I came across this video the other night from Youtube user Gotoluc. He takes a coil with a laminated steel core then applies a charge. As you would expect he gets the sort of result you would see in any solenoid. Then he takes some Neo magnets and uses them with their poles facing and the result is fascinating.
Of course I had to have a go myself as I found it fascinating. In the first vid I run through my setup and an initial test.
In the second vid below I’m levitating a Rodin coil to the height of 225mm or 9 inches. I’m running on 12 watts I’m guessing but have not yet measured amps. I’ll be weighing the coil over the weekend.
With all the recent attacks on the Internet by the corporate copyright holders I thought I would setup Netflix on my Apple TV. Although Netflix has been available in the US for years, no such service is in Australia. Netflix is, amongst other things, a video streaming service. A bit like having your local video shop online so you can stream their entire library. The big difference with Netflix is that you have unlimited access to the library for $7.95USD per month. I’m not one to sit in front of a computer though and watch a movie (I mainly watch docos anyway), which is one of the main reasons I bought my Apple TV. This $130 device allows me to connect Internet video or anything I film on my iPhone directly to my Plasma TV. You can “rent” videos via itunes on the AppleTV in Australia at a cost of $7AUD each. Yeah right. There are a few hoops to jump through to achieve Netflix in Australia and I must than @millionsofmyles for his helpful tips. Here are the steps. This is for an Apple OSX Lion setup on IInet using the Boblite router.
Setup a VPN service
Setup a Netflix account
Setup a US iTunes account
Connect Your AppleTV to iTunes & VPN
Sounds straight forward enough but it took me a day and a half to get it working properly.
VPN Service
I used Astrill.com. It costs about $70 a year and you must add the PPTP service not just the openWeb protocol. This allows the AppleTV to use it as well. A VPN (virtual private network) hides your ISP given IP address and assign you one from your VPN provider. In this case I needed a US based IP address so Netflix would think I was based in the USA. You can then also download their VPN app that will allow you to surf the web as though you were based in the US but what I wanted it for in this situation was to setup the VPN as a network adapter in OSX Lion. Here is Astrill’s step by step how to set this VPN up in OSX Lion. Once you have that setup you need to configure Internet sharing on your desktop. My setup is that my AppleTV connects over WiFi as did my desktop. For this to work I had to connect my desktop via ethernet directly to my Boblite Modem so that my AppleTV could use my Wifi to connect through to my VPN.
Setup Netflix
Using your VPN web app surf to Netflix.com. Make sure you have selected a US server. I used an Australian credit card without any problems. The address I used was a US one I selected at random.
This can be a little buggy as the AppleTV seems to cache certain data. First connect to your WiFi VPN you setup on your computer in step 1. Then under general settings connect your US iTunes account. Now under your “Internet” menu you should see Netflix. Choose that and login with your Netflix account credentials.
That’s it! I had issues trying to then connect back to my Home Sharing account on my desktop but I simply had to go into iTunes on the desktop go to the advanced menu and where it says “Turn on Home Sharing” I noticed it was connected to my AU account. I simply disconnected, made sure I was logged into my US itunes account then turned on Home Sharing again via the advanced menu where I was prompted for my account details. I logged in with my US details and Voila! My “Home Sharing” appeared again on my AppleTV. Latest news is that Netflix is coming to Australia again. Apparently Telstra is the potential partner which means you’ll probably need to be a bigpond subscriber and have a Tbox- yeech.
I haven’t updated here for a while because I have been flat out with work but I thought I’d give you an overview of some of the alternate energy developments that have caught my eye recently. There’s some pretty exciting stuff going on. Overunity Over the last 18 months I have been building pulse motors [...]
So our current federal Government wants to introduce a carbon tax so we can reduce CO2 and thus reduce “global warming” So much of this debate seems to be about what side of politics you’re on. For the record I’m on neither. I like to think my personal principles override that of any politician i [...]
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Happy New Year Rankers For my first vid of 2011, I’m following up on my last story of 2010. Our major Australian retailers are claiming that online retailers are somehow scamming the system by avoiding the GST and thus negatively effecting offline sales. Aussie retailers still bitching & whingeing In the early days of ecommerce [...]
There has been a fair bit of talk recently about the slump this Christmas in Australian retail sales. One of the main protagonists has been Gerry Harvey of the retail chain Harvey Norman. A bit of a war of words has sprung up though, with online retailer Ruslan Kogan. Today I have a look at [...]
One of our clients, The Holla Agency is doing one of the most awesome Christmas promotions for their brand. Holla is one of many advertising agencies in Sydney but they certainly seem to punch above their weight with their campaigns. They were the agency behind the Razamatazz social media campaign this year. It was that [...]
