and now
Some Good Gun Websites
corneredcat.com - An excellent guide to shooting for women… and men.
womenandguns.com/wfn/somany.html - A good buying guide for female shooters. Check out the rest of the site too.
pistolprowess.com/Choosing_a_Pistol.htm - another gun buying guide
calguns.net - a good discussion forum for guns in California
gunbroker.com - The eBay of the gun world.
I was looking for a handgun that was:
- popular (easy to find parts for)
- relatively inexpensive
- a grip my girlfriend could handle as well as I
Springfield XD 9 - good (and pretty) except the grip is too large. The runner-up.
Beretta 92FS - What I ended up with :-)
tommysgunpack.com/ - holsters
dragunov.net/bay_area_ranges.htm Bay Area shooting ranges
http://www.sightm1911.com/ a site for the 1911 handgun
How to Download Images from Flickr
I don’t like Flickr because all the photos are … over there. They aren’t on people’s servers that can be backed up to personal archives. In time, all links to all content break.
Here’s a good way to save Flickr images back on your own computer. I tried Downloadr but it kept crashing on me.
And here is a local copy of the same (of course)
A Few Neat Things from Maker Faire 2007
I was going to do a whole write-up on Maker Faire 2007 but there’s just not enough time in a day. Here’s what I’ve got…
HatManDo - a game system where participants move their characters on the screen by moving their bodies around a grid. They wear a hat with LEDs on it that are seen by a camera high up. The creator writes “send me your comments nye2 -at- email dat com”
.
Puppy Mover Monorail - geeky cuteness.
Make your own Handheld Animated Butterflies - by Roger Sonntag. He came in from upstate New York to show these off. It uses an electromagnet to shoot butterflies or rings up a pole. The butterflies are actually pretty neat.
Sharlotta of the Desert Belly Dance Workshop
Charlotte put on this workshop in August. It was well attended and everyone enjoyed it… even the man who learned some male belly dance moves!
Why Cell Phones Kill Gorillas
At Burning Man, under the man there were a couple preachy signs. Here’s my favorite.
Sorry it’s hard to read. I lost my digital camera at the Albertsons in El Cerrito on my way to Burning Man so all I had was my emergency film camera.
The jist is:
There’s this chemical used to make cell phones that’s only found in the Congo. People mine it and the civil war kills the gorillas. And they’re tasty. Or something like that.
Read it for yourself.
Oh and we’re killing the polar bears because they have all our oil, not because they’re tasty.
SWARM Video
I created and submitted a video for the VIDA 10.0 international competition with help from my friends.
VIDA 10.0 is an international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines, such as robotics and Artiftcial Intelligence.We are looking for artistic projects that address the interaction between “synthetic” and “organic” life”.
In previous years prizes have been awarded to artistic projects using autonomous robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation, and works that highlight the social side of Artificial Life.
You can make the video below play full-screen by clicking one of the buttons on the toolbar.
The video is available on Youtube as well. http://youtube.com/watch?v=pZpcGwWfRBE
A high quality version can be downloaded here (mpeg4, 1kbps, 74megabytes)
A (0.5 gb) DVD quality version of this video is also available for the asking.
Webkinz
Julia is building a whole little world on the internet.
Here’s her panda Debbie’s bedroom. She bought and placed every object in the room on Webkinz :-)
Today’s Thought: A person in uniform…
“A person in a uniform is merely an extension of another person’s will” - Philip Slater - according to RPG Motivational Slides
New Car Stereo: Pioneer DEH-P6700MP - Part 2
My
original post on the subject of my Pioneer DEH-P6700MP car stereo has received so many comments that I created this second post, just so people don’t have to scroll down so terribly far to read all of the terrific comments.
I have closed comments on the original post. Please leave a comment here to continue the thread.
Yours in music,
Lee
Motorized Bicycle - Part 2
My original post on the subject “Motorized Bicycle” has received so many comments that I created this second post, just so people don’t have to scroll down so terribly far to read all of the terrific comments.
I have closed comments on the original post. Please leave a comment here to continue the thread.
Yours in bikes,
Lee
SWARM at Supper Club
Whether you haven’t quite decompressed from the Burn, or perhaps you missed this year’s trek to the desert, there’s one last opportunity to experience a little taste of the playa for 2007. On Saturday October 20th, XEssential presents, “Best of the Burn”- featuring some of the best music and art from Burning Man 2007.
Bringing you the sounds of the playa…
Zach Moore [Deep End Sound Camp]
Friction [Purgatory Cruiser Art Car]
Tamo [Garage Mahal Art Car]
Ross Barringer [BrassBunnyRita Sound Camp]
Featured Art from the playa…
Belisama of the Celtic Forest [Laura Kimpton] - www.celticforest.net SWARM autonomous machines [Michael Prados] - www.orbswarm.com Equatorial Encounter [Matt Evans] - www.xessential.net Sunflower Robots [Stefano Corazza] - www.sunflowerrobots.com
For more details on the djs and art of this event, please visit:
www.xessential.net
supperclub sf
657 harrison st @ 3rd
doors open @ 10pm
cover::$10 in playawear - $15 w/out
*********************************************************
We will be updating our site with artist info and links. If you have any special requests pertaining to this, please let me know.
Glad to have you all part of the event. See you Saturday.
Cheers,
John Kobé
Creative Director
XEssential
Installed Search Everything 4.1
I used to have Search Everything installed but it broke in some version of Wordpress. Well, it’s back. Now, when you search on my blog it looks at all of the comments as well as posts. You can also search for phrases with “quotation marks”. :-)
Improvising Electronic Devices is not a Crime
I was recently at a Bus Stop Rave (Sept 21st) and was handed this poster by some kind soul.
Notes on using a gas lens on our TIG welder
SWARM used a TIG welder to weld the aluminum orbs together. I took some notes about it…
We went through our first bottle of argon on the TIG welder alarmingly quickly. A bottle costs about $80 and a trip to Praxair to refill. Here are some tips that will let us use the gas much more efficiently.
- I am now able to set the pressure at about 21 CFM without any problem. We initially had it at 35 CFM. When welding, you should decrease the pressure until you start seeing little black flecks in the weld. Turn the gas back up just high enough so that you don’t see them any more and you’ll be dialed in.
- Set the post flow down to 3 seconds. We had been leaving it as high as 15 seconds but here’s what I think:
I’ve not seen any difference between a post flow of 3 seconds and one of 15. The aluminum is completely solid after 1-2 seconds. It’s not like you are holding the torch over the weld for 15 seconds anyway.
Con: I’ve noticed that the tungsten discolors when the gas stops short. I’ve noticed that this causes the tungsten to be consumed slightly each time. However, over 5 hours of constant welding, I lost about 1/8″ of tungsten. This hasn’t affected the quality of my welds. If we were working on a slower cooling metal like steel, we’d probably want to extend the post flow time.
- The gas lens lets you put the pressure a little bit lower than the regular nozzle. I think I had to keep it at 25 CFM with the regular nozzle.
- If you have to extend the tungsten electrode to get into tight spots (like welding up the base), you might have to turn the gas pressure up a little to keep the black flecks away. The gas lens will make it so you don’t have to turn the pressure up quite as much. For example, with the regular lens, I needed to leave it at 35 CFM when the electrode was extended. With the gas lens, I can turn it to about 27.
How to Remove Playa Dust From Electronics
Someone asked me… here’s my response
Really quite simple…
To remove playa dust from our electronic gear (http://orbswarm.com), we used an air compressor at 90psi with a blower attachment to get the most of it off. Then a dust-pan broom… and for a little touch-up, a toothbrush. That got just about everything off.
For the shells that have some bearings, we washed it with a pressure washer… our local self-serve car wash :-). Then we re-greased the bearings and were done with it.
For the last tiny bits that wouldn’t come out perfectly, we said “Bah. Life is too short!” and moved on.
