Something awesome

Please, everyone, take a moment to click on this link  www.http://kck.st/ibv3iQ.  It’s the most Earth-shatteringly awesome noun to happen to gaming since the 1980s.  It’s something new.  It’s something cool.  It’s a bunch of really cool things masterfully put together into one super-cool device.  If you’re a gamer, you will want this.  If you’re not a gamer, a gamer you know will want this.  This is the most perfect Christmas present ever.  If you love technology, you will salivate, but that’s completely okay and normal.

iPad/Android Arcade Machine going commercial!

You can pre order one right now on Kickstarter. http://kck.st/ibv3iQ
If I get enough preorders to buy the materials and tools I need for mass production then they will go on sale commercially. If you support my Kickstarter fund you will be one of the first to get one. Not only that but custom artwork will only be available for people who supported the Kickstarter fund. We also are offering a number of Diy kits for people who can't afford the fully assembled machines. There are even a few accessories on the low end to thank people who donate just a little bit.  We will be having a contest soon on twitter so follow me to find out what you can win!!!

iPad Refrigerator Magnet Mount

I recently finished my latest creation on the Up! 3d printer,  magnetic iPad mounting brackets. This should be of interest to that small cross-section of people with 3d printers and an iPad.  Just turn the bracket sideways to print it on a makerbot or reprap. If you use a screen protector or skin on your iPad you will need to sand down the interior of the clip to compensate. Glue a large diameter neodymium magnet or several smaller magnets to the back. I would not use smaller than .25 inch diameter neodymium magnets. If you use that diameter magnet,  you will need 4 per bracket to have enough grip not to slide down a vertical surface. You'll need four brackets total. They were designed to be used as a rudimentary shock absorbers and spill guards as well so they can live on your iPad. All of this can be yours! Just head over to Thingiverse and download the Magnetic iPad Mount to start printing away! Send me your pics if you print it! Feel free to pay me for my work, just click the button below.

Ultimate iPad Arcade gets a Steampunk Facelift.

So I finally got around to getting some artwork for the iPad Arcade. I went with a vinyl wrap.  The design and asthetic are my choosing but Mandy from Ugly Signs did the actual artwork. I think a little personality is exactly what this project needed.

You cant make it our in  the picture but the dials on that last image read out 31337. Leave a comment and tell me what you think...

Up! Personal Portable 3D Printer Review

I have been reading about 3D printers for a few years now, but had yet to find anything that was both affordable and hassle free.  Professional 3D printers are prohibitively expensive in both materials and actual cost.  Home-brew printers while cheap can take a very long time to get operational.  Lots and lots of time is spent trying to get the printer to run as it should rather than actually printing.  So when a small Chinese company with a website www.pp3dp.com came up with a 3D printer that was affordable, and I didn't have to build it myself, I immediately placed an order.  I have to admit that the order process made me a little bit nervous.  Because the company was so new, they could only accept direct wire transfer.  I decided to go ahead and take a chance.  I was either passing a test in optimism or miserably failing a test in patience.  Essentially, I was betting that people were good.  Luckily (or perhaps typically depending on your point of view) this small unknown company came through in a big way.  My printer arrived and even came packed with extras I had not paid for.  An extra spool of plastic, extra silicone paint for the heated build platform, and an extra extruder nozzle were among the gifts that I received from the company for my optimism/impatience.  They even threw in a year long warranty.  Their customer service it very good too.  Even though the company is in China, they are quick to respond to questions and concerns.

I am sure most of you are not visiting to read about the fine details of me buying the printer, so onto the meat of the review.  The printer itself is very well made.(Well mostly well made, It does take three power cords for some reason...)   The entire printer is made out of metal with a few plastic parts.  The movement is driven via belt and microstepping servos. The z  and y axises of movement are handled by a moving platform leaving  only one axis of motion for the extruder assembly. This seems to be a well though out design as it removes a lot of the issues cause by the force of the plastic spool pulling against the extruder as it moves about.  I was impressed with the minute movements this machine was capable of as well.  For instance, when you first get the machine, you have to calibrate it to within .3 millimeters (about the thickness of two sheets of paper).  While calibrating it you move the motor by tenths of a millimeter to get it in the sweet spot.  This minute movement translates into fantastic resolution in your printed 3D models.  When I say fantastic resolution I mean Shapeways, level of detail.  I printed out a rep-rap test part to show a little of what I mean. 

The models I printed appeared upon a cursory glance to be smooth (upon closer inspection the layers are visible), but each layer consists of sub-millimeter resolution.  Slight sanding produces smooth models.  This part really doesnt do the printer justice though as it is designed to be a test part for a  printer that doesn't "support" support structures.  The built in support structure feature really assists in improving print quality   These structures snap off relatively easily and provide support for overhangs in the 3D model. 

I say relatively easily because you do have to use a knife on parts, but it is nothing like the rafts used with the Makerbot.  The supports are created on the fly automatically and can be adjusted so they are only created for overhangs with angles below a customizable threshold variable.  Finally to really lock in their quality, they include a heated build platform and a special silicone paint to adhere the bottom layers of the build to the platform.    This prevents curling from when a hot layer of plastic is deposited on a cool layer and warps the cool layer as the hot layer cools and contracts.  It is not perfect but it is very close. For really large models it makes a world of difference.

Given the high quality of the prints this printer can create, I would have expected to pay a lot more than my grand total of $1650 dollars. (The printer was $1500.  Taxes and shipping were $150).  Even the $3000 they will eventually charge once their sale ends seems very reasonable.  I know some people would baulk at the idea of paying $3000 for anything but considering this thing can match Solido's promotional parts (Minus the flexibility feature) I consider it a steal.

 Bottom line is if you are in the market for a 3D printer, you can't go wrong with the UP!

              

An Ipad fan's worst nightmare...

Bring Back WriteNow Right Now! by: Annie Jane Nutt

I like Apple, Macintosh, Steve Jobs, or should I say Steven Jobs?  Hm, Steven?  I want to write about WriteNow, what was and what should be again.  It really pisses me off that it is not made anymore, because it was just excellent.  WriteNow had scroll shaped menus that made sense and the functions were represented by words, not abstract pictures like these new fangled hippie programs like Microsoft Word since Vista.

Anyway, I would appreciate somebody bringing back WriteNow, before it’s too late and we irreversibly revert to pictographic alphabets.  Back in the day, Microsoft Word didn’t even realize in it’s grammar correction program is that the proper place for a period in a quoted sentence is before the last quotation mark, not outside of it.  Now, I have to figure out which picture represents the save function.  Word processors need word menus, not picture menus which just suck.

I’m talking to you Steven.

Building Your Very Own iPad Arcade

Hardware Parts list
Minimum parts

These are the things that you will need at  a bare minimum to create an arcade like cabinet that allows you to control the iPad.

Plywood-  I used 1/4th inch thick 2 ft by 1 ft slabs that I bought at Michael’s for 4.99 a piece.  I used 6 pieces of plywood, but you could just by a large piece of plywood at a  hardware store and cut it to size. 30$ MAX

Hinges and screws-  I used brass inch-long cabinet hinges and the screws that came with them. About $2.50

Additional screws $2.00 a pack (you’ll only need a pack)

Plumbers clamps-  The kind that when you turn a flat-head screw that is attached to the clamp, the clamp tightens or loosens. About 4 $.

Wii fightstick-  It must connect to the Wii remote, but anything that connects to the Wii remote would work.  In my case, I used the Hori fightstick because of the square gate, eight buttons, turbo, etc.  You can use whatever you want. 40$ but can be had cheaper.

iPad-  a little redundant but worth listing anyway 500$

Wii Remote- necessary to connect to the ipad 40$

Velcro- To secure things inside while ensuring that they are reusable in other projects.

Optional parts 

Each of these things represents a feature or set of features that can be introduced to your iPad arcade machine.  Feel free to omit anything in this list that you don’t feel you can afford or would want in your machine.

iPad dock-  This allows charging, easy audio-out, and easy docking.  You don’t have to use the iPad dock at all, because you can simply use the charge cable that came with the iPad and connect the speaker wire directly to the head-phone jack. 30$

AVI-out cable-  This is a prerequisite to the pico-projector.  If you want video on the pico-projector, you have to hook it up somehow.  This also allows you to hook up the arcade machine to a TV or other video display.  Some of these come with an additional USB chord as well as the audio and video chords.  In this case you can use those AVI cables to charge the iPad as well.  If you are using a pico-projector the AVI cables will also allow you to patch the audio of the iPad through the pico-projector and into the speakers. 30$

Pico-projector-  I would suggest using the brightest that you can find.  I use the Optima PK301 and that ran me about $300 dollars.  There may be some smaller sized regular projectors that will fit as well, but you would have to install some fans for proper ventilation. This is really what sets this iPad arcade apart from the others. Plus the pico-projector will be removable when you are done.

Speakers-  Make loud sounds.  Speakers will greatly enhance the use of the projector because the projector’s onboard speaker is tiny.  Not a prerequisite of a projector, but recommended as a basic feature of the iPad arcade because of their low-cost and ease of installation.  It’s so cheap and easy, why not do it if you are going to take the trouble to build an iPad arcade, anyway? The Speakers are non removable when you are done. 10$

Cabinet Feet- Without these you will have a hard time getting your arcade machine to sit steady and not wobble. 3$

Software

For the Ipad

This is a list of the software you will need on the iPad.

JailBreak- There are 2 way to go about this now. When I was first building it there was only one. I used the Spirit Jailbreak. You can use whatever you are most comfortable with. For a full walkthrough on how to jailbreak your iPad click here FREE

PSX4ALL- available through the Cydia store once you jailbreak. You may need to add a repository to see it though.  Click here for tutorials on adding sources. Once you have it keep in mind that it only loads psx ISO’s they will come in the form of a .iso file or a .bin and .cue file. 4$

DiplayOut-  For mirroring the iPad display onto a tv or the projector. You will not be able to display gameplay without this program. The repository for this should be available by default. 2$

OpenSSH- For getting roms onto the iPad  Learn how to install and use it here(The built in downloader in PSX4ALL can be problematic sometimes)FREE

Playstation bios file- required for PSX4ALL to run games. I can’t legally link to it but, Google is your friend...

Legal Roms- Google it. I will not answer anyone asking where to get roms.

For your Computer

This is a list of software you need on your computer to move roms to the iPad

WinSCP- If you have windows this is the simplest method though it is very very slow. Best to transfer files overnight. It supports multiple consecutive file transfers though. Can be had at their website here. FREE

Tools List

Circular Saw -For the straight cuts.

Router - No not the networking equipment. You need this to shape the top panel and to make a hole for the projector. These can be as cheap as 25$ ( Caught mine in sale)

Drill- For pilot holes Absolutely necessary if you want a stable box.

Sandpaper
Pant

De-soldering Braid- to get the arcade stick out of it’s casing

Solder- to put the arcade stick back together

Flux- For good solder joints

Soldering Iron

Screwdriver

Metal File - for bits of screw that inevitably stick out

Dremel- for cutting out part of the plastic fightstick.

Clamps- for holding the wood while you work with it.

Step One: Cutting the boards.

Start of with 6 pieces of 1foot by 2foot plywood of any thickness. I used 1/4th inch thick craftboard. Cut them out of plywood if you want to save some money on wood.

Step Two: Disassemble the arcade stick.

Disassemble the Arcade stick by removing all of the screws you can find.(make sure to keep up with them)   

Remove the small c shaped metal clamp from the bottom of the arcade stick to remove the stick from it’s enclosure. The c shaped clamp holds all the parts of the stick together so be careful.. as soon as you manage to get it off a spring will try to make everything jump apart.  Make sure you don’t lose it. 
De-soldier the large buttons on the back. (The ones with white arrows pointed at them) This will allow you to remove the circuit board and get to the plastic tabs that keep the buttons in place.

Remove the buttons by pressing on the tabs on both sides of the button and pressing it out through the front.  be careful not to push the tabs too far or they will break. After you remove the buttons and stick carefully remove the adhesive sticker over the front and set it aside for later. Remove the screws holding the metal plate in place. And set them and the metal plate aside for later. Finally you need to use a dremel to carefully cut out the protruding piece of plastic that holds the turbo toggles, home, select and start buttons.

Step Three: The Bottom and Hinged Lid

Cut one board in half this will be the lid and bottom.

Take both halves of the board you just cut and remove 1/2 inch from any side. We are removing half an inch to fit it inside the perimeter of the finished box. Set aside one for more work later

Step Four: The Sides

This can be modified to taste. Here is how I built mine.

Take two uncut pieces and make a perpendicular cut in the center of the 2foot long side about 4 inches into the board. It dosn’t matter if you get this perfect but do get both boards exactly the same as each other. This is easy if you use clamps and cut both at the same time.

Measure from either corner on the opposite side of the cut and make a mark 3 inches from the corner on the short side. (Wherever you make the mark is now the top of the side)

Cut from your mark to the end of the 4 inch cut you made earlier. (Save the scraps for later) Your sides are now done.

Step Five: The Top

Cut a 3 inch by 1 foot strip from the bottom of one of your scraps. You should be able to do this in one cut.

Step Six: The Front

Cut another uncut board in half. Take a small piece of scrap an attach it to the board so that it creates a parallel ledge 1/4 inch below the top edge of the board The side you can see the scrap from is the inside when you assemble the box.

Step Seven: The Lid

I’d like to take a moment to remind you to measure carefully

We are cutting the holes for the arcade stick but remember everything will still be in the same relative place when we are done so the spacing between buttons and the stick will always be the same.

Use the router to take out bits of wood so that your arcade stick can be attached. You will need to remove a space large enough for all of the buttons to fit through as this picture shows. Use the metal plate as a guide to help you know where you need to route.  You don’t need to worry about the circuit board as the buttons are long enough to give it clearance. You also need to create a ledge that will hold the turbo toggles, start select, and home buttons. To do this just route out a rectangle the size of the entire grouping halfway through the wood on the top side. Then come in about an inch on either end and route out through the rest of the wood in this smaller rectangle. Make sure to align the hole with the circuit board. Next you need to route out a spot for the stick to be secured in. On the bottom of the board route about 3/4ths of the way through the wood because this will be reinforced by a metal plate later. Route out a space slightly larger than the base that holds the stick to allow room for wires and adjusting.  Go all of the way through the wood directly over the stick to create a hole for the stick itself. The hole can be slightly larger than the hole in the metal plate that comes from the arcade stick. Finally route our spaces on bottom for the wires to run so the solder joints aren’t stressed later. Drill pilot holes for the screws to hold the metal plate and screw it into place. Find the adhesive layer you removed and set aside earlier. Cut out around the buttons in the shape of the hole you made for them to go through and place the cutout under the metal plate so that it lines up with the button holes. This makes the buttons tight and not wiggle when you play. Replace the buttons into the metal plate. Replace the circuit board and solder the buttons back again. Place the base of the joystick on the bottom of the lid making sure you have it aligned right and it is facing correctly. (to check facing just make sure the length of the wires makes sense. Some are longer than the others  the longest should be on your left if facing the top of the board, right when you are looking from the bottom) Cut your plumbing clamps in half and drill holes in each piece. Screw these into the board on either side of the base and tighten them over the base to clamp it to the lid. If it’s aligned wrong just loosen the clamp and adjust then tighten again. Reinsert the joystick. Push the turbo bank into place. When you are done it will look like this.

Step Eight: The Shelf

Take the other half of wood left over from cutting the front and cut it in half. Remove 1/2 inch from one of the short sides. This will be the shelf that holds the projector.

Step Nine: The Back

Cut a hole in the just above  center of the uncut piece of wood you have left. It should be wide enough to accommodate the both the ipad charge cable and an audio cable as they are spaced in the back of the ipad dock. Cut two slits into the wood  towards the top if you have a zoogue case and want to support landscape mode. You will also need a hole for the projector but it’s placement will depend on where you put your shelf and the type of projector you have.

Step Ten: The Box

Sand and paint all of the wood you have cut so far. Assemble all of the pieces. You can hold them all together with clamps and drill pilot holes and then screws. The shelf will be the only part that changes. Just make sure it is placed high enough to give your speakers clearance. The front is assembled with the ledge on the inside and the front and back overlap the sides so they are flush. (Thats why we cut half an inch off of the other pieces so they would fit flush on the inside with a minimal amount of cutting) The Lid goes level with the ground. Make sure the hinges face up.

Step Eleven: The Guts

Put velcro on the bottom of your speakers, ipad dock, and projector. It will hold them in place. The easiest way to go about this step is to remove the cover from the adhesive and place it in the box with both parts of the velcro attached to the object being placed. That way when you set it down the velcro sticks. The speakers go below the shelf and the projector goes on it. The dock goes on top of the lid. Connect it all together and you are finished. It should look something like this.

Thanks to http://pineconeattack.com for the guide I used to take apart my fightstick and some of the pictures on this walkthrough.  My wife for letting me do all this for weeks. Also props to my buddy Courtney for helping assemble it.

Verison is keeping their unlimited data plans!

So I called a customer support person at Verison to ask about the end of unlimited data plans. She didn't know what I was talking about. She told me that she thought it was a rumor because they still have an unlimited data REQUIREMENT in place for their smartphones. She has heard nothing about ending unlimited data. YAY Big Red!!!

• Verizon May Kill Its Unlimited Data Plans Just Like AT&T [Unconfirmed] (gizmodo.com)
• Verizon Says No Tiered Data Plans Yet (pocketnow.com)

Diy iPad Arcade in Action

It's done. A video of the working finished product.  Thanks to my buddy Courtney for helping me build the cabinet.  I don't know if I could have done it myself. Thanks also to my wife for putting up with me turning the house into a disaster area and even pitching in by filming the youtube videos.  Also the bad sound and slow response in Street Fighter is probably because of the file.

The Ultimate DIY iPad Arcade

So I've finally finished all I am going to do building-wise on the iPad arcade cabinet. All of the features I want are there. I'll put up a video of me using to play some emulators as soon as Zottd releases Classic controller support. In the meantime I have new pics and a couple of videos highlighting most of the features. The only thing I have left is some sweet artwork covering the wood. I am very happy with how it came out. I am going to be looking into some manufacturing avenues so this may eventually make it to market. I may also sell a DIY kit that comes with everything (like pre-drilled pre-cut wood and fasteners etc) but the electronics if people show any interest in something like that. Let me know what you think. Pictures and video below.

Zoogue case unboxing

Nice attention to little details. Thumbs up on the reusable box!

iLuv iPad case video review.

Not the best case out there but worth the money if you can't find anything better.

How to turn ANYTHING into an iPad stylus...

Hey guys, I've made a discovery about the iPad. I've discovered how to convert anything into an iPad (or capacitive) stylus. Just watch...


And the promised link to buy, The Secret


Oh and we still have yet to give away the 50% off Zagg store coupon so leave a comment on that page for a chance to win it.

Zagg Skins Video Review

I know I promised you guys a video of the iPad Arcade  in action  but I'm still working on it. In the meantime though I have a review of the new customizable Zagg Skins for you. I also am giving away a free 50% off coupon to the first person to leave a comment on this page...

Zagg Shield packaging EPIC FAIL

So my got a package today. It came in a tube...

That was packed with airbags...

And into a giant box.

All I want to know is this.

Was all that really nessesary for a screen protector?

The most entertaining take-apart video ever.

While surfing You Tube for neat DIY iPad videos, I came across this awesome iPad take-apart video. The entire thing is filmed in stop motion complete with sound effects. Worth a watch even if you never plan to take apart your iPad...

How God mode helped me cope with loss.

or

How Hell soothed my soul.

I was a scrawny eleven year old when the police showed up at my little dusty Macon home to take me, literally kicking and screaming, into foster care.  My mother had been arrested for DUI about a week before and my younger siblings were already in foster care at the time.  I was staying with some friends of my stepfather in the house my mother was renting before she was arrested.  The reason I was not with my stepfather was because he was also on the run from the law.  He “accidentally” burned down his girlfriend’s house while house-sitting for her.  He dropped me off with some friends claiming that it would only be for a day.  After a week passed, his friends ran out of patience and called the department of family and children services (DFCS).  This began a very frightening series of events.


    You see my mother suffered from drug abuse and alcoholism for at least my whole life and I imagine most of hers.  Because of her problems with various substances I was often left in charge and looked after my sister and brother.  Eventually my responsibilities would mushroom to the point that I was basically the adult of the house, taking care of groceries, bills, etc.  In my eleven year old mind I took care of things and most things were generally under my control.  Looking back on it it seems a little sad, but back then I was happy to control everything I could about my life.  I had no say in my mother’s substance abuse issues or taste in men.  So as a defense mechanism, I would control everything else in my life to substitute.  There was no hope to be had from waiting on my parents to fulfill their responsibilities and adults were generally not to be trusted.  If I wanted things to be good for me I had to exercise my will upon it.  You can imagine my terror at the idea of a bunch of adults who I don’t even know taking the reigns of my life away from me.


    It was my greatest fear, manifest.  So when the police showed up to take me to DFCS, I did what any young child does when confronted with their greatest fear, I ran.  I can still remember running through those woods uncaring of any personal harm the surrounding tree limbs and sticker bushes were inflicting on me.  They could offer me no greater pain than what I was running from.  I could see nothing other than the blur of green and brown as I sprinted through the woods with my eyes full of tears.  My hearing was gone, replaced with the rhythm of blood rushing through my body as every fiber of my being focused on one thought:  escape.  So I sprinted through the woods blind and deaf.  As quick as my eleven year old self may have been however, the officer was quicker and his long stride eventually overtook my young gait.


    I didn’t understand why  the ground was  falling from below my feet until it was too late.  The officer had just plucked me off the ground leaving me with no job but to cry out and kick until he got me to the squad car, a task I set myself to with all of my preadolescent vigor.  Once at the car though my strength abandoned me.  I was exhausted physically and emotionally.  I felt defeated and simply didn’t care anymore.  My fears were coming home to roost  and there wasn’t anything I could do by definition.  After a quiet ride to the DFCS office I was given to a case worker to be processed.

    Inside the DFCS building was a maze of cubicles.  I had never seen so many cubicles before so they gave the entire floor an alien aura.  We threaded our way through this bizarre beige maze until we finally came to her cubicle.  There we waited while she filled out paperwork.  By this time I was calming down enough to pay attention to what was going on around me, but before I had the chance to really explore things, we had to go to the doctor.

    The doctor had to poke my finger and give me a shot, two dubious propositions from my perspective.  I informed them that no such events would occur with great gusto before eventually being held down for my immunizations.  The offered me a sucker but no amount of candy would soothe the indignities I had suffered that day.  Before the doctor’s appointment I was staring to calm down, but losing control over even my own body was just too much for me to bear.  My last reserves of strength depleted, I returned to the office in tears secure in the knowledge that I would never have control over anything again.

    My caseworker asked if there was anything she could do so I asked her for some time alone.  I sat in her cubicle racking my brain for a way to regain control over some aspect of my life, getting more and more distressed as I failed to come up with a solution.  Eventually every thought circled back to never again having control and never again being happy.  I laid my head down determined to sleep forever.


I’m not sure how long I slept there it may have been a few minutes or a few hours but when I woke there was a man in the cubicle across the way.  When he realized I was awake he offered me a smile and went back to his computer.  Still a little sleepy I walked over to his cubicle.  He asked me how I was feeling and for some reason I told him the truth.  Many people had been asking me this same question throughout the day with little success.  They all got canned ok, and fine responses.  I am still unaware of my reasons for opening up to this person but something about him tugged at my unconscious mind as if to whisper, this is a kindred spirit.  I told him about my home life, about running away from the police, and about my feelings of being out of control of my life.  He listened patiently nodding while I spoke.  Then he abruptly stood up and said with a smile forming at the corner of his mouth, I have a surprise for you, its something I think you’ll like, just wait here a minute.  Then he disappeared around the corner.  He quickly returned and told me to come with him.  (After going over it with my caseworker) I followed him through the byzantine hallways until we reached an unoccupied cubicle.

 



He asked me if I liked videogames to which I replied I had been playing them since I was five.  His face lit up as his body sprang into action, hunching itself over the keyboard.  After a second or two of typing the monitor changed.  Gone were the boring gray and navy colors of windows and in their place was something that reminded me a lot of the cubicles we had just been walking through.  “It’s called Doom, and you can play it so long as you don’t tell anyone.  We’re not supposed to install things on these computers.” 


 I was immediately transfixed.  Here in the eye of the hurricane that was destroying my life was the granule of control that I had been so desperately searching for. The symbolism seemed to be created to describe my life. The cube shaped hell the was the closest analogy for my feelings about DFCS that I could have ever hoped to come across. The only difference was that in my beige cube shaped hell I had no control, here it was different. How ironic for my comfort to flow from the same portals that brought Hell’s demons.  I took over the controls and began playing the game.


I began by trying to speak with one of the marines in the maze.  He responded by shooting me in the face. “Oh so they aren’t on my side.”I thought, “ That makes sense what adult is ever on my side” Immediately I set about conquering this world where I had control. The maze in a maze.  I had to unlock its secrets.  I had to impose my fiery will upon my digital enemies.  Alas even in the virtual realm I was no match for my enemies. It was so frustrating. After dying a few times, the cubicle gamer told me to wait a sec and quickly typed something into the keyboard.  I watched in wonder as my character’s portrait transformed from a bloody and battered man into a fierce deity with a cocky smirk.  Suddenly, nothing the marines did could hurt me.  I laughed off fireballs from demons as if they were raindrops, and took long baths in acid pools.   Somehow in playing I forgot about the lack of control in my life.   I was no longer a vulnerable scared kid waiting to be sent to live with strangers. I was an invincible bad ass who had control over everything and so much power that it was leaking from my face.  I was no longer concerned that I probably couldn’t trust the people I was being sent to live with. I became enraptured in this square world that so closely mimicked the cubical maze my life had become. With each shot, my strength returned. Each enemy annihilated was one more thing that had gone my way, that I had control over.  I felt renewed by living the life of invincibility, even if it was in hell. Even if I knew it wasn’t real.


I would not return to this day in my memories for many years so It wouldn’t dawn on me until my teenage years how I was able to endure the  hardships of this day or that a random gamer with a forbidden piece of software  was single handedly responsible for saving my entire outlook on life. This realization would later spark a fire in my life driving me to give control to those who have none and invincibility to the most vulnerable of us all.

iPad Arcade Construction 98% Complete

Got some new pics for ya.

Video to come as soon as I'm done with the last bit. All I have left is to wire it up to the Wii controller and secure the speakers. After that all that's left is polish. I have a neat idea for the artwork. I'm going to put a Chinese dragon  on the back with brass tacks as it's scales. I might have one or two more features on the way but the video will go up as soon as the wiring is done.

iPad arcade

Not content with waiting for this to eventually happen and not satisfied with the look and functionality of the cardboard iPad arcade I decided to begin my own iPad arcade project.  I am cannibalizing a Hori Wii fightstick for the controls and using an iPad dock and an AVI-out cable for multimedia.  I chose the Wii fightstick for several reasons.  The first being that it has a square gate.  (For those unfamiliar with arcade sticks and their idiosyncrasies, there are several types of gates in different shapes.  The most common being octagon or eight-way in America, square gates are actually prevalent in Japan.  There is a lot of subjectivity in what type of gate is best.  I personally prefer square gates because the tactile sensation provided by square gates is more pronounced.)  The second reason I liked it is because the Wii remote already has support built into many emulators on the iPad.  The third was that the logistics were simple because the arcade stick drew power directly and only from the Wii remote, I don't need to worry about wiring in a power supply.  Just hook it up to the Wii-mote and I'm good to go.  No messing with the iPad dock and worrying about killing my iPad.  Best of all, it's easier than ardino and much cheaper, too.  The worst that could happen is I fry a fight-stick or a Wii-mote or both.  Right now, though the emulators support the Wii remote, they do not support any controller add-ons.  So my plan is simply solder on some wires to the existing leads of the arcade buttons while still having the fightstick plugged into the Wii remote through the extension port.  The effect of this will be basically as if I were pressing the same button on a Wii remote and classic controller at the same time, but since existing software does not recognize the classic controller, that input should be ignored *fingers crossed*.  The great thing about this design is if classic controller support comes later(which I'm sure it will), all I have to do to enable it in the arcade machine is snip the wires that I soldered between the Wii-mote and the Hori stick.  I should be finished with the entire machine by this upcoming weekend.  I'll be sure to post a walk-through on how you can build your own soon.  In the meantime, here's some pics to tide you over

 

Things that I hope will be included in the final machine are maintaining full compatability with Wii consoles (i.e. I can still use my fightstick on my actual Wii), a working coin-slot (I imagine I'll have to build a small circuit to operate a transistor, which will allow power to pass to the stick after a quarter has been inserted for a limited time.)  I am also trying to build it basically to one-sixth scale of a real arcade machine, so it's going to be roughly two foot tall by one foot wide.  I am learning a lot about wood-working tools on this project but really I just can't wait to play with it.

Flash on the iphone

From the same hacker that created the Spirit JB

What happens when we are ignorant...

W...T....F...

Twitter Down Again

Twitter is reporting that it is over capacity. This is just stab in the dark, but might it be because of the World Cup? It's currently the third highest search term...

Fun 4 all at TechCrunch Bday Party

BBmf-americas hosted a Techcrunch birthday party that was a rousing success.   Asante Bradford from the Georgia entertainment liason was there as well as local journalists. Also spotted was the new HTC Evo.

Technology Forecasts by: Annie Jane Nutt the Occasional Psychic

Today, we are doing technology forecasts. Augmented reality is making a small splash above of a tsunami that will eventually occur. Nanomachines will cure most diseases, and then all of them. Houses will be made out of organic materials, such as sod, along with titanium, food will be grown on top of houses, and the dome houses will really catch on, as the base to grow all of this stuff and live in. Solar technology will move into space, which will beam energy down to houses through satellite receivers (like the Direct TV dish). This dish will also be on cars, which can receive satellite solar energy transferred from one of many satellites, as to not be affected by the night. The gas industry will tank, and will be quickly replaced (with the same people) by the satellite receiver station industry, and the convenience store industries.

Tethering the iPad to the Droid.

I recently purchased an iPad (3G 32 Gigabytes). I'm not using the 3G part of it, though. A) it's on At&t network which is horrible and B) I already have wireless internet on my droid. While I've used and really like pdanet, I found it to be just a little limited. Connecting via blutooth or usb is a bit of a hassle, blutooth drops connections left and right and usb requires that you carry around an extra chord all day. So, I looked into alternatives to pdanet. My ultimate solution was to use wireless tether after rooting my droid. This is fantastic. It allows me to connect my iPad and gaming consoles to the internet when I'm on the road. It's basically like walking around with a wireless router in my pocket. It's a useful hack that allows me to use my droid and a Verizon wifi. This should be even easier with froyo. Then I fired up my favorite remote connection program (I use pc2me because it has audio and you can purchase a special service to stream skype calls.) Now my beast of a desktop goes with me everywhere.

Ipad

So I got an Ipad.  The lack of flash isn't such a bitter pill with netflix and crunchyroll on there.

How does free speech die...

With quiet applause apparently.  Sitting on an airplane I noticed a young man spewing vulgarities and singing. Two flight attendants asked him to stop and then kicked him off the plane.  This was responded to via quiet applause.  I

came to the boys defence only to find that people no longer care about protecting offensive speech.   Passengers went as far as saying that cuss words aren't speech, and  that I was the one with the problem for defending his right.  I guess that free speech fell with the Trade Towers....

Virtual telepresence

Here is my contribution to humanity. The idea is simple. Use augmented reality to create a telepresence program. If you had a 3d representation of an actual place people in the actual place could see "virtual people" using their smartphone. It is simply an extension of telepresence for robots.  Instead of a robot though it would be an avatar.  You could even timeshift action so that you could literally be two places at once.  Please dont steal this. I want to do this bad.

Watermarks are a hacker's delight

How “Dirty” MP3 Files Are A Back Door Into Cloud DRM

This is an article about DRM for streaming music as well as music that you download right now from Wal-mart or iTunes. Within the mp3 file the RIAA is secretly inserting personally identifiable information. This is a process known to the industry as watermarking. (If you ask me, it's closer to digital waterboarding.) This information stays in the file whenever its copied, so that the RIAA would be able to use the files as proof in a court case. They do this without asking or informing the consumer that they are buying esseentially a music file and an electronic tracking device. This is a blatant invasion of privacy by the RIAA. A system like this could easily be subverted to keep tabs on a person's location, to catelogue a person's contacts, or to deliver targeted viruses. All a hacker has to do is find the personally identifiable information in the file that he or she purchased and write a function to look for a string in the same place in an mp3 file and put that in a virus that searches for all mp3 files. Once personally identifiable information is found, an IP address can be obtained and a simple web-search will tell the hacker where you live (or are at the moment, if it happens to be a mobile connection). Any computers that report the same personally identifiable information are labeled as the contact or an associate of the contact. New viruses can then be created that only deliver payloads to people with said personally identifiable information on their machines. Scary, huh?

I try not to complain too often without providing some sort of solution. In this case, the solution is simple. The RIAA wants to watermark every mp3 sold, but not everyone has agreed to play by those rules. Amazon at the moment is not bowing to pressure and does not use digital watermarks in their mp3 sales.

Final Fantasy, Now Available In...Latin [Canis Canim Edit]

Final Fantasy, Now Available In...Latin [Canis Canim Edit]:






If only my Latin teacher Mr. Fields could see this...

Hero Programmer Quest

Hero Programmer Quest is a great little (emphasis on little) C++ flash game/bug-finding-ability-trainer. It gives you ten seconds to find the bug on a new page of code. Fail to pick out the bug and the world blows up. Succeed and see the totally worth-it winning sequence...

HDD Reborn as Bench Sander [DIY]

Hard disk sander



I've heard of scratching discs but this is ridiculous.

Creeper Loc Premier

Creeper poses @ his album premier.

MATRIXSYNTH: neurosynth

MATRIXSYNTH: neurosynth


Interesting video using the NeuroSky mindset as an interface for a synthesizer. Kinda out of control at the moment but a start for something fantastic.

A Second Lessig Fair-Use Video Is Suppressed By WMG

A Second Lessig Fair-Use Video Is Suppressed By WMG Via Slashdot

WTF!?! How can it be argued that the DMCA doesn't have a chilling effect on free speech is beyond me. We need to act on this now before the MEGACORPS buy the entire country.

Foxconn tries one too many times to be a douche

VIA Gizmodo
HA


Ok so Foxconn has been getting into all kinda fun with the press and their workers. They were caught on camera and by police attempting to kidnap a reporter. (The reporter was later told by police that Foxconn had special status in the area and probably wouldn't be harmed by the legal system. If beating and torturing an employee to the point of suicide isn't enough what is? How about having your security block your employee's rides while you tell your employee's that their ride was stopped by the military. That's what happened in Foxconn's Mexican production facility. I'm sure the Supervisor was feeling pretty smug until the workers set the factory on fire.



HA HA

Borderlands DLC #3 features ridiculous new weapons

Borderlands DLC #3 features ridiculous new weapons: VIA Destuctoid




The Secret Armory of General Knoxx'


So... points worth hearing...

New level of weapon (above orange)
Higher level cap
Boss with an even-higher-than-you level cap
More Skill points
New vehicles
New enemies
Nuff said....

It's Borderlands! I kinda just buy it on reflex at this point. (Which is something I don't usually do; it's just that good.)

Info on Stem Cell legislation.

Up until the Clinton administration, each time human embryo experimentation had come up, it was not allowed.  While Clinton was in office, the Republicans held the Senate and because of their pro-life agenda, were in opposition to the statements of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC).    The bioethics committee found that "scientists should be able to use donated human embryos for biomedical research."  Basically what happened here was that the Republicans were fighting the Democrats.  The Republicans slipped in legislation regarding human embryo experimentation by adding them into stop-gap spending bills.  The NBAC  report also recommended the use of federal funds and the changing of three laws to permit those funds to be used for the stem-cell research that we have today.
      The Department of Health and Human Services decided on its own that stem cells were not governed by the Code of Federal Regulations because they were not embryos themselves, conveniently ignoring the fact that stem-cells are extracted from embryos.  This sparked litigation in the Fourth circuit district court. The court (at the time rendered the hearing moot because no one had standing to bring a suit ) This was appealed with a Writ of Certiorari to which the Supreme Court has yet to respond;  [Mary Doe and the National Association for the Advancement of Preborn Children and Petitioners vs. Tommy G. Thompson Secretary of Health and Human Services for the Department of Health and Human Research, Dr. Harold Varmus in his official capacity as director of National Institutes of Health and National Institutes of Health and Respondents.] This Writ is interesting in that if circumvents the appellate court for the district. Under the doctrine of an Instant Case.  In this petition, they ask the supreme court to review whether or not the District Court erred in dismissing because the case was moot.  They stopped trying the case because  none of the people had interest in the case and so it was rendered moot. 
      The plaintiffs argue that moot does not apply, because in cases involving the government, you have to prove that "prior administration policy could not be reasonably expected to apply in the future."  [Adarand Constructors Incorporated vs. Slater 588 US 222].  In order for moot to apply, the heavy burden of persuading the court to challenge conduct lies with the party asserting mootness.  [supra].  The problem with this argument, however, is that future damages cannot occur to a stem-cell. If it is dead it can't sue. It isn't really related to anyone when it is given to science so no one has standing to sue on it's behalf. The district court found (rightfully in my opinion) agencies in the lawsuit do not have standing to sue. 
       Furthermore, if unborn fetuses are protected by the constitution, how can damages to embryos be proven  when the embryos would have died, anyway?  The "but for:" argument for suing fails here.  If the embryos were not used for stem-cell research, there was a high probability that they would have simply been disposed of, but for the stem-cell research, would the embryos have died?  Probably.  There is a slight chance that one of the embryos could have been adopted, by an infertile mother who could afford to adopt,wanted in vitro versus a live birth, had the money to pay for it, was successfully implanted, carried the child to full term, had a child that was fully developed, and been born as a person.  Assuming 5-10 eggs harvested for in vitro per procedure that's 10-20 million eggs to 2 million people (that being a very very generous estimate based on assuming that 80 percent of people involved in these steps move onto the next stage.I.E. 80 percent of the 6.1 million infertile women want to have children or are of childbearing age and want to adopt.  80 percent of those can qualify for adoption and so on...) Actual live birth rates for non-donated eggs peak at about 24 percent  for under 35 years old mothers [http://www.nyufertilitycenter.org/pregnancy_rates.]  that means that each egg has a 1-5 to 1-10 chance of survival.  That's a 80-90 percent mortality rate for ANY egg harvested.  This is discounting miscarriages. Chances are the embryo was going to die.  The entire argument put forth here is  ignoring the fact that the only funded research was on embryos donated for science.  The entire pool of which was going to be a component of  scientific experiments. 
        But this is all conjecture anyway.  An embryo does not have standing to sue according to Roe V Wade  The supreme court has defined person as not being applicable to unborn fetuses or embryos. [Roe Vs Wade 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. CT 705, 35 L.ED.2d147 (1973)]. Thus giving an embryo standing to sue would require overturning that decision. The judge in the previous case thought the same thing "[Philosophical and religious considerations aside, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the word "person as used in the Fourteenth amendment does not include the unborn." Supra.  The plaintiffs argue that Roe vs. Wade does not apply, because these embryos exist independent of the mother and do not require the mother to survive this may be true but if embryos are a person a legal obligation as to their care is created. Unless the government is going to pay for their care this would place an unfair burden on adopting patents.  Ultimately, the appeal was successful in that it was not proven that the government would not institute this in the future, which they did with Executive Order 13435.

    In Mary Scott Doe vs. Kathleen Sebelius, the federal courts found that "for the purposes of a standing analysis, to satisfy the causation element, the plaintiff must show that the suffered injury is fairly traceable to the defendant and not the result of the independent acts of a third party who is not a party in the case.  [USCA constitution article 3 section 2].  They also found that the plaintiff must demonstrate that harm will be remedied if the court grants the relief sought. [supra]  This case was a repeat of Doe vs. Obama, involving the same parties and same claims in both cases.  The only differences being that Nightlight Christian Adoption has not requested to be removed from this case as it did in Doe vs. Obama. 
    I think that in cases of donated embryos that federal funding should be allowed for research that develops stem cell knowledge. Stem cells are such a useful and promising discovery that not allowing their research would would retard the growth of humanity. Opponents of stem cell research may say that adult stem cells should be used but adult stem cells are limited in their ability to create any type of cell and in what they can teach us about the cellular ageing process. Ronald m Green (member of the National Institutes of Health's Human Embryo Research Panel the panel that convinced president Bush to allow the research to take place on existing stem cell lines.) had this to say about the medical use of stem cells " Research showed that the resulting cell lines produce the enzyme Telomerase, which resets the cells' chromosomal clocks and prevents the timed death suffered by most differentiated cells. This resetting allows the cells to be cultured indefinitely during repeated cell divisions (or passages). " (Ronald M. Green "The stem cell debate" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/miracle/stemcells.html ) Telomerase is the chemical in cells that prevents their natural death sequence form occuring. (specifically it is a part of dna) When levels of Telomerase are low cell death begins. It also limits the number of times a cell can divide.  Natural death, disease, and aging could eventually be overcome by research into telomerase and other similar chemicals and interactions only laid bare in embryonic stem cells. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase]  We will never find out though if the research is not allowed.

Kitase: FFVII Remake Only Possible If It Can Be Done In A Year [Final Fantasy VII]

Final Fantasy XIII comes out March 9th but all I really want is a real remake of VII. Yoshinori Kitase seems to think that they could only do it if it could be finished in a year. Seems like square has the means to make this happen. Honestly the game holds up pretty well to time. The character models in the overworld are still awful but the backgrounds and battle models still look pretty good considering the game is over ten years old...
Final Fantasy XIII 's Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinori Kitase - Interview [via Kotaku via TechDigest via Connected Consoles]

What you can do about your privacy.

One word two parts; opt-out.  My last post was about privacy (specifically Facebook) but it seemed a little whiney to me so I thought I'd write a follow up.  Privacy is not entirely out of our hands it just takes a little effort.  One of my main concerns was tracking cookies. Lots of advertising sites put cookies that monitor your online behavior and report back whenever you stumble onto another site that uses the same advertising company.  What can you do about it? Well you could disable cookies alltogether.  That would prevent you from using a lot of sites that you like though. Any site with login is generally broken when you don't accept cookies. You could try disabling third party cookies (cookies from sites that provide services to the site you're on like ads and video hosting) but this breaks many webmail and media rich sites.  The final solution, and the best in my opinion, because it doesn't degrade the internet experience in the slightest is to opt out of the advertisers programs. This link will opt you out from a number of data collection "services".  This puts an anonymous cookie on your machine that tells advertisers not to follow you around. It's won't protect you from full on malicious sites and you'll still see ads though they won't have creepy voyeuristic tendencies...  You have to keep the cookie on your machine for it to work but there's a handy plugin for firefox users that will restore the special opt-out cookies if they get deleted by accident.  Why would advertisers do this you ask? Isn't userdata their lifeblood?  Simple, if they don't the FTC may decide to intervene.  Right now the advertisers have to play by the rules or uncle sam is going to put the squeeze on them.  So take advantage of this moment of weakness in corporate control and make a habit of looking for opt-out options on every site you visit so we all can take back our data.