Exponential function

I keep forgetting to link this video. Caught it a year or two back. Presents in laymans terms what you learned in highschool, but forgot to apply later...

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A1FD147A45EF50D

edit: On the same topic; Wow, in the Age Newspaper today State Parliament proved they're failing to even look at our own growth statistics by proposing an irrelevant tiny expansion to the city boundaries. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/green-land-cut-back-as-melbourne-grows-much-bigger-20100729-10wvi.html?autostart=1

I've seen these before!!

So I'm in Big-W looking at the electrical stuff to track down an all purpose DC-output gizmo for various devices, and I stumble into this!! How completely awesome! Seems like I was making these over 2 years ago though :)

More Climate Denialist stuff

Sim sent me a great compilation of direct quotes from the world leaders in climate science, business, and the likes. It's kinda past the point where this can be "discussed" any longer, we're 20 years behind where we should be on the attack front.

http://logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm

The other great, in fact AWESOME resource, is of course ye olde how to talk to global warming sceptic articles page. He's got a master page, with topics more easily categorised now also.

Don't forget to do something about it at home.

Please uninstall your Anti Virus Software

OK, so I've just finished an epic 12hr session over the course of 2 days fixing three peoples PC's. I've seen all 3 of these PC's before, I've worked on them many times in the past. One might surmise that I'm a crappy repair-man given the repeat work. It's really easy to simply re-install the Operating System and return a perfectly fine working machine. It's another situation entirely to return it to them as though nothing happened. There is however, one recurring theme that is out of any well buffed, good looking guys hands.

The abomination that is "anti" "virus" "software".

You're driving down a road in your Triple-A-Safety rated car. You drive off a cliff. Your air-bags deploy as designed when you hit the ground. You're dead anyway. Had you not been driving as though you were invincible in the first place, this never would have happened.

Over the course of my entire lifetime, the #1 biggest virus I have ever worked against is anti virus software itself.

- 100% if the time it has been the underlying cause of an imaginary sense of security.
- 100% of the time the user has CLICKED AND RUN something they should not have, which resulted in malware, spyware, phishing scams, loss of data, loss of privacy or otherwise critical system failures.
- 100% of the time anit-virus-software has been directly responsible for automatic updates being stalled, halted, broken or otherwise not working as a result of some sort of security settings alteration it has made (of which there are literally several thousand). I cannot express how common, serious, and disastrous this is.
- 100% of the time the anit-virus-software has MADE IT DAMN NEAR IMPOSSIBLE to remove the ACTUAL PROBLEM without UNINSTALLING THE anti-virus-software first.

There are long, oh so very long, lists of variation, complexity, and just blatant stupidity associated to all four of those bullet points. The most offensive component is when anti virus software has broken something first, which resulted in situations where the user was FORCED to click something they should not have.

This includes broken script warnings that weren't broken until false-positives are reported. Popup warnings, cautions, and the like. The end user becomes SO DISMISSIVE with the continuous clicking of "yes" to make warnings go away, that they lose any sense of discerning decision making, and will click on any old rubbish. No I mean it. Anything.

Without spending HOURS explaining some of the finer technical points of why anti-virus-software is by every definition, the worst virus of them all, let me finish with a few pointers.

- If the porn site you're browsing tells you that you need to "install a media player" of any sort, and you click "yes", it's already too late for you. You need CODEC'S, not PLAYERS. Once you're running their software, you're done. The only exceptions are the the big 3: adobe, sun-java, and apple plugins.
- You're browsing the local football scores webpage, and you see some sort of official looking window, message, or popup that says "you might be infected, click here to do something about it". The host of the web page does NOT have any means of determining your actual security status. Try and be a little discerning in future please!!
- If you click ANY file to run it, without knowing its extension type, you're done.
- Why did you download the virus in the first place? What did you think you were clicking on? Were you REALLY duped? So there were no indicators that the file you ran wasn't legit?

Everyone knows the rules about web browsing, secure connections, and porn. Stop making it someone elses responsibility to protect you from yourself. I have never seen a situation first hand where any virus software actually STOPPED, PROTECTED, AND KEPT THE PC UNHARMED. I hear about it all the time. Have you? If so, do you have the technical knowledge to determine if what it told you was true, and not a false positive? Like I said. Never seen it do anything but harm.

STOP DRIVING OFF CLIFFS !!!

Thinking with Portals

Portal: Awesome game. Complete it, then try these. Skip to step 3 if you don't have Portal. Or go download it on Steam. It's worth your $10.



1: Rens test maps. Hard, single room maps. #2 is awesome. #1 is ok. #3 has some good concepts but has some other issues where I don't think it qualifies as portal. (trying a known tactic over and over and over until the physics works just right for what you're doing) #2 is well worth your time.
http://www.fileplanet.com/184974/180000/fileinfo/Portal---Ren_Test-3-Mini-Map-Pack

2: Portal Prelude, 19 level story-based maps on the events leading up to the original portal game. Fan made, supreme quality, very fun, very immersive.
http://www.portalprelude.com/download.php

3: Fun 2d web-Flash version. Good fun.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/404612

4: Proper Portal Mod created from the 2d flash version. Great implementation!
http://portalmaps.wecreatestuff.com/

5: Unlimited stuff to try at one of the primary fan sites.
http://forums.thinkingwithportals.com/

6: Awesome original song and machinima for Portal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Q_koTHB54&feature=player_embedded#!

Another scale of the Universe

Another great "scale of the universe" animation. Apparently to scale. I really liked the reference to 70-light-years being the extent of our furthest radio transmission. An irrelevant spec in space. So much for the Seti project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U&feature=player_embedded

Scale of everything

Great little flash zoomer representing the scale of pretty much everything. Very simple, very well presented. Worth your time to have a zoom :)

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347

Christmas 2009 Toy Boxes

Found some utterly destroyed timber chests on the side of the road (yeah, hard rubbish scavenging again). The timber was raw, and heavily damaged. Lid hinges were sheared off, vinyl-padding on the lids were slashed and aged. There was evidence of sloppy-repairs with nails at some point in time, which I hate, but they seemed repairable. A shame I didn't get "before" shots yet again. So here's some "in-process" shots of a basic refurb job to make some sweet looking Toy Boxes for the kids for this Christmas !!

These shots are all taken after the lids have been removed, rubbish refurb-job undone, timber all re-seated and re-glued with sash clamps. It actually took quite a bit of work to get these to the point of "getting started".

The cheap timber joinery had no support at the top, so if you (kids) pulled the boxes towards yourself from the top, you'd shatter the entire assembly. Some reinforcement was needed.

I made some simple "L-beams" with some 20mm pine and formed a basic frame for the top.


The frame just drops in from the top, and then I fastened it with more brass screws from the inside-out.


The top rim is pretty sturdy now. Should support some serious beatings, and gives some meat for hinges to bite into.


One is stained Dark Mahogany, the other Teak. (it should be noted that dark mahogany always looks like rubbish before it's varnished.)


Some new Vinyl and brass tacks make the lids look like new again. Brass tacks seems to look good on anything.


Hinge on the ugly-side where there was some stain-bleeding. Not sure what happened here, but fortunately it was only on this one edge of this one toy box.


It works ! I'll put some sort of rubber stopper in so that little fingers don't get smushed in the likely event of a slam.



The kids chose their vinyl colors, so they should be happy with the final results :)

Dark Mahogany on the left. Teak on the right.

Something goofy with the lighting on this shot, but you get the idea.

Free Outdoor Table

Hard Rubbish strikes again. Found this outdoor table on the roadside. It's as faded as my deck, and a little flimsy.


The legs are pretty rotten at the feet.


The top shows promise though. Check out that sweet red timber after a little sanding


The center spar of the top was completely rotten. Smash n chuck.


New center spar. I don't own a table-saw so I had to create this slot freehand with a circular saw. Hard work. It'll work fine though.


The top is comming together. Needed some reinforcement.


Some of the top was a little more rotten than hoped. A few corners had to be dowled right through, not just butt-joints.


Top reconstructed, man that looks good.


Just another shot of the top. Love the look of red hardwood.


New legs ! I got them on the cheap. Bought garden-stakes, way cheaper than finished timber.


New legs in place. Old ones were bolted. I screwed these on with carriage screws.


A coat of oil, and all is good. Looks brand new. (it's quite red in the sun).

Free stuff: just add TLC

People throw away the most amasing things in their Hard Rubbish. I found an entire Queen size bed by the side of the road. It was painted a hideous mission-brown. Nothing a belt sander and some time can't fix.

Actually a lot of time. At least 4-5 hrs was spent sanding this thing down. Deceiving amount of nooks and crannies on these things!!

Teak stain looks great on raw pine.

More nooks n crannies !!

Brand new queen size bed. Just add a few dollars of sandpaper, stain, and varnish. Looks awesome :)

USB WiFi antenna

A friend was able to receive WiFi from their very gracious neighbor with a standard PCI wireless card in her PC, but a USB wireless dongle was unable to pickup any networks in range, even when standing outside the house! Primary differences being USB voltage/power and antenna capacities. Time to give this critter an upgrade. (blurry images, oops)

Step 1: Crack open your gutless USB wifi dongle.


Step 2: Find the gutless antenna; seen as the rectangular loop on the far left of this blurry image.



Step 3: Find some wire and construct a vague semblance of an appropriately turned antenna from random info you find on the web based on the wavelengths used in household wifi.



Step 4: Solder the antenna on. Hope you haven't destroyed anything in the process.



Step 5: Reassemble. Prevent pokey bits with something squishy.

This baby found two new networks not previously detected from my own home, and now my lucky friend has a solid connection to her gracious neighbor. Life is good.

Upholstery Happens: man-style.

Sewing Machine: check.
Manliness: check.
mad skillz: check.

Upholstery happens in the house of bachelor. You were warned.

Wonderflonium: Do not bounce

I bought these at the NQR store today...because of the sticker.

Highschool Coffee Table

A broken coffee table I built in highschool (exactly 20 years ago this year !!). Every join gave up the ghost to kids dancing on top of it. Dowel glue joins are great, but they just can't withstand the awesome might of 3yr olds dancing.


The original 9mm dowel joins were destroyed, so I had to bore them out and plug them with larger 20mm dowel


The top was initially screwed on with 4 wood screws, sunken through the entire width of this crosspiece.

Deep sunken holes for screws is not ideal. I'm not going to use these again. I'll use brackets or something instead.


Sash clamps to the rescue. You can see the pine strip I placed on the inside upper edge to screw the top onto. Much beefier. It'll get stain to make it invisible of course.


Dowels. Not my first choice of timber joinery...but invisible is the intention I guess.


Taking shape. More clamp action.


Hopefully I get another 20 years out of it. It has some deep dints and marks in the top from previous use, nicely sealed under the new coat of varnish. Looks pretty good. (can't really tell from this shot though) Junk on the top for scale reference.

Keyboard Well: more more

FINALLY finished the keyboard-well in my desk. The original rough-as-guts test was going to be for 2 weeks or so...ended up being 8 months. Shiny.

Still shiny.

Indoors. Varnished the monitor tray also. The larger shelf is in the shed so I can improve the height extensions, which were always an ad-hoc thing due to the ever increasing size of monitors over the years from my original 13'. So long ago.

Keyboard Well: more

A while back I cut a big dirty hole in my desk to drop the keyboard into. I'm happy with the functionality so it's time to finish up.

Nice clean cuts to house a pine timber frame.


Measure a few times, keep cutting till it sorta fits. That's how the saying goes right ?


Snug as a bug in a rug


Tray in place. Had plans for an elaborate adjustable base but abandoned it due to the steep parabolic curve of effort vs reward.


Redgum sawdust is perfect for making my own putty where dark-mahogany stain is used, the color is a nice match after it has the wet varnished look.


Redgum hardwood + glue = tough putty. This stuff needs power tools to sand down. Serious, don't bother hand sanding this mix.


For all you know I'm smearing poo all over my desk.


Dry stained pine embedded in varnished veneer. Looks awfull. Varnish has some pretty magical properties though :)


Varnish has a mild gooping/solvent effect like paint stripper, so it's fine to apply to old coats like this, the disparity between the currently uncoated, and coated sections won't show after the 3rd coat.

Will take another photo after it's done.