Al Gritzmacher's Blogosphere

Spent the day following some of the FIRST Regional competitions online again. The Toronto Regional was fun to watch because I know so many of the teams. But in typical internet fashion, after the lunch break, the feed went to crap.

It started out with a good feed, the video was clear as can be expected, but you could tell it was a token effort by Discovery.ca. One camera angle that never changed and the audio went on and off like they just cranked up a noise gate. Nothing kills the excitement of a robotics match like silence whenever the announcer isn’t talking.

(I read a posting on Chief Delphi, an unofficial FIRST robotics forum, that the TV crews had been cut back drastically due to economic cutbacks. They were probably lucky to get them there at all. Many of the regional video coverage isn’t done professionally at all, just put up on ustream or Stickam.)

But once they got into the final rounds, the connection got really spotty. The video was so bad you couldn’t see anything in the score area and the robots were blurry. That is when you got it at all. I switched to the Palmetto Regional for a while just because it was watchable. They were being fed out of Clemson Univ. and the quality was better. They had the same woman announcer as we had at Philadelphia. Continue Reading…

I spent the day as I probably will spend much of tomorrow, watching several FIRST Robotics competitions online. As you may or may not know, I am a Mentor, or advisor, to our local High School’s robotics team, The Warlocks. We have been part of the program since 2005 and before that were half of a joint, two-school team.

Take a stupid toy that I might buy to play with a puppy, and make it the center of a game that 1800 high school teams are set to play. What happens? Well, the entire stock of the toy instantly disappeared. The only outlet, Wal-Mart sold out in days and the manufacturer, importer, actually, had no plans to have more made. But, FIRST must have procured enough in advance to ensure the tournaments would go on. Continue Reading…

The only thing weirder than Americans is how the rest of the world perceives us.

Two stories from Germany’s Der Speigel online illustrate this. Both have a really weird way of paying tribute to Barack Obama. Above, in an article about traditional “falla” sculptures in Valencia Spain, they show Obama as a bride, being courted by other world leaders.

The other one is a story about a totally politically-incorrect product that actually came out in Germany – Obama Fingers. Read about it here.

Tech Support. Technically, it’s support, but in reality, it’s not much help. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. I think they try to discourage you from getting any resolution to what they assume is a perceived problem. Heaven can help you if your problem is real.

My DSL modem is sick. It’s getting old. I’ve had it since 2001. The only time it gets a break is when the power goes out. It’s a Westell, which meant nothing to me when I got it and means little more now. A beige piece of plastic with some blinky lights on it that sits on a desk near a computer and winks at us non-stop. The case is discolored in the middle, both bottom and top by it’s own self-generated heat. I picked it up the other day and it rattles. Should it rattle? I don’t think so. Continue Reading…

It’s definitely going to change how people look at us, if we go around wearing these things…

The Future Now: Sixth Sense Technology May Change How We Look at the World Forever.

So how DO we decide which toilet paper to buy, without one?

I wonder if these people could tell me how to make our robot follow a colored square with it’s camera?

It kind of reminds me of the jokes that went around – A guy goes into a bar and he sticks his thumb into his ear and his pinky in front of his mouth and starts talking.

“What are you doing” asks a guy at the bar. “Oh, I’m talking on my bionic cell phone implant.”

We won’t get to the punch line here, but it involves the rest room, toilet paper and printing a fax.

Maybe we should choose our toilet paper by whether it’s for ink-jet or laser…

I recently ordered an item online. I do that every once in a while and have become pretty comfortable doing so. Usually, I get an email to confirm the order and they are usually pretty dry. This one, though, was great, so I thought I’d share it with you.

The merchandise I ordered was pretty mundane, but the place that I found with what I needed, at the best price, was one of those knife places that sell everything from tasers to nunchucks, to pepper spray, as well as knives. I was only ordering some replacement rubber bands for my wrist-rocket slingshot, which I use to put lines up into trees to hold up antennas. The slingshot has a fishing reel mounted on it and you shoot the sinker over a branch to pull up a rope.

Reading their site, I found out that my wrist-rocket slingshot is considered in New York State to be a dangerous weapon and is a misdemeanor to own! Well, I hope with the fishing reel attached, it is clearly a tool, not a weapon and I don’t intend to let that stop me.

Here’s the order confirmation I received. It’s a hoot. Sensitive information has been changed, but otherwise it is untouched. Continue Reading…

I came across an article from the Orange County (Texas) Record with this interesting title: T.O. exiled to NFL’s Siberia (Buffalo)

And the players for the Vikings and in Green Bay are doing what? Sitting under palm trees, drinking pina coladas? Chicago is known as the windy city. What, a few Lake Effect snowflakes is worse those -20 windchills?

Once again Buffalo, where it’s been in the 40-50s more int the past two weeks than below 32, and flooding is more of a problem than drifting, we’re the victims again of this unjustified stereotype. Continue Reading…