The Swiss Army Knife and Duct Tape, two symbols of a great man. And if you don't know who I'm talking about, you have my sympathies.. and please go and read up on him now.

As I mentioned before I already carry around a Leatherman Squirt with me nearly everywhere I go.

But a few months ago I finally decided that maybe I should carry around some duct tape around too. But the problem here being that while it's simple enough to carry around a small multitool in my pocket, how the heck am I supposed to carry around a roll of tape? Flattening the roll seemed like the obvious choice but that still wasn't portable enough for my tastes.

Finally I figured out I could do this.

Essentially I just pull out the tape and carefully flatten it together over itself. The main risk here is that while the tape will not stick to the smooth side, it's very messy if the glue bits touch! So now I have tape that fits in my wallet!

So in the few months that I was carrying tape in my pocket what fun did I have?

• Used it to make an improvised wire puller system
• Used it to mark one server among a dozen
• Held a power extension bar to the wall of a cabinet

Hmmm.. that was fun, should have done this sooner!

I picked up yet another small form factor system again yesterday.

And boy is this one SHINY!!! Size wise well... it's a small form factor unit for generic parts (instead of custom made ones) so here's a size reference shot.

I basically needed a system for file archival purposes, so I threw in the cheapest 160GB Seagate SATA drive I could find, an added plus of the Seagate HDD is that it's slimmer than other 3.5" drives... or maybe that's how big they are right now?

The casing (and motherboard) that I got from Ifician has enough space for one 3.5" hard disk, a floppy drive and a 5.25" drive.

The board I got is an Intel D945GCLF2, it's one of those boards with everything built in and all you need to get it running is to plunk in a stick of ram and a drive.

The board is interesting because it has the Atom 330 processor on it, which is essentially a DUAL CORE Hyper threading enabled Atom processor. Which means you get to see 4 processor bars when you bring up Task Manager in Windows. Which is cool.

The Atom 330 is more than capable of handling your typical day to day computing tasks of web browsing, office work, etc. etc. But I was also interested in checking out video performance. Cause the board comes with a S-Video out port which means it is possible to build a simple media playing PC from this unit.

After a few tests, the 330 seems to be adequate to play most 720P HD quality videos (as long as you're not pulling them from the network)  Just forget about 1080P videos and you'll be ok. Then if you need better sound outputs, well... there IS a PCI slot on the board.

Bought a new toy to play with today, I guess you can call them building blocks but not in the usual sense. Basically they look like this.

A bunch of ball joints, connectors and beams. Put a few of the basic parts together and you can get something simple like this.

So you end up with something looking like a Stikfas figure without the personality since the parts are generic. But of course, because this is basically just LEGO for making figures. You can go wild and make weird things such as.

What the heck is this supposed to be?

I guess I wanted it to be a ship of some kind but guess that didn't work out too well. But my main creation is this little guy.

A chicken walker mech with an auto cannon for the right arm and a (out of focus) beam canon on it's left. And because the beam canon needs to be oversized and menacing.

It can open up in ATTACK MODE!!! God I need to get that sheet of white foam so I can take pictures with a cleaner backdrop...

Anyway? What is this thing that I bought?

They're called ASOBLOCK, and while they cost a lot I considered it a little birthday present for myself since I couldn't find a Rovio this time around...

Well.. I already mentioned I was getting it.

Hello RYU!!! The box is surprisingly errr… different from a normal Revoltech figure box. Small and more simplistic.

It seems like they deliberately made his parts non symmetrical for that err.. realistic look?

Posability is typical for a Revoltech figure, but I still hate the darn clicking noises!

Pulling this off was harder than expected, you'd think they would have made this THE pose to pull off? And.. what the heck is that? a spit ball? Use the SSF2X image lar!

The included stand is SHORT! I keep wondering if I accidentally dropped a piece of the stand somewhere.

Can't even lift off the ground!

Of course, certain poses don't need the stand lar.

So THAT'S what they mean by not to scale.

can't even lift off the ground with the default stand.

Better aerial chance after stealing Mikuru's stand. And the Figma legs looking weird as usual from this angle.

A nice touch on how they made the sleeve pivotable so that you can position the arms a bit better without the sleeves getting in the way. Now if only they did that with the pants as well.

And that should be that then.. no more figures to get for now. Oh crap…. why is this here?

So there I was lugging WZ around in Ikano when I saw this thing in the RC Planet shop on the top floor.

At first I thought it was an inverter, which essentially is a device which takes a DC power source (ie, you car battery) and convert it to AC power (ie. the wall socket in your house) for more info read my previous post. But then I thought no one would simply label something as a generator if it was converting power, and I found this spec sheet stuck on the cabinet.

It's essentially an inverter… that comes with a battery. In layman's terms, this is a wall socket which you can carry around! The rated power output is (in case you haven't clicked on the link yet) 140Watts CONTINOUSLY I wonder what the peak rate is then.

The power capacity is 210Watthour, base on what little I know of power calculation I think the rough formula for seeing how long the thing can last for you is to take the wattage of your device say.. a laptop charger that has a rated MAXIMUM output of 12V x 3A = 36 Watts and then use that to divide the maximum power capacity so in this case it's 210Wh / 36W = ~5.8 hours. So, if your notebook charger was constantly drawing the peak power rating, you'll get about 5.8 hours from this thing. But I don't think notebook adapters go near their maximum power rating, then again it's not like I have any equipment for measurement.

It IS an interesting piece of gear to carry around, especially if you had something you wanted to power in the middle of no where. Just be mindful of the power rating for the equipment you are running. Traditional tube TVs are a no no, cause the degauss cycle they go through when you turn them on draws a lot of power. Ditto for hair dryers, and probably power tools. At 140Watts you can forget about powering your XBox 360 or PS3 in a campsite. Or for that matter your monster rig of a desktop computer. :P

Now I just have to convince myself and someone else that I NEED to get this…

The following is an experiment of using High Speed Sync'ed flash on small objects.

About a week ago I finally found another possible candidate for a pocket multitool, a replacement in case anything happens to my Squirt.

The Victorinox Manager, not quite the Mini Champ which I was actually looking for. But it's not too shaby. The size is right.

And it's the Squirt's equal in thickness as well.

Of course the fact that it has a plastic shell and doesn't have a big pair of pliers means the Victorinox Manager feels much lighter than the Squirt.

Obviously they both come with a blade, almost the same length, just different errr… broadness. Let's hope I don't end up cutting myself with this one.

And of course they both come with the essential Phillips screwdriver.

Though on the Squirt it's more of a filed down normal screw driver instead of an actual cross. The Manager's Phillips screwdriver is an actual small cross.

And of course the main difference that might be the deal breaker when it comes to what to carry.

The Squirt houses a pair of pliers small yet adequate for light patch jobs when you need to twist something hard. Where as the Manager has the more commonly used scissors instead, ideal for precision cutting when a blade is unable to perform.

Being a Swiss Army Knife, the Manager has some errr… non tool like things.

Like a pair of tweezers, and a pen… which came DRY and UNUSABLE! must be because it was exposed in the display case for god knows how long! :(

One of the things that I realized is that.

I now have both a small and normal sized version tools for both Leatherman and Victorinox tools!

So.. after all that. I noticed that the shadowing is an interesting effect, albeit hard to control since I have only one flash… hmmm.. maybe I should build a lightbox next?

During one of my trips to China I bought this little souvenir.

It looks just like a small rock, but of course Marauderz doesn't just buy any small rock. There's of course a trick to this rock, in order to exaggerate the effect you just shine a light DIRECTLY on the surface.

And it leaves a glowing mark.

Yes… this is one of those glow in the dark rocks, I bought it cause I never saw something that reacted to light with such a violent reaction before. Heck all my usual glow in the dark toys could never glow in normal daylight. But this thing was almost glowing with light once you gave it a boost.

And in total darkness…

Like a small glowy ball.

I’ve already admitted that I made a mistake getting this the last time.

The aluminum case for my Diamond really ain’t working out too well, finally after using it for the last few months I’ve come to the following conclusions.

• GSM is slightly affected by the aluminum case
• 3G/HSDPA is moderately affected by the aluminum case
• Accuracy and sensitivity of internal GPS is ADVERSLY affected by the case.

Also.. the fact that the controls aren’t really covered by the case means…

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! I’m gonna go order another proper leather case from PDAir now, the one which I was intending to get BEFORE I got seduced by the aluminum side…

Who wants to buy this aluminum one off me? I’ll give you a special price! ;)

This is what I picked up just now. And no, I didn’t buy another system to put in the house.

With other objects in view, it’s clearer how big it is. So.. what exactly is it?

A bloody USB chill pad shaped like a refrigerator. With A LIGHT no less! I’m just amazed at what they put on the other end of a USB cable.

So how well does it work? Well… it’s a chill pad so it help maintain the coolness of your CANNED drink, but don’t expect it to actually work like a fridge and cool something that’s room temperature…. actually maybe it MIGHT work, just that it’ll take a LOOOOOONG time. Also, the fact that you want to keep the can on the pad when you’re not drinking is a bit difficult since you’ll have to watch it when you replace an opened can back into the fridge.

I bought this cause they were throwing away sales premiums (hence the HP logo), maybe I’ll try and remove the chill pad from inside the fridge so it’ll work better.