I glued the “hooks” or “spikes” to the mysterio bracers and they look very nice! I had been considering using clay or shape-lock to “fill in” the areas around the hooks to make them more “3D”. But after examining them, I think I may simply leave them as they are now. I kind of like the flat/sharp look. Next up, selecting cloth for my costume, and matching spray paint.
The following are directions for how to do a quick home-inspection. These directions are intended to be completed in about two hours with a Realtor before you decide to make an offer. I have included the plain text in this blog post, as well as the Open Office .odt and .pdf export.
house_inspection.odt
house_inspection_checklist.pdf
Click through for the plain text of the checklist:
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Brittney is a blond cheerleader played by Heather Morris on the FOX musical TV show Glee. Below are a list of her sayings, help me add more:
Wheels (#1.9): I find recipes…confusing.
Hell-O (#1.14): Sometimes I forget my middle name.
Hell-O (#1.14): Did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?
Home (#1.16) I’m pretty sure my cat is reading my diary.
Bad Reputation(#1.19):
I’ve been here since first period. I had a cold and I took all my antibiotics at the same time, and now I can’t remember how to leave.
Laryngitis (#1.20): So you’re pretty much the only guy in this school I haven’t made out with because I thought you were capital G gay, but now that you’re not, having a perfect record would mean a lot to me.
Other Episodes:
When I pulled my hamstring, I went to a misogynist.
She’s the one they made me talk to when they found out I was keeping that bird in my locker.
Reference: Glee Episode List
After my order of 1/8″ craft plywood arrived, I converted two 24×12 sheets into eight panels and eight frames which I then assembled using wood-glue.
Here are some images of the assembly procedure:
After building a lightweight urban commuter out of pieced-together secondhand components, I purchased a lighter weight, used, and inexpensive single ring crankset for it. After installing the bright and shiny new crankset, I realized that the bike was actually starting to look like it might be worth something (despite the fact that I retained the 10 year old plastic MTB platform pedals). To fix this, I hit the laser engraved brand name (ProWheel OUNCE, not exactly an expensive brand, but your average bike thief may not know that) with a steel file. While I had the file out I decided to remove all of the other possibly expensive sounding brands from the bike, which mostly consisted of logo filling and decal scraping. In addition to hiding the brand, filling the metal parts instantly drops the potential resale value, and may even save you a few grams of weight depending upon how vigorously you file things down. This is more “urban stealth” than full on urban camouflage, but I may go buy some faux rust antiquing paint for the full effect later.
If you are connected to an AT&T cell phone via a USB cable, you can use wvdial to access the Internet. Edit the /etc/wvdial.conf file to look like the following:
[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = USB Modem
Baud = 460800
Stupid Mode = 1
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
ISDN = 0
Phone = *99#
Password = CINGULAR1
Username = WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Then, just start up wvdial to connect to the Internet!
This is my new lightweight urban commuter (a.k.a. MARTA bike). I purchased a used carbon fiber frame, and a used mountain bike frame that had been made into a single speed road bike and combined all the parts (plus a few extra) into a lightweight single speed bike. The frame is designed for road tires, and the clearance is very tight, so I am limited to a thin road tire on the back.
The mountain bike frame came with a standard MTB crankset, and I’m using the middle gear (34 teeth) to a 16 tooth rear cog (4.3 gain ratio). This combination makes it easy to get to the MARTA station without too much effort (don’t want to arrive at work all sweaty). I have also experimented with using the larger (42 tooth) sprocket and a 15 tooth rear cog for a 5.7 gain ratio, but that combination only works in the winter when overheating isn’t an issue. Because it’s a commuter bike, I added a LED headlight (held on with a hose clamp) and a detachable RavX Super Sight bicycle taillight. The running weight is 18.6 lbs, or 21.2 lbs when I carry a U-Lock.
Parts Details:
Vitus Plus Carbone (Carbon Fiber frame) 55cm 21.6″ (1988)
Vitus Dural 979 aluminum fork, Cinteli Stem, 26.4 Cinelli Bars
Front Wheel: Ritchey HB 575 Rim (26×1.0 tire)
Rear Wheel: Ritchey Hub ZER system, AERO OCR wheel 6061 T-6 Alloy
ETRTO: 622-14, Tire: Vlittoria Zalfiro 25-622 700x25c
Shimano Ultegra 6600 brake on back, “Schwin Approved” calipers on front, Tektro Reverse Alloy TT Brake Levers
Shimano Bottom Bracket, Square Taper 68mmx118mm UN54
RavX Rear Flasher, Front LED light
With lots of help from my friend Christian (Check out his comic!), I got a template made for my Mysterio bracer panels. The panel is actually assembled out of two layers for an extra 3D effect. Layer one is the bottom, with the “circle-hashing”, and the other layer is the frame around it. The small green circle is pre-existing marks on the craft plywood that will be covered when I paint the bracers once they are fully assembled. In this picture you can see the different laser cut parts that I will be replicating (8x) to make two bracers. The power level settings for this particular panel were 15% speed, 100% power, 2500 Frequency on a 40 watt laser engraver from Epilog.
I purchased a McDavid Cowboy Collar (A piece of football protective gear) and cut the collar part off the back and moved it to the front to help support the sphere. The whole thing fits well over my shoulders, and with the modification of moving the collar to the front and sewing a few magnets onto the shoulders, it holds the sphere relatively well. I used black nylon thread to sew the ring magnets and the collar piece onto the base unit, and I also used GOOP flexible contact cement to add strength to the front collar part. Because the collar part is spanning the front, the laces on front are no longer strictly needed to close the gap. I made it just large enough to fit over my head (with a bit of bending). My plan is to rig the front part of my cape to fit between the sphere and the top of the collar (using the collar to hold it up) to disguise the join between the sphere and collar and hide the collar entirely. (Luckily, this is 100% consistent with Mysterio’s costume.)
I am using a EL1300G-02W computer as a HTPC using MythTv.
It would play back 720p HD video just fine with the original processor, but couldn’t quite commercial flag new recordings in real-time while also watching a live feed. [This wasn’t a big issue, as I very rarely watch new recordings live.]
Even though it works working perfectly fine as a MythTV box with the original processor, I had been keeping an eye open on Ebay for a replacement X2 (dual core) processor for the AM2 socket.
I was limited to CPU’s that produced 45W or less of power, which basically means the “e” line ( 4450e, 5050e, 4850e, BE-2400, 3250e). These types of processors had been selling for $50-60, but then I lucked out and found an an AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 2.3 GHz Processor which I was able to get cheaper than average ($32 w/ shipping!).
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