Ian

Perth, Western Australia, AUSTRALIA


Joined March 6th 2006

Number of Posts:
2762

Number of Comments:
239

Karma:
5



Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.

About Me
To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Tags & Posts

Bookmark Tags



Popular Tags

Blogs

Ian's Blogs

42628 Vote(s)
1344 Comment(s)
675 Post(s)
0 Vote(s)
0 Comment(s)
0 Post(s)
0 Vote(s)
0 Comment(s)
0 Post(s)
42078 Vote(s)
410 Comment(s)
689 Post(s)
38228 Vote(s)
188 Comment(s)
674 Post(s)
36557 Vote(s)
471 Comment(s)
664 Post(s)

I mentor these bloggers

Learn more about the Orble Mentoring Program.


I do not mentor any bloggers.

Recent Posts

SandMan

February 10th 2010 05:20
Click your mouse to pour sand on the level.
Build up sand for the sleepwalkers to walk on to get up slopes and out of pits.
Pour sand on the sleepwalkers to turn them around and make them walk in the other direction.
Avoid the nightmares! You can use your sand to move them around just like the sleepwalkers.
Don’t fall too far. Try building up sand to make the gap smaller.
Stay out of the water, sleepwalkers can’t swim!
Pour sand over invisible blocks to create a pathway.
Try to get as many of the sleepwalkers to the end of the level as you can.
Use the finish button to end the level if you accidentally trap some of your sleepwalkers. You need at least one sleepwalker in the exit to use this.
If all else fails use the quit button to exit the level and try again.


Genre: Puzzle
Time to Play: 30 mins
Difficulty: Hard
Available From: miniclip
Play Sandman here.


Sandman online game
5
Vote
   


Tools Explained

February 10th 2010 04:19
Tool Use Explained


Tool


DRILL PRESS:

A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL:

Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "Oh, ****!"

PLIERS:

Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER:

An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW:

One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle... It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS:

Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH:

Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race..

TABLE SAW:

A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST:

A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER:

Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER:

A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

PRY BAR:

A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HAMMER:

Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

UTILITY KNIFE:

Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use..

SON OF A B***H TOOL:

Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "Son of a b***h" at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.
5
Vote
   


How Cities Heal After Disasters

February 10th 2010 01:44
Haiti Earthquake 2010
Haiti Earthquake 2010


With the earthquake in Haiti still fresh in our minds we may ask the question how do cities come back from natural disasters?
Some cities never recover from the destruction or return to their former selves, while others emerge from the rubble to continue with life as normal. There are a few cities however, that use the obliteration of the old to start new, fresh and improved.
As seen in this NewsWeek article, here are how various cities have dealt with catastrophe.


Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London, 1666
The still-largely wooden English capital was devastated by fire for three days in September 1666. As a long, dry summer came to a close, a blaze ripped through the city's narrow streets, leaving 100,000 homeless--about a sixth of the population--and destroying the 600-year-old St. Paul's Cathedral. In a turbulent political climate and with fears of a Dutch invasion running high, the conflagration could have been a death blow. Instead, the city rebuilt, widening its streets and improving conditions; some historians believe this also helped to end a string of disease epidemics that had ravaged London. Perhaps most enduringly, the architect Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to build some 50 churches, many of which remain landmarks, especially his monumental domed baroque replacement for the incinerated Old St. Paul's.


san fancisco earthquake of 1906
San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
One of the mighty San Andreas fault's most destructive moments destroyed much of San Francisco and forever shifted the centre of California commerce southward. Early on the morning of April 18, an earthquake estimated at a magnitude of 7.8 shook the city. It was followed by widespread fires, which broke out because gas mains had been ruptured by the quake and which are blamed for most of the damage (the use of dynamite in an attempt to stop the blaze's spread likely didn't help). All told, some 3,000 people were killed, more than half of the city's 400,000 residents were left homeless, and the damage cost more than $400 million in 1906 dollars, or about $9.5 billion today. While the city, which for many years was the cultural and economic capital of the west, rebuilt, industry and commerce moved 350 miles south to Los Angeles, which overtook Frisco as a commercial capital.


Chernobyl nuclear disaster
Chernobyl, 1986
Though hardly a thriving metropolis, the then Soviet town of Pripyat boasted some 50,000 residents on April 26, 1986. That day, in the worst nuclear power accident ever, a reactor at the nearby nuclear power plant named for the neighboring town of Chernobyl exploded. A series of subsequent explosions emitted 400 times the radiation of the Hiroshima bomb. Although only 56 direct deaths were recorded, thousands of cancer cases are blamed on the episode.
Roughly 336,000 people were evacuated from contaminated areas, and unlike a fire, earthquake or, flood, it's no simple matter of rebuilding. Because many areas remain poisonous, they are chilling ghost towns today, falling into disrepair and with former residents' personal effects left as they were when the hurried evacuation began.


Indian Ocean Tsunami
Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2004
an earthquake caused an enormous tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean, flattening entire towns and villages thousands of miles from the quake's epicentre and killing an estimated 230,000 people, making it the fifth most deadly quake ever. Based on its magnitude of 9.0, it was the second largest ever. Because of the wide swath the wave cut and the remoteness of some hard-hit areas, it's hard to draw general conclusions about the recovery effort. In the case of the Indonesian province of Aceh, however, the World Bank has declared work a success.

The international community pledged nearly $8 billion to reconstruct Aceh. There have been some difficulties, but a long-running and violent battle with separatists seems to have ended, while poverty, which unsurprisingly skyrocketed in the wake of the tsunami, is now below pre-quake levels. The vast international effort, coordinated by transnational organizations, could be the template for a successful recovery in Haiti.


5
Vote
   


Miniature Pictures

February 10th 2010 01:43
These miniature people effects are amazing!
I have not idea how this was done.

[ Click here to read more ]
6
Vote
   


Crazy Go Nuts 2

February 8th 2010 04:51
Shoot the squirrel and collect all the nuts on the board and move on to the next level. Use the mouse to aim and shoot.

Score as many points as possible. Beat the target score for each level to advance


[ Click here to read more ]
27
Vote
   


Things Not to Say During Sex

February 8th 2010 04:12
things not to say during sex


1. But everybody looks funny naked


[ Click here to read more ]
30
Vote
   


Tim Burton's Weird & Wonderful Art

February 8th 2010 01:22
Tim Burton is an American film director, producer, writer and artist. He has directed and produced numerous films, many of which have won Academy Awards. He is famed for his dark and quirky-themed films, such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and for his blockbusters, including Batman, Batman Returns, Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His next film Alice in Wonderland is due for release March 5, 2010.

Sci Fi Wire has written a comprehensive article about Tim Burton and his bizarre artwork which was on show at the Tim Burton Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York


[ Click here to read more ]
28
Vote
   


Could We Live On Mars?

February 8th 2010 01:05
Can Mars Be Terraformed?



[ Click here to read more ]
26
Vote
   


Dumped In Goop

February 5th 2010 04:53
Meg Wachter is a unique artist who created a series called "Dumped" which featured her friends having all sorts of substances poured over their heads.
The series was created to promote her work and she "was interested in capturing the reactions, as well as creating unusual but striking images".
These images and information were sourced from this article at divinecaroline.com.
[ Click here to read more ]
8
Vote
   


Drop

February 5th 2010 03:20
This is a very clever and addictive little puzzle game!

In Drop the aim is to remove all the blocks. To do so select to of the same letter in a row or column and they will disappear. The blocks above will fall into their place and hopefully create more opportunities


[ Click here to read more ]
7
Vote
   


 

Recent Comments

Comment by Ian
on Right Brain vs Left Brain

February 10th 2010 06:09
I've added a new post on this which hopefully will remove all confusion. See it here.

Comment by Ian
on Posting guidelines

July 29th 2009 01:30
Hello,

You receive 50% of the advertising revenue from your posts.
All the ads are from Google Adsense.
So you get paid direct from Google. They transfer funds into your bank account.
I have 590 posts on this blog, and last month my half of the revenue was US$120.

Ian

Comment by Ian
on 360 View From the Top of Mt Everest

February 25th 2009 23:16
Yes, it would without doubt be the most awe-inspiring view on Earth. Especially if you had put in all the hard work and training to get there on your own, and knowing you are one of such an extremely small percentage of the population who will ever see that view with their own eyes.

Comment by Ian
on How to print page images

February 15th 2009 04:54
As the images print perfectly for me it is difficult for me to comment.

I'll speak to the Orble Team and see if there is a solution to this problem.

Glenys

Comment by Ian
on World's Most Dangerous Places

January 6th 2009 23:44
It looks like we've both been on orble for a while, just never bumped into each other before.
Hopefully we'll both be around for a while longer yet!

Comment by Ian
on Movember

January 6th 2009 23:21
They were the winners of the 'Most Awesome Mo's of 2008' award, and you can see why!

Comment by Ian
on Why Men Are Never Depressed

July 23rd 2008 08:38
Hi Hazel thanks for stopping by.

No worries you can borrow the post!

Comment by Ian
on Ferret Bath Time

June 9th 2008 23:15
Well spotted.
Sorry about that I'll fix it up.

Comment by Ian
on Best Ever Mugshot T-Shirts

May 8th 2008 23:10
Hi Top10Kid,

Thanks for pointing that out.

I would be glad to give you a link to your site if you like. Or if you prefer I could just delete them.

Ian

Comment by Ian
on You Know Your an Australian If...

March 19th 2008 05:49
Yes I hadn't noticed that JD.
Although I did notice that his list is a lot better than mine!