A piece ‘a Me

Well this week saw a pitched music battle, I got Coldplay’s new Album, ‘Viva la Vida’ yesterday, and I finally got around to downloading Nine Inch Nail’s new album ‘The Slip’. I;ve listened to them both extensively and determined that they are both very good, but I prefer The Slip. Free, excellent work, and a fine addition to my NiN collection. I’ll definitely be buying the CD when it comes out too.

I just got my paws on Viva La Vida by Coldplay. I’ve always been a huge Coldplay fan (my mum hates them, they are bout the only band I like that she doesn’t!) but this album, from my initial impressions at least, is different. Whereas previous albums had a lot of well defined ‘classics’ on them (think about Clocks, Yellow, Trouble, Speed of Sounds etc.) this one doesn’t have a lot of songs that leap out and grab you as good singles. Are Coldplay finally becoming album artists? Even Violet Hill, which has been out as a single for a month or so doesn’t even hit the mark as real Single material.

It doesn’t stop it being a good album, I’m sure it’ll ingrain itself into my head, like the others did.

Oh and, for the record, I was particularly pissed off that it came in a card sleeve! What’s with that? Did I miss something?

This Article really cracks me up. I know touch screen technology is on the up and it frankly can’t come soon enough for me. I don’t really like mice, even though I’ve been using them for over a decade. There’s not really much alternative (I don’t like pens or trackballs either, for the record). Lets look at his points:

1. Apple’s giant trackpad with multi-touch. Available on MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, this pointing device represents a body blow to the appeal of using a mouse with an Apple mobile computer. The new track pad is superior because in addition to pointing and clicking, you get gestures, which adds a whole new layer of control.

Yes, it’s neat, I won’t deny that. Touch technology *is* taking off and *is* becoming a reality. Apple’s trackpad is NOT the way forward though. Touch surfaces that are not on the screen they are designed to be used on are, essentially, no better than mice IMHO.

Gestures are cool when they work. Fair point.

2. Gaming pointing devices Remember when everyone used to play games on a PC using a mouse and keyboard? Neither do I. Console gaming has re-set the bar for gaming input devices, and now even PC games seem to call for joysticks, yolks, steering wheels and other non-mouse input devices.

WOAH, hold on a moment. I played Mass Effect on a PC not 2 weeks ago with a keyboard and mouse. All major PC MMOGs are mouse & keyboard powered. All PC FPS games are mouse & keyboard powered. Consoles are popular, hell yeah, and they have a plethora of controllers for different games. However, alternative controllers are numerous for the PC, and they have been as long as I’ve been gaming on the PC (15 years, for the record). The mouse is not a dead as a PC games controller AT ALL. You’re WAY off the mark here, sorry.

3. “Brain-reading” devices. Like the mouse between 1963 and 1981, these devices are still in the lab. But one company, Emotiv Systems, plans to place a $300 headset on the market by the end of this year that lets gamers control some aspects of games with thoughts alone (go here for the demo).

It’ll happen one day but I’d give it a decade. The difference between a first generation niche product shipping and a mass market device is vast.

4. Apple iPhone and the “iPhone Killers.” This newest category of cell phone boots physical keyboards and phone pointing devices (like BlackBerry’s “pearl,” toggle switches or the tracking sticks on some handsets) altogether in favor of full-size touch screens. Although people tend to see iPhone-like devices as replacing keyboards, they’re getting millions of people used to the idea of controlling an entire operating system with a touch screen.

For some systems, this is indeed ‘where it’s at’. Touchscreen is pretty much gonna kill off mouse-pointer type applications in the next 5-10 years. Good riddance, too, like I said I hate mice. Where it’s not going to challenge is in hand-eye applications. You can’t play an FPS on a trackpad, or a touch screen. Where the iPhone and iPod touch have put the ‘i’ in ‘interesting’ (oh god I can’t believe I just did that) is with motion sensors. For gaming, the mouse will eventually be replaced by motion sensing hand devices similar to the Wii, I feel.

The mouse isn’t dead. It’s not close to being dead. I mean the keyboard has been going for more than a century. Old habits die hard. Even when revolutionary input devices come around it’ll take a long time for a lot of people to move over.

Had some good clean fun with the new Wheely King tonight. I unwound after work by taking it on an initial shakedown test around the garden at home. We’re lucky enough to have a vast garden, driveway and mown paddock right by the house, so I had plenty of room to stretch it’s legs.

It glides real easy over rough bumpy ground, is perfectly at home on grass or gravel, and can climb over some really lumpy obstacles, even with no diff locks. I even managed to fight my way through a patch of grass that was taller than it was, without stopping! It takes the knocks and has a pretty goo lick of speed for something that’s primarily for off-road bashing out of the box.

As far as the rock crawler project goes, I’ve identified these important problems so far:

It grounds out in the middle on pointy obstacles. This could be cured with locked diffs, I feel, and maybe reducing the ground clearance in the middle to make is see-saw more over the pointy bits.

It stops when it lifts a wheel at both ends. Obvious really as it has unlocked diffs.

It leans to on side. I\m pretty sure this is caused by the mega soft suspension. I removed the collars from the springs, and the rear stabiliser bar from the lower links. This gives it insane axle articulation but also means the constant side ways torque from the mid-mounted motor tips it to the right. This won’t be an issue once it’s slowed for crawling hopefully.

It scared also the cat senseless
Picture alert!

Well I got it today, was delivered to work at about 11pm. That wasn’t bad considering I ordered it 9am the previous day and paid nothing for the shipping!

Big thanks to: http://www.modelsport.co.uk/

It’s am impressive truck for the money (135GBP all in), very well designed and built, very neat electrics with a full ESC (electronic speed controller) that has a brake function for changing from forward to reverse (a neat trick I thought!).

My only reservations are the radio controller bundled with it is a wheel and trigger type and because I’m old fashioned I prefer the 2-stick type. I was delighted when I discovered that swapping the crystal into my Acoms 2-stick radio transmitter worked a charm, it works fine with HPI’s radio receiver and ESC.

Pictures to follow, along with more progress on the planned mods.

I got my newly acquired Tamiya King Cab stripped down pretty much to component parts tonight. It’s sat next to me in about 6 ice-cream boxes at the moment.

I also cleaned out my bro’s old RC toolbox and washed it out (was full of dust and crap). I found a couple of cool bits and pieces in there. No King Cab spares though :(. Looks like I’ll be hitting eBay and spare dealers in stages over the next few months to renew what I need. I might also have a go at fabricating some parts myself in metal for it. The stock parts are pretty tough and are surprisingly undamaged, but metal looks cooler and is less cumbersome, so could be good. We’ll see
I’d post a photo but it wasn’t worthy before I stripped it, and now all there is to look at is a lot of jumbled parts in boxes. I *will* photograph it as I start to rebuild it though!

All good so far, as long as I can get a usable electric set out of the bits I’ve got I ought to have it going again pretty soon. Watch this space!

Hey now here’s a thing. One of the guys at work has gotten into RC (that’s radio controlled model) rock crawling. He used to be a full-size off-road challenge competitor but had to give it up due to family commitments.

RC stuff costs a ton less and is easy to do on a kitchen table or in a small workshop. You can also involve your kids (I don’t have any yet, but it’d be a useful thing if I did).

So I have 2 projects planned now:

1) Buy a HPI Wheely King RC Monster truck and set about modding it into a demon rock crawler.

2) Restore my brothers old Nissan King Cab Tamiya truck

See, my brother and I did this when we were kids but I thought I’d ‘grown out’ of it. More the fool me, I forgot how much fun building, running, breaking, fixing and servicing these things was. Also now I’ve got access to a workshop and tools, can get metal stock, and am getting a bit handier with metal working, I can do a lot of mods using custom hand crafted parts.

I can’t wait to get started. Stories and pictures are sure to follow!

Well I haven’t posted anything here in a while, as I’ve been kinda snowed under from one angle or another, or just too tired to be bothered. Blogging, after all, is something I do as a spare moment/enthusiasm thing and well I ain’t had any lately. I was quite stunned when a person actually missed me on Twitter, almost flattering really (Hello Peter C. :))!

Stuff is happening though that means that’s set to change! Hurrah!

The last few days I’ve been really appreciating some of the stuff that’s come in over my Twitter. I have to offer a huge thank you to Merlin Mann, who’s ‘Popetiquette’ remarks today had me laughing my ass off in my office at work, twice. Merlin and Nick Douglas between them have given me multiple fits of the ‘Twiggles’ this week.

Finally, it’s arrived. It’s available from the Apple Store now in the UK and US (and presumably elsewhere too).

There’s another huge bonus too. They’ve sliced a BIG lump off the price too.
The UK item has dropped from GBP 220 (which the original Gen 2 card was on release day) to GBP 170, a 50 GBP drop.

That takes a whole 100 GBP off the price of a new graphics card for my Mac Pro compared to the old X1950XT, plus I don’t get ATi grief in Windows when I’m playing games.