In exchange for helping John Chow build his search traffic by linking the words make money to his site, I’m being entered in a drawing for a beautiful 24″ widescreen monitor. I also have to link hosting Canada to his sponsor BlueFur.
Although I still love the Sebring Convertible, it doesn’t make any sense in Michigan, and I can’t afford one with low miles on it. Instead I have been looking at sub-compacts. I love the unique styling and the great gas mileage. Here are some of the ones I am looking at:
Hyundai Accent
I just test drove an Accent that looks just like this today. Even though it has a tiny engine, it still takes off pretty well, probably because it is so light. The interior is surprisingly roomy. Liz was able to sit comfortably in the back.
Chevy Aveo
I’ve seen a few of these in person, and I really like them. I haven’t had a chance to drive one yet. I prefer the styling over the Accent. The next picture shows the scale better:
And the hatchback is the big one!
Toyota Yaris:
I can’t afford this one. The sedan is only ‘06 and newer. I don’t like the hatchback as much, but it is still really neat looking, and I could afford it:
I don’t know why I’ve fallen in love with these silly little cars recently, but I would love to have one. It is too bad that they are so hard to find around here. I haven’t even seen a Yaris yet. I liked the Accent, but it will probably sell before I get around to making up my mind. I saw both versions of the Aveo in Coldwater, but they weren’t priced, and the dealership is only open on weekdays, when I have to be in Kalamazoo for work. Hopefully I’ll find something nice soon.
So we were bored and browsing the net on the Wii, looking for what did and didn’t work. Dustin’s site has this nifty little thing where you shoot billboards, so we tried it. It worked, so… here’s some pictures.
They’re blurry, but recognizable.
-Hal
Well heres my useless guest blog post that will immediately be flagged as useless spam by google. :) Well maybe not. But anyways, I’m doing some website work for a guy at the computer guild, and today we were discussing some really crazy pricing that we had seen advertised.. for example, $12k for setting up Apache. Seriously, wtf? Very Web 1.0 it seems…
– Dustin
The Story
So, I’ve had a camera for a while now, and haven’t really been taking pictures of interesting things. It was about time I put it to use. Thus was spawned the idea for a photo scavenger hunt. The idea is this: I take pictures of things around campus; everything from odd spraypaint designs to bits of architecture, and post them here. Then it’s your turn. Your job is to find the places I take pictures of, and tell me where they are.
The Rules
We will number the pictures for easy reference. When you think you know where a picture is, add a comment with the location. Don’t forget to fill in a name! If you’re correct, we’ll add your name to a leaderboard. New pictures will be uploaded occasionally, depending on popularity of the game, while old pictures will be removed from the contest.
Now on with the pictures!
Photo Set One
Picture Number 1: 
Picture Number 2:
Picture Number 3:
Picture Number 4:
Picture Number 5:
That’s it for Photo Set number 1! Get to searching, fellow denizens of WMU’s grounds!
I’ve been helping my friend Corrin build a Hello Kitty computer. Once it is complete, I’ll post pictures of the whole setup.
The keyboard:
It is hard to tell from this picture, but the keys have Japanese and English characters on them. It has a bunch of buttons for controlling media playback at the top.
Hello Kitty Keyboard at Amazon
The speakers:
You need to see these in person to realize just how cute they are. The computer isn’t all put together yet, so I haven’t been able to test the sound quality.
Hello Kitty Speakers at Amazon
The mouse:
The only Hello Kitty themed mice seemed like they would be awkward to use, so we picked this mouse instead. All of the clear parts glow white, and it looks really cool.
The case:
There aren’t any Hello Kitty cases, but Raidmax makes this great looking pink case. We replaced the cheap power supply that came with it. The case itself seems really nice, with plenty of room inside. It has covers that go over your optical drives so you can use any color drive you want and still have it look pink. The picture looks a bit lighter than the case really is. It is actually closer to the color of the mouse, so everything matches pretty well.
Decoration:
To make the case Hello Kitty themed, we’re considering using these stickers. They are designed for walls, but should look great on the case as well.
Hello Kitty Wall Stickers on Amazon
Once we get everything together, I’ll post pictures of the final product. Right now we’re waiting on a replacement motherboard. The one we bought was dead on arrival.
Wikipedia has articles containing events predicted to happen in years in the future. I’ve gone through the pages for the next 12 years, and compiled a timeline of what we can expect to see happen. The later years are a bit sparse on details, but I managed to find at least one interesting event for each of them. You can see the timeline after the break. (more…)
In between getting things done at work, I started drawing this picture of a boredom factory. You’ll probably see updates with more of my office eventually.
Hal and I have been building a Nerf sniper rifle for a while now. It is actually pretty simple, but I’ve been lazy about buying the last few parts. I’m posting from work right now, so I don’t have pictures. Instead, you’ll get whatever I can find online that looks useful. I have included a diagram of the gun drawn in paint at the end.
The Concept:
The gun needs to be easy to wield and support multiple shots easily. We decided to use compressed air instead of a bolt-action to propel the dart. To support multiple shots, firing is a two-stage process. First, air is bled from the storage tank into the firing tank. Once the firing tank is charged, the trigger is opened allowing the air to push the dart down the barrel.
| The Tank:The tank is made from an empty two-liter pop bottle. I put a tire valve in the cap to make it easy to fill. I bought the valve from Belle Tire. It is designed to bolt into a hole, so all I had to do was drill a hole in the cap of the bottle and tighten the valve in place. I found this picture at Ask Mr. Science. It looks pretty much like what I did. The tire valve makes it easy to charge with a pump or air compressor. It also allows me to carry spare pre-charged tanks that can easily be screwed into the gun. |  |
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Charging the Firing Tank: Getting air into the bottle is easy, but getting it out of the bottle and into the firing tank is more difficult. The valve doesn’t let air out unless the pin in the middle is being pushed down. After some googling, I found something called an “in-line screw down tire deflater”, and bought a set of them on eBay. They screw onto a valve stem and push down the pin. They also have treads on the other side that allow you to screw something else into the back. I got the image from this site, which also sells them. The deflater was the right size to screw into the small end of a blowgun that I got from an air compressor fitting starter set at Menard’s.I don’t have an actual firing tank, but instead simply use the hose that connects the blowgun valve to the trigger valve. At the moment I am using a huge coiled hose that came with the starter set, but I will switch to a smaller, nicer looking hose eventually. |
Firing the gun:
The firing valve is a garden hose nozzle. Squeezing the handle lets the air out of the charged hose and into the barrel. The barrel is about four feet long, so there is plenty of time for the dart to accelerate. Right now, the gun is reloaded by removing the barrel and putting a dart in the end. Eventually I plan on building a breach for quicker loading. I have not been able to test the gun yet because I still need to buy some goop for sealing all of the threads on the fittings. There are small leaks on each end of the hose that needs to be charged in order to fire.
The Final Layout:
This picture doesn’t show any of the structure to hold everything together, but it contains all of the parts necessary to make it fire. You can also see how the PVC of the barrel is attached in a way that gives the gun a stock so the gun is easy to wield.
Once the gun is complete, I’ll upload pictures and report on how well it fires.
