We found the most boring man on the Internet! HTTP Status Code 418 — “I’m a teapot” — was introduced as an April Fools Joke in 1998. Everyone had a good laugh, and some frameworks even implemented it. Now, the most boring man on the Internet and chairman of the IETF HTTP working group is trying to get 418 removed from Node and Go. There is an argument to removing code 418 from pieces of software — it gums up the works, and given only 100 code points for a client error, with 30 of them already used, we don’t really have space for a joke. There’s a solution, though: someone has submitted a request to register 418 as ‘I’m a teapot’.
The Travelling Hacker box is a migratory box of random electronic junk. The box has traveled across the United States several times, and earlier this year it started across Canada — from Vancouver to St. Johns — to begin an International journey. The box is now missing, and I’m out. I’m turning this one over to the community. There are now several rogue boxes traveling the world, the first of which was sent from [Sophi] to [jlbrian7] and is now in Latvia with [Arsenijs]. The idea of the Travelling Hacker Box is now up to you — organize your own, and share random electronic crap.
Bluetooth 5 is here, or at least the spec is. It has longer range, more bandwidth, and advertising extensions.
Guess what’s on the review desk? The Monoprice Mini Delta! If you have any questions you’d like answered about this tiny, very inexpensive printer, put them in the comments. I only have some first impressions, but so far, it looks like extending the rails (to make a taller printer) is more difficult than it’s worth. That’s not to say it’s impossible, but with the effort required, I could just print another printer.
Interested in PCB art? [Drew] found someone doing halftone art with PCBs. This is a step up from nickels.
Indiana University is getting rid of some very, very cool stuff in a government auction. This device is listed as a ‘gantry’, but that’s certainly not what it is. There have been suggestions that these devices are a flight sim, but that doesn’t sit quite right either. It’s several thousand pounds of metal, with the minimum bid of $2.00 at the time of this writing. Any guesses on what this actually is?
I thing the gantry is part of a telescope
Space frame is similar, but I am pretty sure not a telescope. This rotates about the horizontal axis only, as far as I can tell from the photos, and the structure around is not telescope related. It appears that this is to rotate some very heavy gear around a horizontal axis. ID as a gantry makes me think of several things likely to be wrong so I won’t embarrass myself more but enumerating.
Maybe an early prototype tomography platform?
My hope would be that someone from IU familiar with the unit will chime in.
I grew up in Bloomington, familiar with IU and had some family members work on some of this stuff – I’m going to guess this is part of the Cyclotron facility at IU. The cyclotron closed in 2015-ish, so that would fit with this auction.
http://archive.news.iu.edu/releases/iu/2014/08/proton-therapy-center.shtml
There is a telescope/observatory on campus, but nowhere near that size.
It looks like those G-force trainers such as what were seen in Spies Like Us.
It looks to me like a part of a centrifuge used for testing astronauts.
Part of a telescope is a possibility, it is clearly designed to rotate and looks very much like the instrument rotators at Keck. Note the large bearing surfaces and the cable wrap. Given the size it would have to go with a very large telescope, 8 or 10m.
Could also be part of some sort of tomography, CAT, or MRI research setup? Rather large for medical use though.
FTR, I believe the item being listed is the actual gantry (red frame with a grey ladder like structure on top of it used to support cabling) which is in the foreground, along with a yellow ladder. If you scroll down to the MEDIA section, pictures 2 and 3 in the sequence show a more complete straight-on image of an item which would qualify as a gantry.
I’d chalk this up to administrative staff not spending the time to accurately delineate what in the pictures is actually being sold, and including more photos from the site.
Two of the proton therapy devices can be made out in the photos, but the listing claims one item (versus one lot), and the listing points out devices in two pits. Given the inadequacy of the description, it’s no wonder only one person has bit on it so far — there’s an enormous amount of liability sitting there.
The Gantry was used for proton beam therapy, in service pictures: http://services.bloomington.ivytech.edu/news/press_clippings/2007/ht_pronton_therapy_center_growing.html
Well found! No wonder the frame has such extensive bracing. Sadly it looks like the robot arm in those photos has been removed.
Aside from the frame & bearings, I can see some very large cable chains, at least two heavily geared-down servo motors, and a lot of what might be pneumatic brakes. It looks like a lot of the stiffening bracing could be detached to still leave a slightly more compact rotating cylindrical frame if someone had a use for a slowly rotating tube the size of a studio flat.
Looking at the pictures, my first thought was “M.D. Anderson, Houston, TX”
and later read that they were one of the recipients of the machine.
I think it is a part of a Proton Therapy Center Gantry system as pictured here. http://www.indiana.edu/~iubphys/aboutus/facilities/images/6.jpg found at this link. http://www.indiana.edu/~iubphys/aboutus/facilities.shtml
Oh great! so it is radioactive!
Probably not any more, if it ever was. The beam almost certainly did not hit the gantry frame to any significant degree, and if it had, the activated nuclei would have by and large decayed by now.
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/5220.html
Further reading. “A team of medical professionals at the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute (MPRI) and Indiana University Cyclotron Facility (IUCF) have treated the first patient in the world using an industrial robotic patient positioning system with a rotating gantry.” Source: above URL. March 28, 2007
I’m sad to hear the TJB (Traveling Junk Box) is missing (again!).
That is why we can’t have nice things.
I might chip in a few goodies for the next round,
hopefully someone can design one with a block chain to keep track of it.
It *was* missing again, but the spirit lives on – in the box that I have on my desk right now and will be sending out in a couple of hours =)
Don’t forget about HTTP status code 420: Enhance Your Calm.
Which is heavily used by twitter’s API, and probably other services.
+1 for best laughs yet
Someone needs to make an IOT kettle that gives out error 418
I don’t think you have to worry about 418. The issue was closed 3 days ago with assurances that it’s not going anywhere.
Also the guy who started the whole controversy is also the guy who just submitted a new RFC to mark 418 as Reserved instead of Unassigned. That way it won’t get reassigned until such time as all the other 4xx codes are exhausted.
The Gantry will end up getting scrapped.
LOL! at someone concerned with performance regarding Node, like for real dude
The ‘gantry’ appears to be a pair of radiological medical treatment devices that have had all the fun and interesting bits stripped out.
Would make really cool set pieces for a SciFi movie, perhaps teleporters, maybe a time machine or two.
Looks to be the right size for a Stargate.
A few 3D hieroglyphs, rotating bezel, some flashy lights controlled by the embedded device of choice and it’d be one great office.
I wonder if BT5 has enough features to make them usable in the all the too many cases where manufacturers now use propriety solutions. And if not if the BT group should perhaps look at why they do that and adapt the specs to make that unnecessary with BT5.2