Really Rocket Science

If you’re still haunted by the stellar filmmaking in The Dark Knight and need a little more superhero in your life, this week’s DIY Friday is for you.

For a quick and easy project that’ll add some unique decoration to your home/office, check out this LED Bat-signal.

With just a couple of bottle caps, some tin-foil and a cheap LED laptop light, you’ll be good to go.

For the more ambitious DIY-er, check out this guy’s full scale replica of the batmobile.

In the pantheon of awesome fan art, Bob Dullam holds a place of high regard after his work on a full scale, working Tumbler replica from the movies Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Constructed in his two-car garage with little more than pictures and the extra features from the DVD, Bob has built for himself the single baddest piece of driveway candy ever to make the leap from the silver screen. [Jalopnik]

Ummmm….Wow.

The space race got a little more crowded yesterday.

Iran launched its first satellite, using a domestically produced rocket. The launch of the Safir (Ambassador) rocket was shrouded in mystery…surprising, I know.

Few details were available about the rocket or its payload…Western experts say Iran rarely provides enough details for them to determine the extent of its technological advances, but that much Iranian technology consists of modifications of equipment supplied by China, North Korea and others.

And how are Iran’s neighbors responding? Israel, for one, says it’s unconcerned.

The launch comes on the birthday weekend of Hazrat Mahdi, the 12th Imam. Shiites believe his return will signal the end of days.

Question: What can you make with 2 forks, an old lamp, and a shoelace?

Answer: A sweet HDTV Antenna!

One of our most popular DIY Friday projects was this post on how to build your own HDTV antenna.

And, this week we’re bringin’ it back with some new tricks.

The $10 lamp version above is a great option. Or you can try the Gray-Hoverman Antenna, which has gotten some great reviews:

"Boy, this antenna is hot. I finally got it pointed right. After I did a search for channels, I got 23 digital channels, and this is from about 30-40 miles, over mountains…This antenna is a vast, and I mean REALLY VAST improvement over anything I have used." – DogT

On Friday, after hearing about the awesome opening ceremony for the Olympics, I immediately went to NBC.com in search of the video. No dice. They weren’t airing it on TV until later that night, so they hadn’t posted it online yet.

Naturally, I turned to YouTube. Jackpot. 5 stars. Posted 8 minutes before. But wait! It was already taken down.

This is the scenario that NBC is hoping will play out throughout the Olympics, but will they succeed in pulling all the pirated content off the web? They’re certainly trying:

The piracy measures NBC is taking include digital watermarking to “tag” the coverage. An NBC spokesman said the network and its broadcast partners are tagging all the video that NBC originates from the Olympics.

That can help track offenders, said Russell Zack, VP of product management at Anystream, one of the vendors handling online and television technology for NBC’s Olympics effort.

“That acts as a forensic stamp you can track back to the last place it came from and it’ll give you hints as to what system it came from,” he said…NBC also has charged a handful of employees with scouring the Web every day to look for pirated videos from the Olympics. When those videos are found, the network will send a take-down notice to the site, NBC said.

They’re hoping they can channel online Olympics enthusiasts to their own impressive range of on-demand coverage. They’ve paired up with Anystream to deliver content across platforms, and their 3,600 hours of coverage over the course of the games will surpass the combined total of every other summer Olympics ever televised in the United States. We’ve blogged about NBC’s coverage before.

And it’s not just the American’s who are fighting pirated content. Chinese websites are also joining the fight.

I’m starting to get a bit bored with the range of games available for Wii. So, I figured I’d take my entertainment into my own hands. It is DIY Friday, after all.

This kit gives you pretty much everything you need to start programming. This one is kind of a DIY for Dummies. You don’t need to know any code to get started, and they have tons of tutorials to help you out.

If old-school arcades are more your style, you can buy all the parts you need here.

On Saturday, StarTrek’s James Doohan – “Scotty” – made his last space mission. The actor’s ashes went up in Space X’s Falcon 1 rocket, never to return. He was joined by the remains of real-life astronaut Gordon Cooper.

But wait, this isn’t the first post-mortem space mission that the two have made together. Last year, James Doohan and Gordon Cooper’s ashes made a similar journey.

This lost rocket is the third unsuccessful attempt by Space X, which is owned by PayPal founder Elon Musk. Musk is one of many entrepreneurs trying to build a private space industry. This latest failure is a setback, to be sure. But don’t count Musk out:

The most important message I’d like to send right now is that SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward. We have flight four of Falcon 1 almost ready for flight and flight five right behind that. I have also given the go ahead to begin fabrication of flight six…There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in reaching orbit and demonstrating reliable space transport. For my part, I will never give up and I mean never.

I’m moving soon, and as I’m sorting through my old junk, there are still some things I can’t part with. One of them is an old typewriter that I got from my uncle. It doesn’t work anymore, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away.

And now, my years of pack-rat behavior may have paid off, because I just found a way to rig up that old typewriter as a new computer keyboard.

You can also check out this page for instructions.

And if you’re looking for some real inspiration, take a look at this sweet custom brass version.

If you don’t already have an old Underwood sitting in your closet, there’s no shortage of manual typewriters on eBay.

I’m moving soon, and as I’m sorting through my old junk, there are still some things I can’t part with. One of them is an old typewriter that I got from my uncle. It doesn’t work anymore, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away. And now, my years of pack-rat behavior may have paid off, because I just found a way to rig up that old typewriter as a new computer keyboard. You can also check out this page for instructions. And if you’re looking for some real inspiration, take a look at this sweet custom brass version. If you don’t already have an old Underwood sitting in your closet, there’s no shortage of manual typewriters on eBay.

…well, only if you’re satellite Internet stockholder or junkie. It looks like HughesNet and WildBlue are ready to face off:

HughesNet and WildBlue now are positioned for a head-to-head contest for leadership of the U.S. satellite broadband market, say researchers at Northern Sky Research. Hughes has long held the title of leader in terms of subscriber base, reportedly with more than 400,000 clients, but WildBlue’s rate of growth to date has been faster than Hughes, NSR says.

WildBlue had 300,000 consumer broadband subscribers at the end of 2007 and is said to be growing faster than Hughes. Leading observers predict that market share will be nearly 50-50 by the end of 2008.

And, while WildBlue may be growing faster and offering cheaper entry level rates, HughesNet isn’t ready to concede its top-spot in the industry:

NSR researchers note, however, that the HughesNet Home Plan has a nominal upper download speed of 1 Mbps compared to 512 Kbps for WildBlue’s offering. Comparing higher speed plans, HughesNet’s services on the Spaceway-3 satellite now either meet or beat WildBlue’s offers, NSR says.

And HughesNet sure wanted everyone to know it. Shortly after the Northern Sky Research report was released, HughesNet sent out this press release, titled “HughesNet Feeds the Need for Speed: Subscribers Benefit from Faster Speeds at Same Low Prices.”

For more on the battle, check out the almost-always-informative forums at dslreports. And, in other HughesNet/WildBlue news, WildBlue recently announced a deal that gives WildBlue customers a deal on new Dell computers.

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing is right around the corner and, despite the political controversy, one thing is clear: this year’s games will be easier to watch than ever before.

It’s all because of VOD: Video-on-Demand.

NBCU is producing lots of VOD, which will be available via DIRECTV.

NBCU is providing DIRECTV with 10 VOD titles each week, including athlete features, Beijing previews, and more. The service will be available through the end of the Olympics in both standard-definition and HD. NBCU will produce more than 500 titles now through the end of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

The VOD offerings are just part of NBCU’s extensive coverage of the games, which will also be available on FiOS, Broadband, and Verizon’s V CAST mobile service.

For those who prefer to watch online, NBCU’s website will give fans access to approximately 2,200 total hours of live streaming and video coverage of 25 different sports. The site will also feature blogs, live chat, athlete profiles and, of course, the latest results.

The servers and platform for the groundbreaking digital content will be provided by Sun Microsystems.

If you want to psych yourself up for some amazing sports action in Beijing, search YouTube for some great moments in Olympics history. Take, for example, the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City where Bob Beamon set a new world record in the long jump that stood for 23 years.

English language version here.