 |
I’ve decided that I may move this blog. I’m unsure right now. The new location will be http://tech-works.info/, and I will keep them in sync until I make a final decision. Until then, you can still check back here for all the techy goodness.
Since a simple Creative Writing assignment (more on that tomorrow), I’ve been increasingly more interested in CG, or Computer Graphics. I use a program called Blender which is found at Blender3d.org. I just got done making some “Proof of Concept” images to test the Reflectivity and Transparency functions. I’ll show you the Before shot where it’s just the wireframe, and the after shot where it’s rendered.
Before:
After:
1) I get completely and utterly annoyed. I may start to yell and scream. Virus = Bad, and I got one.
2) I go all bounty hunter on the little pest. I start going through system logs, look at running processes, go through the startup objects on the computer looking for anything out of the ordinary and DELETE it. This phase may require going into Safe Mode (F8 at startup).
3) If all else fails, I go to my tools that I keep locked in a vault for safekeeping, because nowadays, the only way to keep any software, data, and random bits of information safe is to keep it as far away from a computer as possible. At this point, I’m ready to throw the PC out the window and run over it with a car, and I do have experience in running things over.
Well, I’ve got a virus right now. I not nice one that pops up a balloon notification in the lower right of the screen saying “Your computer is infected!” (you can’t forget the exclamation point. It makes it all better!) and it wants me to download some more software, which is probably a virus itself to “get rid” of it, when actually it lies dormant in the far depths of my hard drive.
Well, Off I go to fix this blasted thing.
OK,
I have in front of me three brocures from Alltel, Sprint, and Tracfone (I didn’t grab a Verizon brocure), trying to find the best value phone service. The companies always say “This phone free with 2 year service agreement.” Is this a real deal? Let’s look at this:
2 Year Basic agreements:
Sprint:
Nightly calling starting at 9
No Roaming charges
Unlimited Night and Weekends
Nationwide Long Distance
200 anytime minutes
29.99 / month –> 719.76 / 2 years
Alltel:
200 Anytime minutes
1000 Night and weekend minutes
Unlimited Calls to and from your favorite number
Text messaging 10 cents a Message In/Out
Additional Minutes 15 cents Each
34.99 / month –> 839.76 / 2 years
Tracfone:
400 minutes per year long card (800 for two cards = two years)
99.99 / year –> 199.98 / 2 years
So, if you can only talk for 800 minutes in two years (that’s only 13 hours over two years), then Tracfone has the best value, and if you don’t need any of the extra features. It depends on what features you need / want, and your coverage area. The reason that they can give you a 50 dollar phone with a two year contract, is because the phone probably only took 10$ to make, and you are agreeing to pay almost a grand for that “free” phone. What cell service you choose is up to you, but look at the long term costs of what you are getting.
Well,
I made Eagle. I went against the eagle board of review last night and I got confirmed. The review was easy. Six appointed members quizzing me about scouts and my life, some questions hard, some were easy. One of the members asked me “What is the secret to your success, and how can you teach it to others?” I didn’t know how to answer, so I told him “If I told you what my secret was, it wouldn’t be a secret.” The room cracked up, and just continued. That came up later after the deliberation about me, in the closing comments, where they said that by my making that comment, it showed that I was actually paying attention to every word and not just the important stuff. Next, I plan my ceremony, and that’s where I’ll formally accept the award.
Tuesday is going to be one of the most important nights of my life, and I’m not really exaggerating. Tuesday at 6:00, I’m going against my Eagle Scout Board of Review. It’s equivalent is when a president appoints a position, and the senate has to approve or deny their appointance. Same concept. Seven years of my life have been wrapped up in this one evening. Intense.
On a side note, our phone service has been out for the past three days. I’m on dialup, so when the phone goes out, the internet also goes out. It’s been terribly stressful for me because my mom has become accustomed to blaming me when the phone goes out because of my computers. It took a lot to convince her that the problem was with the phone company. Then, I had to actually call Verizon about 6 times over the matter of three days trying to get something done. They came out on the first available day and “fixed” something, but still no dial tone, then I was pissed because they promised that the issue was fixed, then it was another two days and many calls later that they actually fixed it. Now, I have the internet, and am here updating my blog.
Aaron hasn’t had much of a chance to post recently. He’s been trying to finish up his Eagle Scout project, and has a couple web site projects in the works as well. He talks tech almost constantly, and I just need to sit him down at some point and say, “Ok, blog!”
He turns 18 today … something I can’t yet come to grips with. He was a big boy, 9 lb 10 oz and 23-1/2 inches long, born at the hospital at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland. I don’t have a digitized photo from that time or I’d post it in here. But he was built like a football player from day one, and at over 6′ now, he’s really my “gentle giant”.
This is a proud dad writing. Aaron’s going to go far. He should know I consider him to be both a son and a good friend.
That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
Happy Eighteenth Birthday, Aaron!
This is the third time that I’ve been up at around 2:00 a.m. worrying about my Eagle project and how I’m going to get done before my deadline. I have until November 5th to get everything done and turned in. That’s only about twelve days away. Let me explain what I’m doing as my project, or first, let me explain what an Eagle Project is. The project is a leadership project where I lead a group of people, which can be fellow scouts, but also community members, to do some community service task that does not benefit scouting. For my project, I’m building flower planters for the City of Tecumseh. Here’s the plans that I’ve drafted using AutoCAD 2006:
(Clicking on the images brings up the full size drawings)
So, that’s what I’ve been working on getting everything in place. The city wants one built as a model before they actually go and get the stuff, and the model is not done yet meaning that I need that to be done by the end of the day tomorrow, so that the city can come out and inspect it, then so that they can get the materials and deliver them by Saturday when I plan to finally finish this.
OK, so I understand why schools want to do grading on their computers. It makes it very easy to transfer information, and it leaves less of a paper trail, but why should the computer be the only method of storing grades. The teachers used to have a hardcopy and a computer copy, but now they’ve done away with the seperate grade books, which I don’t understand. What happens if the computers blow up or something? Having that seperate hard copy is data redundancy which all computer techs know is the key to running a fault tolerant network. Do you know how many times I’ve been asked by fellow students “Can you hack my grades for me? I’ll pay you.” Then I go on to tell them, “Not only is that way over my head, which means I can’t do it, and furthermore, I wouldn’t do it even if I could.” This doesn’t mean that someone else does not have the tech know how to do this task. It is unethical and should not even be considered by any honest student. That is why a hard copy would be a good idea for the schools to go back to, or at least use it as a back up solution.
That’s just my opinion on that.
This is the middle of the second week of school, and I’ve been having some fun during this time, meeting new people, making new friends, working on new projects.
Some stuff has remained the same, such as my involvement in the Boy Scouts of America. Many people know about the Eagle Scout award, but not many people know what actually goes into it. First, there is the merit badge requirement which requires the scout to earn 21 total merit badges, but 13 of those are required, and are usually quite difficult to get, some of these are Communications, Personal Management, Personal Fitness, and Family Life. After all of the merit badges are done, the Eagle Scout candidate must complete a service project that does not benefit the scouts, but benefits the community, school, or other organization. I’ve recently begun the planning for my project. I’m going to build nine flower planters out of decking wood to be used at a city owned park. The key to this project is not that I do it, but I instruct volunteers on how to do it. Its main goal is to show leadership skill. That is on my plate right now, and I plan on getting Eagle within the next month or so.
Another thing that has remained constant is that I like to watch Hak.5. Hak.5 is an online TV show all about hacking computers (hacking in reference to tearing computers and other hardware appart and making them cooler :D), the World Wide Web, Gaming, and other fun computer stuff. For more information on this FREE internet TV show, you can visit www.hak5.org. There, you can find a bunch of cool stuff, watch streaming episodes, and just see what’s up in their world.
School has brought on some new challenges. One of these is PE. I was one of those seniors that waited until my senior year to get my PhysEd credit done. I wish that I had started in my Freshman year because of how beneficial it has already proven to be. I may actually drop Computer Graphics in the second semester to take on another semester of gym. We shall see. Another thing that I’ve been working on this year is my own private math research. I’ve been writing a paper title “The conversion from Base 10 and the discrete usage of Base 12″, wich is all about the Base 12 numbering system and how to convert to it from base 10 (standard decimal). It’s proven to be a difficult paper to write as the math is much more complex than what I’m used to, though with time, I will probably be able to overcome this simple obstacle.
One thing that I’m not too happy with is the Tecumseh Math program. I like the teacher (he used to be an Eagle Scout). Right now we are working on finding instantaneous velocities based on a given function, however the method we are using takes the point immediately before and after the point of interest and finds an average that way, which is slightly inaccurate. My way is to dip into calculus and use derivatives, which I already know how to do without going through this class, but the teacher is barring me from using them, even though I could do my homework in about half the time, but oh well. You can’t win them all.
At Lenawee Intermediate School District’s Vo-Tech center (basically a skills center), I am in the electronics class this year which will have circuit board and microchip programming. We just finished with the orientation for the class today. We’ve been in the class since last Tuesday. It should not take more than a week to cover basic safety procedures, though when it comes to safety, I have a cooler job then the rest. I am one of two people in the class (student) that have my Red Cross First Aid and CPR training, and I am the only person in the class (student) that has my AED (automated external defibrilator) certification, so I’m in charge if there is any sort of emergency in the class if the teacher is not present or incapacitated. That is cool and scary at the same time, because, you begin to wonder, “What if something does go wrong one of these days,” so if something does, I just have to remember the back cover to the “Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which clearly states “DON’T PANIC.” I’m all set now.
I’ve been toying with a couple of technology related ideas lately, and they have little to nothing to do with math. My first idea is to do an online TV show, sort of like Hak5, but not like it. I want to do my own stuff, and use my own ideas, and have a green screen because green screens are cool. The only problem right now is a lack of camera, but that should be remedied in a couple of months when I go e-shopping. My second idea is a little more serious, and is already in motion, albeit slow. I want to do an online Free counseling service for troubled teens. I want to recruit teachers and counselors to help, but I want to offer teens, and anybody really, a forum for grievances, whether it is family issues, boyfriend / girlfriend issues, or really anything. I just want to offer an anonymous place for kids to turn to in a time of need. It’s a cool idea that I got while watching the movie “Pay it Forward”. For those of you who do not know the idea behind the Pay It Forward movement, one person goes out and helps three people do something big that they can not do themselves, then those three go out and do the same for three more people, then those nine people go out and help three more people each, which turns to 27 people, and the numbers just grow exponentially with each step. This is my way of starting a Pay it Forward chain.
Well, that’s about all that I’ve got for now, but I’ll be posting again soon.
Take Care Everyone,
Aaron “TeenTech” Liske
|
