Tuesday April 1st 2003 01:10 PM PST
My first experiments with
quikcrete (yup, its really just plastic concrete) have taught me a few lessons. The first trial run was a disaster. I built a mold out of a plywood base and a set of wood pieces. I C-clapped the pieces together so that i could pour the mixed concrete into the mold and then later remove the outside wood. Inside the center of the mold was a small wooden box that would create the void for the center. It was intended to produce a small concrete box or basin that i could then build a small fountain around.
My mistakes
I mixed the concrete like it was plaster. Usually plaster is very forgiving if you put too much water in it. Concrete is not. I could tell that the mixture was too thin, but i figured that i had to move fast before it set. Nope. It took a long time to set cause it was so thin, and it ended up being a little to brittle.
I also built the mold frame out of thin wood. It was only 1/4 inch on the sides and 1/2 for reinforcement. Well I built it to hold the concrete in. And it was plenty strong to do that. It was not built strong enough to withstand the pressure of the wood itself bowing. As the wet concrete sat in the mold, the wood soaked up all the extra water and ended up swelling and bending all over the place. More clamps on the outside pieces fixed that problem, but the inside box was out of my reach in the center of the concrete. That killed it all. It swelled as the concrete set and it cracked the entire project as it swelled.
So i got a bunch of broken pieces. Well it's not all a loss. I figured out a better mixing process and i know i need to build my next molds out of stronger wood, or just forget wood all together.
Yup its broken
But i did get some cool looking pieces
Here's the inside part of the mold that really did the damage. You can see how much it swelled.
Wednesday April 2nd 2003 12:51 AM PST
Steve did a good job on us all. I read his first blog entry and actually thought that he was joining the secret service. He had been talking about it almost a year ago. I had not talked to him in a little while, so i actually thought that this was for real. As soon as i read the blog i called Will to tell him about it. Will could not belive it either. So as soon as we got off the phone, Will called Steve. So long story short. It was April Fool's Day and Steve pulled a good one off on us. He even talked to me for about 15 minutes going into great detail about his new plans. I guess i am just a dumbass for not seeing it.
Wednesday April 2nd 2003 10:34 AM PST
I have had a client for almost 7 years. Enterprise for Education. I've done so much work for them over the years that its hard to keep track of everything. So last year i brought a little project to Faction and i ended up building a kiosk system for these guys. Its an educational game to teach kids about electrical safety, called "Leo Learns Electric Safety (the hard way)" So i built the kiosk for Win2000 with an ELO touchsystems monitor hooked up to it. They built the kiosk "box" up in Sancramento, and one of the first ones has finally made it all the way back down to Palm Springs into the "Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert". But they just got the thing a few weeks ago and now i'm getting calls that they are having nothing but problems. I actually got screamed at by the owner of Enterprise cause he said it was all my fault.
Last night i finally get Glenn on the phone,( who is much more easy to deal with) and he starts giving me a set of characteristic bugs that they usually encounter. He says the screen will go back after and hour and they can't get it back on. If they have somebody touch the screen every hour, sometimes it will ask them for a password. Ok, now i have this strange feeling that somebody didn't set this computer up very well. It seems that the thing is still using some kind of energy saver and password protection, even though i told them to turn everything like that off.
I am going to Palm Springs this weekend with Jen and her Parents. That's the GOOD part. Here's the shitty part. I gotta go run tech support for this fuckin computer. The sad part is that when i fix this one, i know Enterprise is going to want ME to do final install on ALL of the kiosks that they are sending all over the country. Oh well.
Thursday April 3rd 2003 08:55 AM PST
blogVOTE.com is almost ready. I know i am almost a week late, but i've gotten it done to the point where i think i am going to go beta in about an hour. I am worried about it though. I am going away for the weekend and i really wish i was around for it's first few steps. Anyway, hopefully i can get the last few bugs worked out in the next hour.
Thursday April 3rd 2003 10:28 PM PST
I've had some little things go wrong with the display routines on blogvote.com. I've been screwing around with them all day long and i'm tired. I am not going to go with Beta for blogVOTE until monday. That way i'll be around when things start to break. Palm Springs will we great this weekend as soon as i can take care of the kiosk. I need to get an entire new CD version of Leo ready to go down to the museum tomorrow. I've found little things in the kiosk that nobody EVER noticed. Stupid shit like the spanish text not being EXACTLY the same as the audio being spoken.
I've heard a few more things about the computer that is currently in the kiosk. The people don't actually have a keyboard and mouse connected to the computer, so they have a little trouble shutting down the computer at night. They've resorted to pulling the plug. I just love dealing with shit like this. I have a feeling that the kiosk is most likely still running all the services that it doesn't need also. I'll put odds out that sendmail is running on it even though the computer is not anywhere near a network. Yup i'll put odds on every single one of the services that come installed by default it still running. I HATE THIS. I got blamed for the software not working and i know damn well that the fuckin OS and computer setup is to blame. I have never even seen this system. It was assembled in Sacramento and shipped. Starting tomorrow i am having them order the computers and have them shipped here, i will install EVERYTHING, then ship them to the final destination for assembly.
Sunday April 6th 2003 03:31 PM PST
Wednesday April 9th 2003 01:25 PM PST
i got so much shit to do its not even funny. I've been up to my ears in work and Enterprise for Education is now bringing me a new KIOSK setup for my office here. I'm going to try to see if i can keep it for testing, but i have my doubts. I gotta install the OS and the software and get it ready to ship to Florida. The fucked up things is that the museum that its going to is part of a nuclear power plant facility. So... until the little homeland security indicator comes down from ORANGE, the museum is going to be closed. So i don't have any rush, but i will be able to install everything and test the living shit out of it. The kiosk in Palm Springs has been running just under a week now and there have been no major problems. There has been a report that the music does not play, but then when it is looked at more closely it seems to work. Well that's something to look at. otherwise the thing looks like its workin great.
Thursday April 10th 2003 02:23 PM PST
So i do need to find a job. I got a lot to do right now, but i need to be able to support Jen through the summer while she is not getting paid. SO.... i put my resume up on monster. I figure nothing is going to come out of it, but i did it nonetheless. I gotta pass my shit around to a few more people and get my name out there. Well off on the job search again.
Thursday April 10th 2003 05:24 PM PST
Matrix Reloaded Trailer just came out! DAMN this is going to be good. Be careful, the download is HUGE. anyway, i've been watching all the animatrix shorts and just waiting and waiting for Reloaded to come. Its about time to get tickets and i am sure this time there will be more than ONE row of ticktets purchased. :)
Sunday April 13th 2003 09:27 PM PST
It was a good weekend. i didn't get shit done, but that was the good part. I just took it easy and caught up on a lot of random stuff.
I am getting depressed though. I've been testin the new Leo Kiosk here at home with the computer that Enterprise for Education shipped here. It's a nice little Pentium 4 box running at 2.5 GHz with a 17 inch LCD monitor and a 15 inch touch screen. So, my windoze box is only a POS 500MHz. So i've been testing enough, and now i realize that the software that i built is indeed VERY stable and has no problem running for days or weeks at a time. I've not had any chance to run the thing for months yet, but i'll put my money down that it will be able to take it. So i stopped testing and have been making some updates to the software. Enterprise wants a few little additions that are actually cool. They want basic stats. How long has the thing been running and in that time how many hazards have been displayed. Then show average play level and average score for each hazard. So, hazard 3 was played 45 times in one day by 3rd graders and on average they got the hazard right on the 2nd try. Its actually cool, but i have not been running the kiosk all around the clock anymore, so now i've started to use the box just as another one of my systems. Ok, this is where i am getting depressed. Its by far the fastest thing i have in my office. My OSX boxes are much more friendly, but lets be honest here. There are not many games made for Macs. This new win box has a Radeon card in it too, so i've installed all the games ive got on it. I've been playing Medal of Honor at full rez and a fuckin great frame rate.
I'm going to have to give it back.
That's what pisses me off. This box is going to end up in Florida in a museum. Well, maybe i can get enterprise to just buy me one to work with here. I'll ask em tomorrow.
BUT the question came up last week if we could cut the cost of the Kiosk, and maybe use a DVD format instead of a computer. I looked into it and found out that there are a few professional grade DVD players that have interface ports that will work with touch screen monitors. So that's a option. I could translate the entire interactive into a DVD menu format and then pop it into a kiosk that just has a DVD player in it. We'd not be able to do some of the more complicated operations, but we would be able to almost guarantee uptime. no crashes, no power problems, just turn the bitch off at night and turn it on in the morning. Well now i just gotta figure out how long it would take to build the DVD version. From the nightmare stories from DVCC, i have a feeling that a elaborate menu system like this might be a lot more trouble than its worth.
Tuesday April 15th 2003 10:32 AM PST
I'm working on a little mini golf game for a client and in the middle of programming i stopped to go find some sounds for it. The first thing i came across was
A Greenseekers Page which ends up being MUCH more than little collection of golf sounds. Its got a huge selection of sound bytes from some great movies and TV. This is just what you need at work right now to waste about an hour while your boss isn't looking.
Wednesday April 16th 2003 05:35 PM PST
So by dumb luck today i came across a similarity between two movies. I've got my PS2 sitting next to
me now in my office and i've just gotten in the habit of playing movies all the time. So i popped in Dogtown
today and was watching that during the morning. I actually didn't get a whole lot of work done while watching
it cause i actually WATCHED it. So after that i figured i'd put in a movie that i've seen so many times i really
don't have to watch it, i can just say all the lines along with it while i work. So, that lead me to Real Genius.
Ok, so i didn't get much more work done while watching it. But i did get a little shit done. Anyway, thats not
the point. At the end of the movie when the credits roll on Real Genius, there's the rock out 80's track by
"tears for fears", "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". So i'm rocking out playing air guitar as Dr. Hathaway is
taking toll of the popcorn damage to his house. That's right when the best part of the song kicks in and the
screen finally goes to black and starts to roll the credits. Guess who's first in order of appearance? (Dont USE
IMDB) Just guess first. Now remember i'm drawing a similarity to Dogtown. Ok, give up? Fucking Stacy
Peralta is the first person in the credits for Real Genius! I look in wonder, and pause the player. "shuttle pilot"
hmmmm. So i start the movie over and sure enough there's skater boy stacy in a fuckin astronaut suit! I was
rolling on the floor. anyway, did anybody else know about this?
Thursday April 17th 2003 01:15 PM PST
There was this little application on macintosh WAY BACK WHEN called Gravitation. It was a really cool little app
that let you build little solar systems and then DESTORY them with a asteroid or a sun passing through. It was
all based on very simple gravity priciples and ran even on the original Mac. Many people would fuck around with
it on my computer and leave it running while we went to classes. We'd always try to see if we could build stable
systems with HUGE ammounts of planets and moons. Finally we built stable Binary and Trinary systems.
Anyway today John Bell sent me a link to a little game that is very much based on the old Gravitation. This
thing has already taken my attention off work the same way gravitation took my attention of studies.
Doom Funnel Chasers!
Friday April 18th 2003 01:53 PM PST
I was bored yesterday, so i decided to cut my hair. I didn't get much done before Jen got home so i got her to
do most of the remaining parts of my head. Well it took her a little while to get into the idea of cutting my hair,
but once she got going she did a great job. The only thing is now that she's cut my hair, she doesn't talk to me
while looking at my eyes or face. She'll carry on a conversation looking at the rest of my head. I keep turning
and moving trying to make eye contact, but she'll just look more intently. So she's really concerned that she
didn't do a good job. Well lets just say this, it look 100 times better than when i do it myself.
Tuesday April 22nd 2003 12:08 AM PST
So i've been sitting on this one for awhile now. I dug up a few video tapes from high school. Back then me and
my friends were all a lot thinner and had many more skin problems. anyway, without further delay.
The Charles Manson Clip
yes that is my mom.
Tuesday April 22nd 2003 11:05 AM PST
I just made a HUGE breakthrough. Well here's to subtle breaks in a mini golf green. I found a way to really
REALLY control the ball's motion with very little math involved so that the break in the green will act real. i've
been thinking about it all weekend long and i finally got the equation to work right. In short, the ball actually
looks at the surface its on at all times. I made a image of the surface of the green that has color changes based
on which way it slopes. Then all the ball has to do it say well, i'm in a red area of the green, this is sloped down
to the right by 5 degrees. :) ok, i know i am a geek. Don't worry, i'll post a link to the game once it does live.
Wednesday April 23rd 2003 04:40 PM PST
I just got a piece of spam. It is advertising a piece of ANITspam software. Hmmm
Funny
My mail program had already marked it as junk
:)
Thursday April 24th 2003 12:31 PM PST
I feel dirty
I have a request from Enterprise for Eduction. They want to track stats on the Kiosk so that they can tell how
much the thing is really used in the museum. Its running on win2k and the only way that i really know how to
do this is have Flash talk to a web server and pass hit counts to it. So long story short, I've started up web
services on my windows box and i'm in the process of finding a way to do a little ASP script that will write a log
file. Yuck.
Friday April 25th 2003 02:25 PM PST
I just finally got off my ass and put
BlogVOTE live. I really need to
do some more work on the display functions, but i think i need to get a few people using it so i can get some
feedback.
Friday April 25th 2003 05:01 PM PST
There are just some parts of the web that end up giving you nightmares. You know what I'm talking about.
Bad photos of things you should never see. Consumption Junction is just one example of the type of web site at
the dark end of the web. So today i got a link from Justin to a flash mini show called
Happy Tree Friends. Now this is just animation,
but its really really scary shit. So i noticed that it was done by
Mondo Mini Shows the guys that brought you
Thugs on Film. So i started to look at all the other show they make. The first one that
caught my attention is a animation they do for Paul Frank. Now if you don't know who Paul Frank is... we lets
just say he's a merchandising GOD. He's taken the entire "hello kitty" look and made an entire clothing and
accessory line that DOES NOT stay on shelves. This shit sells so fast its not even funny. Epic Sports sells a
DUMPLOAD of their stuff and they never can keep stuff in stock for more than a few days. anyway. mondo
made a Julius and Friends animation that is based on the characters that Paul Frank designed. THIS IS GOING
TO GIVE ME NIGHTMARES.
Proceed with caution. This one is like Peter Paul and Mary meets Willy Wonka meets ALL of the 60's.
Julius and Friends, I Love You
Tuesday April 29th 2003 03:50 PM PST
Weekend was great. Lakers Won. BBQ at Will's was great as always. A bit of advise... don't take a picture of
Will while he's watchin the game. So then yesterday, Will Steve and I went to Magic Mountain. Ok, time to
bash Six Flags. Basic rollercoasters run trains quickly at about 1 train every 2 minutes. MOST normal coasters
hold aboutt 25 to 30 people per train, so that means in an hour a well run coaster can have 750 to 900 people
ride it in an hour. If you go to Magic Moutain, AVOID "X" if you notice that only one train is running. Its NOT
WORTH IT. Magic Mountain for whatever reason yesterday only had one train running. The line was actually
short for a normal coaster. What we realized when we finally get into the station, was that this thing takes 6
and a half minutes to complete one cycle. 6.5 minutes @ 28 people per round. We sat in that fuckin line for
over 2 hours. After that ONE ride we were worried that we were not going to be able to go on ANY other rides
cause the lines would be too long. What we found was that ALL the other coasters had lines shorter than 15
minutes.
So in the long run we got on all the rides that we wanted to and had a great time. Just wasted our time on the
first line.
Tuesday April 29th 2003 06:37 PM PST
Tuesday April 29th 2003 06:42 PM PST
Wednesday April 30th 2003 07:41 AM PST
i didn't get much sleep last night, but i got a lot done on blogvote. I needed to catch up on a few bugs and I
think i finally made some progress. It now works on Safari and also there are no problems going from blog to
blog. anyway, check it out.
Wednesday April 30th 2003 02:56 PM PST
I'm broke just in case anybody cares. So i've hit rock bottom. Last week i took in the change jar. Jen and I
keep this old batter jar. Its HUGE. and when i cashed it in there was $250 in it. The only thing i have left from
it now is about 3 quid. So today i still need money. So i sold a bunch of old DVD's. Theres a great store on
Lake ave in Pasadena called Interact. The guys there are great and they gave me close to $200 for a bunch of
old DVD's that i am never going to watch. But while they were looking through all my junk i had the chance to
look at all the games they have there. One thing popped out. A game called Industry Giant II. I used to play
this old game called Transport Tycoon, but they never made a new version. I found a game a couple years back
called Railroad Tycoon, but it didn't come close. So i got Industry Giant II (it was only $15) and installed it. Its
EXACLTY what i've been looking for. I gotta spend some time playing it, but it looks like a great simulator.
