Lucky Shot
Published on 9 Mar 2008 at 7:13 am by Mike.
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Filed under Astronomy.
Took this from our balcony in Phoenix last week. You can see the moon, Jupiter (top left), Venus and Mercury (bottom right), and Earth. That’s a personal best for most heavenly bodies in one shot!
Click the image for full-size version at flickr.
Eclipse Pics
Published on 27 Feb 2008 at 7:38 pm by Mike.
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Filed under Astronomy.
Here’s a couple pictures I took during last week’s total lunar eclipse.
I’m not a real photographer so I sort of didn’t know what I was doing with my camera settings. There’s no filters on any of these, just varying exposure times.
Here it is starting:
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Here’s one very near totality. You can also see Saturn (bottom left) and Regulus (above the moon).
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I kept running in and out of the house. I was too cold to keep taking pictures all the way through. Here’s the last one I did before zooming out for the moon & saturn pic above.
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Lego Brett Favre
Published on 16 Jan 2008 at 8:35 am by Mike.
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Filed under Lego.
I put this together for someone at work who’s a huge Favre fan.
To be honest, I’m not very happy with the helmet, specifically the face mask. I had tried slicing the chin piece in half on another helmet, to make it look like the bars of the face mask but it didn’t really come out right. Maybe on the next one I will cut the chin piece off entirely and make it out of wire.
I did a lot of googlage before starting this project, and I haven’t been able to find another customizer who’s made a minifig football helmet, which is pretty surprising. Maybe one of the knockoffs like MegaBlok or Best-Lock makes one.
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Mars Pic
Published on 22 Dec 2007 at 6:41 pm by Mike.
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Filed under Astronomy.
Mars is on its closest approach for the next 9 years, so I checked it out a few nights ago. They aren’t kidding when they call it the most disappointing object in amateur astronomy. I hoped that computer enhancement would help out a bit, but not much.
As always, gear was an Orion XT8i scope and NexImage camera. This is not natural color, it was shot through a red filter. You can make out some of Syrtis Major and maaaybe some south polar ice cap but that’s about it. Oh well. Still, I can cross Mars off my list.
New Workshop
Published on 14 Dec 2007 at 10:03 pm by Mike.
2 Comments.
Filed under True Stories, Art, Wood.
So, I was complaining about how I was out of room on my workbench and had no real room to expand. Kathy’s response: why not rearrange this stuff like this, do this, and take over the whole other side of the basement instead? Woo hoo!
The last project I did before rearranging was a limberjack, an Appalachian dancing puppet. (You may recognize him from Mister Show if nothing else.)
I’ve been interested in wooden automata for a while, and the book Making Mad Toys & Mechanical Marvels in Wood 
The first project in the book is a limberjack, so I thought I’d give it a shot. It turned out to be an excellent introduction to the whole process, from transferring the pattern, planning the cutting, and assembling.
Using the scroll saw, it took a loooong time to cut the pieces from such thick wood, even though it was just soft basswood. Although he’s a bit rough, I really like how he came out. I was especially proud of the joints. As soon as he was finished, I put on some good bluegrass and let him dance!
After that project, it took several months of weekends to get everything moved around the way I wanted, but it’s finally done. Instead of one workbench jammed in between the beer fridge and the electrical panel, I’ve got 2 workbenches and a sit-down worktable. That gives me enough room to get a couple power tools in and star doing a little more complicated work. Kathy got me a bandsaw for my birthday, and my dad is giving me his old table saw. We also had some additional outlets put in, and some overhead lighting so I can finally see what I’m doing.
It’s really exciting, and hopefully I can do justice to all this new potential. I want to start off with some simple wooden toys, and continue looking into automata. Now that I can use the bandsaw to rough stuff out, I hope to be able to get more done, quicker. I also want to learn more (well, anything) about electronics and do some simple projects, and, and, and…
Half Life Orange Box Impressions
Published on 11 Oct 2007 at 8:17 am by Mike.
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Filed under Video Games.
OK, despite the graphic, so far I’ve only played Team Fortress 2 and Portal. At first I thought I might replay Half-Life 2, then go into Episode 1 and Episode 2… then I remembered how many games are coming out this fall and realized that wouldn’t work!
TF2 is awesome. It’s the kind of team- and class-based multiplay that I really like. I tried out all the different classes. Haven’t settled on a favorite yet. The first couple games I got into had really bad conneciton problems and I got dropped, but after that it was pretty smooth.
The Incredibles-type graphic style is a cool change, and they did a great job of making all the classes distinctive. You can tell at a glance what you’re up against, both from the model and the way they move.
A nice touch is all the little stats they give you. When you die and are waiting to respawn, you get a little stat box that tells you how well you did with that life. For example, it might say: “On the bright side, that’s the most kills (5) you’ve gotten as a Spy.” It also keeps track of who kills who repeatedly, so you might get a message saying “You are dominating JoeBlow92!” Meanwhile, JoeBlow92 gets a message saying “You have a new nemesis: TanRu!” and sees you on the kill cam.
All in all, really well done and I’m looking forward to playing a lot more.
I didn’t spend too much time on Portal, but what I played I enjoyed. It’s a really weird way of thinking and it’s interesting to feel your brain getting used to it. The computer voice that guides you along makes a lot of really funny comments along the way. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, see the Portal “orientation movie” below.
Anyhow, great job Valve for putting this together, and congrats to the TF2 team for finally releasing! (See I didn’t even make a Duke Nukem Forever comparison.)
Lord of the Rings Online
Published on 8 Sep 2007 at 10:51 am by Mike.
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Filed under Random.
In my ongoing quest to at least try almost every MMORPG that comes out (except Star Wars Galaxies), I tried this a couple months ago and hated it but I figured I would give it another go. I had made a dwarf guardian the first time, and the first rat-killing type quest really got to me. I didn’t make it past the first hour.
This time I created Tanru (human captain) on Silverlode. I don’t know if the Bree quests are just way better than the dwarf quests, but I like it sooo much better than the first time I played.
I’m digging the game. Maybe the starter human stuff is just better than the starter dwarf stuff, or I just wasn’t in the right mood when I tried it the first time. The story is excellent and makes you feel like you are part of the War of the Ring. The detail in the world is amazing, and there are lots of familiar landmarks to visit.
On the surface, the mechanics are basically WoW with Tolkien skin, but there’s a lot of good stuff underneath.
I really like the traits, titles, deeds, etc, which give you something to do when you don’t feel like working a specific quest. It really rewards people who just like to explore, which is excellent.
The PvP mechanics are interesting too. Once you hit level 10, you get to engage in “Monster Play”, which gives you a 50th level goblin, orc, uruk, spider, or warg character to play as an enemy for high level PCs to fight in the Ettenmoors.
I still think the classes are screwy, but I’m enjoying my character so far. There’s a 7-day free trial available here, so give it a try, create a character on the Silverlode server and look me up!
Microsoft Un-Reneges On Free Repair for Defective 360s
Published on 5 Sep 2007 at 8:39 am by Mike.
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Filed under Video Games.
Yes I am a lazy blogger lately. But my sense of honor compelled me to note that Microsoft has un-flip-flopped: repairs on launch 360s are once again free, and they are refunding repair fees previously paid. Yesterday my refund check arrived. Now to convert that check directly into a new game…
Pirates of the Burning Sea Flag Preview Tool
Published on 13 Jul 2007 at 6:21 pm by Mike.
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Filed under Video Games.
One of the cool features of the forthcoming MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea is the ability for players to create custom flags and sails to fly from their ships. Although the game is not yet available (except in closed beta), the flag sumbission and approval process is already in place. There’s a pretty active community around the game, and an active flag-creation sub-community full of great people.
I’ve been working on a set of personal flags for the game and getting lots of helpful advice from the forums. This past week I created a Flag Preview Tool that takes flags in from the forums and shows you what it will (sort of) look like flying from your ship.
I thought it was going to be pretty easy, but it was actually pretty complicated due to the combination of the waving method (load flag, duplicate, mask each dupe differently, rotate each duplicate) (thank you jbum.com) and the way Flash handles loadMovie and duplicateMovie. Anyhow, I got it going. Now I’m working on a couple enhancements like showing the flag raising and lowering, and flipping the flag so you can see what the reverse side will look like.
Another Cigar Box Guitar
Published on 30 May 2007 at 8:56 am by Mike.
6 Comments.
Filed under Music, Wood.
A couple weeks ago I decided to make a second cigar box guitar. This time I followed the plans from CigarBoxGuitar.com. It was more complicated than the MAKE magazine version I made previously. The neck runs through the box rather than just being glued to the top. I also decided to use real strings and tuners, and make it electric.
Hooking up the pickup was ridiculously easy. I took a Radio Shack piezo buzzer, hooked it to a 1/4″ input jack, taped it together, and that was it! Before installing it into the guitar I plugged it into my amp to make sure it the connections were good, and everything worked fine the first time.
The biggest problem I hit was that I had shaved down the headstock too much. In trying to make it a little more guitar-looking, I planed down the headstock area. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until the very end (when I was stringing the finished guitar) that I had made the headstock too thin. The tuners stuck out high above the nut, and the action on the guitar would be unplayably high.
After I supressed the urge to smash the whole thing, I re-drilled the holes for the tuners where the nut was, and re-filed the groove for the nut further down the neck. That worked out fine, and the project was saved (whew).
The action is still high but it sounds good and is definitely playable. I’ll have to make a clip of Jack or Joe playing it and post it.
