World making too much sense? Reality seeming a tad too comfortable? Want to see forbidden science at work, but don't want to bother with the messy side of biology? Check out http://www.kleinbottle.com/ Don't think about it for too long or you'll go mad staring at the abomination.

A recent trip to our local, relatively speaking, Borders entertainment outlet became the highlight of an otherwise depressingly commercial week. The friendly and knowledgeable staff, thoughtful displays, and aroma of freshly brewed coffee all added to the experience, but it was a discovery in the Gardening section that immediately put a smile on my face. I usually browse that particular section in most book retailers I visit. Gardening has always provided me a great deal of enjoyment, and I can't help but to learn as much as I can on the topic. It was while replacing a book concerning the use of natural stone in landscaping, that a certain word caught my eye- Cannabis. "Cannabis? Surely not", I thought to myself, but there it was; a growing guide detailing cultivation of that much maligned species. As brain finally was able to accept the presence of Cannabis Cultivation guides sitting on an open shelf in a corporate media retail outlet, other titles popped into awareness and dozens of books appeared. I couldn't help but to laugh. Try it for yourself- a search for "cannabis" in books at the Borders website returned 108 titles. I gurantee you most if not all will be on their shelves.

Watch out for these killer squirrels in Russia - they'll kick your ass!! Killer Squirrels

Considering all of the snow we've had recently, this V8 snowblower might come in handy!

V8 Snowblower

V8 Snowblower Movie

Additionally, this gas powered blender - its all the rage x-mas.

Gas Powered Blender

Blender Movie

Okay, just about every idiot out there has heard that the Mayan calendar(which is supposedly startlingly accurate) either ends entirely or rolls over to another metacycle in 2012 or so, depending on who you're talking to. Well, you can add another crazy as fuck bunch of people to the list. There's some hippies out there who claim that we're actually a bunch of extraterrestrials who got stranded or something on Earth. I guess this rock is a big cosmic Stuckey's and humans are waiting for someone to pick up our reeking hitchhiker asses.

In 2012 or so, possibly not until 2017, the whole planet is going to enter a "photonic belt" and the whole place is going to get fried like a cheap burrito. When this happens, there'll be horrible catastrophes and we'll all be turned into cosmic space babies like the end of 2001. Whether or not we first have to rub against a shiny rock first is unknown. First, there's going to be a 'dead zone' that wipes out all our electronics for three days. Then, shortly after, it'll all start working again. But it'll be because of 'photonic energy,' which is apparently not a made-up concept. Then, we'll also get jacked up on this 'photonic energy' and will no longer require food, air, or even pants.

That's day two, by the way.

After the couple of days of darkness, it's going to be daylight ALL THE TIME for years. But I guess it won't drive everyone crazy and cancerous because we'll all be immortal and chock full of 'photonic energy.' Most people won't be able to take this space baby transformation and will die in the process of becoming wonderful godlike beings of happiness. This mostly includes Xtians and the like, people who aren't 'in tune' with the planet. Oh, and then aliens will help us all out with the transition. In the end, I hope this idea catches on just enough to spawn a whole stack of death cults that self-destruct in a violent manner. Hell, they don't have to be that violent as long as there's a sizable body count.

Mother of blessed whores, who comes up with this crap?

Sometimes, I am astounded by the intellect of my friends. Bruce42 and I were discussing the undead abomination that seems to have enthralled so many people with money and power. Yep, I'm referring to our Great Zombie Lord Jesus, who greedily watches the Earth until the time is right for him to lead his army of the "faithful" to conquer the world in the name of "peace." Bruce pointed out a very important fact: this Jesus fellow was anointed, killed, wrapped and laid to rest. His tomb was disturbed, his artifacts scattered across the globe and he rose again. He's not a zombie like I had thought. Indeed, we are most definitely facing a mummy.

If the mummy legends are true, we're in deep trouble. He should be very long-lived, which is probably why he hasn't come back yet. He's probably very slow-moving, but should possess an inhuman strength and stamina. Fire should work against him, depending upon his preparation methods. He probably has a command of sorcery and we're already aware of his homicidally-minded followers. If we're to be prepared for his strike, we should keep in mind his weaknesses, few though they may be. Fire is the bane of the mummy, but not much else tends to be effective. My bet is that it's best to let him pursue those who defiled his resting place and seek the return of his artifacts. Only then will he be satisfied and return to his tomb to continue his sleep of the ages. If it's been this long, he is going to be pissed. In preparation,

Bruce42 compiled a list of possible artifacts that he'll probably seek out: The Holy Grail The Cross The Shroud of Turin perhaps the Spear of Longinus If we're lucky, most of these will be in Europe. If not, perhaps the extended trek under the Atlantic on foot would explain why the curse of Jesus has taken such a long time to come down upon those who defiled his tomb.

Ten words in length? I'm already on that, sweet thang. I have to wonder sometimes. If a pregnant woman dies, does the undertaker charge for two embalmings? Would it be possible to get the guy to remove the fetorpse and bury it separately?

If you're the sort who believes the tumor was a person the moment you started screwing, it's probably not an unusual request. There are probably catalogs for tiny, fetus-sized coffins. And damn, are those expensive! You wouldn't think they would be, given the size. I mean, a coffee can would work perfectly and would probably smell better. If you had a sense of humor about the whole thing, you could probably use a One Whole Chicken can to do the job. You could probably leave the can open and no one would be able to tell the difference between your mulligan child and the original product. I'll bet you the bones would be just as flexible as one of those inexpensive stewed fryers.

Personally, I'd think that the whole procedure would be pretty straightforward so long as you cut the umbilical cord first. Once you've pumped someone full of embalming fluid and left the cord exposed, it'd get all brittle and shatter. It's also possible that it'd end up just stiff enough to pass for ropy jerky. Well, jerky that smells like formaldehyde. I'll bet anyone five bucks that you could slip one of those things unnoticed into the canister of beef sticks at the gas station. I suppose that if you got there early enough, you could get the coroner to save you the placenta.

God knows I would.

You wouldn't even need to come up with a flimsy excuse to get it. "It's going to be thrown away one way or another, so I might as well see how we taste." Heck, it's probably the same thing you'd say to the people in the delivery room if your sexmate hadn't washed down those pills with a fifth of vodka. I can imagine the post-funeral barbeque now. "Hey Ted, sorry about Darla. What's that delicious cut of meat you've got on the grill? Is that a hickory barbecue sauce?" "Well Jimbo, that's Darla's placenta. I was going to eat it after the child was born, but there's no sense in letting it go to waste now. Get a plate."

Though I have no intention of ever having cancer, I've already asked my friends to save the placenta for me if they ever decide to spawn. I bet it'll be delicious. Well, it certainly will be, once I give it a nice glaze and bake it till done. It also strikes me as odd that no one at a fetal funeral ever says "Hey honey, we all start off with tails! I'll be damned, perhaps there is something to this evolution thing after all." But I suppose that the ones most likely to bury their noisy parasites wouldn't ever make the connection.

Ok so here's my job situation.

There is a list of countries that have mutual working agreements with Australia that allow the citizens of each to get working holiday visas at the other, but the US isn't on it. A working holiday visa is like a visitor's visa, but it allows you to get work while you are visiting. The fact that I can't get one of those means that I can't get temporary work to support me until I get a longterm job nor can I start at a longterm job (once I get one) until my longstay work visa application clears. The office of immigration in Australia originaly told me that the application would take 14 days to clear after it was submitted. However, several calls to the office of immigration later I have found out that the time to clear is more like 6-8 weeks than 14 days. And they seemed to think that it was my fault for believing the first person I spoke to at the office.

Where does that leave me? Sitting in Australia, no income and can't get a temp job, running out of money with 6 weeks left on my visitor's visa. So I'm fucked. Oh well. I gave it a shot. I'm heading back to the US and will hopefully be able to get a job there quickly. Not going back to Iowa, tho. Since I'm set to live in a new place anyway I'm going to give Seattle a shot. Any advice anyone? Know any easy places I can get a job or someone who could help me get one out there? I was pissed about my situation yesterday, but now I'm just anxious to get moving again. I'm going to go and do some scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef before I go, tho. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I didn't...

The Internet Explorer Development Blog informs site developers many IE-specific and aggravating CSS bugs will be fixed. Until then Microsoft developers recommend phasing out any hacks and workarounds. In the spirit of this bold proposal, I built the new USL Site Theme using no CSS hacks. Opera, Firefox and Netscape for Windows render the site quite well- I still have to work out a non-IE-specific Float Drop in the Content Edit pages.

As for Internet Explorer, don't bother. I mean that. The site is essentially unusable and just plain ugly. If you're curious, go ahead and try, but I won't take responsibility for any aggrivation incurred if you attempt serious navigation. Once you're using a browser with non-farked CSS 2 support, you should see a Front Page currently set to display User Blogs and a variety of links arrayed in Four Columns. On pages requiring room for a large table of data, like the Fora, the Third Column will disappear. Aside from any minor theme changes, keep an eye out for some updates to the news aggregator- I'll be pulling and adding sources. The reason will be made clear soon enough.

Two bands exist that have an identical name, Prussian Blue. One looks like a bunch of hippies or something like that, I didn't pay too much attention to them. The other is far more interesting and I mean that in my usual sense of the word. The other Prussian Blue consists of two early teenage girls who sing about how they love being white. It's no longer White Supremacy, it's now White Nationalism. A favorite quote from an interview: "It seems like smart white girls who have good eugenics are more interested in making money in a career or partying than getting married and having a family. And yes, we are working on some new songs about this issue." Their parents are white supremacists and their father registered the swastika as his cattle brand.

Looking at the band's lyrics page, I was particularly amused by a song called Victory Day, a song about how white people need to go to war with the brown people. I guess the money, oil, land, guns, power, media and schools just aren't enough to save us from the evil brown people ...across the street. Oh, and Rudolph Hess was a "man of Peace" if you believe the song Sacrifice. Having hunted around the links on the Prussian Blue site, I found a pretty funny pro-white forum. Wow, a lot of people hate jews. A particular favorite was a guy who claimed that jews are smarter than white people, so we're all slaves to them. Oh, and white people are inherently stronger than jews so we should just beat them physically.

Oddly enough, another person claims that white people are smarter than the other races and that makes them superior. Those darn jews! I also found a racist record label that sells a PC game called Ethnic Cleansing. The description: "The Race War has begun. Your skin is your uniform in this battle for the survival of your kind. The White Race depends on you to secure its existence. Your peoples enemies surround you in a sea of decay and filth that they have brought to your once clean and White nation. Not one of their numbers shall be spared........" Perhaps I can find a pirated version. This game sounds too horrible not to play, but there's no way I'd give these people any money to amuse myself for about ten minutes.

i've been waiting to make a proper ultrascience debut until i had a proper project worthy of my favorite steel benders' time. for many months i've waited to have a contribution, and the time has come. i've been on the market for a new MIDI controller for some time now, and have found few that have had what i wanted. oh sure, you can have a few knobs and faders for a few hundred bucks, or you can sell a few organs and get a rig that will run a 5.1 surround sound system with real-time panning, open every garage door on the block, and invade guatemala by remote... but there doesn't seem to be much on the market in between.

for a while, i had my eye on evolution's UC-33 control surface, a slick little unit that has a decent amount of knobs and faders for a good price. it's designed to work with a lot of the softwarei use both live and in the studio, and evolution makes a quality piece of gear for their price. however, it just doesn't have enough buttons for my liking. those who have had the misfortune of hearing me live know that i have little patience and tend to switch things up pretty frequently and start and stop sounds at random.

in MIDI speak, that means triggers, and lots of them. so i basically need a giant bank of buttons, because i really hate switching through presets and running jog wheels to find things. this isn't techno... if i want a sound, i want it now, because my whole rhythm scheme is going to change in about three seconds, and that's my trigger window. so i've been spinning my wheels and saving money for the right controller to come along. my heart skipped a beat when i found this site: http://www.ucapps.de/

there's enough info on here to keep you busy for a week or so, but here's the short and skinny of it: 1) 64 contollers. of any kind. 2) design your own interface. it doesn't matter what goes where. 3) lcd monitor (unheard of in affordable MIDI controllers). 4) open source driver software and firmware. 5) costs about as much in parts as the smell of an allen and heath. for instance, compare richie hawtin's custom "my daddy designed this and allen and heath will only build this for me me me" toy, the ctrl:live; www.derivativeinc.com/Events/15-Plastikman/images/P51853221.jpg to this midiBox64 customization; http://www.midibox.org/midibox_gallery/elektromeier1.jpg

i can tell you which one i'd rather have. and besides, for the theoretical price of the A&H job, i could build this with the budget: http://www.midibox.org/midibox_gallery/axel17.jpg in short, i now present ultrascience labs with a new challenge. togeher, we have designed and built hardware that has taken my music from being horrible shit that no one likes to being really well produced horrible shit that no one likes. it is high time we threw more buttons, lights, and faders into the mixture.

brian, if you can find the time, i'd like you to look over the site and let me know what you think. throw me a budget and i'll get cracking on a design. interested?

Okay, we're having a Halloween party out at the estate. This matter is solely in my brother's hands, since I don't want to deal with the bother of it all. I, however, have a couple inspirations to deal with right now. So, I've decided to build us a wickerman for Halloween. We've got enough wood and brush that it shouldn't be a problem. I'd prefer that we stuff it with criminals, but that's not an option at this juncture. I went looking for more info and discovered that the wickerman is supposed to be a Beltaine tradition.

Fuck Beltaine and fuck tradition! I wanna set a gigantic effigy ablaze on Halloween and no damn hippie holiday in May is going to stop me. Looking at the fire ring, I'll probably have to expand that, too. We've got the cinderblock to do so, so it won't be too difficult to achieve. If only it weren't raining today. Desperately waiting to hear back from the TV station I interviewed at the other day. I want that job so freaking bad, I'll kick a puppy if I get hired.

Ok so I'm posting another exciting installment of my adventures in Oz. First of all I am really getting sick of living with my aunt and uncle. The house has no doors or finished walls except exterior doors and walls. There are only bed sheets hanging in the doorways. And the walls only go up 8 feet or so. The celing is like between 10 and 12 feet from the ground so there is no such thing as privacy here. You can hear what everyone in the house is doing and saying all of the time. It sux because they are daytime people and I'm a night owl. I have to be quiet as a mouce all night or I'll wake them up. So that pretty much sux and that's just the house.

I'm also having trouble just getting along with my aunt and uncle. They are really uphappy about how introverted I am and about who I am in general. They can't stand what I like to eat, what I like to do, that I'm not to interested in gardening or cattle or that I don't enjoy listening/watching the news every waking moment. They can't stand that I really don't care if people like me or not. They detest that I like to read a lot and that I don't like going for long solitary walks in the sunlight.

I'm not sure what I can do about this. I've tried to stay out of their way, be as unobtrusive as possible, but that just seems to piss them off even more. I get the feeling that what they wanted was a clone of my uncle and that I'm just not good enough. Got into an argument with them several days ago because they were trying to order me around and I told them that I was an an adult and that I could think and decide for myself. It wasn't like they were telling me to help them with anything (I've offered tons of times, but they always refuse), they were trying to order me to like certain things and activities. Things and activities that had nothing to do with them! They were just blatantly ordering me to be someone else! They were telling me that if I changed then people would like me better and that I'd like myself. I told them that I liked myself just fine and that I didn't care who else liked me. Then they got angry and started telling me it was selfish to not plan my life around making others like me!! I'm really not sure what they want from me, but I know who I am (generaly), I like who I am (generaly) and anyone who doesn't like me can just fuck off.

Anyway, I took this opportunity to take the train to Sydney for the weekend. I had a great time :) I went out to a club (for some reason all of their clubs are called "hotels" here) and had a few drinks. It was a good time :) I met a bunch of Sydney natives and a couple of Canadians, named Stu and Phil, who decided that I was an honorary Canadian. Then they started drunkenly singing "Blame Canada!" at the tops of their lungs :) During the course of the night I apparently set Phil up with a rather unattractive Australian woman and he didn't realize how unattractive she was until the next day :/ He laughed about it the next evening, tho, so it must not have been that bad ;)

The next evening I went to the same club for a DnB show that was advertised there. OMFG was it packed!! Sydney loves it's DnB!! I had a hard time meeting anyone there that night because it was so packed and loud!! I did, however, meet up with Gotham who is a DnB producer/DJ from Arizona who lives in Sydney. I'd met him the first time I was in Sydney, but we didn't get to hang out much then. We got pretty trashed and then left the place to go and meet up with a dude named Merlin. Apparently he was on some TV show called "Big Brother" and was apparently very famous (and rich) because of it. I don't watch TV so I didn't recognise him, but he was definately an interesting guy. We went all over Sydney with Merlin, he bought tons of drinks and paid for cab rides everywhere. We ended up at Gotham's place and listened to the tracks he'd written and the tracks he was working on while getting more messed up. Then Merlin had to go home and go to bed. Gotham and I then went to another bar (this was around 4:30am) and continued to get drunk while we waited for a couple of Gotham's other friends to show up. I watched Gotham loose $35 to those electronic gambling machines while we waited for an hour.

Unbelivably boring.

Then Bal and Johnny showed up. Bal was from India and was filthy rich. His family was friends with some shiek or another and as a result that shiek bought Bal a $10million dollar appartment overlooking Sydney Harbor and the opera house as well as 10 Feraris and 10 porshes for him to get around Sydney in. Damn was this dude loaded. We chilled for a while then around 7 am he and Johnny decided that they were going to go to another friend of their's place in the "Lebanise part of Sydney" and they didn't think that it'd be wise for a caucasian American like myself to join them. I was kind of tired anyway so I went back to the hostel I was staying at and crashed. Definately a long weird night... That's about it so far.

Hope this is amusing to you all :)

A few weeks ago at work, I crushed a finger and the nail died. The old nail has finally been pushed out and disconnected itself from my digit. There's now a sad, rigid stump where I once had a nail. Just ask me, I'll show you the protonail. I'll admit to having a problem when it comes to temptation. I walked in Gamers today and left with a DS, the new Advance Wars, and Nintendogs. Yes, I got Nintendogs. For the time being, anyway. I now have an excessively cute dachshund made entirely of electrons. Most of the game uses the stylus instead of buttons and it works pretty well. Dual screens allow you to flip through menus without losing sight of the cute, yet fictional dog.

Thus far, Menchi knows his name and comes when called. He can also sit, which I taught him to do. The microphone picks up his name and commands pretty well so far, though it leads to noisy play sessions. "Menchi!" "Sit!" ""Bob," quit shouting. Are you still playing that game? You know, that's a really girly reason to get a DS. Why didn't you get a PSP?" "Fuck the PSP! If I wanted a crappy video player and no games for more money, I'd waste my cash on a portable DVD player. Then, I wouldn't have to re-buy Super Troopers to watch it."

Fuck you all, I'm going to keep my fictional puppy. Sure, it's just a virtual pet. It's Nintendo, so it's got a polish on it that Blizzard is envious of. The way the dog moves and responds to 'affection' is far too endearing to pass up. I totally need to see if I can use it to get chicks now. The PSP is crap. That's all you really need to know about it. For every good thing about it, there's a glaring flaw with the execution.

Good thing 1: It plays movies. Flipside: You have to pay full retail for your movies again and it'll never play on anything else.

Good thing 2: It's got a really nice screen. Flipside: They've been taking back units with defective screens since release. Something about dead pixels.

Good thing 3: Sony can buy a lot of third-party titles. Flipside: How many good games for the PSP have you heard about? My point exactly.

Good thing 4: It's got stuff. Flipside: I dropped about $150 for a used DS and two used games. A used PSP with nothing else was $200. I could get the competing handheld and four games at the cost of the PSP, all on the used market. It's pretty close to that if I buy them new, as well.

Good thing 5: It's got a USB port. Flipside: Sony goes out of their way to make homebrew applications unusable with every firmware update.

Good thing 6: It plays video. Flipside: When it launched, the PSP played a few common video file formats. This was stopped with the aforementioned "updates." God forbid the consumer can USE the device for purposes that don't require handing money to Sony.

I also have Advance Wars: Dual Strike. I expect to be in battle for the forseeable future. Since the game contains all the maps from AW 1 and 2, you may miss me.

For those of you with an interest in Internet-based radio and television programming, try GBStv on for size. On right now:

Anime Music Video Hell 3: The Movie A series of rather actually funny "sketches" of music very well layed over anime.

Pure entertainment. Watch it. I command it.

Photovore09 recently recommended Art Crimes; a portal for international graffiti art and urban culture websites. The organization is a bit haphazrd by modern web standards, but the art displayed is excellent, and the sheer amount of it makes the digging worthwhile.

Currently watching an early Clinton-era film on the "Homosexual Agenda." I had no idea we were so rich, powerful or insidious. Trent Lott is featured in this, I'm not making it up. I'd rather like to hook up with whoever it is that's in charge of this sodomy-based old boy network. I've certainly never been approached by the shadowy homosexual power structure and I'm rather insulted by the fact. There's even a gay rights march with people chanting "We're here, we're queer, we're going to rule the world." As one AIDS patient and former homosexual said, "God has healed me of that need to have an emotional bond with other men." Somehow, I don't think God felt like curing you of that AIDS, so you must not be that much better off.

Modern day miracle? Not even close.

It wouldn't surprise me if there ended up being a patron saint of abruptly reversed sexuality. I envision something like Saint Flora of Fransisco, who saw an angel of the Lord and was inspired to quit the carpet-munching and get married. Eventually, there was a Saint Patrick style driving out of the homosexuals of San Fransisco, so that musical theater could be enjoyed by families who didn't want to walk past the swishy people in the lobby. Years after her death, numerous 'miracle' conversions to heterosexuality were deemed to a be a good reason for canonization. Eventually, there'd be medals to tuck into a child's underwear for protection and even an Irish drinking holiday.

Petco's fish weren't the healthiest specimens, but Mel bought an Apple Snail, a Betta and nine Neon Tetras on Tuesday. At last count this morning, 5 of the neons have died. We've narrowed down the cause to a gill disease probably stemming from stress; it seems that the popularity of the tetra is leading to over breeding and subsequently a general lack of hardiness. Petco does have a guarantee, but we've only been able to recover three of the fish corpses; our snail seems to be 'magnetically' attracted to dead fish and ravenously feasts on the bodies, leaving naught but a few chunks of bone or fin. Regular treatments of a broad-spectrum antibiotic should cure the tank.

Also on Tuesday- roadside Bonsai. That's right- we found a Japanese dude selling Juniper Bonsai from a van on a roadside corner across the street from Petco in the parking lot of an abandoned Blimpie. I got a 7 year old, well-formed tree for only $25! He also had bottles of specialized fertilizer for sale- two for $5.50. rad.

We've spent the last two weeks preparing for and attending art bazaars. We've tried farmers' markets in the past, but we would only make enough to cover entry costs. Our booth at the Valley Junction Art Festival proved much more lucrative; we pulled in over $400. Even after taxes we'll cover the entry costs, new displays and canopy. With luck the 2005 Fall For Urbandale Open Market on Saturday, October 1st will go as well; fortunately for us, people have been buying small gift items and we have a large stockpile.

We aren't expecting the same level of turnout for the FFU Open Market, but we are guessing people will be buying the same kind of items. That means less time in front of the lathe creating more expensive bowls and more time spent tracking inventory and updating our online catalog, but I really don't mind the work as it trains me to think about our work as a business instead of an excuse to spend time in the shop.

Speaking of the which, our basement workspaces were entirely overdue for cleaning and organization; I had to make room for a new lathe, and Mel rescued her studio from stacks of old papers and boxes of junk. All in all we've probably hauled a dozen full garbage sacks of crap out of the two rooms; it's amazing how much useless detritus people shove into odd corners and cabinets. And that's just the garbage; we've already hauled four full truck loads of stuff to Goodwill. I know we've been guilty of the same packrat behavior, but at least Mel and I ditch our stuff relatively regularly. I don't know how many decades of debris was represented in the heaps we've extracted. With the debris cleared and tools in place, work with the new lathe could begin in earnest and in a few days I had stacks of new bowls and platters ready for sale. All the effort has definitely proved worthwhile; I'm much more productive with a better machine and more efficient surroundings.

Bah... Being this far removed from civilization is really getting to me :/ 25km from the nearest town of 400 people, an hour beyond that is the nearest town with a train station and Sydney is a two hour ride from that :( Very beautiful out here, but with all the power comming from wind and solar it must be conserved, so when it gets dark... it really gets dark. Lights taking a lot of power and all. You quickly get used to going to bed shortly after dark and getting up with the sun. Not really as hard as I thought it would be to get up that early everyday. There are other problems with getting all of your power from wind and sun. Like there is running water, but the pump is usualy turned off to conserve power. No drinks of water at night. No toilet usage.

Same with computers. I can use my uncle's laptop because they don't use much power, but not a regular computer or a regular monitor. I could not live this way permanently... I'm also used to cooking my own food. I so much prefer that to having my aunt cook a new meal for me three times a day. She said that it'd be ok for me to cook for myself, but was obviously just being polite. That and she took all of the food I'd bought for me to use cooking and used it all in group meals as quickly as she could. And she really doesn't like me not eating grains or potatos (that being the reason I bought a bunch of food for myself). When I first got here it was like a 2 hour conversation with her asking if I eat various breads and pastas or rice or potatos and me saying "no" over and over again. She still proclaims (contrary I've already told her) that not eating carbs will make me gain weight. sigh I need to find a job... soon...

Hey kidz :) I have am now in the wonderful land of Oz. It's very interesting here. Sydney is beautiful. The people are nice. In the two nights I was in Sydney I found two DnB parties to go to and met some kewl people :) I'm at my uncle's right now. He lives in a middle of a national park in the mountains south of Sydney. We are 25km from the nearest town (which has a population of 400) and another hour drive from the next closest town that is kind of a vacationing spot on the ocean (good surfing) and from there a 2 hour train ride to Sydney. It is much colder here than I thought it would be. The area around here is a temperate rainforest. That means it's a lot like the Pacific Northwest. Cold, fogy, rainy, but beautiful :)

So far I've seen several parrots, two wallabys, an echidna, and a dead wombat. The wombat had been shot by my aunt the day before we arrived. My aunt and uncle get all of their power from solar and wind, their water from a spring, and live in the house that my uncle built himself. It's not as rugged as you'd think tho. It's pretty comfortable (if you remember to pack warm clothing, which I didn't) Not everything is great. I know I'm going to get an ulcer if I don't get a job soon and I don't much like living with family (excepting my brother) I would really like to get out and get a place of my own. I prefer more privacy and solitude than I am allowed living with my aunt and uncle.

Don't get me wrong. They are great people and I'm very greatfull to them for letting me stay here, but the same could be said of my parents who I couldn't live with for very long either... It seems that if I want to get out of here I must quickly become profecient in Java and J2EE because they are very popular here in Oz. If anyone knows anything about those please tell me so I can ask you questions. I'm reading the books I bought and they are making sense but it's not going as fast as I'd like it to. Anyway, I'm going to try and post some pictures tomorrow when I go to the computer center near where my aunt works. They only have dialup at their house (ick!).

The Minnesota Renaissance Festival is quite the affair. Tradition demands we; Holly, Jerrod, Bret, Cory, Melanie and I; attended the event in costume- as pirates- Arrrr! I find that going in full regalia definitely adds to the experience; I mean, how can one truly appreciate the fun of a ren-fest without a bit of immersion. Wearing your favorite Nascar t-shirt and baseball cap indicate a desire for isolation- at least I feel that way. I understand that a ren-fest is something truly spectacular, but why go just to gawk when you can join in? And doesn't it make sense to dress properly for your activity of choice? After all, you don't wear a tuxedo to the beach do you? It doesn't even require that much effort to look "peasantly".

Shopping was also quite fun. Mel purchased a wood mug with strap and cap, while I bought several smaller items- a mug cap, walking stick, chainmail bracelet and a new leather wallet. We found a few wonderful pottery studios, one from What Cheer Iowa. Mel and I got a pair of tiny condiment bowls from them. We definitely plan on a visit to their studio in the future.

While chatting with a friend today, said friend sent me a link to this computer case. That is totally awesome! If legos were human, they'd be the man. The flexibility of legos is incredible. With a little help from a lego catalogue, a stylin' themed lego case would be very, very feasable. Plus, think of all the cool little legos they have nowadays. Neon orange or green windows! Woo! That's not even scratching the surface with Lego Technics. Imagine, nifty mechanical bits on the insides, perty Lego blocks on the outside.

Yes indeed, Mel and I went back for another round of fair action Sunday evening. We had to retrieve my contest entries anyway, so we arrived early to take in more of the insanity that is the Iowa State Fair. More jam was purchased, as it is extremely delicious, pork burgers consumed and, to our hearts' dismay, so was a batter-dipped deep-fried Snickers Candy Bar. Thankfully, Mel and I split a single greasy, sugary bar- I don't think I could have handled an entire "Scottish Confection". Yup, those wacky Scots sure do enjoy batter and hot oil.

We also caught a bit of Vocal Trash- "Designed to combine tight vocal harmonies with the grit of "Street Instruments", Vocal Trash delivers a unique blend of Oldies, Rock and Roll with contemporary beats, to achieve a sound not soon forgotten by spectators young and old." Sure, it may be a little cheesy or hokey, but I can't deny the group's musical talent; their beats were tight and fast, and the vocal work excellent. Granted, they play a clean, family-oriented show, but they provided energy, vitality and rhythm normally lacking from such performances.

I too have been spammed in engrish. I suppose it was only a matter of time... still... I wasn't quite expecting this. benefit similar edge pretty did promised parents bought suddenly arms reference shining Well.. maybe not really engrish. I believe this here is a SPAMku (SPAM haiku.. huh? huh? get it?). Also, the fact that it's an ad for "Hardcore Meds" makes it even better. We Have All Hardcore Meds Overnight shiiping C1icck here to 0rder anything Anything? That's too good to be true.... imagine that!

Windiz Update provides an alternative update service for users of Microsoft operating systems. Quoting their list of reasons to use the service:

• No personally identifiable information is collected from your computer.
• No more unwanted spyware -- Microsoft Internet Explorer can finally be removed from your computer (if that were possible).
• It lists just the updates you need. If an update has been superceded by a newer one, it will not ask you to install the older one.
• Using enhanced data from MSBA, WindizUpdate will find more security patches needed for your O/S than the "other" website.
• If there is a security issue with a component that you have not got installed, it will not ask you to update it. For example, if you have not installed hyperterminal, it will not update it.
• It is not restricted to just Microsoft products. Software from other vendors can also be updated.
• Upgrading to the latest version of Internet Explorer is not considered a Critical Update!
• Works on Windows versions no longer supported by Microsoft -- Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95
• Our plugin is not an ActiveX control.
• Integrated download manager with error detection -- you can cancel downloads at any time, and the next time you wish to install the cancelled update, it will continue from where it left off. Only corrupted sections of the file are redownloaded.

Sounds great to me, so I gave it a shot, and yes, it seems to work just fine. Site functionality is excellent and the interface is familiar. That said, this service caters to non-IE users; Mozilla Firefox 0.9.3, Netscape 4.0, Mozilla Firebird 0.7, Opera 5 and K-Meleon 0.9 are supported. Of course, this does eliminate yet another excuse for using IE. I personally know a few people that still cling to IE because certain sites, espcially Windows Update, require it's use.

Mel and I hit the state fair this past Saturday; it was busy as hell. Full parking lots turned away drivers early in the afternoon, and the grounds were just as packed with fair-going folks. We made a beeline for the Cultural Center as I decided to submit a couple of entries for judging- an enclosed form bowl turned from Catalpa with Silver Maple inlay, and a scrollwork Buddha made from solid Cherry. We wound our way through the crowds and up to the second floor of the Center, our lust for competition results aching for fulfillment. We did not expect our Buddha to place, and indeed that was the case; wildlife and other traditional scrollsaw patterns usually take top honors. We did, however, expect to place with the bowl; everyone who had seen it was rather impressed. We managed to take second place, and as a first time competitor new to the world of bowl turning, I am rather proud of that.

Other wanderings included a visit to the Swine and Cattle Barns to gaze upon the gigantic forms of the "Big Boar" and "Super Bull". The bull weighed 2,996 pounds; the boars nearly 2,000. Absolutely incredible.

No visit to the State Fair would be complete without sampling the "cuisine"; in this case corn dogs, pizza, funnel cakes, beef jerky and roasted soy beans. We aso bought some Spring valley Honey and Clear Creek Orchard Wild Plum Jam; which I must say is absolutely delicious. We've eaten half the pint jar already.

It was an adventure for sure, and we plan on going back for more Firday evening; this time we're going with friends, so it should be even more entertaining.

Just finished upgrading my system today. It is working hella fast, I love my new Samsung SP1614N. Installed Diablo today... finished the install before the start menu icons were ready. The new fan and power supply I aquired from bruce are working great. Noisy, but stable at 84 degrees. Farenheight. I also replaced the bezels in the front panel and the power supply fan seems to be pumping out a little more air. Hmm.. speaking of Diablo, apologies to bruce for not showing up on Monday. I was back from Minneapolis, but I didn't finish setting everything back up before I left for the weekend so I didn't have D2 until about two hours ago. We should try to hook up again. Also, there's a new patch out. No idea what the changes are all about yet, I must investigate this at a later date...

Mel and I went to Return of Zod last Saturday, and I must say, it was hella fun. Event photos of course can be found online at ubersonic; I'd have my own to post, but alas I forgot the memory card for my "digi-cam". On a brighter note, Mel and I did score a Zod themed apron, perfect for grilling and other cookery. Musical highlights included Photovore09 who rolled in from Minneapolis to spin a bangin' ghetto-tech set, and forcedperfect assaulting the stage with breakcore live PA. Of course, I must mention my good friend D3F1L3 who will be crossing the ocean to the land down under. I wish him him well as he embarks on amazing Australian adventures.

The venue was a privately owned chunk 'o' riverside property near Iowa City. The owners gave us the evil eye as we pulled in, but that aside, the vibe was generally quite positive- it's hard to go wrong with a few dozen party kids camping next to a river. The geodesic dome I helped Hoeken build was in full effect; I'm actually rather impressed with that homebrew project. Since camping was involved this meant fire, and being the pyro I am, the first order of business was inspecting fire pits for hot coals. I managed to resurrect one fire and used that to build a new one at our campsite.

Musically, personally, spatially; the party was quite good. My only real complaint was one shared by Mel- the music was incessant. We were simply unable to sleep through the unrelenting and life-suckingly mediocre house music blaring through the dawn hours. It was so bad that we almost left the party without saying goodbye to our friends- even Jake who is leaving for Australia. This particular problem gave me serious doubts about attending similar outdoor events; I need sleep too much- I just can't function without it. In contrast, I did attend Blueshift last summer, and at that event there were blissful breaks in the music for sleep.

Unforunately I won't be able to make Blueshift 2 this year, but that's perfectly acceptable- I need to complete my transition to Des Moines. At any rate, I'm lending a hand with party decorations. In this case it is plywood robot silhouettes in fitting with the ubersonic tent robot theme.

Yup, those are plywood robots.

Building implosions seem to be a rather festive affair; we came across families, grills, pets and press while biking outside the day-glo orange plastic barrier at the Towers Implosion. The local and regional outlets are covering the event with mobile satellite units and "chopper" mounted cameras. Videos can be found at the WOI-TV website; they even have a special content section titled "Misson: Implosion". Naturally, with all of the excitement, I am inclined to offer my own images of the implosion. To that extent I am looking through the photos fresh from the digi-cam, and will post some pics later this evening. Speaking of pics, I realize most of the images are broken. The new Image Module for Drupal 4.6 doesn't seem to recognize the old files, so I will probably have to remove all the old nodes and create new ones.

Now you can enjoy the Towers Implosion Experience in glorious full color.

Implosion Sequence

Aftermath

Panoramas

All photos by

Brian Johnson except "Implosion Aftermath 00 & 01" by Stephen MacDonell. Photos taken with an HP PhotoSmart 215.

Today I attempted securing an enployment opportunity at the West Des Moines Best Buy; what a waste of my time. Melanie spotted an ad for their "Job Fair" and I decided that it might be worth checking out. I submitted to their online application forms, and upon arrival at the store, I was informed that I had filled out an application for the wrong store location and would have to contact the wrong store for employment opportunites. As the wrong store was on the other side of Des Moines, I decided that it would be far simpler to re-apply for the correct store. Thirty minutres later I returned to the "Job Fair" and informed them of my re-application; this time I didn't for a second interview. Translation: we're too lazy or lost in pointless formality to actually talk to face to face as adults conducting polite professional conversation. I probably spent less than a minute inside of the store and over ninety minutes filling out online forms and battling traffic. At this point I am willing to wait for their return call, but I have serious doubts about working with such a unknowledgable and inhuman staff.

Shop activity has been at an impressive level this week. Adam and Becky comissioned a bed frame; sleeping on the floor became tiresome. The materials employed are decidedly modern folk-art; dimensional pine lumber and galvanized steel hadware. While the structure is desk-esque, my minimal design makes good use of the materials; low clean lines, eposed hardware and linseed oil finish with a satin luster prevents the bed from looking imposing or blocky. Aside from the asthetic goodness, I'm finally receiving payment for my work. What I earn will contribute to my bandsaw fund. That, in turn, will allow me to more efficiently process turning stock. People seem to want bowls. The lathe stand is still pending, but I think I should take the time to build it. I need a sturdier platform for turning larger bowls.

This blog entry comes to you via my "new" Fujitsu Lifebook. It has a wicked hot K6-2 450 CPU and 192 MB of RAM. While it's not spectacular, it is more than enough to handle text-editing; and that's all I use to create and surf my sites. I have to head down to Des Moines tomorrow morning for a Des Moines Music Coalition web meeting. I am looking forward to what should be a productive meeting. The DMMC site is Mambo-based; a good CMS, but the module/component updates are few and far between. The event calendar is especially important for our site, but it is woefully database inefficient and produces poorly structured html output. I am extremely tempted to build something better- integration with a venue/artist directory would be sweet.

I've been busy in the shop, as seems to be the usual lately. Currently, I am putting together a bed frame for my friends Adam and Becky. The money I receive for labor should pay for a good portion of a new bandsaw. I definitely need access to a bandsaw full-time if I keep buying stacks of turning stock. I'm also thinking of taking a part-time job at the Woodsmith Store's Garden Center. It pays $10/hour, which isn't bad at all. Just depends on the number of hours they want. I can swing 15 or less.

Street Art Goes Global, Online - The Wooster Collective website is fast becoming the place to showcase graffiti (the good stuff) and street art from around the world. By Rachel Metz. Wired - Culture

Wooster Collective There are some fantastic pieces exhibited on the site. Treat yourself to delicious eye-candy.

A new version of Drupal has been released, and that means I'll be updating the site. There are a buttload of changes, so the site will be down for some time while I install the new system and associated modules. Changes in the 4.6.0 release can be found here.

So far, the shop reorganization project is going well. Mel picked up a copy of Jim Tolpin's "Working at Woodworking" and it has been extraordinarily helpful. Developing an efficient workflow plan was my first challenge and I've been shuffling tools, benches to fit this new layout. I constructed a beefy yet mobile lumber rack to hold my raw materials and purchased the supplies I'll need to build a mobile lathe stand with integrated tool and accessory storage. Space is limited so the shop must be reconfigurable.

2) The project must be well-planned. I have to have a sequence of steps that must be carried out so I can configure the shop layout accordingly.

3) Organization- A place for every thing and everything in its place. I have to be more diligent when it comes to keeping all my stuff in place. It will be much easier to keep my space clean and to keep it flexible if the shop is neat and tidy. I definitely have more planning and much more work to do, but I think it will be worth the effort to "professionalize" my shop space.

It's been a while since my last entry and I am regretting it. The past couple of weeks have definitely been interesting and of course, there is much to report. I guess I should start with shop news. I delved further into the world of bowl turning, and so far it has been quite the education. I have been experimenting with green wood turning, and while I love this technique, it has one major drawback; the wood cracks and splits terribly if it isn't properly cured. I have been searching for curing methods beyond the old-skool hit-or-miss and lengthy process of "controlled" air-curing.

I've tried microwave curing and it seems to work fairly well, but the results are definitely inconsistent as the timing and power levels must be inferred based on wood species and size of the piece. I've had good luck with walnut, but my recently harvested honey locust seems to require an increased cooking time due to it's higher density. A definite advantage of the microwave techinique is that it kills fungus and insects; both serious issues when selecting recently felled timber from wood piles.

Another classic curing method is to soak the rough piece or blank in PEG (polyethelyne glycol) which chemically "dries" the wood. Evidently this method works well, but PEG is rather costly at tens of dollars per gallon. I did a bit of searching online, and discovered a very promising alternative- concentrated dishwashing detergent. The detergent seems to do the same job of displacing water in the wood as PEG, but it is far less dollar intensive and reports indicate beneficial wood condiditioning properties. In addition, the process of rough turning, soaking, finish turning and finishing can be accomplished in one full shop day. Fantastic! I think a combination of microwaving (to kill "bugs") and soaking should produce the results I seek- a cheap, quick way to condition and stabilize turning stock.

** EDIT **

We picked up a 90 ounce bottle of dish washing detergent this afternoon, and whipped up a batch of 3:1 water to soap solution. A few test pieces are soaking now, and we'll se how things turn out. I suspect we should up the amount of soap in the mixture, but we'll see what happens. After all, the only advice I've seen on the process recommends a 1:1 ratio, but that comes without any observations or experimentation to support it. That said, there are factors that will affect my current test. Some of the pieces are rough turned and have been air-drying. Others are finish-turned and have been insufficiently microwave cured. My goal is simply to stabilize the wood to prevent further degredation.

MECH! Hell yes. Land Walker

All three SCSI hard drives may be dead... but the MDPortal Elite now has NIC! w00t! I'm thinking that since there are no SCSI devices in the chain, the SCSI controller might be shut down. I'll have to check that... then make sure all of the IRQs are correct. Go go gadget device manager! Now where'd I put that Cat 5 UTP... Eh.. Now that I come back to the driver installation it wants the 98 SE disk. Grr..... where'd I put that...

Mel picked up "The Natural paint Book"; we tested a few natural finishes for our woodcraft items. A paste made from beeswax and turpentine produced excellent results; the finish was smooth and satiny. Staining with tea and iron acetate worked like a charm. However, our beet dye didn't perform very well. We'll try steeping larger amounts of vegetable matter. I also have some Paduk sawdust from a turning project; it should make good dye. I've also been hunting down a food safe finish for my bowls. Mineral oil and beeswax is one option, but I am a bit leary of using a petroleum product. 'Tried and True Wood Finishes' has a line of food safe, solvent free, oil-based finishes that look promising. Also found during the hunt for color- Sinopia. It's a nice site, and they have tons of bulk pigments for sale- handy for making custom finishes and paints.

You can find just about everything on eBay- even high quality, reasonably priced wood turning blanks. Melanie bought a couple chunks of Boxelder. The red coloration is commonly thought to be caused by the infection of the fungus Fusarium reticulatum; however, recent research indicates that the staining seems to result from non-specific wounding, mechanical or otherwise. Considering the rapid growth rate and short life span, it seems to me that growing Boxelder in a managed setting could make it a rather lucrative tree- especially if the red staining considered to be desirable could be encouraged manually.

Anyway, I bought a chuck so I could try my hand at bowl turning. The process facinates me and I can't wait to try it out. To that extent, when Grizzly backordered the chuck, I canceled the order and hopped over to eBay. I'll probably order from the Grizzly catalog in the future; their customer service was prompt and friendly, and the prices are low. lab notes:

So I have this friend who enjoys video game soundtracks... he gave me some mp3's from a Super Metroid remix he found. It's remixes of all of the music in the game- a few of them are done poorly in my opinion (the quality is good, but they didn't do the thematic ambiance of the area it's from justice). The "Norfair 2" theme (Y'know.. swim through the lava, take the elevator down... welcome to Ridley's pad!) in particular, is much too happy. Certainly not the threatening mood the game music imposed. But, it's still pretty cool that people like the game that much. And why not... it rocks my socks right out of their basket. (I have no sock drawer)

WHOA!!! Check out this out! 45 videos of an amazing shredder.... everything from whole computers to barrels filled with concrete! Ab-so-frikkin Amazing!! The Shredder

I liked the way BBcode displayed quotes before you upgraded. Is there any way to make quotes stand out a little more? I say this because it's really hard to distinguish between the end of a quote and the rest of the post.

To this day, I still don't understand Alienware. Not the company itself... the point of a $3500 laptop. The only thing owning one shows is how big your pocket book is. Though, it's not like it's my money. However, here's something that might disuade you from buying an overpriced computer. This is a consumer warning. If Alienware asks you to open your laptop or do physical repairs on it - REFUSE. They will refuse any follow-up or repairs if you damage your computer. Trying to give directions for removing Laptop components over the phone is ridiculous practice anyway. Still, what's the difference if the tech accidentaly busted off a tab? More than likely you'd never hear of it and you'd end up with a broken tab. Alienware responded as such: Many repairs can be done by the customer and can save time instead of sending it into our repair facility. The physical damage was done to the case. Regrettably this can not be repaired under warranty. What the hell kind of warranty is that?! The only thing that really makes an Alienware computer (besides the price) is the silly little cases they toss the bits into. Well, I know I still plan on hating Alienware. lab notes:

Build Your Own TV Without Broadcast Flags - doom writes "An account of an event sponsored by the EFF, a "roll your own television" build-in. The San Francisco Bay Guardian has coverage in an article entitled Build Your TV!". From the article: "According to the FCC, the flag is going to ease the nation's transition from today's analog televisions to tomorrow's high-definition televisions. What exactly does it mean for a government agency to "ease" the transition from one kind of TV signal to another? In this case, it seems to mean making the entertainment industry feel very warm and fuzzy inside." The EFF's efforts against the flag have been covered before on Slashdot. SlashDot.org Damn, I almost missed the boat on this one- totally forgot about the broadcast flag. Looks like it may be time to save up for a new tuner card and get back into Linux. That's the problem with using Windows- stagnant software keeps you blind to the ever-evolving digital world.

Local food 'greener than organic' - Buying locally produced food is even more important for the environment than buying organic, a report says. BBC - Sci/Nature Iowa seems to be doing a pretty good job of encouraging such trends. The Horticlutre & Farmers' Markets Bureau, The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Practical Farmers of Iowa and other organizations are definitely pushing hard for a greener and more economically viable ag industry in Iowa. I think the real issue, though, is convincing consumers and large distributors that buying local is better. That said, I have been noticing postive changes at large grocery chains like Hy-Vee in the past few years. Localy produced dairy, eggs, meats, honey, vegetables and fruits are sold along side interstate imports. Now while this is definitely progress in the right direction, I think the best solution is still a large-scale network of farmers' markets; big box retail of any type is simply inefficient. I guess in the end, sustainable agriculture and greener food production and distribution is a matter of consumer education.

New Vulnerabilities Discovered in Firefox 1.0 - jflint writes "Today, the security firm Secunia has released 8 more security vulnerabilities it has discovered in Mozilla products, including Firefox and Thunderbird. The exploits "could be used by criminals to spoof, or fake, various aspects of a Web site, ranging from its SSL secure site icon to the contents of an inactive tab."" SlashDot.org Swing on by the Firefox release page to pick up a copy of 1.0.1, and be sure to check back for updates/security fixes. Looks 1.0.1 covers the spoofing issues mentioned in this article.

Ever wonder what you could do with old AOL Disks? (Yes, I know. The possibilities are endless) Meet Hammerhead, the CD thrower robot. Taxonomy upgrade extras:

All I have to say is WHOA!! Ninja Ping Pong Action

Last night we watched Legend of the Wu-Tang Clan starring Jet-Li; a fantastical movie; simply amazing. The action was fast-paced and well choreographed- even the camera work and dialogue was rather intense. This film has definitely earned a spot on my all time favorite kung-fu movie list. That said, the subtitles were washed out for a good portion of the film, but they didn't fully elucidate the subtle nuances of the plot anyway, considering the rapid-fire nature of the dialogue. My only real complaint is the obviously degraded quality of the master used to produce this particular DVD. After all, the movie was originally released in 1993 so there is no reason for washed-out color and film jitter.

Global blogger action day called - The web blog community is calling for bloggers worldwide to lend support to two imprisoned Iranian web diarists. BBC - Tech The Committee to Protect Bloggers has some interesting articles. Honestly though, I was expecting much more traffic on the site; especially after the BBC coverage. To me it is interesting to see the current rise of the "blog". I mean, the concept really isn't new at all- people have been using the web as a repository for journal or diary like blurbs for quite some time. All that was required for the viral growth of blogs was the removal of the technical hurdles; thanks to a variety of sites such as Blogger.com; and the application of a catchy/sexy/saavy name like "blog". In the end, blogging is good for the Internet and its users; after all, blogging is helping to bring about some homogonization of document structure and greater adherance to standards thanks to RSS feeds and other forms of syndication. Other blog sites of note: Dave Barry Wil Wheaton Collaboration Cafe The Agonist

Mars pictures reveal frozen sea - A huge, frozen sea lies just below the surface of Mars, a team of European scientists announces. BBC - Sci/Nature The interpretation is based on images taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. These show extensive fields of large, platy features - reminiscent of the fractured ice floes found in polar regions on Earth. Rad. There seems to be mounting evidence for large amounts of sub-surface water on Mars. Combined with observations of fluctuating metahne levels in the atmosphere, out chances of finding life or evidence of past life on Mars seem increasingly likely. Exciting times.

Wouldn’t it be great to nano-mod a case? Engineers have used a laser to make cuts as small as 15nm wide.... whoa! Nano Lasers

Winter wonder bread More snow in Minneapolis There is no bread Well I'm here kickin' it in Minneapolis, writing a haiku. At least I think that's a haiku... There's snow here. More of it, anwyay. Excitement abounds.

I recently fell in love with Drupal's news aggregator system. I've feeds form SciFi.com, DesmoinesMC.com, SlashDot.org, Wired.com, Space.com and the BBC News. I'll be adding more feeds and at some point will probably categorize ultrasciencelabs growing list of syndicated news. Additionaly, Drupal features a "blog-it" option for registered users; this allows you to post a blog entry that automatically places the content from the RSS feed, a link to the story and it's title into a personal blog entry for discussion. I extended that feature further by adding a "discuss content in forum" link that does the same- only with a forum entry. The accumulation of news feeds in addition to the breadth of submission topics required a re-working of the fora. I added a number of new categories, the list of which will grow and change as the site matures.

OK, MS has finally gone off the deep end... check out this MS page to help parents understand what their kids are typing 0n1in3. MS Geek Speak

Check out this CNN feed on robots learning how to walk.... waay cool! Walking Robots

From Space.com WASHINGTON -- A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water. What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth. Such a find would of course be fantastic, albeit not terribly surprising. Scientists on our own dynamic world have found life in the most inhospitable places- from volcanic vents to the blackest depths of our oceans.

We definitely needed a diversifeid portfolia of fora. Topics ranging the gamut of geekery have been submitted, and we'll add new categories as necessary. Be sure to post forum topic suggestions in the "bug reporting & suggestions" forum.

Wouldn’t this be great for those of us that commute? Out in Oregon they are thinking about taxing drivers on a per mile basis. Taxonomy upgrade extras:

Well, I finally took the time to update the looks and layout a bit; if only I would do the same for my project logs... one thing at a time, I guess. The forums may need a little tuning yet, but overall I think the site is looking much better- be sure to let me know if it is teh s uck- constructive criticism is always welcome. In other news, I am in the process of adding some news feeds; check "news feeds" in the top menu, or the "DesMoinesMC.com" block in the left menu. Rock.

NOVA, the science-based PBS TV program has a new site "scienceNOW". Definitely a good resource if you enjoy learning. Show clips, transcripts, interviews, recommended reading are all available online. Cutting edge science and tech on the air 5 times a year as a magazine series- looks pretty promising.

Much like RoboCop (minus the armor, weapons, and surly cyborg disposition), Sega Toys brings the world the "Near Me"- a furry robotic cat. Story courtesy 3-yen. The Near Me (playing on the sound “nya", which is the Japanese for “meow” and sounds like to “near") is a furry cat robot that could almost pass for a real life (but kinda stupid) kitty. Cost? 35,000 yen ~ $350 US.

Ever wonder what to do with those old processors you have laying around that dont have the horsepower to play pong (and no, keychanins have been done , enuf said). Why not turn them into a useful kitchen appliance? Cyrix Hotplate

A good article about using engineered plants to extract industrial polutants out of the soil. Metal Eating PLants

Check this out, some guy decided that hooking 4 iPod shuffles together in a RAID array would be a good idea iPod Shuffle RAID

Listening to Talk of Iowa this morning revealed Sony, IBM and Toshiba have formally presented the inner workings of their 'Cell' microprocessor at the International Solid State Circuits Conference. 8 cores, 10 instructions per cycle, it's been tested with operating systems, it will be the heart of Sony's Playstation 3, and it will debut at speeds OVER 4GHz. Recommended Reading: Cell Architechture Expalined More Details: InformationWeek The Register

Wooden Mirror Wow.

Floppy the Robot I was digging through my ancient bookmarks and found this. I may have to experiment- after all, I do have a pile of dead floppy drives.

Heavy Pie sent this to me last night: purepwnage check out the episodes.... I can dance all day! I can dance all day! BOOM! HEADSHOT! hilarious. I sincerely hope you know nobody that are like this. FPS Doug... lol. freakin' lol. From purepwnage: My roommate Jeremy is a "pro gamer" that pwns everybody. If you play video games, you have probably been pwned by him. If not, chances are you soon will be. The life of a pro gamer is often a challenge since your talents are rarely appreciated. I've watched the first three episodes so far, and I must say it's pretty damn entertaining. I will have to put up a banner.

I've been reading up on the proper methodology for sharpening my turning tools, and the recent warm weather has given my the opportunity to apply that research. I re-ground, honed and polished my skews, spidle gouges, and roughing gouge. The medium-grit wheel on my bench grinder was perfect for re-shaping the cutting edges, and my 120/220 combination oil stone was all I needed to hone the tools to razor sharpness. Built-up resin was quickly polished away with a buffing wheel and tripoli compound. Of course, all this work wasn't just for fun; I was handed some interesting turning blanks in the fall and I've been fiending to chuck them into the lathe. My mom requested a pair of padauk candlesticks, there are a couple chunks of camphor burl, a piece of english walnut, and two myrtle burl bowl blanks. Needless to say, enough stock to keep me in turnery projects for some time.

At some point I would like USL to serve as a community site for central Iowa modders/geeks. I'm reaching out to the community in search of an appropriate mission statement.

I don't know if it's because I'm using Portable Firefox or not, but the Favicon is the little Drupal waterdrop guy. The Favicon works fine when I'm using normal Firefox (with a fully functional cache), at least as far as I've noticed so far. I think you were having problems with that a while ago. Anyone else notice anything? Oh yeah, if you're getting the same thing, the Favicon is a gray and white looking square (which is the USL logo if you look closely). Maybe if my eyes weren't so crappy I could make out all those Favicons out there a little better...

Most of you probably know orbiting debirs is posing an increasingly serious problem for future space missions. Here’s the heavenly clutter count as of December 29, 2004. There were 9,233 objects large enough to be tracked and catalogued by the USSTRATCOM Space Surveillance Network. Of this total there were 2,927 payloads, along with 6,306 object classed as rocket bodies and debris. That’s the stats as listed in the January issue of The Orbital Debris Quarterly News, issued by the NASA Johnson Space Center Orbital Debris Program Office in Houston, Texas. That's a whole lot of fast-moving crap. In other news, researchers managed to find a little more of the universe's missing matter. The new observations, by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, reveal two huge intergalactic clouds of diffuse hot gas. These clouds are the best evidence yet that a vast cosmic web of hot gas contains the long-sought missing matter, scientists said Wednesday.

Today is Groundhog day, woo, ha, wee and fun. Well, the dirty little marmot apparently saw his shadow so more crappity crap, if you're stuperstitious. I say Winter until March so it's to be expected for the season. In other news, USL is looking good. It's all... grey and white, but I have a face now! Woo! Also, it's around 2:10 P.M. and there are round-a-bouts 6 guests... there are always guests. Don't just ogle, get registered and post some shit!!!

I was on the hunt for a better theme system for Drupal last night, and my research led me to phpTemplate. It's a flexible and straightforward system for site theme creation and customization, and I found a handy template set with all the Drupal visual features enabled, like user avatars (which I like), based on this engine. Now all I have to do is incorporate my old Chameleon based design into the phpTemplate engine.

I decided to move the case mod work logs from the forum to the Drupal book system. I have some ancient work logs that deserve resurrection, and it seems to be a lot easier to add them a page at a time as a book. You can browse what I have so far by clicking the "books" link in the top menu. Check back for updates if you are into the whole work blog thing. In other news, I am on the hunt for new polls. Add suggestions if you're inclined. Also, the "geek news" could use some more content; if you have some interesting news to share, drop me a line. Crimminy Shit Buckets!

Most of the people I know, when asked, would declare Des Moines to be a pretty crappy city. I completely disagree. As far as cities in Iowa go, it probably has teh most potential. True, it has a no dancing after 2am law, yes, they are spending far too much money on an Events Center that doesn't have any parking (as far as I or my friends can tell), and sure, it's in Iowa- Iowa for chrissake. I argue that it doesn't take a lot of effort to find cool shit in Des Moines, though- very little in fact; but we live in a country full of people spoon fed information from birth, so open wide, y'all... My girfriend, Melanie, lives in Urbandale, a DSM suburb. Her friend Nikki and Nikki's finace Alan flew in from Atlanta this weekend for a wedding, so I drove down for a visit. They came in late Thrusday night and had to attend the wedding on Friday, but we all had a chance to get together for fun on Saturday before they had to catch a flight back Sunday morning. After a hearty breakfast of Frech Toast, we went for coffee at Zanzibar's Coffee Adventure; fan-freakin'-tastic. Alan bought four pounds of beans for his brother. Why? Atlanta has crap for good coffee. That's right, folks, Des Moines has better coffee than Atlanta. After that, Nikki had to get a sandwich from Manhattan Deli just down the street. Aside from offering kick ass sandwiches, the brownies rock, and the egg sald comes highly recommended. And the crew behind the counter? They're the same cats that worked here when Nikki was coming here for lunch- and they looked the same... fountain of youth in deli form? Anyway, after lunch 2, we went downtown for a little window shopping. First up, Projects for some modern furniture coolness. The gear is hella tight, but the prices are definitely not for the faint of heart. However, Alan and I, as designers/craftsmen found a lot of creative inspiration, so it was definitely a worthwhile visit. After recovering from the sticker shock, we went to Gong Fu Tea - 118 teas, tons of tea pots, and slick decor. They have zojirushi electric dispensing pots, too. After oogling the kick-butt decor at Gong Fu, we cruised over to the Botanical Center for a little greenery. The orchids are flowering and the coffee trees are putting on buds. The cacti flowered earlier in the winter so they're looking a little bedraggled, but the tropicals are growing like mad. One of these days I'll have to check out the River Walk Cafe. By this time we were absolutely famished so it was time for sushi at Taki. Fortunately we got there just as they were opening so we missed the supper rush- I guess the place is regularly packed. Mel, Alan, and I ordered a big-ass pile of maki rolls and some nigiri zushi- it totally kicked ass. The unagi was super tasty. Nikki ordered vegetable tempura; the batter was fantastic and the presentation was superb. All in all, a wonderful meal. The next time I go there for supper I will have to try their teppanyaki. Bellies full of vinegared rice and fish, we met up with Nikki's parents at the Embassy Suites downtown. After grabbing some free drinks from the bar (happy hour rocks!), we chatted with the 'rents for bit, and were inevitably invited to dinner at The Latin King. While we waiting for the reservation we donned our swim-clothes and bopped on down to the hot-tub; an all-to-brief visit to the hot tub, but wonderful none the less. The Latin King is pretty cool. We had a drink at the bar while waitng for our table, Boulevard Wheat on tap for me. The food was tasty, the atmosphere was pretty good, and we had a ton of fun. After supper 2, we went back downtown for martinis at The Lift. If you're looking for a stiff drink, try Frank's Dirty; vodka, olive juice, olives. A big glass of olive-flavored vodka. The S&M is super sweet- think liquified Jolly Ranchers. The Cosmo is tasty; sweet, but not overly so, and sour. I want to say we had a Cran Apple, too, but after three and a half martini's in a couple of hours, things get a little fuzzy. The music was some house brought to you by some house DJ's, and the bar was packed to the gills- right up to closing. We abandoned ship when the bartenders started cranking up the lights. Sunday morning came far too early. Atlanta was under the gun of a nasty ice storm and Alan and Nikki had to call the folks to track down another flight. In the meantime, her parents invited us to brunch at Jimmy's American Cafe. The food was good- if you knew what to get. Mel ordered a Belgian waffle that was definitely sub-mediocre; it wasn't even warm enough to melt the butter. I had the steak and eggs, which I thnk was the best value on the breakfast menu. I ordered my steak rare, and the 6oz sirloin arrived tender, juicy and bloody. The eggs over-easy were just right, the potatoes were awesome, and I got 4 pieces of toast for dippig in the yolks- all for $11. The potatoes and toast (or roll) were $2 sides if you ordered a different breakfast.

I paid bruce a visit a week ago to poke at cases and do other assorted geeky things. I brought the MDPortal Elite machine back with me. I'd been itching to play some System Shock for many moons. So many moons, in fact, that I logged roughly eleven hours and fourty-four minutes of game-time over a span of two days. Nothing says good times like foiling SHODAN's plans to destroy the world and such.

My projects had been wallowing in neglect the past few months. The elite machine had been in desperate need of a hardware and cosmetic upgrade, and the Dragon was partially disassembled, gathering dust on a shelf. After recently overhauling my room and work area, I realized I couldn't afford to have my mods sitting around serving no useful purpose other than holding down carpet. I started with the elite machine. The hardware upgrade included a new Super Socket 7 baby AT mobo, and this necessitated the fabrication of a new motherboard tray. I reworked the cables; even taking the time to disassemble the power supply and neatly wrap the power cables. I re-routed the rope light and now the side panel emits a nice glow once again. The dragon was a bit trickier. After a few years of recording audio at live events, a layer of dust and fog-machine film had coated the system inside and out. I stripped the machine down to the chassis and gave all the components a good cleaning. The years of smoke and dust had really done a number on the wood elements as well, so I gave all those components a fresh coat of oil finish to restore their luster. I straightened out the rat's nest of power cables and reconnected the long-missing CCFL. I upgraded the CPU last summer and this required a heat sink upgrade, but I hadn't had the time to integrate the new cooling fan into the case. With the modifications for that out of the way, I added high-brightness LEDs behind the dragon scrollwork on the CD-RW; I think that update made the biggest visual impact of the cosmetic upgrades. Just before I undertook the upgrade process, I had posted old photos of the cases to drum up a little traffic for the site at hardforum.com, [H]ardOCP's community website. I was using the thread to track my work on the cases, and a few days after posting the original Dragon photos I received a PM from the editor of the largest PC magazine in China: hello! I am the Chinese editor working for the biggest PC hard ware magazine (www.microcomputer.com) and i want to print your DRAGON case on our mag. I need u supply the full-size pics and 1000words my ICQ:3*******0 my MSN: *******@163.com my E-mail: ****@cniti.com best wishes! looking forward your reply! At first I was understandably skeptical, after all, I'm just some dude in the middle of Iowa, but it turned out to be on the level and I'm pretty excited about the prospect of having my work in a widely read publication. I consider it to be a pretty big honor as it puts my work in the same league as the cats from bit-tech.net, and they are "teh a wesome".

What a week. The last few days were a blur of computer parts, boxes, and bins. I've been rummaging through my assorted stacks of used components. The piles were overgrowing my workspaces, and this, of course, necessitated some pruning. Thank you eBay! If any of you are looking for some older hardware, I've got a pile posted for sale; my eBay ID is bruce42_saiyaman. There's stuff from Socket3 motherboards to a couple of VooDoo3 video cards. Testing all that hardware was a pain, but I think a day or two spent babysitting a test bench was worth it. It's forcing me to organize and focus on finishing projects instead of collecting junk; and as a bonus, the money generated from parts sales should provide the capital for new, better projects.

The next step is selling some custom cases. Time for shameless self-promotion- if you are interested in custom gear, contact me at bruce42@ultrasciencelabs.com. I specialize in modding and upgrading old gear; I like hacking apart old stuff as opposed to just buying a bunch of factory pap online, throwing it together and calling it a "case mod". How can it be a case mod if you didn't mod anything?

You know those hand-crank, stove-top popcorn poppers they have? I wonder if they make a good computer case. Or part of one, at least. Currently on the drawing board is a computer case based mostly on a popcorn popper. The popper won't really dictate any sort of "popcorn theme," but will really only be an interesting part of the case. But why a popcorn popper? Well, if I'd have happened upon some other pot or pan sitting in the junk heap, I probably would have said "Hey! I bet that pan that doesn't happen to be a popcorn popper would make an intersting computer case!" No pictures yet, but what we're really intersted in is what do YOU think? Get registered and post your thoughts today! Right now! Do it!

Now maybe everybody has heard of the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) screens that are supposed to be better than LCD/Plasma screens; however, while digging up information on that, I stumbled across something rather neat. ISE Electronics Corp., a subsidiary of Noritake Co., Limited, has succeeded to use Carbon Nanotube as field emitter of a high brightness light source. Apparently these lights will make a better replacement for LED lights. The website doesn't seem to have been updated since 2001, though it still has a functioning Sales section...

I had a great holiday, but really need to get immersed in work again. Haven't touched my site www.urbandalelibrary.org for a while, and really need to work on bruce42 and I's art wares site. buy from us. we are cool. now. not later NOW! www.ultra-artstudios.com

I don't know if it's intentional, but forum, comment, article, etc. posts don't show up aligned like they're entered. For example, this is a new paragraph separated by a blank line. Or is it... So is this, and all of the new paragraphs aren't indented by me, but they are! I think this could use some tweaking, what does anyone else think? Or am I using the incorrect input format? Hmm hmm... Taxonomy upgrade extras:

I found this fantastic wooden case while digging through the Hard Forums. I like wooden cases, but it is rare to find one that is so well done. My current work-rig is a plain-jane Enlight 7237; it's sturdy as hell, but all that hardcore steel needs some de-beigeification. Wood, stone and steel would be a nice combo, but I have yet to come up with a design I like.

As old as PC mods get :: Custom ELF kit Turns out that the IMASI PC featured in "Wargames" starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy was a mod :: @ imsai.net ** UPDATES ** > 12-29-2006 + links verified active + merged with "WarGames IMSAI"

Been working for the Des Moines Music Coalition desmoinesmusiccoalition.com for the past two months. They've kept me pretty busy, but I think the site is finally coming together nicely. Nothing thrilling to report from the labs, otherwise.

So your playing a little UT2K4 and getting completely pned by someone only to find out that you've met up with the "Frag Dolls". Check out this interview with them.