Kristine's First Day at School

Well, now its another phase into her life. Yes, Kristine is going to Primary One for 2011. And yes, time changes very fast.

My, my. Almost 7Am and she is still not fully
awake. Kaelynn on the other hand, was up
and ready, just to see her sister off eventhough
she is not supposed to be up until an hour later.

Mommy helping Kristine into her
uniform.

In my days, we do not have velcro like what
she has now.

And there she goes. Kaelynn is also following
Grandpa's car, trying to see Kristine off as
much as possible.

As usual, there would ne reports of kids crying and so on. But for Kristine, it was a normal school day for her. For the first two days, the school allowed parents in but when it was my time to take her to school days later, I could only leave her at the entrance.

iPad

What the fuck, man.

Am I suck a fucking loser that I can't even afford an iPad?
I know someone is laughing at me, not being 'man' enough to make the purchase!

And even if I saved enough, it will be too late because iPad 2 would be launched.

I think I am going to borrow some money even if it affects me.

At last!

The whole factory has been going nuts due to the biiiig
order from an anonymous customer and mine just came
out today. So I called the customer on the pretext of
being the bearer of bad news (as in delayed delivery)
only to surprise them with the Diary. Everyone was so
happy because this time, the diary design not so 'boring'
for them anymore. And yeah, days later, the diaries have
all disappeared like hot cakes. And the customer wants
me to come back again next year with more designs.
Woohoo!

Why don't you call me Linda?

Kristine: Mommy, why don't you call me Linda?
Mommy: Huhm?
Me: Because your name is Kristine
Kristine: No, I mean last time, why didn't you call me Linda?
(As in, why did you not name me Linda?)
Kaelynn: I want Angelina.
Me: We already give you the names
Kaelynn: Why didn't you give me Angelina?

Me: Because in case you were naughty, and the teacher line up all the naughty boys and girls, you would be the first in line. If your name is Kaelynn, you will be in the middle. And when your turn comes, the teacher's hand would be tired and so, she will not cane you so hard.

Kaelynn: .....

Deblocking de Noz

In the mornings, after my wife taught me how to
brush my tongue, I usually brush a little bit further
in which created blood. And sometimes, when they
come out, its already clotted. But these few days,
I had a very bad running nose and just this morning,
I decided not to dig them out but to give a big blow.
And this 2inch x2inch horror came out. For the rest
of the day, my sense of smell increased tremendously
until I can smell people's panties....

LinkStation™ Duo - LS-WXL/R1

Finally, I got some NAS. I figured this is a much better solution than transferring and erasing 4Gb and burning them to a DVD every hour on my Dad's Notebook. And so, with the NAS, all I have to do is to just upload them from my Notebook, regardless of the speed.

I got the chance to get one when my Dad sent his Lenovo for repairs (as the speakers cannot be detected anymore) at Low Yatt. And going there on a normal working day is really asking for it. Because by the time we picked everyone up and reached the place, it was already half-past eight. And so, with that limited time, I decided to walk around SRI Computers, the only place that I can actually spend money at. At first, I was looking for a Synology brand which I had a very good experience with, in my old company. But there was none. With the clock ticking, I decided to get the next best thing, which is the Linkstation. A quick call to Jeffrey Loo did not help much as he does not have any experience with them and so, I bit the bullet at bought one.

I mean, for RM399, the Linkstation from Buffalo, Japan, is still quite pricey and I still need to shell out an additional RM128 for a 3.5" Samsung 1TB SATA HDD as well. After purchase on that night, maybe I should have bought a Western Digital instead. Maybe because its closing time, or because I am so handsome, they only charged the 3% interest on the 4GB thumbdrive instead. So, I saved quite a bit. Or maybe I did not because when my dad found out, both he and my brother became Credit card experts and ended up with them using one of their cards. The salesguy and I just looked at each other speechlessly.

This is what you get from Buffalo. Everything
short of a HDD. At least with an external PSU,
I can get a replacement if it fails.

The Linkstation can take in two drives and depending
on how you set them, you could either use two full
dives or as a RAID system. Knowing how reliable
HDDs are, I plan to get another 1TB HDD in March
and set them up as RAID, but at the loss of using half
the capacity. This, I think is how RAID works but then,
I am not computer illiterate anymore ever since I got
a life and got married too.

Setting up is a breeze. On initial set up, the manual,
(Yes, I RTFM, TQ) said to do this and do that, which
I did and within 15 minutes, the drive is ready. Oh,
and I like it when the red LED is lit to show an empty
HDD slot.

At the back, apart from a Network jack, there is a
USB port which only reads most thumbdrives. But
I tried with a USB to 3.5" HDD interface, it works
too. There is a fan, albeit a very silent one, in there
as well, which is fine because I plan to put side by
side with the router and that location has no
moving air. There is a setting on the back for the
power supply where is you set it to 'auto', it will
switch itself off to standby mode until a PC on the
network with the NASNavi software is activated.

Close the cover and its ready to start storing!

I have heard of water cooled CPUs in the PC but
somehow, after thinking hard about it, I think I
better leave the fan to work on its own.

With the NAS properly installed, my life is now made easier. However, thre is something I realised which I was not comfortable with. I thought I could remove the HDD from the Linkstation and use another PC to do a HDD to HDD transfer but all the PC could read was that the Linkstation HDD was 'blank'. The same goes when I plugged it to my PC. Not only that, you need their software to 'view' the contents from any PC.

Oh well. At least my task of transferring data is made easier. That is, just as soon as I can locate back all the DVDs and CDs I have archived. I wonder how well this would work when I (eventually) pair it with an iPad. So far, streaming MP3s from it is quite OK but I have yet to try with movie files. I also noticed that on the box there is something to do with bittorrent but that will have to wait because someone has mistakenly put the installation CD to another place which I still cannot locate.

To Sean, Part II

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........

Farnell no more

No that its no more but it has changed to Element14.
This so weird. First it was just Farnell. Then it was
Farnell-Newark and now this. I am not sure of the
History but it seems like its a weak competitor to
RS Catalogues. Unfortunately, over here, it does not
do much advertising either, except for RS.

To Sean

Hokay. Its three in the morning and I have just finished the Visor part of your circuit. My brain is still pretty much wired and so, whatever things I am posting now, might not make sense. Heck, I won't even remember what I posted come morning.

Anyway, yours is much simpler than his and so, its simple. But its not as simple as I thought since the "Human" element is now not possible. Why? Because there would be too much wiring behind the visor and you might not really see through. See?

So, now I do a Cylon, left to right to left on three dots, then left to right to left on one dot and it repeats. A special button will be there for you to light up all at once and only briefly because if you do this continuously will flat the AAA's. So, I am making the same battery pack as his and but, the button will be there. And so is the On/Off.

When you first switch on, it will flash five times before it starts to Cylon, OK?

Man, fours! Four hours! That's 240 minutes spent on
smoking soldering lead fumes. And you can't just
roll up your soldering iron and smoke it, man. Not
even an Steroid infused Aloe Vera lipbalm will
save you.

Where's Christmas, there's Santa

I got an SMS from Richard all of a sudden because he has some Tron Identity Disc with him. And that was the most exciting news for the evening. OK, yes, so I do have one Tron DID with me and it belongs to the character, Sam Flynn (blue and black). But the one with Richard was Kevin Flynn's (all white) and Rinzler's (orange and black). A week ago, when he told me that he had some, I thought it was those Replica versions (another name for frisbee for this movie's toys) but he did insist it was the one with electronics. Having not seen any, I told him that if it really did have electronics, I will take Rinzler's (and forgot about the Kevin Flynn's one).

It was not until a few days later that these two discs start to show up on eBay and I was really excited. And when Richard came, he showed me the two discs and instantly, I wanted Kevin Flynn's version. But alas, since I did not confirm earlier, it was not mine. And so, I had to take Rinzler's. I have tried a few times to ask Richard for it but well, its my mistake after all. Now, too late, I anticipate that this Kevin IDD might be a very sought after item since its all white and there were limited one in a carton.

Before I elaborate much further, let me tell yo uabout the three discs and why I think its a mix n' match job. Besides using the same White LED lights and sound circuit board, there is really no difference in any of the three discs. But in terms of colour, there is a big difference. Let's have a brief comparison at the Deluxe Identity Discs below::

Sam Flynn DID: Black Disc with Clear Blue "C" ring and Blue soft bumpers.
Rinzer DID : Black Disc with Clear Orange "C" ring and Orange soft bumpers.
Kevin Flynn DID: White Disc with Clear "C" ring and Clear soft bumpers.

OK, so they mix the black discs with the white, change the "C" rings and bumpers and you get the three different discs (In actual fact, if you mix n' match everything, you get more). So now, what is so important about Kevin Flynn's DID is that it has clear "C" ring and a semi-transparent clear bumpers. If you really want to do an actual Sam Flynn, all you have to do is to take the clear parts and transplant them onto a black disc. Heck, in fact, if you wanted a greed disc, a yellow disc, a pink disc, etc,, all you have to do is to use the clear parts and insert the appropriate colour gel sheets between the LEDs and the bumpers and there you go.

I know this because in a Replica Forum, someone is actually re-casting the Sam Flynn DID toy's "C" ring and teh bumpers into clear for this very purpose. But I hope he made his money because once the Kevin Flynn disc is really out in the open, all orders would stop. But this is still positive news because in this unique Forum, most of the members are very good at making props or stuff.

Richard and I did discuss more about next year, mainly about my Back to the Future II Flying De Lorean toy. We also did discuss about the Battlestar Model and also the pricing on the local toys circuit especially the ones in Amcorp Mall's Weekend bazaar. Anyway, I am not sure of his plans for 2011 but here's hoping there are more toys.....

Oh, and one last thing. Richard is selling them at a very affordable price and you should get them instead of being scalped at Amcorp Mall's Weekend bazaar. But if you bought one weeks ago, I don't blame you since this is the price we pay for, when we want to the the first in the block to have them. And speaking about price, because of my services, I got a very good discount. Heh.

Rinzler's ID disc versus Sam Flynn's ID disc

Its Orange versus Blue. Both are the same except for
the colour of the "C" parts and the bumper. I called
it the bumper because when you play with it, you
tend to 'bump' it into a lot of things. So, this semi-
hard material absorbs the excess kinetic force.

To Jonathan

Dear Jon,

Yep, its all done and I wanted to come over this evening to hand it over to you but I couldn't. You see, I was sick with the Flu and it is not nice to give this gift to you either. So, I will see you between Monday to Wednesday. That is, as soon as my Job is completed as the Factory is still very busy.

Oh, and here are some of the things you might need to do:
1) You will have to find a way to secure the black battery box to a belt. I have used eight AA betteries for this project. But its not 12 volts, though as I have paralleled two 6 volts together to give a longer run.

2) You might also need to secure the control box to a wrist/strap. I could not do this now since I cut my thumb and its not nice to spill blood into the circuits. The box is a bit cracked and so, you might want to use Superglue on this.

3) The controls for the circuit (via the control box) are:
-First blue button on the left is to select the pattern. Its almost random.
-second left blue button is to light up all the LEDs. You might want to press it a bit harder as I think the wires could be blocking it inside.
-The red button is the 'speed' button.

4) Whatever you do, DO NOT PULL AT THE WIRES! This is because during Comic Fiesta on the 16th or 17th, I WILL NOT BE THERE as technical backup.

Oh, and the white box is the controller. And
as I have mentioned above, DO NOT PULL
THE WIRES.

I haz de cut

This is very stupid. I know I've just woken up from the flue rest but this is not a good excuse. Because in my hurry to put the finishing touches to a daft Punk Helmet project, I forgot to use my brain.

This was a very simple thing, just cut four nice little holes for a plastic box. Well, it was simple to me although I do not have any proper tools except for a pair of pliers and a big blade. Yeah, one day I might have to save up to get a proper power or rotary tool.

Since the plastic was soft, I just had to score the little lines and gently use the pair of pliers to weaken them. But just as I was about to make the first deep score, the blade scored first.

And the best thing was, we could not find the
proper plaster. So, while all this was happening,
I was bleeding non-stop. In the end, I had to
use a cellophane tape to make sure Mickey
does his job well. And it was still bleeding
in the evening.

And the first cut was in the late 90's where I had to wait for a Supervisor to finish talking to his staff (because it was rude to interrupt) while my hand was bleeding to the floor, forming a pool of blood....... well, that's just me.

Update: One day laterDang! Its still bleeding. I hope there is no infection

Update: Two days laterI have to change the bandage almost every half day

because the blood would not stop.

And finally, after a few more days, the wound have
healed and there is a scar. Its painful when I press
on it though. Luckily I can still move my thumb

To Jonathan Dei

OK, your daft Punk Helmet electronics is ready. There
are about 13 different patterns in there and is selectable
via a button, the other button is to 'speed' it up and one
last button is to make all LEDs light up.

I haz de Flu

Well, this is the most awful weekend surely. All I can do was to sleep. And take medication. And sleep, etc.

Actually, this is a very bad flu for me because its not the usual Flu. The symptoms were very different and reacted very fast. From a simple itchy throat to a full running nose to headaches to minimal joint pains and so on. All within 24 hours.

And I would dare say this IS a very different Flu because it was imported all the way from UK with a stopover in Penang.

But, being a dad and all, I still have to do my best for my family even though I came out as cranky and anti-social. I mean, at Mid-Valley today, I would not have scolded an old man who rushed to take toilet paper away from me. But I did. And that did not make me feel better, though. Nor his son, who was standing behind me, red faced. Nor the old man's wife who actually came into the men's toilet because the queue at the ladies was unbearably long.

I pitied the old woman because Kaelynn accidentally pee'd all over the toilet seat which I intended to clean up using THE toilet paper in the first place. So, this might explain the old man's rush for the toilet paper. Sigh.

I got this when I was covering up my mouth when
I coughed. Its yellow colour means there is infection
somewhere. Oh, and if you swallow it, it tastes kind
of sweet. But I would not reccommend this as a sugar
replacement, OK?

Flash Games on the Internet

I do not know why I clicked on those flash Games. I mean, the titles sounds interesting and all but with my Notebook running as fast as a snail, it was a very bad move. For you see, when the game became more' exciting', my Notebook literally hang and all I could do was to move my mouse and listen to all the death cries on the frozen screen.... sheesh.

Gunfire of Echoes was nice.

Even the Introduction was nice.

When the game started, all I needed to do was to get the
guy to shoot all the villains coming from the right and to
stop them from destroying the dome on the left. Halfway
through, the move pointer became jerky, and well, to cut
the long story shot, everything stood still and I lost.
Other games also sported the same features. Oh well.

Then came Desert Moon, which, is also the same
gameplan. Stop the aliens from coming into your
crashed Mothership.

All you have to do is to arrange your men at a
spot which you think helps to keep them away

Depending on your budget, each man has a
certain ability/weapons and weaknesses.

And to test your skills, the Aliens comes in waves.

Waves after waves

And after waves.

Up to a point where you have lost the purpose in
upgrading and defending the Mothership. Its nice
game to while some time away but it tends to get
boring after that. I never did finish it because the
later waves were coming in hard and fast. It was
like watching a massacre.

One day, I will return to this game and pack the whole screen with all the men I can have. That is, if I can find the link again.

Driving a Camry

Today was a big day for me because... I get to drive Boss's Camry! Woa-ha-ha-ha!

To cut a long story short, we had to go to the Airport to pick up a visitor (no, not those with lizard skins like from the TV) and I was the designated driver. Which makes sense since I do not know them and talking Star Trek with them throughout the journey might make them go suicidal.

What I like about the Camry is not because its a big car but its cream interiors. Driving it is nice but because its a big car, I cannot get it to accelerate like what I can do with my Bengmobile. It builds up speed gradually and at high speed, it gives you that quiet sense of security and comfort when you are driving at 60 even though the speedo says its 110. Since its not my car, I did not test out the sound system nor pop the hood. If I were given the choice to choose between a Camry and a Mercedes, I would go for an Evo X. Ha ha ha ha!

The display is quite nice but somehow, I was expecting it
to have some digital elements in it.

And here is the centre console which, is quite nice for
a Camry. I was sort of expecting some touch-screen
interface here, and maybe, even a reverse camera.

But what really amazed me was the foot-pedal hand brake.
Honestly, I have never seen this before. It took me quite a
while to familiarise myself with the car before starting. I
have handled a right handbrake (1965 Volvo), the usual
left ones and a pull and twist (Toyota Hilux 4x4) but
never a step on. So, just like a Vios's centre console,
this really needs time to adjust but once you get used
to it, its quite nice, actually.

Being more Chinese than the Chinese

And this is how Kristine does it. She is
now more Chinese than the Chinese

BS-75: Side ribs part 02

Another reminder, folks. This is just to explore the lighting possibilities and its not a confirmed thing. So, don't blame me if your model kit catches fire or explodes and everything lands on the cat which then runs out screaming with its fur on fire and burnt your neighbour's house down. OK, so its a bit far-fetched since not everyone has a cat.

And so, one last post before I wait for the Wife and kids to come back home.

What I am doing here is to see which type of LED would be effective in creating that six red spots on the Battlestar's ribs. Again, if you see the screen shots of the TV series, these red spots are very faint but enough to show up when the ribs are in shadows. Lets try to recreate these effect using the LEDs I have.

I have set up the test rig to test the three red LEDs. Its a very simple test. All I have to do is to see which LED gives the best effect through a 0.8mm hole. Yes, we're (me and the Cat Hotel Man) will not be so barbaric in the sense of drilling six 3mm holes. No, Sir. We're going to go nuts and drill 0.8mm holes and align the LEDs until they give that perfect effect.

So as not to confuse myself and everyone who reads this blog, I have masked all the other holes leaving only one, which we shall call it, "Test Cavity #628A". Test Cavity #628A has a hole of 0.8mm, which, is big enough for the 3mm LEDs and small enough not to be an odd-thing on the model kit.

Right. Let's begin. Which LED will give the best result? The normally bright red LED with the diffused lens on the left or the extremely bright red LED with clear lens on the right? The test will be in two parts for each LED. The first will be the normal test of suspending it on top of the test rig to simulate that barbaric 3mm hole. The second test would be to position and align the LEDs into the 0.8 hole of Test Cavity #628A.

Let's test the red LED with the diffused lens. Here, when it is lit normally, the LED gives a very large spread of light and because of the diffused lens, the area is well flooded.

Once I align it to Test Cavity #628A, the effect is quite subtle, almost as close to what you see in the actual CGI ship. So, this is good. But what about the other two LEDs?


This is the red LED with the clear lens. It is very bright and its the same one I tested for the engines. But here, its too bright and note the red spot it created. For a model needing spotlight, this would be it but here, its too extreme.

This is the test result when I aligned it to Test Cavity #628A. Its so bright, the effect is like a laser spot. So, this LED is out.

Lastly, this is a surface mount LED which I was discussing with The Man who owns a Cat Hotel. The LED is about 1mm x 2mm, which is very small. As you can see here, it took me a very long time to solder it onto the test pins. And out of one successful LED, three were killed in the process.

So, let's put it to the test since I was advocating for this LED for weeks. Sadly, this result is already not a good sign.

On Test Cavity #628A, the result is less than stellar. In truth, I was hoping for it to fail because the amount of soldering required and its high failure rate. And using wires to connect them, this would make the whole circuit very fragile. Not only that, you would still have to use a pair of tweezers to align the lens of the LED, which is very troublesome and frustrating.

Still, this is the best of the lot and maybe, I might drill a wider hole to act as a receptor for the LED's lens and also, so that the LED can rotate about until I get the six spots all properly aligned. Its not easy to accept this LED since initially, from what The Cat Hotel Man told me, there is not enough space between the ribs and the actual body of the model. Fortunately, this picture says otherwise. But the real result will be when I actually get a drill since I do not have a drill anymore. Heck, I even lost the pin-vice long ago.

Still, all is not lost because if you see from the picture above, the penciled dots are where I wanted the holes to be. So, if I moved about 5mm inwards, I would still have the space I need, provided the angle of drilling is correct.

And as for the metal stickers I got from tkting last night, well, its on hold for the moment because after looking at the engine's clear part, it already has those round mesh moulded in. But I am not doing to dismiss the rectangle ones as they could be perfect for the model. If this is really metal, I could then create a more realistic battle damage by bending or warping the metal sticker itself. That is, if it is actually metal....