Tolookah's Journal

3:29pm: Free Ice Cream
For those of you who actually have me on their list, you may enjoy this: Tuesday is free scoop day at ben and jerrys, and wednesday is free scoop day at baskin robbins. they each have their own websites, but im just lazy to write them in.

anyway, enjoy!

1:07pm: not related to much, but does anyone here have an Xbox live name to play me in DDR? I just started my delve into live and have two months before i have to give it money... so yeah, tell me your name live name! Tolookah is mine... duh.

btw, this is not development/project related at all, so to make it project related, i have some cold cathode lights that i get to test when i get back to mke for my ddr pad... there!

3:53pm: I hate kinkos


Edit: ok, maybe i jus thate printing things through kinkos, but for a 12x12 sheet of paper, in color, it would cost me $7.00 ... and that's a little spencive, seeing i would need 9 sheets to complete my pad, and thats like $70 (with tax n stuff rapeage fees given by kinkos)...


so i need a way to make 11.5x11.5 color paper...

8:59am: State of the DDR pad
... so, for those of you who don't know, a solid surface is much different to play on than a rug, and noting that, i smashed(read: utterly destroyed) a button in my system, this causes me to find a more suitable say to do the pad, and well, if all goes well, and what im looking at is the switching mechanism i'm looking at, It'll last about a year before i need to worry about it.

to explain: if max unlimited was all 16th notes on one button, at 300bpm, i would last playing it straight through for just over two weeks (336 hours of 16th notes) and i'll reach the amount of button presses that would get it killed, and assuming noone makes a song to test your stamina where you have to tap your foot for 16th notes at 300bpm, i think i'll be fine. now all i need to do is make sure the system works properly for my application...

*starts mass mailing companies*

/me huggles 10^8

10:03pm:

'nuff said.

well, maybe not enough, because im sure someone will think, "whats so good about a B in dynamite rave" without reading my last few posts, so if you are thinking that, read my last few posts...

8:20am: more undev stuff, ironic this time...
It's kind of ironic, but im a sagittarius, and well, being eaten by the milky way is probably the oddest thing that could happen... *looks around for any of those chocolate bars of devouring (+2)*

10:31pm: Be together.
well, after hours of hard work(and more to come) i finally have results i can post for my ddr pad, they are as follows:

67 perfects, 27 greats, 6 goods, 1 boos and 2 misses.

Song: "be together" on light mode.

my next major landmark will be the moment the arrows are secured and i play my first dynamite rave on it.

*starts to sing with current music*

Edit: played some more songs, but am leaving it's final christening/tests to DR, without the arrows solid in there, its no fun jumping around.

12:06pm: ROFL!!!
ROFL!!!

7:57am: not dev related, but you MUST VOTE!
ok, now that ive caught your attention(i hope) you have to vote on what the WI state quarter will look like, even if you dont care, click the link even for me, and vote on the agriculture quarter, because that cow is cute!


http://www.wdfi.org/newsroom/wi_quarter/default.htm

12:41pm: what do 18 pieces of hyzyd, 8 10.5 in. pieces of steel tubing, 4 10in. pieces of steel tubing, and 4 34.5 in. pieces of steel tubing have in common?

They are all cut to size, waiting to be drilled!

(for those that this didna make sense to, refer to my post about a DDR pad, it's almost done!)
*giggles in giddyness*

(expect at least one more post about the pad today, possibly more...)

12:41pm: EE + DDR + some cash + YellowPages = Me planning out a DDR pad
alright, so as many of you know already, i will make a DDR pad, it will follow playstation controller standards, and eventually, it will light up! My progress is as follows:

Official DDR pads measure out to be approx 36.5 inches wide(possibly 36, as some measurements were by eye), each pushbutton is an 11.5"x11.5" square, with about 1/16" gap between the squares, the trim around the edges goes like this:
Top: 2" (this one seemed pretty obvious to me... why would they use 1 7/8" or 2 1/8").
LeftNRight: 1" (could be 3/4", which would clean up the width of the pad a little).
Bottom: about 6", but really really fudgeable, as all that needs to sit back there is the bar, so i may have to make it a 6.5" edge, just to make my life simple and use a 3'x4' piece on the underside.

the thickness doesn't matter much to me, as material costs monies, but the rear will have two corners cut out (instead of how the double machines have only one per side cut out) to make my life easier when i make a second one(because that's inevitable, really, it is...)

for the top 5 unused squares, i'll be using 1/8" steel, cut at 12"x12", and folded down to hide sharp edges from the barefoot players, these will be supported up by more steel, though that is my major design halt right now(how im going to set up the framework on the inside)

the buttons are a little more interesting how im working them:
I mostly plan on using everyone else's idea for this with some major modifications(mostly the electronics, as an EE would cringe at what they are doing), which will end up using microswitches(courtesy of EECS) in abundance(prolly 4 or 5 per arrow), for the electronics, ill have to take a multimeter to the playstation controller im going to tear apart and see what it actually does when a button is pressed (i dont know where the resistor(s) are, and will basically have to work with what im given *curses silly black microprocessor blob inside the playstation controller* im going to hope to have the arrow sensitivity adjustable, though probably not the easiest thing to do...


Now, the important part for me at least, Pricing:

Steel panels:
option 1: Go to ace hardware, buy a 1'x2' piece of 1/8" steel for about $10 (so i would need 3 of these)
option 2: Order from some place in waukesha and spend 2.90 per 1' square

option two it is.


Acrylics:
Option 1: Go to ace hardware, buy precut 11.5"x11.5"x1/8" Lucite(pretty damn strong) for about 8.99 a sheet, needing 8 per pad. Price? 71.92 plus tax.
Option 2: Order the parts from http://www.plasticmaterial.cc/ for 3.25 a piece at 12x12, cut off the half inch off each side on my own, but instead of lucite, get a polycarbonate sheet(which rated at the site is something you should get for your house in a high crime area) Total cost for two DDR pads(16 sheets) 59.38 including shipping.

Again, i think im going to go with option 2.



Electrical specs of a PS controller:
when a button is pressed, the signal goes to low, there is virtually no current going through (less than .1mA) the high voltage read at 3.507, im guessing it's a 3.5 volt processor inside teh controller.

Electrical Specs im looking towards using:
Simple button pressing, i have these microswitches that seem durable, and i can see if making a mosfet that opens a connection when it's grounded will work, cuz using a relay won't really, seeing it hits ground... it kinda sucks, but i think that's where im going.

6:04pm: Appointment
Today i had an appointment, an appointment with my laptop and a soldering iron. It suprisingly went really well, and my speaker no longer overheats!... if i had any motivation, i would take a picture of the old piece... it honestly broke apart as i pulled it out of the system, its now four pieces and a pile of dust.... yay!

edit: forgot to mention, but while at work, i managed to upload approximately 6gb of anime by lunchtime... didn't end up checking after that :D

6:58am: New Project
alright, you may all sigh now, as im taking up another project, and that's what you should do when i take on another project...

ok, here goes... im greatly disapointed by my sireless router's ability to reach only to the corner of state and marshall, and only to the middle of the garage on the other side, so well... im gonna fix that. in essence, i want to be able to reach the lakefront. when i get back from vacation, i will start this quest to get a superwireless setup, and honestly, it will be really kickass. im also wanting to make it omni directional, such that i could reach vic's apt, as well as the outside of the science building. on a side note, I'm going to talk to Dr. Strangeway about getting the whole science building some fun wireless, with only one access point(which should prove to be kinda fun too, but is not something i see anytime soon, as i wanna be able to keep my DL's going as long as possible, heading to the sci building, and to the lakefront(because that would be cool) ... well, I've already went to the IEEE site about 802.11 networking, the FCC site about Class B devices, and of course, my personal reference which got me to want to do this whole thing... http://seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/LongShots ... now, i wont be doing any of the setups on their page, but i figure that if they are using setups that can get 72 miles in one direction, i could possibly manage almost 1 or 2 onmi for less than $30... but we'll see... *end of new project*

on a side note, i would like to welcome skoop to my friends list, he has an interest in Diku mud mysql and php in common with me... looking at the rest of his interests, he would be a neat magemember(if he wasn't in the Netherlands)

5:35pm: stupid wireless company...
well, after calling the wireless company twice, they sugested what i suggested to them in the first place, that the router is broken in some way... what they didn't suggest is that i open the router(which i took upon myself to do)... and i looked at some things, and how they differed... and changed those things...

well, after about 1 minute inside the router, my computer suddenly made the "im connected you dumbass" sound!... and now im posting my travels on LJ... mostly because im gonna document the fact that if you have the chance to buy a wireless stuffies, don't get SMC brand unless you want to deal with the stupidest customer service you could ever imagine(CCSD scale)

update: about 30-40 minutes later, my connection lost its link quality... meaning the problem is with the antennae... so i get to find a ride to compusa sometime...

11:06am: http://torrentse.cx/index.php?search=mst3k

you mst3k fans, i was playing around on this torrent site and well, decided to do an mst3k search... dunno if this helps you, seeing that when i searched there were no completed UL's... but well, there it is anyways

10:47pm: neat website stuff
neat, on my site, i now have a dynamic avatar, which i can use for forums... at least the ones that dont load the avatars onto their server.

2:51pm: Cosplay:
ok, i will do a masquerade, so i wanna choose some costume ideas that are easier than a large inflateable totoro...

Mao ~ CMB (http://www.axn-asia.com/events/anime-festival2001/new-anime/images/cmb-main.gif )
Hiro ~ L:EB (http://www.lunareb.com/images/characters/Hiro/hiro09.jpg)
Alex ~ L:SS (http://www.lunareb.com/images/characters/Alex/alex04.jpg)
Dragonmaster Alex ~ L:SS (same char as above, different clothing)

Any fun chars from fruits basket
If people convince me, Hibiki Sensei ~Wont tell you from where)

right now, Mao looks the best option, because its pretty simple, and i could wear that for formal occations (minus the arm patch)

Edit: for those that dont know CMB, mao is a superchef, and thats that that arm patch designates... so having one would be cool anyways... imho

2:38pm: seamless updates are always nice
lol, i had this window upen for about a week now, not typing anything but the subject and a body with "Fill this in before you post it" ... so :P me! :P:P:P:P:P:P:P!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well, i updated a large portion of my website, and seeing that noone complained about anything being broken or too different, it worked! (i changed the whole XML layout, this way its more modular, and i did it last weekend, while in boston.)

1:50pm: Serious Coding Question.
ok, I have a really hard question that I need answered for my website.

What sound does a panda make, and how do I type it?

(for more information, go here http://www.tolookah.net/thisisabadlink and keep hitting refresh until you understand)

10:58am: ( wow, i finally understand it all )

1:05pm: just one more...
well, before anyone got a chance to tell me that i can't take up more 'projects'... i have yet another project!... well two, because having so many projects is giving me incentive to make a page of things im working on for my website, that will probably be written next weekend, short, simple, sweet.

But the real project im adding to my list is a DDR machine, me and toast, in a similar fasion to how will got panties, are going to build a DDR machine out of parts we have, a few sensors (have some ideas, thanks to some EE seniors) and metal and plastic. this machine, depending on how we do it, will have minimal boot up time, wheels to move it around, two DDR pads, hard and connected and a few drops of blood from a person graduated from MSOE(thanks toast for this contribution) and someone who will be at MSOE forever(this one's my job to add) the most expencive part sounds like it'll be the plastic and/or the processor needed to hit the buttons, assuming of course the price of fresh graduate keeps running as cheap as it does...

12:58pm: fun fun xml and stuff
ok, here goes... I finnished my toloobook V0.1!! wee!! http://www.tolookah.net/guestbook/

post comments/suggestions/concerns/stuff here. instead of me editing the mysql tables for posts of yours that get resolved on my site.

10:38am: goal
alright, i have a goal for the day! i need to find size 12 rollerblades that can be borrowed to put on adams feet... and recharge my batteries for my camera... *innocent look*

1:04am: scripting with acrobat
tee hee, im having fun playing with scripting in acrobat... lemme splain
ok, im an avid acrobat user, and last summer, i found that you can do some nifty form stuff within it, then later, i found more on forms and scripting to do values. this made me make a d20 3rd ed D&D char sheet with little to no math involved.
http://people.msoe.edu/~britoa/pdfs/3rded.pdf
now, seeing im gonna be running a d20 modern game, im doing the same for d20 modern, and doing it better.
http://people.msoe.edu/~britoa/pdfs/modern.pdf

this is still in its infant stages, because i havent touched weapons and armor yet, but tell me what you think if you'd like, and when im done, these will be posted somewhere on tolookah.net for anyone to use!(with a nonprinting disclaimer of course)

also: if any of you guys want something that is pretty simple on a char sheet, feel free to make a request, ill ask you about 8000000 questions about the sheet, say no, then do it anyways with your help, because come the summer, im gonna have time...

7:00am: My Resoultion
Happy new years.
I've decided to be boring again with my resolutions and came up with a resolution for the next few years... to live until I'm 26(the decided point when i would die, decided mid highschool to be a little earlier, but im pretty healthy)... which would bring me to resolutions until abouts 2008... so about 5 years to make the best difference i can in the world, or at least make the best dent i can...
I always try to be the best i can, and i hope that nothing i do hurts people, but sometimes i wonder, because theoretically, my good doing should be returned with some decentness(not the reason i do good btw)... and other than my amazing luck every so often(which i think is a totally different thing), i am not so returned... maybe im doing something wrong... anywho, expect the mud to be ready for world development sometime soon, even online, as i slowly make progress...