December 30, 2009 by admin.

http://napkinfoldingsecrets.com/

 Some awesome shapes done with simple dinner napkins, makes for a great presentation.

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December 26, 2009 by admin.

Given to me at the same time as the Sam Blumenthal article is this article of Eldridge Tucker, I had never heard of him before but I love reading about the players and action. This one is harder to read since the copy quality wasn’t the greatest, if you have any questions about the text let me know and I will do what I can.

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December 26, 2009 by admin.

Was given an article recently about the best player ever to live in Jacksonville Florida, Mr. Sam Blumenthal. He was quite before my time here but many fondly remember him and his ability to play, many tell stories of his masterful play and inimitable style. The pictures are hard to read but if you zoom in it’s easily read. Hope you enjoy it like I did!!

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December 17, 2009 by admin.

Some footage of waves from the storms earlier this month, these are from Jaws Beach on Maui.

Canon 5D Mark II Slow Motion + Jaws ( Peahi ) 12-7-09 from iamkalaniprince on Vimeo.

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December 14, 2009 by admin.

Just found an article about the company I used to work for selling solar water heaters, I am glad to have left when I did since it seems they have had even more setbacks since I left and now this.

clicky clicky

Solar water heaters are great and there are many perks with saving money being a key factor, but the way things were done just didn’t make me comfortable so I left the job. This article is about a lying salesperson and is a bad representation on all sales people, this man could have been in any industry and brought shame to it. He straight out lied to this lady and I feel bad for it, especially since it was from our branch and I probably met this person.

Can’t wait to volunteer at a hospital and turn this Karmic wheel around!!

January 13th 2010 Edit: here is another article about the guy who opened and trained the sales staff for Solar First and it’s sub-contractors, it’s a shame because the guy is super talented and extremely smart. Sigh, if only we could use our powers for good instead of evil!!

click me

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December 11, 2009 by admin.

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December 11, 2009 by admin.

Just got off the phone with Baptist Downtown, which is where I stayed mostly for the corrective neurosurgery when I was paralyzed, and will be receiving an application in the mail shortly so that I can register to volunteer. This idea came to me last night as I was laying in bed watching TV as usual wondering just what I had become and how to make things better, I think I was  watching “My Name is Earl” which is about Karma and doing the right things in life.

I’ve been looking at their list of opportunities to volunteer and it seems that they need quite a bit of help, I hope they can use me.

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December 10, 2009 by admin.

Earlier today I watched a special on PBS about 6 Torrance High School students that had a project to learn about Takayuki (Ted) Tanouye from the 442nd since there was to be a monument erected for the most decorated student from their high school. When I lived and worked in Los Angeles I passed by but never visited the Go For Broke National Monument in Little Tokyo regretfully, now it will be the first thing I will go to when returning to California. These men went from being basically a prisoner of war in their own homes to becoming the most decorated unit in World War 2 when given the chance to fight for their country, the United States of America.

It was a very meaningful program for me since it showed how after Pearl Harbor all Japanese-Americans were put in interment camps yet many men volunteered to fight for the country that was treating them as the enemy. It showed how the Japanese from Hawaii differed and didn’t necessarily get along with the Japanese from the mainland US all the way to the way they were discriminated against returning from war after serving for their country.

~Wikipedia articles~

The 442nd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)

Ted Tanouye: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_T._Tanouye

Please take the time to watch the videos and read a little, the PBS special was especially good and contained very valuable information in addition to the websites and links I listed. Hope you have a chance to watch the program and that it will lift your spirits like it did mine, life is definitelyhard these days but nothing compared to going from an internment camp to the front line for a country that treated you as the enemy.

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December 9, 2009 by admin.

Gizmodo article: http://gizmodo.com/5422405/this-robot-jedi-will-literally-blow-your-mind

Jesusrollerbladinginspandexchrist-alive. I’ve watched this video of a robot jedi—making all kinds of objects float across complex paths in midair—about ten times, and I still can’t believe what I’m seeing. But it’s 100% real, and as impressive as BigDog.

The Airbot doesn’t use any magic, just a computer-controlled gimbaled air jet, “powered by a 620kPa using a direct current motor-controlled valve.” Which to me sounds like magic, but whatever.

It has been developed at the University of Illinois by Aaron Becker and Robert Sandheinrich, helped by professor Timothy Bretl. The air-stream can lift any spherical and non-spherical object up to 188 grams and 97mm in radius. That includes a ping-pong ball, a bottle of water, an apple, an orange, or an onion—which will get peeled too.

It seems like an April’s Fool, but the “Automated Manipulation of Spherical Objects in Three Dimensions Using a Gimbaled Air Jet” was officially presented at IROS 2009, The 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent RObots and Systems. According to their research paper, it could be used to sort small parts or handle delicate objects in production lines.

***Wikipedia explanation of “gimbal” since I didn’t know what it meant, pretty interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal

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