Archives: 'Fun'

Condoleezza Rice for President in 2008!!

Thursday, July 13th, 2006

Support the [[Condoleezza Rice|Condi]] ’08 effort with this festive wallpaper that comes to you just in time for the summer holidays!

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Don’t forget to visit the Condoleezza Rice for President 2008 Website!

8 Ways to kill someone using an iPod Nano

Friday, June 30th, 2006

From http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2006/6/23fleming.html,

1. Break it in half with your hands (very easy to do) and use the glass viewing screen’s broken edge as a razorblade to slice the jugular when they are looking the other way.

2. Take off one sock (a dress or tube sock; pantyhose will work in a pinch), place the Nano in the sock, swing it around as fast as you can (being careful to not hit yourself), and whack the intended target right on the temple.

3. Take the reflective shiny part and catch the sun’s ray and shine it in a vehicle driver’s eyes, or if you are at a rock concert and the lead singer is prancing around on a center stage that protrudes into the audience like a phallus, you can use the same technique.

4. The cord on the earbud headphones can be used to strangle someone. A knee in the back can give extra leverage.

5. Dig a pit about 5 feet deep, then take about 15 3-foot-long stakes 2 inches in diameter and sharpen one end to a fine point, like a very sharp pencil. Jam the sticks at least a foot into the ground, with the sharp ends pointing up. Cover the hole with pine boughs, grass, and leaves. Treat the Nano like a slice of cheese pizza in a deep, hot oven and place it gently in the middle.

6. Carefully unstaple a tea bag and pour the contents on a plate. Break into the lithium-ion battery pack and saturate the tea with the battery’s poison, then dry the tea in the sun (or with a hair dryer if you are in a hurry). Put tea back in tea bag and bend the staple back to its original position. Put the tea bag back where you got it.

7. Download to the Nano “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters. Tell someone you will give him or her your Nano if they listen to that song a hundred times in a row.

8. Hide the Nano in a bowl of lutefisk, then take it to the annual Norsefest Lutefisk Eating Competition in Madison, Minnesota

Best game for when you’re bored!

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

Try this:
http://getitrightandyouwin.ytmnd.com/

Close your eyes, wiggle around your mouse, and guess where it is! You could be a winner! (Windows XP w/ shadowed mouse only.)

DIY Hard DDR Pad

Wednesday, December 31st, 1969

I was tired of slipping and sliding on my soft DDR pad, so last night (at like 2:00 in the morning) I decided to convert my soft pad into a hard pad!

Here’s my result:


First, I took apart one of my old soft pads that was “broken”. After opening it up and poking around, I found that the inner layers were merely out of alignment, and that the sensors themselves were fine. I taped the layers down one at a time to a piece of plywood with my trusty blue painters tape and ensured that they were perfectly positioned.

I found some wood squares that my dad cut for who knows what. First, I tried just taping them down, but an E on No. 13 said that having to retape the squares after each song wasn’t going to work. So, I found staple gun. But the staples weren’t long enough. So I grabbed some screws and a screwdriver and went to work.

The first prototype (pictured here) had some critical flaws. First, the screws couldn’t be too tight, or else the sensoes would be constantly pushed by the wood. My playtesting revealed that you had to stomp on the wood boards because it wasn’t very responsive because the design of the sensors necesitates some sort of curved force to work correctly. I decided I needed to make some revisions.

This afternoon, I ran to Lowes and picked up some rubber washers and felt feet. I used the rubber washers as spacers for the screws, and attached several feet underneath each wooden pad. I was proud of my handiwork, and after adjusting the tightness of a couple screws, I determined that it was suitable for use.

Initial playtesting was a mixed bag. I found it hard to adapt to the raised buttons. Apparently I had developed a style of “sliding” on the soft pad that resulted in some hurting feet when I tried it on this pad. I did like the tactile feedback the raised pads provided, but my scores said differently. I was getting more “random boos” on the hard pad than I used to on the soft pad. This was because the wood occasionally stuck down. I AA full combo’d a couple 7 footers, (which I think was luck), but most of the songs I played were riddled with random boos (mostly the left and back buttons). I kept adjusting the screws, but never really found a sweet spot.

So, I think I’m going to ditch the wood raised platforms and go with a flat surface. I still want some sort of tactile feedback, so I might try changing the texture of the edges of teh buttons with like velcro or something. I suppose it was mostly a waste of time (and of $15), but it turned out looking cool (thanks to my pro blue tape).

I’ll post again when I revise my pad!

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