How to: Make your own Blu Ray Player

After Chris and his technical assistant Jitu created a high definition speaker with nothing more than a paper plate, some foil, and a shiny penny, I started looking for other projects they could build. Here's one I think they can handle...



Here's how you can build a Blu-Ray player with some stuff you can probably find around the house. Making your own high definition DVD player for your home theater is always a fun project for a rainy day.

Here's what you'll need:

1 Record Player
1 Laser Pointer
3 shards of glass
A VCR
Some crazy glue
A roll of dental floss

1) Crack open the VCR and remove any parts that look unnecessary. A hammer works best.

2) Remove the needle from the record player and replace it with the laser pointer using the crazy glue.

3) Glue the three shards of glass together and then attach them to the laser pointer lens.

4)Here's where the magic happens. Glue the ends of three pieces of dental floss to the glass. Then glue the other ends to the video outputs of the VCR. Dental floss is actually a great carrier of high definition video signals.

5) Glue the record player to the top of the VCR and your Blu Ray player is complete! Just plug it in and hook it up to the TV.

Optional: Tape down the button on the laser pointer or you'll have to hold it while watching movies.

Add this to your paper plate speaker system and you'll be watching movies like you never have before.

Join us next time when we create a sub-woofer using a trashcan and some rubber bands.

Going Paintballing

Let's hope this doesn't happen to one of us...

Ducktales For Nintendo (1989)

I know that this is random but I got to thinking about old video games that were a lot of fun. This was one of my all-time favorite video games. Duck Tales for the original Nintendo was created by Capcom back in 1989. It brings back memories when computers were simpler and video game consoles couldn't rely on graphics so they were judged on the overall value of the game (the funness). Games now a days don't seem to be as fun. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy playing XBOX 360 games, but the enjoyability of the games just aren't where they use to be...

Perhaps sometime later this month or next month I'll compile a list of my favorite video games growing up until right now.

It's late and I'm going to bed!

Pirates of Silicon Valley (Apple vs. Microsoft)

Pirates of Silicon Valley, released in 1999, was a docudrama about how personal computers, as we know them today, were founded. This film depicts the inception of personal computers and the rivalry between Apple Computers and Microsoft Corporation. The film takes place in the early 70's on the campuses of Berkley (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak), and Harvard (Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer). The movie shows some of the experiences that they endured during college as well as the struggles of coming to the forefront of the household computing industry. Personally I really like how they touched on Wozniak's passion for technical jokes and their encounter with John "Captain Crunch" Draper, famous for his contribution to phone phreaking in the 70's.

Watch Pirates of Silicon Valley (Full Length Movie)

Halo One: Combat Evolved (Conquered after six years)

Shane let me borrow the first Halo last Tuesday so I could begin my Halo quest. I'm happy to say that the original Halo has been knocked out (I know... I know... just shy of 6 years later). To be honest other than a single 5 minute multiplayer match of Halo 2 in college I've never actually played Halo. I never really got why people enjoyed the game so much. Almost immediately after putting the game in I felt as though I understood. It's been a long time since I've actually enjoyed a games storyline. Throughout the entirety of the game it kept me wanting more.

Tomorrow Shane is bringing his copy of Halo 2 into work and I will begin the second part of this trilogy. Hopefully I will be able to get into Halo 3 and try and unlock some of the achievements. Until then multiplayer is keeping me very much occupied.

MySpace Gets A Facelift (Fighting With Facebook... Keeping "Web 2.0"?)

I was checking MySpace.com and noticed that after many many years they have finally given themselves a noticeable facelift. Perhaps they are trying to keep up with Facebook.com.




Over the past few months we have sat back and watched Facebook dominate the social networking arena with intriguing applications, an intuitive iPhone interface, a nearly complete customizable dashboard and advanced privacy settings... (not to say that anything you do on a social networking site isn't being monitored by big brother).

One key difference I have noticed between updates from the two kings of social networking is that Facebook tends to make smoother site transitions. Where as when MySpace releases a new update it's no surprise to find bizarre browser compatibility issues or unexpected site behavior throughout the site. Granted MySpace offers far more customizable design elements (e.g., ability to inject JS, HTML, CSS, SWF, etc...). This latest code push by MySpace is no exception.

(Note that there are some CSS design issues on this internal navigation)

Either way it is nice to see MySpace taking some initiative and not relying on the current popularity of the site to maintain users' interest. Perhaps the number one killer of high traffic and popular sites is a companies or designers failure to keep current.

iPhone (Off The Dominion Plan)

Apparently there was some confusion at work where my company phone had a plan of just 500 minutes and no text messaging. Ooops! This phone was used as both a personal line as well as business, kind of a perk for being on call 24/7. Did I mention that I received in excess of 1,000 text messages on average from work alone? Well since I no longer am able to use the company phone as a personal line I decided to go out and get my own plan . What phone did I get (As if the title doesn't speak for itself)... obviously the iPhone (kind of late post I've had the phone for about a month now). Strange to think that a cell phone can actually be helpful outside of brief calls. Let's take a quick look at the past... First there were the 15 pound mobile phones, then arrived light weight black and white phones, and then color. Well we've been stuck with essentially the same basic cell phone for the past 6 plus years. I look forward to seeing what other manufacturers come up with now.

Ok... this isn't what I was referring to Verizon. What the hell were you thinking?!?



Apple recently released a large upgrade v1.1.1 which made some visual enhancements, built in iTunes, and some other features that enhance the already extremely intuitive user interface.

So to sum it up WTF was I thinking using any other phone!