Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Interesting Pictures: Technology

With my new iPhone I have been taking lots of funny and interesting pictures, and I haven't gotten around to posting them on my blog .. until now! This is the first of a series of posts with pictures in them.
Apparently, this port replicator is not a Jedi Master yet. And what's that on top of it?



As it turns out, its just a little thing to change the "gender" of a VGA connection. (On many different types of connectors, the part that sticks out is referred to as the "male" side, and the socket you stick it into is referred to as the "female" side. The intended metaphor is left as an exercise for the reader. For the answer, see here.)




This pinball machine is in the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) lounge. As you can see, not all computer science students are just into software; they like to do stuff with hardware too.




This computer is hooked up to a vending machine, and enables you to pay for caffeinated drinks using your university ID. It keeps track of the total amount of calories and milligrams of caffeine purchased.




Not all advancements in technology involve high-tech electronics. One example is the microwave popcorn bag. While versions of this technology date back to 1973, a recent breakthrough holds the promise to significantly reduce cleanup effort.


3 comments:

Dan Mont said...

Very funny.... I knew about gender changers but it was fun to see your reaction.

The caffeine card and the popcorn bowl seems like good progress....especially for you!!!

Nanette Goodman said...

I love the gender changers. Very funny.

What is a padawan port replicator?

Is the popcorn bowl better its predecessor..the popcorn bag?

Alexander Mont said...

An ordinary "port replicator" is described in the first link provided. I don't know what a "Padawan port replicator" is. I can't find anything relevant through Google, so perhaps this was just a joke that the person wrote on the box.

The popcorn bowl is superior to the popcorn bag because it sits on the table and you can take the popcorn out of the wide part of the bag, reducing spillage.