Nigel Thornberry
This is something I haven’t done for the longest time, but bear with me. Its still a really REALLY mentally disturbing and stupid thing…
First, watch this video:
Too stupid? Well, check this out:
I’m not kidding, this made me laugh so hard! A sort of laugh that I’ve never laughed for the last 3~4 years!!
And this didn’t help either!!
Web development with Django seminar, this Tuesday!
If you guys remember, one year and few months ago, Mohammad AlMarzouq presented a Python/GIT/Django sessions at KITS. I was there and it was fun!
Now, “what brought this up?” you wonder? Wait, I don’t actually think you’re wondering, you probably have read the title already! … Anyways, our friend here is presenting a seminar on how to start web development using the Django framework. 
Well, if you’re interested, check out the seminar details:
Title: Starting web development with Django
Date: Tuesday, 24th of January, 2012 (in 2 days)
Time: 7:30pm
Location: KITS (Kuwait Information Technology Society)
Okay, now I know Django was presented before by the same speaker last time, but hey, you never know what our guy has to offer this time. After all, it is all from his experience from the successful كوت بو 6 project (Yes, I am advertising their work cause they’re awesome :p)! Besides, I don’t think you guys have anything better to do. XD
See you all there?
Aurora (Northern Lights) in Tromso – Norway (January 18th, 2012)
Well, I’m in Tromso – Norway at the moment and, well, staying here for few days, chilling in Warsaw then coming back to Kuwait.
My main purpose of coming here is to witness the Aurora (Northern Lights) and see it with my own two eyes.
Seeing it with naked eyes wasn’t as I expected. Yet, it made me skip few heart beats (That means I lost a year or two of my lifespan).
Here’s a time-lapse of the aurora which is made of 123 pictures in the following set up:
Shutter speed: 30″
ISO: 800
Aperture: 3.5
Lens: Rokinon FE8M-S 8mm F3.5 Fisheye Lens (My favorite)
I hope you enjoy the time-lapse :3
Notes:
The orange light on the right you see is caused by city while the white\red lights on the ground you see are caused by the truck behind me (And people flashing their cameras around)
Pictures of Kuwait International Rally: Round 3
I know you saw it coming; flying mud coming from flying cars :3
For those who missed the rally (I know the majority did if not all), there’s another round in February 18th.
Anyway, here’s what you missed:
Reminder: Kuwait International Rally Round 3. Tomorrow at 9:00AM
If you missed Round two which happened two weeks ago or so, Round three is coming up tomorrow so wipe up the dust out of your camera and cover it with flying mud coming outta flying cars!!
If you’re wondering where the tracks are going to be, they’ll be at Turn 258 in Bneider. Here’s the tracks map:
I’ll be going there (And hopefully get my media pass today so I can access publicly restricted areas)
Please refer to this link for further details :3
“Press button, Receive bacon” machine: Story, diagram and source code
Just like any Microsoft fanboy, I bought a Windows Phone 7 (HTC HD7). And to be honest, I enjoy it (It’s just the lack of apps that sucks… And support for Middle East Market).
Anyway, I downloaded an app called “Get Bacon” which I knew it’ll be something related to the “Press button, receive bacon” meme shown below:
I’ll quote a part of whats written in the “About” page of that app:
Hand dryer manufacturers all over the world play cruel jokes on unsuspecting bathroom visitors luring them to press a button with the promise of receiving glorious bacon. These poor saps press the button and just get a lot of hot air.
The guy took upon his responsibility and made a WP7 app that downloads bacon pictures off Flickr under Creative Commons License.
I took upon responsibility to make that machine a reality. Not as close what I wanted, but close enough 
I used a shoe box, tractor belt, continuous servo motor, light stand and Arduino (with few electronic junk such as resistors, transistors… etc) and built it in total ~8 hours including theory, planning, assembling, coding, fixing mistakes and errors (Coding and hardware) and trying it the first time there at Barcamp Kuwait 3!
This project was similar to my graduation project. Worked fine back home, but blew up at the professor’s office while demonstrating (Which is why I asked @ahamshay to prepare a fire extinguisher just in case )
And, if you remember my Cookies Vending Machine, you’ll know I made this for the hell of it, not as a serious thing (Which explains why I used a shoe box; couldn’t find a hand dryer chassis)
I had issues thinking of the dispensing and cooking mechanism. But thankfully, I made it through except for the cooking part.
The light was as weak as 40watts and was so far that the bacon was cold. So as far as the machine goes, it was a success. The only failure was actually having the bacon cooked (Then again, I eat Sushi and raw food. Eating a cold bacon isn’t an issue )
You can see the video here (Again):
Anyway, here’s the circuit diagram and the mechanism diagram:
Note: I forgot to mention this; the +5v and GND are connected to the Arduino board’s +5v and GND.
You can download the source code HERE
One last note:
DO NOT DO WHAT I DID! That was totally unprofessional, unhealthy and illogic (ill-logic). If you can improve it, keep on pumping. Otherwise, don’t!
Press button. Receive bacon. (Literally)
So, as a quickie, I decided to kick off the Video of the “Bacon Vending Machine v1.0″ right now then sit down and document everything about this project in my own pace :3
This is a video of my presentation in BarCamp Kuwait 3 in January, 7th, 2012.
The bacon was cold because I used a 40watts light and the light itself was far from the bacon to be cooked.
Oh well, I’ll give details soon… Until then, enjoy the vid 
TED talks coming January 18th
The all so well regarded TED Talks are coming to Kuwait soon.
Its going to be at the Al Babtain central library for Arabic poetry on January the 18th.
When I look at their Facebook page I only saw 60 likes. I expect more people.
Now this is a big thing and I expect every person to show up.
Also here is the TED website so you can check out some previous talks and know why I am so excited.
4 years of blogging
Yep, 4 years providing useless and random posts to your screen
Things I’ve learned from this experience:
* Embracing technology regardless who made it (Yes, laugh, I have an iPad and Mac mini now [Just to write iOS apps! I have a reason ])
* Some people\communities here in Kuwait are مو كفو
* Having a unique reputation is waaay better than sucking up and selling out to companies for free junk and making them place ads
* Quality > Quantity (Which is why I haven’t been posting much lately… Not gonna bother myself [And you] and post a slightly funny video … Few exceptions)
* Apparently, I have so many shy readers (Its ok, you can comment, I won’t bite your head aoff [Unless you’re a baseless fanboy )
* This blog is more popular than I thought!
I’d like to thank god for allowing me to live and let an exciting blog live with me (At least exciting to me).
I’d like to thank all of those who encouraged me to build it, supported me until a certain point, threatened to kill me if I ever added an ad, helped me through my geekness and those who I did things out of stubbornness because I hated their guts (Or thought I couldn’t do things)
I’d like to thank all my readers. Without you, this blog wouldn’t have existed to begin with.
THANKS ALL
Kuwait Rally 2012 – 2nd round (More mud means more fun)
So, there was a rally yesterday in Bneider and, well, I did what every wise photographer would do; TAKE PICTURES OF ALL CARS!!
Well, not all cars, some just sucked so bad that I lost interest in clicking them
Long story short, this is how things ended (By the time I left):
* 4 Awesome cars
* 1 Totaled car
* 1 Cranky car that couldn’t speed up (Apparently it has some issues initially)
* 1 Jeep Cherokee that sucked (And I still wonder why the hell there’s a Cherokee there!?)
less talks, more photos:
Also, just something unrelated, here’s a picture of a startrail. Not standing up to my standards, but worth bringing up (~200 pictures of ~3 hours):
