mlingojones

In Conclusion...

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:07:43 -0500

Everything, it seems, must end sometime. So too with mlingojones.com. This site, although I love it dearly, has reached the end of its days. Fear not, however, for I do have a new site to enjoy: Hexnut, a more professional establishment in the style of sites such as Stopdesign and SimpleBits. I could go into detail about why I chose to close mlingojones.com just to start a new site, but there's already a lengthy explanation at the new site. This just feels like the right thing to do - change was always a constant with this site, and hopefully this last change will mark a period of things being steadier. mlingojones.com exposed me to a lot of new things, and it has been an incredibly positive experience. Thanks so much to those who kept up with the site (even when I didn't). You can catch me on Hexnut; I'll still remember you :) . Goodbye, everyone, and thanks for a wonderful year and a half of blogging!

Ball Pit

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:02:39 -0500

Recently Randall Munroe (author of the webcomic xkcd) wrote a blag entry about creating a ball pit in his room. I decided it would be fun to plan one out for myself. In the blag entry is a link to a calculator that helps you figure out how many balls you'll need (and how much it will cost) to make a ball pit of a certain size. After measuring my room, I decided my ball pit would be 5' x 5', and 2' deep. I originally wanted it to be 4' deep, but then I realized just how deep that really is. The 2' wasn't arbitrary, though: it's the height of my bed, which would be used as a wall to contain the balls. Mr. Munroe suggested crush-proof balls, which can be found here. I took the suggestion of the calculator site and used 74% packing efficiency, which came out to 565 balls. I added a pack of 500 balls and a pack of 100 on the Tinker Tots site, which came out to $134, not including shipping. The other problem I had was containing the balls. I had planned to use my bed to keep them contained on one side and the corner of my room for the other two sides, which left one side unaccounted for. I needed a 5' x 2' wall to contain the balls on that side. My first instinct was to look at those pet gates, but none of them were wide enough. A couple of friends pointed me to these sort of stackable cubbies (the cubby side, obviously, would face outward). I could put together as many as I wanted, and the dimensions more or less exactly fit my proposed ball pit. For a more sturdy way to keep them together, my friend pointed me to these tie wraps, which seems to be the right choice since Mr. Munroe used them for his ball pit (look closely at the pictures and you can see tie wraps holding them together). My remaining problem is how to attach the cubbies to my wall and my bed. I'm thinking those screws with the eyes at the end, which would be tie-wrapped to the cubbies. Oh, and the last remaining problem is that certain restrictions (read: parents) prevent me from building this where I live now. When I get my own place, I'll look back here and actually build one.

Tablet

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:09:57 -0500

So, during my latest bout of technological splurging, I happened across a tablet. Not a tablet PC, mind you - just a straight graphics tablet by Wacom. A Wacom Intuos3 6x8 tablet, to be precise. Now, unlike so many of my other purchases, this one has value. Value! Seriously, though, as an artist whose primary interest is in digital arts, it's been frustrating to not have a way to transcribe my physical works into a digital medium. Any drawings I wanted to color digitally would have to be inked and scanned, at which point I'd have to fiddle around with the contrast and do some shady business with the magic wand and lasso tools, and then I could finallyget to coloring a rough piece that didn't end up looking so hot. This tablet changes things. I can ink on the computer (still figuring out the best way to do that). I didn't have much luck during a half-hour tryout of Painter, but hopefully we'll be able to change that. All in all, I have big plans for it, so let's see where it goes.

Driver Issues

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:24:54 -0500

So on Thanksgiving (Black Friday, really) I did something I really probably shouldn't have done, and splurged on games. It was only two games, but the price was still around $100. I bought Hellgate: London and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. (As a side note, whoever decides on the titles of games in general needs to learn a thing or two about colon use. And overuse). Anyway, I haven't really played either game yet. I realize my laptop won't be able to play the newest, coolest games with the best graphics because of the video card (Geforce Go 8600M GS) but it should still be able to cope with what I bought, especially SupCom. My video card meets the minimum system requirements for each game, and I believe it even meets the recommended requirements for SupCom, provided an 8600M GS is better than a Geforce 6800. Despite this, both games were running incredibly slow, even with the graphics settings turned all the way down. My friend Ankit suggested that it was a driver issue. As primarily a UNIX user - and more specifically, a Linux and Mac user - I'm used to having my updates all in one place. In Fedora all I do is type "sudo yum update" into the command line and it fixes me up with the latest updates. In OS X it does it automatically (I'm sure I could do this in Fedora too, but laziness is a direct contender with efficiency, and it often wins out). With Windows, this apparently isn't the case. I've been regularly running Microsoft updates, but that hasn't updated the video card drivers, which my friend tells me that I'm supposed to update before installing a game. I then tried the HP update application, which told me that I was missing a critical update: an update to the update application. After spending a few minutes getting my head around that, I ran the update application, which told me that my software and drivers were up to date. What? I ran it again, hoping it would somehow find an update this time (it didn't). Also, at some point I got this error message (luckily, the Internet wasn't busy, so the window loaded quickly. I guess the tubes weren't too clogged). Finally I decided to download a driver update directly from NVIDIA, which I did. The actual install process was long and confusing, and it took a while for the installer to get between screens. There was a good 15 minutes of the install window just showing a repeating background featuring the NVIDIA logo before anything actually popped up. It's now almost 2 in the morning and I haven't played either game. Hopefully when I get home tomorrow I'll be able to. Also, for anyone wondering why I vastly prefer OS X and Linux to Windows, you now have one of many reasons.

Ripped Paper

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:46:50 -0500

Today I was playing around in Photoshop and discovered a neat little way to make edges look kind of ripped, like paper (hence the entry title). Create a new document (whatever size you like), background white. Make a rectangle smaller than your document.View image. Run the image through a glass filter (Filter -> Distort -> Glass). Set the texture to frosted, the distortion to 5, and the smoothness to 4. This creates the distortion that will ultimately lead to the unevenness in the rips. View image. Take the filtered image and put it through the Crosshatching filter (Filter -> Brush Strokes -> Crosshatching). Stroke length should be set to 15, sharpness to 0, and strength to 15. This makes the ripped-looking edges, but they're a bit blurry. The next step "sharpens" them up and gives us out finished product. View image. Finally, run the image through the Scatter filter (Filter -> Brush Strokes -> Scatter). Set spray radius to 4 and smoothness to 5. The edges now look a bit more ripped, and there we have it! Ripped edges in Photoshop. View image. You can play around with the settings on the filters to make some really cool stuff. I particularly like playing around with the settings on the Scatter filter.

One Year!

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 15:24:51 -0500

Yesterday, October 27th 2007, was the one-year anniversary of mlingojones.com. Thanks so much to everyone (all less-than-ten of you) who visits the site, comments, or just generally pokes around. It's been really fun having a personal website for the past year, and a learning experience for myself. Although I haven't necessarily been able to do as many things as I'd have liked to due to personal/school obligations, this has still been one cool project that I've kept up. One thing I said I'd do for the year anniversary is a redesign. Obviously that's not ready yet, due to work/school obligations, but it is coming, I promise. Note: Due to some troubles with the templating system used by PhotoStack, the portfolio section will remain unstyled until the redesign. Second Note: Never mind, I got it. It was one of those things where you try it and it doesn't work, then you try the exact same thing a few days later and it's fine. I'll be getting to filling out the portfolio now, since a lot of the stuff has vanished.

Gutenberg Award

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:17:03 -0500

So I've just become aware that mlingojones.com has won the IGAEA Gutenberg Awards Contest for Web Publishing. I'm all the way down, in the "Industrial Arts/Technology, grades 10, 11 or 12" category.

Nude No More

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:00:36 -0500

For the past few days, I've been obsessed with Threadless, the clothing site. For the uninitiated, Threadless allows users to submit designs for shirts, which are then chosen by the admins to go up in a big board of chosen designs. These are voted on by users, and each week five or six designs are picked and the designers are paid $2000 plus $500 store credit. I've submitted three (I'll update this entry when/if they get accepted) and I have three more up for critiquing. This is all in the span of a few days - it's amazing what one can come up with while obsessed. I've been obsessively checking them on the critiques page, and updating them based on comments. My username is "banana squiddly", so go check them out. On the consumer end, they have the absolute cutest shirts. I bought one called Impossible Love, which features a cactus in love with a balloon - an affair which, of course, can never happen, as the poor balloon would pop. I thought it was cute ;] Anyway, check out the site, submit a design or two, and participate in the community! It's all really fun, and I have a feeling I'll be hooked for a while.

Hey!

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:22:33 -0500

Sorry, everybody: I'm trying to switch over from PhotoStack to some other photo CMS, since for some reason it's not letting me log in. For this reason, you'll see some odd goings-on in the portfolio section. It's nothing to be worried about; just some routine maintenance.

I Feel There's Something Here

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:58:22 -0500

Okay, I know what percentage of my readers have no idea what I'm talking about when I post about music (although after my quest to Europe I don't feel so bad; I had no idea American music made it so far around the world). And honestly a lot of the bands I talk about aren't even mainstream in the United States. I do try to find lesser-known bands. Whatever the case, I would like to write about music, so I'm sorry to everyone who feels alienated.

I've been going to concerts for a looong time now (my first one was Hanson at like age five. I wonder how big they were internationally?). Before high school I wasn't really into music - I'd go to maybe one every few years. Since then, though, I've been going to a fair amount of shows. Bamboozle for the past two years, Warped last year, and a few smaller shows at venues here and there.

I heavily favor smaller shows in clubs to larger festival-type concerts. I know many people who would disagree: there are more bands at festivals, after all, and merch galore. How could smaller shows be better?

My answer is that smaller shows are more personal. In arenas and parking lots, an artist goes on stage, performs for half an hour or an hour or however long it is, and leaves. The performance may be engaging, but there's no connection between the artist and the audience. At smaller venues, however, you really feel something when an artist gets onstage. They'll sing and look you straight in the eye, or crowd surf for a few seconds before getting back on stage and continuing. I saw Escape The Fate on Friday night, and I was going crazy during the last song and the singer pointed straight at me for like three seconds while singing.

That's the sort of thing you don't get at large shows.

We Should Have Known...

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:49:17 -0500

Jack Thompson. Oh, Jack Thompson, we love you so. You constantly keep us entertained with your silly, ridiculous antics.

So now Jack Thompson is trying to have the Halo 3 release declared a public nuisance. I don't know where he comes up with these ridiculous ideas. As anybody with a functioning brain will tell you, the sale of a product isn't a nuisance - legally, a public nuisance is anything that "...tend[s] to annoy the community, injure the health of the citizens in general, or corrupt the public morals". Now, while Jack Thompson will tell us that it corrupts the public morals, we all know that he has no idea what he's talking about.

Please, Jack, spare us your crap. We've stood by and watched you try and pass off your blatant censorship as justice (a case that only our parents probably bought) and we've watched you turn murder victims into martyrs - which is really messed up, Jackie Boy. It's time to take a stand and I have no idea how, other than blogging about it and spreading awareness.

Either way, my list of morons is growing:

George W. Bush
Jack Thompson
Kent Hovind
Kansas State Board of Ed
Joe Lieberman

The list contains many more, but we'll keep it short for now. Anyone interested in learning more about Jack Thompson's latest joke of a protest can read more on GamePolitics.

What's Next?

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:31:05 -0500

Well, it's almost been a year of me operating a largely unsuccessful weblog and a portfolio that's hopefully been looked at enough. On the other hand, I guess this is all I could have wished for; thanks soooo much to all three of the regular commenters whom I don't know. I'm doing better than Dan Cederholm did at this point!

Anyway, I'll have some new stuff coming up for the one year anniversary of mlingojones.com, hopefully taking advantage of Movable Type 4 (and if you don't know my favorite thing to do with this site by now, there is no helping you). The one thing I can say is that the site will look a lot more "web 2.0-esque".

Apart from that, I've been wanting a subscription to .net magazine (Practical Web Design in the US) but it's almost $200. It sucks that the one magazine other than Wired that I really want to subscribe to costs so much, but I guess I'll have to deal. It does look interesting, though - one issue had an article on Kevin Rose and digg, and another on Ajax - however, with an individual price of $16 per magazine, I'll have to pass. I'll just stick to Wired and A List Apart.

Edit: After a stern lecture from Ricky, I'd like to take back my use of the term "web 2.0". Although I still don't think I used it incorrectly (as I realize the look I was referring to has absolutely nothing to do with web 2.0 itself) he says that referring to the look using the term spreads a false association of the two. My apologies to all who were similarly offended.

Comments Fixed

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:08:57 -0500

Apparently comments haven't been working. I was unaware of this until very recently, and many thanks to Vitaliy for pointing it out to me. The problem had to do with my recent upgrade to Movable Type 4 - instead of copying over my Movable Type 3 folder (which would run the risk of the site getting broken and me not having a fallback) I made a new folder and just ran the site from there. Lo and behold, there was a problem - some of the links still pointed to the Movable Type 3 folder, which I deleted once I verified everything was working properly, which ironically enough made the comments system break. The solution was easy: fix the URLs. Done. :]

Fedora!

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:08:44 -0500

After two and a half months, I've finally managed to dual boot Linux and Windows on my laptop, with the help of one Ricky Zhou. The distribution I use is Fedora 7, which is nice because the first Linux distro I ever used was Fedora Core 2. It was a lot easier back then - installing on a desktop is way easier than installing on a laptop. This one was harder to install, hence the months of no Linux. Eventually it just worked; I'm not sure what I did differently. Ricky helped me get wi-fi up and running, and now I can just yum up anything I want. To anyone who doesn't use Linux already (or, even worse, hasn't ever used Linux at all) I encourage you to give it a try. It's hands down my favorite operating system, beating even Mac OS X, which I love dearly. Fedora is my favorite distro, too - not that I've had extensive experience with others, but this was my first, and so I have a soft spot for it. I've also gotten a lot better with UNIX since the last time I used Linux, which is nice because now I can do a lot of stuff from the command line without asking help. I got the Synaptics driver installed on my own! (Because I hate that stupid tap-to-click action). Anyway, although it's a pain in the ass to resolve a lot of driver issues (many of which I still have to fix), Linux is amazing. I'm glad to have it back.

No Citywide Wi-Fi In San Francisco?

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 04:46:46 -0500

Earthlink is no longer going to supply San Francisco with citywide Wi-Fi. Some of the reasons behind this were "an uncertain future" (it announced Tuesday that 900 employees were to be laid off). This is all fine and good, but when are we getting citywide Wi-Fi anywhere in the US? San Francisco and Chicago's plans fell through in the same week. Barely any cities in the US offer municipal Wi-Fi (Mu-Fi) - we have Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and "Winston-Salem", according to Wikipedia. Even a city-wide broadband network would do. It shouldn't be all that hard to network a city. Airports do it on a smaller scale. Revenue shouldn't be a problem either - pay for it with ads. Consumers don't like ads? Offer a subscription service. Still not happy? They can't complain, they're getting it for free. If I lived in... say, New York or Sacramento, I'd be fine with an ad popping up every 50 or so pageviews. And what advertiser wouldn't want their name out in a free service? It's not as if no one will be using it. If it were good enough, many people would switch from paying $30 a month for Optimum Online to a free ad-supported broadband connection. Nobody need be worried about audience, especially in a major city where easily over a million people would log on every day. We need Mu-Fi. And we need it now.