Schwippy

My date with a concrete pipe

The year was 1989. I was only 5.

Me and my step brothers, David and James, were all at a public park for the day. While the adults were playing some basketball, we ventured around and whatnot, and eventually found a construction site where they were laying in new underground plumbing and drainage.

Us, being boys, decided it would be a good idea to investigate it. Eventually, we found a part where the fence didn’t connect, which let us into the site. Man, there was some awesome stuff in there too, haha.

What was probably the coolest thing was the 6-foot diameter concrete pipe laying on the asphalt. It was about 15 feet long, so sure, we would walk through it and stuff… but that’s not what interested us. What was fun was the fact that we could roll it

All three of us were on top ‘walking’ it across the pavement. Quite entertaining to kids… but not even this can stop an ADHD kid from losing interest after 45 seconds. So I quickly come up with another idea. I told David to stay on top of the pipe, while me and James both got off and got IN the pipe.

After a second or two of David getting his bearings, he finally gets the hang of walking it again with us both in the pipe on our backs hanging on for dear life.

Me, being the genius that I am, I was on the side closest to the edge of the pipe (James was more near the inside). Well, when the pip eventually rolls around, I start to lose my stance in the pipe and decide it would be a good idea to grab the edge of it to keep from getting hurt.

Not a second later, I feel a quick motion that didn’t feel unlike somebody slapping my hand. I didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t hurt. I also heard it. It didn’t sound like a slap, but more like the sound it would make if you took 3 celery stalks and snapped them in half at the same time.

While I was wondering what the heck just happened, I tried to pull my hand back so I could get out of the pipe to figure it out. And that’s when I noticed that it didn’t work. I was stuck. That’s when it hit me. The pip had rolled over my fingers. It had rolled almost all the way over, but for the next few seconds it stopped, right before going backwards and off of my hand. Those couple seconds felt like ages.

By this point, I didn’t think anything bad had happened, since it wasn’t hurting all that bad… but I was rather freaked out that my hand was stuck and I didn’t know what was going on.

When the pipe finally rolled off, I saw the pavement first. It could only be described as the same stain you would get if you took a cherry, laid it on the sidewalk, then hit it with a hammer.

That’s when I started to get scared.

Then I decided that it would be a great idea to look at my hand, so I tried to pull it back again. Yet I was still finding resistance. Upon further movements, I found out that my fingers were… well… lets put it this way. Take some Playdough, put it between 2 books, and press them together. That Playdough is gonna be stuck to at least one.

After I lifted my hand from an angle that allowed my fingers to basically ‘peel’ off of the pipe, I brought back my hand with horror in my face.

That’s when the pain started at a hot sensation.

Its safe to say at this point, I was screaming. Screaming like hell.

My two step-brothers had no idea that this had happened, but when they saw the blood, they ran and got some help. I was too busy trying to think of what to do to actually do anything useful. After a few seconds, I’m being picked up, thrown over a shoulder, and put in the back seat of a car and on the way to the hospital.

Still screaming.

…I’ll spare the boring details of the hospital, the stitches, and the cast, but I do think it important to mention that while it didn’t do much damage to the entire finger, the pipe had actually splintered and shattered the tips of the bone in my pinky and ring finger. Literally… shattered. I really wish I still had the X-rays. It looked like a very tiny bomb was put in the middle of the bone in my fingers. Pieces of bone were ‘thrown’ outward from the center of my fingers.

Long story short, I still have the scars on 3 fingers, though you would never notice them unless they were pointed out, and I have ultra sensitive finger tips. And no, its not like a superpower… more like super painful if touched the wrong way.

Emergency Party Button

I finally did the write-up on the Emergency Party Button that I made a few months ago. I took a short video as well.

The video does it no justice… you totally need to be there to experience the awesomeness.

If you want to see how it was done and what all it consists of, go to the Emergency Party Button page at www.plasma2002.com/epb

Control The Official Schwippy Christmas Tree

This year, we have set up a Christmas Tree with lights that can be controlled via a web interface for all to enjoy! On the Schwippy Christmas Tree page, you can choose to control our christmas lights and view a webcam image of the tree and anybody (or any thing, for that matter) that decides to run across it

If you are bored and feel like playing with our lights, go to the following website.

http://tree.schwippy.com

Kangaroos are idiots

’nuff said.

Rock Paper Scissors 25

Who knew that one of the best games ever invented could get even better?

Along with the three common hand signs that can be thrown, 22 more signs have been added, each with their own set of rules on what beats what.

Click the image for a full size view

Check out the main site for a different chart that you can buy a large print of and put on your wall for reference.
Rock Paper Scissors 25 @ UMOP

Top 10 reasons why I’m lazy

1) For one thing, I never get around to finishing things I started.

Sperman was a Jerk

Is it just me, or was Superman a total jerk back in the old days? Haha, check out these funny comic book covers and image scans from real comic books from way back when. Linky linky below!

Funny Superhero Book Covers @ Fresh99

Poetry at the Mall

If you’ve ever been to a mid to high end mall, chances are that you have seen one of those advertisement machines that incorporate a hanging projector that project stuff on the floor. Well, I just came across something over in the Make Group that would use something to that sense, but it isn’t interactive like the commercial advertisements. Rather, this is simply a performance piece.

I usually wouldn’t post about a performance piece like this, but this short film just kind of hit me and I don’t really know why. I felt like I was inside the world of the artist, which is exactly what any movie creator/producer/artist wants for his/her viewer. That is an incredibly difficult thing to do to me. I just cant be immersed into a film that easily.

Thats why im posting about this. The movie is meant to be projected onto the floor, so while watching the film, try to imagine yourself standing in the immediate center and seeing all this around you. Oh, and one more thing, try to give this piece your full attention… it definitely deserves it. (Its probably time you took a break from WoW anyways, don’t you think?)

The story comes in two parts : You are alone in the center, suddenly the craziness of this world, crowds, people shouting, emotional impulses. Second part is a ballet, the world is turning, you remain still in the center watching it all. A character, a little lens dances solo and approaches you, … desire … desire … dance … and slowly going away without realization. The crowd moves away, living you by yourself, again.

AVRA _ cinema poetic machine @ Instructables

Interesting Advertising by KFC

KCF has it all figured out. They have been using technology to advertise like never before. I just learned that last year, KFC had a commercial that told the world how to get a free sandwich at any location just by saying a secret password. They even told you the password right in the advertisement…. except for the fact that it was only put in a couple frames of the entire commercial. The only way to figure out the password was to record the advertisement and play it back in slow motion, most easily done with TiVo, or another DVR.

This was great for KFC. For one thing, it singled out a certain group of individuals for the promotion, and whenever this happens, there is ALWAYS going to be people trying to get into this group that otherwise wouldn’t be in there. Even if they really dont want the free sandwich, they want to be able to get into something they otherwise are not able to do. Thats just human nature. So eventually, word got out of the password all across the internet and everyone found it. Now they have a password, and only one thing to do with it. Go get a sandwich, and KFC hopes a drink and some tater’s too.

Another thing that made this a great marketing strategy; it is relatively uncommon. Almost unheard of for real promotions. And what more would geeks want than to tell everyone else about something weird and new about technology? Its that reason that KFC gained a lot of free press across the internet. Just the simple fact that people like to tell other people about interesting stuff. Look at what im writing about right now. Im giving KFC some free press.

Anyways… that was a while back. Im posting about yet another way KFC is using their ultra high paid advertising monkeys to churn out even more evil advertising. They are using the technological fact that younger people are able to hear different tones than older individuals.

This technology has been used in a few situations that I can think of off the top of my head such as cell phone ring tones that teachers couldn’t hear, but the kids could. Also I just saw a review on a device that was supposed to ward off teenagers from certain places that were more adult oriented (The review was horrible btw. It didnt work).

KFC’s new strategy is simple: insert a semi-ultrasonic tone into one of their advertisements. The advertisement looks and sounds completely normal to the elderly ear, but the commercial also says that there is a secret tone located somewhere in the commercial, and the first 1,000 kids to call a certain phone number with the correct location of the advertisement will get a free KFC menu item.

If you catch this commercial on the air and dont have one of your kids around to tell you where the sound is, I have a better idea. Go get your dog, set him by the television, and wait til the advertisement comes on again. When all of a sudden, your canine companion starts going into an epileptic seizure, you can bet that you just found that hidden sound.

Heres the commercial. I could hear that annoying sound perfectly, but just to be fair, this may be due to the video being transcoded into a digital medium. It may actually be a lot harder to hear on the TV.

KFC Mosquito Tone Commercial @ Engadget

Tangible Reactable What What?

Check out this instrument synth device. Aparently made by some hard core geeks.

The reactable is a multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical artefacts on the table surface and constructing different audio topologies in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

Reactable [Via DialyCupOfTech]