Hearts and Roses Day
In day care my kid made a cute card with handprints and a picture.
It's cute.
When I say "my kid made", what I really mean is that a nice lady who directs the children's play assembled the pieces with glue after the kids had painted and posed.
It's cute.
Been sucked into the new Battlestar Galactica.
It's obvious they aquired the CGI cinematography from Firefly.
The best part of the 'we pushed a guy out the airlock with a cheap handycam' visuals is that if there's any defects in the computer models, the camera doesn't keep them in focus very long.
I had heard alot of conflicting reports of the series.
Some people thought it was crap, other thought it was awesone, etc.
Alot of people who remember the original series couldn't get over what they did to Starbuck.
Not wanting to pay $60 for a box set of something I hadn't seen, I opted for downloading the first couple episodes from nefarious sources.
After being pulled through the Fanboy Event Horizon by the pilot, I quickly conspired to get the rest of available episodes by whatever means necessary.
I then lost a few gigs from ny HD to SF. :)
Needless to say, I shall be forking over cash for the DVD sets when I can afford them.
I didn't feel as bad about getting the second season until yesterday when I learned that they've already released a half-season box set (greedy buggers!) and the new eps are being sold on the iTunes site.
BSG has pushed me to re-install the Homeworld games.
For anyone who doesn't know, the basic plot line is that you command a fleet of ships through the galaxy looking for your lost home planet after the one you were exiled to is destroyed.
Sound familiar?
The soundtrack of the first game is the clincher.
The sequel doesn't have the soundtrack, the plot is weaker, the ships less fun, but the technical details of the game engine have mostly been hammered out.
I've only been playing HW2 with mods, of course. PDS is my fave.
The battles take longer, and a few squadrons of fighters can't take out a giant capital ship like in the default system.
The true 3d space combat is very very nice.
I get tired of the 2d+1 space combat games out there, where you only go above and below your opponent if you get too close.
Also have been getting back into flight simming.
X-Plane's Mars scenery is apparently on track for an update to higher res modeling.
The result is alot of people putting effort into building planes for Mars conditions.
It's roughly equivalent to flying at 100k feet on Earth, only about a third the gravity.
Jet engines are ok, but propellers work alot better in the thin atmosphere.
There have been a number of helicopters made.
The only point of contention is whether or not we have materials that can take the strain of a 40 foot rotor blade spinning at 10,000 rpm.
I've been following the RepRap blog, and it has been looking good lately.
The guys working on it seem to have realized that building everything out of metal and plastic is too constraining.
The wooden 'Goliath' project is strikingly similar to all the DIY CNC machines you see.
The only concern I have left is the extrusion head.
The Mark II head was a little goofy in places.
I know that for my own needs, an acuracy of 1/16" covers most things, 1/32" is fine work, and anything more acurate is simply icing.
A home rapid prototype lab is the dream of so many people, I'm sure once the RepRap project gets far enough there will be an onslaught of DIY websites selling plans.
Well, gotta go study some and drop a plane from the sky...
It's cute.
When I say "my kid made", what I really mean is that a nice lady who directs the children's play assembled the pieces with glue after the kids had painted and posed.
It's cute.
Been sucked into the new Battlestar Galactica.
It's obvious they aquired the CGI cinematography from Firefly.
The best part of the 'we pushed a guy out the airlock with a cheap handycam' visuals is that if there's any defects in the computer models, the camera doesn't keep them in focus very long.
I had heard alot of conflicting reports of the series.
Some people thought it was crap, other thought it was awesone, etc.
Alot of people who remember the original series couldn't get over what they did to Starbuck.
Not wanting to pay $60 for a box set of something I hadn't seen, I opted for downloading the first couple episodes from nefarious sources.
After being pulled through the Fanboy Event Horizon by the pilot, I quickly conspired to get the rest of available episodes by whatever means necessary.
I then lost a few gigs from ny HD to SF. :)
Needless to say, I shall be forking over cash for the DVD sets when I can afford them.
I didn't feel as bad about getting the second season until yesterday when I learned that they've already released a half-season box set (greedy buggers!) and the new eps are being sold on the iTunes site.
BSG has pushed me to re-install the Homeworld games.
For anyone who doesn't know, the basic plot line is that you command a fleet of ships through the galaxy looking for your lost home planet after the one you were exiled to is destroyed.
Sound familiar?
The soundtrack of the first game is the clincher.
The sequel doesn't have the soundtrack, the plot is weaker, the ships less fun, but the technical details of the game engine have mostly been hammered out.
I've only been playing HW2 with mods, of course. PDS is my fave.
The battles take longer, and a few squadrons of fighters can't take out a giant capital ship like in the default system.
The true 3d space combat is very very nice.
I get tired of the 2d+1 space combat games out there, where you only go above and below your opponent if you get too close.
Also have been getting back into flight simming.
X-Plane's Mars scenery is apparently on track for an update to higher res modeling.
The result is alot of people putting effort into building planes for Mars conditions.
It's roughly equivalent to flying at 100k feet on Earth, only about a third the gravity.
Jet engines are ok, but propellers work alot better in the thin atmosphere.
There have been a number of helicopters made.
The only point of contention is whether or not we have materials that can take the strain of a 40 foot rotor blade spinning at 10,000 rpm.
I've been following the RepRap blog, and it has been looking good lately.
The guys working on it seem to have realized that building everything out of metal and plastic is too constraining.
The wooden 'Goliath' project is strikingly similar to all the DIY CNC machines you see.
The only concern I have left is the extrusion head.
The Mark II head was a little goofy in places.
I know that for my own needs, an acuracy of 1/16" covers most things, 1/32" is fine work, and anything more acurate is simply icing.
A home rapid prototype lab is the dream of so many people, I'm sure once the RepRap project gets far enough there will be an onslaught of DIY websites selling plans.
Well, gotta go study some and drop a plane from the sky...