The vinyl resurgence shows no sign of slowing, so here's a great budget turntable for your newly thrifted LPs.
February 17th sees the return of 80's classic Knight Rider to TV screens as a TV movie. This movie-of-the-week is a “backdoor pilot”, which is to say that if the show is successful, NBC will bring KITT back as a weekly TV series. The worldwide hit was the story of David Hasselhoff... er, Michael Knight... driving around inside the real star of the show: KITT.
The Knight Industries Two Thousand is
an advanced computerized Pontiac Trans Am with an aloof talking
computer, tremendous speed, 
and a turbo boost to leap over any number
of sharks (or other hazards) in every episode. The show ran from 1982-86
on NBC and has achieved worldwide fame/notoriety for star Hasselhoff
and black Trans Ams.
After the visual effects success in last
summer's Transformers movie, the producers of the new Knight Rider
felt that they'd be able to achieve spectacular digital stunts and chases
even on a television budget. Val Kilmer is the voice of the new car
after the prior voice actor, Will Arnett was forced to leave. Turns out that Arnett handles voice overs in commercials for a competing car company.
Yeesh – politics.
Looking at the Wikipedia entry for the 80's show, I found this galling entry:
"Knight Rider had a profound effect on consumer expectations, and the motor industry reacted accordingly. ...motor manufacturers began offering vehicles with digital LED instrumentation, and even trip computers and security systems which used electronic voice synthesizers which played back "talking" messages to the driver."
This must have been written by someone
who wasn't alive when the show was originally on. We all know that
car makers would have introduced these innovations just as soon as
feasible – it wasn't because ardent fans of Knight Rider demanded
it. I abhor revisionist history, especially on Wikipedia. It's enough
that Knight Rider became something of a modern classic without
imposing fake historic significance on a show about a cool talking jumping car.
Only 11 games were ever released for the Loopy, and there's only one controller port - so sisters are doin' it for themselves. Most titles were "Otome" games - dating simulators - gameplay leads the characters through in-game romances. The most distinctive feature of this console is the built-in sticker printer that lets the player generate screenshot labels with text. There was also a capture accessory that could grab a picture from VHS or DVD and output that as a sticker as well.
I dislike marketing that sets up gender barriers so early in children's lives. Maybe that's why I still like classic & cartoony video games so much. There's nothing inherently male or female about Donkey Kong, Rally-X, Dig Dug & classics like those. Girls and women have always been able to bring it as far as gaming... and let's not forget what an awesome sequel we have in Pac-Man's better half.
Each Cool Rocket is a resin-cast, hand-finished rocket ship inspired by 1940s and 1950s comic book art. They're reasonably priced - most well under $100 - enabling you to acquire a small fleet for your rocketport (uh, desk). They're all original designs, so there's no danger of mistaking these puppies as 
Here's my understanding of how it works (this info is second hand... I've not been to jail because they couldn't get that horse-thievery charge to stick...). While in jail a prisoner can earn points to spend at the little store in The Big House. You can buy things like candy & art supplies, but one of the top shelf things is a television like this one. Something about this scenario reminds me of winning tickets at a carnival, then looking over all the prizes in the redemption booth trying to get the coolest thing while trying not to get ripped off.
The Tippa S was manufactured under the Adler banner, though the only mention of this is on the machine itself. The manual lists the manufacturer as Grundig, the radio & electronics giant. I had no idea they'd offered office goods as well, but then I remembered that Bolex film cameras were handled by Paillard – another maker of typewriters. Perhaps back then it made sense to have manufacturers of expensive and sophisticated technology handle typewriters as well, though today your board of directors would warn against straying from “core competencies”.
This particular model is a 1960's modification of the original spec that went on to win a number of German and Italian design awards. It's such a successful and efficient design that variants of it are still being manufactured in China today.
So here's a case where the retro solution was the right one. I could either have driven to a friend's house to use their printer, or in less than five minutes I could type out the document that my mother needed. A device's age doesn't necessarily make it totally useless. I'm not giving up my laptop, but it'll be nice to bang out occasional notes on the Tippa S with a little extra style.
The threading is much simpler than most projectors, which makes me fear for the safety of any film I'd run through it. All of those extra gears and spindles that you see on larger projectors are there to take the strain off of the film as it runs through the projection path. Not the kind of thing I'd want to eliminate to reduce costs.
Marvelously Miniscule 35mm slide projector
Have you ever listened to educational kid's music? It's usually pretty rotten. No, wait... really rotten. It's often cloying and retreads covering the same old topics. Be nice to your friends, wash your hands, practice yer phonics... all that tired jazz. There's more to our great big world than simply the usual kid song tropes. How about jazzing up children's music with some real science?
and one of the albums features singing by Dorothy Collins - a wife of musician Raymond Scott!
This project is a brilliant reminder of the early days of computing, when the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1 was programmed to play futuristic games like 
Is there any more consistent image of science fiction than a flying man, propelled by a rocket jetpack? As early as 1920's Buck Rogers comics, there have been many fictional takes on some sort of jet suit - and surprisingly several real ones. Early German experiments started toward the end of WWII, but it wasn't until the late 50's that the idea became somewhat feasible.
without motive force we tend to not so much
fly as plummet. Jetpacks operate below minimum parachute height, so safety and control are major concerns. The other major problem is fuel. These devices
consume tremendous fuel, limiting flights to about a minute.
I was old enough to mistakenly think that these devices were being simulated through the movie magic of special effects - who would image that what I was looking at were filmed flights of real jetpacks! 
"I think it's gonna be a long, long time...". Okay, 21st Century, get to work.
The magazine - helmed by editor Juergen Lossau - has seen subscriptions increase by 45% since 2004. It's no accident that amateur filmmaking remains popular in Germany. The nation dominated the cine industry for decade with brands such as Agfa, ARRI, Bauer, Leitz, Niezoldi & Kraemer and Zeiss Ikon. 
