Tunnel Links New York To London

I must go and see this the next time I go to London. Basically, a long tunnel across the world filled with mirrors makes an image from London go all the way across the ocean to New York. It was designed by a rather creative artist and inventor named Paul St George, and it is called a Telectroscope.

It was possibly the most laborious and least informative interview ever
conducted. It took about five minutes, yielded a one-word answer, and gave
little real flavour of the subject.

Still - it was conducted using two
whiteboards, two marker pens, and it was done over a distance of 3,471 miles
(5,585 km). How? Well there are two answers to that.

If you believe
artist and inventor Paul St George then his "Telectroscope" connects New York
and London via a (very) long tunnel running through the earth's crust, with the
images bouncing back and forth using mirrors.

The other explanation is
that it is all done by optical fibres - take your pick. One end of the "tunnel"
emerges next to Tower Bridge on the banks of the Thames in London - the other is
next to Brooklyn Bridge on the banks of New York's East River.

It looks
like something HG Wells might have imagined. Each end has a giant telescope-like
construction which appears to punch its way out of the earth. There are dials,
and levers, and thermometer gauges on the side of the 20m long brass and wood
construction.

Peer into it and you can see people on the other side of
the Atlantic. Wave at them, they wave back at you. Write on the whiteboard, and
ask a question, and they will write back.

[via BBC news, photo, original website]

My BAJD Contribution

I know this is a day late, but I had to contribute and I couldn't get myself to write this post yesterday. Anyway, I liked the style Kinzi took when she wrote her post, so I will try and use it as well. I always have to add the humorous twist to the thing, so here it is.

• Where else is there a place with a name mistaken for a basketball player?
• Where else would you find the traditional meal made from dried yoghurt, rice and meat?
• Where else would you find the rarest type of humans, the cheating, lying, thieving, ugly, single-celled-brained taxi drivers?
• Where else could you get anything you wanted if you walked into a shop and ranted like a man possessed?
• Where else would a country's national television station get the lowest audience ever?
• Where else would you find such bad customer service and quality and such rude and incompetent customer service staff?
• Where else would having a 'wasta' or not could lead to your life or death?
• Where else would you find such a wide range of socially acceptable options once you've finished school - '6ib aw handaseh'?
• Where else would you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of a weddings gunfire?
• Where else would you use your car horn more?
• Where else would there be a national holiday because it was supposed to snow?

Welcome to Jordan! And if anyone has another one, feel free to add it in the comments section.

Xbox Live

Playing on the internet with other real people is something that has revolutionised the industry of gaming. These days, multi player functionality is a must when reviewing a game, and it counts just as much as the single player part of it.

Xbox Live delivers a rather unique experience of multiplayer gaming to the Xbox gamer, and is rather different from other networks. As Xbox 360 users have their own profiles, these are used as the gamers users and are carried from game to game without any configuration.

Friends can be added to parties and clans, and from here the player can move with his party from one game to another, all under the comminucation of the headset. Voice messages can also be sent to players even when they are offline.

When out of games, the Xbox Marketplace offers a wide selection of games, videos and expansions to choose from. Game demos are always available for free and other items are bought by Microsoft Points, although I haven't tried buying anything.

All in all, Xbox Live is one essential addition to the Xbox 360 that makes it superior to the other consoles. Although I may not agree with having to pay for it, I do look forward to renewing my subscription.

Lego Mindstorms NXT

Building robots is fun, but only for those with scrap metal and breadboards and soldering irons. People who don't have those are usually left out, and I guess Lego knew it was the perfect company to change the stereotype of robots and robotics.

Although I've never tried any other simple robotics kit, I can say that the Lego Mindstorms NXT kit is a masterpiece. The amount of effort and quality that was placed into the making of the kit is incredible.

The combination of Lego pieces, with four sensors and three motors, all attached to a programmable block named the NXT is what makes this kit work well. Firstly you build the robot, attaching parts together in any design that comes to your head, including the sensors in places you choose.

Next, you build a suitable program on your computer, by moving blocks that initiate commands in a sequence. The program is transferred to the NXT by a USB cable, or Bluetooth. The robot performs your commands accordingly, and you then get the chance to improve on your design and program.

Of course there are a few design schematics that come with the kit so you can build your own without having to think up of a design by yourself. Generally, robots designs are divided into vehicles - robots that move using wheels like cars, machines - robots that don't move like cranes and humanoids - robots that walk in a human like motion.

I made a crane machine, the one pictured above, using the schematics that Lego provided with the kit. Of course I modified the program a bit, but what it basically does is move a ball from one pod to the other. It uses a touch sensor mounted on the claws to sense the presence of the ball. The great thing is, I can easily break it apart and build something else!

It picks up the ball

It moves to the right

It drops the ball

CBS 60 Minutes Excerpt

I saw this a few days ago on 360east. This is a segment from the 60 Minutes program presented by Bob Simon, where he talks about why a two state solution cannot be formed between Palestine and Israel - because neither side wants it. A very interesting video, click on the photo to see it.

[via 360east]

A Visit From Kinzi

I guess my mother had been trying to plan this almost a year ago, but neither of us could get to it because either one was too busy. To be honest, last year was a very busy and hectic year, and although this year is destined to be even worse and yet more stressful, me and my great mother decided we would use the last day of the mid year holiday to invite Kinzi to our house, in return for our visit last year.

To sum it up, the visit was a great opportunity to meet another blogger and to practice my English. I must say I have a rather strange British accent that I can seem to understand but will only work well in England. It was funny that we didn't talk much about blogging, and the subjects went from school exams to scouts events. Nevertheless, I enjoyed meeting Kinzi and her family alot.

And of course, no visit would be complete without me and Spikekid trying our hardest to socialise, Kinzi's eldest son that is just a year younger than me. You must understand that at the teenage age it is much easier to talk through an Xbox 360 controller than through words. Even though, it was much fun fighting terror on Rainbow Six Vegas with another teenager. Grunt, grunt.