How to browse Wikipedia during the blackout

by Jplaz Posted on January 17, 2012

As you probably already know, Wikipedia will be shutting down tomorrow (Wednesday, Janurary 18th 2012) in protest of SOPA and PIPA. I won’t go into details, but Google searching any of this will give you a wealth of information. Anyway, this protest is good and all, but for those of us who can’t live without Wikipedia, there is a way around it. Click here to download the needed .torrent file and download its contents (Google search how to torrent if you don’t already know). From there, follow the instructions in the file. You’ll be able to access a saved version of all the articles on Wikipedia. However, this saved database will not update any changes so this will only serve as a temporary stopgap. Thanks.

****LEGAL NOTICE****
Torrenting is NOT illegal. Torrenting illegally is illegal. The contents of this torrent are in no way illegal and I do not assume any responsibility for any actions of the readers of this post.

Posted in Misc | Leave a comment

Trebuchet Project

by Jplaz Posted on November 29, 2011

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(The Trebuchet, without the counterweight bucket)
For my Honors Physics class, we were assigned a project which involved designing and building a trebuchet. The siege engines would be designed to hurl miniature pumpkins across the school field, similar to . Also, we had to measure the various distances versus varying amounts of counterweight. My group constructed a medium sized machine, which stood approximately 3 feet tall with an arm length of about 7 feet. Our design was fairly simple. We used a gate latch to release the arm and a bucket filled with barbell plates as a counterweight. The axle was made of nested PVC pipe and the rest of the trebuchet was built using wood. During testing, we attained a maximum distance of 66.9 feet with 45 pounds of counterweight. The full results are below. Our trebuchet performed well for its size and weight, though other groups reached farther distances they had to use much larger siege engines to do so. Overall, I was fairly pleased with the effort, though I would build a larger one if I did it again.
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(The data we collected during testing)

(An early test video)

Posted in Engineering | Leave a comment

Sony CDP-291 Successful Repair

by Jplaz Posted on November 29, 2011

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(The broken device)
A few days ago I received a broken Sony CDP-291 CD player. First, I diagnosed the unit. I plugged the CD player in and attempted to turn it on, but the power button had no effect. Preliminary research yielded very little information, so I proceeded to open the unit.
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(The inside of the player)
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(Soldering Setup)
I decided to check the power supply first, so I unscrewed the board for a closer inspection. The board was covered in some kind of residue and the circuit traces, particularly the ones near the transformer. I decided to bypass the traces by soldering wire across the corresponding leads. For the large main trace I used desoldering wire, as the wire I had was too small for the amount of current. After a successful continuity check, I reassembled the CD player. Upon powering on, the device worked perfectly. I consider this a successful repair.
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(Soldered board)
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(Operational Unit)

Posted in Electronics | Leave a comment

Introduction to Overclocking

by Jplaz Posted on October 5, 2011

Wikipedia defines overclocking as “Overclocking is the process of running a computer component at a higher clock rate (more clock cycles per second) than it was designed for or was specified by the manufacturer.” Overclocking to me is a hobby as well as a means of saving money. For example, making my current computer run faster has kept me from needing to spend money on upgrades I would have otherwise had to pay for. Overclocking, while tedious, is rewarding and also sometimes competitive (see Benchmarking) or even charitable (see Folding@Home). The website Overclock.net contains a wealth of information on the subject as well as many helpful members who will answer any question you may have. I enjoy this practice and will post my overclocks in the near future.

Posted in Overclocking | 1 Comment

More Content Coming Soon!

by Jplaz Posted on October 5, 2011

In the near future I will be adding a lot more content to this site, mostly personal projects and interests. Although this site technically uses a blog layout, I will primarily use pages for content and use the posts as means of showing updates to these pages. I’m still trying to find the perfect theme. Stay tuned!

Posted in Website Updates | 1 Comment