Apple Engineering > PC Counterparts

Nowhere else does a manufacturer keep the interior of a laptop as clean and simple as in the unibody macs. No need for a maze of plastic parts when the entire body is a single solid piece of aluminum. <3

Now if only I could anodize this to change its colors...

Manifestations of Boredom: Foot Pedal

Seeing as my past week has been... taxing... and I had a lot of free time on my hands, and an obsolete piano to make useful, I made a foot pedal for the thing using as little money as possible (shocking)!

I didn't feel like plopping $15 on a low-end foot/sustain pedal for a piano that I might or might not care about after the summer. So I took it upon myself to craft one using basic childhood skills of cobble-and-test (a step or two down from legit engineering). I had originally intended to make it an actual pedal, complete with a hinge/pivot and moving parts. Then, I realized that making something functional and decent was overrated. All I needed was, essentially, an on and off switch controlled by a foot. So I made a cantilever, a thin (1/4") wood beam with a contact underneath that completed a circuit when it touched the base. I tested the wood in a clamp to make sure it could bend far enough work (about half an inch per 7 inch length).

The electrical component of the project was pretty straight-forward. The piano keyboard (old old Casio CT640) used a quarter inch TRS (audio jack) input for the pedal. I used an adapter to change the plug size to 3.5 mm (your typical headphone plug size) and soldered some old speaker wires to them, one to the tip, one to the sleeve. The ends of the wires ran to contacts, in this case a nickel and some aluminum foil.

Shockingly enough, it works. Total expenditures: ~$5, with extra wood left over.
Considerations for future builds: Use a deeper base (in the back, 2-2.5 inches) and a shorter beam/pedal (~6 inches), and reduce the distance between contacts. The way it's set up now puts a lot of stress on the connection between the floor plate and the pedal part. It's held together by a few screws, and you can see some cracking from where I tightened it too much underneath.

Whoo, Text Messaging minus the phone!

A few of you have felt the wrath of my experimental spamming. For the rest of you, as kind of another PSA, how to send (and receive) text messages without a phone.

As a side note: "...the 20 cents-per-message rate adds up to $1310.72 per megabyte. This is double the cost three years ago and, quite literally, astronomical: A space scientist at the University of Leicester in the UK did the math and discovered that this is several times as much as it costs to transmit data from the Hubble space telescope back to Earth..."

2-Way Mirror - forwarded eMail PSA from my mom...

Can you tell when you are in a hotel room, restroom, motel etc. with a mirror whether it is in fact a mirror or 2-way glass?



Here's how:
I thought it was quite interesting! And I know in about 30 seconds you're going do what I did and find the
nearest mirror... Do you know how to determine if a mirror is 2-way or not? This is not to scare you, but to
make you aware. A policewoman who travels all over the U.S. and gives seminars and techniques for
businesswomen passed this on. When we visit toilets, bathrooms, hotel rooms, changing rooms, etc., how
many of you know for sure that the seemingly ordinary mirror hanging on the wall is a real mirror, or actually a
2-way mirror (i.e., they can see you, but you can't see them)? There have been many cases of people installing
2-way mirrors in female changing rooms. It is very difficult to positively identify the surface by just looking at it.
So, how do we determine with any amount of certainty what type of mirror we are looking at? Just conduct this
simple

Test: Place the tip of your fingernail against the reflective surface and if there is a GAP between your
fingernail and the image of the nail, then it is a GENUINE mirror. However, if your fingernail
DIRECTLY TOUCHES the image of your nail, then BEWARE, FOR IT IS A 2-WAY MIRROR!
"No Space, Leave the Place" So remember, every time you see a Mirror, do the "fingernail test." It doesn't cost you anything.

Remember: "No Space, Leave the Place"

Ladies: Share this with your girlfriends, sisters, daughters, etc.
Men: Share this with your wives, daughters, daughters-in-law, mothers, girlfriends and friends.