I've been doing some additional work on the LED sign in an attempt to get it working in some form or fashion....and I made some scratch ass messy notes on that page to reflect that. I'm not entirely sure just how much I like the current approach that will require a PC connection at all times to change/update the dipslay (I'd much rather shove the stuff into a flash card or even an EEPROM somewhere so that the PC can relax a little more), but I think it does provide the most flexibility. And yeah, I still haven't managed to put a page up for the wack little Elmo guitar I sliced apart...and I still haven't taken a pic of my Rice-a-Roni PIC programmer...I will...soon though.

Well, it sucks, but I finally managed to get my p16pro40 PIC programmer into a case of some kind. It's been a long time coming. I searched Wacky Willy's and Radio Crap and just couldn't find a suitable case...so I made my own. Out of a Rice-A-Roni box. Yes, you heard right...my $20 programmer is now mounted in a $1.49 cardboard box. Yup, the rice was good with some pork chops. It's a piece of crap...but at least it stays in place a little better. I also mounted a little toggle switch on the PCB so that I don't have to constantly unplug the power cord every time I want to program. It's far from ideal, but I suppose it's an improvement.

I have recently become very interested in those Electroluminscent (EL) lights that you may have seen mounted in a low profile night-light socket. This technology fascinates me! I would really like to build a binary wall mounted clock using these lamps/lights, but I didn't know if it would be cost effective to buy the night lights off the shelf. So I did some research and discovered that there are quite a few places that sell this kind of stuff, but most of it seems rediculously overpriced, even on eBay (yeah, I'm pretty cheap). I stumbled on a similar product using the same kind of technology -- and it seems that I have been living in a cave and didn't know that EL wire even even existed, or just how popular it has become. People have done some pretty kick ass things with EL wire...I think I have my next Halloween costume picked out, and a whole year to implement it. :) The real delight came when I discovered a lab handout from a course at MIT. What? What's this? You mean you can screen print these EL lamps? How rad is this? This opens up all kinds of possibilities... Now, I suppose it's time to try my hand at screen printing, building screens and such. Phase two, I suppose, will involve obtaining the right chemicals and trying out the process.

Wang is my hero! Please, if anybody has any information regarding the big "wang" seen yesterday on the east loop in Lubbock, TX, please let me know. I'll accept additional sightings as well! Who is this mysterious "Wang"? Is it an Asian fellow, or is it simply a reference to some schlong? The question must be answered! Elmo will talk to you soon.

My setup is so crappy. The ilab/noisybox setup is so cheap, it's sad. I waste more time dicking with stuff that I really shouldn't have to... So I discovered that when I clicked on a link to a largeish image on my website, my machine would reboot. Ok, let me state that again for emphasis -- I could click on a link in my web browser and cause my server to reboot. Remotely. Reliably. Yeah, very bad indeed.... I couldn't recreate the problem from outside my network, so I started poking around some more. Swapped the 100Mb NIC with an old 10Mb one. No more problem. I suspect that my POS server just couldn't handle sending data that fast, now that I'm running on a 100Mbps switch. So horrible...but hopefully a little better uptime can be expected.

Well, my server apparently still likes to reboot itself...even after I replaced the power supply fan (that I suspected was causing the reboots). Blah. So I suppose I'll return that Maxtor IDE controller and start saving for a new system. Oh fun.

Noisybox.net had some minor outages in the last few days while some network schtuff was being done and a new power supply fan was being installed (no thanks to the cacs at Rat Shed)... More later...

Oops! I acidentally bought a Belkin 8 port 10/100 switch. That's cool. I also bought a Maxtor Ultra ATA IDE controller, but I really have no idea yet if it will work in my Linux box. Cross your fingers. Perhaps I'll get my machines rebuilt yet...

Ok, I haven't really said anything in a long time...so I suppose (again) that this is my futile attempt at babble babbel babel (ala the 27 significant tr00ths): 1) www.yourethemannowdog.com finally gets it. my hero. 2) ??? 3) MAME is just about the best thing around. Buy me a cabinet already. 4) I live here, and I still haven't been to ground kontrol. maybe tomorrow. 5) Meg Lee Chin photos are up 6) The -C operator in perl will tell you when a file's inode was last changed. Duh. 7) Let's hope these things are better than the shit I'm currently using... 8) Tho the two are not entirely related, you should hire alphafight and go install qnx 9) The Doors + Bauhaus + The Cramps + Jesus and Mary Chain = Spacemen 3 10) FileZilla cures all your Windows FTP client needs. period. 11) If I had access to anything physically connected to hotmail, I would pee on it. 12) Dammit, I deserve it 13) WinPicProg is free, while the p16pro thingy is $$$...let's hope it works when I try it. 14) SuperPiMP is truly pimp. 15) You can get lost reading World Power Systems. Ok, maybe you can't, but I did... 27) At least one person in the world will never forget EBN (think 'television, the drug of a nation...') and you should definitely check out gnn if you don't already go there every single goddamn day, and PLEASE somebody please tell me where my favorite site went before I cry...I spent forever looking for it....

"The time is zero seventeen and thirteen seconds" PicMeme version 1.0 has been released to the general public. View the official announcement here. Enjoy.