The Problem:
Can you fall faster than gravity?

Definitions, Assumptions & Variables:
Fall – descend under the influence of gravity.
Gravity – attraction from one body to another, in this scope, simplified as the earth pulling the human towards it measured (g) as 9.81m/s^2 (meters per second squared).
A human – A person with a nominal mass (m) of 100kg. Say an ultimate fighter or a soccer goalie who we will assume is standing with their arms at their side.
Force – An influence which changes a physical quantity such as velocity and momentum.

Analysis:
When a person is standing on firm ground, they have two forces acting upon them. The force of gravity and the force of the floor counteracting gravity. Any imbalance of forces will cause the person to move, for example, someone pushing the person from the left will make them move to the right. This is in the same way that if the force of the floor was removed, the person would accelerate downward at the acceleration of gravity. Newtons first law states that In the absence of a net force, the center of mass of a body either is at rest or moves at a constant velocity. Which sums up this effect nicely since if there are no forces, you do not change the speed of your movement.

By definition, you can’t fall faster than gravity since to fall is to simply be acted upon by gravity but there are a few loopholes which present themselves if you look closer.

I think where people are first confused is with this definition of gravity. Gravity is not a speed, it is actually an acceleration or rate at which velocity (speed) increases. The person will be falling at 9.81m/s (meters per second) after the first second, about 18m/s after the second then 27m/s (~100km/h) after the third. After that velocity (v) = acceleration (a) * time (t). This equation only holds if you start standing still (at rest).

If you throw something to the ground we are giving it an initial velocity, that is, we are implying force on it. At the moment it leaves our hand we no longer giving it any force and the object is again falling, only acted upon by gravity. In this case the equation for the object’s velocity becomes v = a * t + V0 (the initial velocity at t=0). So if it leaves our hand doing 33m/s, after one second of falling it will be moving at 42.81m/s.

Additionally, if the goalie pushes off the top bar in an effort to get to the ground faster than gravity can push him, as soon as he is finished pushing off the bar he only accelerates at the speed of gravity. Of course, he will get to the ground in less time if he pushes himself off but not because he fell faster than gravity.

What about if the dude is really fat, shouldn’t he fall faster? No. Objects move according to newtons second law force is equal to the time derivative of momentum OR F = m * a. (a) is the acceleration due to gravity, a=g=9.81 and (m) is the mass of the dude m=100. Hence, the force on a fat dude is larger than that of a thin dude but it takes more force to get their inertia moving and hence, the two dudes move at the same speed.

The inertia problem is where this whole problem gets complicated. If you have your hand in the air and drop a ball, you should be able to catch it somewhere near your waist with no problem at all. The inertia of your body allows you to accelerate your hand faster than gravity. The problem comes when you want to move your entire body mass. A basic sphere or shape has it’s center of gravity (centroid) right in the center. An irregular shape like a human also has a centroid but it’s a bit lower than the center of our bodies since our lungs are mostly air and our legs and bowels are pretty dense. If a person moves their hands from way up in the air to their sides, the centroid of their body moves from a bit above center to a bit below. While their hands move quickly, far faster than gravity the centroid will only drop at less than the speed of gravity. While the person is accelerating their hand downward they momentarily exert less force on the ground (you can work out how much less with f=ma) if they move their hand down with sufficient acceleration, they could lift their body off the ground (were talking significantly more acceleration than your muscles can manage, but it’s a cool thought).

What about if the person throws their hands down (or basically their whole body) in an attempt to get to the ground quicker? That’s the same as an earlier example where the object had velocity or force prior to beginning to fall. The centroid will have an initial velocity once the dropping hands are in motion, after which the velocity will only accelerate at the speed of gravity (9.81m/s^2).

I’m looking forward to a challenge if you have any other ideas on how to cheat physics. Just post them in the comments section.

Seriously though, I think that it’s probably something that needs to be covered. It’s undoubtedly a huge product which will be very influential for the world of technology. There are already literally hundreds of imitators which are poised to be released to take advantage of the hype. Which one should I get? Does the iPad really have a market at all?

A few years ago I was actually getting paid real dollars writing for studenttabletpc.com. At that time I had a Toshiba M200 tablet and I was closely in touch with the world of portable computing. That was 5 years ago and while tablet pcs have changed a lot in size and power, their main problem has stayed the same- they have no software.

The form factor of tablet pcs is indeed innovative but without programs that maximize the experience you may as well stick to using a regular laptop. Sure there was OneNote which was Microsoft’s key application for luring users to tablets but it was built on a regular mouse based application and hence it was fundamentally flawed. When it came to using the tablet input for something really useful such as 3ds max or any kind of 3d design program using the pen for input was slightly less intuitive and productive as using the mouse.

When the iPad releases it will have at least 200,000 users at launch. Straight away that’s probably more than active tablet users worldwide. Just like the iPhone this will be a supreme gold rush for developers all eager to get in on the unchartered territory. Fortunately this influx of developers will mean serious competition for the first few million application sales and the developers will need to have very innovative with their ui designs if they want to survive. Since the iPad slate size and OS is a relatively unexplored format bar the obvious exception of the iPhone, we can expect to see some very new and exciting programs and ways of interacting with them. Additionally developers will not be stuck adapting existing point and click concepts, releasing them from the fundamental trap we saw with OneNote.

The iPhone epitomises this shift. Right now, the iPhone is ‘the’ phone to have. I couldn’t help noticing 7 of my 11 friends at a recent chill out night had one and that the 4 others wanted one. Why? Technically there are some better phones out there. The hd2, the pre, the droid* but the iPhone wins out for the average user every time. Of course there is a lot of hype driving the trend but underneath it is a very usable phone. All of the developers have spent lots of time developing thousands of apps to a relatively high standard to satisfy the millions of customers. It’s a bit of a catch22 situation since you need the users to get the developers to get the customers but apple pulled this well enough with their hype machine and sexy industrial design.

The hundreds of iPad imitators are not going to have this huge user and developer support base which will make them relatively useless since they won’t be able to run that cool application that your friend with the genuine iPad runs despite these imitators being technically superior in many ways. They’re also going to mostly be based on windows 7 too so they will suffer the same pointer based flaw that past tablet software has suffered.

Too many people are asking the question: where will I use the iPad? Where does it fit into the market? The reality is that if apple can provide a product that has sufficiently awesome software then it does not matter one bit if it’s got a place in the market or not. If it is awesome it will sell and people will find plenty of opportunity to use it. Additionally, I think the critics are overestimating the importance of the physical keyboard. The iPad makes sense in every case where getting content from the net is more important than creating content for it. Emails and short documents will be more than possible, heck I write fairly long emails on my iPhone without any problems.

So while you need one or not, you’re probably going to want one. The software that will be released over the next 12 months will no doubt be pretty amazing. If you’re strapped for cash though, history tells us you are probably better off waiting for the second incarnation which will come after about a year. All of the alternatives are going to be pretty tempting too and if enough of the software comes cross platform they will also be much more viable given that they will definitely be more powerful and have more features within a short amount of time. A good looking clone which allows for pressure sensitive pen input would be my ultimate device since I think that art on the iPad would have been a strong selling point which without makes it good for everything up to finger-painting (though I’m sure there will be some artists who cope just fine and produce some iPad masterpieces).

The device is released April 3** but the first month is likely to be mostly hype. I won’t be getting one at launch but I can see myself getting one eventually since I still use that 8-year-old M200 as my primary laptop and it’s getting quite long in the tooth and like I said, it’s going to be awesome.

*Some of these devices are not available in Australia
**Releasing late April in Australia

I used http://www.colourlovers.com/copaso to come up with the colour palette and the side scrolling theme is based on wplatformer. Of course the underlying backend is still wordpress which is impressively powerful.

I have seen Honey I shrunk the kids a number of times. Unfortunately it was completely ruined by the sequels but as a standalone movie it was actually great value. There was plenty of safe fun, lots of non lame commedic situations and jokes and a cool look at the world from a different perspective. The set design was just nuts, at one stage they walk past a huge dead fly. I particularly like the character of the dad, Wayne, who makes a great nutty scientist.

I was given this movie on vhs when I was like 7 or 8 and I found it confusing but quite incredible. The concepts behind space travel and relativity of time were simply amazing in a way that I don’t think I could experience any more. It was obviously ahead of its time and cutting edge in terms of special effects and plot. Be flexible to 80’s ness as you would with back to the future and you will enjoy it much more. Also, see if you can spot the younger and non zombie horse Sarah Jessica Parker.

The “Pistol Shrimp” or Alpheidae has a special claw, just one special claw, that can cause a small pocket of cavitation.

This cavitation causes a shockwave of about 80kPa at up to about 4cm from the claw. That’s enough to blast a hole through shells!

This little blast is so powerful in fact that it produces a brief sonoluminescence which is where the water actually lights up and produces light from the sound passing through it. Awesome!

While writing I found this cool youtube video that dramatises things a bit but provides an idea nonetheless.

enjoy.

Outside the engineering building.

Not going soft btw with all of these rainbows and ducks. I would have posted an Audi s5 but it was driving too fast.

Also it looks like it’s falling near my place. Prizes for guessing the location the picture was taken st or finding it on street view.

They hadnt opened my mail, something which happens occasionally (probably not as much as my friend who shares the same initials as his dad), usually by accident, but they were pretty keen to find out what it was about. I was pretty scared myself. My mind thrashed crazily through the array of my less than legal doings. I’m not a crook but at a time like this, all the possibilities do tend to present themselves all at once.

I have been at court before, longer term friends of mine will remember an incident 2 years ago when a dude didn’t pay his bill. I was on the other side of the bench but its not an experience that I want to re-live.

I tore the envelope in the standard style. I dont use envelope openers, my fingers work just fine. The first of 2 pamplets enclosed fell out to reveal the title ‘your rights regarding legal counsel’ or something like that. Very ominous. It was at this stage that I suspected that it could be something regarding my (old) business. Maybe one of my computers burned someones house down.

Ill relieve the suspense. I do have to go to court but I’m on a completely different side of the table. I have been summoned for jury duty! I didn’t even realise that we had jury duty in Australia. I thought it was just an American thing associated with their sue everyone system. My initial thought is to try and get out of it because quite frankly, it’s on a friday and I really dont want to miss a whole lot of lectures. You get paid $20 for the day, plus your employer has to continue to pay you. Unfortunately I don’t have work on Fridays so that isn’t much good.
If you have any clues to what case it might be then let me know. Ill see if I can get out of it first. I have to find a JP and I forgot to bring the form to work today so I don’t know if I will be bothered. Either way Ill keep you informed.

What’s so great about newsgroups?
- You download from a server so it is super fast- essentially maxes out your connection. I get 1.5MB/s at home easily.
- There are no ratios to worry about
- You download over SSL so people can’t tell what you’re downloading
- You done have to seed to other people
- You are not slowed down by the number of other people downloading

What can I get from newsgroups?
- everything!
- Bluray movies
- Xbox games
- other large isos
- tv shows
- music
- when someone posts something to any group it will appear on all servers and stay there for however long the retention of your server is (100 days or so for astranews).

What is needed?
- Access to a newsgroup server – Try news.astranews.com. ISPs often provide a newsgroup service but often the retention is very poor. Astranews is an example of a premium newsgroup service. Internode provides astranews and giganews for free to customers.
- A newsgroup reader/binary downloader (the equivalent of utorrent for torrents) – I use grabit but it wont work behind a proxy so you might need to try “agent” or have a search, you need one that supports nzb downloading

How does it work?
- Set up your newsgroup reader (setting up the reader/downloader is pretty straight forward, you don’t need to worry about subscribing to any groups)
- Go to somewhere like nzbmatrix.com or nzbsource.com or binsearch.info (these are like mininova or isohunt) and get an NZB file. The nzb file contains a list of articles that contain your files that will need to be downloaded. You really don’t have to worry about it, if your getting it from binsearch, make sure its complete. You also want to make sure that the files you get are not older than the retention of your server (no older than ~100 days for astranews).
- Use your binary downloader to open the nzb file and it should start downloading a list of files or articles and making them into files.
- unrar your files and enjoy

How does it really work?
- Newsgroups were traditionally used to post written articles to servers but people worked out how to serialise any data and put it on there (using yenc). Even partitioned rar files are broken up many many times so that they fit to individual articles.
- There are global groups such as “alt.binaries.games.xbox” that are synchronised between all of the servers so that no matter what server you are using you can access the same content. There are server specific groups but we won’t worry about them.
- “binaries” in the group name indicates that it is really only files that are contained in the group. There are ones that don’t have any binaries and are used just for discussion.

What are these par files?
- The par files are used for checking the data.
- Since the data is split up and then put back together, it often contains errors, especially if you use a dodgy server or the posts have been on the server for ages. PAR files essentially check the parity (der so obvious) and can repair the files and even fill in missing files. It’s a good idea to get them; normally it’s an extra 10% of the download size.
- There are a number of par file checkers around. It’s good to get one with a windows shell. Quickpar is acceptable for windows.
- It can take a while to check all of the files

Pics, for those that dont know, are little microcontrollers (like CPUs) that have a small array of inputs and outputs. They have basically replaced circuts in everything. Its more cost effective these days to program a pic to delay your car windscreen wipers than it is to make a traditional little circut. We used the 16F84 which can do a whopping 20Mhz and we programmed it in asm. The timing was noutoriously hard and interfacing communication with it was pretty impossible. I tried to make a midi instrument with a more powerful version of it but still had many problems.

I recently ordered and recieved a Arduino development platform (www.arduino.cc). Its an open source microcontroller based on the Atmega168. I got the Decimilia version, the specs are available on the arduino website but in short, its USB, a heap of digital inputs, analog inputs, PWM (pulse width modulation) outputs and digital outputs. The USB is really just a serial adapter rather than a custom USB host but on the whole- its much much easier to develop for than the pic ever was.

Much of its simplicity is the premade libraries that come with the IDE that make interfacing servos/stepper motors and doing PWM much much easier. The communications problems that I had with the pic are all gone too as you can just set a baud rate and use simple send recieve buffers. In the first 2 hours that I had it I got it sending a scale thru the USB port as a midi stream, interfaced 2 servos to it and in the 3rd hour, I got a 16×2 line LCD working.

I got mine from Littlebirdelectronics (www.littlebirdelectronics.com.au) who were pretty slow and expensive ($40 or so with shipping). The Arduino nano (http://www.arduino.cc/blog/?p=39) came out just the other day. It looks like the perfect solution for compact and simple projects.

I have a few in the pipe and as soon as stufy slows down Ill have them working. The Arduino is so damn flexible (in terms of applications) that it really is a must have for anybody with a project in mind.

This is interesting because I could reach any other point on earth quicker.

Let me explain:

If you drilled a hole through the earth and installed a set of frictionless rails (or some kind of vaccuum tube). The time it takes to go from one side of the earth, screaming through the middle and to pop your head out on the other end… is 42 minutes.

That means that I could get to the other side of the earth quicker than driving to work. It actually gets better because if you dont go to exactly the same point on the other side of the earth (ie: you make a sort of chord) it takes exactly the same time. That also means that if I had a frictionless tube that went to the other side of the room that was precicely the same distance from the center of mass, conservation of energy could get me there in 42 minutes. It also means that I would also instantly start travelling back in the other direction for 42 minutes but thats beside the point.

The point is that despite my car being quite amazing (you have seen it haven’t you?) it is no match for a theoretical frictionless tube through the earth’s crust.

He covers practically every song genre, mixing it all together.

www.awam.com.au/storage/dexter

I figure that most of my closer associates already know all about this stuff but for the benefit of all Ill share the torrenting set up guide used by pros in “the industry”.

1) Get uTorrent, its quicker, it uses less resources, its fully featured and its free. www.utorrent.com

2) Install it and set it up.

 
Yes you want it to handle .torrent files

Most ADSL2+ fiends will be able to rock about 640k upload. You might think that ADSL2+ privileges you to 1Mbit upload but guess again. For starters, its unlikely you are syncing at the full 1Mbit unless you are close the exchange and then you can only expect about 85% efficiency of your line when it comes to torrenting data. So, take your line speed, and multiply it by 0.85 and you have your capability. I have my upload speed set to 50Kb/s because I find that any more slows my http response time a bit (slows my web browsing). You might be tempted to set this higher because it might seem it will make you faster but it wont, find a point where your connectionis near saturation but not quite. You might have to play with it a bit until you find the sweet spot.

Port forwarding- most modern routers use uPNP to forward ports for you but you will get the best results if you do it manually. Take a note of the number you put in the port box, then, go to http://portforward.com/routers.htm and find out how to forward TCP and UDP on your router or modem.

3) Now you should be ready to download something. Get a .torrent file from http://www.mininova.org or www.isohunt.com and see how it goes.

4) Auto downloading. If you watch a series religiously then this is what you want to do.

Options>RSS Downloader>Feeds(tab)>Add

tvRSS has a nice syndicated feed for us to use care of EZTV. EZTV index a lot of TV shows including US, UK and Australian ones. Chances are that most popular shows are on it.

http://tvrss.net/feed/combined/ is the url that you want to enter as a new feed.

Now you want to tell it what shows you want it to download. Ill use Entourage as an example. If you haven’t seen it then you should follow this next bit and add it for yourself.

Go to the Favourites tab and click Add

Give it a name “Entourage”

The filter we want will be “Entourage*”, this means that any file with the show name starting with Entourage will be downloaded. The “*” is a wildcard which means that anything can follow Entourage for example the whole name could be “Entourage S03E05 – Some stupid title”. Use your discresion on where you put the *’s. Shows like The Ultimate Fighter need to be entered like “*Ultimate Fighter*” because they have been known to be entered as The Ultimate Fighter and Ultimate Fighter, The, the aformentioned rule will catch both cases.

Specifying the episode number will stop it from downloading early ones if they happen to re-release them. Some shows dont use ep numbers. I find it handy to not use them because then you dont have to change it when a new season starts.

Smart ep filter is a good one that remembers if you have downloaded an episode already. Many feeds, especially the combined one that we are using will have multiple copies of the same episode in different formats and sizes. This ensures that we only get the first that comes out for this episode.

We can also limit the quality of the rip that will be downloaded. This generally works on a minimum basis so it will download any better than what you have selected. This is unreliable though as sometimes the show doesn’t get release in a particular format or the particular format misses an ep. For something like Lost though, you can be pretty safe in selecting exactly what you want because there is a huge supply and demand for it.

You can get an entire list of shows that you can get to automatically download from the EZTV Show List. You can also look on there and get all of the old episodes.

You can get RSS feeds from mininova, Finalgear, diwana and all of those download sites, just go to the category you want and look for the orange rss icon. Remember that Mininova has lots of private tracker torrents and nothing is ordered and organised like EZTV.

4.5) One last thing to make this work properly is to set a download directory-

Make a seperate temp directory and it works better.

5) For those on on peak-off peak plans. Use the Scheduler from Options>Pref’s and set up your offpeak/onpeak speeds. TPG has just put out a plan with 30GB onpeak / 90GB between 1am and 6am for $70 so this should be useful to a few people.

Its pretty self explanatory.

6) If you have another computer on the net that stays on 24/7 or have a dedicated bittorrent pc OR like to check your downloads from uni. Enable the web UI. Go back into prefs, Advanced, WebUI

Give it a password and put it on port 80. Then go firefox and type in your computer’s IP and it should give you the web interface for uTorrent. Some people mightn’t have any luck with port 80 so change it to something unique then try http://yourip:port .

You should be able to do that from any pc on your network and get the same thing.

To access that from other computers on the internet can be a little tricky but if you have the right hardware then it can be simple. You need for forward the port first of all. Then you need to get a static address for your computer/connection. Sign up for one at dynDNS.com then (if you have a good router) put it’s details in.

If you don’t have a good router then you can try and use noip.com or something but it isn’t as good. Then you should be able to access your web interface using http://yourstaticaddress:yourport .

Thats it.

Good Luck

Concept car, drawn on my Toshiba m200, in a lecture (of course).

Tamiya TA-05
White Ferrari 430

Needless to say it looks a bit more beaten up now. Big race this Sunday!

http://video.google.com/url?docid=6204903272262158881&esrc=sr1&ev=v&q=mario+frustration&vidurl=http://video.google.com/videoplay%3Fdocid%3D6204903272262158881%26q%3Dmario%2Bfrustration&usg=AL29H23XXriTaYL7vgvl8sRlH4ghcKWV_Q

also

Sister willing the ball to the right in bowling

I took the Wii to dinner at my wonderful girlfriends place last night. Needless to say it turned out to be a hit. Thats the mothers having a tennis battle.

The IR LEDs on my custom sensor bar.

You can see the sensor bar wires hanging down, the fish picture is the vista background on my projector.

Sensor bar from underside.

Virgin Wii system, pre modchip

Uber tiny modchip (still in packet) next to $1 coin. There are 6 or so contacts to solder to on that.

Raped Wii innards. Left side is the DVD module, right side is cooling fan/heatsink at top and main gpu/cpu below it.

Where the chip goes such that it fits in the indent where the cable is. Intelligent design. Super small.

The wiikey config screen. Success! (running through tv tuner).

The Modchip – The first day after I got my shiny new system I was researching modchips. I ordered a Wiikey the day after that from a wiikey seller in Australia (www.ozmodchips.com).
I chose the wiikey because it seemed the most popular and best supported. It can have its firmware updated via the dvd drive so it should be fine for a while. The Wii mochips actually are applied to the drive itself such that the wii components remain untouched and hence the chip is undetectable.
The chip and the rare tri wing screwdriver arrived on the Thursday in a tiny padded bag. I was quite surprised at the size of the modchip, it was much smaller than I was expecting. I didn’t have much trouble installing it, however, if you were a novice at soldering it could be very very tricky as the contacts are some of the smallest around. Fortunately I took a course in surface mount soldering and was excited to put it to use. I used the short short wire method which seemed to be the neatest and most reliable method. You can do it without wires at all (as the chip is designed) but that has disaster written all over it. It took me about 30 mins and I would be pretty confident that I could do it again. The wiikey website has a configuration key which you can run which contains some apps and a program to configure your chip eg. turn on region emulation, force disk read speed.

“Backup” Games – With the chip installed I can now enjoy “backed up” games. I had 2 games that I had “backed up”, excit truck and sonic and the secret rings. I was super excited to find that they both work superbly- just like inserting the genuine cd. I am itching to try Paper Mario but unfortunately the “backup” isos are 4.5gB and I have already wasted my downloads on Top Model and Biggest Loser.

Homebrew Apps – The wiikey config disk has a number of apps on it. Some of these are gold such as the one that allows you to export a wii dvd to an iso on the sd card (you cant put wii cds in any old drive). There is also a media player which runs on a version of linux as well as a DVD player which nintendo neglected to include in the initial release (although I’m sure its coming).

Wiimote on PC – The Wii remote is just a bluetooth device which you can pair with anything. I paired it with my mobile but obviously there are no services that either can use. Some clever people though, have written software to make the wiimote functional on a pc. The word functional is a bit of a loose term, you cant feasibly use it for much but it is very cool. You get a real time readout of the accelerometers with the appropriate axis 1g more than the other depending on how you are holding it. Im sure it wont take long before people make some really cool applications that use the wiimote to its full potential. Engadget had a wiimote controlled robotic arm today…but Im writing this in bed and too lazy to find the link.

DIY Sensor bar – As many people have found, the sensor bar cable is too short, especially if you have a projector and need the wii at the back of the room. Fortunately the sensor bar is just 2 banks of IR leds which can be replicated very easily.
SUPER easily in fact. One great source of IR is a burning flame which I tried and succeeded with while I was waiting for a chance to get my parts. I lit 2 candles, placed them about 40cm apart at the bottom of my projected image, unplugged the standard sensor bar and…. It worked perfectly. I would almost say it worked better because a candle is a great point souirce which can be seen from all angles rather than the leds which have a 20 degree light cone max. I figured 4 leds (the wii sensor bar has 5 but theyre rubbish) each side would be ideal as I could match it with the voltage from a quiet old computer psu. I came up with this:

…and it works better than the standard bar on the same sensitivity and works from distances far greater than the original bar. Because I can also place the LEDs further apart, I can get much greater accuracy from further away such as sitting on the couch or behing my table downstairs. Also it stops it from bugging you to move forward.

Yikes, thats a lot from just one week. I highly recommend a wiikey, it costs less than a game. I highly recommend the diy sensor bar, it significantly improves the experience. Coming next will be a number of photos of everything mentioned in this trillogy. Interestingly, the wii, after all of my troubles getting it to work on my projector, found its way upstairs to the family tv. Interestingly it gets used more up there by people in general but I personally use it less. BUT I think I enjoy it more.

Anyway, that night it was the family all sitting around the TV, dad was already playing and mum was introduced to the festivities. She enjoyed it too and was soon playing tennis with my sister. I watched in amazement as they picked it up and had a great time, however, I wasn’t truly amazed until later than night when my nan walked in and had a game of tennis. At first she was a bit confused but within time she was challenging dad in bowling.

It was a little bizarre- my whole family enjoying video games. A Nintendo at that! My parents have always been a bit anti consoles and they would never think to touch a computer game anything more than hoyle classic board games. I am sure dad would love the challenge of C&C but I don’t see it happening any time soon.

It’s hard to know if this enthusiasm for playing will continue but since I have had it connected to the projector (2 days), mum and liv have both played a few times at least.

I had a run of Zelda this morning, I found it a bit frustrating because I couldn’t find a way to do something and had to resort to a walk through to find my bleedingly obvious missing puzzle piece. I haven’t played a game like zelda for a while. It’s interesting how much different RPGs are from MMORPGs. Theyre more different than you realise. As a single player game it went well. I still have a lot to play and my projector loses a lot of contrast during the day because I have no way of blocking out my light but I am determined to finish it. I have excite truck and a few other games downloading for when my mod chip arrives (more on that later). I am really looking forward to paper mario and playing redsteel. They seem to be perhaps a bit more indepth than WiiSports and WiiPlay (especially).

Otherwise, my Wii is running on my projector, through a dodgy tv tuner at this stage (so it doesn’t look as good as it could) but it does work well big on the wall. I had to make a custom sensor bar (more to come) which helped a lot.

I am surprised that nothing has been knocked over yet. There is lots of hand flailing involved. You can play most games sitting on the couch which is good. Most wiisports games except golf need you to be standing up to get the full effect and do the best shots. There is plenty of working out if you want it, I have done the wii fitness thing (WiiSports) a few times and have a fitness age of 33 aparently. If you want to chill on the couch it works fine too. Zelda has been working fine in chill out slob mode which is lucky.

More to come, part three includes- Wiikey modchip, custom sensor bar, projector connecting, the outrageous price of wiimotes and “backup” games.

While I didn’t know exactly what was in the box, the wii was one of the things I mentioned that I would like.

Before: I think I thought the Wii would be great because it is a great group enjoyment-maker. I figured that my computer would always be there for any fancy games and that all of the games being released on other systems (Xbox 360 especially) would be released for PC in time. I liked the idea of the revolutionary control scheme and liked that it was small and cute. While I knew it was down on power compared to other systems I thought that the fun factor would be a acceptable trade off.

During: I found straight away that it was definitely aesthetic. My first look at it out of the box was at Swifty’s place as I hurriedly crammed the cables into their appropriate wii shaped ports. I really liked the consistent cropped triangle theme which runs from the shape of the console itself to the attachments on the wrist straps. A very nice touch. It wasn’t until later that I found some more little compartments underneath the flaps on the top of the device. The front SD flap is obvious and appropriately so because you need to sync a controller with the first boot. I love the slot loading gap and the way that it glows. Slot loading is definitely cooler than tray loading in every way.
As soon as we had the sensor bar around the right way, it was clear that it was as straightforward as it comes. I assumed there would be some kind of calibration- nope, it just worked. Popping in the game was easy, loading the game was easy. When I got it back to my place, even setting up the wifi (no excess cords) was simple. The WiiSports game- the first port of call for any Wii is a great introduction game. There selection of sports is smaller than I imagined from reviews but they all work rather well. Some rose to the top as being really fun and other only became fun later on when we had a bit more time. The tennis is my clear favorite and one that uses the controller well. When introducing people to the console and game for the first time its evident that nobody expects it to be as realistic as it actually is. Most people expect to have to push a button to do something rather than realising that you just have to swing like you would a tennis racket. Once people realise this anybody can play and the games are simple and intuitive. The pointer sensing (ir sensor) works amazingly well too. In WiiPlay’s point blank ripoff it worked really well, better than you would expect with a light gun to.

After:
The console is really a lot of fun. Without having a chance to really play any single player stuff yet its hard to say exactly where its place in the house will be. The design is clean and small. It really looks great from all angles. Its easy to use and its fun to use. Stay tuned for more results as the family comes to try the Wii.

Message me sometime!

w2252477660321169@wii.com gets sent straight to my wii and makes the drive glow!

Those who pay attention will remember that I am currently in the process of helping dad build his new boat. Its going well and is probably about 6 weeks off being in the water. Its getting to a very finished stage with only the fittings to be bolted on the outside as well as some wiring to be done inside.
It currently looks like this:

Yes its a pretty sporty boat, likely to be one of the fastest in SA. To maximise the righting moment as well as counter the huge sails it has a sizeable retractable keel with a keelbulb of lead ballast attached to the bottom of it.

Last weekend’s task was to fill the keel bulb with lead… half a tonne of lead.

The keel bulb started life as a oxygen bottle which has a front, pretty much the right round shape to be fairly hydrodynamic. To fit the desired volume of lead as well as be able to attach to the bottom of the keel, the cast iron bottle was sliced in half with an angle grinder and extended with a square attachment for the keel to fit in.

Pic of the empty bulb

Lead was purchased from scrap yards, totaling about 420kg. With the weight of the keel itself and the bottle it will be about 500kg or so. Most of the lead was from some fancy persons house from when they used to put a layer of lead underneath slate tiles. It seems like a good idea because it will never corrode but the house would have to be extremely strong to hold all of the lead up in the air.

To melt the lead a barbecue was used, minus the hotplates so tins of solid product could sit directly on the burners to get the best heat. We had thought about putting the whole bulb in a fire pit but it would have taken forever to heat and cool and we had no way of getting it out once it was full. We poured it with the bulb in the trailer so that when it gets to where it needs to be it can be lifted out by a forklift (which will be available when it needs to be).

Lead has a reletiavely low melting point which means you can melt it in tins without many problems so dad spent his time chopping up reasnoble sized chunks and I popped them in the tins and stirred it with a screwdriver until it was melted. I would then pick it up with the vicegrips and pour it into the bulb.

Obviously there are some concerns with this process. The fumes for starters were concerning, despite being in a very well ventilated area they were pretty strong, everywhere. Most of the fumes however were just from silicon and paint still on the lead sheets. Secondly, lead is pretty heavy and 200ml (im not going to do the maths) is rediculously heavy when in liquid form. It was impactical to do more than 200ml at a time because the tins would just bend when trying to manipulate them to the pouring position.

Some things to point out though are that any molten metal is extremely cool. The surface of a molten metal is like a liquid mirror which is fascinating when you are pouring it into another vessel. Secondly, molten lead is bizzare because counter intuitively- steel and iron float. It was quite a strange feeling stirring the lead with the screwdriver because it would tend to bob up as if you were stirring water with a piece of foam.

The whole process took about 5-6 hours and now the bulb will be filled and shaped to the most hydrodynamic shape possible with epoxy fillers.

I will leave you with a number of shots of the process and Ill try to keep some more photos of it being attached and manipulated on the boat when it happens.

Requirements
-Toshiba M200
-SD Card
-Lan Cable
-Host computer

1) Download this bootable image, rename it to “$TOSFD00.VFD” and put it on your SD Card (must be fat formatted)
bootfile.txt

2) Pop it in the M200’s sd slot and turn on, press F2 as soon as the screen comes on and select the middle option. Follow the simple guide until you get to a prompt, if you dont know what the options mean just leave them.

4) Put your M200 recovery disk/disks in your host and copy all of the base directories into a shared folder. Also put this file in the same place and rename it to “install.bat”.
install.txt

5) On the M200, type “net use y: \\HOST NAME\SHARENAME” (obviously putting in those details)

6) Type “y:” then “install”. Windows XP will install (to the point where it came with your tablet)

7) When install is complete, delete the files from before, remove the share. Put your Vista DVD in your host drive, share that drive and then find it on the M200.

Follow through Vista install. If you want a clean install, it can be done, just select advanced when selecting what drive to use and it will put all windows files in a windows old directory.

9) Frustratingly work out all the drivers for vista and your done!

If this doesnt work for you, try “http://flimflan.com/blog/InstallingVistaOnYourToshibaM200.aspx”. However that method has millions of pitfalls. Goodluck.

Click Here

Tell your close friends but keep it underground- this wont be around for long.

I used to accept cheques. For me, it was a convenient way to get paid as it could be written to the cent and was easy to do. The inherent problem is that you don’t get your money until it is cashed.

Mid last year I got a call from a man who had a problem with his computer. I took it back to my workshop and checked it all out to find that his motherboard was faulty. I talked to him and gave him two choices, try and look for a motherboard that matched which could take me a week or just replace the parts with a bit of an upgrade. He was a nice guy and he said he needed it for his business during the week. He decided to go the upgrade. To get it done for the guy with minimal turnaround time I went and purchased the parts and installed them to have it delivered ASAP. I delivered it, working and he was very happy. He thanked me greatly and paid me via a cheque, even asking whether I had charged him e. ough for the excellent service.

3 days later, Saturday morning I checked my account via netbank to find that the check had been withdrawn. I called him to check that he had sufficient funds or if he wanted to pay another way- only to be met with abuse that the computer didn’t work and that I had cost him a week of business.

I wont go into all the details but the next week was an extremely stressful one for me. I didn’t know what was going to happen, we tried to call the guy but one of his phones was disconnected and he started ignoring our calls. I went with dad and applied for a hearing in the Small Claims Court.

Obviously the whole court system is slow so it was 30 days before anything happened but eventually we got to court. I am really skipping many of the details here but eventually I ended up in the courtroom with a magistrate and the other guy on the other end of the table. It wasn’t pretty but I felt I handled myself pretty damn well. Nobody ever completely wins when you go to court but we did come out with a solution that both of us found acceptable.

The lesson today is that unless you truly know someone you can’t trust them. Trust is underrated these days and completely undervalued. I now only take cash, have implemented a credit facility and even if it means that the customer gets the computer fixed late a 80% deposit is required with cleared funds.

Yes, I had a car crash in 2006. The end to the era of the Laser, a car which was purchased for $2. Thats not to say that it wasn’t an extremely valuable car because I really relied on its convenience for more than a few months.

Unfortunately, on the way to pick up an AB, a few days before Christmas I was rear ended by a taxi and it was all over. I was turning right and slowed to a stop due to a car which was trying to get across in an orange. It was at that point that I was hit unexpectedly by a taxi who wasn’t paying much attention. Those who haven’t been in a car crash should know that it really knocks the air out of you. The taxi was traveling at about 50kmh when he hit, almost pushing me into the car running the orange.

The car is gone now, the taxi company paid us a appropriate amount for the car (a lot more than $2) but at the end of the day its such a loss of convenience. The biggest crime is that there was nothing I could have done to avoid it and I never saw it coming.

My Gym Machine 

Update coming soon..!

Feature – digitalhost.com.au / bluehost.com
Storage space – 200MB / 50GB
Bandwidth – 5GB / 1TB
Emails – 50 / 2,500
Monthly Cost – $10AUD / $6.95US

Thats super-better value and there has been no noticeable performance degradation either. Hence, if you want yourself a gigabyte sized email account or some space to push your files, send me an email because I have got net-presence to burn.

On the same topic I have actually also changed my name server- offering the exact same service Intaserve is managing to do it for about $70 cheaper over two years. Apart from the exhausting problems in changing hosts and name servers I highly recommend Bluehost and Intaserve in terms of value.

I was lucky enough to have a RTM (release to manufacturer) copy of the x64 version supplied to me. Its the real deal, essentially the final product. Im not going to go into all the details about the different product lines such as starter, home, etc. Lets just say that I’m using ultimate which is also the version that any pure computer enthusiast is going to want because it has everything.

Grood

• Despite running mainly Windows XP programs it feels completely new, this is a huge breakthrough for Microsoft and something that will go a long way to selling Vistas
• Lots of nice looking high res backgrounds, finally some wide screen ones too- still no dual screen background support though
• Media center (I will likely write something more on this in the future) is fantastic if you just want to have a media pc. Its beautiful and works really smoothly. I was able to index my huge collections and enjoy them with joy
• Glass interface makes things look nice and modern, looking at the desktop with a nice background- this is more beautiful than OSX while still keeping the feeling that you can do much more. The glass interface permeates everything.
• Stable as hell (I am using the x64 version), mediaplayer has crashed a few times because of dodgy codecs but thats it. A week with XP would involve at least a few random issues.
• Startup programs control, Microsoft has tried hard to make a system that wont start to suck after 6 months like Windows 9x did. There is a comprehensive startup program controller that sits in the taskbar and does a sweet job of automatically deciding what to run and what not to let run. You can also use that program to manually control whats starting right down to registry run level. Even better than msconfig which is still there and improved.
• No compatibility issues with programs at all, even for 64bit. I keep installing programs like Solid Edge and expecting them to suck but they just seem to work and look great (see 1st point)
• Games run a treat, I haven\’t had any game yet with a single issue. Daemontools works fine too.
• IE7, while I am going to always use firefox, IE7 would be completely usable everyday. A significant improvement over IE6 but then again, IE6 was rubbish. The glass look of IE7 makes firefox look a bit bland also.
• Improved networking interface, supporting IPv6 and having a super duper diagnostic tool it should be much easier to sort out problems and get things running
• Hovering on programs int he taskbar brings up a live mini view of that program, hovering mediaplayer for instance while its minimised will show the visualisation actually playing in the window. The same thing goes for alt tabbing. Its a nice effect that is now practicable with 3d accelerated desktops.
• Desktop search, think OSX\’s spotlight and you are on the money. Allows you to search documents, programs, files, music, movies, everything from your start menu. Its very fast and very reliable. I have been using it like I used to use run. It feels a but like it is a replacement for a working start menu though as my start menu is already hard to navigate with only a few programs installed. Luckily search works really well.
• Windows mail is a pretty good included mail application, Ill stick to thunderbird though.
• I have only booted back to XP for 2 things, Picassa (which I cant work out how to copy the settings of) and Nero (which doesn\’t have a Vista version yet). I think thats pretty damn good. If this was Ubuntu Linux or something I would have booted back a billion times. Everything (which is essentially everything) that I need works perfectly.
• Photo galleries and media browsing is improved, it is much easier to work with photos. I will be using Picasa but if worst came to worst I could live with these tools

Brad

• Glass interface sometimes looks a bit muddy, sometimes I think I could just do without the transparencies all together as they go solid when you maximize windows anyway. I\’m sure it slows things down
• Needs 2gb of ram, 2gb seems to be the new sweet spot
• System performance rating, given by system properties it tells you what you need to upgrade. Common sense knows better and some of the numbers (ratings) are a bit random
• Flash & Firefox don’t seem to work properly together, I’m sure this will be fixed, it works fine in IE7
• Power save/standby mode, this didn’t work for me as it didn’t un-powersave my mouse receiver. I have had to disable this.

Fugly

• Frustrating permissions system, you need to click allow every time you move files. I am putting up with it for the moment but I don’t know if I will last. I know its increased security but there are workarounds to disable it. I think the average person will hate this. Its not very elegant in that the screen goes to black then clicks to a opaque screen with a dialog. OSX’s method of just popping up with a password dialog is much more elegant.
• Strange administrator mechanism makes other things frustrating too, being a user with administrator privileges doesn’t mean that you are the administrator. Some things like to be run as administrator which requires a rick click and a permissions acceptance.
• There is no Nero for vista yet, but there will be soon I assume
• Shut down button. This is probably THE most annoying thing and something that will annoy people the most out of everything. My Nan would have a LOT of trouble with this. When you click start there is a red tinged button with a power symbol on it, you know the O with a stroke out the top. Whatever you do… Dont click that button! Turns out its NOT shutdown. Its powersave/standby! I have done this at least 3 times now, maybe even 5. It takes quite long to click in and out of powersave and my computer doesn’t get out of powersave cleanly anyway so I have to hard reboot
• The boot screen! Its like xp’s without the logo. Apparently this ugliness saves 7 secs of boot time. I’m not sure if thats a good tradeoff…

So the question remains: Should I buy Vista when the day comes sometime in January?

It depends. On one hand Vista is essentially going to do all the same things that XP does, however, Vista will be more stable, more beautiful and has a whole host of new tools to make things easier and safer. There is no doubt that you can continue to use XP without any qualms for the next 3-5 years. Mediaplayer, Live messenger, IE7 as well as a SP3 are all coming or already out for XP.

If I was a regular Joe user I probably wouldn’t worry about upgrading and especially not to the Ultimate version (I would stick with the home edition or just XP). If I was buying a new computer, I would definitely want vista on it. I think, that if you are a power user, someone who uses their computer for a significant portion of each day and you have powerful enough hardware to run it- Vista is probably a good upgrade and one that I could recommend.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=348 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=347 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=347#comments Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:32:09 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=347 I must admit that it has been a great game. Its deep, expansive content is simply amazing.

However… There is only one way to actually win and finish the game and thats to beat the addiction. I was pretty addicted at one stage there to the stage I was causing concern for those around me. I am proud to say though that my cleansing starts now. I don’t want to get caught up in the crusades or any of the other hooks. While my character doesn’t actually get deleted I wont be going back for a while I don’t think.
I still do recommend the whole WOW experience though and if anyone wants to give it a go they are more than welcome to pay the monthly fee for my account and have a whirl but don’t say I didn’t warn you- its like crack.

Here is the amusing proof of my cancellation and my first taste of freedom.

For the Horde!



]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=347 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=344 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=344#comments Thu, 09 Nov 2006 04:04:44 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=344 I just completed the latest Need iteration, Need for speed:Carbon in less than 24 hours. Thats right, I started at around midnight on Tuesday, the day of my manufacturing exam and finished it at about 6:00 on Wednesday. I didn’t play the whole time, rather the game is actually fairly short. I would put the whole play time at around 8 hours.

Read on for my wrap up review:

Good:

• Same formula as normal, probably based on the same engine as the past few so all of the elements are still there.
• Wingman mode, you can have teammates in races that do things like; crash people out or act as slipstreams. I recommend the scouts because they seem to just go ahead of the pack and win the race for you.
• The opposing sides, choose to be part of the tuners, muscle or exotic car clubs. Essentially Asian, American and Euro sides.
• Audi R8, a super cool car to aspire to. The range of cars is pretty good with some really desirable cars from all gangs.
• Optimize function, makes performance upgrades easy.
• Rails that break so that you can fall off a cliff, stops the pedal to the metal people who don’t brake. Can get annoying if you keep falling off though.
• Cars sound awesome, especially the Mc Merc.

Bad:

• Drift mode is really poor, its stupid and counter intuitive to control and gain points.
• The actual game and storyline is a bit short and plain, there are no surprises. You can go and do all the challenges and crap but unless you have paid for the game, theyre not really worth doing.
• The chick isn’t sexy or hot making cutscenes a chore.
• Autosculpt, custom body parts done wrong.
• Really really long credits, like 10 minutes long.
• Only 3 levels of cars so there is never any time when you are short of money or really looking forward to upgrading.
• The gang/territory races, when you take over a zone you can race a zone race which has like heaps and heaps of cars in it. I found the last 2 very tricky but you don’t have to do them anyway.
• Sometimes if get a phonecall after you have done a race (to meet a wingman) you can’t get out of it or save the game. Annoying for those people who say- just one more race then Ill go do something else.

Ugly:

• You still get head ons with cop cars when coming over crests, the cop chases are no longer part of the integral story or game.
• Cutscenes are non skippable, when the game crashes you have to watch all the bits you just watched again.
• The lifted from console interface, plug in your X360/PS controller because the keyboard just feels wrong, throw away your steering wheel.
• Crashes, they happened, a lot.
• The camera view when you are close to the edge of a cliff, the camera swivels around making it hard to see where your going.

Undecided:

• The canyon races, you have to stay close behind your opponent to gain points then you swap. Probably the most challenging part of the game but it could have been polished a bit better.
• Checkpoint races are way too easy, speedtrap races are pretty hard unless your wingman wins it.

Now I have had my break, I have to study for next week’s exam.

Update:
I played a bit of the challenge part of the game and it seems thats where a LOT of the game content is, I saw koeniggsegg (sp?) in the credits when i finished the career but didn’t remember actually seeing one. Turns out there are some cool cars that you can unlock. I unlocked the coolest of them all:



]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=344 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=343 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=343#comments Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:24:54 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=343 Paying for SMSes is for chumps. Read on.
Now. This site that I am about to give you. Is the worst site on the internet. Its slow, its got blogs, its got profiles. Its like myspace but worse.

However, this is all just frivolity and if you ignore all of it you are left with one of the better things the internet has to offer.

Free smses. Yes, there are actually no catches here, just the poorly designed site.

So here, go to this site. Thank me later for all the phone credit you save.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=343 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=342 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=342#comments Fri, 03 Nov 2006 01:57:02 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=342 I ordered some Ni-Mh Batteries off eBay…



Thats 50 of them, obviously I don’t need 50 batteries- If you want some. If you want some email me and come and pick them up sometime.
Prolink Branded
2500mah – 1.2V
Ni-Mh Rechargeable
$2.80ea

I haven’t had a chance to test them yet but I have 2 on the charger now (I think that my NiMH charger is possibly busted but we will see).

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=342 2 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=338 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=338#comments Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:44:49 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=338 My sister’s iPod mini wasn’t working and its out of warranty so I decided to take it apart.



Generally you can replace the batteries in these things to revive them so I think Ill give that a shot. However, a bonus that I knew about but had forgotten about is the goldmine of a CF Microdrive (bottom right in photo). Plugging this into my memory card reader gives me a pretty easy 6gig of portable storage. Thats tasty and cool. It worked like a charm, just like plugging the iPod in via usb. Unfortunately it does not work with my camera or PDA which is a disappointment because I had some big visions of a portable movie player, oh well.

Ill get a new battery and pop it in, see if it fixes the problems but I think that the 6gb microdrive would be worth as much as the whole iPod in value anyway.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=338 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=335 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=335#comments Sun, 29 Oct 2006 12:40:52 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=335 Sorry to all of you IE users, I didn’t realize that the page layout had boned up with the use of my huge but wonderful images. It should be fine now.

The other alternative is to just suck in your pride and get Firefox v2. Its pretty good and with its help I hope to drop the amount of spelling errors by a significant margin. Many people have been singing its praises however its far from perfect.

Heres why:

The tabs- as soon as you go off the screen it gets too confusing to look after all of them

The language of the spell checker- Everyone spells like Americans

The fact that mine still trys to update from RC2 every time it loads- Im also too afraid to reinstall it in case I lose my bookmarks/preferences

The duller than average default buttons

In fact, I love Firefox but I almost think that its not quite as good as the latest version of Opera. Stay tuned more to come.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=335 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=334 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=334#comments Sun, 29 Oct 2006 12:28:39 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=334 I hate to put MORE uni stuff up. Seems like all there is lately but here it is:



The Tuk Tuk. If anyone wants a read of our 160 page report on everything about it then put your email in the comments.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=334 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=324 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=324#comments Mon, 23 Oct 2006 04:55:22 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=324 Made with only 4 parts (only 2 of which are to be manufactured) with super high DFM and DFA ratings I give you my manufacturing assignment group’s pen:

Rendered in 3DS Max, model in Solid Edge v18



]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=324 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=322 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=322#comments Thu, 12 Oct 2006 01:58:38 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=322 With significant investment in biofuel the questionability of it as a sustainable alternative fuel should be addressed. Compared to traditional petrochemical fuels biofuels have relatively low energy returns as well as only marginal emission reductions. Biofuels also require significant expanses of fertile land to grow sufficient crops for processing, reducing the capability for food and destroying the environment. Alternatives exist that not only have minimal emissions but are also more sustainable.

Biofuels are produced from living organisms, predominantly plants. Primary biofuels include ethanol (made from plant sugars), cellulosic ethanol (made from wood and other plant fibres) and biofuel (from plant-derived fats and oils). The most common source plants for ethanol are sugarcane, sugar beets and grains such as corn, wheat and barley. Australia is particularly good at growing wheat and other grains, however the energy return in conversion to biofuel is small. Wheat yields an energy return of around 1.3:1 (Pimentel, 2005) (30% more energy is returned on use than was invested in growing and processing). This can be compared to the return on gasoline which is around 30:1.

The best current biofuel energy returns are from sugarcane in Brazil and palm oil in Malaysia, both of which are purported to return eight times the energy invested (8:1) (Pimentel, 2005). However, this ratio does not take into account the degradation of fragile tropical soils from intensive yearly cropping, nor how high production will be maintained once petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides become unavailable.

The majority of the fertile land on the planet is already being cultivated to produce food (Dukes, 2001). Large-scale appropriation of crops for fuel will, unavoidably, compete with food production. This year 20% of North American corn crops will be harvested for ethanol production rather than food for humans or feed for livestock (Giampietro, Ulgati and Pimentel, 1997). The grain required to fill the tank of a typical modern large vehicle could feed one person for a year; the grain needed to fill the same tank every two weeks would feed 26 people annually (Ulgiati, 2001). Adopting large scale production will mean that a choice must be made between feeding human beings or our cars.

One alternative to the utilisation of existing grain crops for the production of biofuel is to grow more crops, so as to satiate the needs of both humans and cars. Humans, however, currently utilise 40% of the planet’s photosynthetic productivity while the remaining 5-20 million other species use 60% (Vitousek, Ehrlich and Ehrich, 1986). Expanding current production would result in the destruction of forests and other aspects of the environment, which would result in a solution significantly worse than using fossil fuels.

Considerable investigation has been performed into the emissions released by petrodiesels and biodiesels (the main type of biofuel) comparatively. It has been found that carbon monoxide (CO) emissions were reduced by an average of -11.0% in cars that switched from oil based diesels to biodiesel (USEPA, 2002). Particulate matter emissions were also reduced by an average of -10.1% (USEPA, 2002). Particulate matter is a key contributor to air pollution, however only 10% of this type of pollution is made by humans and does not affect global warming (Chatani, 2004). Carbon monoxide is also not a key contributor to global warming contributing to less than 1% of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide however, is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gases and is also one of the main exhaust gases. Nonetheless, no appreciable difference in carbon dioxide levels were demonstrated between the petrodiesel and biodiesel test cases. In many cases the output of the most harmful of the exhaust gases nitrous oxide (NOx) was found to have increased. Nitrous oxide directly affects asthmatics as well as acting as a catalyst with oxygen to form ozone. Ozone can cause inflammations to the respiratory systems as well as irritations to eyes (Housecroft and Sharpe, 1998). On average the nitrous oxide levels are increased by 2% in the conversion from petrodiesel to biodiesel (USEPA, 2002). With this increase in nitrous oxide and the small decrease in the other gasses released, the environmental savings from combustion of biofuels barely outweigh the environmental cost of mining petrochemicals from the ground.

There are many ways to power our vehicles that don’t involve combustion engines. Electric vehicles for instance can use energy directly from fuel cells or from the power grid. Power from a power station is generated significantly more efficiently than even the most economic car engine can manage which equates to less resources used, and in turn, less emissions (Gribben, 2001). Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity and operate at an efficiency of approximately 60% and produce no by-products other than water (Kordesch and Simader, 1996). It would be most beneficial to take advantage of these minimal emission technologies rather than changing to biofuels that exhibit similar emissions and inefficiencies that current petrochemical fuels experience. While some technologies require development it would be more valuable to invest in these as the longer term environmental sustainability is greater than that of a combustion engine.

Alternatives should be strongly considered before investment is made in the production of biofuel. Biofuels only offer a marginal advantage over petrochemical fuels in emissions and require unrealistic expanses of fertile land to grow. While petrochemical fuels and products have no sustainable future, it may be the best time to consider social and technological change rather than just shifting to a fuel with its own detrimental social, economic and environmental effects.

References

Chatani. (2004), “Carbon Monoxide” in Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis, New York: J, Wiley & Sons.

Dukes, J. (2001), Burning Buried Sunshine: Human Consumption of Ancient Solar Energy, Retrieved from globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf.

Giampietro, Ulgati, & Pimentel. (1997), Feasibility of Large-Scale Biofuel Production, BioScience.

Gribben, C. (2001), Debunking the Myth of EVs and Smokestacks. Retrieved October 10, 2006 from http://www.electroauto.com: http://www.electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml.

Housecroft, & Sharpe. (1998), Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics – From Air Pollution to Climate Change, New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Kordesch, k., & Simader, G. (1996), Fuel cells and their applications, New York: VCH.

Pimentel, D. (2005), Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower, Natural Resources Research.

Ulgiati, S. (2001), A Comprehensive Energy and Economic Assessment of Biofuels: When” Green” Is Not Enough, Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences.

USEPA. (2002), A Comprehensive Analysis of Biodiesel Impacts on Exhaust Emissions. Assessment and Standards Division, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Vitousek, P., Ehrlich, P. R., & Ehrich, A. H. (1986), Human Appropriation of the Products of Photosynthesis, London, Dire & Leeds.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=322 2 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=320 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=320#comments Sat, 07 Oct 2006 06:03:02 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=320 I did have a huge writeup on how good Ben Folds and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra was but unfortunately due to a brief wifi outage I lost it and all of the interesting anecdotes such as:
• Getting told off by a security person, during the solo in ‘philosophy’. (I was sitting in the middle of the row)
• Being the guy who yelled out “Rock this bitch”
• Getting Folds souvenirs such as his water bottle and the set list which the stage manager denied the existence of.

All in all it was an amazing show if not the best performance I have ever seen. I seriously felt overwhelmed during many of the songs to the point that I was worried that my heartbeat might have been shaking the chairs.

I can’t stress enough and I doubt anyone would fathom from these words- just how good it was and just how much I enjoyed it.

Photos now








]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=320 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=309 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=309#comments Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:50:17 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=309 Last week we went to see the Whitlams live at the gov.

It was great, here are some pictures.



For the 4th or 5th song (of what seemed like hundreds) they played a breakbeat version of “Fall for You”. Laying in bed this morning I decided I really liked it so I mixed up a version.

So here you have Dj Hype vs The Whitlams by awam

awam – Fall for You (d&b mix).mp3 – VBR MP3 – 3.44MB

Now drum and bass/breakbeat isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I think this turned out pretty well so download it and tell me what you think.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=309 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=302 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=302#comments Sun, 10 Sep 2006 05:28:01 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=302 It was always my intention to follow up my phone post with some detailing the usefulness and importance of some of the functions however Lump’s recent comment has prompted me to write this one now.

One of the forces that persueded me to get a new “device” was that its too hard to carry around and maintain the information on too many devices. Now that my pda has retired to not much more than a speedo/nav system and bible I thought it was time to converge the phone and the calendar.

Now you all have hopefully read my post on the joys of google calendar. In short, it is great in that it is consistent to whenever you open it on any computer. This is a bit of a problem with my pda because its never directly connected to the internet so it requires a syncing process in order to get the information and as soon as you get it, its already out of date.

The java app: gcalsync, is the savior of the google calendar user in that it enables you to synchronise your phone’s internal calendar with your online google calendar… anywhere.

Using the wonders of gprs and java it just conjures up all of your info through the phone network and pops it in your phone. Better yet, if you add an appointment to your phone then you can upload it to your google calendar!

Truly if you have this connectivity then it is close to impossible to miss an appointment. I cant even start to think how many times better this is than a regular paper diary. In short, a powerful phone is now probably the only device that you will ever need to carry.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=302 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=294 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=294#comments Sat, 09 Sep 2006 04:25:19 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=294 Remeber my v3 Razr? Now that I have got rid of it I can admit that it was pure arse.

The menus were slow, the features were few, the processor was slow, the bluetooth was intermittent, the reception was poor, it frequently dropped calls and on top of all that it made me look like a fashionista.

Thanks to the wonders of eBay I was able to get a pretty good price for the sale of it as it was still a fashionable phone. At the end of the day it was only that, a fashion accessory. It wasnt even as thin as everyone cracked it up to be and the latest version of it, the v3x is like Elvis in his bloated years and I dont like Elvis.



Whenever I buy a piece of tech it usually takes me a long long time to sort out all of the models with cost benefit analysis and comparison charts before I get the one that is coolest to me. Buying my new phone however wasnt that much of a chore because at its price with its feature list.

There is just nothing that is as good as the SonyEricsson k750i.

Im not sure where to start on describing how much of a good phone the k750i actually is but I think admitting that this model is actually discontinued is probably a good place. You see, the k750i is probably at least a year maybe a year and a half old now. Admittedly it was too expensive at the time of release but it was significantly ahead of its time.

To state the point- the Nokia 7233,one of the most recent phones to come out has pretty much exactly the same feature set as the k750i. In fact there are many areas such as the java capability where the k750i is significantly better than the nokia.

I could go on and on forever about the various features that the phone has but I will just stick to the major ones that stand out from the crowd.
The camera – Its hard to believe its a camera phone, the 2mp camera has a half decent lens so it is actually plausible as a actual camera. Its very good in that (similar to the walkman mode) it actually takes on a menu identical to the current issue of sony digital cameras.
(end of post for picture examples)

The menu speed – The most annoying thing about older nokias and my razr was that it was soooo slow to navigate and when you are typing a message you dont have to be typing 3 to 4 words ahead of the screen.

The java power – So many phones have rubbish java vm’s such that when you go to run and old game it shows it in the corner of the screen. This VM can emulate a smaller screen so you never have that trouble. The processor is very quick such that you never see a slow down in game. It also asks you if you want to use sound when you enter a game for the 1st time.

The connectivity – The bluetooth capability is much better than many phones too. It supports the remote control bluetooth profile so you can do things like directly control media player or powerpoint on your computer natively. You can also send games which is more than can be said for the current batch of nokias.

The walkman function – because the k750 uses the same hardware as the w800i walkman phone you can upgrade it (as mine is) which gives you a very much iPod like interface to play your memory card media in. There are dedicated buttons around the phone to let you control the music or video and it all runs very smoothly.

So that covers all the main features of the phone but I think the biggest reason to buy a SonyEricsson isn’t completely in the phones but in the software because it is completely compatible with Floats Mobile Agent which I will cover in another post.
Now I’m not a huge phone guy, at the end of the day as long as it makes a call its ok with me. Id never buy one of those pda phones in other words. I paid $260 for the k750i which is nothing compared to the price of phones that are out at the moment. I took a look at the new nokia from vodaphone and were talking in the vacinity of $600. Thats a rediculous amount to pay for a phone and to all of those who are paying it off in a plan- dont fool yourself, your still paying for it somehow. I sold the v3 for $200 so the whole changeover cost me no more than $60.

So there you go, if your looking for an awesome phone that isnt too expensive and has super duper amounts of functionality then look no further. There is a k800i which is more of the same (bigger screen, faster) but it is way out of the feasible price range. While there isnt acres of brushed aluminium the phone is still very good looking and IMHO as good as the v3 (style wise). With the v3 I always found myself wishing for functions that were never there but with the k750i I am continuously finding more and more functions I never new I needed.

At the end of the day you have to find something that works for you. Admittedly lots of people will find the v3 the phone they have always dreamed of, some people continue to rock those old 3600’s(?) but I highly recommend for value and specs the k750i. I dont think there is a better phone out there that can beat it all things considered including price.

Photos:
Remeber these are all in grueling conditions rather than just showing a heap from bright sunlight that would look good from any camera.
Moderately lit room, no flash, no zoom


Almost pitch black, flash


Overcast, no zoom or flash


Indoors, poor lighting, no flash, one 18″ Schitzel


Same photo as above but 2 hours later and also with flash


Stupidly named shop in the markets, typical ligting and colour

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=294 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=293 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=293#comments Sun, 03 Sep 2006 13:48:34 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=293 You may need VLC to view this

tuktukmovie3.avi

If you dont have VLC you may as well download it anyway. Its probably the best video player out there at the moment. Plays back practically anything and makes watching half downloaded *.avi a diddy.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=293 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=291 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=291#comments Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:18:28 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=291 Enjoy!



]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=291 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=285 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=285#comments Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:54:20 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=285 Next time you are at my place you will be able to see the google lava-lamp that shines upon you as a beacon of my ingenuity. Look upon my google tshirt and know.

http://studenttabletpc.com/2006/08/mindmanager_add-in_contest_winners.html 

I dont know if they knew I was from Australia when they made the competition but it didnt say anything about US only. I was actually only in it for a copy of mindmanager mind map for my mac (whoo dizzying alliteration) so this google swag is a mad bonus.

The thing is that I think google kind-of owes me in a way. The amount of advertising that I have freely given out in the last year is criminal- Now im even trying to get my level 3 project people to use Writely.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=285 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=284 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=284#comments Sun, 27 Aug 2006 07:32:51 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=284 If you read my last post you would know some stuff at least about my current rendering obsession:



Unfortunately this stuff takes FOREVER to process on my lazy 3.2Ghz A64 so what I got instead was a 7.8Ghz supercomputer.

No I didn’t just drop a few thousand (or hundreds of thousands) of clams on a new computer but rather I used a nifty trick that supercomputers have been using for years.

Distributed computing…

There are 3 computers in my house and by dividing my rendering up into many pieces using the handy “backburner” program that is built into 3dsmax I can have each computer work together to create my high resolution renderings for my project.

Supercomputers work by the same principal in that they in most cases are just hundreds of cheap desktop style computers linked together. Seti or United-Devices also do the same thing but instead of over a local network, they use the internet.

Its a fantastic way to get lots of power relitiavely cheaply and is what intel and amd are doing for most of their next gen/current gen chips (dual core).

The problem is that I am now left lusting for even more power, piecing together old parts computers just so they can add an extra 600mhz to the system. If anyone has any spare computer lying around I would love to borrow them and just connect them into the grid as even more processing power.

Unfortuanately though, you cant use all this power in playing everyday games. This kind of system only works when you divide a large task into a few still large pieces that can be calculated independently. The other problem also exists in simply rendering your viewports and the model as you are working on it. While you dont need to see what your working on in super high quality renderings all the time, you do need to rotate and manipulate your wireframe and if you were working on a fully rendered scene it would become very slow. Hence the need for your main computer to be equipped with a high spec graphics card and hence the need for quattro and quad SLI systems. Something that I need and cant achieve by linking together a heap of desktop computers.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=284 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=281 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=281#comments Thu, 24 Aug 2006 04:36:25 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=281 What has been my project lately?

Have a look


Thats a rendering of my group’s current uni project. A 1L Biodiesel TukTuk. No seats or any interior yet, no doors either.
I am really quite new to the whole rendering thing and the above model is only my 2nd full scale model ever. The first that I did last week is this rendering of Stuey/Craigs 300XZ.


Both of these models just have white with black lines as texturing however you can make amazingly realistic textures and lighting. I am amazed at how well these models came out, especially the Z because it is fairly low in polygons.

That is an example using a few spheres with light tracings and advanced materials.

Hopefully when the final TukTuk rendering is finished it will look photorealistic like some of the examples that can be found on www.deviantart.com.au

The program I am conjouring all this with is 3ds Studio Max. Its the same thing that pixar uses to make their movies and the same program that audi uses to make its ads. Its really impressive and the workflow has a really good feel to it. The only problems I am having are that there just isnt enough tactility in my mouse and I would absolutely love a wacom tablet to use it with (or a tabletpc) and rendering takes absolutely forever sometimes. I really need one of those new quadcore intels and a crisp dual-sli gcard combo. It would make the whole rendering experience significantly nicer.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=281 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=277 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=277#comments Mon, 21 Aug 2006 02:04:09 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=277 I am one who likes to work out ways to ‘circimvent’ the system. When it comes to day to day things like paying for parking or bus tickets, you know that I always have something hatching.

Petrol is one of the biggest weekly costs for me and many others in these times of high petrol costs but I think I have acutally worked out a way to get slightly more motion lotion for your clam.

You see, when you fill up normally, the pump in the bowser creates a positive pressure in the hose which makes it flow. The handle has a valve in it (which also has the full tank shutoff) that controls the flow of the fuel being forced down the pipe.

My trick is: When you go to put some petrol in, use the function that allows you to set the amount in dollars of fuel going through.

Set your value (say $5-10). Fill up your tank and when it gets to the limit, keep your hand squeezing the nozzle because the amount limiter shuts off a different valve or the pump further up the line in the bowser so- with a bit of hose lifting and shaking you can get about 500ml extra petrol out of the hose and because you have used the price limiter, it does not cost any more. 500ml doesn’t sound like much but if your only filling up $5 worth then your only getting 3333ml of petrol when the prices are bad. 500ml is close to 20% extra petrol.
Of course, this only works once when you go to the station as if you do it again you have to let the hose fill back up (sucks to be the next guy) but if you fill up $5 a few times in a week then you get ~2L free petrol in a week. If you work that out, thats SIGNIFICANTLY more than you will ever save using those damn dockets or by doing the 5c round down trick. Also if you go by my calculations you can get to uni and back on that amount of petrol.

Unfortunately you do look like a bit of a cheap wanker shaking the hose a bit but if you are ever a bit short of cash then it is definately something to try.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=277 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=276 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=276#comments Sun, 20 Aug 2006 02:04:07 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=276 I dont know how many people caught David Tench tonight on tv the other night but it was ruddy awful.There are shows that are bad but this was on a completely different level. Unfortunately I downloaded it and was watching it in bed and I actually got up and turned it off, going from the warmth of my sheets to the harsh coldness of the room.

For those of you who havent seen it, its actually a late night show like letterman or leno but because Australia doesn’t have any late night show type personalities it uses a computer animated character. Unfortunately the character is also proportioned like an american late night show host.
Because the character is animated it has a limited range of responces when talking to its non animated live guests and the dialouge that it does have is very painful.

The material of the show is significantly less than that of even rove. I would not even force my worst enemy to watch this program.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=276 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=258 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=258#comments Mon, 07 Aug 2006 09:00:40 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=258 Anybody who really knows me will know that I am THE best procrastinator ever. Those who dont know me would probably agree if they noticed that (the now defunct) PlanetLAN website recieved a major upgrade before the semester 2 1st year exams or if they saw the outstanding number of suplementary exams that I have taken.

Last semester was different though. Not a single sup. How did I manage that? Click more to find out.

Some people will suggest that the thought of not being able to go to the snow if I had supps was the motivation but I dont think so. I attribute my relative success to post it notes.

You see, procrastination is an impulsive thing. You think “Man, I feel like redesigning my blog”. Thats a bad move obviously as it would take a while however it is a great idea for your free time. Its the kind of thing that you will forget about when it does come to holidays too, the just the kind of thing you need on an unproductive tuesday afternoond of a holiday.

The trick is to capture the essence of procrastination. When you get the urge, write it on down. Put all the details on the post it note. No matter how many details you write on the post it note its definately going to be less than performing the whole impulsive task. Once you have written the task down, stick it on a to-do board or wall near you and get back to work.

This method works for big long term as well as short term tasks. If you put things like “Watch mythbusters” on there you can make sure that your break periods are as productive as possible too. Remeber that a break is a break and at the end of it, if there is anything you further feel like doing- write a post it for it.

I feel that if this method of anti-procrastination works for me, the worst procrastinator in the world then it should at least work a little bit for all the other procrastinators out there. I actually ended up with quite a few- like 30-40 little post its of things to do and topics to blog about at the end of the exam period. Things that I probably would have done otherwise if I hadn’t written them down on paper.

Best of luck for this semester everybody and I hope this method works as well for you as it did for me.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=258 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=260 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=260#comments Sat, 05 Aug 2006 14:02:14 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=260 I know you must think that I work part time at google or something but this is really something worth hearing about.Google Calendar

Google calendar does not look like much at first glance. The reasons why you would use it over any other calendar are not immediately aparent. I only heard about it on a engadget podcast and even after hearing the reliable sources from there praising it, it was still hard to understand the fuss.

You see, google R&D the hell out of something before it is launched so they know that for this to be good it has to take calendars to the next level. Im not saying that its going to do make your breakfast in bed or anything but I do think that it makes sorting out calendars a lot easier.

The best place to start is the basics. Its on the web. Lots of ajax code holding it all together, making it run like an app on your computer. You can access your calendar’s feeds through many day to day programs including iCal (mac) and the upcoming Office 12/2007. What does that mean aready? It means that without any effort you can have a calendar that is synchronised with any system you use. Thats a hefty leap from the troubles of syncing between systems and all that junk.

The next best feature is that you can overlay as many different calendars on the page as you want. You may have more then one, one for uni, one for private. Show hide what you wish. Then you have calendars that other people have made. Accessable from a simple search box you can get pre-made calendars which have the times for the soccer or the F1, there was even an Adelaide Uni Exam timetable calendar that somebody had made for last semester. Naturally there is a public holiday calendar for Australia there also.

Sharing calendars is the last thing that rounds it all up. You can share various permissions with your friends/colleuges/relations on your calendars so that they can see the details or tell when you have something or you can fully share a calendar such that you can both edit the dates on it. I for example, have 3 calendars, one for me (uni, work, etc), one for Em and me (going out/family doos) and em has one. This way we can organise dates for things easily and without conflict.

I really do recommend giving Google Calendar a go, you can even set alarms to pop up on the screen

You can see the busy/free details of my calendar using


Or simply jut see a html version!

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=260 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=275 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=275#comments Sat, 05 Aug 2006 05:59:55 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=275 I have always felt that I was alone in my enjoyment of browsing through the rediculous range at Amazon.com. I really do enjoy clicking around and imagining owning some of the more rediculous items.

I saw this a while ago thanks to the Stumbler thing but obviously the craze has grown since and especially since it got BoingBoinged. Its a 128-ounce jug of Tuscan Grade A Milk that people have been writing VERY interesting reviews about. Some of them are very creative so have a look and have a shot at writing your own.



“One of the insurmountable obstacles in my life has been how to get a gallon of Tuscan Whole Milk from Gristedes back to my apartment without finishing it first. Up until now it was necessary to buy a second gallon. Amazon has changed all that. Now I can get my Tuscan Whole Milk at my apartment in a sealed cardboard box that will protect it at least as far as the elevator. From that point the “No Milk Guzzling” sign in the elevator holds me back. In the short walk to my apartment door I may down a pint or two but for the most part the gallon stays intact. This has changed my life immeasurably for the better.”

“I had a problem where my roof was leaking. I poured some Tuscan Whole Milk over it to seal it up and it just flowed right into the hole and didn’t do anything. I now have milk constantly dripping down from the ceiling and it has stained the drywall as well. The milk trapped in the ceiling is now rancid and smells horrible. It has also induced a pest infestation problem. The pest control company won’t deal with it because of the odor is unbearable in the house. My wife and children are now leaving me as well. This product has ruined my life. Do not buy this product, I suggest some roof caulking or tar instead.”

“At first I was struck with despair when my cat got into my gallon of Tuscan whole milk, but what was once consternation quickly turned to joy as seconds later my cat became Halle Berry dressed in a black leather cat outfit. I cannot thank the creators of Tuscan whole milk and Gristedes Supermarkets of New York for the limitless pleasure which ensued.”

“Her rescuer opened a cabinet door and took out two mugs. “Here. you can put water in the coffee pot. There’s Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz in the fridge if you need it. Sugar’s on the table. Spoons are in here,” he nodded as he pulled out a drawer for her.

Mikela poured water into the top of the coffeemaker and slid the cover back on. She watched as the steaming brown liquid filled up the pot. Standing at the counter next to this handsome man, Mikela was completely at ease, adding milk and sugar to her mug, acting as if she’d lived there all her life! He picked up the coffee pot and filled both mugs. Guiding her with his free hand lightly on her elbow, he directed her toward the kitchen table.

The beautiful dogs circled a time or two, and then lay down on a huge cushion in a corner behind the table, eyes and ears ever watchful, ever alert. Mikela sat with elbows on the table, cradling her mug in both hands and took a long drink. She could feel the heat of the coffee warm her from the inside out as she swallowed. It felt so good to be warm again.”

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=275 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=272 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=272#comments Sat, 05 Aug 2006 00:02:35 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=272 The general concensus was that it was great but needed a few minor tweaks. When I was making it, I had to keep my speakers down because it was quite late at night and hence didn’t pick up any of that low frequency warbling that anybody with their bass boosted will hear. This latest version has hopefully fixed that.

I give you…

Gnarles Barkley vs RJD2 (version 2 Improved!)

awam – Gnarlswriter.mp3
3.4MB – VBR mp3

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=272 2 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=269 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=269#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 03:44:27 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=269 You may want to know what this is all about…

Buy my phone :
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=018&item=280014216670&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1





]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=269 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=262 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=262#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 02:13:33 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=262 Every now and then a song comes along that really hits your groove. ‘Greenskeepers – Lotion’ was such a song and I figured it would go well as a club mix. Enjoy my latest mix, try and guess the song I mixed it with.

Greenskeepers – Lotion (awam club remix).mp3
4.4MB – VBR mp3

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=262 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=259 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=259#comments Wed, 02 Aug 2006 13:36:36 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=259 Some of the most impressive applications that I have been using lately have come out of Google. Its not supprising that they produce such high quality apps because they are good at their R&D but this post isnt about the company no matter how much of a pedestal it is on.

The most impressive of the applications that I have been using has to be Picasa. In short, everyone who has a digitial camera should have this program because there simply is not a better way to organise, label and touch up photos in existance at the moment. The software makes so much sense and runs so smoothly that it leaves you wondering why there are not more programs like it.

I dont want to talk about the features because of two reasons, firstly, they are all pretty self explanatory and secondly, you wouldnt believe how good the program is unless you use it for yourself.

What I really want is a program like Picasa which does my music. It seems easy enough from where Im sitting and one project called songbird came very close. Songbird (apart from being way to arty farty) had the fundemental flaw of being based on Firefox of all things! My problem is that iTunes sucks and Winamp is just way too slow with 30,000 songs. Winamp is such a dissapointment, two years ago you would have thought they would never die, now it sits there playing your music like an fat aging rocker.

I just want a music player that is lightweight, fast, stable and clean. I almost feel like coding something myself except it would turn out crap. It doesnt seem like too much to ask but its so hard to find these days.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=259 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=256 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=256#comments Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:50:31 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=256 …Of WarcraftWorld of Warcraft is undoubtedly the best game that I have ever played. So much so that I fork out $20 a month to play it. Its huge, its stunning and has a complexity that you wouldn’t believe unless you see if for yourself. Infact, I think the whole game is very much like that, I didn’t fully get what it was about until about halfway through my trial account. Its really about social interaction funnily enough.

Its amazing, the amount of life like aspects that have been crammed into the game. Unfortunately all of the undesireable things have also been crammed in which brings me to the most annoying thing in the game.

Most people would say the most annoying thing is when a level 60 character comes and kills you at level 20. Yes, its annoying but its sort of fair enough in that the areas are disputed and you cant really complain because they ARE the enemy. Also, if it really annoys you THAT much then you can always go and join a Normal server in which you lose this dynamic. I think this gives the game a good quality because it means you always have to watch your back.

The most annoying thing isn’t from the enemy. Its from your own side. It is the idiots.

I was just in Hillsbrad and needed to kill a certiain guy to get a drop. This group of two ‘idiots’ decided to camp by the guy I needed to kill and kill him as soon as he spawned- JUST TO ANNOY ME! Yep, apart from basic cloth drops I couldn’t find any other reason why they would do it. They laughed at me when I asked for an invite and taunted me when I told them what they were. Its unfortunate that this antisocial behaviour has to come with the good stuff.

It seems like this is the sacrafice that must be made to have a society on any scale, even in a mere computer game.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=256 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=255 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=255#comments Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:06:13 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=255 You’re entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster or some sort of weird mirror. These are just examples. It could also be something much better. Prepare to enter The Scary Door.

I hope everyone likes the new page. I felt everything needed a bit of a change. There are still a few tweaks to be done to make everything look a bit cleaner.

Expect a few new posts over the next week including topics such as “how to not procrastinate”, “dang my timetable stinks” and “my trip to the icefields”.

Until then I will leave you with nothing but the new page.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=255 3 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=254 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=254#comments Sat, 08 Jul 2006 08:41:13 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=254 For anyone who has been following my USB Memory Stick story, here is another interesting chapter.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/06/lexar-recalling-66-000-defective-jumpdrives/

Turns out they are being recalled for becoming excessively hot. Luckily mine is one of the safe serial numbers however it puts a dampener on the whole cheap usb drive thing.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=254 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=203 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=203#comments Mon, 03 Jul 2006 04:32:47 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=203 When im with customers they are always asking me: What virus/firewall software do YOU use?

This is usually when they call me up because their $80 copy of Norton Systemworks 2006 failed to update the subscription after being installed for a week.

My choices:

Antivirus – Symantec Antivirus Corporate (Standalone Install) 10
It uses a small 5 meg of system resources, doesnt require a subscription but still uses the latest Norton virus definitions and works well. Too many virus checkers (im looking at you systemworks) do things that you really dont want them to. Slow and combersome GUIs are not things I want in my system level programs. This software is probably 3 years old now but it is so much better than anything on the market at the moment except for perhaps AVG free which I do give my props to for being a good free product.
Firewall – Sygate Personal Firewall Pro 5.6
Using only a few more resources than the antivirus while giving full control of the firewall settings. Stops crap from getting through but still lets you play WOW. Also gives nice graphs of usage. People will argue forever that Zonealarm is better. Next time I need something to consume 50meg of ram and crash when I start a p2p program I will load it on. Its rubbish.

Im sure there are a lot of them out there that are essentially ineffective. Also im sure there are an equal amount of computers out there that are essentially unprotected because the user doesnt know anything about security. I find many customers when faced with a security/firewall warning (the ones where it asks if you should allow access) will just click accept/allow/let through because thats what “just lets things work” most of the time. Hence if a trojan or virus came through they wouldnt know the difference especially if the programmer had cunningly named his virus “Windows_files.exe”.

This is part of the problem that Microsoft is going to have with Vista when it is finally released. Like OSX and many versions of Linux, it requires a password for you to change system settings and files. This is excelent for anyone who has a tight lockdown of the system but even I have the tendency to get complacent after a while and simply enter the password whenever prompted. This is what 90+% of the users will do from day 1 and hence there is no solution for security there. I dont really have the answer right now but if Microsoft developed a tighter, security hole free operating system from the start we wouldn’t have as many problems. Thats obviously not going to happen so until then, stay smart and dont open that email that says “3089472iunbdlfs_8n43.exe”.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=203 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=253 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=253#comments Sat, 01 Jul 2006 07:22:12 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=253 Next time you find yourself way ahead in an exam flip over the work book and read the exam policy however for some extra fun replace the work examination with extermination.
]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=253 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=252 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=252#comments Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:48:07 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=252 50,000… Its one of those numbers you use to exaggerate something. This number, in this case is no exaduration.

It is, the number of hits this site has had in the last year.

Acutally it really annoys me when people boast about how many hits their site gets. Its definately the most impressive of statistics in that it is the highest of the numbers that can be quantified. However, what it actually means varies greatly from website to website.

A hit: any request for a file from a server.

Translation: Loading a page is a hit, loading an image is a hit, loading another page on the same site will be another hit and probably another hit again for the same banner image.

Amazingly, this site only yields 2 hits per normal page (the page and the banner) which is astoundingly simple but in the case of something like www.tomshardware.com or www.ninemsn.com.au it is likely that there are more than 50 elements that need to be loaded from the server and hence 50 elements for every page you visit. This means that it can be pretty easy to rack up hits if you have a complex page. I could have 100k hits right now if I had 2 more pictures on every page.

The next problem is not human, its the bots. Googlebot im looking at you. Bots quickly index your site by loading every page and storing it in their directory. This racks up hits like anything. MsnBot is probably my most eager reader but you have to let these things rape your site otherwise you dont get anybody coming except your close friends.

So is the popularity of the page- the number of hits divided by the hits per page. No, firstly there is RSS feeds which mean that it is only one hit to get all of the content. Secondly people may visit and look at multiple pages. Both of these things and more throw off the hits value such that it is completely incomparable between websites.

Luckily, my server has some advanced web analysis software built into it which can tell me everything from where you are all visiting from to what browser your using. Most of this stuff is pretty boring and trivial but some things can be lifted from it.

The amount of bandwidth used in the last year: slightly over 1Gb which is quite supprising considering the banner is like 20kb and the page is like 2kb. Turns out most of the bandwidth went to downloading songs and stuff I put on.

The actual amount of unique visitors: 15,763. This only includes people that stay for more than 2 secs and does not include visiting multiple pages or bots. Thats actual people, actually checking the site.
The actual amount of pages loaded: 30,603.

And just for the hell of it, here is a list of trivial stats:

Statistic: Last Year – Now
Visits per day: 14 – 85
Hits per day: 26 – 349 (due to more pictures on the site)
Pages per day: 18 – 145

May 2006
Most popular day – Tuesday
Most popular locale – US (by a significant amount)
Most popular bot – MsnBot (kicks googlebot 2:1)
Most popular OS – Windows 78%
Most popular search phrase – “segweigh”
9.7% of you have me in your favourites
Most popular browser – Firefox 44.8% (IE 29.4%, Opera 4.3%)
Spam comments – ~300 in a month

Also, sorry for the recent downtime anybody who was looking for a BlogSloth hit. Permissions problem that was sorted out by my great hosts.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=252 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=242 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=242#comments Sun, 25 Jun 2006 04:42:03 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=242 I decided to put a few of my drawings from my sketchbook online before I put it in my shelf. You can really see the progression (they are ordered newest to oldest). I know many of them are impossible and some defy various physical laws but I still have some favourites in there and I’m not trying or pretending to be the greatest artist.

Here are some of my favourites:




Many more after the jump There are even more still in the sketchbook (every page is filled out).


Which is your fave?

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=242 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=251 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=251#comments Sun, 18 Jun 2006 04:53:59 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=251 Matchbox thumbdrive…


…full size of the red heads chick after the jump

 

When the plug is pushed all the way in the back end is flush with the end of the box.


Pushing the other end in as far as it will go extends the plug of the USB drive from the other end of the box.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=251 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=244 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=244#comments Sat, 17 Jun 2006 01:56:35 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=244 Well I made my new USB drive into something different.



The Smirnoff Red Label USB Drive.

More photos after the jump.

It fit supprisingly well into the lid and I cut wedges in the overlapping bit such that it folded in neatly. I didnt take any other photos but its about 6mm thick which means its smaller in every dimension then the original case.

I don’t think ill leave it in this case though. Id like something even smaller or even classier.

Edit:

Here are some more photos



]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=244 4 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=209 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=209#comments Fri, 16 Jun 2006 03:10:50 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=209 I can only assume what that warning is supposed to mean. When I worked at maccas they used to have “EGGS WITH CARE” printed on the box. Does that mean that care is something that is included in the eggs? No, they want you to not drop the eggs.Anyway, thats not what I intend to mention in this post. Rather I would like to provide the secrets of keeping precription as well as sunglasses in as good nick as possible.

Glasses are pretty expensive. A set of oakleys can set you back hundreds of dollars and a set of cheap prescription glasses can set you back just as much. You don’t want to know how much my prescription oakleys cost. Hence, you want to hold on to them for as long as possible and care for them the best you can because it only takes one scratch in your zone of vision to muck up a perfectly good set.

First Tip: and what I think is the MOST important tip. Only clean your glasses with a propper cleaning cloth! I have a microfiber cloth that I use for all of my delicates because it will never scratch even if you apply lots of force. Too many people scratch up a perfectly good pair of glasses because they use their shirt. The shirt just does not cut it, it is often as dirty and cotton/polyester is quite an abrasive fiber. Its hard to stick by this rule, much of the time you will be driving your car only to find a smudge on the lens where you picked the pair of glasses out of the case. Its tempting but dont do it. Your better off not wearing the glasses until you find an appropriate cloth then wiping it on your shirt because as soon as you do. Its wasted your expensive set. Microfibre cloths can be purchased from the supermarket for $3 and can be washed in the washing machine. Buy one and cut it up into squares and put them where you may need to wipe your glasses; in the car, by the tv, in your glasses case, etc.
Second Tip: Have a solid glasses case. I lost my first pair of glasses to the trap of those stupid soft cases they sell them to you in. It was in my bag and I stepped on my bag in the dark. Snap. Glasses cases are not expensive and hence its worth getting a solid one if you plan on taking them off.

Third Tip: Avoid leaving them on your head. They fall off and get chipped. They get hair products on them and you have to clean them with your propper cloth. On some people with big heads it stretches the arms.

Fourth Tip: Customise the fit; When you get a pair of glasses from the glasses place. Make sure they fit it properly. They should heat up the plastic or bend the metal to make it fit to your specific head dimensions. I do this myself for the glasses I get because you really cant get a perfect long term fit in <5 mins. They come from the factory in a one size fits all fashion and are made to be adjusted to your various angles. Start with the bridge across the nose, make sure it sits at the right height and the glasses are at the desired angle. Then make sure the arms are coming off at the right angle so that vertically the glasses are straight. Now bend the bit where the arms attach. I like a positive pressure on my head because I dont like to rely on the ear bend (it makes it uncomfortable after a long time). Last of all, heat up and bend the ear bends to the right length.
Make sure you dont bend it too much obviously otherwise you will fatiuge the metal and it will break, also watch for heating it up too much.

If you follow all of these points then you should have a pair of glasses that last a long time.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=209 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=207 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=207#comments Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:49:28 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=207 Well its been only an afternoon since I have had my new USB drive and I have allready broken it open.


Full size images after the jump…

Amazing what they can fit 1gig into these days. I am thinking of making a really cool case to replace the silver spraypainted crappy job that its insides came in. I have seen some lego (laygo/leggo however you pronounce it) ones where they put it in a block of lego. I am thinking something that is still really really small. I havent broken the case so I will leave it in the original for now and just give you an update when I have an idea and decide to do it which im sure I will because im desperate for procrastination right now as you can see from the page that the photo was taken on.





]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=207 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=204 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=204#comments Thu, 15 Jun 2006 05:14:29 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=204 I always like to provide consumer tips to my readers.

Officeworks is selling USB drives with capacity of 1GB for a bargain price of $49.95

Strangely they have their 512MB model priced at $79.95

Unfortunately its not the best designed USB flash drive with the lanyard attachment on the lid end however the brand “Lexar” is reputable and it actually comes with software on it for securing your files so all in all, recommended if you dont have one yet.


]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=204 2 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=202 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=202#comments Fri, 09 Jun 2006 04:14:57 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=202 For those interested I was an extra in Dave Leung’s “Life Impact” add which can be seen here: AU Life Impact
For anyone who takes the time to look, you can barely see me at all so its safe to say I havent sold out at all to the Adelaide Uni propaganda.

Not like this guy anyway..



…who greets me every time I go to the Compuer Science webpage.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=202 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=200 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=200#comments Thu, 08 Jun 2006 15:31:49 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=200 It would take a very stubborn person to disagree with me when I say that every house in Australia should have access to broadband internet.In fact: I would go as far as saying that broadband should be one of the necessities of a house that goes along with things like running water, electricity and a phone line.
Obviously you need the phoneline and electricity before you can get the internet connection but my point still remains. On a long term scale, internet access is just as important as the base needs. You see, what the internet provides is the access to information and the access to knowledge.
Im not going to begin to list the things the average person can do with their internet because obviously you are using the internet right now to read this so you should have some idea.

What im saying is that while electricity and water are crucial over the short term and can not be lived without, the oppourtunity to access the vast quantities of information available on the internet over the long term can not be lived without.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=200 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=199 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=199#comments Tue, 06 Jun 2006 08:53:59 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=199 With all the ~hullabaloo~ about nuclear power in Australia about at the moment its a wonder why the reasons as to why a nuclear power station has been found to be unfeasible in the past are no longer a issue.You see, Australia has big problems when it comes to power in comparison to some of the higher-population-density countries such as in Europe. You see, the problem that we have here is that our population centers are so far apart and it costs a lot to transport power.

Funny thing is, it doesn’t weigh anything and it doesnt require manual labor to load however you would be supprised at how much it costs to get a volt from Adelaide to Sydney.

Firstly you have the cost of the powerlines themselves and the maintinence needed to repair them. Theyre skyscrapers in the sky carrying cables that weigh tonnes. Secondly you have the losses in the cables which over a long distance such as across a state is almost 50%.

Hence, on the face of things, making a big central nuclear powerstation is a bit unfeasible. This is a bit of a shame because nuclear power is relitiavely cheap and produces a lot less pollution then coal and oil power supplies.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=199 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=198 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=198#comments Sun, 04 Jun 2006 05:56:51 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=198 Programs
• Macromedia Studio 5 – Academic Licence
• Front Page 98
• Windows 98 (OEM)
• Windows 98SE (OEM)
• Windows 95 (OEM)

Games

• World of Warcraft
• Need for Speed IISE
• Fantasy Pinball
• Battlefield II
• Plus a few games I got with my video cards

And thats it… I would never pay for anything else and if I had to, I would change to open source.

There may be a few more but I cant remember them, Ill add them if I think of anything.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=198 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=195 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=195#comments Tue, 30 May 2006 15:21:02 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=195 It occured to me on the bus today, that the requirements for a computer system have gone backwards over the past few months.

The truth is that the average computer user doesnt need more than the most modest of computers to run the majority of the programs that are out there. In fact, these days, you can get away with running just one program: your web browser.

You see… These days, with the development of ajax, php and ‘web 2.0′ websites can be wonderfuly complex. You can get wordprocessers, calendars and research tools all from the one program.

The great thing is that no matter where you are or what system you are on- it doesnt even make much difference what web browser you are using- it will always appear the same. This means that you can work on something at uni on the crummy netborked linux boxes then switch to your iBook on the way home and end up on your desktop with the same user experience for each of the systems used.

In many ways, the online versions of the apps are actually better than the local versions. Google Calendar for example is something that i have been absolutely amazed with lately and something I will probably write a seperate post about. It is significantly better than using outlook for example because of many reasons such as not having to sync between computers and shared calendars but the feature most relevant to this post is that Outlook 2007 is such a big program that it would need at least a 2ghz machine with 512mb+ of ram to run smoothly whereas Google Calendar running in Firefox on a minimalistic os such as linux wouldnt need more than a 300mhz processor and a handful of ram.
While a completely online and free system is possibly still a long way off, the advent of the online innovation in software allows us to take a step back and look at how the system manafacturers are pushing to make us buy faster and faster machines that most of us probably dont need.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=195 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=192 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=192#comments Wed, 24 May 2006 11:41:35 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=192 Ghetto foot heating.



Notice how I only block off half of the vent so I still get some heat above the desk.





I estimate K=0.6, elbow joint




You can also see the switch that was previously used to warm my feet.

Please disregard messy desk.

Materials:
2 Plastic garbage bags
~5M of regulation tape

Results:
Foot temperature before heatpipe = 104K
Foot temperature after = toasty

Sorry to the people that use IE, I know this screws up how the frames appear in your browser. You should use firefox or even better, get a RSS feed reader.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=192 2 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=184 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=184#comments Mon, 22 May 2006 03:10:35 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=184 So it turns out that the mission was possible all along!

I didn’t see that one coming as I watched MI:3 this morning as I ate my breakfast in a preliminary procrastinate before my day of hard work.

MI:3 was a bit of a challenge to watch because of two reasons. The 1st is the fact that Tom Cruise is a toss.

The second is that you cant take his role in the third incarnation of MI seriously. I liked the first one, it was confusing and cool. Plenty things to keep it exciting and interesting while he did his secret agent stuff. Now, hes just a secret agent clown, pulling off impossible missions with his impossible missions team. It’s stupid. The movie was entertainting but its in no way a serious action movie.

What it really needs is a good secret agent, forget bond, what they need is Bourne. Bourne was a believeable secret agent. He was less flukey then any of them, he didnt need stupid amounts of tech, he didnt need a team. Too much of what happens in MI:3 is just down to the fact that “Hey, its just cos hes a secret agent”. Stuff like shooting down planes with a submachine gun.

Bond is a stupid secret agent too but ill wait until I see the new one before I pass further judgement.

In other news, turns out my adsl line filter was the wrong way around. Now its fixed my line sync is back up to 12748300/824800 bps. Id love my uploads to be higher but after having it around 400-600kbps for a while its a refreshing relief.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=184 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=182 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=182#comments Sun, 21 May 2006 01:34:13 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=182 Look, I have no idea what FIFA stands for but the whole world cup thing is on/coming up. I dont know.

Either way, I thought I would whip out the latest incarnation of the game: FIFA:2006 Germany World Cup. Currently the worlds #1 selling game. I really liked old Fifa 2003, it wasnt trying to be too crazy, the controls felt really good and things looked ok too. The 2004 onwards series, IMHO, lost it in the visuals and gameplay becoming less fun.

The first thing to notice about the 2006 version is that it was made for a game console. The stupid thing has all of those annoyances that they never take out in the pc version that would be sooooo easy to fix. Saving for instance, you have to click to overwrite your profile, then it tells you to not turn your machine off, then it tells confirms saving. There are seriously 4 dialogs that come up to annoy you. On top of that, the configuration for graphics is limited to your res and a slider for the graphics detail and thats it. Horribly console ish.

Graphics are acceptable. I would have thought that they would have come a lot further in the past years that we wouldn’t have things like glossy players or 2d crowds. I mean… Come on! The players dont look realistic at all, what is so hard about a matte, skin like finish for players faces? The crowds, oh the crowds. They look ok in the replays from the pitch level but if you run to the side of the pitch, the people are just lines of 2d decals stacked one after the other. Also standing in the crowd are officials who are wearing bright jackets who for some reason (probably my res) appear 1.5x the size of the other people standing/sitting around. People say that the trick to making something look realistic is to have flaws and while eveyones faces are blotchy, things like the ground look like textures and the streamers are just over the top.
The new Madden series to come out (which I haven’t ever played) that was displayed at E3 showed a few things that are going to be coming in the next incarnations of these sport games

• Momentum Shift: The developers demonstrated how a character’s body is altered by the speed. They compared current-generation jogging, with players back upright, to the new technology where the athlete lean forward.
• Procedural Awareness: For this demo, the developer created a ball for the character to observe. as he moved the ball in space, the character constantly kept his eyes on the object, even at moments requiring that his head tilt to reach the field of vision — when multiple important objects are on screen, the character wil “cycle” through observation, constantly checking up on the objects. Later, we saw changes in facial contortions to demonstrate the character’s change in mood (“his reaction to the object”) and how different emotions can be attached to multiple objects, the character’s mood reflecting whichever object currently catches his attention.
• Foot Planting: This is an issue we have still seen in many high-profile titles (e.g. Oblivion): a character will run, but his legs move slower and faster than the actual pace of the character, given the impression that these characters are somehow gliding across the map; this technology aims to fix that.
• Responsiveness: The idea behind this feature is that every animation can be stopped at any moment and shift fluidly to another motion (current generation technology, according to EA, requires that a character must finish each animation before shifting to another). For example, say a football is running to the left and then wants to juke right, changes his mind, and does a full on sprint straight down the field. In what the developer found (and demonstrated), characters using this model actually responded and accomplished their task up to 25% faster.
• Accurate Positioning: Current-generation points characters in only 8 directions; the demonstration shows that your character can turn in any degree of rotation.

All of these things are stuff that should have been implemented ages ago. While FIFA:2006 is quite fun and will be good to play over the World Cup Season, it just isnt realistic. I will definately be looking forward to these sport games in a few years time when they have implemented all of these little tweaks and we wiill finally have something that looks and feels realistic.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=182 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=180 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=180#comments Fri, 19 May 2006 00:18:09 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=180 As I sat in the comp science labs yesterday having a mahjong race with anz I noticed a different kind of race going on behind me… a Wikipedia Race.

Now now that I have heard of it it seems obvious. What you do is nominate two seemingly unrelated topics then have a race with another person to see who can get from the first topic to the second simply by clicking the hyperlinks in the wikipedia articles. Its that simple!

The great thing about it is that pretty much every sinlge article is related to another article in some way. In fact, I did some experimenting and it really does work well. You can choose the most obscure things and after enough clicking you will eventually get there. The other good thing is that there can be skill involved, one race the people sitting behind me did was from batteries to snakes as in the lollies. One person went looking for the animal snakes and one went down the confectionary path. The confectionary dude won and I will only call it skill.

Other rules I remebered is that you cant click back so that when you are done you can retrace your steps. Id love to see someone make a wikipedia race frontend to time and record the steps. Im sure it would be possible.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=180 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=183 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=183#comments Wed, 17 May 2006 02:29:45 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=183 If anyone is interested in following the construction of my Dad’s 26′ boat you can look at the flikr album

here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/96136643@N00/sets/72057594137119472/

I am really quite impressed with the interface of flickr. I was never impressed by livejournal or any of those other blogging ones as there were always so many amazing bomebrew alternatives but flickr does extremely well so much so that I doubt I could do better.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=183 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=181 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=181#comments Wed, 17 May 2006 01:06:14 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=181 Well it seems that the gov’t has finally got around to changing our copyright laws to make it legal to use VCRs.

Yes thats right, until this new copyright reform goes through it is still illegal to use your VCR. The only problem is… the new laws will only allow people to watch their recorded program once. Thats all, just watch it then destroy your copy. I dont know whether this is really a great step forward because I’m sure there are lots of footy fans out there who would be quite mad if you tried to tell them they couldnt watch their league’s winning grand final again.

However, its not all bad. You will now be able to formatshift. This means that its going to be ok to take cds and rip them and put them on your ipod. You can let your friends listen to your music too but you cant give it to them. Fair enough but I doubt that anybody will heed that advice. For those poeple who do decide to download some files, some more measures have been introduced to catch you. What these are- Who knows? the details are a bit vauge but I can tell you that I doubt its going to be anything too concerning.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=181 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=179 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=179#comments Wed, 10 May 2006 09:34:12 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=179 Especially this recent story line

http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=04052006

If you like that then I suggest you go back and read the ~Great Outdoor Fight~ storyline.

Also… Sorry I have not updated for so long. I have no excuses.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=179 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=177 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=177#comments Tue, 11 Apr 2006 23:49:57 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=177 I havent written a music related post for a while which is why when I listened to the most recent contribution from our favourite local success story, The Hilltop Hoods. I felt I had to share my thought with you, my reader(s).

The album “The Hard Road” is named parallel to the 3rd track “The Hard Road” which is likely the most popular song on the album but thankfully it isnt the only good song. I would never name my album after one of the songs on it, it seems to be very limiting in what it says about the album. I personally would choose something witty, I’m not going to suggest anything now but if you have any good ideas comment them.

Anyway…The album kicks off with a little bit of an intro and something that sounds like it was recorded live in concert but promtly turns into the intro song “Recapturing the Vibe” which is a really good song to start with as it has some good beats and an addictive little chorus bit. The song also reappears at the end as an outro which I also think works very well.

The next song is “Clown Prince” which of course is another one of those songs that many people love because it has a great beat and addictive lyrics. This song is also refered to as the “its your round” song. It also starts with a little bit of “improv” chat. These are common throught many of the songs, there are also a few little answering machine messages which I am a bit impartial for. It mixes up the cd a bit but if you listen through it from start to finish a few times then it gets a bit old after a while.

The Hard Road, track 3, is likely to be my favourite song on the cd. Its a bit “Nosebleed Section” esque with the higher pitched singing mixed in. Thankfully, the ‘tops can pull it off well and unlike Akon with ‘lonely’ it does not make me cringe. Seriously- I cringed just typing the name of the song, it seriously makes me ill. Admittedly there are a few nosebleed esque songs on the album but I cant decide whether I blame them because when your on a good thing, its best to stick with it.

Stopping all stations – the 4th track is the “The Sentinel” of the cd. Its good although a bit scary. Im glad they did another sentinel type track although im sure by the nature of this song we will probably never hear it in clubs like you might have the sentinel. There probably are not too many house/club type songs on the cd apart from mabey clown princ- then again songs always become malformed and end up in clubs in strange ways.

The next song is just a lot of adjectives on a beat track featuring Omni which is pretty average, it draws on a bit but is bareable if you are doing a cd long listen. The nect notable song is the song “What a great night” which is slower in tempo to most of the selection but has some good beats and singable lyrics.

The rest of the cd works nicely, there are some more good songs and another 2 ‘feat’ sos, the first of which is a bit average. Notable songsfrom this half are “City of Light” and “Monsters Ball”. Both of which are good songs.

I recommend you get this album and put it on your iPods for a while. If you enjoy it only a fraction of what I am then you will be quite satisfied.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=177 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=176 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=176#comments Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:25:44 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=176 Of course im not the kind of person who will rave about saving the environment and I dont usually care for those conspiracy theories about events that will be changing our world. However, I do know these two things as facts.

1) We (as a world) are currently taking as much oil out of the ground as is possible and because there just isnt enough current world supply will begin to taper off from 2007 to around 2040 when there will be very little oil left.

2) The world with many large developing nations are going to be demanding more petroleum products as time goes on.

What does that mean for us? Well, some say that petrol prices are going to hit 4 times what they are now within 5 years. Some people say that airline travel is going to be abandoned within 7 years because of the fact that it will be so costly in fuel that only the elite will be able to afford it.

You can take these predictions to heart or you can take them with a grain of salt. Personally I think they might be on the money but im not awfully worried as hopefully new technologies will come before the situation gets too grim. Until then though, I think we should have a look at where we are actually wasting our current supplies.

You see, oil gets broken down into a lot of suff, lubricants, plastics and motion lotions such as petrol. All of these processes are largely efficient. Their uses are mostly efficient too in most cases. Powerstations are largely efficient, our use of plastics is extremely efficient. Unfortunately one of the least efficient uses of our precious fuel is the average car engine.

The car engine is a bit of a outdated piece of equipment these days. Not a great deal has changed in the thermodynamic cycle of an engine in the past 80 years. Engines are at most 35% efficient and more like 25% in your average commuter wagon. On top of that (continuing with more thermodynamics) the exigy that is wasted in the combustion of petrol is huge. Chemical energy is one of the most pure and useful forms of energy whereas heat is the most crude form of energy and is the form that our engine turns the petrol into before it even starts taking power from it. Aswell as that, the engine actually expels the greatest amount of heat from the exhaust pipe and through the radiator. An engineering lesson aside, why dont people make the internal combustion engine better?

Cost. It would be possible to run the engine at higher temperatures if it was made of modern ceramics however it would just cost way too much and it would have no market penetration at all. People have tried to introduce alternatives like hydrogen but it would be too costly to equip all of the service stations in the country with the things that they would need.

Still the question remains, what are the options. I have seen some impressive designs of 6 cycle engines lately which incorporate a water injection cycle to generate steam (they have been experimenting with this for years). One case actually managed to get several thousand miles to the gallon albiet in a car designed wholly for fuel economy. Other options which may or may not be more valid would be the use of fuel cells. Fuel cells solve our exigy issue by converting our chemical energy into something we can directly use- electricity. The other option would be to go electric completely which may seem the most viable option of all.

Its like I said at the start of the post. Its likely that fuel costs may hit 4x what they are now but by the time they do there will hopefully be a solution as people will always need transport.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=176 1 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=172 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=172#comments Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:31:35 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=172 I hate missing the bus. I always sit at home feeling guilty for missing the lecture I should be at. Sometimes I skip lectures and that slides freely off my concience.

Why did I miss my bus and inherent lecture? Because of the stupid daylight savings mixup.

Now, normally I dont have any issues with daylight savings. All I have to change is my clock radio and everything else changes over automatically. If you dont know, this year they have delayed the daylight savings switch because they didnt want to confuse tourists here for the commonwealth games. It sounds like a reasnoble option except that every piece of technology in this timezone relies on it being on one day.

As a result… My PDA and phone have both changed over leaving my computer (who somehow picked it up) an hour in front while every appointment in my outlook calendar (all my labs and lectures) have moved forward 1 hour. Now my PDA is syncing the wrong appointments and making one hell of a mess.

Thing is, I dont have to rely on my outlook calendar (although it is pretty much what I use everyday). What about those corporate people who rely on an exchange server to synchronise their lives? I have no doubt that this muck up has caused many many people across the nation to become very confused and frustrated. What about airlines that have huge databases of flights operating on schedules no doubt run by a time server that most likely does not know about this change.
This article on BoingBoing although it exadurates the extent of the trouble a bit, shows just the extent that this confusion makes. Time zones are confusing enough and there are no agreed upon daylight saving rules. Canada is going to change its next year and the rest of the world is pretty much just random.
I couldn’t help feel that this all feels very Y2K esque. Not in the way that it plunged us all into darkness but in the way that so much of our lives are based on computers that when something like this happens many people get very confused very quickly.

Needless to say, the people who decided to change the date that daylight savings clicks over- should have thought a bit about the concequences before they decided to make the change.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=172 3 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=171 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=171#comments Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:26:12 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=171 As a treat for you all tonight I am going to take you on a guided tour of my cupboard.



1 – Older books and manuals. The Netscape Communicator 4 book I won from a under 16s web development competition in ‘98, I have never used it but I keep it for sentimental reasons.

2 – My Macromedia Studio user guides. From one of the only pieces of software I have ever purchased. Also one of the first AWAM purchases ever. The Flash and actionscript books have been used extensively and were great value.

3 – Heaps of old floppies containing many dos versions just incase I will need to boot up a really old computer. Everything from Dos4 through Dos 6.1. Also some disks with old assignments and games.
4 – LP cleaning equipment for when I feel like listening to some of the records that are stored on top of the shelf (I sometimes do). Heaps of needle balancing stuff as well as some new needle cartridges that I inherited from my grandfather.

5 – Catalouged old games and files. Stunts, duke 3, halloween harry, the incredible machine. Classics.

6 – Old Hard drives. Smallest: 120MB Samsung, Biggest: 80GB Seagate Medalist. Some of these are bad and dont work for long. One noteworthy one is a Quantum Bigfoot which fits into a CD-ROM sized bay. 7 in total.

7 – Optical Drives/Floppy drives. I recently threw out 5 spare floppy drives and now only keep 3 as backups for customers. There are 2 cdrom drives, one 42X rom and a 8×4x4 burner. There is one old 5 1/2″ floppy drive.

8 – 3xPower supplies. I keep one smaller powersupply in my bag. I dont know why I have 3 of these because I always buy a new one when im putting one into a customers computer. Only one of these is the “newer style” 20 pin plug.

9 – Pda bits and pieces. Here lies a carcass of a Palm3e, I wish I could get it working again because it was a great pda that would still be useful to someone. There are also heaps of port adapters sitting here.

10 – Drive caddy to adapt 3 1/4″ drives to fit 5 1/2″ bays. Home made.

11 – Multi printer switch. Redundant parallel interface.

12 – Here lives 3x keyboards and 3xmice. One of each has been checked out to help fix an old PIII but they are all of different types and plugs. I throw out more keyboards than anything because people seem to think they are of great value. The only value they are to me is the fun i get smashing them on the trailer before I take a load to the dump. The keyboard I use all the time with the PS/2 plug has 2 missing keys but I like it because it has a good click and is light.

13 – CPUs and heatsinks. My collection of cpus lives here. I hope it to be worth a lot of money one day.

14 – Apple iBook parts. Nothing notable except a few brackets and stuff from the innards of my 12″G3.

15 – Powerbricks. I have so many chargers and stuff in here it is amazing. There are about 4 nokia chargers from phones we have had over the years as well as power bricks for every voltage and amperage you can imagine. Many of these have been butchered for a project or two over the years.

16 – ATA cables and those little optical audio ones that connect your CD-ROM to your soundcard that are redundant in anything after Win98. I have no fewer than 12 of them which I should really throw out but they have some sort of stupidness to them that makes me want to accumulate them for commedic value.

17 – Seriel cables

18 – Parallel Cables / montior extensions

19 – Short extension cables / ITC plugs / kettle plugs

20 – Networking equipment, wireless cards, network cards, aeriels, network cables

21 – Audio visual equipment, video cards, tv tuners, soundcards.

22 – 2xPII and motherboard

23 – 2xCompaq 33mhz laptops. Heaps of bits from a multitude of projects involving a pair of compaq 12″ notebooks that both had broken screen hinges. These were a labour of love and I spent hours rebuilding them so they worked like a slate-pc and ran Oziexplorer for my car. Some impressive stuff in there that fits into an entire box. Too bad they were so slow tho.

24 – A sun computer system. Stolen from a bin at uni. Never got it to work. Behind the chassis of it you will notice the warhead for a missile of some description. No im not hiding WMD’s, its empty and just something for show which looks pretty cool.

25 – Programming codes for my old SVHS vcr. You use a barcode want to swipe the time and date you want then press a button on the wand and it programmes the VCR. 13% Success rate.

26 – One I forgot, my fans. An assortment of cooling fans 40-120mm.

I hope you enjoyed my cupboard tour, mabey next I will give a tour of my box collection which has even more video cards and motherboards in them. Till then, I better get back to work on my java project. I accidentally just submitted my cheat files as well as my working copy to the submission system so hopefully I can work out a way to cover my tracks.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=171 2 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=169 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=169#comments Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:42:40 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=169
]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=169 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=168 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=168#comments Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:00:59 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=168 If you know me then aparently you qualify for footy tipping:

www.footytips.com.au

and join the “PlanetLAN” team or leauge or whatever

On the same note, people will notice planetlan.awam.com.au has been taken offline. Sorry to all involved but I think we have all moved on. Good times though, good times. I still have it as an offline copy to cherish.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=168 0 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=165 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=165#comments Mon, 20 Mar 2006 03:01:25 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=165 If you haven’t seen the diary cover for the Adelaide University Union diary its a piece of rubbish. Looks like somebody juxtapositioned a few images then scribbled with the mouse.



Click for full detail

This is the cover that I had ready for submission but never got around to submitting. I spose I thought somebody would have made a better one anyway. Now I’m kicking myself.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=165 3 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=161 http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=161#comments Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:43:32 +0000 awam http://blog.awam.com.au/?p=161 “The down side of coming off world of warcraft was that I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful: they reminded me so much of myself I could hardly bear to look at them. Take Sick Boy, for instance, he came off world of warcraft at the same time as me, not because he wanted too, you understand, but just to annoy me, just to show me how easily he could do it, thereby downgrading my own struggle. Sneaky fucker, don’t you think? And when all I wanted to do was lie along and feel sorry for myself, he insisted on telling me once again about his unifying theory of life.”

I saw this on a poster in the uni poster sale a few weeks ago laid out like those other trainspotting posters that you see around. On the topic of WOW addiction, I havent played for over a week now however its not from growing disinterested or anything but more from lack of time and some flu hybrid im currently going through.

]]> http://blog.awam.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=161 0