The Sleepless Nerd

Daily Haiku

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:52:00 -0700

Patience is my strength

I wait without complaining

How long is too long?

Daily Haiku

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:19:00 -0700

Tasty perfection

Smooth, thick, the texture of bliss

Chocolate milk, please!

Daily Haiku

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 8 Aug 2011 14:03:00 -0700

Darkness swallows light

Light pushes back the darkness

Cycle Eternal

Daily Haiku

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Fri, 5 Aug 2011 09:23:00 -0700

For twenty-eight years

I have walked upon this road

Where will it lead now?

Daily Haiku

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Thu, 4 Aug 2011 10:19:00 -0700

Shackled to a desk

The soul, oppressed, needs rescue

Lolcats* for the win!

*pronounced lawl-cats. Seriously.

It means these.

Daily Haiku

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Tue, 2 Aug 2011 09:56:00 -0700

Summer rears its head

The orb of fire sears my flesh

Bring back winter's sleep

Daily Haiku

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 1 Aug 2011 14:16:00 -0700

Sadness reigns today

The words, they are not flowing

I put down the pen

Daily Haiku

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 1 Aug 2011 11:44:00 -0700

I've started writing a haiku on my whiteboard at work every morning. Thought this would be a good place to keep track of them. Here's the batch thus far:

Fear random haiku

They can consume human souls

Yours is surely next

See the trunk monkey

He lies in wait for car theft

Fear his monkey wrath

A butterfly's wings

Start typhoons accross the world

What then of Man's hands?

At the rainbow's end

Sits a tiny man in green

Steal his lucky charms!

Sleep is for the weak

Yet morning is the devil

I embrace weakness

Most awesome waste of paper ever.

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:25:00 -0700

This is a game that was rigged up using a thermal paper printer to provide a track, a light projector to provide the player car, a PS3 controller for user input, and a laptop to link all three. Pretty crazy, check it out:

receipt racer from d_effekt on Vimeo.

Epic.

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Wed, 1 Dec 2010 10:04:00 -0800

Laying a brick road - inkjet style.

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 09:35:00 -0800

This is a video of a crazy machine that is used to lay brick roads. Check it out.

How to fix Pavilion DV8t wireless button and volume slider issues

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 17:17:00 -0800

As an owner of a HP Pavilion DV8 laptop, I have generally been very pleased with the product. After a few months, however, I began experiencing a strange issue: the capacitive buttons for the wireless internet and the bass/treble slider would occasionally actuate themselves, cutting off internet access and sending the volume into a hissy-fit. This seemed to happen most frequently when moving the laptop, leading me to believe it was a hardware issue.

After extensive troubleshooting, google searching, and HP support chats, there didn't seem to be any improvement, and the issue still seemed to be hardware based. Just before resigning myself to sending the machine to HP for repair, I found a suggestion buried in a large thread on a message board, which I decided to try out. After a couple of days, I'm happy to report that it's working beautifully!

As it turns out, theres a wire under the keyboard that needs to be in contact with the ground plate, and by default is not actually fastened to it in any way, but depends on pressure from the components above. If the laptop is shifted in such a way that the wire loses contact with that plate for a moment, the problem triggers. Poor design? Yes. The good news is that it's easily fixed! Here's how:

Firstly, follow the instructions in this document to remove the keyboard. At that point you should be looking at something like this:

The red box indicates the wire mentioned above. A better view is here:

All that is needed is to secure the foil above to the plate just below it. I used masking tape, and everything seems to be working perfectly.

A word of warning though: when removing the speaker plate, do not try to pry the silver side plates of the machine away to facilitate the process, as the clasps that hold it in place are very delicate. I have a broken piece of plastic bouncing off of my cooling fan now and then, and its a bit disconcerting. Worth it though, for a working touch panel.

Good luck on your efforts, and comment below if you find this helpful :-)

The altered passage of time... explained?

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 14:17:00 -0800

According to Einstein, an object moving at phenomenal speed would experience a slowing in the passage of time. For example, a person aboard a spaceship moving at very high speeds would return home to find that much more time would have passed on the ground than he had experienced aboard the ship.

I propose the compliment is also true: objects moving exceptionally slowly will experience MORE time than those moving at a normal pace. This would, for example, explain why a human mind BORED TO A STATE OF NEAR TOTAL ENTROPY would experience far more time than normal, to the point that 2:16 on a tuesday afternoon feels like it should be 5:00 ON FRIDAY!!!

Equally awesome but more readable watch

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Tue, 2 Nov 2010 15:20:00 -0700

This watch is great as well. I'm not sure how I feel about the overall form factor, but the dial itself is fantastic. The idea is that the hands are joined into a single line, with the thick end marking hours and the thin end minutes. Simple, and perfect. More pics at the source, click the pic.

Awesome unreadable watch

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Tue, 2 Nov 2010 15:10:00 -0700

I love this watch. You can be certain that when you can use it to tell time at a glance and no one else can see diddly, all bystanders will be suitably impressed. Click the pic below for more details.

All that idle time to say this:

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 1 Nov 2010 13:52:00 -0700

The left earlobes of mankind will be removed to sate the hunger of the giant space weasel. That is all.

So cool.

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:02:00 -0800

This just in:

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:52:00 -0800

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

Its true you know.

:-)

The future is here! Laser mosquito defense!

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:04:00 -0800

Whats more entertaining on a Friday night than sitting on the porch and watching the bug zapper? How about a system that fries up to 100 mosquitoes per second, MID-FLIGHT, with **LASERS**. Yeah.

Video below, but if you're a filthy mosquito sympathizer you may be disturbed. And you'll deserve it.

Robots are better than you. At the rubik's cube.

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:54:00 -0800

Unless you are the world record holder with a seven second solve, the Lego Mindstorm robot below probably has you beat. I'm not sure if I should be more jealous of the robot's solve time or of the robot's owner.

Robots will be killing you shortly.

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:37:00 -0800

Well, some idiot has given the machines the ability to make art. They can take a picture of you, and then sketch your portrait. The human race is officially obsolete. Check out the vid below for evidence of your impending demise.

Metroid... Is that you?

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Tue, 2 Feb 2010 22:27:00 -0800

Metroid, my beloved Metroid, is this whats become of you? I... I dont know what to say...

Video Games | Metroid: Other M | E3 09: Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

The future of desktop interaction?

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:26:00 -0800

This is a video about a possible direction that desktop interaction could go with the recent rise of multitouch technology. Take a look, I think it's got the right idea.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

WANT.

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:04:00 -0800

USB driven and powered secondary laptop monitor. What else is there to say? Check it out.

Quality engineering at work

gmoff01@gmail.com (Dave Solheim) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:37:00 -0800

This is an example of some very well thought out engineering. You know those LED traffic lights that are popping up everywhere? Nice and bright with a really low power draw? Well guess what? That low power draw means that the bulbs no longer produce heat. THAT means that the traffic lights don't melt the snow that drifts into them, an issue that was never a problem with the horrendously inefficient and hot running incandescent lamps. This means that the colder states are now seeing crashes, and apparently even one fatality, as a result of the snow blocked lights. Fun!