Sand and Plans

July 4th was pretty awesome.

First we went biking in Chickasabogue park. But I didn't take any pictures. But if you know me, you know I LOVE to bike!!

Then in the evening went with some friends to the Battleship to see the Mobile City fireworks show. Several friends and my sisters got to come it was a rather fun night. :D









Here's my sisters Red, White, Blue...

This was not intentional but makes a great picture of us anyways.

On Saturday Here was "Plan A"
- Goto Pensacola to Weatherford's Outback in the morning
- Climb their rock wall
- Goto beach? Maybe. Maybe play some volleyball...
- Come back by 5 to Mobile to play Ultimate frisbee

By 8pm we were on "Plan H". Which involved
- Goto Weatherfords and find out the rock wall hours are 3pm to 9pm (it was 11am).
- Goto "Shiny Diny" for lunch and wait an hour to get food (sitdown to eating 1hr), but admittedly everyone thought it was Excellent!
- Take Nearly an hour to get to the beach (arrived at ~2pm) drive around for 30min and NOT find a parking spot.
- Continue EAST on hwy 399 till there were no more buildings and FINALLY find somewhere to park (along the road).
- Play some volleyball, hang out on the beach, 4pm time to go.
- Art and Amy arrive as we are walking out (I was NO help in getting them there sooner).
- Decide we really don't need to go back to Mobile so soon, Go back to the beach.
- Swim/Float/Frisbee/Sand Castles
- Theres suddenly a storm rolling, in take a picture, its time to Go.
- Go back to the pavilion/public safety building to change and watch the pandemonium as 5000 beach goers are trying to scurry out of the rain, and get clean, and in their normal clothes, same as us.
- Start driving to Mobile only to get separated from Art and Amy again.
- We're hungry where do we eat? Malbis Ma Bella's ...ok.
- Arrive in Malbis only to find ALLL the power is out and the Jubilee center is a ghost town with no lights on at all and no cars around. Daphne too, WEIRD!
- Continue to Mobile and eat at Logan's.
- Disband for the night....

Weatherford's Outback is a pretty cool store on highway 90 in pensacola. It sits right across from the water and just down the street from the shiny diny. They have all manner of backpacking, canoeing, kayaking, skiing, and climbing gear and clothing. They also have a really cool Golden Labrador dog. This is the Weatherford's Outdoor Climbing wall..


This is two pictures of the indoor. I plan to climb this one.

Not this part..

I felt it necessary to show these because in all my searching I couldn't find a single picture of the rock wall or the store. I will take more when we go and actually climb.


This is our group at the beach. This picture confirms several things for me. We actually did get Marshall to goto the beach (weird). We were all there and had a good time. Thusly today really did happen and some of our plans actually (Eventually) worked out.

The beach we found at the end of the buildings in Pensacola was actually pretty cool. It wasn't totally secluded, but there weren't a thousand people to get around either (and not alot of retirees like on gulf shores).

On the ride to Pensacola, Marshall was talking about "living in the moment" and how that somehow enhanced life. :) Then later when Weatherford's didn't work out Cherold mentioned how you make plans and hope they work, but when they don't you have something to swing from. Then on the way back to Mobile Marshall kept saying that he felt "Existential" this evening and how time seemed to be standing still.

I should tell you more about this, scenario. I told you about the plans, but as we were driving back it was raining and the rain was sheeting off the windshield. The sun was going down in front of us (we were heading west), but behind the clouds. Making everything a pale orange and blue. :)





It did seem time was at a standstill and very much like we didn't know anything about the next moment (except maybe that I would somehow mention Mutemath again). It was overall VERY VERY surreal. Then we arrive in Malbis, and there are no electric lights on AT ALL.

Once we got to Logan's I was talking to Marshall and managed to sum it up like this.. .
It's like looking at a waterfall and each moment is a little water drop and they just keep flowing and falling down. But looked at wider the water seems almost not to move as if time were at a standstill and nothing was happening.

Before today I was really worried the plan wasn't gonna work out, for a while I thought only me and Marshall were gonna climb and going to Pensacola just for that wouldn't be worthwhile. Additionally neither of us is really a climber (I don't like the hieghts personally). But in the end it worked out in spite of my inability to connect and communicate with Art in operational matters (sorry we left you behind twice). But in the end very glad everyone came and I think we all will have great memories of this adventure of a day.

It's often said it's not the destination but the ride. But I would interject that it is usually the destination, but you probably won't find what you expected once you get there, so you better appreciate the ride as well.

Tigers and Friends

This week the exploreum brought in a small bengal tiger exhibition (the exhibition's small not the tigers).

Naomi and I went with our friends Charles, Natalie, and Nathan.

Nathan was SO HAPPY to be going to see tigers, he talked about it the whole way there, so I took a little video of him talking about it.

Nathan-Tigers - Hosted by Putfile.com

Here's a few of the better pictures I took of the big cats.





























And a Short Video, here they were telling us the trainer was getting the tiger riled up to hunt him.

Tigers-58 - Hosted by Putfile.com

They made a big deal of not making the tigers do anything they wouldn't normally do, so the tricks were kind of basic but still better than just watching cats laze around.

About half way through the presentation I noticed two of my friends sitting on the other side, then I noticed a third as well. It was Cale, Ben and Amanda.



(He asked me to post this picture)

Mass Tram America

This Article introduces a new proposal for a tram/monorail system. It uses an elevated monorail and old 747 airplane bodies to achieve a small footprint and efficient operation. I am only writing this because after I read the following

"Fixed routes and tracks means that there’s little to no crossing traffic and high speeds can be maintained (estimated at between 100 and 200 miles per hour average speeds)."

The first thing I thought was...I hope it has a large windshield washer tank to get all those dead bugs off the front. :)

Unreal Tournament 3 Demo Torrent

The Unreal Tournament Demo was released today.

I would like to say its awesome, but on my computer it pretty much sucks. :P But thats just because I only get 30fps with it set at minimal detail 640x480.

Anyways heres the torrent
Instructions:
1. If you are using IE go download a real browser (ostensibly Opera)
2. Click the download torrent link on the torrent page.
3. Opera will download the torrent and then the demo for you (should be plenty of peers for the next couple days)
4. Double click the demo installer.
You can handle the rest (Ashley)

Hopefully it runs better on your system than mine.

Hosting Dilemna

Me and my programmer have been working on my website. I intend to use a PhpWiki as a data storage structure. Upon installing PhpWiki on my server, it runs a setup script, which places Dba files in the /tmp directory, where they are deleted every week. So the wiki's storage is deleted, great. The help files instruct you to simply copy the Dba files to a directory, then change your config file so the PhpWiki knows where your files are.

None of that is possible with my current host. With my current account there is no access to my /tmp directory, I cant get below my /home/user/ directory. The tech support won't do it for me (how hard is it honestly?).

So I need a new host, possibly one with root access to my files. Privileges like that are mostly (but not necessarily) only available in a VPS (Virtual Private Server).

I've been looking into this hosting thing, and I had decided on "gate" hosting. They have a great package, and furthermore their hosting is run by an "Advanced Cluster", just like Google. I was going to sign up for a $30/month VPS account. I was into the second step of signing up, and just then decided to stay my hand. I Googled Gate hosting, and trying to find anything on any host is nearly impossible. :P So I didn't find much.

Except a blog entry where a guy complained about them, he said they took 5 days to answer a support call. Gate wasn't looking so good...so I started looking elsewhere

Which lead back to http://hosting-review.com/top-10-lists/top-10-vps-hosts.shtml

That's how I got to Gate (they are at the top). So I started exploring the rest of the list. The next on the list is midPhase. Under support they list "True 24/7 phone support - skeptics welcome to call us anytime at 1-866-MIDPHASE to test things out. (and yes, you can do it at 3:15AM on Sunday)" ...So I did :) And I got a human on the other line (possibly a Vulcan but there's no reason to assume that) (incidentally the human's name was Cisco :P) but definitely not a computer.

I asked him if I would have root access and explained the problem with my wiki (yes with VPS, no with a lesser account), but then he asked one of his techs about using a wiki and after a coupla minutes he came back on and said she said I shouldn't be a problem even with the lesser account. And said that she (a female technician?!) had a wiki on her own domain with no problems. I said "great" and got off the line.

I kept thinking about the problem. A little while later I pulled up the help files for PhpWiki and called them back, I wanted to talk to the technician and find out which wiki they had installed. I called sales, and got "Cisco" ("Sysco?") again, what luck. I explained I wanted to talk to the technician about the wiki problem, he told me her name and transfered me. I was finally talking to the technician, I asked her what wiki she was using, (hey she Knows what a wiki is!!(some technicians don't)). She was using mediawiki, the engine that runs www.wikipedia.com, she assured me the setup didn't cause problems.

Then she started to check on something, it ends up the management software included with the lesser account includes a "package" that installs PhpWiki automagically(they've heard of it and included setup files!!), GREAT!!

I then asked about getting Dugg or Slashdotted, she said with the lesser account there would be a "Account Suspended" page and with the VPS account you could at least get at your server even if its overloaded.

You've got to realize at this point, I still am not a client of midPhase. I'm just a random caller and they helped me with all this....at 7pm in the evening...Awesome!

So how does Gate compare?!

I dunno, so I called them as well. I dialed into the support department, I got a person. He immediately asked for my domain name....I told him I was thinking about using Gate and wanted to know about some features. From the first mention of wiki's he had NO IDEA what I was talking about, I mentioned it was the kind of software that runs Wikipedia, this is getting SCARY, again NO IDEA!! I said thank you and hung up. He wasn't able to help me, and apparently neither is Gate. Now, I could get the wiki working under their VPS account, but support has never HEARD of a wiki, that is simply unacceptable. I mean seriously have they heard of the latest search engine, something called Google??! Maybe they should look it up in their Encyclopedia Brittanica, honestly.

Then I asked about getting Dugg or Slashdotted, he'd never heard of those either. So I decided I would put his rock back on top of him and move on.

So I think I will go with midPhase!
Boy that was a hard decision. :P

Engine out!

I've bought a new car, a 97 Honda Civic. But it needs a new motor, It ends up I've already sold the old motor. So I've spent the last week and a half pulling the motor (an hour here and there). But particularly yesterday, I spent 7hrs working on it.

Anyways the engine is out. :D

Do the Wachowsky Brothers watch Star Trek?!

I just watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager, Episode 39 The Thaw.

This episode begins with finding a planet that had gone through environmental collapse, and its inhabitants developed a stasis system that linked their minds inside of a virtual environment.

Which then developed a frightening clown from their collective fears.

All the same the stasis system and the linked virtual environment is very similar to concepts in The Matrix. :)

Makes you wonder which came first.

Feel free to write more similar references in the comments.

This is Not Good

This is not good at all! (please excuse the scewed, non-screenshot picture) This is an iBook 700, that just got a fresh install of OSX 10.4 and a coupla updates, but something went very wrong.

I've already reinstalled OSX 10.4 and it works again, I wonder what happens/happened when I hit the update button.

X Windows Graphics Drivers problems

Installing the graphics drivers in Linux can be rather tricky, but I recently discovered a way to get out of the command line and into the easier to understand graphical interface. These tips should work for most distributions, but the only one I have done it with is Ubuntu. If your in Debian or Ubuntu and using an ATI or NVIDIA card then Automatix or Envy are definitely the way to go for installing your video drivers. Although envy can also be run in text mode I couldn't get it to work.

I worked on the problem for quite a while and although there is a moderately easy solution I didn't see it anywhere that I looked on the Internet, I don't know if its one of the few remaining "everybody should know that" things in Ubuntu or if everyone else really does use the more complicated methods....

Anyways, here's how to get out of text mode so you can install your drivers. Just change the video driver to vesa!

The easier way to do this (in Ubuntu/Debian) is to type:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

This command runs the Xorg setup script, the very first question is which video driver the server should use, there should be a Vesa driver in that list, just hit enter once you have it highlighted, then just hit enter for the rest of the options (unless you really want to change something else). Then after the program exits just type:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$startx

Of course there is also the good old method of manually editing your Xorg.conf

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then you need to find the part that looks like:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia" ....

Then just change Driver to "vesa" then save the file and:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$startx

X should start now, it might be a bit slower and not able to do Beryl, but at least you can use this mode to get Envy or Automatix going and get the proper drivers installed without having to muck about in the CLI. :D

(P.S. if I got anything wrong Please correct me in the comments)

Sunset

I was heading home from Spanish Fort and saw this amazing sunset and started to think of a way to get a Good picture of it. I knew it was a ways off so I had to start speeding or miss it. Halfway across the causeway there was a good place, but I JUST BARELY caught it.

Mobius Chess

I am so building one of these! (Eventually)



I will use a wood base that will be the anchor point for one (or two) vertical bars, and those will support a flat section of steel bent into the mobius shape and etched with the Chessboard pattern

Then the pieces will have magnetic bottoms...

But maybe glass with strips of steel embedded inside would be better for seeing all your pieces, or just plain glass and suction cup pieces...

So...who's up for a game?

(idea via: Make Blog)

This one's for Ashley

Hey Ash, my (I think) sole reader (or at least commenter).

One of my favorite bands Mutemath recently released a brilliant video for their song "Typical".




This is for Ashley because tommorow he is moving to Atlanta because God told him to. :)
So to the question "Can I break the Spell of the Typical?..." Ashley can certainly answer "Yes!"..

Good Luck Ashley!

M.C. Escher

Like alotta geeks M.C. Escher is one of my favorite artists. His paintings play on perspective and twist realities.

This evening after reading the Wikipedia entry on him, I found an excellent gallery of his drawings. So go there and boggle at his amazing abilities.

I was looking for this one in particular (I would put it directly on this page but dont want to infringe copyrights...or something). Somewhere I have a copy of this print, one of the few things I used to display in my room.

More posts coming soon...

I went to Barnes and Noble tonight looking for a book about machining. I didn't find one about that in particular but I did find an excellent and fascinating book.

Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook

Just in case you need to move something. This book details hundreds of mechanical motion linkages, how to model and use them. It's a good reference source for inventive persons like me.

Also, while looking for tips/instructions for a drill press I came across the eFunda (Engineering Fundamentals) site. This contains a trove of information about engineering and designing devices. Really amazing the amount of free information available via the internet.

I will soon be doing a CNC links post.

I am looking seriously into building a Home Built CNC milling machine (in other words it could be 6months to a year or more till I build one :P).

That's all for now, come back in a coupla days when I unveil my latest project.

Amazing Provision

Every now and again a friend of mine will tell me an unbelievable story about God's amazing provision in their lives. A story of prayers directly answered exactly on time, often in abundance.

My friend Basil recently told me such a story of God's grace. So here goes....

Basil was in Mobile, when he had been planning to be in Bradenton, FL for few weeks but every time he tried to go there, something came up in Mobile. He had plans to be at a conference in Kansas City , but his flight was out of Tampa(because he didnt know he would still be in Mobile). There was no way he could change the reservations to Mobile. So he rented a car and drove down (one way) to catch his flight to Kansas City.

After having a great weekend at the conference, he and his leader were sitting in the airport and the leader (who had booked the flight for Basil) wished he had booked it to take Basil back to Mobile instead of Tampa. Basil was nearly penniless and faced the choice of getting a hotel room (which he couldn't afford) after the flight or sleeping in the airport, to wait for his brother to come. And then what? Come back to Mobile? He didn't have money for that.....

So then God provided him a way.

An airline official came over the intercom and asked for anyone willing to reschedule their flight out to the next morning. Basil jumped at the chance, they were offering a free room for the night (no sleeping in the airport), the rescheduled flight(no biggy), a $400 certificate (money to get back to Mobile), and 2 free meals as well.

They put him up in the Hilton nearby, he got up in the morning got a free shuttle to the airport and got some breakfast then waited for his flight out. There was more good news when he got seated, it ended up the only open seat was in first class! He had a drink, a salad, and a light nap before the plane even got off the ground. :D

So the lesson kids, is to have just a little seed of faith, and Go. Have faith that God can get you back where he wants you, in style even. :)














This is Basil, back in Mobile after he told me this story of Amazing Provision.

What took so long?!

Ok another link I stole from Digg. This link leads to the most incredibly fun program ever, smoothteddy. Watch the demonstration video and then try the applet. They are distributing this work of genius for free, God Bless them. :]

I just wanna know...what took so long? Why has 3d always been about creating and editing every single point and line and polygon?

Drawing on a computer should have always been this way. It's genius and I guarantee you will have fun with this and be able to create something vaguely resembling what you wanted (as long as its curvy and topologically sound).

Vacuum Forming

Several years ago I was asked to help put together some costumes. As usual I never actually pulled it off. I couldn't find what kind of plastic I needed. There's lots of pages on vacuum forming, but they always seem to assume you know where to get random sheets of plastic...

Well tonight I made that particular discovery.

From this page on www.tk560.com

Sometimes called HIPs [High-Impact Polystyrene Sheet] I've had the best luck searching for HIS [High-Impact Styrene Sheet] Below are some suggested sources.

:D

The problem that brought this up was, I'm wondering if this is a practical way to build some new trim pieces for my car. The old pieces just arent holding up. Or maybe just use the plastic to mold more durable fiberglass bits.

Of course that would require a nearly 4ft vacuum table. :)

More of what I've been up to...

In June I worked on my car for nearly two weeks.


My clutch was headed out so I decided to go ahead and replace it. Unfortunately in
the final step of removal I broke the return spring of the throwout bearing. I would not suggest you do the same. Otherwise this job would have only taken a couple of days.

In the above picture there is a cordless impact wrench. That particular one was $70 from home depot (bought at 8:45 one night while working on my dad's car (home depot closes at 9)). I highly suggest you go buy one of these if you work on your car and don't have a compressor, its a true life saver!















That's the spring there, the out of focus brass colored thing..

A couple of weeks after that I finally made it out to Barry's U-Pull-It Junkyard, I had a hot tip that there was a CRX with the front fender I needed for my car.



































This was the generous donor CRX.

















The Recovered bumper posing on my car, right before I made out of there like a bandit! :]
















Look a CRX SI!!

Barry's is a heavenly place to be for me...so many possibilities.....

The bumper still isn't on my car. I intend to back it up with some fiberglass to reinforce it before mounting it to my car.

The week after the 4th of July Hyrum and Allie and Ian came down to Alabama to visit.

Before this visit I was frantically trying to get the projector panel working. It needed power then I would test it to see if it really worked at all, then I would build the necessary adapter cable for video. So I got all my electronics stuff out and made my work area on the dining room table....
















Then I built a little circuit to adapt power from an ATX power supply to a cable stolen from an old keyboard.















I checked everything 4 times, but everytime I turned on the supply with everything hooked up, the power supply blipped its fan then acted dead. After I was CERTAIN that everything was hooked up right I gave up. The panel IS DEAD! After I had spent at least $50 on supplies and hookups, and the other $60 I spent on the panel...Nothing.

Then A New Hope.

When Hyrum and Allie arrived, Hyrum brought an offcast LCD monitor that he had rescued from disposal at his work. So what did we do? We took it apart! :D















Then I built a holder for it to sit over the Overhead Projector, so the projector could cast light through the LCD delivering an image to my screen.















Unfortunately, When we turned on the LCD , in spite of my efforts it was a mirror image (left to right) of what it should have been, BUT it DID display an image. Ever since I heard about this LCD projection thing I was always a bit skeptical, but now I've seen it works. But the combination of the screen being flipped and the FFL (flat flexible cable (as they call it on the lumenlab forums)) problem, which meant the top 10 percent and the left 20 percent of the image were blocked by circuit boards, and I couldn't find a video card setting/tweaker to fix the mirror flip...




















So i decided to reassemble the LCD as a regular monitor. At some point in the future I WILL build a proper lumenlabs style LCD projector. But I cant yet. :P

The last thing I would like to talk about is some shelves me and Oliver salvaged from disposal. I saw these driving home one day. They were setup there outside an A/C supply place. They intended to break them down and put them in the dumpster. So I called them the next day and found out they were destined for the dump and salvaged them.



This is some serious shelving folks, I could make any kind of mount/base/structure with this stuff. I Got about 9 shelves worth. So I went ahead and set one up in my storage..



I LOVE my car, the versatility of a CRX as you can see, is incredible! :D



Oliver said it looked like a computer store in my storage....I cant see why he said that, HAHA!

Sometimes....

Sometimes my ideas come to me all at once....
And sometimes I even draw them out....
Then a very few times I scan that drawing and post the idea on my blog :D

So, I was laying on my bed a minute ago, thinking as I have many times before how much I would just like to use the computer from right there. Then I realized that I had an LCD monitor sitting right in front of me and it began to become a possibility, if only I had a monitor arm that could reach over my bed...(or a projector...but anyways). I started thinking about the process of building a monitor arm (buying one is for people flush with cash....and who don't know how to weld :](which gives me another idea...). So I ruled out wood because I don't think its strong enough and really like using metal. So I started to think about what an arm would look like, it would need an arm with a pivot on the end, hmm sounds hard....unless.

So I hit on the idea of using the remains of discarded bikes, I would use a bottom tube for the top arm and another for the vertical mounting piece. Then I drew the whole thing up.



By the way, my other idea from above was a bumper sticker that would say.
"Buying things is for People who don't know how to weld"

I made it onto Makezine!

Check it out, I posted a little article on making a pizza sauce can furnace and then Makezine posted it on their blog. :D

Edit: Sorry I forgot to post the links...here they are...
Makezine Blog
Instructable

4 Month Old Pictures

What have I been up to, since the last time I really posted in January?
And why haven't I posted any on the blog?
Well, Alotta things I've been meaning to blog, but haven't managed to get around to till now... (plus picture upload was broke last time I tried this post)

In April I went to Blakely Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama; then followed that mini-trip up with a real one to Sand Rock, Alabama; Birmingham and Finally to Montgomery to see MuteMath, I couldn't rent a car for the whole weekend and stay in mobile.

Here's some of the better pics :]





The two above are from sunset on the river at blakely. This was the highlight of the trip (visually at least). Unfortunately after it got dark I noticed (would be hard not to) that a couple of sites down they had an elaborate tent replete with a generator running an a/c ( yeah that's camping! ). So it was quite hard to rest, or think, or do anything other than listen to that thing run all night!!




This is the view from Rock Village, in Sand Rock, Alabama! Next time I go I have definitely gotta camp out and see what dawn looks like! (the first is facing east, the second is south, it was near sunset at the time). Sand Rock is one of my absolute favorite places (or at least..of the ones I've been to so far). This view is mezmorizing to me, it completely consumes my attention. :D Then there's the fact that to get this view REQUIRES you scramble up onto the rocks, and your right there on the edge, no safety rails or ropes, it is fully possible you could fall off. It's a good kind of exhilaration. I guess to get the long view (from the mountainside) risk is required. :)



Look someone wrote my name on the rocks. :) (not me)

This is an attempted picture of Mutemath. The camera I took this with (that I borrowed from Ashley), absolutely refuses to take a good picture at a concert.


Look its my name again, on Mutemath's keyboard this time. Sweet!