This week, Will, Norm, and Jeremy discuss digital releases of Star Wars, the DJI Phantom 3 announcement, Apple Watch reviews, the latest iOS and OSX updates, an Amazon Echo update, and a whole slew of new products in What We’re Testing. Enjoy!
One Day Builds
Adam embarks on one of his most ambitious builds yet: fulfil…
Show And Tell
Adam recently completed a build of the royal St. Edwards cro…
Making
Viewers often ask to see Adam working in real-time, so this …
One Day Builds
Adam and Norm assemble a beautifully machined replica prop k…
One Day Builds
One of the ways Adam has been getting through lockdown has b…
Making
Adam unboxes and performs a quick test of this novel new hel…
Making
When Adam visited Weta Workshop early last year, he stopped …
One Day Builds
Adam tackles a shop shelf build that he's been putting off f…
Show And Tell
Time for a model kit build! This steampunk-inspired mechanic…
One Day Builds
Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
Great idea to release the original Star Wars without all the whistles & bells that have been added over the years. It will only appeal on a nostalgic level to those who were around at the time; everyone else will think it’s quaint and/or crap though because it won’t be “their” version.
It’s a pity it can’t be selected dynamically, i.e. where you can adjust the level of historically-added “new features” in the settings before (or while) the movie’s playing. So you can tweak it to just how you like it.
Whatever, the original original version shouldn’t have “Episode 4” in the opening crawl; that still causes incredulous argument in people I mention it to (I say many other things as well in general conversation BTW, I don’t just keep repeating that).
I think tapping to turn on the screen is fair. I’m not sure how wild the gesture to look at the Apple Watch has to be (and can’t see Norm gesturing cause I’m audio only at the moment), but on my Pro Trek it’s ridiculous. When my arm is lying on my desk, as in typing mode, there is no more room to turn my wrist, plus it’s much more natural to just briefly look down at my wrist.
I’ve Purchased Star Wars so many times; I had no second thoughts on downloading Harmy. It’ll be the version I show to my son when he’s old enough.
No Will, no! Don’t encourage people to make guerilla style videos from the audience at concerts. I’m pleeding for no more fists and phones in sight by 2020, let’s do this!
Alright sorry for the many posts but I’m posting as I listen and edit doesn’t seem to work today..
The main benefit of a delta 3D-printer is that the weight of the printhead is very low, which theoretically should improve accuracy. You only have to move a hotend, instead of having to move the heavy extruder motor as well. That and it looks super sexy. That Tiko printer sounds so tempting to put on your desk, but it does seem to have a pretty small print area.. That’s the reason why I built my own printer, cause I wanted big things (of course I only learned after building this brings a whole range of new problems, mainly temperature related, AND that I don’t really print that much big stuff anyways).
Hey Jeremy I have a simple metal I’m planning on rebuilding into the plus, printrbot sells the parts as a kit but I’m planning on scratch building and have most of the design work done in a fusion360 project if your interested
Here is the upgrade kit, you will need to grab another NEMA17 and it looks like they are dropping this kit 🙁
http://printrbot.com/shop/upgrade-from-wood-to-metal-plus/
With the talk including drones and metal detecting, here’s an idea: how about fixing a metal detector to a drone, and using it to sweep a field in a raster scan pattern? The output could be rendered in real time on a map, buidling up a picture of detector response to help you locate hot spots etc.
Also, you can still download Apollo transcripts, as well as Mercury & Gemini, at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/mission_transcripts.htm
Thank goodness this wasn’t about about the Blue Devils. Interested in the Apple watch just to see how it moves the space forward more than anything else.
Norm – I question whether the Phantom camera is digitally zooming when you select the narrow FOV – if it’s a 14MP sensor, it’s either pulling wide video by pulling 1920 pixels from across the whole sensor or narrow video by pulling 1920 pixels from the centre of the sensor – either way, the pixels should be sharp, not up sampled.
Apple isn’t worried about lowering costs through using feeder products. Since 2012 they have lowered costs by paying up front for massive amounts of stuff to get big discounts. As far as I can see the main drawback is they possibly over estimated lcd panels initially and may be the reason that the MacBook Air and iPad 2 have low dpi screens. Apple also lease equipment to manufacturers as well as making loans. They will be worried about how their manufacturers will meet volumes they want, especially after that sapphire debacle.
With the aluminium battery you would need to know how much current it can output, and the voltage discharge curve at a given current. You already need voltage converters in phones, it could be an issue if you need two converters (one up, one down) although that isn’t a show stopper. It isn’t going to replace lithium batteries any time soon, but there will probably be niche applications.
If the battery was developed at Stanford, SRI International will probably work with companies to look at potential products product.
Will…
delta printers (Rostok Kossel etc) print square objects just fine. if you look at the G-code, each move just sets a count for the number of steps each motor needs to make to carry out the move and all the motors move together.
The main issue with them is keeping the outer frame rigid as the motors have quite a kick as they stop and start. Which worries me about a delta at this price point. The frame on my delta cost more than this whole machine!
Plus calibration is more complex than for a Cartesian, in addition to the bed leveling thing you also have to set up the convex/concave-ness of the print surface. But this is driven by the machine geometry, so presumably this will be factory set, and not something the user need worry about too much
also getting the filament to the head is a bit more involved, the extruder motor is not on the printhead so you need to run the filament under compression through a bowden cable, which is just 1 more thing to go wrong.
compared to Cartesians they are, generally much faster – there’s less mass for each motor to move so you can crank up head speed and acceleration and still print reliably.
Does anyone else have trouble downloading the podcasts from the website on their phone? I get a lot of failed downloads and have to keep retrying until it finally works. Not sure if it’s just me or not .
When i learned my brother-in-law had never seen Star Wars at age 33, I showed him Harmy. I was personally impressed with how great the practical effects looked.
Actually, because it’s such a small printer and a unibody, the frame-rocking will be pretty much gone, although I do hope it’s heavy enough to not slide over your desk entirely, lol. I’m still baffled by how they packed that in such a small package..! My RAMPS board is pretty much just as big. I don’t want to spend the money on something I don’t need, I’d rather buy an SLS/SLA next. But if someone wants to get into printing now (or well, end of year when they ship) or get a Christmas present for someone, I wouldn’t hesitate. I doubt they earn money on that thing.. Also, the fact that they have already sold close to 8000 printers worries me, production will be hard to cope with, it reminds me of that H6/T6/whatever it was called that sold for 200USD.
Regarding Apollo 11, space nerds might like this song by British band Public Service Broadcasting, whose specialty is taking historic audio and setting it to music:
https://vimeo.com/120879127
I’ve sat for long 8-hour shifts a mile inside a mountain monitoring mind-numbing traces, and have found myself reading Apollo 11+ transcripts. Really interesting reads that gives you 1% of the experience of being a bad-ass astronaut (bad-asstronaut?)
Universities like patenting and licensing out technology. Typically a dedicated IP department will handle all the filing for the inventor. The university takes a big cut and a smaller cut is split between the inventors. Will mentioned the grant sponsor having a say in how the IP is licensed… I think that’s unlikely because I doubt any university would ever agree to accepting a grant like that.
What does Norm say during the outro? It is very garbled on this tablet.. 😔
1.1 or a 1.2ghz dual core processor and on-board intel graphics in the new Macbook… I know the thing is super thin and advanced in other ways with an amazing screen, but seriously with those specs if anyone else made it, it would be a $300 Walmart special. Not $1300-1600. How in the world does Apple keep selling this stuff? Why do people keep buying it?
The reason that Apple still sells well is not because of their hardware, they haven’t innovated there in really since the iPad Mini…but the operating system. Mac OS kicks the crap out of Windows. Windows really sucks. And I am saying that not as an Apple Fanboy, but as a Linux enthusiast. If Apple ever released Mac OS for any Intel/AMD computer, Microsoft would be planed. Just wiped off the face of the planet. The fact that Apple hasn’t done that probably means there is an agreement between Apple and Microsoft where Microsoft doesn’t sue with their patent portfolio Apple as long as Apple doesn’t release Mac OS for general computing.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Linux, that’s what I am using now, as I love fiddling around with the innards and such, but if I had to choose between Mac and Windows, it would be Mac all the way.
I get the software angle, but seriously even if OSX ran on unicorn piss and shit rainbows turning anything it processed into gold it isn’t worth five times the price of a Windows/Linux machine with compatible specs. I’ve never used a Mac, I’ve always wanted to see what the hype is about but I just can’t justify even the prices people want for old used broke down rigs.
But that’s exactly my point. If they let OS X run on regular PCs, you would just by a regular PC, and run Mac OS X on it. You wouldn’t buy most Apple hardware, although things like the iPhone and iPads would probably continue to sell.
-Analog audio to digital has been around forever, I had an audio cassette drive for my commodore 128.
-What’s up with Jeremy’s phone pillow?
-An indoor nano flying practice obstacle coarse is easy and useful, also flying by A/C vents or fans helps with training to recover from sticky situations. I also feel that unless you plan on flying POV, the sooner you get used to flying towards yourself (with reversed controls) the better
“You can’t cage the duke!”
Thanks for the laughs!
It’s worth noting that the original Star Wars trilogy never referenced the Episode number except for in the opening scrolling text. It’s only with the prequels (I II and III) that they specifically referenced it, obviously for marketing reasons. So it’s not so much that they are moving away from it, as they are not seeing the same need to link the continuity. Everyone (at least, those that will care) knows it’s the next chapter.
wait a minute! Did say he enjoy using Plex?? I installed it on my (ubuntu) server and PS3, and it’s a laggy, janky POS! It just shows a list of videos, no fancy UI. It can’t remember where i stopped a movie so will always start from the beginning. Half the videos fast forward doesn’t work. Ugh! Only reason I use it is that XBMC on my HTPC is equally slow and janky, but I might go back to it.
Was hoping to move to a roku box with plex, but if it’s this bad I need another app to stream from my server.
Sorry to tell you Will, but you can’t accurately carbon date things past 1950ish, due to radioactive contamination from nuclear weapons testing 🙂