Next on Animal Planet...

When Killer Whales attack!!!!!

One small step for man...

Yesterday morning I had the opportunity to go see a presentation on ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative MObility), the walking robot that Honda had developed. Overall, it was a pretty cool show as they showed off ASIMO's ability to walk and turn pretty seemlessly without missing a beat or having to stop and turn. The presentor also showed off several videos about ASIMO's past and the bumps in the road that the Honda engineers had to face while developing it. It was sort of funny watching the earlier models that didn't have a head or torso walking on a tread mill, and then all of a sudden just lean too much one way and begin to fall. Luckily, all the earlier models had various harnesses attached to them, so no damage was done. The kids in the audience seem to be the most impressed by ASIMO since ASIMO, if you ignore his capabilies, pretty much looks like a really large toy. Anyways, I have some pics and a video of the event so that you guys can see what happened. Pardon the low quality of the video, as I'm currently stuck with a puny 32 meg Compactflash card at the moment >.<



ASIMO waiting for his next command.

ASIMO standing on one foot, but I was too slow to get the picture :P

ASIMO waving to the camera!

ASIMO's Brochure (Warning...940k pic)

ASIMO in action! (10 megs)

Tennis from Down Under!

For tennis fans, the beginning of the year is always a good time as the tennis world shifts its focus to Australia for the Australian Open. And this year proved to be one of the better years as there were some incredible matches played in the past two days. The highlight of the tournament so far had to be the Safin vs Federer match, and although I haven't had the chance to see the entire match, it turned out to be a great battle as the two fired shots at each other for 5 gruelling sets. But at the end, the Safinator found his way to derail the Fed Express and give himself a spot in this years men's final. And Federer, who was on a 26 match winning streak, showed that he was indeed beatable. But kudos to both players for putting on a great match that will probably be remembered for a long time.



Unfortunately, the womon's final didn't turn out to have the same dramatics as the previous two women's semi-final matches. It pitted Serena Williams again Lindsay Davenport, who both fought through tough 3 setters in their previous matches to get through. Serena started off a bit badly and tweaked her back somewhat as Davenport ran away with the first set. But Serena began finding her range in the 2nd set and the two fought to 3-3. But a loosely played game in the 2nd set by Davenport seemed to just send her into a sprial, and Serena won 9 games in a row to take the last two sets 6-3 and 6-0 in sort of an anti-climatic fashion. Davenport just couldn't buy herself any consistant shots as she sprayed error after error during those nine games! Usually, Lindsey is known for her "smooth" style of play and shotmaking, but I guess the mental aspect of the game just got to her, and she has had a tendency to go on a "hissy-fit" when she loses and just can't find the range on her shots anymore. Oh well, kudos to Serena for hanging in there!

Don't drive like these people....

Ice + Snow + Car = This

Classic gaming.

Check out Classic Gaming to relive all those fond Nintendo memories ^^ Now only if the sound would work in those game >.<

Winter Wonderland

The January snow began to fall this week in the Northeast part of the US, and Ohio has also gotten its share of snow. Having been in Ithaca for quite a while where snow comes in dumptruck fulls, I don't really mind the 2 or so inches of snow we've gotten so far. Since I hadn't been using my digital camera for a while, I figure I go out in the afternoon and see what sort of pics I could take with it, and here are the results!



Frozen Crystal Lake

But wait...there's something swimming on the side!

There must be a hidden heater somewhere.

Is that a Duck or Penguin in disguise?



Maybe I'll have Kungfucius' Pic of the Day from now on :P

N is for Ninja!

Here's an amusing flash-based game that I found while scouring the web. You're a ninja who has a limited lifetime, but your goals are to get to the next level without dying, and in the meantime, you collect gold to keep your life alive :P It's simple, yet sorta fun to play if you have a free 5 minutes or so, and the physics and motion are done pretty well, so take a look!



N: Ninja