Tag: pescovitz

Nintendo programmer coded Game Boy classic without using a keyboard

Nintendo programmer Masahiro Sakura coded the Game Boy classic Kirby’s Dream Land on a cartridge-based Famicom console and Disk System that lacked a hardware keyboard. According to a recent presentation given by Sakura, “values had to be input using a trackball and an on-screen keyboard.” Sakura, who was 20-years-old at the time, said he just thought that was “the way it was done.” From Game Watch’s report in Japanese, translated by Source Gaming : At the time, the development tool that HAL Laboratory was using was the Twin Famicom, a console that combined the Famicom and the Famicom Disk System. A trackball made specifically for the Twin Famicom was used with the machine, which read and wrote data to a floppy disk and uploaded data to the floppy disks [during development]. Essentially, they were using a Famicom to make Famicom games. Sakurai told the crowd, “It’s like using a lunchbox to make lunch”. However, because of that, they were able to create a functional test product before the project plan was even completed. (via Ars Technica )

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Nintendo programmer coded Game Boy classic without using a keyboard

Incredible giant chocolate geodes

Alex Yeatts, a student at the Culinary Institute of America, worked for six months to cook up amazing chocolate geode cakes. Crack one open to reveal the dazzling sugar crystals. Stunning work. A post shared by Alex Yeatts (@alex.yeatts) on Mar 11, 2017 at 10:18am PST A post shared by Alex Yeatts (@alex.yeatts) on Mar 20, 2017 at 6:59am PDT

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Incredible giant chocolate geodes

What is the fastest music that humans can play and appreciate?

Bass player/instructor Adam Neely explores the fastest “useful” music that humans can play. It’s a fascinating topic, really, especially how he, and scientists/musicologists, frame the question around what’s musically “useful.” And yes, speed metal is considered “useful.”

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What is the fastest music that humans can play and appreciate?

Flexible, printable circuits inspired by goldbug beetle

Poking a golden tortoise beetle (“goldbug”) triggers the insect’s color to change from gold to a red-orange. Inspired by the natural system underlying that insectoid superpower, MIT researchers have developed flexible sensors circuits that can be 3-D printed. Eventually, the technology could lead to sensor-laden skin for robots. From MIT News : “In nature, networks of sensors and interconnects are called sensorimotor pathways,” says Subramanian Sundaram, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), who led the project. “We were trying to see whether we could replicate sensorimotor pathways inside a 3-D-printed object. So we considered the simplest organism we could find….” The MIT researchers’ new device is approximately T-shaped, but with a wide, squat base and an elongated crossbar. The crossbar is made from an elastic plastic, with a strip of silver running its length; in the researchers’ experiments, electrodes were connected to the crossbar’s ends. The base of the T is made from a more rigid plastic. It includes two printed transistors and what the researchers call a “pixel,” a circle of semiconducting polymer whose color changes when the crossbars stretch, modifying the electrical resistance of the silver strip. In fact, the transistors and the pixel are made from the same material; the transistors also change color slightly when the crossbars stretch. The effect is more dramatic in the pixel, however, because the transistors amplify the electrical signal from the crossbar. Demonstrating working transistors was essential, Sundaram says, because large, dense sensor arrays require some capacity for onboard signal processing. To build the device, the researchers used the MultiFab, a custom 3-D printer developed by (professor Wojciech) Matusik group. The MultiFab already included two different “print heads,” one for emitting hot materials and one for cool, and an array of ultraviolet light-emitting diodes. Using ultraviolet radiation to “cure” fluids deposited by the print heads produces the device’s substrate.

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Flexible, printable circuits inspired by goldbug beetle

How to fold a World Record-winning paper airplane

John Collins holds the Guinness World Record for designing the farthest flying paper airplane. The plane, folded from a single piece of A4 paper, flew 69.14 meters in 2012. Harvard University made this video of Collins folding his masterpiece during a recent visit with Harvard’s design engineering graduate students. More designs at The Paper Airplane Guy .

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How to fold a World Record-winning paper airplane

The amazing whistling language of Greek shepherds

In the village of Antia on Greece’s Evia island, shepherds use whistling to communicate over long distances. This isn’t a code but rather a real language. “Whistles let shepherds communicate between distant hillsides because a whistled sound wave travels farther than spoken words.” ( Scientific American )

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The amazing whistling language of Greek shepherds

First ever video of Ghost Shark, with sex organ on its head, alive in the ocean

Ghost sharks, aka chimaeras, are elusive relatives of sharks and rays that live in the black depths of the ocean, as far down as 2,600 meters. The Ghost Shark was captured on video by a remotely operated vehicle deployed on a geology expedition by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in waters off Hawaii and California. The scientists who analyzed the video think that it’s a pointy-nosed blue chimaera (Hydrolagus trolli) that usually calls the waters off Australia and New Zealand home. This is the first time researchers have known this species to swim in the Northern Hemisphere. From National Geographic : Unlike those more well-known sharks, chimaeras don’t have rows of ragged teeth, but instead munch up their prey—mollusks, worms, and other bottom-dwellers—with mineralized tooth plates. A pattern of open channels on their heads and faces, called lateral line canals, contain sensory cells that sense movement in the water and help the ghost sharks locate lunch. And perhaps most fascinating, male chimaeras sport retractable sex organs on their foreheads.

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First ever video of Ghost Shark, with sex organ on its head, alive in the ocean

Metallica and The Roots play "Enter Sandman" on toy and classroom instruments

On The Tonight Show last night, Metallica, promoting their new album ” Hardwired…to Self-Destruct ,” played their old ditty “Enter Sandman” in an entirely new way. We’re off to never never land. James Hetfield – Vocals, Toy clarinet Jimmy Fallon – Vocals, Bass Drum, Casio Keyboard, Kazoo Lars Ulrich – Fisher Price Drum, Toy Cymbals Kirk Hammett – Melodica Robert Trujillo – Baby Electric Axe Questlove – Hand Clappers, Kazoo Kamal Gray – Xylophone James Poyser – Melodica Captain Kirk – Ukulele Tuba Gooding Jr. – Kazoo, Banana Shaker, Apple Shaker Mark Kelley – Kazoo Frank Knuckles – Bongos Black Thought – Tambourine, Brown Hat

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Metallica and The Roots play "Enter Sandman" on toy and classroom instruments