I know this project is two years old, but I couldn’t restrain myself when I saw that the UAV was using an Arduino as a flight computer to return from 100,000 feet. Awesomeness!
http://xlabs.eng.usf.edu/index.php/x4
Category Archives: Digressions
Sounds better than ‘Miscellaneous.’
LEGOLand Florida Grand Opening Date Set
Set your alerts for October, 15, 2011, the official grand opening day of LEGOLand Florida!
The park features seven themed play areas for all ages. Expected highlights include:
- The Big Shop One of the largest retail stores in the world featuring LEGO and LEGOLand merchandise. They’ve one-upped Disney. Instead of dropping every ride exit into a shop, they’ve done that for the entire park! 🙂
- Factory Tour A firsthand look at how LEGO bricks are made from factory to finish
- Miniland USA Gigantic scale models representing several different iconic cities around the USA including New York, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C. They will also feature many Florida landmarks from Key West, Daytona, and the Kennedy Space Center. You’ll even have the chance to race LEGO Cars around a track!
- LEGO TECHNIC® Test Track Ride a life-size LEGO TECHNIC roller coaster.
- Imagination Zone Not only are there games and activities to occupy young and old minds alike, there will be Mindstorms! Build robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS. Naturally, this will be THE highlight of my visit. 🙂
- Pirate’s Cove Watch the live-action pirate stunt show on the waters of Lake Eloise. I hope they still have water skiing!
- Land of Adventure I hope this one lives up to the description! Besides a junior roller coaster, there are a number of interactive attractions including laser blasting, 15 foot jumps, and a maze through the Pharaoh’s kingdom.
- LEGO City Kids can let their imaginations run wild in the miniature city featuring a fire fighter’s academy, driving school, and the flight school (an inverted roller coaster!)
Yes, I am more than a little excited that we finally have a LEGOLand in Florida. I hope they can keep the character of the Florida themepark experience I remember from my many visits to Cypress Gardens.
Here’s a little video for you.
Clockwork Game
I happened upon a graphic novel about “The Turk,” a chess playing automaton. The Clockwork Game, by Jane Irwin is an ongoing work with updates on Thursdays.
Not coincidentally, this site is named after a book written about The Turk.
LEGO lends itself well to building automatons. Creating various forms of motion for both practical and artistic pursuits is very straight-forward. Having such a flexible, modular system frees your mind allowing you to focus on the creative aspects of your projects.
BLACK FRIDAY SALE at our Bricklink Store!
In our Bricklink Store, we will be selling quite a few items, including our custom aluminum liftarms, at discounts from 10 to 40 percent.
This is a one day only sale for Friday, November 27, 2009 from midnight to midnight Bricklink time (same as Eastern Standard Time). Our store will close on November 21 and reopen for the sale.
All aluminum parts and kits will be discounted from 10% to 20%. Most items will be 15% off. If you are hard to shop for, notify your friends and family to give them some great gift ideas!
We will also have LEGO on sale!
* 15% off all minifigs
* 20% off all used LEGO parts
* 20% off all gear
* 35% off all panels
* 40% off all instructions, books, and catalogs
No coupons please. However, we will honor all three of our existing promotions during the sale!
GIVEAWAY PROMOTION #1
Repeat customers receive 2 free 5×5 135 degree Custom Aluminum Liftarms with total aluminum orders of $100 or more.
GIVEAWAY PROMOTION #2
In addition, any single order with at least $100 in aluminum gets a free 25L standard liftarm (or any other aluminum item of equal or lesser value–buyer’s choice)! (while supplies last)
I’ll add the freebies to your order automatically, there is no need to add it in your order. Just let me know your selection in the notes when you place the order.
GIVEAWAY PROMOTION #3
Finally, through the end of November, I will be giving a free Screw-On Kit to the person who places the largest order for custom aluminum parts.
FREE AND DISCOUNTED SHIPPING OFFER
And… Just to sweeten the pot, all orders over $10 will pay actual postage only–no handling charges! Orders over $250 will ship free WORLDWIDE.
Prices are good while supplies last.
Rebate Shenanigans
Twice now I’ve had HP claim not to have received the UPC code from the side of a container when claiming rebates for their PCs. I keep copies of everything I send, but they really seem to lose these things more often than not. Makes you really wonder if they are that incompetent or if something more nefarious is at play.
Today, I had the opposite situtation:
Dear Bill Shaw,
Recently, we inadvertently sent you 2 rebate checks for the same rebate
application. The first check is dated December 18th and the second December
19th. Both checks have the same unique check number. Only one of these
checks will clear the bank. If both checks are deposited the 1st will clear
and the 2nd will be returned and you may be subject to any fees your bank
charges for returned checks. Please deposit only one of these checks.Rebate Confirmation Code: xxxx
Check Number: xxxxWe apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Thank you for using OnRebate.com!
Please do not reply to this E-mail directly. This is a system-generated
message and sent from an account that cannot receive E-mail. To contact
OnRebate.com please E-mail support@help.onrebate.com or call us at
1-888-222-9300. You can also track your rebate status at
http://www.onrebate.com/checkstatus.aspx
This is wrong on so many levels. And of course, their automated system has no record I exist. Oh, and they were closed when I called. Figures I get this today. I made the deposit this morning after holding the checks for a week while waiting for the bank’s schedule and my own to align. I think my bank only charges $5 for returned items, but I think OnRebate needs to take care of it. In fact, I may have to make it my personal mission after the hoops their industry puts people through.
Wanna Sell Me A(nother) Mercury?
I own a very well equipped 2004 Mercury Monterey. Yes… it’s a mini-van, but gosh darnit, it’s pretty handy the many times we need to jam seven people in for a trip. It’s a very nice vehicle overall, although I’ve never been able to get better than 18 mpg on the highway, even with no extra weight, no hills and cruising in light traffic. I can’t see how it would ever get 23 mpg as rated unless I was going downhill with the wind behind me.
My car just spent five days at the local dealer getting a few items fixed under warranty. One of these items is an apparent malfunction in the climate control system. When I turn on recirculate and/or the seat heating and cooling, it randomly cuts off after 10-45 minutes. The A/C still runs but it starts pulling in fresh air and simultaneously turns off the seats. The seats have both heating and cooling and it doesn’t matter if the each seat is set to cool or heat, they still turn off.
My car has three zone controls for the climate control system – driver, passenger, and rear. Each one can be set independently to a specific temperature.
The dealer is telling me this shutting off behavior is normal operation. To paraphrase, “It’s a feature, not a bug.” When running in auto mode, once it senses I’ve reached the desired temperature, it is programmed to disable both recirc and the seat heating/cooling.
To me, this sounds like BS.
First, the front has independent zones. My wife likes it toasty, I like it cold. If my side gets toasty, I get sleepy. If me and my wife are set to
different temps, why would BOTH seats cut off at once? Also, why would seat heating turn off because of the air temperature? We got the seat heating because my wife feels it adds comfort on long road trips.
I like to leave it on recirculate because there are lots of diesel trucks on the road during my commute. The fumes are pretty strong when I’m drawing air through the a/c. I can’t imagine why it would turn off this function instead of just turning down the blower to modulate temperature. My little Saturn L300 works in just this manner and I never have to push the little recirculate button.
Reading the manual that came with the vehicle, I learned that when set to auto, it is supposed to automatically control the recirculate setting, despite the fact that the instruction booklet states the recirculate control is for “manual control” of that function. However, if it is supposed to control the recirculate function automatically, shouldn’t it periodically turn the thing ON? The fact that it only turns it off indicates to me it is indeed broken. Coupled with the fact that BOTH seats disengage at the exact time just confirms that observation for me.
Now, if the auto setting is allowed to control the recirculate, smart engineering would indicate that if the occupant purposefully turns it on, it should stay on no matter what. The blower can always be lowered to compensate for the extra air flow. Lets face it, recirculate does more than just cool the car quicker, it keeps noxious fumes outside the vehicle where they belong.
For that matter, the seat heating and cooling is not really even related to the air temperature in the vehicle. Cooling makes the leather tolerable on bare legs in the Florida sun and the heating is more of a comfort feature than a temperature control feature.
The bottom line for me is that if they really did program the system to function this way, I won’t be buying another Mercury. Why pay extra for a feature that has to be turned back on every 20 minutes? That’s just idiotic. And if they didn’t program it that way, why was the service department blowing smoke up my ass? Smoke I don’t need. I want cold air on my ass. Sheesh.
Wanna sell me another Mercury? Fix this one.