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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Now To Get The Anvils To Fall When I Want Them To

Everything I learned about engineering I learned from cartoons. Well maybe I can't say that, but Danish engineer Karl Kroyer can. In 1949 Carl Barks wrote the Donald Duck comic strip The Sunken Yacht where Donald and his nephews raise a sunken yacht by filling it with ping pong balls. Like painting usable tunnels on solid brick walls, running straight for at least 10 feet off a sheer drop-off cliff, making a method of reaching space by running a large rubber band between 2 trees, and having the perfect disguise by only putting on a hat or a fake mustache, I believed all cartoon things possible when I was 4. Fortunately for Kroyer, he believed in these things for much longer.
In 1964 a freighter carrying 5,000 sheep sunk in a harbor near Kuwait. The sheep died and the people were in danger of wide-spread disease from contaminated water unless the ship could be raised to remove the corpses, and soon. There wasn't much time to spare; even bringing in cranes to lift the ship would have taken too long and been too risky. Fortunately Kroyer was an inspired man. He quickly devised a method to make a tube leading to the ship and they ran many polystyrene balls (approximately twenty-seven million of them) down the tube filling the sunken freighter which soon began to rise allowing the workers to remove the sheep carcasses.
Kroyer, patting himself on the back, applied for a patent for this ingenious method of raising a sunken ship but was turned down when the patent office came across the Donald Duck version in which the idea was proven to have already been thought of 15 years prior.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Downloading YouTube Videos

While viewing some classic skits of the "Swedish Chef" from "The Muppet Show" last night on YouTube, it sadly quickly became apparent that downloading these files to the local hard drive isn't as easy as right-clicking the mouse and selecting a destination. (Sure, YouTube offers some cool organizing and sharing features, but there's something comforting about having the files safe on your hard drive, like warm socks in your dresser drawer.) Never fear, however, since it's still pretty easy: here are 23 downloader tools to do the work for you.  There are several different classes of these tools--here's a quick rundown:

Web-based: You don't need to download any third-party applications to your computer. Great for simple converting or for when you may not be able to install applications on the computer, such as in the workplace--but, while everyone I've checked with loves the Swedish Chef, I can't guarantee that your boss will. Anyway, I've just tried this one and can confirm that it works well: www.mediaconverter.com. Converting to simple ol' .avi files are probably the safest bet.

Dedicated applications: These come in flavors for Windows, OS X, and Linux. They probably offer the best results, but it may take some trial and error to discover which ones work best for you, and not all may be free.

Plugins: You need to use the Firefox browser to take advantage of these--but, if you're not already using it, you should strongly consider it--it's free, open-source, and fast. Plus, it's highly customizable--hence the easy-to-use plugins for downloading YouTube videos.

In addition, make sure to read the comments that others have supplied--apparently, some decent utilities were overlooked in the original article. Now, download away!