I've Gone Wireless

With more and more wireless devices pushing their way into the house, I suppose this was inevitable (it was my youngest son's PSP that finally put it over the edge). I waited this long because I liked controlling the points of Internet access in the house - most specifically, not in the kids' bedrooms - but I've relented figuring they're old enough now.

There's still a number of wired access points in the house: two in the basement rec room (main computer and XBox), and one in the family room that I am using now. They are faster, after all.

It's always surprised me how most people's wireless networks are not encrypted making it easy for anyone within range to simply attach on. At best they are just hogging your bandwidth. At worst, they can access files on you computer maliciously. Setting up a wireless router for the first time answered why when I discovered that putting in an encryption code is not part of the set-up wizard. It doesn't even suggest how to do it yourself.

It's hardly difficult. I quick google turned this up => 4 steps to set up your home wireless network. Everyone should protect they're wireless networks. Sitting in my family room, in a neighbourhood that is hardly crowded, I can pick up two wireless networks other than my own. Neither of them are encrypted.

I could save myself some money and mooch off of them. Undoubtedly, there are people that do this.

Mike

Canadians Don't Know Their Own Political System

This is sad, especially considering the recent politics in Canada which was a perfect opportunity for people to learn (and for the media to teach) how our system works.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/553762

---

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1) Who is Canada's head of state?

a) The Queen

b) The Governor General

c) The prime minister

(24 per cent answered correctly)

2) Is the government of Canada best described as:

a) A constitutional monarchy

b) A representative republic

c) A co-operative assembly

(59 per cent answered correctly)

3) True or false: The prime minister is directly elected by the people of Canada.

(49 per cent answered correctly)

4) True or false: Soon after an election, if the government of the day is not able to command the support of a majority in the House of Commons, the Governor General can refuse a prime minister's request to call a new election if the opposition parties can form a government.

(90 per cent answered correctly)

ANSWERS: 1-A; 2-A; 3-FALSE; 4-TRUE

SOURCE: Dominion Institute; Ipsos Reid

Dogbert Explains The Financial Meltdown

The Harper Dictatorship

The head of our social sciences department sent me this one - it's making the rounds through the history teachers.

The current news has already caught up with it a bit, but it's still pretty funny - well, if your Canadian.

I guess the craziness of what has happened in Canadian politics has been noticed south side too. Here's Jon Stewart's take on the situation.

Canada Only Link

Mike

Model Ship Update: Spanker

I think these updates might start coming a little faster now. The second of the eleven sails is now rigged up, the spanker. Also added are two windows for the captain's mess (I think it's obvious that it's just pained black behind the frame). Cutting out the trim for the window was tricky without doing damage. I may end up replacing some of this trim later.

Just to switch it up, I'm trying to get some pictures from some different angles that look like they may actually be taken from deck level, hence the last two pictures. I think I'm getting better at coiling the lines. I'm glad I decided to do it this way rather than just tie them off. Though, I'm still a little disappointed I had to glue down the coils making adjusting the rig not possible. I can also see I need to do some varnishing on the quarter deck - you can see the rough spot in the last picture. There was a glue spill here that I sanded off.



Mike

Model Ship Update: Spritsail

Well, I've affixed the first sail - the spritsail. It is not actually glued or tied to the bowsprit, but held in place (rather rigidly) by a system of four lines. If you compare the second image with the one from the kit a couple of posts ago, I think that you'll agree that I did the right thing in moving the chain and bowsprit stays in order to fit the sail properly. Now it looks like this thing would actually work.


In the third pic you can see how one of the braces is made fast to a belay pin. I've spent a bit of time on a real tallship (not too different in size from this one), and I attached and coiled the line correctly (or, at least, the best I could with tweezers). I've been going back and forth on whether to leave the running rigging "running". This would allow me to adjust sail trim, which I thought would be pretty cool. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that the thin thread wouldn't stay coiled and I ended up putting a bit of glue on the coil making the rigging not adjustable - oh, well.

The last pic is the view from about half way up the formast. You can see in this picture that I added a footrope below the yard. The kit pictures didn't have one, but this is what the crew would stand on while they were adjusting the sail. So I figured I would added it in.

Mike

The Perfect Desktop

http://howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-ubuntu-studio-8.10

My laptop really belongs to my employer and our home computer is run by the kids, but I gotta say, if it were just my machine, this is the way I would go with it.

Mike

Ship Update: Standing Rigging Done

It's been a while since the last update - partly because it was a busy term and I couldn't work on it as much as would have like, but also because there was a lot to do in this stage. This was lengthened by adjusting some things I had already done. The forstay blocks on the bowsprit were moved so the forstays ran reasonably close to parallel (they look like hell otherwise). Also, as shown in the pictures at the bottom, I had to do some other jigging with the bowsprit rigging to leave room for a boom and sail to be added on later.



As you can see, the masts are now fully assembled and (I believe) all the standing rigging is now up. Next would be assemblying the remaining spars and sails with their associated rigging.

In an earlier post I mentioned that there was going to be an issue with attaching the bowsprit boom. The first picture on the right (from a few months ago) shows the problem with the orientation of the stays and chain under the bowsprit leaving no room for the boom. This was done as per the picture in the assembly book (which is nothing but a bunch of pictures). The second picture shows one of the solutions that came with the kit. Here they moved the blocks for the lower set of stays further aft, leaving room for the boom, but, as you can see, there is no room for the sail to hang down. The assembly book had a different solution of completely removing this set of stays, but that still means the sail is above the chain. There is no way this would work in real life. I ended up pulling out my DVD of Master and Commander (the Russell Crowe film) and scanned along until I came to a good shot of their bowsprit. The correct way now seems pretty obvious with the stays moved foward and the chain aft leaving room for the boom and sail, as shown in the last picture.
PS: I'm putting my photo collections on Flickr from now on. They have better services and I don't like how Orkut makes you sign up in order to view the pictures - sorry Google. The model pictures are now there, and the rest will soon follow.

The Book of Genesis Through Facebook

The Facebook of Genesis

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Facebook, but this is pretty funny.

Mike

Cold - What Cold?

Well, our sailing season has officially come to an end. I got my last sail in Tuesday. The air temperature was a few degrees below zero and I didn't last long before my hands gave out (I've gotta get better gloves), but there was a good blow and I had to take advantage of it.

The above pick is my oldest from last week during the first snow of the year.

Fun stuff!

Mike

US Candidates As Trains

Long time - no post. Busy - busy. I haven't even been on the Internet too much, but this made me laugh today.

Algonquin Trip

Well I just got back from four days in Algonquin Park with a group of six students. We had some rough spots with the weather, including being caught in the thunderstorm, but the kids were awesome. Five of the six were actually rugby players and they just powered by the other groups on the portages - absolute machines.

The image above traces our route - about 70 km with over 7 km of portages. Here are some pics that were taken.



Mike

Model Ship Update: Ratlines

I haven't worked on my model ship all summer, but once I got my course done I started picking away at it again. The main addition were the ratlines which are the lines that are tied across the shrouds (and also the stays with this ship) to allow the crew to climb aloft. You can also see, attached to the front of the tops (the platforms on top of the masts) the lines that go to what the kit identifies as "fiddle blocks". I gotta be honest, I'm entirely sure as to the function of these blocks - whether they were to help secure the tops, adjust the tension on the stays, or something else.

Next come the rest of the masts, which will pretty much double the height of the model. I've already got them made and needing only one more coat of varnish. Then come quite a few more shrouds and stays.

By the way, I've got all my model pictures on my Orkut page if you want to check them out.



Mike

You Gotta Love Google

I know they're going to be taking over the world soon, but they'll be such a benevolent dictator.

This is the message you get if you uninstall Chrome, Google's entry into the Web browser market.

Large Hadron Rap

Okay, I was a physics major so you may think it's just me that finds this funny, but this has been a bit of a hit on YouTube.

Awesome job, CERN.

Mike

Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

The Onion again. You know, I've got to start spending more time there.



Mike

Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution

The Onion can truly be awesome sometimes.

The Onion: Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution

Favourite Quote:

Anti-evolutionists such as Hellenbaum have long accused microorganisms of popularizing "an otherwise obscure, agonizingly slow, and hard-to-understand" biological process. "These repeat offenders are at the root of the problem," Hellenbaum said. "We have the fossil records to prove it."

Mike

ZIGGURAT: Dubai Carbon Neutral Pyramid will House 1 Million

Carbon neutral and off the grid while housing up to a million people! Is it do-able? Hell if I know but it sure is cool to think about.

Mike

BBC - Quantum Physics

A clip from a nice looking BBC documentary. The Standard Model in Quantum Physics (which predicts the behaviour of subatomic particles) is arguably the most successful and well tested scientific theory in history. In fact, modern electronics wouldn't even be possible without it. If you are reading this post, you can thank Quantum Physics for it.

The documentary looks very accessible, getting more into the personalities and the general ideas without getting into what backs those ideas up.

My Course Is Done!

It's almost two months after my original plan but...

I'M DONE!!!

I wrote the exam on Tuesday and finally submitted the final assignment (that I've been working on all summer!) this morning.

It's gonna be nice not having to worry about any courses for a while.

Now I get to put in for the pay increase. :-)

Mike

Mike & I Sailing

It was blowing a stink last weekend. My son Michael and I went out to horse around and my sister-in-law happened to have a camera. I've got all her pictures on my Orkut page.

Mike

My Dead Rising Achievements

I started keeping this once I made the decision I was going to go for all sixty achievements in XBox360's Dead Rising. Although I didn't quite pull it off (and am unlikely to try for the 7 Day Survivor achievement again) I thought I would post this anyway. What follows is a little diary of each of my excursions into the game and the achievements I earned, as well as a few tips on how to get them.

Enjoy

During my first run through the game I got a little over zealous with a sledgehammer and killed Brad during the very first case, thus ending the games storyline. Rather then restart, I figured I would just go with it, putting my energy into exploring, rescuing the odd survivor, and taking pictures.

Portraiture: Photograph at least 10 survivors during a single play. My first achievement, so obviously an easy one. You can photograph them before they join you, while they're following you, or after they're safe. The first option is the best in case they don't make it.

Group Photo: Get 50 Target Markers with the camera. I took mine from the roof outside the warehouse, but anywhere where you can find a large group of zombies to photograph will work. The maintenance tunnels are good.

Free Fall: Drop from a height of at least 16 feet (5 meters). It's hard not to get this one. Simply drop from the second level, anywhere, to the first.

Photo Journalist: Score at least 1,500 PP from a single photo.

The Artiste: Score at least 3,000 PP from a single photo. I got these last two with a single photo, but I can't remember what it was a picture of. I suspect it was one of the "PP moments" the game provides with certain characters. Look for the PP icon to pop up above the characters' heads. The easiest one to get is when you reunite Natalie and Jeff, who are the first two survivors you can save. Though, based upon when I got this achievement, I know that's not how I got it. It could have been a picture of Sally and Nick hanging from the giant rabbit during day two. That one's big points too.

Self Defense: Defeat at least 1 psychopath. I believe my first psycho was Jo the cop who had the four young women tied up - likely used a katana on her. By this point I had realized that the melee were more effective then the guns.

Zombie Hunter: Defeat at least 1,000 zombies during a single play. How you can go through this game without killing at least a 1,000 zombies is beyond me.

Raining Zombies: Knock at least 30 zombies aside with a parasol. This is a piece of cake and is most easily done by grabbing one of the parasols around the fountain in Al Fresca Plaza and simply running around this rather densely zombie populated area.

Humanist: Get at least 10 survivors out of the mall during a single play. Having completely bunged up the story and killed Brad, I still had Jessica and Otis safe without even having to do anything. Frank himself is a survivor as long as you are at the helicopter in time. That leaves only me only having to save seven of the 48 people in the mall. I know I lost a lot of survivors and missed a lot of scoops and still made this with people to spare.

3 Day Survivor: Survive for at least 72 hours. Simply make sure you are at the helicopter at noon on day four.

During my second run through the game I decided to put my energy into completing the story.

Marathon Runner: Cover a total distance of 26.2 miles (42.195 km) in all your games. Since this one spans multiple games, and you spend a good part of your time on foot, this one is pretty easy and will pop up eventually just having to play the game enough.

Item Smasher: Break at least 100 items over all your games. Another one that spans multiple games so all you have to do is play enough. All the melee weapons break after a period of time. So eventually everyone will get this one just whacking zombies.

Peace Keeper: Defeat at least 5 psychopaths during a single play. During my first round through the game I discovered the SMG in the fountain in Al Fresca Plaza and learned to save it for bosses. I also realized that Adam the Clown, the first psycho, can only be shot while he is blowing up his choking gas balloon. Armed this this, he suddenly became easy and once he was killed he leaves behind his blue chainsaws which makes defeating the remaining psychos not even a chore.

Legendary Soldier: Defeat at least 10 Special Forces soldiers during a single play. During the final 24 hours of the story the special forces arrive. Certainly they are tougher then the zombies, but they can't stand up to more then a swipe or two from Adam's blue chainsaws. The mall is full of these guys during the final act and you'll kill at least ten in self defense without even having to try.

Stunt Rider: Jump a motorcycle at least 33 feet (10 meters). If you follow the story, Isabella will leave a motorcycle for you outside the supermarket. There's plenty of places to get air, but the easiest is to drive it down to Wonderland Plaza, up the stairs to the second level, and then just jump off from the top of another flight of stairs.

Overtime Mode: Unveil all CASES and be at the heliport at noon. That says it all. Easy stuff.

I then started another game in overtime mode.

Bullet Point: Fire at least 1,000 bullets during a single play. Overtime mode has you running around the mall for another 24 hours dealing with the special forces who each carry a machine gun. This means you will have an abundance of machine guns, a great weapon, that each have 150 shots. That means all you have to do is empty seven machine guns to get this achievement, which you'll do without even trying.


Unbreakable: Get the true ending without being knocked out. You get the true ending at the end of overtime mode. If your health runs while battling special forces, you don't die but instead are knocked out and captured. You'll awaken tied up with all your clothing and items gone. You can escape, but you end up in the park without any weapons, making it even easier for you to get captured a second time. I found this such a pain that, when I was captured, I simply restarted from my last save point, earning me this accomplishment when I got to the end.

∞ Mode: Get the true ending. As mentioned, this happens at the end of overtime mode, which is more annoying then challenging to get through. The only tough part is fighting the final boss, Brock the special forces commander. During this battle you have no items, so you have to fight him hand to hand. I tried a variety of the special attacks Frank had by this point but kept being defeated until I found a simple trick. You are fighting on top a tank. Go down from turret to the main body of the tank. Brock will hop down and while he does simply jump kick him. He'll end up on top of the turret, after which you just keep repeating this process until he's defeated.

Now into my fourth time through this game (no one can claim it doesn't have reply value) I decided to make my primary goal to rescue everyone that's possible to rescue. I also looked down the remaining achievements and tried to get as many of those that I could at the same time. To aid me in this I got a list of every survivor and where they are located.

Carjacker Steal the convicts' vehicle. By this time I had killed the convicts a couple of times but never noticed this achievement. To kill the convicts, lure them into the trees or near a wall where they will crash and take a few seconds before they put the vehicle into reverse. In that time take out the gunner with either an SMG or chainsaw. Get them to crash again, then walk to be the back of the vehicle to take their machine gun. After this it's pretty easy to take down the other two. Obviously, after killing them I then took their vehicle for a ride. By the way, a fun thing I discovered is that the machine gun will respawn every time you encounter a load screen. So driving the vehicle in and out of the maintenance tunnels will keeping giving you a new one.

Level Max: Reach Lv. 50. Because Frank maintains his experience between games, this one is not hard to achieve. All you have to do is play enough.

Psycho Photo: Photograph at least 4 psychopaths during a single play. You can take a picture of the psychos either alive or dead (dead is easier, but I prefer alive). Make sure to see their name appear when the game rates the picture. Carlito, Isabella, and the convicts don't count as psychos.

Punisher: Defeat at least 10 psychopaths during a single play. Not at all hard once you realize that the blue chainsaws are the weapons of choice here. You will get calls from Otis about all the psychos except Cletus who is in the gun shop during the first 24 hours or so.

Full Set: Collect all portraits in the NOTEBOOK. These portraits in appear in your notebook as soon as you meet a person, so you don't have to take pictures for this one. It also doesn't matter if you save them or not - indeed, some cannot be saved. As well, this one spans multiple games, making this not too hard. Viewing where the ones you are missing appear in the notebook will give you a rough idea of when (but not where) you should be looking for them. You don't get calls about all of them but most, even some of the ones without calls, are pretty easy to find, but a few are tough so I'll list them here. Bill is hiding in a second floor store of the Entrance Plaza during the first day - you won't get a call about him. Get him after meeting Barnaby with Brad. Cheryl is locked in the closet, trapped by the psycho Sean. Don't forget to release her after defeating him. Gil is sitting on the floor drinking in Carl's Fine Food in the Food Court during day three - again, no call. Tad is captured by Kent and you'll only meet him on the third day if you have completed all of Kent's photo challenges.

Life Saver: Get at least 20 survivors out of the mall during a single play. This can be accomplished by just following most of Otis' scoops and following some simple tips: keep you group together using stores a relatively safe rest points; set way points ahead of the group and follow behind; don't arm your survivors (it just slows them down); keep an eye on their health and feed them if needed; look for survivors you can carry, support, or hold hands with as this will make things go faster.

Census Taker: Photograph at least 50 survivors during a single play. There are 53 survivors, so this is pretty close to a complete set. Having a list of them all, including where and when to find them really helps. Again, take their picture before trying to escort them back to the security room.

Zombie Killer: Defeat at least 10,000 zombies during a single play. Not doing the story this time through left me with some time to kill during the final hours so I went for a few more achievements. The fastest way to kill zombies is to drive through a densely populated area, and nowhere is more dense then outside the butcher shop in the maintenance tunnels under the super market. Even more convenient is the truck that is parked right here for you to drive. Get yourself into the truck, drive around this area until you've run out of zombies or the truck dies, go in, and then back out of, the butcher shop to get both the truck and zombies to respawn, repeat until you hit 10, 000 kills.

Strike!: Send at least 10 zombies flying with bowling balls during a single play. There a few sporting good stores that carry bowling balls. Get yourself a few and head down to the maintenance tunnels. Find a densely populated area and let the ball fly. Piece of cake.

Saint: Get at least 50 survivors out of the mall during a single play. You can only save a maximum of 53 people, so this doesn't leave you a lot of leeway. It's one of the tougher achievements in the game and you really need to know where and when you can expect to meet survivors so that you can plan this out. You can check out my own save the max walkthrough if you like. Saving strategically is very important as you should expect to mess up now and again and have to retry.

Game five had me simply going around trying to collect even more achievements. A couple of the achievement required me to go through most of the story. So doing the cases became a priority, but otherwise I was free to indulge.

Stunt Driver: Jump a car at least 33 feet (10 meters). To do this one, I drove the convertible into park looking for air. I found it on a small hill to one side of the pond where I managed to fly the distance and flip the car over to boot.

Sharp Dresser: Change into at least 20 different costumes. Really easy one. Just systematically visit each store that sell clothing and try on everything. You'll have this in no time. Don't forget that sports and toy stores often sell cloths too.

Tour Guide: Escort 8 survivors at once. Not too hard to do. Just don't bring survivors to the security room until you've got eight, at which point you will get the achievement. You can then abandon them if you like. The game will not let you escort more then eight, which means that if you have say six survivors and its normally time for a call from Otis making three more available, you won't get this call as that may potentially have you with nine survivors. This makes a little planning useful. One way to do this is to get Pamela and Heather who appear in Paradise Plaza in the morning of day two. Wait for The Lovers scoop and warp to Wonderland Plaza to collect Tonya and Ross. After that, head to the North Plaza, kill psycho Cliff and rescue his three captives (Josh, Barbara, & Rich). By now you will likely have gotten the Restaurant Man scoop which has you getting Ronald in Paradise Plaza, giving you eight. There are certainly other ways to accomplish this.

Costume Party: Place novelty masks on at least 10 zombies at a single time. A number of the toy stores sell novelty masks (bears, horses, goblins and Lego like heads). All you gotta do is put 10 of these on ten zombies. I went down to the Entrance Plaza where there are two stores selling masks (bears and goblins). This isn't a hard one.

Snuff Shot B: Successfully photograph zombie Brad. During the later stages of the story, a cut scene will show Brad trapped outside the maintenance room surrounded by zombies. Right after this cut scene, head on down there to snap a picture of him and score this achievement.

Psycho Collector: Photograph at least 10 psychopaths during a single play. Although I managed to kill ten psychos during my last game, I somehow messed up the pictures. Make sure to see their names come up when your picture is evaluated and that the picture is of a decent quality (the name should be coloured, not gray).

Snuff Shot J: Successfully photograph zombie Jessie. When the special forces arrive during your final night in the mall, a cut scene will show Jessie turn into a zombie. Immediately head to the security room to snap a picture of here.

Karate Champ: Defeat at least 1,000 zombies barehanded during a single play. Other then the occasional jump kick, I don't use much of Frank's hand-to-hand moves. So I had to deliberately go out to get this one. That said, it isn't hard. Use the double lariat which has Frank spinning in circles with his fists clenched. Each contact, pretty much kills a zombie so just do this move with a horde for a while and you'll have the achievement in no time.

Zombie Road: Walk over 33 feet (10 meters) on the backs of zombies using the Zombie Ride. Find a large group of zombies - this is easiest down in the tunnels - and zombie ride on top of the group. If the group is densely pact, this is easy as you don't have to go in a straight line and can simply walk in circles.

Cloths Horse: Change into all costumes available in the mall. Visiting all the clothing stores (including sports and toy stores) will get you all the costumes but one. This last one is located in an abandoned store near the gun shop in the North Plaza where you will see the cloths icon on a pile of boxes. This is the only costume that is a little bit hidden, the rest are easy to find.

Game six was all about one thing, getting the Zombie Genocider achievement. Once I found out that this unlocks the Real Megaman Blaster I had to get it. The problem was I was too eager for the blaster and once I got the achievement I quit my game and started a new one. That was when I discovered that you only get the rewards if you actually complete the game with the achievement. Frustrated, I put the game down for a couple of months before trying again. To be safe, I did what was required for the achievement again and ran around trying to get the Gourmet achievement, which I failed at.

Zombie Genocider: Defeat at least 53,594 zombies during a single play. Like with Zombie Killer, simply drive the truck around the tunnels below the supermarket, regularly jumping in and out of the butcher shop to respawn the truck and zombies. This achievement is not hard, but it does get boring. By the way, the number (53,594) is the population of the fictional town of Willamette where the game takes place.

Game seven now and you gotta know that these achievement will be getting tougher. Though, armed now with the Megaman blaster, taking down whomever was in my way certainly wasn't a problem. I was doing the story again in this one because I was going for the Transmissionary achievement even though that one ended in failure.

Frank the Pimp: Simultaneously escort 8 female survivors. This one is tougher then it sounds as there are only a few of time where eight women become available. I did this starting in the early part of day two by rescuing Heather in Paradise Plaza (Pamela had died). I then took her up to the North Plaza, killed Cliff and rescued Barbara (leaving the two guys behind). It was then down to Wonderland Plaza rescuing Kay, Lilly, Kelly and Janet who were prisoners of the psycho cop, Jo. With my six ladies, I warped back to Paradise Plaza, then ran down to the Entrance Plaza where the The Woman Who Didn't Make It scoop was waiting. I put my six ladies into a store and completed the scoop which had Jolie and Rachel join, giving me eight and the achievement. I then abandoned them all and rescued Floyd because I knew I needed him for the Tranmissionary achievement.

PP Collector: Photograph all PP Stickers during a single play. There are 100 PP stickers placed on objects of interest around the mall, but the stickers are minuscule. Some can only be seen through the scope of the sniper rifle! So I wasn't about to try and find them all on my own. Here's a great site which shows all the pictures you need to collect.

Gourmet: Eat all types of food available in the mall during a single play. I tried for this during my last game and didn't get the achievement. So this time I found a list of all the foods. Most are very easy. In fact, all but the ones I'm going to specifically mention here can be found in the supermarket. Here are the ones that are easy to miss: there are two types of milk (carton and jug - both in the supermarket), drink both; there are pies in Columbia Roadmaster's in Paradise Plaza; cook the raw meat and uncooked pizza in a microwave to get well cooked stake and golden brown pizza; leave frozen vegetables, uncooked pizza, ice pops and raw meat in your inventory for a while to get thawed vegetables, rotten pizza, melted ice pops and spoiled meat (these are the ones I missed on my first attempt); use a blender to make each of the cocktails: nectar (OJ + OJ), quick step (milk + milk), spitfire (snack + snack), untouchable (pie + pie), randomizer (wine + cooking oil), zombait (corn + corn), energizer (randomizer + zombait). You'll find some of this stuff will, not surprisingly, give Frank stomach cramps.

Indoorsman: Spend at least 24 hours indoors during a single play. Just stay inside for at least 24 hours, which sounds easy but it means you can't go in and out the security room (because you do that via the roof). So this isn't one you can do while playing the story or rescuing people. As it turns out, by this time I had realized I had messed up the Transmissionary and the Indoorsman was the only one left that I could still go for during this game.

Game eight was in Overtime mode in order to get these two military related achievements.

Hella Copter: Successfully repel a Helicopter. I hate that helicopter and have tried doing this before a number of times, always unsuccessfully. I read some posts on the topic where people provided some advice and even watched a YouTube video where someone seemed to do this almost effortlessly with the sniper rifle. All of this didn't help and what I did was stocked up on a lot of health items and charged after the thing blasting away with the Megaman blaster. Eventually the helicopter started smoking from the rear rotter and went away, earning me the achievement.

Perfect Gunner: Don't miss with a machine gun. Another one that's harder then it sounds. First, realize that this isn't the SMG but the military machine guns that you get from the special forces troops. No matter how hard a tried, I always seemed to miss with a couple of shots. Then I read that the hanging meat in the butcher shop counts as a hit. So I went down to the butcher shop, got on a table where the zombies couldn't reach me and emptied a fresh clip into a side of meat. Well, that turned out to be easier then I would have thought.

Game nine was about one thing ...

Transmissionary: Answer all calls from Otis during a single play. Another one that's harder then it sounds. I figured I could just play through the story and just keep answering phone calls. I knew that certain survivors (Ronald, Floyd, Kindell, Paul, Simone and Cheryl) generated further phone calls after they were rescued. I also knew that Otis will stop calling on a scoop if you cut him off twice and that he won't call regarding a scoop that would put the maximum number of people you are escorting over eight, but I was still not getting the achievement. So, I looked up where I was going wrong.

It does help having a check list, but basically follow the story and answer all the phone calls with the following caveats:

• Know the situations in which Otis will not call (I mentioned them in the preceding paragraph)
• You must save Ronald, Floyd, Kindell, Paul, Simone, Cheryl, and - I'm pretty sure - Jennifer.
• You will not get the second call about Ronald and Kindell unless they have at least three people in their rooms by the security room. This means that you need to keep rescuing survivors until there are three in these rooms (I messed this up on my first attempt). Their rooms are the two on the left as you enter the survivor area from the security room.
• Otis calls you to remind you of to be in certain places as the times for those cases approaches. That means DON'T be in the security room on time. Wait for Otis' call (I messed this one up at first too).
• Once you've completed case six (Isabella has woken up and told you about Santa Cabeza), Otis will stop calling you with case reminders. As well, you now have the information you need to rescue Simone later, so you can let the case time out if you like.

Game ten, and this may pretty much end my Dead Rising experience.

5 Day Survivor: Survive for five days. Once you've completed the full story, you unlock what the game calls "infinity mode". In this mode you are on your own. Everyone that was a survivor in the previous mode is now an enemy out to get you, in addition to the other psychos and, of course, the zombies. As well, you lose health on a regular basis forcing you to continually eat. More over, the food items no longer respawn and they've locked up the grocery store. All this is a neat idea and fun, but then the bastards at Capcom added one more twist - they took away all the save points meaning playing in this mode has to be done in a single sitting.

Now, five seconds of play time equates to one minute of game time. I you do the math you will realize that to survive 5 days requires 10 hours of playing! There is also a 7 day survivor achievement which requires 14 hours! I figured I would never even attempt this, but in a prolonged moment of insanity I decided I was going to pull an all nighter going from 10:00 pm until noon the next morning to pull these off. Earning these achievements is not hard, but it's dull as hell. It helps to get a list of all the mini-bosses that are around and when they show. Each one releases a box of goodies when killed, but you only need the food. There are also three books you can get whose combined effect is to triple the health benefits from eating food. With these books and a few choice weapons, its a simple matter to dispatch a boss, collect the food, wait in a safe spot for a while, then move to the next boss. I was doing fine when I passed the ten hour mark (earning this achievement and a laser sword) when disaster struck. I was running down a hall way when Frank got suddenly stuck in a same spot in a running animation. I couldn't do anything to dislodge him and one of the bosses simply walk up and beat Frank to death.

GAME OVER!!! ARRGH!!!

I doubt I will ever do this again, so here are the only two achievements that I've left undone.

Outdoorsman: Spend at least 24 hours outdoors during a single play. Because of the need to keep moving when getting most other achievements, I never got this one though it would be easy to get any time I want. Simply go out to the park, climb up on the roof above the picnic tables, and wait and let the game run for two hours.

7 Day Survivor: Survive for seven days. Fat chance I'll ever go for this! One try was enough.

Mike

Christian the Lion

This is weird. About two weeks ago a tried to post this from YouTube. I tried a few times, but it didn't seem to be working (I wish YouTube would just let you lift the code) so I gave up. Suddenly, today, all three attempts pop up here. Strange.

Obviously I deleted two of them.

Anyway, this is an old one, but true - it's easily verifiable despite some of the comments by the moron brigade at YouTube.

=>UK Daily Mail story<=

The production of the video is schmaltzy as all hell which is too bad because it is pretty amazing. If it happened today there would undoubtedly be an IMAX movie made (I've seen lamer premises on the monster screen).

Internet Update

	Well, my brother-in-law certainly went above and beyond the call last week repairing, and improving, the network on the island. The modem and all routers had to be replaced after the thunderstorm the other week which, in hindsight, isn't that surprising. However, this time he ordered exterior routers (see picture one). There's one on the shed about half way between his place and ours, and another to service his sister. I convinced him to get a GFI on the outlet that the one router on the shed is plugged into. The new routers can also be properly grounded (you can see that with the chain which goes under the shed and lies on bedrock). This should certainly help. We also extended the cord on the antenna in our cottage so that we can now plug into the network in our dining room. Now if only I can get the computer away from the kids. :-) Last night, it was put to the test with another good thunderstorm. The next morning, my computer couldn't see the access point. I went to investigate, found the power out there because the GFI had tripped. I reset and everything booted up normally. Maybe we finally have this thing licked. Mike

Earth like Planets Should be Quite Common - Well, Not Really

telegraph.co.uk

Neat article, but I'm not sure the guy who concocted the title read it that closely. The article says that, though small rocky planets may, in fact, be a dime a dozen; a nice ordered solar system like what we've got may actually be pretty rare.

We maybe be more special then we realize.

Nice read, and kinda ties into my SETI post from last week.

Mike

My Weekend Part 2 - The Sailing Race

So, with the Flying Scot out of commission from the lightning Michael and I decided to put together a couple of Lasers for the race. I use a communal island Laser that has been put together from a variety of sources over the year while Michael used his grand-dad's Laser that was bought about ten years ago. Both boats have the issues but it was going to be fun. Michael's grand-dad took some pictures of the race that I'll have to get my hands on.

Anyway, it went far better then I would have expected even though I couldn't have botched the start of the first race any worse if I tried. I hit the mark and was forced to restart. The wind was much stronger then I thought it was going to be and three of the eight Lasers that were there dropped out of the first race.

Michael finished both races, which is fantastic for his first time solo. I worked my way up to a close second despite having my outhaul way too loose. This put too much power into the sail and I had a great deal of difficulty holding the boat flat on the upwind legs. The boat has only a stock rig which is difficult to adjust mid race. Between races I hauled in my outhaul and, of course, the wind died off. I spent the entire race battling with another boat for the lead (he with a racing rig at that). I was leading most of the race and in the final leg.

During that final leg I continually covered him which means I always remained on the same tack as he did which makes it difficult for him to pass, but I messed up at the end. I spent too much time watching him and not enough watching the finish line. I tacked too soon and realized I wasn't going to make it to the finish line without one more tack, while my opponent had it lined up right. That extra tack put me on port which leaves me without the right of way. When I encountered my opponent shortly before the finish line, I had to give way and go behind him.

Now on opposite tacks, he was heading to the left end of the finish line and me the right. The committee boat was at the right end (where it usually is). I figured I was done but then I could hear the judge watching the line getting excited and concerned. He couldn't call it and gave us a tie (which I can't even recall happening before).

The irony of it was, my opponent wasn't wearing a PFD and was disqualified anyway. Michael finished fourth and third. I'm really proud of the guy. A really fun day.

Mike

Lightning Hit My Boat!

Well, an interesting weekend that I may have to spread over two posts.

Early Friday evening, before dark, an intense, and thankfully brief, thunderstorm rolled right over our island. Being on the lee of the island, it makes it hard to see these things coming. I was standing on our veranda when my sailboat, which is moored about a hundred feet from where I was standing was hit by lightning. I wasn't looking in that direction on at the time. I just saw and heard the simultaneous boom and my first response was literally duck and cover, and then get the hell inside. A number of neighbours saw it hit the boat and reported seeing welding like sparks flying off.

Needless to say, this got me a bit concern so when the storm had passed I went out to investigate. It was immediately obvious the main halyard had broken. It is a metal cable which runs up the mast and it was melted from it's top most point. Otherwise, everything else seemed okay and, since it would be getting dark soon, I decided further inspection would have to wait until tomorrow, starting with taking down the mast.

First off, other than scorch marks in various locations (that I'll get to), the boat was fine. The block (pulley) for the halyard that is at the top of the mast is nylon and I suspected it would be a useless blob. It was fine. There was scorching all around it (obviously the point of impact) but the block itself was completely intact. What's interesting is that you can follow the scorch marks and determine the path the electricity took to the ground.

I noticed minor scorch marks around the bottom of the bow plate, at the bottom of the forestay, at the very front of the boat. So some charge went this way where it either traveled along the wet painter (bow line) or, more likely I think, jumped the gap to the anchor chain. There was significant scorching around the goose-neck and where the boom rests on its crutch. The head of the crutch is plastic, so the charge likely jumped the gap, went into the crutch (which has a heavy, galvanized, steel pipe inside) and, perhaps, out the bottom of the boat through the half inch or so of fiberglass and wood that makes up the hull. But then again, maybe not. There was not evidence of any marks at the bottom of the crutch, which actually sits on a one inch block of wood too.

I didn't notice this until the next day, but I found perhaps the most scorching around the gudgeons and pintels that attach the rudder to the boat's transom. Perhaps this is where most of the charge left the boat. For this, though, it would have had to jump the gap between the end of the boom and the rudder head. Pretty impressive.

Anyway, the end result is the boat is out of commission until I can get a new halyard, which I can get from a store in Peterborough. So it shouldn't be a problem. There was a sailing race on Sunday, so Michael and I decided to rig up a couple of Laser's instead, but that story will have to be pending for my next post.

Oh, I should add that a minute later another bolt hit the metal roof of my brother-in-law's cottage (you can see the scorch mark) and our satellite modem got completely roasted. It seems the charge didn't go through the power cord (where the serge protector would have helped) but instead up the Ethernet cable - ouch! The power transformers for the two routers are also pooched, but where holding off buying new routers until we get a new modem which is owned by the ISP and may be covered under warrantee. Either way, it looks like know Internet at the cottage for a while so I'm back home in Peterborough now.

Aw well!

Mike

'Humans will make contact with aliens within two decades,' say astronomers

Of course, this would be SETI astronomers.

Here's the story => dailymail.co.uk

Although I'm not as optimistic as them, I still think SETI does valuable research. I think the odds of contacting an alien civilization are very small, but if we don't look they're zero. I believe the payoff of such a discovery would be a tremendous push towards changing the petty world view that so many of us have.

The key to how likely you think it is to find intelligent life depends upon the values you stick into the now famous Drake equation (invented by the first SETI researcher of course).

N = R^* f_p n_e f_l f_i f_c L
It calculates the number of communicating, intelligent, species in the galaxy. The equation seems to carry a lot of weight with folks simply because its math. Math can't be wrong, can it? Well, the math can't be wrong but that doesn't necessarily mean that the number it calculates as any connection to reality.

Here are what each variable stands for.

R^*: The number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

f_p: Fractions of stars with planets around them.

n_e: Number of planets per star system capable of supporting life.

f_l: Fraction of those planets where life arises.

f_i: The fraction of the above planets on which intelligent life evolved.

f_c: The fraction of those civilizations that develop the means to communicate over distance.

L: The length of time these civilizations last for.

Obviously, most of these numbers would be highly speculative, but what Drake argued was that even conservative numbers produce tens of thousands of such civilizations. Well, since his time what were considered to be conservative numbers by Drake have turned out to still to large. Do a bit Googling and you can find conservative numbers that have this coming out to be less then ten. The galaxy is a far less hospitable place then we thought half a century ago.

But I'm not going to even bother with that. There's plenty of evidence that Drake's equation is obsolete anyway. One of the biggest factors it doesn't take into account is that the universe his hardly static and is continuing to evolve as well. The universe 5 billion years ago (when our solar system came into existence) is not the same as the universe now.

Here's a good article that provide a counter-point to SETI and the Drake equation.

The Drake Equation is Obsolete

Mike

My Nebulous Internet

I've mentioned a couple of times about the whacked Internet connection I have at the cottage, so I thought I'd describe it here, with pictures too. :-)

	Satellite signal gets to us at my brother-in-law's shed (sorry, no TV). Four of use chipped together for the service.
	Signal goes into my brother-in-law's. The building was built shortly after the turn of the century and was, for many years, a small hotel for the fishing camp on the island. Of course it enters a modem and then gets routed back out.
	250 feet of Ethernet cable then snakes through the bushes to an abandoned shed which is closer to our cottage. There's no electricity here so there is also a 200 foot extension cord running from the brother-in-law's shed.
	There it plugs into a wireless router which serves as our access point, and also the access point for my father-in-law. The shed is, maybe, 5X5 with no door and the biggest issues are thunderstorms which almost inevitably resets the router. 200 ft of inducting cable running along the ground with no serge protection is obviously a week point
	We attached some high gain antennas to the router and stuck them out of the back wall of the shed, which really helps.
	About 500 feet away, in our cottage, is another antenna picking up the signal from the router
	And viola! Here we are. It ain't the greatest, but it works pretty good and sitting, looking over the lake while doing my work, is hardly something to complain about.

Dead Rising - Save The Max

Okay, this game is a couple of years old, but I had such a blast playing it last fall and winter that I ended up writing a bit of a walkthrough to being able to save the maximum number of survivors.

Save the Max - Dead Rising Walkthrough

The game is a zombie survival game where you play a photo journalist named Frank who ends up in a barricaded mall during a zombie infestation (ala Dawn of the Dead - though the packaging claims no affiliation). The purpose of the game is to survive 72 hours of game time. Although open ended, sandbox, games are all the rage, I don't think there is another game as open ended as this. You could investigate the source of the zombie invasion, try and save survivors, deal with various psychopaths, or just spend your time killing endlessly respawning zombies. Yeck, you could even finish the game doing nothing, never leaving the safe room the game provides.

The game is far from perfect. Some of the game mechanics and design choices can get very frustrating, the survivor and psycho AI and voice acting are annoyingly limited, and the instant zombie respawn is cheap, but I've completed the game at least four or five times which means, at least in my mind, it did some things right.

Anyway, the walkthrough is just how to save as many survivors as you possibly can. If you have the game, give it a shot.

Mike

Particle Physics For Non-physicists

Particle Physics For Non-physicists

The above is a link to a 24 episode lecture series on Particle Physics. I'm almost half way through the first episode (it's just over half-an-hour) and have already decided to forward this on to some of my physics teacher friends.

I get the first lecture (or at least a cut from it) here for you to peruse. The guy's not the best presenter in the world but I like the structure of his first lecture and the way he is approaching the topic.

Good stuff.

I'll have more to say when I have a chance to add more, but I want to finish the episode right now.

Mike

Unnecessary Censorship on Sesame Street

Sean at Robotics Camp

I got a couple of short videos of Sean at Robotics Camp from this past week. I lifted these from a CD the councilors made. They use Lego Mindstorms, which is becoming a more and more common product in classrooms. I've used an older version of the kit in the classroom myself for a few years. It's fabulous stuff, but I wanted to move into a programing environment that was more object oriented, but that's another story.

The first is he and his partner's attempt at building a robot to run a maze. The idea is to use a light sensor to have the robot "see" the black lines and to adjust its path accordingly. As you'll see, it fails. Sean's line is that he and his partner argued on this one almost from the beginning.



Actually, you can see the robot trying to turn as Sean is pushing it. I kinda wished he just let it go, even if it turned the wrong way.

This second video is the result of a project where the kids had to design amusement park rides. This time it goes a bit better.



Mike

Feeding Day & Does No one Get A Joke Anymore?

What do you feed Wilbur? Dead baby mice of course. Today was the first day Sean was supposed to try and feed his snake (he gets one mouse a week). They warned us that he may be a little nervous at first and may not eat. Not a problem. A couple of seconds of dangling the mouse in front of Wilbur got him to snap it up and in a minute, he had the thing down.

Other snake highlight, he shed his skin last night too. I should just turn this into a snake blog.

You likely caught this one on the news. This is the cover of the latest issue of the New Yorker and it's creating quite the stir south of the boarder.

Here's the ABC story => http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/obama-new-yorke.html

I guess main stream media in the States is getting so close to unintentional satire that when actual satire hits the news stands, few people seem to get the joke. In fact the very media that is going on about how terrible this cover is are the people that this biting satire is aimed at. Unfortunately, they're too stupid to realize they're being made fun of.

I mean, here's Fox news (yes, I know, an easy target) reporting on the Obamas fist bumping (why this is even news is beyond me). I guess the truth is, if they honestly can't tell how stupid they sound when they go on and on about this stuff, how can I possibly expect them get a not-so-subtle jab from the New Yorker.

Mike

First Sign of Over Indulgent Parenting

You buy your kid a snake.

Yes, that's a snake - a corn snake to be precise - and it's my son Sean's, who's twelve.

We ended up clearing out an aquarium full of fish for the snake's new home (whose name is Wilbur, by the way). Don't worry, we didn't flush them. The place where we bought the snake was more then happy to take them off our hands, I'm sure to be resold. Some were getting fairly large. In fact, they feel the Chinese Algae Eater we had was too big to sell and they're going to but it in their display tank. I was actually very happy to get rid of the fish. Deb and I have had an aquarium almost since we married, but I was personally quite sick of the thing.

Anyway, in may last post, made four days ago, I promised to post again tomorrow. Oops! We actually had Internet issues at the cottage. We've got a bit of an involved system with a satellite ISP coming in at my brother-in-laws, and a 200 ft Ethernet cable extension cord taking the signal to a wireless router which is sitting in an old tool shed that has been abandoned since the place was a fishing camp half a century ago. We can then pick up the signal from the router in our cottage. Anyway, a storm reset the router to its defaults and, unfortunately, changing it back has to be done from my brother-in-law's computer and he wasn't up. It was alright though, as I could still pick up the signal from another wireless router off the same system, this one intended for my sister-in-law's on the other side of the island. The only problem - I had to walk half way there to pick up the signal. This was fine for doing my school work (which is just a lot of uploading and downloading between off-line work), but kind of cut into my more leisurely Internet activity.

Oh well.

I'm back home now with a more dependable DSL this week. Sean's got robotics camp that I'll be driving him to in Oshawa (it's about 45 minutes from here). I plan on dropping him off and then using the time to crash a library and finally finish off this last bloody assignment for my Java course. Wish me luck.

Mike

On-line Courses & Sailing - They Mix Well

At the start of this month I set a goal of trying to blog every day. As you can see, I didn't quite pull it off, but four in the past week isn't bad.

Truth be told, despite being on summer vacation, the past while has been extremely busy and not likely to get better in the next little bit.

Since March I've been taking a second Java course on-line through Athabasca University, but through preparing exams, marking, righting reports and getting an on-line course that I'm teaching ready, I had to put working on it on hold. I've got one assignment, one unit and then the final exam to complete before the summer. I finally had a day today to work on it (the first in weeks). I worked until a little after three. By then by brain was fried so I went for a sail (it is nice to have that release).

I'm writing this from my cottage on Georgian Bay (that's off Lake Huron in the Great Lakes, for anyone who doesn't know the area). I have an old Laser that I can take out. I stuck my head out and saw the white caps rolling past the island I'm on, and knew I had to get out to clear my head. We are on the lee side of a small group of islands. The wind was from the west, maybe even a touch north (usually its south-southwest) creating some unpredictable shifts around our cottage. Just getting out and beating past the islands into the more open water was trickier then I thought it was going to be. To add to the unusual direction, the wind was very gusty and shifting. I'd be hiked out (and even luffing a bit to keep the boat in a loose approximation of being flat), when the wind would shift head on and I'd have to get into the boat quick to keep from falling in backwards. One time I got in only to have the wind shift back even harder. These 44 year old bones don't react like they used to and I end up being projected into the water and onto the sail.

I thought it may get better out past the islands, but it didn't. I ripped back and fourth for fifteen or twenty minutes before admitting defeat and heading back in. One consolation, the water is extremely warm for early July.

Anyway, the summer course I'm teaching seems to be going well. We just finished our first week and the marking has been coming in. I'm getting into a routine of banging it off as it comes and staying on top. I'm also preped a week ahead, which feels good considering this is the first time for this course to be in the summer, so I'm doing it from scratch.

I think this is enough for today. I'll continue this tomorrow.

Mike

Nanotube Radio

Berkeley University - Nanotube Radio

Using a carbon nanotube one ten thousandths the thickness of a human hair, physicists at Berkeley have created a working radio. Pretty amazing stuff that has all kinds of implications, but I'll leave you to read the article yourself.

You can even have a listen to the Star Wars Theme played through it.

Mike

Pirate TV Teaser

Torrent Freak Article

This is a teaser for a new show from the people that produced Lost and Heroes and based upon Matt Mason's book "The Pirate's Dilemma". Sounds like it may be an interesting show, but it amazes me that a major network would back such a thing.

I guess we got to wait and see what the final product is like.

Mike