Planet RGSB

Here's a video of the Top Thrill Dragster ride at Cedar Point. I was standing in line for the front row of the front train. You can see how long the prep time is compared to the time the train is really moving.

Our new favorite amusement park ride of all time is the Millennium Force roller coaster. We rode it five times over our two days at Cedar Point. Perfect dynamics, great views of the lake, fast line, secure hip-bar restraints, and occasional tunnels add up to a ride I always left smiling.

On our last ride of the second day, which we did on the Millennium Force towards the back of the train, I overheard a great conversation. A boy, maybe 10 years old, had dragged his mother to sit in the row in front of us. As we waited to board, she was expressing concern about being so far back - the back of the train goes over hills much faster than the front of the train, and I kind of picked up that she wasn't a fan of that. But, they stayed one row ahead of us anyway. As the train got to the very top of the first hill, I heard this:
Kid: "Can I cuss?"
His Mom: "Yes."
Kid: "sSHHIIIiiiii...."

Our second favorite ride is the Top Thrill Dragster. Due to maintenance issues closing the ride several times each day, we were only able to ride three times. Twice in the front row, once in the second row, so I had a good view of the track in front of me. Well, at least until my vision blurred from the extreme launch speed. Dragster is all speed and height, over so fast you don't feel like you even blinked, but etched into memory like it happened in slow motion. Highly recommended.

And, for all of you readers who "grew up near Cedar Point" and "went there all the time growing up" know that I am extremely jealous. We WILL be back, oh yes, we will.

Last night I had the mower (heavy ride-on ZTR style) up on the trailer as was driving to a friend’s house to cut their grass. Normally, I load the mower so that its tail is facing forward. This time, I loaded it face-first, since the tires were a bit wet from the grass, and it wouldn’t grab the trailer and climb up. This caused the trailer to be a bit tail heavy, which is bad. You want it to be nose heavy, to encourage it to stay down on the hitch-ball.

Anyway, long story short, the hitch came up off the ball. The safety chains were still attached, but the trailer was fishtailing all of the place at this point, going nearly sideways at times, tires smoking when it was perpendicular to me. I’m really thankful it didn’t flip over. I’m also thankful no one else was around at the time, or it might have hit them. Once I got it slowed down, the mower (still firmly strapped to the trailer) slid forward and dented the rear hatch of the jeep. That’s the sum total of the damage from the whole incident, aside from any wear and tear on my cardiovascular system from seeing the mower dancing behind me.

I’m _really_ thankful that things turned out so well. I’m sad about the dent, but it’s just a dent.

I bought Melissa an HDTV for her Xbox360, last night. It’s a Samsung, 30 inch CRT, model TXM3096WHF. It’s capable of 480p and 1080i. I freely admit that it’s not terribly high tech, but it’s better than the aging (and whistling) 27″ SDTV that we had. And it cost $65, so you can’t really beat that with a stick. (:

I’m enjoying learning about how to hook things up and setup things up for an HD system. The xbox looks very pretty at 480p. I need to hook up the DVD player via the component cables and learn how to set it to widescreen mode.

Here's a great video I found on YouTube. A 2009 graduate installed 64 RGB LEDs and 8 TLC5947 drivers along with an Arduino Mini, in a mortar board cap. I don't know the actual dimensions of a typical cap, but 8" per side seems about right. The project in this video could be easily duplicated by using OctoBrites, which are 4" modules containing 8 RGB LEDs spaced 1/2" apart. Cool stuff!

The most exciting things that happened to me this weekend involved buying pants and shorts.  Both were on sale.  Yay!

Today, I found out about the new natural gas collaboration between Gazprom and Nigeria’s state run oil company.  The joint venture’s name?  Nigaz

Quote from article:

As well as forming Nigaz, Russia is keen on developing a trans-African pipeline to transport Nigerian gas to Europe.

I took a spill two days ago, and hit my head and arm on the pavement. The ER x-rayed me, patched me up, told me my arm was broken, and put me in a cast. I thought I was kinda fucked for a few months.

I went to a specialist today, who told me that my arm did not appear to be broken, and that I should take it easy for two weeks. Yay! I have a working arm, and a funny story!

Unfortunately, the Simpsons already used the, “went to a better doctor” joke, back in ‘95.

[2F20] Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two
At three p.m. Friday, local autocrat C. Montgomery Burns was
shot following a tense confrontation at town hall.
[still shots of Burns and town hall]
Burns was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced
dead.
[scene shows Marvin Monroe Memorial Hospital]
He was then transferred to a better hospital where doctors
upgraded his condition to "alive".

So, Transformers 2 is in theatres. Truth is, once you get past the spectacle, I found the previous one alternate boring, vapid, and crude (often two or more at the same time), and the paid critics are generally suggesting that this one will be just like that, only more so. Perhaps the theater will have a bar.

In the meantime, this mostly means that the Transformers fora are busily churning on an argument that can be summarized thusly:

Party A: Michael Bay has directed a bad film, and should feel bad.
Party B: BUT ITS MAKING SO MUCH MONEY THAT YOU MUST BE WRONG.

As generally sympathetic as I am to the idea that markets offer a good approximation of real value, I think it should be obvious that this is nonsense on stilts. It only gets more stupid when both parties get wound up. Party A suggests that Party B is a mouth-breathing moron with no taste to speak of, Party B suggests that Party A doesn't want Party B to have nice things and is also a pretentious jerk, a bore, and, additionally, nobody likes Party A and why doesn't he shut his stupid mouth.

Now, both sides might be right about those things, and I wouldn't be surprised if the film's review score had been a little higher if someone else's name had been credited as director. None of that really addresses the question of the film's quality, though.

This is really a way for me to bookmark a couple things for future reference:
Saiga-12 Magwell -- Converts your Saiga 12 from rock-and-lock to AR-style behavior using standard Saiga magazines. Specifics are a bit lacking (how are the ergonomics? do mags drop free?), but rock-and-lock is for suckers.

Kushnapup -- bullpup furniture for the Saiga 12. Still under development, but it looks nice. Probably not compatible with the magwell above, though.

While reading through some of the comments on a post for a sewing blog I read, I realized on about the 7th page that I've been spending more time reading about sewing than actually sewing. To quote our intern at work, "That's really lame." Why? Because my room was in a state that to sew anything I had to do about an hour of rearranging computer equipment. And to cut anything I'd have to find a home for six piles of magazines and paperwork that had migrated to the cutting table.

Weekend project! Yesterday I accomplished turning the lesser-used half of the dining table into the computer desk. A weighted USB hub and surge-protected power squid serve as a docking station. The scanner is set up and ready to use, which was another goal of the reorganization.

So far this morning, I've tackled the magazines and paper piles. I see the table starting to appear, and I've unearthed the pieces of the dress I was working on last. The whole room looks better, and I may be able to really sew something this afternoon.

I wanted to mention that I think it is awesome that T-Mobile phone support has a special support group for "unsupported devices."

In related news, I now have a phone that can receive picture messages. Yes, that is an AT&T model, but the T-Mobile tech support guy was able to update its software with just two text messages. It still has all the AT&T graphics and spam, but it works for picture messaging with my pay-as-you-go plan after the update. The old phone I was using still had all of its Cingular graphics and spam, so I'm used to that already.

P.S. We still have a land-line, and that is the most reliable way to get in touch with us. As in, I can hear those phones ringing anywhere in the house. My mobile phone is usually buried in my purse with a half-dead battery, so I'll find out you called in a day or two.

Man, I just heard a bit on NPR, where a caller:

• Decided that health care was expensive because some people don’t pay for emergency medical care they receive.
• Posited that the government should force these people to pay.
• Perhaps through indentured servitude?
• You know, we could have them pick up trash by the highway, or something?

So, in 15 seconds, he managed to reintroduce the concept of debtors prisons, and advocated for putting sick people in chain gangs to pick up litter.  Comedy gold.

I need to give NPR some money.

I haven't spent any time fiddling with the multiplayer end of Ghostbusters, and maybe never will. (As described, I'm not sure how compelling it is to play paranormal janitors with random XBox Live users.) I've pretty much completed the single-player campaign, though, and I really enjoyed it.

The gameplay's really kind of pedestrian. There's nothing actually wrong with it, and I'd be really hard put to improve on it significantly, but I'd be surprised if you found anything groundbreaking in it. The story's great fun from start to end, though. Reading the technojargony flavor text for weapon upgrades is usually good for a chuckle, and the various cursed artifacts are also often good for a laugh.

I played on 'Casual' difficulty on the XBox 360, and had loads of fun. I'll probably take a stab at 'Professional' difficulty next week. The downside is that the single-player campaign is only about 6-7 hours long this way.

Verdict: Strong recommendation if you're a fan of Ghostbusters. It's a good game, and a better story. If you don't care about multiplayer, though, you should absolutely check out the PC version, which is $30 vs the XBox 360's $60.

I thought I had trouble with my iPod upgrade when it started acting
funny on my drive in to work. An album was playing, in order, but
each time I went over a bump it immediately started playing a
different song. Even when I noticed that it switched into shuffle
mode, I didn't understand why. On the walk in to the building I
realized what had happened.

When you upgrade your iPod Touch to OS 3.0, the "Shake to Shuffle"
feature is ON by default.

Thanks guys, really.

Let’s be clear.  I do long form improvisational theatre.  I care about longform improvisational theatre.  I want to be better at it.  To be good.

Fuck good.  I want to be Great.  I want the show to rock so hard children cry.  I care about this, on a level that I can’t justify rationally.

So I get pissed off at myself when a night like tonight happens.  I was in a show, and I dropped the ball.  I didn’t support my teammates to my utmost.  The fact that other people did the same is no excuse.  I let someone starve on stage, instead of making them look good.  I lost some of their trust, which I will (rightfully) have to EARN back.  Why?  Because on some level, for some reason, I didn’t think it was my turn to step up, or something.  I don’t know.  I can’t justify it.  Maybe I didn’t think that particular scene was my problem.

Which is complete, utter, fetid, bullshit.

Every scene is my problem.  Every scene is my responsibility.

No, I’m not saying I should be in every scene.  Rather, I should be thinking constantly while watching every scene, while I’m in ANY scene:  Where is this scene going?  If I were going to step in, how could I support it?  Is it flagging?  How can I support it, and make the people who initiated it look like geniuses and rock stars?

I do not have the luxury of relaxing, during a show.  Not if I want to take myself seriously.

Part of me wants to take solace in the fact that the show was good, overall.   The rest of me is livid that I would even consider rationalizing away my failure.   I know better.  I know what good scenework is.  I know what good support is.  “Good enough” support doesn’t cut it, not if I want to look at myself in the mirror in the mornings.

When I gripe about this with people post-show, they sometimes say I’m being too hard on myself.  Bullshit.  Other people can hold themselves to whatever standard they choose, and I won’t judge them.  But I have the standards I hold myself to, and I have them for a fucking reason.  I want a show without regret, without second-guessing, without doubt, without fear, without hesitation.

I want to be good.  I want it so badly it hurts.

Might just be me, but does anyone else think the male Rookie character in the new Ghostbusters game looks like Colin Hill? Anyone? Bueller?

Something went terribly wrong in my WordPress install today, and I’m not sure what, or why.  The database is fine, along with all the posts and comments, as far as I can tell.  Those who read by feed probably won’t even notice a difference.

Once I have time to descend back into the Jeffries Tubes around here, I’ll get it sorted.

I am coming to the conclusion that I have deeply ambivalent feelings about the merits of Mamoru Oshii as a director. Like a lot of other dorks, I really like Ghost in the Shell, and I also really enjoyed what I've seen of Patlabor (for my money, though, the first Patlabor film and the TV series are more enjoyable than either later movie in the series). On the other hand, I didn't care for Ghost in the Shell: Innoncence, and found Jin-Roh interesting but ponderously paced.

Sky Crawlers is very much like Jin-Roh, in that the setting and concept are interesting, but the film itself is too ambiguous to deliver on these elements in a satisfactory manner. On top of that, the main characters are basically adolescent, which leads to some squicky moments. The ending offers no resolution to the questions raised in the film, nor are there very many answers to be found. There are some questions being asked about identity and humanity, but only the latter seems to be dealt with in a convincing or persuasive manner.

The animation is generally fantastic, but the rendered CG doesn't mesh well with the more conventionally animated elements, the realism of the CG-rendered planes and environments doesn't blend well with the stylized drawn characters. (It doesn't blend badly or clash, exactly, but it never quite seems like the pilots should be flying vehicles with such detailed shading or lacking outlines.) This might be intentional, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Ultimately, I think this is Oshii doing his art thing, and that just isn't something that appeals to me, at all. I can't recommend it, but the prevalence of those $1 DVD rental kiosks would argue for checking it out on the cheap if it sounds interesting.

At Valli Produce yesterday there was a large bin of Lychees at $1.29 a pound. Patrons of Indian, Chinese, and other Asian backgrounds were circled around it, scooping the small red spiky fruits into plastic bags. I asked the group, "So, how do you eat these?" and immediately three people started explaining at once. One Indian gentleman demonstrated how you break into the peel at the stem end with your thumbnail, then work down the fruit splitting the stiff skin. The flesh is smooth, white, soft, translucent, and juicy. This is then popped into the mouth so your teeth can finish the job of removing the edible part. The other hint is "Don't bite on the seed, it is bitter." Each lychee has one large seed in its center, smooth, brown, and oblong.

A Chinese woman said that she had bought a few the day before to make sure they were good. They were sweet, so she had come back for more. At this point, even more people were crowded around the bin, and I was also scooping lychees into my plastic bag to try out.

The taste and texture resemble a peeled grape, but a bit more tropical and a lot easier to dismantle. I'd buy them again, and I'd recommend trying fresh lychees if your local produce store also has them in stock.

This is a test to see how well mobile blogging of short ideas goes
from my iPod. I'm slightly interested in Twitter, but I've already
got this blog I rarely post to. So, rather than add another page my
parents have to go to read how I'm doing, I'll try updating this one
more often.

Hey look.  A 48 hour film project that I’m in.

Like Blogging In Haiku

My blog posts that go over 140 characters seem wasteful and bulky, so now they’re rare(r) (but not extinct).  Twitter feed is here.

Well, that was a perfectly good coffee mug before I turned it into a pile of ceramic shards. Good thing I've got another like that.

I think I will try to avoid touching anything fragile until tomorrow, though.

A really terrible story.

http://www.dreamindemon.com/2009/06/04/emily-mcdonald-made-her-daughter-sick/

I am on another web site from whence I am familiar with this woman and her children. Sometimes I have a feeling about people but not this time. When she took her blog off line I figured it was because the child was dying and she didn't want any more public scrutiny.

But no, it was not that. At all. Much worse.

I do wonder what makes someone crack up like this. Certainly she was under a lot of pressure and was something of an overachiever (raising three young children, one with a lot of special needs, while going to school as well.) But what kind of person are you to start with, that this is what happens inside your head? Why do some depressed/ mentally ill individuals hurt others, while most just destroy themselves? If science could solve that problem the world would bow down and worship it..

I'm glad that technology was used for so much good in this instance. Modern medicine saved her child over and over. A camera caught her in the act. So often I tend toward seeing the darker side of technology and medicine. It was good to see them as the heroes (along with the medical professionals who suspected something like this) of a detective story. For my fellow bloggers who ask, "What is redemptive about this?" I'm going to answer, "The surveillance camera, and the people who figured out what was going on."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/06/jersey.police.beating/index.html

Now consider the outcome. The guy has clear physical signs that he was beaten. Bruises all over one side of his body, visible medical signs he was abused.

What if the police officer had used a taser instead? A huge electrical shock that disrupts the nervous system and fires all your pain nerves receptors simultaneously, being tased is incredibly painful, just as if not more so than a physical beating. However, there are no physical marks or evidence that the police officer just administered an electrical beating. With every click of the officer’s finger, that is another beating that you cannot prove you received, you just feel it. The officer can deny it, you have no proof, therefore no recourse.

The U.N. has already referred to tasers as torture devices. We give them to everybody with a badge and hold no one accountable for their use.

I remember when tasers were first introduced to law enforcement in the United States. There was a lot of debate about it, and every taser supporter and proponent said that they were a replacement for deadly force. The justification for deploying them was that a police officer would use a taser rather than fire their gun. Opponents said that they would be used routinely to get quick compliance and as punitive measures, essentially allowing the police to deliver a punishment without due process or accountability. Opponents said the ease of use of a taser and lack of evidence of its use would lead to them being used casually for all situations, particularly ones that never would have required the use of a gun.

Now that tasers are everywhere, it is quite clear the opponents were right.

The Saint Louis 48 hour film festival kicked off at 6:00 pm last night.  I showed up to take part in it at 10:00 pm.  I just got done with the fourteen hour shoot about two hours ago.

Apparently some consider me to be a full-fledged local actor.  A number of the improv crew and I were recruited for 48 hour film destiny.   Our work will be appearing in association with Stick Shaker Productions, run by Cleveland and Mark.

Our genre was horror.

Now, I haven’t pulled a serious all-nighter in years, but this was a lot of fun.  I ran around like a maniac before call time to get props and setup for producing half a person worth of fake blood (2 quarts).  Now, Cleveland hadn’t asked for fake blood, and we didn’t use it at all.  I JUST WANTED TO BE PREPARED.

The night involved learning lines, riffing new ones, and making our way through a three camera shoot with only one camera, and a lot of takes.  It helps to do this with some of your best friends.  Also, at around 4 in the morning, we accidentally let one of Mark’s cats out of the house, and it escaped into the alleyway.  Half the film crew had to go into local alleys to retrieve her.  Good times.

Now that the primary filming is over, I find myself free to sleep.  I’m on call, in case a reshoot is needed, but I kinda hope that we already have enough footage to make it work.  The editing and music are in Cleveland’s capable hands now.  I look forward to seeing myself killed on a 30 foot silver screen on Thursday night.

Looks like one of our roommates is moving in with her b/f at the end of July. Barring us moving out, we'll be looking for a new (preferably female) 4th roommate. Give me a shout if you or someone you know would be interested in being a roomie in our house.

Today was not a good day for technology.

• The fire alarm misfired early this morning, after I’d gone to bed late.
• I’ve been fighting with css and png transparency issues in IE6 most of the day, on low sleep.
• For some reason, the network at work was useless for about half the day.
• My Xbox broke when I got home.  The 360’s dvd drive won’t read anything.

Going to bed early sounds nice, right about now.  Maybe it’s a nap, maybe it isn’t.  We’ll soon see.

Update: I have been working on documentation; a much more complete version is available here: http://docs.macetech.com/doku.php/shiftbrite

ShiftBrites have been available for a while, and I haven't created an actual datasheet or hook-up diagram yet. I still need to do that, but this should at least provide enough information to understand what the ShiftBrite is doing, and how to control it.

A ShiftBrite has an RGB LED and a small controller chip, the Allegro A6281. The A6281 provides 10-bit PWM and 7-bit current control for each of the red, green, and blue LEDs.

The V+ and GND pins power both the LED and the control chip. ShiftBrites require up to 60mA per module when all LEDs are active. The supply voltage should be kept between 5.5 and 9 volts. I have had good results with 6V and 7.5V power supplies.

The DI (Data In) pin carries the actual control information into the ShiftBrite. It is the input to an internal 32-bit shift register. Every time data is shifted into the controller, the binary value on the DI pin is placed in Bit 0 of the shift register, and the value in Bit 31 overflows out the DO (Data Out) pin to the next ShiftBrite in the chain. Data is shifted in using MSB (most significant bit first).

The CI (Clock In) pin controls the shifting process. Each time the CI pin is sent to logic high and low, data is shifted into the DI pin and out of the DO pin. The CI signal is passed through the ShiftBrite to the CO (Clock Output) pin, so the next ShiftBrite can receive the bits from the DO line.

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4 cups flour
4 tsp sugar
4tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2/3 cup shortening
3/2 cup buttermilk or sour milk

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all dry ingredients, then add the shortening and milk. Bake till the bottoms are brown (for 15-20 minutes, depending on size). When they’re baked, split them in half, butter them, then cover them liberally in fresh, sliced strawberries. We normally eat this for dinner in my family. (:

I’m still alive, but I’ve been busy.

I have a new job contracting for Johnson Controls, doing work on a system that takes real time data from HVAC monitoring systems, and publishes it to a spiff web interface.  I get to fiddle with all kinds of new technology tools and design practices, and also learn about HVAC from Rhiannon.  Hello, learning curve.

There is an odd catch to it.  I work in a large, featureless, room with three other developers, and no cube walls.  It’s as though the office was laid out by a rather lazy dungeonmaster.

“You open the door to discover a 20′x20′ room containing four orcs, who are all wearing headphones.  There is a treasure chest in the center of the room.  The orcs have not noticed you.  You may roll for initiative.”

We move offices soon.

In other news, in the last three weeks I’ve been in two sketch shows, three long form Improv performances, and one performance for Alzheimer’s caregivers, which was last night.  We rehearsed like hell for the latter, and it made for a good show, and a lot of fun. The audience dug it.

I think I might be getting a little better at this performance thing, but I still don’t know exactly where I fall on the scale of competence.  You can split competence in a skill into four phases, right?

• Unconcious Incompetent   (You suck, and you don’t realize it)
• Concious Incompetent       (You suck, but you’re aware of it, and trying to improve)
• Unconcious Competent      (You’re good, but you still think of yourself as bad, and want improvment)
• Concious Competent          (You are good, and you know it.  Clap your hands.)

I’m somewhere in the CI / UC range, and I have no idea where.  The only thing to do is practice.  Well, practice after taking some time off for myself.

The world becomes ever stranger

Every once in a while, Canthros pocket-dials me.  I always wonder why he’s calling, until he doesn’t answer my “Hello,” and I hear his footsteps.  Then I know that he didn’t actually mean to call.

Yesterday, my phone rang as I pulled into the parking lot at work.  It turned out to be another pocket-dial from Canthros, but I thought I heard a rhythmic honking sound.  I chalked this up to an audio artifact, but I guess I should have paid it more heed.

Booked a room for homecoming 2009 at the TH Best Western.

This is a pre-emptive act aimed at avoiding the EconoLodge or similar establishments, a goal that was not met during last year's preparations.

It's been a while since I made an update here, but things have been really busy. Had some supplier issues with a bunch of new products, lots of work to do on Maker Faire projects, random other daily crises. Oh...a day job too.

But the Maker Faire is only a few days away, and things are finally shaping up. The giant VU meters and front sign/desk are working, the coffee table is working, the giant MegaBrite wall requires only a few more steps to completion. Didn't help that we had none of the electronics until late last week, when we were supposed to have them no later than the 15th. But John at OurPCB really stepped up and fixed the assembly scheduling issue, getting us what we needed on time and worrying about the other stuff later.

Here's a photo of the stuff we've got running so far (not counting some smaller tabletop projects):

Valerie gave us a booth in a darker area of the main Expo Hall. This is great, our LEDs won't look as amazing as they would in the Dark Room (a building with no lights on), but the lights in this section are typically dimmed. The reason is a little dismaying...it's where they set up the pair of 20 foot Tesla coils, shooting 20 foot arcs of lightning between them every hour. Last year, I wasn't alone in having my electronics negatively affected by Tesla coils, and those were only a couple feet tall. It will definitely be...interesting.

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