Random Update

An update on various things that have been going on.

Holiday in Tahoe and SF:

Parents came over we had a weekend in SF and then a week at lake Tahoe. It was pretty good we did all the usual things in SF stayed down on Fishermans Wharf went down to the Golden Gate. Figured out where byrnie and myself went wrong getting the bus from there it was the right bus just the wrong direction. Had some nice meals down on the front then we went on to Lake Tahoe. It's a pretty long drive some 4 hours we had a little house booked on a marina.

Tahoe was pretty empty this isn't peak season it's essentially a ski resort with some sailing/boating earlier in the summer so both of those sorts of things were over there was a long procession of boats being pulled out of the lake for the winter. We had some walks, right next to the marina was a wildlife reserve that was nice to wander about plenty of birds to look at. We also took the cable car up to heavenly and walked about which is a great way to see the lake in its entirety even went up to the very top this time which did offer some very nice views. The place we stayed in also offered some free bike rentals which we tried out. Bikes were fixed wheel no gears no brakes riding them was an interesting experience as stopping by back peddling only works so well. We saw a coyote as we were biking about which was fun and generally it was nice to get out and about in nature at the slower pace that a bike ride allows.

We returned to the bay area and I stayed while my parents went on to Monterey and Carmel. They got some wonderful shots of sea otters which are pretty rare around these parts.

Makerbot: Got the upgrade kit to convert it to a plastruder MK5 just before heading to Tahoe. When I began assembling it found that it was missing some screws to attach the power resistors. Got those through in the post friday and assembled the thing sunday. The new design is a vast improvement over the MK4 it has it's foibles but the major improvement is the derlain pusher which allows via a thumb screw to adjust the filament tension in the polymer pump. The previous model was almost impossible to adjust. I had no end of trouble setting it with the new model a tweak here and there to get the thing going and it seems to do the job without the feed issues I was getting with the mk4. The new design has some new issues the much larger metal heater core has much more thermal inertia the relay controlled heaters shut off but it likely keeps rising in temperature by 10 degrees or more having the thing oscillate up and down around the 220 degrees. There is also nowhere to mount the electronics so it's currently just propped on the z stage.

Currently getting some XY axis problems where it's shifting mid print buggering up everything that's gone before not sure what that is yet various possibilities.

Makerbot have just released a new printer called Thingomatic which uses all the latest upgrades to the cupcake as well as some new tweaks to increase accuracy and quality. It also has the automated build platform as standard which is basically a small conveyor belt as a build platform so it can sit there and churn out objects unattended. It's an interesting addition to their line I've seen videos of the first version churn out all the parts to a mendel automatically overnight which is pretty cool.

Biking: Got a new replacement bike for the one stolen. Identical model and make now keeping it on my balcony. Have yet to have time to go out on it. The nights are beginning to draw in a bit so it's often dark by the time I get home. Will have to plan some times when I can head out or get some new lights.

Minecraft:
Made an awesome castle in the shape of a skull then put water so it flowed down it then the power went out in the loft and I lost everything :( now have a UPS to protect against that.

Saw that Kaz Hirai's Magical Wang is on sale (aka playstation move) so far the line up of games looks crap so not sure it's worth the few hundred dollars to get one.

Geek Club:
Have been going to quite a few events so far and have been enjoying myself there are a lot of friendly people there and it's a good way to get involved in things. Have tried out D&D and hopefully that will lead to a proper game later on. Tonight I have a papercraft party what's that ... not quite sure :S but it sounded interesting :D. Later in the week it's another book and sketch session the book in question is China Miéville's Perdo street station which I read a long time ago and am rereading for memory refresh purposes. His stuff is pretty weird by design but often fairly fun to read.

Twitter:
Been trying this out but still not too sure about it. It worked well at PAX for noting down all the cool things I was going to see and where there was lots of small comments to make. For most everyday life it seems less well suited its 144 characters is very restrictive and almost always it's too small for most things I would want to say leading to excessive amounts of editing to fit things into the format which runs contrary to the intention.

Life out in the US:
So far things seem to be going well I'm keeping busy and getting out to do things the summer seems to be coming to an end so I expect the run of fantastic weather will start to tail off, though it was pretty warm and sunny this weekend. All in all so far so good.