nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

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Millett Hybrid Maxed: Complete

August 27, 2007

My Completed Millett Hybrid Maxed
(Click for my write-up…)

Well, I finally (mostly) finished my brief writeup / overview of my building of the Millett Hybrid Maxed tube-based headphone amplifier. It covers info about the parts I used, including knobs, case, jacks, plugs, etc. I also wrote up a bit about the issues I experienced in building it.

I still have to add thermal information and maybe a section covering current requirements powering on from cold, etc. Still, as it is things are pretty complete.

Also, my x0xb0x sold for $890 last night, to someone in Australia. Turns out that person knows the person in Oz who I helped build up the MIDIbox SID-NUXX. DIY synth stuffs really is a small world. Now I just need to wait for the MemX expansion for my P3 to arrive so I can install it and then list the P3 up on eBay.

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MIDIbox SID-NUXX CAD Files Pulled

August 27, 2007

You all remember the MIDIbox SID-NUXX, right? Well, as I mentioned previously someone was selling something with a board of mine in it.

I posted about this here at the MIDIbox forums to inform people of it and hopefully get some assistance. (You’ll have to read the whole thread to get it. It is initially supportive.)

So, what happened after the posting? I’ve been essentially shouted down and told, both in private email, private forum messages, and normal forum messages that it’s my fault that it happend, and I am wholly responsible for the problem and for stopping it. I don’t quite understand this response, as I spent a bunch of time and money putting a new design in place, licensed the portions of it which I created properly (creative commons, non-commercial, share alike), and then gave it all away for anyone to use. Net cost? Probably around $1K out of pocket and a bunch of time.

At this point I’ve tried contacting eBay, who has told me that the claim about the board in there being my IP is “uncertain” and not yet replied when I provided additional info†. I asked for help from the community and was told that it’s my problem and I owe it to them to fix it. I’ve talked to the seller both via eBay and direct personal email (Flavio Mireles) and he’s played dumb. I’ve even tried bidding it high myself on eBay both with my personal account and sockpuppet accounts, and those bids have been cancelled. (Probably because the person saw new users and then my username in the bidding.)

I’m not sure what else I can do at this point, so I’ve gone ahead and pulled all the real-value contributions I made down. That is, the PCB CAD files, photoplotter/drill files (Gerbers and Excellon drill files), MIDIbox SID-NUXX-specific software binaries, all of that. I made something, spent a lot of money doing so, and tried to give it all back to the community. Unfortunately I’ve now been told that I gave too much back, and that my “forking”†† of the project does nothing but benefit “profiteers”.

The project has basically been closed since and finished their boxes. Other people (folks from Germany, Canada, California, and Australia) have built them since then with my help, but I haven’t done any more work on the project itself. At this point I’m just giving up on it. Sorry, I thought I was doing with sharing everything was right.

†eBay emailed me at 16:29 EDT, I replied with info about the licensing of the board, postings about it in a public space, and links to photos of the board at 16:36. It’s now 01:08 the following day.
†† I don’t get how doing one alternate version, contributing all changes back, then terminating the project is forking.

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Connect360

August 26, 2007

For those of you like me who are new to the Xbox 360, and who also have Macs as their main machines, check out Connect360. It shares out your iTunes stuff automatically so that the music on it can be used in the 360.

I just finished getting the Professor of Giraffeology achievement (score at least 10 million in the tutorial) with ~16mil while listening to some Analord. That worked quite well. Even though the music in SG is good, having something you really know seems to make it even better.

Now it’s time to start thinking about leaving for work, as I’m supposed to be there from 2pm until things get done, and I want to return some stuff to Radio Shack and get some lunch on the way. (Probably a BK veggie burger, as they are decent and salty foods are sounding good. Last week I had purchased some phono plugs at Radio Shack and I can’t get them open. They don’t unscrew and pulling with pliars just deforms the connector. Stupid Radio Shack parts.)

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Habanero Chili Sauce

August 25, 2007

Hmm… What should I do with around a pound of Habanero chilis? I’m thinking I could make a sauce, or I could chop them and pack them with salt in a sealed container for a month or so, then maybe make a sauce from that…

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Leader?

August 24, 2007

I really think that the image in this post might be a leader connecting with the actual bolt of lightning itself. I’m going to email someone at a university (not sure who) yet to ask.

I checked the other photos taken just after that when I was trying to get the brightness of the sky right (and missing one other strike) and I don’t see anything like water on the lens.

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Lightning

August 24, 2007

Lightning on 24-Aug-2007.

1) Photographing lightning by hand is hard.

2) I’m not sure why the lightning has a hole in it. Either I was really lucky and caught something weird, or it’s water or some other object on the lens. I think it’s probably the latter, even though I’d really prefer the former. I also have never seen water distort in a way which would distort that way, I don’t think. Opinions?

Now that the storm has passed and sirens have stopped sounding I can go to Costco and then get some Thai.

moved from livejournalweather

Consumer Posts

August 24, 2007

Some interesting points regarding consumer goods…

Joy Dish Soap:

For years I had a giant bottle of some Dawn-branded dish detergent. It worked great. Eventually it ran out, so while at the store I bought a bottle of some Lemon-scented Joy. Well, you know that musty / moldy / mildewy smell that dish clothes and sponges get when they are left to sit in a too-moist state for too long?

For some reason since switching to Joy, I’ve had my dishwashing sponge turn rancid once a week. Previously with Dawn I could use the same sponge until the scrubby side had worn flat and it was replaced because of wear, not stink.

Currently, after having been replaced a week ago, the sponge smells so bad that I can’t wash dishes with it, lest the stink permeate my hands for the next 24 hours. (Washing doesn’t get it off.) I guess I’ll be buying some Dawn on the way home and throwing out another perfectly good sponge.

Space Giraffe:

It really is a fun game. It will absolutely, completely piss you off until you understand what is going on, but after that it’s a good bit of fun. Definitely worth the 400 points. It’s one of those games where once you get it you want to keep playing it. Too bad I had to go to bed last night… I wanted to play more this morning, but I was close to running late for work.

Other XBLA Demos I’ve Tried:

· Alien Hominid HD: Like the original, but without the bugs (it’s playable!), better graphics make the cartoony-ness even better, and still absurdly hard.
· Beautiful Katamari: A HD version of Katamari Damacy, which is good. What is bad is that instead of cheesy, poor translations there is intentionally bad English in the dialogs, reminiscent of LOLCATS type crap. Hopefully it doesn’t cost more than $30.
· Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved: Fun, Robotron-like (but not), hard, cheap. I forgot to actually buy the full version last night so I’ll do that tonight.
· Viva Piñata: Cute, just not fun for me. Seems like Danielle would like it. Basically you maintain a garden in order to attract very well rendered piñatas. There may be more, but I only gave the demo about 30 minutes.

Xbox 360 UI:

This is typical Microsoft crap. It is not easy to find where demos vs. downloaded XBLA games vs. whatever else is located. I don’t understand why I shouldn’t be able to be in the downloadable game store, where it says that I have already downloaded the game, and start it from there. Instead you hit a button and it tells you how to launch the game. (Go to this menu, then that, then pick this.) It’s somewhat shiny, but a bit too busy for me. Also, I don’t like the built-in banner ads, even if they are just for other games.

iPod w/ Apple Lossless

Sounds really, really good. The DAC in the iPod is actually pretty nice. However, battery life on an iPod is greatly decreased when using lossless. I think this is because the iPod has (if I remember right) a 32MB buffer which it fills before spinning the disc down. This is plenty big for a couple of lossy tracks to fit in, but not lossless. Therefore the disc has to spin up a lot more. Perhaps this will be changed in future iPods.

To work around this I might make a new iPod cable with built-in charging bits for use on my desk along with the headphone amp.

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Pepperoni and Mushroom Pizza

August 23, 2007

Since I’m in a posty mood, here’s a photo of the pizza I ate last night. Yes, it has pepperoni on it. I was really in the mood for that, for some reason.

(Then I had a bit too much beer… a 750mL of a Corsendonk, then two 625mL bottles of Lion Lager. Whoops.)

Anyway, I hope it makes you hungry.

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