DDI at How To Destroy The Universe Part 6

Filed Under Events, Fire, Fire Art, News, SF Bay Area, Video | 2009-04-27, 17:25

Dance Dance Immolation - Inches from fire

On Saturday, we pulled Dance Dance Immolation out of storage for the first time in almost two years, dusted it off and got it running again. The event was “How To Destroy the Universe Part 6”, an industrial party held at the new NIMBY location in Oakland. We ran one of the longest and most problem-free runs in the history of DDI. BoingBoingTV came and filmed and we had a chance to shoot the infamous sfslim with fire. We also got to shoot fire at several Noisebridge members, the newest blogger for Laughing Squid (Burstein), and a bunch of others. Many photos and videos were taken. My photos can be found in this Flickr set and this album on Vimeo.

If you’ve never seen Dance Dance Immolation, here’s what it looks like in action:

One of my personal favorite photos of the night was captured by Audrey while I was practicing my Fire Art DJ skills:

More photos and videos:

Amazing Landing After Plane Engine Dies

Filed Under Video | 2009-04-22, 17:13

Want to see the correct way to make an emergency landing? Watch from two different views as the engine cuts out and the pilot calmly makes a landing on the highway amidst the occasional profanity.

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How To Take Apart the Flip Video Ultra

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Geek | 2009-04-13, 12:50

Flip Video Ultra Camera with Macbook Pro

I love the idea of the Flip Video cameras.I bought a Flip Video Ultra last year and it has served me quite well. It’s small enough that it’s easy to carry around for those random moments when you wish you had a video camera. It’s cheap enough to not worry about taking it places where it could get absolutely destroyed. And it has enough space (60minutes) to record quite a bit of video.

However when I was doing some video for the 2009 Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight I noticed that the power switch was not sliding as easily as I remembered and would occasionally stick and cause problems when I needed to quickly turn the camera on and start recording. I figured it was just dirty so I’d open it up and clean it. I didn’t want to just start pulling stuff apart as I’ve broken many a plastic tab with this method. I did a quick search to see if there were any tear-down guides for disassembling the Flip Video camera, but came up short. I did find this video which was helpful, but also difficult to flip back and forth through. So here’s my quick photo guide to dismantling should you want to clean things, modify the LED, microphone, or whatever.

[Show as slideshow]

Unfortunately after all that disassembling and reassembling my power switch was still sticking. A couple loosening turns of the screw closest to the power switch was actually all the solution I needed. It was still interesting to take a look at the guts of my trusty Flip though.

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Zenta’s A-Pod Hexapod Robot

Filed Under Art, Geek, Video | 2009-04-08, 12:35

After seeing the video of Zenta’s hexapod in action I just had to share it. It’s design, fluid movement, and lifelike qualities make it absolutely beautiful. The video just had me saying “wow” every few seconds whether it was picking up a can of soda and not getting thrown off balance, or being dexterous enough to pour a glass of water. As my friend Neil put it, “This robot is so lifelike, it will either have you cooing with delight or running away screaming.”

The creator, Zenta, is no stranger to hexapods or robots, having quite the robot family. If you’re more interested in the construction and parts of the A-Pod, check out his post which is chock full of great photos and how-to info.

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