Slacklog

The G-bot Build - UPDATED!

2007-09-19T10:23:00.001-04:00

Welp, once upon a time I decided to build a robot. It ended up being a little creepy because of how it was built. I had used a cheap doll to provide the bits for the body, because otherwise my first robotic attempt would look like nothing more than a few servos attached to each other with no anthropomorphic qualities at all.

This is not about that robot.

The first robot creeped me out so I put it away. Never having done much with it. It was just wrong. Then I found on makezine.com a guy from japan who made a roboone robot out of cheap servos and wood. The wood piece made me think of , of all things, popsicle sticks. Hmm…..

I pondered this design before thinking that wooden popsicle sticks would be a handy and cheap materiel to use for support structure and simple bones. I spent sometime thinking about how I could design my next bot. Not having access to the machine shop and the scrap metal had also been a big part of my delaying any more robotic work and this could be an easy way to do it.

Welp, after some though it was off to AC Moore to find some popsicle sticks, and see if I could find some cheap small right angle brackets. Found the popsicle sticks no problem. Wow, 300 for 3 bucks, I might be onto something here. No brackets were to be found so as a thought I bought a cookie cutter with a few right angles, half thinking I could cut it and make a cheap if flimsy set of brackets. On my way home I spied a Lowes and decided to stop in for some machine screws and lo and behold found a couple of cheap brackets. They were a much to heavy gauge but I figured 3 bucks how could I go wrong.

So I got home and and collected the cursed doll robot (ok not cursed but definitely creepy) the rest of my servos and a dollar store toy robot I had bought months ago for this very reason. And then set about making an enormous mess on my kitchen table.

I was flying by the seat of my pants eyeballing this, cutting that and generally being reckless about building the bot. This will come back to haunt me later.

My first step was salvaging the old servos from the doll and finding my other servos. Not having been able to find my drill bits since my move I couldn’t drill new holes to mount the servos on the brackets I had bought. I decided to not let that stop me, and removed the servo horns and replaced them with big servo sprockets instead. I got out the wire ties and went to work mounting the servos to the brackets with black wire nylon zip ties.

I looked at the popsicle sticks wondering how to cut them. I didn’t want to saw them that seemed like to much work. I decided I had 300 to experiment with so I pulled out my dikes (diagonal cutters for those uninformed) measured it out crudely and cut. It took a little force but they cut nicely that way. Nice clean edges and the parts of the sticks shot in opposite directions. NEAT!
Well with that out of the way I started cutting the pieces for the forearms and using my not patented construction method of popsicle sticks, double sided sticky tape and electrical tape I attatched it to the servo and having previously removed the forearms from the toy robot, taped them in place. I then used a skinny jewelry screwdriver to drill holes into another stick that then got attached to the shoulder servos and mounted them to the elbow servos. One arm down, one to go.

I then attatched another servo to the back of the body servos for a neck again with double sided tape and electrical tape and mounted various objects as a head. Finally deciding on my miniature wireless cam from my RC project. That made for a suitable head.

Now I had half a torso with long arms and a head. I decided I needed a base for it all so I went nosing around and grabbed a left over piece of lexan from a projector project. I also cut 2 more popsicle sticks square at the ends and mounted them to the bottom of the servos and then (having found one big drill bit) drilled holes for mounting them to the servos and left over brackets. Once those were attatched with the machine screws I took the brackets found a decent spot to mount them on the lexan marked them then drilled holes and mounted them too.

At this point the Gbot was more or less built but now I needed to attach the controller card. Grabbing my handy Velcro I cut a few pieces and stuck them to the bottom of the SSC32 serial servo controller and then mounted that on the lexan. Mounted the battery pack with double sided tape and I was good to go.

Powering up for the first time was interesting. Once powered it went to the home position for all the servos.

Oops.

Shoulda done that first. They were close enough but not quite. But it did more and even though the shoulders are a mockery or proper building technique I discovered it does have a decent range of motion.

Now to disassemble it all to set them in home position and reassemble it again.

Sigh.

Stay tuned.

Current Gear.

2007-04-22T18:20:00.000-04:00

It has occured to me that I take a lot of electronics with me when I travel and a lot of electronics accompany me on my daily routine. So I figured I'd put up a required equipment post so the world can see how much of a geek I am.

Daily gadgets.

In my Messenger Bag or on me.

1. Pioneer Inno XM Radio.

2. LG VX9800 "The V" cell phone. **Update** Helio Ocean Cell phone (It rocks)

3. MP3 watch (2gb, FM radio, voice recorder, removable storage)

3. iAudio M5 20gb mp3 player.

4. Plantronic bluetooth Headset

5. Toshiba E750 PDA with WiFi and Bluetooth.

6. Targus Wireless IR Keyboard.

7. Olympus 4.3 MP digital Camera.

8. Logitech Bluetooth Wireless headphones

9. JVC Portable Folding Behind the Head Headphones

10. 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter.

11. Various USB Cables

In my car.

1. Roady XT XM Radio

2. Plenio VXA 2000 7" Display GPS Nav System

3. Off Brand Chinese In Dash DVD, MP3, MP4, CD, CD-RW Player with SD and USB

What I take on the road.

1. All of the items in my messengerbag list.

2. Virgin Boomtube VS0200 Portable Speakers

3. Acer Aspire 5050-3242 Laptop

4. 400GB HD in USB Enclosure **Update** 160 GB External. 400GB drive relegated to NAS Enclosure

5. Flashtrax XT 40GB

6. CF to XD Adapter

7. CF to SD Adapter

8. USB Flash Card Reader

9. Multiple Thumbdrives

10. VuPoint DV-DA1-VP 5MP Camera/VGA MP4 Camcorder.

11. Requisite Chargers for all of the Above.

Home Theatre System

1. XBOX modded with Xenium Ice chip and 120GB HD

2. XBOX360 Premium

3. Sony 550 Watt Home Theatre System

4. 46 inch Yamaha HD Projection TV.

5. Digital HD Cable Box.

6. Toshiba DVD Player. **Update** Removed to make space for XBOX360 on reciever.

7. Neuros MP4 recorder 2.

Random Thoughts on Religeon, after death, evolution, and the start of life.

2007-04-18T20:52:00.001-04:00

Posted this in a forum but felt it was worthwhile to post here as well. These posts were answers to questions in a forum poll about the Belief in "God/Gods". Here's the link for more info...

http://www.heroes-tv.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&type=&topic_id=1876&forum=14

Natural Born Atheist.

I guess you could say I was a Natural born athiest. When I was born I was baptizd in the hopes I would follow some religeon.

When I was 5 or so my parents brought me to my mothers church first (philipino catholicism) and though I didn't understand tagalog my mother translated the sermons for me.

The things she said didn't resonate as truth with me and sounded suspiciously like fairy tales. Grand figures doing things for the good f the people. Then came the talk of sins, and heaven and hell.

I was a smart kid mind you and even at this point and I knew then that the planet was solid and full of lava, and that the earth was a planet in the solar system with other planets.

I couldn't reconcile hell with the center of the earth or heaven with space. It just didn't jive to me. So they brought me to my fathers church. Protestant I think. I just remember more of the same basic stories, a lot of standing, kneeling, sitting, over and over. There was even singing.

It didn't make sense to me. I told my parents that I didn't understand and didn't want to go anymore. Apart from a few weddings, and midnight mass (my girlfriend at the time was catholic or some flavor of catholicism.) Ihaven't been back since.

Maybe I wasn't designed for religeon. I didn't believe in the easter bunny (a rabbit with chicken eggs?), the tooth fairy (I just couldn't see the point of someone paying me for my useless teeth, I mean who does it benefit?), or even santa clause for long (though I did play along for a while).

My parents respected that I didn't believe and didn't push. I was always inclined to science, and how things worked. I guess at a young age I realized if something sounds to fantastic (not great, but outrageous) to be true, in all likelyhood it isn't. Miracles can be attributed to statistics, creationism is a fairy tale, and the ten commandments can be boiled down to simply "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

The whole thing smacks of either fairy tales or fables to me and I can't for the life of me understand how anyone still needs to believe in something that was written to explain things we couldn't and to put on paper how best to live. Morals, ethics, trustworthyness are all that are necessary to live happily in my way of thinking.

I always thought that the belief in heaven was putting to much hope in something that you won't know is real until you die, and what if you end up being wrong? You'd miss out on so much because some book, someone wrote about a guy who lived 2000 years ago said its wrong. I couldn't fathom it. Living life to its fullest makes so much more sense to me.

I'm not trying to push my thoughts on anyone, or try to convert anybody. These are my experiences and beliefs (or lack of depending on point of view) and nothing more. I only write them because I have a habit of typing to much, and to explain my way of thinking and perhaps inspire some thought.

Life after Death of a sort....

I can almost give you that heaven and hell could be alternate dimensions. String theory works because it is based in a universe that has 10 dimensions. We exist in four and it mathematically states that a 10 dimensional universe would be incredibly unstable. One theory that I rather like is originally there was a 10 dimensional universe that was so unstable it split itself into our universe and its self. So it could be 2 universes, though what a 6 dimensional universe would be lke is anyones guess. Most people have trouble with the 4 dimensions we have now (length, width, height, time).

Of course if there is another universe we probably can't detect it, nor they us. So if heaven and hell are alternate dimensions then I doubt we vacation there after death.

Mind you I don't thik we as souls go to a reward, but I do have a afterdeath theory of my own, and it sort of explains both reincarnation and ghosts.

The human body loses weight at the moment of death.a miniscule amount but tangible. The human nervous system is electrical in nature and creates an electromagnetic field. I think that the field generated by humans survives after death. It's not really concious or even sentient but I think it moves on.

Now this electromagnetic field is what I would term a ghost. It moves and has memorys. When its traumatized it may loop over and over through its death as is always talked about in ghost stories. And humans may not see these ghosts with their eyes so much as sense their presence and see (not optically, but more like visualization/imagination) the ghosts.

Now take this a step further, because its now an electromagnetic field but somewhat aware and still storing the old memories I think reincarnation is basically when a ghost comes in contact with a pregnant woman and the developing child is unformed mentally, the ghost can through induction imprint itself on the child. I don't think this means it inhabits the child, but makes a sort of copy on the child.

That could explain why several people claim to be Cleopatra reincarnated. The conventional thought is they're all crazy. But it could be that as a ghost she's prolific and they really are all her.

Now the child thats imprinted isn't really a copy, it just has a bunch of memories that are a bit unformed but came to be in fact from a reality it never saw.

I know there is a lot there that I don't know the mechanisms for but I think are plausible and likely true. It sounds fantastic, but it probably works like that and we just do not yet know why. And it seems like magic because we don't understand. OF course at one point we never thought we'd be able to travel faster than 30 miles an hour either. Times change, technology changes, ideas change, and our knowledge grows. What we don't know now, we probably will at some point.

I know, its a long post but how else do you explain these things :)

Evolution

I know I believe it. The human genome project (the real one not the one fromthe show) has shown that our DNA is virtually identical to the DNA in a chimpanzee. Now saying virtually identical is still saying different but only a little. When you realize that chimpanzees and orangutangs have a much larger variation in dna than humans and chimps. That being said, that makes us monkees, or rather members of "The Great Apes". I believe what truly started the differentiation is our thumbs. Our opposable thumbs allowed us to use and make tools. We used the tools to hunt and consequently we got more protien. The protein and the drive it gave us feuled our expanding brain. We got smarter and more different. What I think happened next goes a bit in the conventioal view of our development but it makes a lot of sense. Its called the aquatic ape theory.

The aquatic ape theory posits that at one point in our evolution we ended up spending a lot of time in the water. Now the reason could be as simple as its safer in the water and the tigers can't eat us there (they don't like getting wet). Our bodies adapted to our spending so much time in the water, we have vestigial remnants of webbing between our fingers and toes for swimming. We developed body fat below the skin as insulation from the cold water the same way seals and walrusses have blubber. We lost our body hair and what we have left is streamlined and allowed for easier swimming.

We becane more human. As we started spenidng less time in the water our development towards becoming aquatic mammals stopped and we consequently continued developing to what we are today. Slightly different genetic makeup from other great apes but vastly more intelligent and just diferent enough from the other animals we think we're special. But once you go right to the heart of the matter, we're all still animals underneath the bravado. We're all made of the same stuff monkeys and other mammals are. We're very accomplished monkeys but still just monkeys.

All because of our thumbs :)

Now we understand how to answer the question of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?". The answer is the egg, because before it was something that was almost a chicken but not quite.

Evolution will turn a fish into a parrot and a monkey into a man.

The Start Of life on this planet....

What created those. Now that question made me step back. Not to rethink my views but to try to figure out how to describe it and not go into pages of text.

An incredibly good book that describes the process (briefly) that created life on this planet is called "The Blind Watchmaker" it is written by Richard Dawkins and he is in fact on of the great intellectuals of our time. It adresses creationist theory and systematically debunks every argument in the name of creationism put forward while explaining in clear not technical jargon evolutions role in the creation of life on this planet. An excellent read.

The premise is if someone were to find a watch and examine its complexitiess it could not have arisen by chance and must have been designed, and thus life in its nearly infinitely greater complexity must also have been designed and couldn't have arisen by chance.

Scientists have attempted to explain lifes origins by recreating the initial state of the planet, its chemical makeup, atmosphere, and enviroment to see if life can be created from nothing. The earth in those times was violent and radically different. The atmosphere was predominantly carbon dioxide, chlorine, sodium and toxic to todays life. Violent storms with great lightening strikes constantly hitting the primordial ocean, and the existing chemicals.

This is the enviroment that scientist have created. The lightening strikes into this environment created certain amino acids and that was the precursor for life. The primary building block if you will.

While they never created the spontaneous life they intended, its not so much suprising. Evolution is a process that took thousands of millions of years. The creation of life took time. Thousands of millions of scientists working for a year wouldn't generate life.

The conept of evolution itself is based on small change having large consequence. A lot of people wrongly assume that evolution happened with a goal in mind and that is hardly the case. As humans, a lot of us (myself not included) arrogantly assume that we are the goal of evolution but there is no goal in evolution.

When you consider the time that the earth has existed 4.57 billion years ago, and the first self replicating molecule (the original precursor to life on earth) formed roughly 4 billion years ago its not suprising a handful of scientists were unable to replicate this event in a few years of experimentation.

That initial self replicating module took another half billion years to become a true single cell organism that was the original common ancestor of life on earth. Later when photosynthesis came to be developed it slowly replace the carbon dioxide atmosphere with ozoze and oxygen. The ozone eventually became the ozone layer in our atmosphere that we're recklessly destroying.

Groups of different single cell organisms working together (not truly working together but these organism adapted to what was around them which was other single cell organisms.) soon developed multicellular life. Simple creatures existed later and evolution slowly made these more complex. Eventually fish, and these left the water, they became reptiles some reptiles became warm blooded and became mammals. Some Reptiles became dinosaurs, some became birds.

Follow down the lines and you get to us, we exist and continue to change.

The concept of evolution is so hard to grasp for most because it takes place in spans of time that we can't wrap our minds around. For us a few years is a long time but its NOTHING evolutionarily speaking. We're not the goal, we're another step.

Luckily enough for us intelligence is something we possess, and we have come to terms scientifically how we came to be, but large portions of our society still cling to what was a precursor to science and that is religeon.

We have developed a concept of right and wrong and these simpler ideas are what we need to govern our lives. What really counts is what you do and not what "God/Gods" you believe in. That truly is what is important.

There's no need to be a lost soul. Who you are and what you do defines you. The love you have and recieve are what counts. Where we came from is kinda unimportant if you just want to be a good person. There is no need for a rewards based system like religeon to guide you. If you look inside yourself and use the intellect that evolution has given us, moral decisions are easier without needing a book to guide you.

Just found these pics. Had to post them.....

2007-04-03T17:42:00.000-04:00

Installation of a Multimedia Nav system and DVD/MP4 Head unit. Part I

2007-03-22T13:37:00.000-04:00

Part I

Well, on a recent business trip I became infatuated by my coworkers nav systems. I decided I need one. So I got back and did a bunch of research and pricing. As nice as the TomToms and Magellan systems are I thought it would be nicer to have larger screen.

Well a trip to www.geeks.com let me discover just the ticket. The Plenio VXA-2000 7” Touch Screen Navigation system http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PCJVXA-2000 . An interesting feature of this nav unit is that it allows you to utilize the screen for fun things like video games or video. That prompted me to go searching for a mobile video source. I had contemplated using something like a portable mp4 unit for video but I still liked the idea of being able to toss in a DVD for road trips without having to rip and encode it to divx, xvid, or any of the other numerous formats and containers for video files.

Further Perusing of the site landed my on a combination DVD/CD/MP3/MP4 in dash unit with both a USB slot for Thumb Drives and an SD/MMC slot right on the face of it. It appeared tailor made for what I wanted and the price was dirt cheap. All of $129 plus tax. The Nav unit was a bargain too at $338 plus tax. Shipping for both were cheap and the total came out to be around $500 for both pieces. Try finding that retail. http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=INDASH-45WX4-WB

Additional bonus. I recently purchased a Neuros MP4 Recorder 2 Plus. It essentially acts like a mini digital VCR that records directly to Compact flash, SD, or Memory sticks. In MP4 format so theoretically I should be able to record a show, and then simply pull the card, insert it into the stereo, and watch or listen to the recording on my commute. Nice!

The head unit is some Chinese off brand with no branding. It looked to me to be a unit that would be sold on www.mp3playerstore.com so a quick hop over there confirmed my suspicion I read up on its specs a bit more. The unit I have is the equivalent of their DVD-393x-TV, minus the TV tuner. Not a big deal since I doubt I’d get any reception anyway. http://www.mp3playerstore.com/stuff_you_need/dvd/DVD-393X-TV.htm

So the package ended up arriving on Wednesday and I stayed home from work to sign for the package. I was a bit annoyed I hadn’t put “Send Signature not required” on it but then I didn’t really want several hundred dollars of equipment just sitting on my porch until I got home.

The packaging for the Plenio was standard retail style packing and the unit was packed well. All the accessories were accounted for and in good shape. The head unit was packed in a white box with no markings, but it was packed well and looked nice once unwrapped.

I had planned on waiting until this weekend to install both units but temptation hit and I decided to at least install the car stereo so I could see it all lit up and working. Not to mention this way I got to play with it and get to know its features before I add the nav system and have to figure out how to integrate them,

Step 1. Liberate the old system.

The Stereo I had in there was a nice Sony CD head that played MP3’s and had either Aux inputs or CD changer controls. It was a simple matter of removing the faceplate, the bezel (snaps on/off), and using the keys included with the Sony unit to unlock the Main unit from the mounting sleeve. It is standard practice to sell stereos that mount like this.

Since I didn’t want to Mess around with splicing wires directly into the car last time I managed to pick up a wiring harness for a few bucks from Walmart when I originally bought the unit. So once the unit was physically free it was a matter of disconnecting the harness from the unit, and unplugging it from the car. These things make life so much easier. Then it was simply bend the mounting tabs back into their original position and remove the sleeve. I brought all the parts into the house and repacked them into the box the new unit came from then went to work on the harness.

Step 2. Set up the wiring harness.

I had used butt connectors previously so I simply cut the wires on the harness side right at the junction to the butt connectors so I had more wire to work with. I then hooked up the wires by matching colors and functions.

The new radio followed the same color connections So it went together easily. I again utilized butt connectors for speed and ease. No wire nuts for me. Crimping give a more solid connection and wire nuts have a tendency to fall off in an environment like a vehicle where they are subject to vibrations. Exposed leads cause a short and shorts are bad.

Step 3. Install sleeve and unit.

Took all the new components out to the car and made the connection to the car using the newly modified wiring harness and threading the required connections out thru the sleeve. Then I mounted the sleeve by bending the tabs down to lock it in place. I then connected the cables. First Subwoofer connection, then Aux in to a 1/8th jack to rca adapter (for hooking up mp3 player, xm radio whatever), then antenna, then the harness and that was finished. Then it was a simple matter of sliding the new unit into its home in the sleeve (not so easy because there is limited space inside the dash and wires KEPT getting in the way), snapping on the new bezel and installing the faceplate.

Step 4. Test unit.

Well first thing was to set the clock, following the instructions and using the scary large remote. I tested the tuner first and tuned it to my favorite stations to test reception. It came in crystal clear and so did most of the other stations I can normally receive near my home. Popped in an MP3 cd and after a second of scanning it it started playing nicely. Tried a regular CD and it worked fine again. I nosed around the manual to figure out how to adjust the sound and found 4 different EQ settings. Not bad but not quite what I was looking for so staring at the screen for a bit, I figured out how to manually adjust the sound and did so. Much better now. Tried plugging the Aux input into my iAudio M5 and listened to that and it worked very nicely.

I didn’t have a chance to test the USB or SD functionality yet but all in all I’m satisfied with the unit. MY only gripe is it takes a little longer than my Sony did to scan the cd’s before playing but it really is minor. I’m already used to the display and face controls but I have yet to master the remote. I also haven’t tested the video functionality yet as the Nav system isn’t yet installed but it will be this weekend. A full report will be here then on the combo.

Some of my noteworthy posts from Heroes-tv.com

2007-03-03T23:45:00.000-05:00

My rants and thoughts:
http://dissidentsplayground.blogspot.com

My requisite myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/dissident75

Thoughts about evolving superpowers:
http://www.heroes-tv.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=11036#forumpost11036

Thoughts about creating superpowers:
http://www.heroes-tv.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=11164#forumpost11164

Thoughts on how the character powers work:
http://www.heroes-tv.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=12750#forumpost12750

Thoughts on how Logistically Timetravel Works:
http://www.heroes-tv.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=11122#forumpost11122

"Heroes is like serial Crack."

Japan Trip!

2007-02-03T22:32:00.000-05:00

Funny and factual account of our last trip to Japan. Pictures to come soon.

Tokyo Trip.

Day 1.

Woke up at 6to shower and catch our limo to the airport. It’s was 13 degrees out and we wanted out of Jersey badly. Limo arrived around 7:20 and then it was an hour-long ride to EWR. The driver said nothing and kinda sucked.

Got through security very fast. B got stopped for his big honking battery pack.

14 hours is a long flight, and we entertained ourselves and each other with “Lost in Translation” (appropriate I think) reading and a bunch of music. Shortly after we took off they turned out the lights. Then in short order all the window shades were closed and it was suddenly nighttime. We did get a couple shots off in the plane. At one point we were over one of the great lakes and it was completely iced over. You could see the plow marks over some land.

We had the continental in flight entertainment stick. Basically a phone/TV remote/game controller/light controller and a 6-inch screen that showed every channel but the one we wanted to watch.

Bastards.

Finally got to Narita and after much stumbling around waiting for our luggage, exchanging money I got to have a cig and oof 16 or so hours without nicotine and it’s a free head rush! The shuttle took around 2 hours and in that time we found the Japanese have a proclivity to mounting their rearview mirror way up in the front of their cars. Also big ferris wheels, As in the Worlds Biggest.

Finally got to our hotel around 6:30 or so Tokyo time. Promptly marveled at the room. Awesome room. Unreal view. Absolutely gorgeous, I swear. We were a little confused about the toilet, I mean it had a bunch of buttons that looked a little ominous and the functions are downright intrusive, though oddly pleasant. The blue button rocked, the pink not so much.

We promptly got changed and cleaned up a bit and bounced right out on the town. It goes without saying that at this point we were up for around 25 hours.

The walk to the Train station was only around 7 blocks and we found a Wendy’s restaurant. And had our first experience with the vending machine phenomenon. They are everywhere and a bewildering array of drinks and things can be had.

The train station is interesting because it has little automated ticket purchasing machines and a HUGE map of the confusing subway and Rail system. We became good friends with the railroad. The way it works is it shows you your stop on the map and all the other places have a number next to them. The names and in Japanese so we whipped out our handy English copy of the map figured out where Shibuya was and its correlating price, about 160 yen, inserted a bill and got our tickets and change. This was where we noticed they have a lot of coin money with values up to 500yen (about 5 bucks). I also decided I like coin money.

The trains are clean, crowded and quiet. A huge change from the NY subway system. Everyone is polite and stays to themselves.

SHIBUYA

Shibuya is insane. Gorgeous, and bright and dizzying to the first timer. After much walking and looking around we started getting hungry again and decided to find a place to eat.

They put plastic replicas of the food they serve outside so you can see what they have and most menus seem to have pictures also. So we went into this little doorway and down some stairs to a basement restaurant. We were seated and were stunned at the size of the place. The entire restaurant, including the kitchen, was maybe as big as my kitchen (my kitchen is big but not that big) and we were seated next to a few girls who were very attractive.

We pointed at the menus to order and our food came out pretty quickly. We ordered pasta forgetting that they only had chopsticks. That was fun. I actually managed to eat everything in my bowl with them and got pretty good at it. Very reasonable prices I might add. Tokyo is notorious for being extremely expensive but we didn’t really find it to be so. Maybe its because we’re from jersey and its expensive as hell there too. Anyway after dinner we took off and started bouncing around Shibuya some more. We came upon the seedier section (not that bad really) and found “Love hotel Hill” that was neat. Also a strip club but they were a bit expensive so we went in search of a cool bar.

We found a bar called “Tombstone” and thought why not? Again we went into a tiny hallway and into a tiny bar. They had a biker/outlaw motif but the bartender was friendly and there were no fights or anything. When I say tiny, I was right next to the coat rack which was on top of the bar fridge. There were maybe 7 places to sit in the entire place and a live dj took up the only open space at the end. The bartender was constantly having to duck down under the bar crawl through to the fridge to get beers. People came in and out regularly and there was steady flow for such a small place. A couple other tourist stuck their heads in and exclaimed “Is that all there is?!?” and left.

We were very much getting into the Tokyo experience and when we were getting good and drunk we had to leave and run to the train because they shut down at 12 putting a cap on the fun for the night for everyone.

We finally got back to our room and crashed out we were so wound up we didn’t go straight to sleep immediately. We just talked for an hour or so while raiding the minibar before finally getting changed and crashed out hard. It was about time too; at this point we had been up over 30 hours.

Day 2

Got up and went down to have breakfast and had a fun hangover. The restaurant looked very nice and the prices were commensurate with what you expect from a 5 star hotel, extremely expensive. Ordered a ham and cheese omelet and got something I didn’t quite expect. It tasted funny and that along with the bitter coffee worked in conjunction to make me make a hasty departure and suffice it to say I made my mark on Tokyo that morning. After another quick change we went strolling around and found a Buddhist Temple next to Tokyo Tower. At this point I realized I wasn’t feeling better and really should try to eat and get something for my head. I actually found Excedrin in a pharmacy and stopped at the Wendy’s to grab a bite to go. After which I took a nap and B took off again to Tokyo Tower.

That evening I got cleaned up and decided it would be fun to hit Shinjuku. That place is absurd too. I thought it wouldn’t be a bright as Shibuya but I was wrong. And its seedier section is much seedier. After nosing around in shops we went looking for a pub to get some dinner. I ordered a pizza and B got Fish and chips. His Chips were excellent and my pizza was good. Or at least half of it was good. The other half was, well, strange. It had raspberry cheese on it and I couldn’t eat it. We paid and left to continue around scooping things out.

We had an amusing time with one meek quiet guy that was trying to offer us a hooker or 2 for sex. We politely declined and finally ended up being offered something that sounded, well, not as illegal.

The “Snack shop”

A guy on the street offered us a huge discount for an hour and a half with attractive girls and free drinks the whole time. I decided to take him up on his offer figuring at least it was worth the drinks. I got a hot blonde and Brian got and attractive filipino girl. He was not into it but figured what the hell. After a while I got into it and even extended our stay. Drinks for me free, drinks for her were not. But I figured we’re on vacation so live it up right? Brian and his “date” got along pretty well while I was licking salt off my “dates” breast for my tequila shots. Then we realized how late it was and like mad we dashed out after I paid and had some drunken words with the proprietor of the place because he was trying to gouge us even more and made for the street so we could get to the train. Once out there we were almost surrounded by pimps trying to sell their wares and going so far as to offer us rides back to the hotel after. Good marketing ploy I might add. We politely told them no and managed to get to the train station on what may have been the last train.

Tired and drunk we both passed out on the train only to get booted off 2 stops early. Now its after midnight, there’s no train, and I have to pee. I went all the way back into the station only to find the door to the men’s room locked so off I went. Running around and finally hopping a turnstile because I say a bathroom there. By the time I got back out to Brian he had flagged down a cab and, I later found out, had left his own mark on Tokyo. Finally arriving back around 1:30 or so we crashed again, pausing only to take off our shoes.

Day 3.

Out of Yen. I woke up pretty early for the day and ended up waking B up to go get food. He was in poor shape and somehow I was feeling no pain. After consulting with the front desk and changing the last of our American dollars to yen we asked about an ATM and got directions. We finally found it and I pulled another 20000 yen and off we went. I got a bun thing and he got a jelly based energy thing and soon enough we were back on our way to the train station. Off to Akihabara, electric town.

Akihabara.

As loud and bright as Both Shibuya and Shinjuku were this place is like that during the day. As far as the eye can see are electronics shops. Any piece of equipment you need is there. I mean anything, from titanium ear buds (awesome and expensive, around 168), to statues of nude anime girls (much more than I would have expected, average around 60-120). Both being good navigator helped us not at all and frequently we found ourselves walking in circles down aisles we’d been in just a little while ago. Everywhere there were people hawking their wares cell phone shops for NTTDoCoMo and Softpac were in abundance.

I have a fascination with Japanese cell phones probably because of the lack of choice offered by carriers in the states. Every size shape and color were available from companies I had never even heard of as well as brands I knew. Cell phone usage in the states is high but it’s nothing like Tokyo. In the trains and restaurants everywhere actually you’d see somebody using their phone and not just to talk. Reading, texting, surfing the net and occasionally talking. I found myself jealous as mine doesn’t work there and I didn’t rent one when I got there. So super connected me was out of touch.

We found a restaurant that had Italian food in AKIBA ICHI and it was spectacular and cheap. I am so falling in love with this city. We went to Yodobashi-Akiba and that place was nuts, NINE floors of shopping. If you couldn’t find it in this store your just not going to find it in Tokyo period. Unreal. We walked every level and though almost every section in their. It actually became too much. Too many adds, to much stuff, just too much. After getting beaten senseless by the sensory overload we had to duck out and find somewhere quiet. We happened on a Café, which was once again underground, and had some time to just chill and reflect. At this point we were punch drunk and blown away that by the time we got on the train and it went to the next station we realized we were going the wrong way and had to pop off and on to the right one.
So sore, tired and needing a break we came back to the room a made an early night of it. Tomorrow perhaps Harajuko, and one or 2 more places. Then we may change our plans of staying in a capsule hotel and stay here one more night. The simple logistics or moving all our/my baggage to a capsule hotel on a train after checking out of here just seems like too much. We’ll see. We decided to cap the evening with a simple store bought diner consisting of soup and something that’s not entirely unlike egg foo young. After several rough nights a quiet night is important.

Day 4

The search for Godzilla.

So day five we extended our stay because the logistics of getting our things to the capsule hotel on the trains and stuff was daunting and we were lazy. We decided that today was a good day to see some of the last things on our list. Harujuku, Roppongi, and Godzilla in Hibiya Park. So first we decided that Godzilla would be good to start with as it was early and since school was in session and Harajuku is a youth teenage kind of attraction and Roppongi is an adult kind of attraction it sounded like a logical first choice.

On the way to the train station we noticed something we’d been walking past for days. A really nice park and we decided to go in. I finally managed to get to a nice Japanese park and garden. There was a lake with a few islands and bridges connecting everything and it was beautiful. We got some very nice photos there too. After dodging the children who showed up on a field trip and were obnoxiously loud (though forgiven as they may have been only around 5). We cut short our trip and we left.

We caught the train to Yurakucho Station and decided to find the park. But first we needed to eat and stopped at a nice place with a name we couldn’t decipher but with an attractive menu (nice pictures). We ended up having a very nice lunch and were taken care of hand and foot by a Korean lady. She came over and poured the soy sauce for us and even offered us forks even though we have gotten extremely proficient with chopsticks. She doted over us like she was our mother and that was very nice.

After lunch we struck out in the direction of the park and found it to be beautiful and completely bereft of any Godzilla monument. We took some great shots and the park was gorgeous. We then started venturing off from the park in the hopes of finding the elusive beast but were unsuccessful. I looked up hot to ask where he was (“Sumimasen, Godzilla o sagashite”) and finally met our first gaijin in Tokyo. He was a resident and hadn’t heard of a statue and our hopes were getting low. Finally I worked up the nerve to ask a police officer and waited the beating for the possible racial slur. Surprisingly enough he figured out we were looking for something and once I said it as gojira the shoe dropped. He pointed us to go around the next block and so we went. And there he was resplendent in his bronze casting. After searching for around 2 and half hours we sat and basked in his glory and took several photos, much to the amusement of the sari men (salary men or professionals) standing around smoking. On the way back to the train station we saw a Nissan Showroom and unfortunately only saw Pinos. I asked about the Skyline and was given directions to another showroom a few maybe 5 blocks away and off we went. I was surprisingly under whelmed by the Skyline but was thoroughly impressed by the Fairlady 350Z. Our mission complete we headed to the train station and then off to Harajuku.

Harajuku is an interesting place but it is crazy in the way that teenagers are. Bright lights loud music and silly clothes were the norm. I only took one shot of the main strip there and found a coffee house and tried to detox from the silliness outside. After exploring a bunch of side streets and finally finding our way back to the train station we went back to the room and chilled out for a while before changing and heading to Roppongi.

Roppongi has a reputation for a wild nightlife but all we managed to see was one bar because we were thoroughly annoyed with pimps trying to hawk their wares at us and left completely annoyed after having a few drinks at the “Propoganda” bar. An uneventful ride back on the subway and a quick stop at a liquor store to refill our minibar so as to avoid any outrageous fee and it was back to the hotel. A fitting last day to our trip. Off to the airport tomorrow and off to Korea for me and home for B.

Final thoughts on Japan.

I have fallen in love with this country. Everyone is polite. Everything is suprising and so is the food. The sense of efficiency is everywhere and for me that’s heaven. The toilets rock. AM/PM Stores will be your best friend. Japan is not as expensive as they make it out to be. If you can’t speak Japanese it is a major unintended relief to speak to another person from your country. Japan is quirky, and that is apparent no more than in Harjuku where hello kitty Lollita Goth is an actually fashion sense. Japanese guys are goofy looking. Japanese women are gorgeous, the outfits are amazing and the high pitched voices are great. You will end up wondering why they aren’t freezing all the time because of the short skirts, but you won’t mind it. Wendy’s is a known quantity here, portions are smaller and there are menu items that aren’t stateside but its more or less the same. Diet coke and pepsi taste funny here, due to the use of a different sweetener than nutrasweet.JR Railroad will we another of your best friends. Scooters and motorcycles are everywhere, from little goofy Vespa’s to the huge confortable “limo” scooters (I don’t have abetter name for them they are big look comfy and have room for at least on more person in style), hot sportbikes. I am definitely coming back, probably once a year and now my goal is to find a native Japanese speaking girl in the states and learn how to speak this language (may as well have a little fun while learning).

Japan is not for everyone. Some people will be miserable here, being unable to communicate or read. If you have an open mind and a decent amount of money it is a great place for a few days. I spent around 900 here for 4 days and I didn’t go buck wild shopping. Japan isn’t as expensive as they say, it’s comparable to hanging out in Atlantic city or NY for the same amount of time.

Try it, you’ll probably love it.

Ok, I'm impressed. Screw DSL. Cable Rocks.

2006-12-10T21:46:00.000-05:00

Geez.

2006-07-14T17:03:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since posting last. Realized that when the going to reread the link in the last posting and realizing it's not there. Oh well.

I don't have anything really to say. My work situation has become interesting. I've sold a house, rented an apartment. My birthday passed with no real fan fare. It's basically been more of the same old stuff.

I went to Harrisburg PA for work last month. We busted our butts for a week, finished, and ended up driving home that friday. I got home around 3:30 ish (3.5 hour drive) only to get word at 6:30 the same night that I needed to go back. Apparently one of the NET guys had an issue in the family, and I was the only one that could cover the NET slack. So back to Harrisburg the next day. For another week.

Then this month it was out to NC. Unfortunately it was worked out that the travel day was the fourth of july. No bar-b-que for me. Since being here (NC) my team has done an unprecedented amount of work. Not another one of the teams since the beginning of fielding can claim to have come close to what we did here. But I'm not bragging, I'm more concerned with setting precedents on what can be accomplished, by either my team or any fielding team. We just happen to be on our game ;)

I sold my house on June 1. So for the 28 hours previous, I and a good friend of mine went crazy packing, moving and cleaning my old house. Then after a shower it was right to closing. Then asleep for 18 hours. Finally found an apartment though, moved in the 1st of july. Now if you noted in the last paragraph, I left on travel on the fourth. Yup that means when I catch my flight back tommorro I'm going to walk into my apartment and it looks like a tornado hit it. It's about 30% setup. So no relaxing for me. Oh well. As I always say, "No rest for the wicked".

My birthday passed on the 24th of june. No party, no fanfare. I just left for the weekend and got a nice hotel room so I wasn't sleeping on a couch during my birthday. I didn't even bother trying to pick anyone up. I just kinda wanted some peace and quiet.

So here I am. I catch my flight tommorro at 6 in the morning. That means I need to get to the airport by 4:30 or 5. No problem til you realized my hotel is 90 minutes from the airport. I may not sleep tonight as a matter of practicality. With the car turn in and the getting ready to go in the morning I'd need to get up around 2. Right around the time the bars close ;)so like I said. I may not sleep.

Aint my life fun?

Sigh.

Til next time.

The next big bang: Man meets machine

2006-05-29T14:27:00.000-04:00

Great read about man machine integration.

http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-6076627.html?part=rss&tag=6076627&subj=news

Creepy Doll Based Robot

2006-04-28T13:10:00.000-04:00

I've been following with much interest these robo-one style robots. The servo powered little humanoids with amazing capabilities. I saw a few video clips of the KHR-1 humanoid and decided I wanted it.

Then I saw the price. Around $1,200. Then i decided i could build one myself.

Thinking about it, I had 4 servos that came with a RC Aircraft radio set. Did some searches online and found what has to be the ultimate site for custom servo robotics. Lynxmotion has what they call the servo eroector set. Custom brackets to connect servos together, servo controllers, software to control your creations and all kinds of stuff. Very cool site. So after looking around and deciding that buying everything to build a robot was prohibitively expensive, I decided to do it piecemeal. Buy a few components and go from there.

I orders the SSC32 serial servo controller, the SSC32 Seqencer software, and a couple of servos that were modified for continuous rotation.

So after searching and being unable to find a serial cable the parts went on the shelf for a while. After going to a show last weekend and getting a cable i decided it was time to start my robot.

I did some thinking, and since the KHR-1 robot only looks humanoid because it has a ton of servos in the right shape and i had only a few, what i built wouldn't look like a robot. Just a few servos attatched to each other. That was boring and thus out of the question. So the question was how do i anthropomorphise a coupla boxes.

The i had a idea. Use cheap doll parts. I ended up going to a small craft store nearby called "The Rag Shop". After nosing around a bit I found a doll intended to be used as a base for building a doll. It was very no frills, just a vinyl doll, for 3.99 it was worth sacrificing. It was a larger scale than a barbie and had a cute enough face. Weird thing is the face is very young looking but the proportions are downright womanly. I had to explain myself to the checkout girl as to what a 30 year old guy was doing buying a nekd childrens doll. I told her it was to build a robot and i could tell she just thought i was a weirdo. Thats fine.

So it was off to the shop. First thing to do was to start assembling the servos in their proper configuration for the doll parts. some threaded rods, nuts, and some doublesided tape later i had the motors assembled. It only has articulation for the shoulders (arms up and down) and neck (left and right). Then I opened the doll. I popped the head off the neck, and the arms out of the sockets and set them aside. Then I broke out the utility knife.

The vinyl cut easy because the knife was sharp. I cut the from of the torso off and removed the stump of the neck. Then I started fashioning the front I had removed into a sorta chest plate to cover the servos during reassembly.

I then had to cut the back of the doll so the servos would lay flat (the neck servo is mounted off center so it didn't fit flush in the back). By now i had little bits of flesh colored vinyl laying about and feeling like a serial killer. I decided to try to use double sided tape to fix the arms in place and the same with the head (since it was all lightweight vinyl I didn't think there would be an issue.).

I decided to use a non permanent mounting solution to reassemble the doll. Nylon zip ties rule. You can never have enough of those things.

I ran power into the SSC32 board, connected it to my laptop, installed the software and had her/it moving in no time flat.

After playing with it for a bit, I noticed the tape was giving way. Time to disassemble the doll and do it right. I put a few screws through the servo wheel so i could pop the head on. Screwed into the arms from the bottom of the servo wheels and sank a long screw right through the shoulders to fix the wheel back to the servo. It had a much stronger bond and the doll/robot was much more solid after reassembly.

Here are the pics.

Assembled doll robot.

From the side.

Standing near the control hardware.

A screen shot of the software on my laptop.

A close up of the SSC32 and batteries.

Final thoughts. Well, everything worked as planned. The head turned and the arms moved. Giving the servos a body helped in the visualization of how things went together, and aided in the learning of the software.

However, I had not expected the final product to be as creepy as it is. The eyes are the type that close when it lays down, lending to a very Frankenstein feel. Like it's sleeping when its laying there, and open and alert when its upright and moving. The zip ties end up looking like some kind of bondage wear and since the face is very young looking where as the body isn't it is a little disconcerting.

Next time I think I'll use a toy robot instead to give it a body.

NJ Smoking Ban RANT

2006-04-17T11:28:00.000-04:00

Non smokers forgive me.

Everytime I go on travel I have a freedom I don't have otherwise. I can smoke when I'm in a bar, or after dinner in a restaurant. I don't have to go freeze my bits off, or get rained on. I can just light up as long as I'm in the right section.

Once I get home however I have to stay in if I want a cig with my beer. Or deal with whatever mother nature decides to throm my way, be it wind, sunny, rain or hail. I'm not alone in this, I'm always with 2-3 other people having a cig. Perfect strangers who are as annoyed as I am. Trouble is the law that went into effect is flawed. It's also unwanted.

The NJ smoking ban is a bad idea. The idea is to protect patrons and employees from the effects of second hand smoke. Interesting statistic, 58% of new jersey smokes or have smoked. That includes the employees. The very same employees that tried to sue the state to stop this bill from becoming law. Funny, if the people this was "designed to protect" doesn't want it, why should the government have any say. This is a democrasy, or at least it pretends to be, if the people want something, shouldn't it be in our power to change it?

Think of this, cigarette smoking can cause lung cancer, emphysema, mouth cancer and a host of other problems. We as smokers know and don't care. The positive effects are it's soothing, relaxing and helps with the feelings of depression and anxiety. If they want to demonize something, try alcohol. Alcohol, changes, the way your mind works by intoxicating you and repressing your inhibitions.

Have you ever heard of a guy having a couple of cigarettes and in a tobacco induced haze gets into a fight or beat up his girlfriend or wife? I'll bet you heard of it when it was alcohol though. Not that i propose that, it's just something to mull over.

Now casinos are exempt from this ban. Why? Money. To much money is generated by the casinos to dare mess with their smokers. This makes the ban unconstitutional by violating the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution by singling out casinos.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060309/OPINION/603090342/1046
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Mar-13-Mon-2006/news/6267425.html

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/NEWS01/603080365/1006

This sixteen year old has a better grasp than most adults as to why the smoking ban is wrong.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/facchine/facchine1.html

More pricks messing with us, A proposed bill to make smoking while driving a crime. Thankfully it got stopped. Whats next? Are they going to try to ban what we do in our homes next? Do you realize more accidents and deaths, come from people adjusting the radio or climate controls than cigarette related accidents? Think about this, do you really want a jittery person who can't have a cigarette and desperately wants one behind the wheel of a car? Thats a major distraction.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8713518/

And here's an articles about raisng the age to purchase tobacco to 19, they can die for their country but can't buy smokes?!?!?
http://www.thedailyjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051203/OPINION01/512030332/1014

But wait it gets worse... there's the Proposed "25 foot rule". It intends to screw us even further by not allowinig smoking within 25 feet of the building.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-6/114490963643940.xml&coll=1

I hate it when government tries to legislate my life, it is my choice to smoke. I know the risks. IF I dont care, why should you? Who give these people the right to screw with my personal choices and my health. My health shouldn't be legislated. Sure they have the right to clean air, but they don't have the right to cause me vexation and shouldn't cause me to have to sacrifice something I very much enjoy. They have the right to use a different venue that does not have a smoking section.

Even if you don't smoke, this should concern you. My small group of smokers are having our civil liberties violated and legislated. You could be next easily. Next it could be drinking. Or using your cell phone in public. Or any one of the hundred things you do that are fine, but may annoy someone. Imagine if they outlaw obscene handgestures from cars. Or legislate that you can not bring your child in public because his crying is a nuisance to those around you?

We gotta find a way to stop this guys. This kind of govenment interference is the worse kind.

I found this and absolutely had to post this here.

2006-03-15T17:36:00.000-05:00

From a strictly mathematical viewpoint, it goes like this:

What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103% or 127%?

What makes up 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5! = 96%

But,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And, B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far ass-kissing will take you!
A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 127%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Bullshit and Ass-kissing that will put you over the top!

Pics of my projector project...

2006-03-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

This is basically a long list of photos of my projector, with a few comments for kicks.

The initial parts

The victim

The first stages of building the enclosure

Condenser Lense in mount (made from fan guards)

The Cut Fresnels and tempered glass

Custom mount I made for the Overhead light source with condenser mounted.

Power switch and plug mounted

The Back after painting the inside

Inside painted, stage mounted

Parts placed roughly in place

Pics of lcd (now junked)

Cold Mirror Mount

In box

Let there be light (fully lit room, camera auto adjusted it that dark)

The box with doors on

Failed attempt to power lamp (kept popping bulb)

Fans mounted (2 top to suck air in, bottom to exhaust)

All buttoned up, just need to install front triplet and lcd.

TRiplet installed.

The stage inside all lit up.

The projection, up cloes and overview.

And a final shot with my cat for scale.

Final thoughts. These were taken in daylight, so the image with an lcd shouls be very viewable in darkness. Though, by the quality of projection, you can see the issues with eyeballing everything. New enclosure to be built with proper measurements and real precision. This was a proof of concept.

Just some funny vids.

2006-02-22T21:12:00.000-05:00

DIY Genetic Engineering

2006-02-22T19:59:00.000-05:00

This site has a story of how a software guy builds a glowing yeast strain. He used readily available equipment and mailorder chemicals. Given it is specialized equipmewnt but it was available on ebay for about 5g's. He had no prior history in it and was taught how to do it. In reading the article it really isn't hard. Genetic engineering apoarently follows a growth curve greater than Moores Law. Basically the faster it gets, the faster it gets.

He did it himself, while being told how to by a geneticist. Apparently, the scaling up to small pox is a a bit trickier but can still be done. Also apparently there are mailorder houses that sell gene sequences. I did a quick search on ebay for gene sequencer and found that the hardware to make this stuff isn't expensive. There was a Synthesizer with a BuyItNow of 250. With free shipping to boot. Gene sequences are available for download so you have a blueprint of what you want to make.

Am I scaring you yet? DNA is the building block of viruses and life. With this equipment you could make your very own customized version of AIDS or Anthrax. Or you could make a dog with 5 legs. As frightening as this could be I can't help but wonder what this means in the long run. With the maker mentality and the availability of equipment backyard gene doping could become a reality. On the flip side, the faster we can code dna and rna, the faster we can eliminate most if not all viral diseases like aids.

Semms like a we're in the beginning of a William Gibson World.

Um, happy valentines day or something.

2006-02-15T07:42:00.000-05:00

The guy who writes my favorite webcomic Diesel Sweeties dis a set of strip that mirror my own agravated single guy thought on this valentines day. Basically that cards are a waste of money. So he made mock cards in his strips and they're great. Here they are culled from the strip themselves.

Hope you get chuckle out of these.

Gene Doping

2006-02-08T13:37:00.000-05:00

Gene therapy for restoring muscle lost to age or disease is poised to enter the clinic, but elite athletes are eyeing it to enhance performance Can it be long before gene doping changes the nature of sport?

I've read a few articles pertaining to the future evolution of man and a excellent book called "Radical Evolution". This has always been a subject that has fascinated me. So imagine my surprise at reading an article on MSNBC called "Future of Evolution" and then finding the above atricle.

With the advent of viral genetic therapy to increase IGF-I (makes muscle) and inhibit myostatin (interferes with fat deposition), we may never have to work out again. A shot to increase muscle and another to drop fat. Professional sports won't be the same and the population in general (being vain) will suddenly become bigger and leaner.

I have more to write about, but in the mean time, enjoy these links and think about it.

Douglas Adams quote.

2006-01-30T07:57:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to remember this quote since yesterday. My buddy mentioned it and I felt the need to post it. It's an excerpt from Dirk Gentlys Holistic detective Agency.

"St Cedd's," he pronounced, "the college of Coleridge, and the college of Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"

"The what?" said Richard.

"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a... "

"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."

"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissive shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered."

He took a penny out of his pocket and tossed it casually on to the pebbles that ran alongside the paved pathway.

"You see?" he said, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap... ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention."

"I would have thought it was quite obvious. Anyone could have thought of it."

"Ah," said Dirk, "it is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry `I could have thought of that' is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too. "

XBox Headtracking system....

2006-01-29T21:52:00.000-05:00

Last week, I was driving home and thinking about servos, the basic stamp and a few other things when ,as is the way the mind works, I recalled a simple "robot" my friend built based on the basic stamp that used 2 photoresistors to track the brightest light in the room.

Inspiration struck. Out of nowhere, came an idea that I found brilliant. I had wished there was a headtracker system for the xbox ever since it came out. Current console systems have a ton of rendering power and being an old school geek, wondered why there was no one exploiting the power of these systems for vr. I have a HMD and gaming on it is great, but I have always longed for a head tracking system to make it truly immersive.

How about a headtracker system for the xbox? There are commercial headtrackers for PC games and expensive systems for real vr use. Why does it need to be complicated? Why not use photoresistors to replace the pots in the analog thumbsticks? As long as the resistances are right it should work fine.

I decided on a system of 4 photoresistors (henceforth called pr's so I don't have to keep typing that) mounted in a diamond pattern. I had envisioned using a pic microcontroller to translate the resistances into the appropriate resistances that the xbox could understand. Turns out the control circuitry wasn't needed.

Here's the original concept sketch I showed my good friend B.

Here's what he proposed to simply replace the pots with the photoresistors.

In essence the resistance drops in the direction your going. So for example, if you look down the top photoresistor get illuminated and thus drops the resistance. So in essence you have to wire the board upside down and backwards. Though often in games you can reverse the cameras movements in the settings but not always. Best thing is to screw around and play with it and make sure it works before finalizing your design.

So here's what I needed.

1. An xbox controller I didn't care if it got trashed.
2. 4 Photoresistors.
3. A bunch of wire.
4. An activating light (I used a led based head mounted flashlight)

First I tore down an old style xbox controller. I never used it, I always thought it was to big.

Next we made the board that mounted the pr's. We kept it real simple. Good old fashioned cardboard. We started mounting the pr's then wired them all together.

Next up was soldering the wires to the xbox controllers pcb. Not bad, just 6 lines. Remember to thread them through the hole in the controller's case or your gonna be stuck. It was fun trying to figure out how to wire it up, looking at the pcb upside down and then looking at the analog stick right side up, and trying to figure which is necessary who need more resistance and less, was a pain. It took 2 of us to do it. One to use the multimeter and one to move the stick which was in the vice. So yes I took that pic while moving the stick and he was checking resistance.

Next we had to reassemble the controller. In this iteration the sensor board is soldered directly to the controller, but I will probably get around to putting a small 6 conductor connector on the controller so I can separate the 2 pieces.

Next was put on the led headlamp, hmd, plug it in and test.

It worked great. The only short coming was the fact that the headlight I used was so focused it was kind of an all or nothing affair. I'm going to switch to a normal flashlight bulb and things should be perfect. Here's a few screenshots of the game I was playing. I was kicking ass.

Video is coming as soon as I find my s-video cable so I can capture it from my camcorder. Hope you guys like this and you can use it. It's not polished but it works as is. A better light and fine tuning of distances is all it needs. I have some decent video of me using it in first person mode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (yes I'm a fan, so sue me ;) ). Can't wait to play "Call of Duty" and "Medal of Honor". Should be great as that is what this was really designed for, FPS's.

Total cost was around $6 bucks. Needed 2 packs of the assorted PR's so I could get 4 that matched. Everything else I had.

Here's a video of it in action.

XBox Headtracker

High Speed camera platform continued.

2006-01-29T21:42:00.000-05:00

Just a few things to note about the rc10 this is based on. It used to run in the modified class. That means off road vehicles modified to run on the street.

Actual nuts and bolts spec on the car, my buddy would be in better position to mention and maybe I'll have him type something up soon. But in the mean while, Here's some things I found really cool.

1. Graphite chassis.
2. Carbon fiber engine mounts.
3. Kevlar belt drive system.
4. Titanium axles.
5. Ceramic differential bearings.
6. Aluminum wing custom built today.

And he built this around 10 years ago. Here are some clearer picture of it.

that's all for now. I need to cut the video together to show it off a bit. Should be in a few days. I'll update it here and in the make forums.

Hmmm..... kick ass idea.

2006-01-24T23:43:00.000-05:00

Hmm... Head tracking diy style and interfacing an xbox. Pretty sure it'll work. Need to do some more homework before this weekend, to make sure i can pull it off...

Electronics and my philosophy...

2006-01-23T17:46:00.000-05:00

Everyone has a personal philosophy whether it is borrowed or unique to themselves. Mine you can probably tell from the links I thrown here, and various rants in my blog.

Thats not what this post is about.

I've always had a prediliction for expensive gadgets, or nifty toys. However I almost don't see them as seperate pieces of equipment. For me they are a bit like high tech legos. My last post, which made the makezine.com blog (YAY!), is indicative of what i mean. Over the past few months I've been amassing various toys that are good at what they do in their own right.

A tiny wireless color camera with audio, nice picture once it's properly focused and sensitive sound gain. Ideal to use as it was intended, a lowish cost security camera that needs no power cable or signal lines.

A generic lcd HMD. Great for gaming or watching tv, or dvd's that would bother or offend other people.

Six channel radio setup for rc airplanes. Good unit by futaba if your into Model Airplanes and such. I'm not, but still a good unit.

I like to see how i can combine different pieces and make them do other things. For example my last post shows how i used the above toys to create a really cool rc car you can drive from the cockpit of the car. It worked great but i have already taken the thing apart and packed the pieces away in their respective cases. Why? Because building it yesterday was just done just to do it. It has nop practical application in my life. I may rebuild a variation of it next time i need to run cable just so i don't have to climb into a ceiling (I hate fiberglass insulation). But I may not just the same.

It may sound crazy but i have this desire to build things just to do it. I may do it to solve a problem, or i could just be bored. More often than not it's the latter. But I think that's the beauty of the whole hardware hacking scene, and magazines like MAKE. To challenge ourselves to do something cool. Or to do it because you can save money yourself over buying overpriced items that are purpose built.

Everyone I know seems to have a PDA of some kind and also have a iPod or similiar mp3 player. This i dont get. The pda's have the ability to play the music well enough. Removable storage has come down in price enough where you can get 2 gigs relatively cheaply. I mean who really NEEDS a 60gb mp3 player? Isn't that a bit over kill and kinda ridiculous? Are you ever going to have time to listen to it all? And apart of a few PMP's out there, they can't display video. My pda can display video very well. I simply did some smart shopping and got a 2 gig compact flash card and now i only need carry my pda and my cell. I havent even booted up my laptop in about 2 weeks.

I think the notion of buying purpose specific items is silly. I prefer versatility in my gadgets. It's probably why i love my pda. I can do nearly everything with it I need. As a matter of fact I think one of my next projects is going to be is figuring how to make a cable that will connect a vga port to my HMD. Mainly because my pda has a vga out on it. I can use a screen rotation utility and dump the video signal back out the vga and have native resolution on my LCD goggles. Thus eliminating the bulk of my portable dvd player when traveling (and i do a lot of that).

I may dissect my little wireless camera and see if i can remove the ir filter and make a cheap night vision system. The possibilities are endless if you can look around and see things for what they can be used for instead of what they're made for. My guess is since that seems to be MAKE's mission statement, it explains why i like that site and magazine so much.

Geez, that was a lot longer winded that I expected it to be. As always, feel free to comment.

High Speed Camera Platform with Pan and Tilt

2006-01-23T12:20:00.000-05:00

This weekend I happened to come into possession of a $170 store credit to one of the better hobby shops in the area. Not being into RC cars or planes I figured I’d just nose around and see if anything struck my fancy. Well, something did. A six channel futuba radio set that came with 4 servos. I didn’t know what I’d do with it but I had a pretty good thought it would be useful for robotics experimenting and stuff so I plunked down the store credit and another $30 and walked out wanting to play with my new toy.

After brainstorming a bit with my best friend B, we decided to create a remotely controlled pan and tilt base for my miniature wireless color camera. I pondered for a few minutes and decided to use 3M poster tabs for a secure but temporary way to adhere it all together and in all of 5 minutes had a working pan and tilt system feeding video wirelessly to my HMD. Pretty neat to be able to put it down somewhere and just look around like you were there.

Then came the inevitable escalation. “We need to make it move” was what B said. My problem then was simple. Not being into RC cars, I didn’t have one. He said lets use mine. Uh oh. I remember screwing around last summer with him and his car. That thing is fast. Scary fast. Running full bore with no limitations it can hit nearly 50 mph. At one tenth scale that means net effect would be like a full size car running 500mph. Sounded like fun. So it was off to pick his car up and head to the shop.

As soon as we got there he went and started charging his batteries, and setting the car up. I went and started fabricating a bracket to mount the two servos together securely. Then mounted the camera with nylon zip ties (didn’t want a permanent solution and these things are pretty strong). I tested the pan and tilt mechanism and everything went smoothly with no hang ups.

Next we mounted my new receiver into his car (he had been running a 3 channel radio since it’s a car. This needed at least 4 channels to run so we used mine.) and mounted the camera system on it. We used double sided tape to mount everything and I was really surprised at how strong the bond was. Once it was all assembled, it was time to play.

Whoa. As in a Keanu Reaves kinda whoa. That car is fast. It was really strange trying to get used to driving it. We had the throttle and steering set on one stick and the pan and tilt on the other. It was really neat to be running in a straight line and then be able to just look left or up. One wired aspect was the out of body experience of driving it around and seeing a person, looking closer at them and realizing it’s you. The camera didn’t have a huge field of vision, but it didn’t matter so much because you could turn the camera there and see where you were. Also it was neat looking down at the tires when you turned, the ground rushing by, the chair leg as you hit it.

And hit things we did. A lot. Even got stuck under a desk. And the tape held, the wire ties held. I have to say it was a great way to waste an afternoon. But I have to be honest, it seems like it would be better suited to tank treads. Video from a platform that fast can just be rough.

Here's the video... cheesy soundtrack and all ;)

carvideospeedracer.WMV

PDA Battery charger/extender

2006-01-19T08:57:00.000-05:00

While listening to my new xm radio, I found myself bored yet again. My pda’s batteries were low and I didn’t feel like going to get the charger for it. Made me think “Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if I had bought one of those battery extenders for my pda?” Knowing they cost like $10 online I knew I could do it cheaper. Off to radio shack. I picked up a slick battery holder and a plug that would fit my pda (Toshiba E750).

The battery holder was enclosed, held 4 AA’s and had a on off switch for under 2 dollars.

The connector was a coax style dc power plug

The pda charger produced 5 volts dc. Now I know your thinking “Hey aa’s are 1.5 so your going to overdrive it and burn it out!”. That’s unlikely but possible, however I wasn’t going to use regular alkaline AA’s. I had some nice 2500mah NIMH AA’s. These put out 1.2 volts so, 4 x 1.2 = 4.8. Well within the range. No damage to my pda.

So all I did was solder the wires to the connector charge my AA’s, insert them into the case, plug it into my pda and hit the power switch. The charging light came on, Success!

So far I have noticed it being able to charge my e750 about 3 times per battery recharge. It will also run off the AA’s before tapping the internal battery so bonus in runtime. Now I coulda gone real ghetto and used a bare battery holder, but when the parts are this cheap why bother. Maybe I’ll even use heat shrink on the wires to make it look cleaner but that’s just cosmetic and I don’t care all that much.

Set up a portable XM Radio in your house.

2006-01-19T08:54:00.000-05:00

This weekend I was bored and needed to do something. I had purchased a Roady2 XM Reciever for a exgirlfriend but broke up with her before giving it to her. Seemed like a shame to let it go to waste, and I had been curious about satellite radio for a while.

Examining the package, it was a standard car install kit. Including the receiver, the antenna, 2 types of mounts (vent and pedestal), a tape adapter, dc power supply (cig lighter), and a few colored faceplate accents. Standard fare really. Useful for a car install but useless for a house install.

After checking prices online for the home kit, I was surprised to find that it cost around $40. Way to much for essentially an adapter kit. I mean really, I only paid $29 for the radio itself. I knew there was a cheaper way. First to assemble the parts.

• Roady2 XM Reciever

• Multi-voltage DC power supply

• 1/8th headphone to RCA cable

Now I had everything I needed the assembly was straight forward. Configure the power supply. I used a old radio shack Multi-voltage 1000mah wall wart power supply. Radio shack has a bunch of replacement wall warts with they’re adapta plug connectors for a decent price. I set it for the output voltage of 6 volts, center positive, with the “B” tip.

Next I used a standard cheap 1/8th headphone to RCA cable. Plugged the RCA’s into my receiver, and the other end into the XM radio.

Then I found a convenient place to mount the antenna on my front window (so it has a good skyview). Applied 3M poster strips on the antenna, stuck it to the window, and just taped the lead to the window frame to hide it a bit. Ran the cable and then connected it to the roady2 unit.

I used more 3M poster strips to mount the pedestal to the side of the smallish table that houses my home theatre components. Mounted my new radio, plugged in the power adapter, connected it to the roady2, turned on my receiver set it to the inputs of the roady2 (in my case I used the MD/Tape input). I turned on the roady2 and in a sec or so after finding the satellite I had XM Preview playing in my house.

This install cost nothing to me (because I had the parts already) other than the subscription fee. Now if you use new parts you can do this for under $30. The subscription is about $12 a month and I feel it’s worth it just to not have commercials. The world news and genre specific stations are just great. Not to mention I can still move it back and forth from my car because (aside of one mount) I never used the stuff that came with it aside from the antenna. I’ll just get another antenna to mount in my car permanently.

'Kick A Spammer In The Nuts

2006-01-18T07:46:00.000-05:00

The 'Kick A Spammer In The Nuts Daily' idea... - theScamBaiter.com

Time to fight back. Instead of sending completely bogus information to them, actually go in and do it manually. This way it passes turing images, and looks legit. All the while, poisoning their database and eventually doing them more damage. I like this idea.

Hacker FAQ

2006-01-12T08:57:00.000-05:00

Just for kicks.....

Questions and Answers:
Section 0: Basic understanding.
0.0: Won't my hacker break into my computer and steal my trade secrets?
No. Hackers aren't, contrary to media reporting, the people who break into computers. Those are crackers. Hackers are people who enjoy playing with computers. Your hacker may occasionally circumvent security measures, but this is not malicious; she just does it when the security is in her way, or because she's curious.
0.1: Was it a good idea to hire a hacker?
It depends on the job. A hacker can be dramatically more effective than a non-hacker at a job, or dramatically less effective. Jobs where hackers are particularly good are:
• Systems administration
• Programming
• Design
Jobs where hackers are particularly bad are:
• Data entry
More generally, a job that requires fast and unexpected changes, significant skill, and is not very repetitive will be one a hacker will excel at. Repetitive, simple jobs are a waste of a good hacker, and will make your hacker bored and frustrated. No one works well bored and frustrated.
The good news is, if you get a hacker on something he particularly likes, you will frequently see performance on the order of five to ten times what a "normal" worker would produce. This is not consistent, and you shouldn't expect to see it all the time, but it will happen. This is most visible on particularly difficult tasks.
0.2: How should I manage my hacker?
The same way you herd cats. It can be a bit confusing; they're not like most other workers. Don't worry! Your hacker is likely to be willing to suggest answers to problems, if asked. Most hackers are nearly self-managing.
0.3: Wait, you just said "10 times", didn't you? You're not serious, right?
Actually, I said "ten times". And yes, I am serious; a hacker on a roll may be able to produce, in a period of a few months, something that a small development group (say, 7-8 people) would have a hard time getting together over a year. He also may not. Your mileage will vary.
IBM used to report that certain programmers might be as much as 100 times as productive as other workers, or more. This kind of thing happens.
0.4: I don't understand this at all. This is confusing. Is there a book on this?
Not yet. In the meantime, check out The New Hacker's Dictionary (references below; also known as "the jargon file"), in particular some of the appendices. The entire work is full of clarifications and details of how hackers think.

Section 1: Social issues
1.0: My hacker doesn't fit in well with our corporate society. She seems to do her work well, but she's not really making many friends.
This is common. Your hacker may not have found any people around who get along with hackers. You may wish to consider offering her a position telecommuting, or flexible hours (read: night shift), which may actually improve her productivity. Or hire another one.
1.1: My hacker seems to dress funny. Is there any way to impress upon him the importance of corporate appearance?
Your hacker has a very good understanding of the importance of corporate appearance. It doesn't help you get your job done. IBM, Ford, and Microsoft have all realized that people work better when they can dress however they want. Your hacker is dressed comfortably. A polite request to dress up some for special occasions may well be honored, and most hackers will cheerfully wear clothes without (unintentional) holes in them if specifically asked.
1.2: My hacker won't call me by my title, and doesn't seem to respect me at all.
Your hacker doesn't respect your title. Hackers don't believe that management is "above" engineering; they believe that management is doing one job, and engineering is doing another. They may well frequently talk as if management is beneath them, but this is really quite fair; your question implies that you talk as if engineering is beneath you. Treat your hacker as an equal, and she will probably treat you as an equal -- quite a compliment!
1.3: My hacker constantly insults the work of my other workers.
Take your hacker aside, and ask for details of what's wrong with the existing work. It may be that there's something wrong with it. Don't let the fact that it runs most of the time fool you; your hacker is probably bothered by the fact that it crashes at all. He may be able to suggest improvements which could dramatically improve performance, reliability, or other features. It's worth looking into.
You may be able to convince your hacker to be more polite, but if there appear to be major differences, it's quite possible that one or more of your existing staff are incompetent. Note that hackers, of course, have different standards of competence than many other people. (Read "different" as "much higher".)

Section 2: Productivity.
2.0: My hacker plays video games on company time.
Hackers, writers, and painters all need some amount of time to spend "percolating" -- doing something else to let their subconscious work on a problem. Your hacker is probably stuck on something difficult. Don't worry about it.
2.1: But it's been two weeks since I saw anything!
Your hacker is working, alone probably, on a big project, and just started, right? She's probably trying to figure it all out in advance. Ask her how it's going; if she starts a lot of sentences, but interrupts them all with "no, wait..." or "drat, that won't work", it's going well.
2.2: Isn't this damaging to productivity?
No. Your hacker needs to recreate and think about things in many ways. He will be more productive with this recreation than without it. Your hacker enjoys working; don't worry about things getting done reasonably well and quickly.
2.3: My hacker is constantly doing things unrelated to her job responsibilities.
Do they need to be done? Very few hackers can resist solving a problem when they can solve it, and no one else is solving it. For that matter, is your hacker getting her job done? If so, consider these other things a freebie or perk (for you). Although it may not be conventional, it's probably helping out quite a bit.
2.4: My hacker is writing a book, reading USENET news, playing video games, talking with friends on the phone, and building sculptures out of paper clips. On company time!
He sounds happy. The chances are he's in one of three states:
1. Basic job responsibilities are periodic (phone support, documentation, et al.) and there's a lull in incoming work. Don't worry about it!
2. Your hacker is stuck on a difficult problem.
3. Your hacker is bored silly and is trying to find amusement. Perhaps you should find him more challenging work?
Any of these factors may be involved. All of them may be involved. In general, if the work is challenging, and is getting done, don't worry too much about the process. You might ask for your corporation to be given credit in the book.
2.5: But my other workers are offended by my hacker's success, and it hurts their productivity.
Do you really need to have workers around who would rather be the person getting something done, than have it done already? Ego has very little place in the workplace. If they can't do it well, assign them to something they can do.

Section 3: Stimulus and response
3.0: My hacker did something good, and I want to reward him.
Good! Here are some of the things most hackers would like to receive in exchange for their work:
1. Respect.
2. Admiration.
3. Compliments.
4. Understanding.
5. Discounts on expensive toys.
6. Money.
These are not necessarily in order. The 4th item (understanding) is the most difficult. Try to remember this good thing your hacker just did the next time you discover he just spent a day playing x-trek. Rather than complaining about getting work done, write it off as "a perk" that was granted (informally) as a bonus for a job well done. Don't worry; hackers get bored quickly when they aren't doing their work.
3.1: My hacker did something bad, and I want to punish him.
Don't. 30 years of psychological research has shown that punishment has no desirable long-term effects. Your hacker is not a lab rat. (Even if he were a lab rat, punishment wouldn't work; at least, not if he were one of the sorts of lab rats the psych research was done on.) If you don't like something your hacker is doing, express your concerns. Explain what it is that bothers you about the behavior.
Be prepared for an argument; your hacker is a rational entity, and presumably had reasons. Don't jump on him too quickly; they may turn out to be good reasons.
Don't be afraid to apologize if you're wrong. If your hacker admits to having been wrong, don't demand an apology; so far as the hacker is concerned, admitting to being wrong is an apology, most likely.
3.2: I don't get it. I offered my hacker a significant promotion, and she turned it down and acted offended.
A promotion frequently involves spending more time listening to people describing what they're doing, and less time playing with computers. Your hacker is enjoying her work; if you want to offer a reward, consider an improvement in title, a possible raise, and some compliments. Make sure your hacker knows you are pleased with her accomplishments -- that's what she's there for.
3.3: My company policy won't let me give my hacker any more raises until he's in management.
Your company policy is broken. A hacker can earn as much as $200 an hour (sometimes more) doing freelance consulting. You may wish to offer your hacker a contracted permanent consulting position with benefits, or otherwise find loopholes. Or, find perks to offer - many hackers will cheerfully accept a discount on hardware from their favorite manufacturer as an effective raise.
3.4: I can't believe the hacker on my staff is worth as much as we're paying.
Ask the other staff in the department what the hacker does, and what they think of it. The chances are that your hacker is spending a few hours a week answering arcane questions that would otherwise require an expensive external consultant. Your hacker may be fulfilling another job's worth of responsibilities in his spare time around the office. Very few hackers aren't worth what they're getting paid; they enjoy accomplishing difficult tasks, and improving worker efficiency.

Section 4: What does that mean?
4.0: My hacker doesn't speak English. At least, I don't think so.
Your hacker is a techie. Your best bet is to pick up a copy of TNHD (The New Hacker's Dictionary). It can be found as http://catb.org/esr/jargon (last I checked) or from a good bookstore. If you have trouble understanding that reference, ask your hacker if she has a copy, or would be willing to explain her terms. Most hackers are willing to explain terms. Be ready for condescension; it's not intended as an insult, but if you don't know the words, she probably has to talk down to you at first to explain them.
It's a reasonably difficult set of words; there are a lot of them, and their usage is much more precise than it sounds. Hackers love word games.
[It is also possible that English is not your hacker's native language, and that it's not yours either. Feel free to substitute a more appropriate language.]
4.1: I can't get an estimate out of my hacker.
Your hacker hasn't figured out how hard the problem is yet. Unlike most workers, hackers will try very hard to refuse to give an estimate until they know for sure that they understand the problem. This may include solving it.
No good engineer goes beyond 95% certainty. Most hackers are good engineers. If you say you will not try to hold him to the estimate (and mean it!) you are much more likely to get an approximate estimate. The estimate may sound very high or very low; it may be very high or very low. Still, it's an estimate, and you get what you ask for.
4.2: My hacker makes obscure, meaningless jokes.
If you feel brave, ask for an explanation. Most of them can be explained. It may take a while, but it may prove interesting.
4.3: My hacker counts from zero.
So does the computer. You can hide it, but computers count from zero. Most hackers do by habit, also.

Tribute to Nice Guys...

2006-01-12T08:55:00.000-05:00

I saw this online at a friends blog. I feel the need to post it also, as it's about time someone said what this does. To the Author of this and the people he's talking about I salute you.

Tribute to Nice Guys

"This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming."

Nifty new toys.....

2006-01-07T17:49:00.000-05:00

I just recieved my new HMD in the mail. And i got to say for the price, the thing works great. I've used it for sao far for viewing videos off my pc and from my portable dvd player. Later I'm going to try to use it for a ghetto pov reciever for my wireless spycam with audio I got from home depot the other day. There's also the possibility of using it wiht that camera after removingthe ir filter and using it as a cheap night vision system.

Seems the possibilities are endless. Neat toys alone but when combined even cooler things are possible.

chandanlog(3C): The All-In-One Card

2006-01-04T08:22:00.000-05:00

chandanlog(3C): The All-In-One Card

I shoulda gone to art school.

2005-12-30T09:57:00.000-05:00

Wow, just Wow. THE NATURALLY BODYPAINTED EXPERIENCE Photo Gallery by thechazman at pbase.com

And to think.... this is the first step to "Genuine People Personalities"

2005-12-28T09:03:00.000-05:00

NPR : Robot Receptionist Dishes Directions and Attitude

If this works....

2005-12-27T14:55:00.000-05:00

The SDP Multimedia website for ASF download and MMS protocol specification

God damn nifty.

2005-12-27T14:47:00.000-05:00

Tempest for Eliza. Allows you to use your crt monitor to send music to a am radio without any additional hardware. I'm going to have to try this tonight.

Beyond string theory ... spoon theory? - Science - MSNBC.com

2005-12-23T09:05:00.000-05:00

Beyond string theory ... spoon theory? - Science - MSNBC.com

Future of Evolution - MSNBC.com

2005-12-23T09:04:00.000-05:00

Future of Evolution - MSNBC.com

CW: 2005 Edition�A Year of Living Dangerously - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com

2005-12-23T09:02:00.000-05:00

CW: 2005 Edition�A Year of Living Dangerously - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com

Biggest Political Lies

2005-12-23T08:54:00.000-05:00

Big Lies - Newsweek Politics - MSNBC.com

Political Affairs Magazine - War Against Reason: The "Intelligent Design" Scam

2005-12-23T08:02:00.000-05:00

Political Affairs Magazine - War Against Reason: The "Intelligent Design" Scam

My solo thanksgiving...

2005-11-24T18:15:00.000-05:00

No family around. My girl is gone to her family. And my friends are doing there own thing. I'm suprised at how lonely i feel tonight. Well happy turkey day world.

Um, happy 4th of july or something.

2005-07-04T14:18:00.000-04:00

Welp, it's the fourth of july and I cant say it means a god damn thing to me. now mind you that doesnt mean I'm un-patriotic. It's just that with our current regime perverting our resources for a war we dont really care about and with every friggin holiday being commercialized alll to hell, I can't feel myself being moved at all by this holiday. Not to mention i have to godamn work today. Of course it's only for another week at the deli.

Yup. You read that right. I managed to score a real job. Yay me. Not in the computer field but seeing as i seem to have a shelf life issue a change of career doesn't really bother me all that much. Espescially when i'm getting paid really well.

Anyway go off to your bar-b-ques and parades and shit, while i go and get ready to cut meat for the next 8 friggin hours.

Neat.

2005-06-12T20:07:00.000-04:00

NIFTY WEEKEND STUFF

2005-06-01T14:26:00.000-04:00

Now thats a big screen. That's my friend b. I love video projection.

Trenton Computer Festival...

2005-04-18T14:16:00.000-04:00

Well, yesterday was a fantastic day for strolling around the outside swap meet of the trenton computer festival outdoor swap meet. Sun, air, and computer parts as far as the eye can see. The perfect day for impulse buying.

I bought a Davis Powerbeam VM dlp projector, and a Compaq Armada 1120 laptop.

The catch is this, the laptop has no ac adapter but was assured it works. Hard to find any specs on it but the adapters are plentiful. The projector, well, has issues. Turn it on and it fires up for about 3 seconds then the lamp turns off. No I woulda been fine with the lamp not powering at all. Cus then it would be a matter of buying a bulb and rocking and rolling. however the bulb works. Now it come down to a bunch of hardware testing and fixing the frickin thing. I'm just afraid it's going to cause me to divert the energy of building my own pj into fixing this one. I'm almost done with mine, just need to build some mirror mounts and wire it up.

So yup. I spent all my disposable income on hardware that I cant use yet. So I wait til next weekend when i get paid again. Yay. Maybe i'll work on my pj instead of messing with this one. I mean mine is gonna be pretty sweet, plus I get to say i built it from scratch, as opposed to I fixed a broken pj i got from some russians at a show.

I think saying i built it is cooler. But damnit if i cant stop messing with the broken one.

Turnin over a new leaf.

2005-03-01T14:28:00.000-05:00

I'll probably look back on this post and think i was outta my mind but here goes.

I've done a bit of thinking, about my state of health and my age. I may look like I'm only 22-24 but the truth is I'll be 30 this year. I enjoyed abusing myself with drinking, smoking, not exercising, and other recreational pharmacuticals. Troublwe is i don't recover that quickly anymore. So after some thought, I've decided to quit drinking during the week, smoking, and start working out again. I have 15 cigarettes left and then its over. I apologise to everyone in advance, cuz i know I'm gonna be a bit of a tiger for a few days. then things should settle down.

I figure that without working out i'll drop maybe 1-2 pounds a week by stopping drinking. each night i have 3-4 beers before going to bed. each beer has around 150 calorise. so at 600 extra calories a day times 5 days a week thats around 3000 calories. about the equivalent of 3 pounds of fat. Combine that with my newly purchased gym membership, i think i'm going to slim down quickly. and use the existing fat stores (yeah, i got a gut) to help building muscle.

Wish me luck.

Happy new years all.

2005-01-06T13:35:00.000-05:00

Welp, so far this has been a doozy of a new year. My tranny exploded, and my car has been in the shop since thw 27th. On top of that the lovely warrantee that was supposedly has a 100 dollar deductible (ie if anything breaks, i pay at most a hundred bucks), this repair is only gonna cost me $700 or so. They are only paying $500. They suck, it was that or pay 1200 and have my car back a lot sooner but they wouldnt have covered it. so I'm up the proverbial creek.

But wait! There's more!

One of the few women I have loved got engaged the day she was supposed to come over and "hang out" with me. I still don't know how to feel abnout that. At first I was devastated and tried to seed doubt about it, only to find out it was already there and that she wanted me back.So we plan and arrange a way for her to get out of there and be here. That was 2 weeks ago. Still hasn't happened. Fuck it. My heart says one thing but not as loudly as it has in the past, I guess I"ve been burned to many times. At this point she can stay in the dead end relationship get married etc... Figure that the worse case scenario is she gets married and has a kid or 2. I'll still have the ability to sleep with her whenever i want so what am i really out? And in all truth, The marraige won't last 2 years tops.

But something good did happen over the holidays. I got a kitten. A little slice of heaven to soothe the savage beat in me. She's adorable. Best kind of female to have in your life, no mind games, happy to see me when i get home, sleeps with me everynight, and leaves me alone to do my work and get things done. The only downside it the litter box, apart from a few tampon issues with women, You dont have to deal with most bodily functions in a physical way. Small tradeoff i think.

Hope everyone out there has had a good new years and isnt still hung over.

The start of a new adventure.... in finance and possible stupidity.

2004-12-02T13:30:00.000-05:00

Ok, After doing some thinking yesterday I decided to make my millions on ebay. After careful thought and consideration of new ways to make money on the net and setting aside some things for more consideration later (since lack of significant funds causes a pause before implementation), I settled on a tried and true method. Sell stuff on ebay. So I set up a paypal account, refamiliarized myself with the procedures for buying and selling on ebay, and signed up with a dropship wholesaler.

The dropshipper company is pretty nice actually. The prices are fantastic and selection is very good indeed. I did some crossreference checking of their prices versus average "Buy It Now" prices on ebay versus prices on amazon, and regular retailers, and The prices are good. So next I downloaded turbo lister and figure that should allow me to dump 40-50 auctions at a time. So all that's left is to confirm my paypal account and it'll be game on.

This should be fun. With any luck I should be able to pull in a decent amount of cash. My strategy will be this, maybe one or two auctions a day running for a week. so I shouldn't have to do anything with this on the weekends. Just pull my profits and smile.

Wish me luck.

Xbox mods....

2004-11-30T17:01:00.000-05:00

Ok, I broke down and ordered a mod chip for my xbox. My friend Chris was telling me all about how useful it was and got me to thinking. I'd been toying with modding it for a while, considering it's a decent pc with amazing graphics capabilities. So I did it, I ordered the Xenium Ice. A little work opening it up and a quick bit of soldering later and it was in. Turned it on and lo and behold it worked perfectly. I promptly installed a larger 120 Gig HD to replace the 8 gig that was in it. Then started to install applications like avalaunch (a dashboard replacement), dvd2xbox (a game backup utility), linksboks (a web browser), and XBMC (xbox media center, turns it into a home theater hub).

I must say I'm impressed. Now I can listen to shoutcast stations, view movie files, images, play mp3's, check my email, browse the net, and play my games off the built in hd without having to fish out the disk. It also has SMB networking and ftp capabilities to boot.

Of course modding the xbox voids the warrantee but i fifugred that since i had it for 2 years or so, who cares. and worse case scenario i can always do a little quick soldering and yank it back out. I highly doubt I'll have to. All in all very much cooler piece of equipment now. I'm even toying with sticking linux on it. Not for any reason other than just because.

If you have a xbox, I'd recommend modding the machine with this chip. Makes life so friggin easy. All the software is located at the usual places, since they were compiled with stolen software none of the sites offer a download of anything other than source code. But if you have a clue you can find it.

mourning the death of intelligent government.

2004-11-17T17:57:00.000-05:00

Welp, the election has come and gone. The misunderestimated man has actually won. Thankfully I did my part and so did the rest of the intelligent nation by making this one of the closest elections ever. Interesting find, that registered voters that never voted came out this year, also that the youth vote made up a substantial percentage of votes. Even better is that those previous groups mentioned voted against Bush. Mind you I dont think they voted for Kerry perse but voted for anyone who opposed Bush and what he stands for.

I think it's great that even those who cannot vote because they are too young are finding ways of making themselves heard on their displeasure at the outcome of this race. For me though the saddest part is this. The republicans have gained control of the government. It is truly a sad thing that those with those beleifs and stances control anything let alone this country.

In other news. My assignment ended and I can finally rest a bit. I've been putting in 75 hour weeks since this contract began (between working at Jersey Farms, and AT&T), and it ended yesterday. So today I finally got to sleep in. No alarm at 6:00. Nowhere to be. Finally. I'm still in pursuit of a real job, so I may leave the deli once and for all. But until I get a permanent job, I will continue to work at Jersey Farms along with whatever contracts I get. But I am taking a few days of rest before going back to full time at the deli. If I dont find a project by next week then i'll go back to full time then. But not before.

'bout damn time.

2004-10-18T14:05:00.000-04:00

Finally got a job. Its a temp gig but its better than full time deli guy. 9-5 working for AT&T/HP to apply patches to software. Totally easy. At nearly 20 an hour you can't beat that. It's 3 weeks long and should be good for some bank. I can't complain, my boy Jeno at Kforce hooked me up. Lets see if he can put me somewhere permanent after this.

If you couldn't tell, I'm incredibly happy just stunned is all. over a year with no bites. Now I got to find my ties ;)

Okay Amigo.....

2004-10-12T13:24:00.000-04:00

While nosing around old bookmarks I found a site that I gotta admit was pretty cool. Kinda a Friendster / dating site but with attitude. Depending on your questionairre answers guys are listed as varying levels of devils, and girls as angels.

Apparently I'm Lucifer. I can dig that.

Anyway check it out, Okay Amgo. Unlike most date sites, it's completely free. No strings , nothing. So what are you waiting for?

Finally Got Wheels!

2004-10-11T15:48:00.000-04:00

Soo I finally got wheels. Let me preface this with the fact that the car i bought is not at all the car i tried to purchase. And if truth be told i wouldn't have normally given the car a second glance.

I am the proud new owner of a 1991 Ford Escort LX. It's a 4 door with low miles. It's a much more grown up car than I've owned before and it's taken some getting used to. It's a lot lower than my previous vehicle (2000 Jeep Cherokee) and not nearly as powerful. But it is great on gas (huge benefit with gas costing nearly 2 dollars a gallon) and because it is slower than my last few vehicles it should keep me out of trouble. At least thats the plan. Not to mention there was ample space for my Sub enclosure. Right now itsd the little econobox that rocks, I'm pushing around 550 Watts through sony xplod 10's in a bandpass enclosure. It's a beautiful sight because with the hatch cover its totally stealth. I'm also not gonna mess with the mechanicals on this car at all. I need it simple and dependable.

This car does that. What can I say, I'm just happy.

Now to find a real job so I can tell Jersey Farms to kiss off.

Stupid story....

2004-09-16T01:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, I have a lot of ideas about how to do things and my intellect may be pretty formidable but I do have my blonde moments. Here is a recount of my most recent blonde moment.

I went to see "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" the othe night, thought it was pretty good and went home to watch the first resident evil for kicks. Well, at some point (I forget when) I happened to smell smoke. I thought this was odd but ignored it, after a few minutes I could no longer ingore it and looked around only to notice that my cigarette was in my hand and my leg was crossed and the pant leg happened to intersect with the cherry of my Marlboro Menthol. I jerked my hand with the cigarette away only to discover a glowing red dot on my pant leg. Instead of thinking I should put it out with my soda, I thought "Shit my legs on fire! I'm to put it out by blowing on it!". Well, I started to blow at my pant leg only to have the circle of embers glow even brighter and grow rapidly. Foregtting of course that my blowing was only supplying oxygen to the embers.

"AHHHH!" was my next thought as my leg was burnt by the embers of my jeans and my insistant blowing. Next I decided to start hitting it with my bare hand. Forgetting of course that my leg was still under it . So now I'm hitting a burning ember into my leg. "AHHH!" was my next rational thought and I stopped both hitting it and blowing it and finally decided to spill soda on my pant leg to put it out.

I ws sitting with much relief when I noticed my dad laughing at me, as he was watching the whole thing, while I was burning my leg for no good reason, with the understanding of someone who has done something similair and was annoyed at the time but gets the humor after the fact. Yup. I have my moments.

In my defense I will have to note that after the movie I went for a few beers. And had a few more before the incident. So maybe I can be excused for my idiocy by the fact I was well on my way to intoxication. But truthfully those that know me well know thats a load of dingos kidneys. I was just dumb. Oh well.

Hmm....

2004-09-08T01:33:00.000-04:00

So I have been sorta on and off working on a novel, and i can't seem to find the right rythm. So I've decided to shelve the project for now and write a book called "Blueprint for Utopia". It's planned to be a straight forward book of Rules to live by and an outline for creating a truly better world. At least thats the goal. I've become very disenchanted with the way we as a society act and operate, as a race even we've done some things fundamentally wrong. Even religion, which was created as fables to learn how to live peacefully and right, have become the very matters that cause the bloodiest wars and conflicts. We live in a time when religion should have lost its place as as a system by which you should have faith, and faith itself should be a fundamental part of our pyche, not in a imaginary figure like god, but in ourselves and in those around us to do the right thing.

I didnt mean for this to be a diatribe against religion and truly ,if it was, it would be a LOT longer. I just think it (my book) needs to be written. Trouble is I dont think anyone would read it and even if a major publisher was interested and it gets published it would just linger in the unused unseen philosophy section of Barnes and Nobles. But what the hell, it would be kinda nice to get the ideas out of my head and on paper so when people say "What are you thinking?" I could just hand them a copy.

People are dumb.

2004-09-06T14:14:00.000-04:00

I've been mulling over an article I read a few days ago. Apparently there's a school district not far from here that ran out of money for providing transportation of students. Anyone living more than 2.5 miles from school will get a ride, otherwise they have to walk. Sounds like a bad idea, until I put some thought into it. Whats wrong with walking a few miles to school? Since the 7th grade i decided not to depend on school transportation. I mean did you as a kid really love riding the bus? I didn't think so. I rode my bike considerabley farther than 2 miles to school. Not to sound like the old fart I'm becoming (christ am i really almost 30?) I rode my bike to and from school everyday, irregardless of weather, up and downhills in the snow rain whatever. I adapted to the ambient conditions and dressed warmly on cooler to facilitate my ride in comfort.

Now people are so concerned with their kids being nabbed and horrible things happening to them, "You never know what kind of crazy could come by and grab them" they say. But these concerns are unfounded, the media in the states (which calls itself accurate is a whole other topic of loathing) sensationalizes violence and crime. You always hear about this person got nabbed or that person got killed or some terror threat etc... When in actuallity the crime rate is lower than ever before. The terror threats refer to GW thinking he needs to scare us into keeping him in office, etc..

This is getting off topic so here i am comming back to the point. People dont want to admit that today kids are fatter and lazier than ever. This in part due to the fact that junk food is cheaper, the internet and computer games are holding there interest better. Walking a few mile to and from school would do these couch potatoes a world of good. If parents are scared of kids walking then give them bikes and buy good locks. Kids on bike arent grabbed as often simply because its a more difficult target and with the advent of cell phones with both cameras and gps (it still blows my mind that young kids have them, I got mine around 21 or so) built in it becomes infinately more dificult to grab kids without getting you photo taken or having the cops come by and ask for the kid back because the little bugger was smart enough to quickdial 911 with the phone in his pocket.

People need to use a bit more of the grey matter between their ears. And honestly, people need to realise their kids arent special their just kids. Sure you love them but who doesnt? Kids are very much like adults in that there may be a few exceptional ones but there are a whole lot of loser kids too. Darwinism should come into play again anyway, we've negated the point of evolution by coddling the children, the sick, and the elderly. Doesn't anyone remember survival of the fittest?

Screw it. The kid that swallows too many marbles shouldn't grow up to have kids of their own. Does it really sound so bad?

Hmm... So I'm The Punisher, neat.

2004-09-04T22:26:00.000-04:00

It was only a matter of time....

2004-08-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

CNN reports that playboy will be doing a pictorial in the october issue using video game girls like BloodRayne. Seems to make sense, considering the average age of players is around 29 and the average game buyer is 36. There could be a lot of money to be made in adult only games. Geez, now where's my copy of Advanced 3-D Game Programming?

Geocaching....

2004-08-24T13:56:00.000-04:00

Welp I've been field testing a military GPS unit, and found a site called Geocaching.com. People leave stuff in the woods, post the coordinates and you go find it, and take something and leave something. Maybe make a log about it. Sounds simple but actually can be fun, and gives you yet another use for the expensive gps you bought and have nothing to do with.

Political Compass

2004-08-12T11:13:00.000-04:00

Welp, found a great site to keep people interested. I know its been a while since updating but I've been busy. Anyways check out http://www.politicalcompass.org and see where you stand. Apparently I'm in the same qudrant as Ghandi and the Dali Lama. Neat. Dont mind if this blog is a little off, I'm currently suffering from a 102 fever and feel like crap.

Smokin Mod....

2004-06-15T11:55:00.000-04:00

Orac3. Normally I trhink Case modding is just silly and frivalous, but occasionally something strikes me as stunning. This mod (I hesitate to call it that) is stunning. Just take a look, if for no reason to see a new use for shower parts ;) .

If they're worried, so am I.

2004-06-11T12:28:00.000-04:00

Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides

Pope fears Bush is antichrist

2004-06-11T12:25:00.000-04:00

Bush is antichrist. Even the pope thinks so. Makes you wonder huh?

Cool Stuff that doesnt exist.

2004-06-08T13:56:00.000-04:00

Birdman Weapons Systems, Inc. These sick puppies have all kind of neat toys theyve made up. in their head of course and with photoshop ;)

Time to save before halloween....

2004-06-04T02:35:00.000-04:00

Fricken Cool. "Full Generic Multi Superhero Latex Coated Urethane Foam Muscle Suit". It's a full $1k but it might just be worth having, Looks like mad fun to practiose ninjutsu in. Yeah I'm a bit geeky, but damn it I dont care ;)

Great way to waste time while waiting for tacos to cook.

2004-05-29T10:25:00.000-04:00

BUSHGAME.COM - THE ANTI-BUSH ONLINE ADVENTURE. Though its a shame Voltron has sided with the Misunderestimated man.

ATI Cable

2004-05-10T16:46:00.000-04:00

Yay! The one cable i needed finally showed up from ATI. Someone gave me an ATI All-In-Wonder and the input cable but not the output cable. Until now it has simply been a novelty being able to see but not hear the tv program that was on. couldnt even record anything yet (which was the reason i wanted it in the first place) cuz there wouldnt have been any sound. Now with this cable life is good. finally gonna be able to record those shows I'm neither here or awake to watch. This is either gonna be good or I'm gonna fill my drives with stuff i dont really need. Oh well, lets see what happens.

Let the video piracy begin ;)

Just So You Know

2004-05-10T11:09:00.000-04:00

Just So You Know

The Misunderestimated Man - How Bush chose stupidity. By Jacob�Weisberg

2004-05-10T11:08:00.000-04:00

a dedicated fool, heh...

A different kind of robocop...

2004-05-01T13:45:00.000-04:00

This is to friggin cool. Not sure why they made it but its kick ass. Like a better robocop without any human issues. Check it out.

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

2004-04-26T18:40:00.000-04:00

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity. Explains alot.

Club Ovation

2004-03-25T15:42:00.000-05:00

Hey finally got some work, this is the new site i get to maintain. They're one of the biggest and hottest clubs for live shows in south florida. It's only like 100-200 a mnth, but that should pay my cell and storage bill yay! Check it out. Club Ovation

Kermit the Freak

2004-03-22T13:15:00.000-05:00

Just found this. Mother nature smokes too much ;) Kermit the Freak

Sunny FL.

2004-03-13T17:26:00.000-05:00

So, its saturday and i got here yesterday. I'm currently in Orlando and trying to figure out how to get to Ft. Myers tommoro. I"m gonna be bouncing all over the place and this is my chance to rest. Dont expect another blog, but you never know. I may get to again ;)

2004-03-06T12:07:00.000-05:00

Dream Moods Dictionary: Words That Begin With P: "Pyramid

To see pyramids in your dream, signifies that many new and major changes will be occurring in a short amount of time. It is a symbol of longevity, stability, and a firm foundation.

To dream that you are climbing a pyramid, denotes that you will wander aimlessly for awhile before finding the gratification of your desires."

Dream Moods Dictionary: Words That Begin With H: "Hang Gliding

To dream that you are hang gliding, symbolizes freedom in your personal life. It also represents trust and believing in destiny.

To dream that you crash a hang glider, represents a loss in faith."

Hmm.... makes me wonder, will i be getting a job soon that will give me the abiolity to enjoy my freedom? I hope so.

Whoa, i'm not even going to post what the other dream means, thats scary. On the upside, I did manage to find a site that talks about dreams well. Click here to find out about your dreams.

2004-03-06T11:52:00.000-05:00

So i had a strange dream last night. I was on top of a mayan pyramid in the jungle and it was gorgeous. With a hanglider. And I jumped off and flew across and around the jungle. Wow, it sounds silly to repeat, but i was stunned by the beauty of it all. Odd dream to have since I havent been to any mayan ruins or been hang gliding. But it was amazing, maybe it's something i'll have to do some day. Maybe go to the ruins, and go gliding. Though probably not at the same time. There are probably regulations against that kinda thing.

Though, I think i'll look up what the imagery in those dreams could mean. Gotta be better than the drowning in a tunnel dream i seem to keep happening. I dont even think I need to figure that one out, seems self explanatory to me.

2004-03-05T16:01:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a very fanboy post. Deal with it.

Unbelievable. Just nosing around the net for fun decided to look up transformers on amazon. that ended up with me bouncing around the web lookiing for new toys, god I cant believe they've updated some g1 characters to modern cars, the new Optimus is amazing. given these arent cheap but damn. Tracks is a new vette, Camshaft is a mazda rx8, Hound is a jeep wrangler but a lot nicer than the original, silverstreak is now a suburu impreza WRX and prime is still a semi but looks like the toon now. Smoke screen is a nev viper.Check out some pics here. not all of them but still friggin cool.

I gotta say i thought thought and still kinda think that all the lines of the new stories kinda suck, i mean minicons? thats crap. Beast wars? Optimus Primal? Bah. Just transforming car, jets, and the occasional gestalt (ie: Devastator) are the originals. TRansforming animals are crap. the dinobots were cool because they looked like robots dinosaurs. I mean really, transformers shouldn't have fur. :)

And something else, apparently they're making a liveaction movie too. It could look like this...

2004-03-03T19:55:00.000-05:00

interesting thing to note, its as fast to burn 4 cd's on a 32x CDRW than to burn 1 on a 8x CDRW. I never realized that before (duh). So, if your reading this Terry, I got those cd's burnt.

I love technology.

2004-03-03T17:48:00.000-05:00

I'm half tempted to start logging the different search terms i use during the day. I figure it may be an interesting view into what i'm doing online. could be a pain to track that though. It bears thought.

2004-03-03T17:36:00.000-05:00

I hate my teeth. I'm n so much pain i'm thinking about cancelling my plans and medicating myself. Trouble is if I dont go out tonight i dont know how soon i'll be likely to be able to go out again. Maybe if i can get my hands on some more groovy painkillers i'll be ok. I think i'll continue to assume i can go, and hang with my good friend Terry, and her new roomate Tiffany. I gotta meet Tiff, she just seems like a card. Terry's awesome and i wish I could hang with her more, but with the liscence situation as it is, I can only go so often.

I dunno, I hate complaining but this shit hurts. And i'm good at dealing with pain. A 250 pound server fell on one of my fingers and crushed it so bad the fat that sits under your skin ended up pushed through the split in the skin. Looked like cauliflower. My friend who was there was stunned that I only cursed for a minute and was fine, irregardless of all the blood. Hell, I partied that night. So after the stitches we went for drinks and it was fine. But this, if it's making me consider not going out, is pretty bad. I mean it feels like the friggin tooth is impactedin such a way that instead of just comming out its pushing the other tooth out of my head in it attempt to breakthrough.

It really sucks. So Terry, if you see this and I dont come out tonight you'll know why.

It has nothing to do with the fact that I havent finished burning all the cd's for you yet ;)

2004-03-03T10:37:00.000-05:00

While surfing for info on wisdom teeth etc..... I found this 404 page. I love broken syadmins and web guys.

2004-03-02T16:44:00.000-05:00

When i get some cash i seriously think this will be the car i buy. or at least one very similair. 1997 Ford Probe. Hell, guys gotta have goals right?

2004-03-02T16:23:00.000-05:00

Heh, tylenol with codeine rocks.

2004-03-02T15:32:00.000-05:00

Anyone know a free dentist btw? I got a massive toothache from my fifth wisdom tooth coming in. Yeah lucky me, my genetic anomaly causes pain. Couldn't it be a third testicle or something? At least that would be usefull.

2004-03-02T14:44:00.000-05:00

So, Its march second and i should have my licsence back. But nope. I wish i had been a bit more concerned with the legalitites of driving. I've more or less always felt that driving was a skill and not so much something that should be liscensed, or if liscenced it should be on skill level. Nowe given i used to get nailed a lot, but it was five years ago or more, when i thought i was invincible and drove a lot more aggressively. I dont do that anymore. But i did let a lot of things slide over the years and now i have to get it straightened out. Apparently over the years i've acquired around 14 points. Also i apparently have been unliscenced for a while too. But, i've havent been pulled over in years.

So, now i'm stuck. I owe like 2 grand in surcharge payments, another hundred for a restoration fee, an outstanding balance for $620 from a court case that i forgot about, from a few years back, and a undisclosed amount to another court. All this just so i dont have to freak anymore when i see a cop behind me. The worse part is i rarely speed anymore (when i do drive), and i dont blatently break any laws.

Shit, I'm too old for this stuff. I've been driving for nearly 12 years and I'm honestly unsure of how much of it has been legally.

I know, your probably wondering if I dont get pulled over why bother? Well, here it is. I"m tired of getting arrested for stupid shit. The last 2 times i've been arrested i wasnt even driving. Once standing near a car, and the other i was sitting in a parked not running car talking on my cell phone cuz that was the only place i had reception. Bah. I"m not going to go into how i hate cops and all that jazz, as i'm sure its apparent. Also, i've been laid off by my company, had to give my company car back (yeah they gave me a car without asking if i was legit :D ) and need to get a car. Now here's the thing. No job, no money. I"m back home. I was given a car, but my dad is hip to my legal situation and won't insure it for me until I'm legal again. Here's the bitch of it all. I can't work without a car, without a job i cant make the cash to get legit. without being legit i can't drive. Catch 22.

I just need to win the lotto or something. Fix my issues quick.

Anyone want to hire an outta work web dev guy? I prog in CFMX, and SQL. I also have 5 years experience as a network tech and admin. Hell, I'm willing to paint your house for cash ;)