
- Smoke ring launcher
- Intel Video Microscope (only $50)
etc.....
The world is never the same if you are forced to live it from a wheelchair....while shopping, products on the top shelf are out of reach, while meeting people you are always at belt level.
No longer....Dean Kamen's iBot Wheelchair has been approved by the FDA. A radical and ingenious design, it can go up and down curbs, climb stairs, AND raise you up on 2 wheels to a standup height.
Here's a nice 10 minute video clip of it in action, just prior to it's FDA submission.
You'll also notice that this design is a direct precursor to the Segway scooter - all of the balancing electronics and algorithms are a direct descendant.....
Dean Kamen scores another victory.
This guy surely has the right idea, building a Wireless Audio Jukebox that can serve his CDs wirelessly throughout his house. Not only that, he can control the playlist from ANY PC in his house, stream from ANY PC in the house, and have separate playlists for different areas. Pretty cool....now if I only find the time to set this up.
Kudos to MIT! First open-source OS, then open-source programs, now OPEN-SOURCE MIT COURSES!! I read a nice article about this in Wired...folks from all over the world are logging on to "take" these MIT courses for free....they call it OpenCourseWare.
From the article, it seems that a number of students from universities around the world are using them as an adjunct to their curriculum - and it's really helping them excel. I'm definitely going to investigate what they are offering and take a few myself.....
One of the most noted ones is a EE and CS core course, called 6.170 Laboratory in Software Engineering. Seems it really helps lots of folks write better code....hmm....maybe it would help me write better code....