I realized today that I have not put a post here for quite long, I can only blame my laziness for this but I just have to share this video with you.

What you see in the video is Controlled Quantum Levitation by the Japaneese, realizing the levitation potential on a race-track from a game which dates back to my child-hood; Wipe-Out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipeout_(video_game))..

Who wouldn’t want to research on something like this…

That Liquid Nitrogen Spray on the back of the cars is just for show and accounts for the smoke like effect behind the cars.

More info on Quantum Levitation: http://bit.ly/w1Nb5Q

Another small teeny tiny post, simply introducing a website that I used a bit in the last week, been working on some JAVASCRIPT…

Name: Repl.it Project
URL: http://repl.it/
About: The repl.it project is an attempt to create an online environment for interactively exploring programming languages. It provides a fully-featured terminal emulator and code editor, powered by interpreter engines for more than 15 languages. [copied from the ABOUT section]

The best part is that all the languages use a javascript based interpreter at the back-end, so the website will work on all sorts of devices that support javascript in browser, this makes the website work on majority of devices (PCs, Laptops, Phones, Tablets etc).

BONUS:
6 Books Every Programmer Should Own
http://repeatgeek.com/tools/6-books-every-programmer-should-own/
from RepeatGeek [repeatgeek.com]

Around the Corner – How Differential Steering Works is a video from way before I was even born. It explains the principle behind how the wheels of a car can rotate at different speeds when they seem to be connected to a single shaft.

I suggest skipping directly to the 1:30 minute mark, unless you want to see those bikers show some moves.

P.S. If you like watching people do MOVES on Bikes, then here is a video showing that PAKISTANI’s aren’t far behind

We have all seen the videos of Slow-mo guys and have awed over the ultra slow snaps of stuff getting burned/blown/shattered. Seriously, the shattering of a glowing light bulb and seeing it as it happens in ultra-slow-motion is very cool indeed, but the camera which MIT researchers recently came up with takes high frame per second photography to a whole new level.

I obviously cannot explain the new technology any better than those who have created it, so let’s hear it from them:

MIT researchers have built an ultra-super-fast-camera which can track a burst of light lighting up a scene and then fading away. The camera actually sees light moving but this is not your average point-and-shoot type camera, the whole thing costs upwards of US$250,000 and takes up a lot of space and the camera is able to capture only a very narrow image (one horizontal line in a whole image), so take actual pictures, the camera takes thousands/millions images of the same event happening over and over again and the lens assembly is moved a little bit each time to get the complete picture. Furthermore this limits this camera to events which can be easily and automatically repeated with precise timing. The camera also produces much noise in the output, but taking the image again and again gives enough data to get a proper reconstruction of the photons (light particles) moving in the scene.

Reconstruction of a Laser Pulse moving in a Scene with Crests of Photons shown

However, further improvements in such a technology will definitely pave the way for improvements in imaging systems, fault detectors, and maybe just maybe, someday this type of speed will fall down to the average consumer camera.

Source:
MIT News
(http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/trillion-fps-camera-1213.html)

Experiment Webpage:
Visualizing Photons in Motion at a Trillion Frames Per Second
(http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/trillionfps/)

So this is gonna be a LAZY post, since I couldn’t find anything that I wanted to write about (actually I just didn’t write anything cause of LAZiness), so here is a link of a SITE.

http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/

Things Organized Neatly is a Tumblr blog with pictures of stuff organized well, NEATLY….

Go check it out… really, go and see.

P.S. the site has LOADS of neat stuff for designers.

http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/

Last month, Facebook was filled with UNETHICAL and almost PORN-like links which spread like WILD FIRE in the WESTERN SOCIAL CIRCLES of facebook on the WALLS and NEWS FEEDS….

The links appear to be of NUDE VIDEOS but are actually HIDDEN LIKE BUTTONS and APP LINKS; upon clicking the APP will get access to your FACEBOOK profile without your knowledge and it will post similar links on YOUR STATUS and on the WALLS of your FRIENDS…

I have already seen a couple of my friends becoming victims to such PHISHING attacks and I FEAR that soon this will spread in PAKISTANI SOCIAL CIRCLES as well….

SO… Please, Please, Please… WATCH WHERE YOU CLICK and be CARFUL.

SHARE this POST on your WALLS and spread the info to stop this upcoming MENACE.

Here are 2 news stories from last month:
CNN: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-15/tech/tech_social-media_facebook-porn-spam_1_facebook-users-social-media-giant-facebook-news-feed
http://www.39online.com/newsfix/kiah-porn-violent-images-inexplicably-spread-across-facebook-20111115,0,3672998.story

SHARE THIS on YOUR FB WALL: http://ZaidPirwani.com/732/facebook-porn/
(copy this link or use the BELOW button)

I don’t know if this is the fastest RC Jet or not, but I randomly somehow got to this video and had to share it here.

The whole time I was trying to figure out how it would land safely and without killing anyone in the process, parachutes had come to my mind, but in the end; it landed as smoothly as a paper plane and steered clear of those high tension lines as well.

According to the youtube video this jet was lasered at speed of 366Mph and I see some websites claiming that the World Record is somewhere around 330(something)Mph but this one appears to be even faster than the current world record as recorded by Guinness World Record

Having an oscilloscope can save lots of time while working on an electronics project, but affording one seems a bit far fetched for a student when the scopes usually cost more than a couple hundred dollars. However there are a few alternatives that a studetn can use without having to spend too much.

Soundcard Scope is a software, free for non-commercial use which uses the soundcard of a computer and shows signals coming in from the soundcard as waves in a scope on the computer screen. The software has many features which make it quite useful and at par with expensive oscilloscopes. It can record a signal, show relevant measurements on screen.

Soundcard Scope Snapshot

However, the soundcard of computers cannot handle voltages above 0.7V (positive/negative) hence a voltage divider is needed to bring the input voltage level down and to be able to measure higher voltage levels. A 100k oscilloscope probe works best and gives better resolution though additional protection diodes are needed to protect the soundcard of computer.

Software: Soundcard Scope
Download Link: http://www.zeitnitz.eu/scope/scope_140.zip (version 1.4)
Software Website: http://www.zeitnitz.de/Christian/scope_en

I will be putting up a circuit diagram for a safe probe to use with this software in a couple of days.

Suppose when you touch the screen of your smartphone / laptop you would not only be touching it, the screen touches you back!

Touch screens are great and better than normal button-based interfaces but the touch screens in use today are in-capable of providing any kind of feedback to the user that the command has been received. if only touch screens could provide some sort of tactile feedback then the user could operate a screen on a much more interactive level.

Senseg, a company which has developed just the thing, they have come up with a transparent layer which can be put on top of any normal touch screen, the layer can mimic the surface feel from as smooth as silk to as rough as a rock. , they have already produced libraries for the popular mobile OS platforms and have a complete kit ready with electroncis and software API.

Getting tactile feedback from a screen will help in many areas including in-car screens, so the driver does not need to see the screen while operating it, and obviously in other areas as where the user needs better control of the touch interface and having a proper feel of where the touch is can be the difference that is needed on today’s screens.

The tactile screen works by creating a sort of electrostatic attraction field between the finger and the screen and the app-developer can manipulate the field at any part of the screen making variable surface feelings at different areas.
More details about the underlying technology in this product can be seen at: http://senseg.com/technology/senseg-technology

Website: http://www.senseg.com/

Don’t know if this has been aired on local news channels or not, I saw this today on Al-jazeera’ website….

A recycling company in Pakistan, by a Pakistani to turn waste into useful stuff: fertilizers and petroleum products. Maybe there are more such companies, but these companies need to market more, so the awareness about such processes increases. I would surely apply to their program but seems like they only work in DHA Area in Karachi, however, I shall check if this can come to my area. We have a HUGE plot nearby with garbage as high as a one-storey building.

Aljazeera Article Link: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2011/12/201112193155297451.html
(HAS VIDEO, so go and chekc it out)

Waste Busters Website: http://www.wastebusters.com.pk

Do you know about any other such companies working in Pakistan (especially Karachi)