nPoly

Android Scripting Environment: VGRebirth Scan

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:49:00 -0400

While I'm still in the honeymoon stages with my Droid, I've been playing with the Android Scripting Environment. And as a rite of passage, I've written my own bastardization of the barcode scan app. Only mine is linked to our good friend Rev Quixo's VG Rebirth so I can use it to quickly scan in any video games I might want to add. Nifty, no? Alright, it's the same thing everyone else is doing... doesn't matter, it's useful to me!

You'll need the ASE installed as well as ZXing's Barcode Scanner (which you should have been playing with since day 1, anyways):

import android
droid = android.Android()
code = droid.scanBarcode()
x = str(int(code['result']['SCAN_RESULT']))
url="http://vgrebirth.org/games/search.asp?keywords="+x
droid.startActivity('android.intent.action.VIEW',url)

Amazing Gyudon Recipe

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:27:00 -0400

Real quick. I made this and it tastes exactly like Yoshinoya!!
I used thinly sliced beef instead of rib, only because I don't know where to find shaved boned rib meat.
Linkage

Tilt No More: Overdrive Button for Rockband

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:54:00 -0400

The world has had guitar shaped videogame controllers for quite a while now. From the first Guitar Freaks game to the current hot/cold war of Guitar Hero and Rockband. The one thing the current crop of guitars all share is a dodgy way of activating your "super power" (Star Power in GH, Overdrive in RB) by tilting your guitar straight up. While commonplace, the mechanism is imprecise and doesn't always work when you need/want it to. So, here's a simple modification that converts the tilting mechanic into a straight forward button press. Join me, won't you?

The tilting mechanism in my 1st edition Rockband guitar is accomplished by an odd little circuit board between the strummer and the whammy bar. It's unusually that it has two signal wires (in mine, two white wires) and a single ground wire.

Removing it with a screwdriver and some wiresnips, you'll have this small rattling circuitboard. Now, all you have to do is drill out a button of your choice. I'm currently enamored with these chrome beauties I bought online a few months ago, they're visually perfect for a guitar. I chose between the strumbar and whammy bar, the original location for my button. My pink rests on it while I play. It's important to note that if you put it there, it will not be "easier" to use overdrive. It'll actually require some dexterity to strum with one finger and press with another. The button is designed to make activating overdrive more accurate. If you wanted to, you could install the button anywhere including on the neck fret where you could hit it with your thumb.

Now the slightly odd part. Discard the GROUND wire you just cut from the circuit board. Just tape it off to the side where it won't cause any trouble. The solder (or in the case of these buttons, screw) one of the two signal wires to one side of your button and the other wire to the other side. That's it!

Exactly what was happening in the circuit you removed is a bit of a mystery to me, honestly. At first I put both signal wires on one end of the button and the ground on the other end of the button. Pressing the button would actually change the guitar effect from Echo to Chorus!!!

You can easily extend this mod by putting your overdrive button outside of your guitar in the form of an effects pedal (which I'll be doing for fun, but I do kinda consider cheating the system since the tilt mechanism is easy, but in accurate - the overdrive button is accurate, but not easy - and the foot pedal will be both accurate and easy).

Prolonged Absence

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:20:00 -0400

Well... I'm back to updating. Thing is, my ex-fiance told me a week before the wedding she didn't love me. Needless to say, I had no desire to update the sit for about 6 months or so.

New Camera

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:53:00 -0400

(thumbnail)

When things get tough...

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:42:00 -0400

Because the one from A.A. is too girlie.

Nmap Icon and Script for OS X

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:02:00 -0400

Really nothing earth shaking, but I personally love to run Nmap whenever I go on a new or unknown network - it's the equivelant of looking around the room to make sure there's no one too shady hanging about... it's also useful for figuring out how much traffic, and therefore how slow transfers, you can expect. The only thing people may find really useful is the nice Nmap icon I created. Creating scalable icons for OS X can be a bit of a bear... Download after the jump.The script just fires off Nmap with the stealth syn turned, for a standard network set up (192.168.1.x). Obviously you need Nmap installed, and it will only work on what was once known as a Class C network (192.168.1.0 - 192.168.1.255).

It won't take much imagination for someone to just steal the icon and build another script for Class B or any other type of search Nmap supports.

Nmap.app as a Zip

So add a little style to your dock and simplify your port scanning!

Goosh - Google Shell

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:38:00 -0400

Very cool command line interface for google.

http://goosh.org/

He's good at repairs. He's under each snare.

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:44:00 -0400

I don't get excited much when it comes to music. But the perfect storm of my interests manifests itself under the brand of D.E.L. That's Del The Funky Homosapien - the man behind the mic on the best of the Gorillaz tracks as well as one of the most powerful hip-hop albums ever, Deltron 3030. Del's new CD arrived in the mail today for me and my excitement has piqued to find out it's be autographed by the man himself:

What you gonna do, Mean Gene? This is probably the first time I've ever considered a music cd I've purchased to be a collectable. I've ripped it and she's back in the case. I'm a few songs in and it's doing good so far. This will definitely tide me over until the new Deltron.

Deltron Zero, hero... not no small feat.

POLITICS!

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:26:00 -0400

Everytime I hear that guys name I get an urge to slam the LP button...