There’s a lot of buzz on the popular, tech blogs about the new T-2 amplifier from Neuhaus Labs.  It’s built on vacuum tubes and hand-wound transformers.  I’ve got about 14 years [at the time of writing this post] in the Pro Audio and Video manufacturing industries, so naturally, I was very curious to look at the T-2.  Short answer:  It’s a WIN!  Here’s my opinion.

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America’s entire science-fiction history is full of stories warning of a dystopian future where books are outlawed, art is destroyed, and the punishment for reading poetry is death.  Who thought that having “electronics books” was a good idea?  Not me, and here’s the proof:

Talk about irony. In an Orwellian moment, owners of Amazon’s Kindle discovered that their recently purchased copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm had been deleted by Amazon. Apparently, a third-party retailer who specializes in selling public-domain books used Amazon’s self-service platform to sell copies of two Orwell titles. Unfortunately, those books aren’t public domain in the U.S.A.

So, with a kindle, “they” can reach out and remove books from your possession.  Sounds a little like depriving you of your property without due process.  Here it comes.  It’s starting to happen for real.  This is the warning sign.  We’re already suckers for DRM crap and DCMA garbage; we can’t copy, move, lend, or basically use anything we pay for and own.

But there’s a flip side.  It turns out that, as usual, we are our own worst enemies.  Society has bred a kind of soccer mom criminal.  It’s become socially acceptable to simply go to a Torrent website and illegally download copyrighted material whenever it suits us.  Music, movies, books, games, and software.  Shoot, if young women could illegally download pregnancy, I’m sure they would.

So, the bad news is that we will end up creating the Firemen or Grammaton Clerics ourselves.  It won’t be government, but private corporations.  Think about it, who wants to get rid of your rights the most?  Is it your job, or the government?  The Government that we always seem to fear is by the people and for the people; the Government is ourselves (at least for now).  But what is the government becoming?  It’s becoming privatized.  We already know that huge corporations buy our politicians.  Since Corporations are running America, maybe we should be concerned about them being “big brother.”  Perhaps they already are:

At Work, here’s what happens:

1. Someone accuses you of doing something wrong to your boss.
2. Your boss didn’t like you anyway, and the accuser is kind of cute.
3. The boss concludes whether or not you are guilty.
4. You are not informed about the specifics of the charge.
5. You are not allowed to know who accused you.
6. You are not allowed to cross examine witnesses.
7. You are not allowed to examine evidence.
8. You have no representation.
9. You are terminated by a pink slip; it’s the first you’ve heard of it.
10. You realize you should have joined a union.

Man, at least with the government, you get some kind of fair shot.

Anyways, these dystopian book-burning warnings come in all shapes and sizes.  Pay attention to them!  Some of my favorites are Equilibrium, Idiocracy, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Gattaca, V for Vendetta, I Robot, The Matrix, Metropolis, and Animal Farm.

Source: SHIFT

It’s a SteamPunk, SteamPump, StinkPunk, some kind of comic or graphic novel…  Anyways, this guy’s trying his hand at making himself a SteamPunk style comic.  The website [is GONE] shows several panels, but the comic itself seems incomplete; it looks like an active work-in-progress.

However, I did enjoy watching the video below the panels that showed a time-lapse sequence of the creation process; quite amusing, especially when the artist changes his mind.  You can see a strong Anime influence as well, but what are we trying to say with “stinkpump”?  Somebody let me know when it’s done so I can do a proper WIN/FAIL review.  Good luck finding my e-mail address…

Greetings Professor…

This is cool no matter who you are.  Nice chess set with vacuum tubes that apparently light up when they are placed into the sockets on the board.  Very nice.  However, after a close look at the photos, it appears that LEDs are doing the actual illumination.  Well, I guess 20kV of filament voltage would burn the fingers.

This wonderful vacuum tube chess set, by maker Paul Fryer, actually has electricity running inside the board so that the tubes can draw power and glow as you move them from square to square. It is called, somewhat appropriately, Chess Set for Tesla, and Paul actually made seven sets last year.

From: WIRED

This is just plain cool no matter who you are.  I love Nixie tubes.

There’s no shortage of retro clocks using those gorgeous nixie tubes, but this one’s different. It mixes the 60s-era Eastern European IN-14 time-telling tubes with a serial GPS receiver that keeps its accuracy rock-solid. In addition to that modern wizardry, it also incorporates clever tube-saving features, such as programmable on-and-off times, along with a routine that displays a scrolling date across the tubes to prevent burn-in.

From dvice.com

Impressive…  Take a handful of fat capacitors (probably 500uF to 800uF each) and hook them up to an electromagnetic coil; make a stylish weapon.  Now, the typical muzzle velocity of a handgun is about 1200km/h, whereas this gun only fires at 110km/h; so it won’t kill you, but it’ll hurt like Hell.  By the way, real rail guns supposedly fire aluminum projectiles at relativistic speeds (near the speed of light), which is why you only see them in science fiction.

Daniel Eindhoven is talented designer who created this  cool  coil  gun. It took around 40 hours to finish this outstanding job. It weights 5 Kg and, capable of delivering over 18J kinetic energy, and speeds up to 110km/h . This  weird coil gun has  laser pointer for easy aiming and it costs around 100 Euros. It needs 8 seconds to fire a projectile if is connected to  power source or 90 seconds with batteries. It is really impressive, I’m not a gun lover but this one is really made with creativity. You may also would like to check this Swiss mini gun, the smallest gun in the world.

From thecontaminated.com

I was right!  As warned in my previous post, the Russian’s are proudly gearing up their Soviet attitudes, as evidenced in this year’s Victory Day parade.  This Soviet veteran (along with his fellow comrades) was not only photographed at the celebration in Red Square, but he’s toasting with Vodka to honor the modern Russian military.

Do you see that patch on his arm?  That’s CCCP (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик) along with the Soviet Union Navy ensign flag.  Now, why would he be toasting the (non-Soviet) Russian military?  Hmmm…?  Maybe his new comrades are “like-minded.”

I’m just kidding. I love this old guy. Look at all those honors hanging from his uniform. That’s one salty sailor who has seen a lot of serious shit. And I promise you, he made it because of his political and moral training. Good job. High-5!

Seen in the parade photos are MiG-29 and Su-27 Fighters, Ilyushin Il-78 Tankers, Tu-95 and Tu-160 Bombers, Topol-M Missile Launchers, Msta-S Howitzers, T-90 Tanks, BTR-90 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Ka-50 Attack Helicopters, Sprut-SD Tank Destroyers, and of course Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Tons of great pictures from this year’s Victory Day parade.

I’m open to allowing someone “special” to blog with me.  And by “special”, I don’t mean that you’re the Marine who rode the short-tank…

• Spend thousands of man-hours tearing your hair out looking for SteamPunk or other cool material to blog about.
• Enjoy vast disappointment as you realize you can’t make squat with Google AdSense.
• One-Up that Dr. Warthan idiot genius by showing us your superior intellect.
• Impress people of any gender or non-gender identity and get laid and/or respect.
• Freely use foul language, such as [expletive deleted] and [expletive deleted].
• Get even with that Geekologie bastard writer who didn’t want you on his team.
• Freely express yourself (freedom of expression subject to censorship).
• Get a BS title, such as Doctor, Professor, Mistress, or whatever toats your goat.
• Have a real hobby that contributes to the community so that you can finally stop playing World of Warcraft.

Since I mentioned AdSense.  The bone I will throw is this:  As the blogger, you can put your own ads into your own posts you can swallow sadness and work for no incentive; and as an added bonus, I’ll throw in an ad box for you on the side-bar.  I already have a thing in that works with AdSense for multiple contributors, and I can accommodate other stuff as well.

Interested?  Figure out how to send a message to me, because that’s the entry exam…

A more in-depth look at the upcoming must-see movie.

If 9 is unfamiliar to you, check my original post.

As an IT professional, this is just the funniest thing ever.  Best of all, it’s all true… Yeah, it’s a little old-school, but still completely relevant.