Month: August 2005

For those wondering where I’ve been lately, I picked up a new hobby which has been consuming what little free time I’ve usually used for blogging…

Remote-control model aircraft.

Yeah, I know, it sounds dumb. And it may be, for you! But I’ve wanted a remote control model aircraft — a real one, with a rudder, elevator, and throttle — since I was 14. I never really had the combination of money and interest to do it before, though. There was always something more worthwhile to do.

Well, I finally did it. I bought a Ready-To-Fly kit, which includes radio, batteries, charger, and everything you need to get off the ground. I charged the batteries, took my plane out, and promptly did a full-throttle nose-dive into the dirt from thirty feet in the air.

I tried to fly the plane a few more times, but I’d broken the fuselage, so I had to replace that.

Eventually, I got better at it. These days, I can routinely get the plane off the ground and into the air without crashing, and land on pavement without doing a nose-over!

Flying a plane is much more challenging than I ever thought. You have to be keeping track of so may things in order to avoid losing control: wind speed, air speed, ground speed, yaw, pitch, roll, stall characteristics of your aircraft, maximum throw of your control surfaces, fuel/battery remaining, and more. It’s overwhelming at first, but after a while it becomes more and more natural. I’m sure that by next summer it will be natural to me, and I’ll be ready to move up to faster, less-stable aircraft. For now, though, I’m enjoying my little high-wing, high-dihedral trainer.

It’s a far cry from my visions of perfect takeoffs and amazing aerobatics, though. I thought I’d flown enough flight simulators that flying a model aircraft would be a breeze! That’s so far from the truth, it’s laughable. Perspective is probably the toughest issue for the newbie: figuring out that when the plane is flying straight at you, pushing your stick right turns the plane left. Trying to make sure you always have enough airspeed and altitude to make it back to the runway even if your engine stops suddenly is also a challenge. You don’t get much warning in a model aircraft; nobody has a fuel gauge. So you have to guess what your rate of usage is, whether electric or fuel, and figure out about how long you can fly before bringing your bird in to recharge/refuel.

I had a bit of an emergency landing flying the day before yesterday, and the children at the playground where I was flying were very excited to see a little electric plane make a controlled-crash landing not twenty feet from their playset. I’m learning that a “Park Flyer” may not be easily flown at every park; some are much better than others. Big, with few trees or light fixtures and lots of lawn seems to be the best ticket.

Anyway, so that’s where I’ve been. Most of my spare time has been spent fixing my plane or reading about how to work better with it. I have enough left in savings to afford a second plane if I get tired of my first one this season, but for now, it will suffice.

Come winter, though, I’ll be grounded more often than not, and you’ll see more of me. Rest assured that I check everything daily! Thanks to Sam and everyone for keeping things lively over the last week!

Keep smiling!

–Matt

Can anyone help me find out the current percentage of the U.S. population that has cancer?

I couldn’t find the answer. Would be much appreciated to anyone that can.

Because I’m in the professional creative industry, I get a lot of flak from Mac users who cajole me for basing my operation on a Wintel platform.

For those who work in publishing, design or media production fields, it’s sort of expected that you own a Mac. Macs are a symbol of creativity. An apple icon emblazoned on a business card shows to others just how true to creative you are. I actually have to make an extra effort to tell all the designers with whom I work that I’m on a Windows system. They’re embarrassed to know me.

However, today, I came across yet another reason why I don’t buy Macs: konfabulator.com

Let’s back up…

About four months ago, Apple pushed its latest OS release (Tiger) by heralding a specific feature called “widgets.

If I was convincted of taking part in a criminal conspiracy that defrauded millions I probably wouldn’t mind receiving house arrest as a punishment.

Lately, it seems that the lot of white-collar criminals are receiving house arrest as a form of punishment. This is a punishment in which a criminal is told that they must stay inside their house for months at a time and eat junk food and talk on the phone with their friends and sleep until noon and watch lots of movies on their enormous home entertainment system which is likely to be the envy of the modern world seeing that these criminals are millionaires who can also afford to shop online and have fancy decor delivered to their house whenever they feel like it. In fact, I’m thinking about starting an online shopping hub that specifically caters to rich criminals on house arrest.

I admit that I don’t know everything about the criminal justice system, but it seems that house arrest doesn’t exactly fit into the notion of rehabilitation. It would be hard to keep a straight face when a judge ordered me, after screwing over millions of people, to hang out inside my 15,000 square foot house for six months. This is because going to a real jail is probably worse. I’ve never been inside a real jail but I’ve seen The Shawshank Redemption several thousand times. Real jail doesn’t look pretty.

I’ve been lucky enough to catch glimpses of Marth a Stewart’s house. Martha’s house arrest sentence has been televised. She’s baking cookies. She’s making lemonade for reporters. I didn’t see any lemonade and cookies at the Shawshank prison. Maybe my sense of fair and balanced justice is warped by the television and movies?

http://www.mozilla.org/reorganization/

As of August 3rd, Mozilla went all corporate on us. I didn’t read the whole page, but it seemed like the Q&A portion was meant to calm nerves by seeing the word “corporation” next to Mozilla.

I visited some of the executive blogs and got more of the same calming approach. My sense is that if they’re nearing 10% U.S. desktop share that they want to start seeing some duckets in the treasury. I don’t think it’s a bad idea, especially if they’re striking a deal with the IRS to keep some things tax-exempt with the original Foundation.

I’ve been enjoying listening to XM Radio’s comedy station at work for the last couple of weeks. I have a serious question:

Why are fart jokes so funny?

Seriously. I mean, there are a ton of really funny comedians on the station, and they can get laughs on all kinds of topics. But the loudest, longest laughs seem to center around funny-sounding body noises, particularly farts. I lose it on a lot of them.

What is it about flatulence that’s so funny?

If you read my earlier post, you see I had a problem getting my new Quasicon controller to work with Mame.. well, as it turns out, you can configure MAME to work any way you want!

Now, I’m sure lots of people know this, but I couldn’t find it online anywhere, so here’s how you do it. I figured I’d put it as a new post on the front page so if people were looking for this answer they could find it.

Go to Options and select “Default Game Options” – go to “Controllers” and click “Enable Joystick Input” to make sure your joystick is turned on. Hit apply and then OK.

THEN.. Open up a game, get it going by following the prompts, then hit TAB. A menu comes up. select “Input Options (General)” – go to Player 1 (or 2 if you want) input, and you will see a list of commands like UP, and BUTTON 1.

Select (for instance) “up”, hit enter, and then the default thing that makes you go “up” in the game goes blank. Hit what you WANT to make you go up (in my case, “UP” on the digital Joystick) and it should display.. you can do this for all directions – then you can decide which buttons you want to do what. – then repeat for player 2

Once you do that, escape out back to the second menu and you can go to Other input options and select what buttons you want to be “insert coin” and “start player 1”.

After that, you can configure per game by going to the game, hitting TAB and going to Input options (game) – so the button configuration is how you like.

Thanks to Chris from Quasimoto.com for teching me how to do this!!

I was struck by a thought today, as I lay in a dentist chair, staring up at the hygenist polishing my teeth:

A visit to the dentist is like a visit to the confessional where the Father already knows everything about you.

Seriously, think about it!

Me: Forgive me, Father Dentist, for I have sinned. It has been two years since my last cleaning.

Father Dentist: What is the reason for your visit?

Me: I have been guilty of eating impure foods, Father.

Father Dentist: What kind of impure foods, my child?

Me: Beef Jerky and Oreos.

Father Dentist: What you have done is grievous in the sight of the X-ray machine, as shown by this obscure and indecipherable dark spot in this tiny little picture, but forgiveable. As penance, do two fillings and a root canal, two “brush dailies”, and a “Hail Mary” flossing.

Sister Dental Hygienist climbs into the confessional, leaning over my face with floss in hand, and begins to pry quarter pounders, old pieces of gum, and sub-compact vehicles from the gaps between my teeth.

Sister Dental Hygienist: Tell me, child, do you floss?

Me: Of course I floss!

Sister Dental Hygienist: How often?

Me: Well, let me think … when was my last cleaning?

I feel rather silly when visiting the dentist, actually. Before visiting the dentist, I brush. Twice in a row. And floss, even if I haven’t flossed in a few days.

Think about that for a second, though. Isn’t that a bit like changing your oil before visiting the Jiffy Lube? I heard a comedian on the radio the other day suggesting that maybe, rather than brushing our teeth before visiting the dentist, we should make those hygienists earn their keep.

Next time, I’ll eat Oreos in the waiting room. Without any milk. And chase it down with some beef jerky.

Okay.. Matt and various techies.. I need help.

I just put together my “Quasicade” machine, and it works great.. MAME is fired up to play my (legally liscensed of course) games.. EXCEPT..

My computer detects the Digital joystick (that would correspond to the D-Pad on an analog PS2 controller) and calls it a POV(Hat).

The long and short of it is.. it looks like Mame wants to use my analog sticks to play the games.. which is not good for classic gaming.. the reason I got the thing was to get the old 4-8 way Joystick feel.

now.. Mame WILL accept keyboard inputs, but I don’t know how to mp keyboard buttons (I know it can be done in the ctrtl folder, but I’m not really a techie guy)…

SO.. my question is – How do I make this thing work in Mame? Either.. how do I switch this thing to be the controller of the x and y axes, or how do I make the digital stick input keyboard strokes.

and for uber techies who will want to yell at me, please don’t – I’m just a silly dumb guy who needs a break.

JT

About a week ago I picked up an XM radio. A pretty cool device. The one downside that i see is that there are still commercials. Not as many as there are on normal FM radio, but commercials still the same. One of the commercials that caught my attention was for a service called EJamming. Seems like a neat concept. It states that all you do is “Just plug any MIDI-enabled instrument into your computer, fire up the eJamming™ Station and you’re connected to your friends, making music together over the internet in real time – no matter if they live a thousand miles away.”

Has any one else heard of this service?