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!

Chemistry class

I always knew chemistry class had the potential to be like this...


Best free videos accross the net.

Keeping the peace

As I was growing up, sunday mornings getting ready for church were always umm Interesting. You see we had 6 ppl in my family and usually only one bathroom. And we aren't the kind of family to walk in on each other.

I was reflecting back on this yesterday and how I, always really wanted to solve this problem. The best thing I had come up with to date involved parabolic mirrors, so it wasnt terribly practical.

I think I might have it licked though...
In a bathroom with this configuration, 3-4 ppl can operate simutaneously without any interference. At least, that is, as long as someone has evacuated before the person in the shower comes out. :P

Google in the Fire

Bellsouth (my service provider...unfortunately) recently hatched this crazy(greedy!) idea to make websites share the cost of bandwidth. Google isnt budging

For those of you that havent heard, the federal government is asking Google to hand over search records to help track sexually explicit content on the web. Google isnt budging, so far.

Google...pick your guns carefully, and stick to them!

Power Idea

So this one is so obivous and simple I should probably hold onto it....

How about a series of power strips that are controlled (on/off, maybe for individual plugs) through Buetooth!!?

Btw, Mpower Systems is looking for a person with electronic fabrication skills. If you can design a good circuit to control two power window motors with a standard analog joystick, between now and breakfast please email me.

Robot Marketplace

The Robot Marketplace

They've got some great parts/kits. I am especially eyeing the pre-slotted axles. :)

Interfacing

Bear with me this is a complex one....

I have been thinking about how to make computers do things alot. In particular I was thinking about whether you could call your own phone, have your computer take the call and then bark commands to your computer over the phone. Well I dont know if it would work but if it did, you would have to somehow control the computer without seeing the screen.

Then I thought about how my friend Ashley is HUGE on using the keyboard for everything, any program he finds without keyboard shortcuts he refuses to use. There often arent shortcuts for everything the program can do...

I myself find it hard to remember more than a few without spending loads of time working on it.

And then theres the CLI (command line interface) crowd. They build software that works solidly (thankfully) if you can string the commands together in the right sequence (doh!).

What if, a program had a single key, Alt, or Ctrl shortcut for EVERY function! And was built where these could be used in the command line. Then in order to give the program a GUI you would just have to map all your buttons to feed the program each key. (which is essntially what the linux guys do except the commands are more grammatic)

Then you could possibly get the phone call control working, the computer would have to work out the focus (for example when a dialog pops up), but you would be that much closer. Scripting would become that much easier as well.

You gotta remember that this is coming from a guy that doesnt really script or program that much.

2 Games

The easiest game ever created:1D- Tetris

and one of the hardest: N

Lunch post

I was thinking as I drove home for lunch about the Matrix™ movies, and why the last two sucked so much more than the first (cause the first one really rocked).

I bet it comes down to the time they had to chew on the concepts and scripts. As in for the first one they probably had the idea years and years before they got the go ahead and funding to make it. So for years and years this movie was being ground down to the smallest details and the concepts and visuals refined, till it was incredibly well developed.

On the other hand the last two were probably on a schedule and there was stress and worry all around to get it out on time. And after it was completed..That was it..Onto making them. I think this happens ALOT in creative endeavors.

I read an article recently that lamented that so many people spend such large amounts of thier life building junk (cant remember where I read it). Junk that gets a little use, or makes us smile a little but quickly degrades and ends up in a landfill. What if those products had just a little more refinement, what if someone had taken a couple more days and thought about its flaws?

What if they had gone into farming and grown some food instead?

So if your reading this and involved in creative endeavors, just take a couple more hard looks at your creation, think about its ultimate end. Will it end up discarded, or an hierloom. Will it still be useful or enjoyable in 5yrs time?

If it isnt, then consider going into farming (we can always use more food).

Projector Update

I did finally get the panel in....
But it didnt come with any cables, power or vga. So now if I want to use the thing I have to build those. Luckily it did come with a manual that includes the pinouts of the connectors. Unluckily the needed connector is a hd 26pin D-sub connector. Mouser to the rescue...

The Triumph of Organization

While reading a woodworking magazine a while back there was a little tip for building a toolbox with vertical panels which hold the tools.

Well after screwing up on the projector box I had 4 good pieces of plywood leftover. So I decided to finally build this project and organize some of my tools. I figured out a way to make the project using JUST plywood and some 1" by 2" boards, thier design used pegboard and dado cuts for the slots.

So Here I give you the Super Simplified Toolroom in a Box.



















These two pics (above) illustrate how the slats are nailed down, and some of the tools that will eventually make it into the box. Below are two of the panels in full trim, and the an overview of the box.















I still have to figure out somewhere good to put the box itself. :P

Progress (towards what?)

Just wanted to show off my handy work for the day....



















Yup thats my new screen and the projector box with the back off, in pre-paint form.

Notably it was also my last day at Papa Johns today. :]

Schemes, Plans, and Travels

Tonight I finally received the projector I bought off eBay (not that it took that long really), now I am waiting for the LCD projection panel. So I can complete my plans and build a wood box and have a projector :D. So from now on when we are sitting around staring at each other trying to figure out where to watch a movie, it can be at my place. Also so when Hyrum comes down; we aren't always complaining about the old TV with only a coax connection....

I got some inspiration from this page , then more digging led me to www.lumenlab.com , which has got me itching to build a bigger better more expensive version...Of course. Which is what I showed to Wayne and he wants to build one as well...

This last weekend I drove my eyes off, I left mobile Saturday at about 2pm headed to an 8pm concert in Tallahassee ( www.mutemath.com ), then drove right back home, barely barely made it home, at about 5. Then I got up 4.5 hours later and headed to Birmingham with grandma. Managed to stay awake till we started back, about 1.5hrs into that trip I bombed. Just praise the Lord I made it home in both instances without incident....Well aside from a burning rv...

No I didn't set that fire....You will notice I am on the OTHER side of the interstate....

While at Waynes place he told me about a hard drive that crashed and burned on him, which is why this article today on hackaday really got my attention . (Wayne: if you aren't confident enough to try the surgery I will do it for you..)

While in Birmingham I also got some Great pictures of the sunset ...
If anyone reading this was in Birmingham Sunday night, then you saw how awesome the sunset was. :] I was just glad to change my surroundings for a few hours, and get to meet Cooper, and see where Wayne and Kelli are living...And see Mutemath play 4 songs O_o

Just had an idea....

Ok i was reading this article tonight (which i got from digg as usual) and something occurred to me.
"Lyon still wanted to find out who was behind the attacks. He and Brown scanned the traffic data, found a zombie, and, thanks to an opening in Microsoft Windows, were able to see what other computers it had been connected to. This led them to a chat server in Kazakhstan; when they connected to it, they saw more attacks in progress. They notified the F.B.I. and the Secret Service, but, Brown said, “they sort of threw up their arms, because it was in Kazakhstan.” To Lyon, however, the lesson was clear: with clever techniques and a little luck, any attacker could
be found."

"thanks to an opening in Microsoft Windows"
This gives me an idea; whats the best way to find a zombie army, by being in control of the zombies themselves.....

SO on with the idea, what if there was a piece of software similar to the bot software that resided on a good bit of the machines involved, similar but different in that it would be used by a good network to gather information about a given attack, and could possibly either disrupt that attack (by commanding the pcs under its control to quit participating) or could just gather information about the attack to be given to the authorities. The software could be installed on a voluntary basis, like seti@home.

The idea that enables this is, the criminals running these bots dont know/care what else is running on the bots themselves. So your program could run alongside thiers without them realizing you are gathering data on them.

In fact the ppl like Lyon, could theoretically setup a farm of machines and just let them be infected and maybe then one of thier machines would be one of the bots attacking, and could be used to trackback to the attackers....

Note to self: always finish reading the article before posting idea to blog, there are alotta ppl alot smarter than me. :/

The Great Depression

The other night me and my grandma were sitting at dinner talking and I decided to ask her "what caused the Great depression?" And she didnt know, she said "well the stock markets crashed" so I asked "why?" and she said "well money had no value" and I said "but why? What caused it?"

Ultimately it had never been explained to either of us so for the purpose of educating my already very clever readers....

The answer is the leaders in countries with the most influence were having a problem with deflation (money wasnt worth anything) and they in turn used solutions that would work on inflation to try and solve this problem. Most americans (or at least I didnt) dont realize the great depression was worldwide.

So to compress it down more, alotta really "smart" ppl had a whole string of bad ideas which ultimately lead up to the stock market crashing, banks folding, and ten years of turmoil.

Luckily we came out of it, and eventually someone had a bright idea to network computers which eventually snowballed into the idea of wikipedia, which happens to be where I got my information. :)

My router is fixed :D

I have been having a huge problem with my internet. For several months whenever I would try to log into my yahoo email it would login and get to the front page but clicking the inbox resulted in "document contains no data". Similar things were happening on Ebay and Cingular's website.

Well Ashley was over today and insisted on me letting him try to fix the problem, he got in there and changed the MTU size, and everything started working. Apparently he talked to D-Link support (I have a netgear) a while back and they showed him this solution.

Niether of us even knows what an MTU size is and I especially cant see why it needs to be a certain size for some websites to work and others to not..... It really demonstrates how complex our system (the internet) is and how fallible it is.

I remember learning about the OSI 7 layer system years ago when I was studying for A+ exam. Even then I was blown away by the shallowness of most ppl's (mine included) knowledge of what makes networking work. I bet most sys admins never venture to learn about more than the first layer or two. That is to say, comprehensive in depth knowledge is often left to somebody else.

Shallow knowledge is becoming common in Chip design as well (of all places), these days the guys designing computer chips deal mainly in blocks. The blocks are composed of what are really higher level assembly commands, they know how to combine the blocks and make something work. But they dont really bother to delve into what the blocks are composed of, what really makes thier chips tick. It's the same thing that happened when every piece of electronic gear went from having discrete components to having chips everywhere. Previously in fact the blocks that modern chip designers fiddle with were chips that you would see in the previous gadgets.

Whats the problem?....your probably asking. Well when you put the blocks together and it takes 12 nanoseconds for the command to go through the chip, you just have to accept it, cause thats as fast as the blocks can go. If you knew the internals then you might be able to do something about it, but you dont, your professor never taught you that, and you just wanna go home and hang out with your kids anyways. So churn out another crappy/buggy chip and make the boss happy and go home. :P

Dont get me wrong I am all for standardized components and all that, yay for standardization. But I also TOTALLY believe in popping the hood and taking the covers off and tweaking things.

I also believe in full disclosure and fully endorse the idea of Open source Hardware.

Remind me to go off on more tangents...then maybe I would update more than every three weeks. :P

I hope any readers I may have enjoy my rambling...
And btw, Ashley, Thanks a ton for fixing my internet even though you SUCK!

Want some links?..hehe I have a month's worth to unload

http://www.mpja.com/ supply house for tinkerers

http://www.camerahacker.com/Car_Camera_Mount/index.html
Marshall...are you out there?
http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia thanks cale
http://www.vintageprojects.com/ What a great website, I have thought of this website several times but never
followed up :P
http://www.dimensionengineering.com/ Their converters can up-switch voltage
http://forums.howwhatwhy.com/ubbthreads.php The perfect forum subject/format
http://jlnlabs.online.fr/ Crazy to hard to believe experiments
http://www.solutionscatalog.com
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/clickonline_archive_14_2005.asp?pageid=665&co_pageid=3
...do NOT do this...
http://www.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2005/08/27/web_20.html
Power in the new age of internet
http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml Give it a loose description of a word and it will
"hopefully" give you the word, I need a portable version of this implanted in my head. :P
http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/2005/09/02/the_latest_ip_crime_boxwrap_patent_infringement.php
This is getting really old and outta hand (but then you realize this guy misinterpreted the ruling)
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/ The science hobbyist
http://amasci.com/ele-edu.html More than enough info on electricity
http://eio.com/resorcin.htm Robotics/Electronics Information/Article site
http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/h2new.htm Cool new gasoline to Hydrogen conversion company
http://www.uktech.freeserve.co.uk/report/report.htm An open sourced CNC mill
http://photobucket.com/albums/b124/jrou111/ A moment of silence for James' car
http://diybanter.com/ Diy internet forum
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=295 A guide to slipstreaming I can actually follow, see thier
article on putting it on a cd too
http://www.smh.com.au/news/icon/shoot-to-thrill/2005/09/14/1126377359164.html

Dontbuyjunk.com The name says it all
AutoSpeed This is what I am talking about, these guys dont only mind getting under the hood but they arent afraid to etch a circuitboard either, all to make thier cars faster...
New trigonometry I would like to investigate this more, because I never did get a good grasp of trig
MetaEfficient Blog about efficiency and cleaner living
boevhomyak.jpg Why didnt I think of this...

things I should read...
http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/
https://www.cs.tcd.ie/courses/baict/bac/jf/labs/scope/

Words dont cover this

Katrina came by, and didnt manage to blow our house down, and for that we are blessed. She did knock out power for about 3 days (at my house) and put everyone out of work for about a week.

Not sure what to say about everything that has happened to the west of Mobile because of Katrina. I feel like I should write something but I cant seem to get it started on the right foot, perhaps I will just hand you a dandy link instead. Read it if you have the time (warning: *some* offensive language (nothing unusual for the net though)).

I cant seem to wrap my head around the real problem and what should be done about it. Which is why I cant write about it. I just thank God for all the resources that are being thrown at it and pray the right ppl will get the right things done in good time. That is, rather than more patchwork and stopgap solutions.

I am also interested in what this will hopefully do to american attitudes towards our waste and use of resources (ie gasoline), and where we build our "homes".

I also wish I was a little greyer (see link above).

Ugly Hack job!

I did something extraordinary yesterday, I totally did a quick ugly hack job.

I have always wanted a light to read by above my bed so I wouldnt have to turn off my room light at night.

The light came from the upper console of a car I rescued from the dumpster while I was at Joe Bullard previously. The power supply was given to me and I bought the Erector set a coupla years ago. It took me about an hour to do it (from inception to completion), which is a new record for me, usually I have to draw everything out and have it perfect and everything. I guess it shows you can have function devoid of form. :P

Here's some pics

N.A.D.D.

An eloquent description of what keeps me on the internet all the time...
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2003/07/10/nadd.html
Maybe not eloquent but definitely accurate.

Today in Crappy Pics

The day started by responding to crisis for Naomi, her car was overheating and leaking water. So I went out and took a look at it and attempted to fix it. I replaced a hose and two clamps, but am not 100% confident I had the problem nailed down. In the process...
"Oh there's the bleeder valve". The fabled coolant system bleeder valve which was supposed to be there but has never been found before. :P

After leaving South I went home and cut the grass, nice huh?


After cutting the grass, I started working on the actual building phase of The Spotlight Project for Ashley. I started by experimenting with bending the aluminum I planned to use for the swiveling mount, the experiment was a success. To bend the thick aluminum I mounted the piece into my vise clamp then grabbed a big piece of square tubing and torqued down on the thing.
So next i needed to figure out how much clearance a spinning QBeam Max would need. So I mocked up a model and measured the necessary values..... (yes I am the duke of Ghetto, because James is the king).

Then I transferred all this to the aluminum....
Broke out the level in an attempt to prevent my bends from being twisted.

Proceeded to make my two bends..

Then I went to the computer and used Graph Paper Printer to print out a piece of paper with 1/8th inch divisions, then used that to check my bends for being right and to layout where I needed to drill (as if it was gonna help)

Next I took on punching a good pilot then drilled two holes completely off center :/ . I have got to be missing something about drilling, other ppl's hand drilled holes come out reasonably right...

Then I continuted mutilating the project by using a bit intented for something completely other than aluminum.

Once I had done my worst the bushings more or less fit, hopefully well enough for the axles to line up....
Finally I went to Big Lots and bought this 99 cent turkey baster, but I had other plans for it than flavorful poultry. I intented to shove JB weld through it, in order to bind the pulley I bought to the motor I scavenged. It worked wonderfully, this is an aftermath picture of the setup....

And these are the pieces drying.... A good (hopefully) successful day of building :]


And now... for something completely different




Killer 7ft Spider AHHH!!!
I saw this spider in the bushes while mowing the grass, she is HUGE at least 3in long. So I got Grandma and my camera out there and snapped a few pics. When I uploaded the pictures I had no idea this was waiting for me, LOL. Gotta love unsuspecting optical effects. :D