Illusions25 picturesFeb 11, 2010

 I put together another one for the Nook, this one is entitled Illusions and features various eye tricks and some images from Escher. Some images had to be cropped to fit the size of the nook screen but I think overall it came out pretty good. There are 25 in all and its available on the nook page at Nook Project Page.

feel free to check it out, along with the first one I did entitled Quotes.

If you have an idea of a pack you’d like to see let me know and I’ll throw something together. You can use the contacts button above, or send me an email at exst...@exstatica.net. I think the next pack in a few weeks will be Movies. It will be posters of movies that are based on books.

Enjoy

1. User specifies a per month cost. (Say 20 per month).
2. User specifies a frequency (lets say once or twice a month).
3. Woot uses a Magical Random Surprise Detection Algorithm or Mrsda as I like to call it, to send me a package, it can use all or some of the monthly allotment, anything not used rolls over. In a month I may only get 1 item that cost 3 dollars, the next month however I might get something for 35. Users of course could choose to turn this on and off.
4. Woot ships me the package via fedex or unicorns, I prefer unicorns, on a random day of the month
5. Bam surprise!
6. ???
7. Profit

Now of course you should be able to choose some options, like I would enable it for both woot.com and shirts.woot.com and maybe even wine.woot.com (man I really want that Bonsai Tree). You would also be able to select types of things, like nothing USB, or Only computer crap, or only kitchen things. That way the surprise is tailored kind of to you. Plus if it it was built around the Pandora method then you could go online and rate your surprise, but maybe on a scale of one to 10 instead of thumbs up and thumbs down. Even if I hated the gift I could give it to someone else and make it their problem.

So Woot, how about it? I’m sure your amazing groups of item description writers could help with the Mrsda system and then I could start getting presents in the mail. Like Tiger Woods would say… Just Do her it!

# Extreme Nerd Alert #

A few months ago I bought a new TV. My first HDTV. I’ve had Verizon Fios for years but just never plugged in the HD service because I was waiting for the right tv. I have this huge storage array I call Tiger, its a server that runs gentoo, with about 4tbs of storage. I keep all my music, and ripped movies on it for easy access. My old media PC wasn’t cutting it anymore. It was an old Athlon 1.6, and only had S Video out on it. I wanted HDMI and 1080P streaming. So I built a new Media PC or HTPC. After a bunch of research I landed on the ZOTAC GF9300-D-E. I loaded it with the following specs

• Pentium E5300 2.6ghz Dual core processor
• Corsair 4gb ram
• 250gb 7200 rpm Sata drive

Apex MI-008 Case

All in a APEX MI-008 case. Although the stock CPU would not fit which I read was going to be a problem, was not an issue since we have a stock of them at the office for servers and usually its not hard to find a low profile one. Problem Solved. I loaded Windows 7, because I wanted the full Media Center experience. I used to be a MythTV person, but it just took too much work to keep it running, and updates and everything were just out of control. Plus with MyMovies, now my movie collection is organized and it looks amazing.

Screenshot of Movie Screen

It has a built in collection management, It can handle seasons of TV shows which is a big deal for me since if I really like a TV show I’ll save it.

I have not however hooked it up to the Cable. Verizon Fios DVR is just too good to let go. Plus I hate dealing with compatibility of the IR and crap.

Anyway, I’m very happy with my setup, I had a full keyboard and mouse setup. It worked great but was a little big to manage especially for casual browsing and making changes. So yesterday I went on a new keyboard hunt. I searched all over to find a new one and finally settled on a Logitech diNovo Mini. The thing is beautiful, tiny, and rechargeable. It will go perfectly with my Logitech Harmony 880.  I’ll post a proper review of the Mini keyboard after I’ve used it for a while. The remote is nice, I have to spend some more time with it since I need to make adjustments here and there so things do what I want when I hit an activity. We’ll see. But its all coming together nicely.

# End of Nerd Alert #

So onto the Home Security Section. A recent episode due to a friend of a friend of a friend caused my house to be broken into. While they took nothing of mine, except some pillow cases, a few laundry baskets, they took his turn tables, mixer, and a few other things. Either way it could have been much worse. Said friend is no longer living with me, and I have my house to myself again. But who says they won’t be back to take the really good stuff.

I came across a post on LifeHacker the other day. Vitamin D turns your webcam into a security cam. You see I have lots of old webcams, and network cameras that just are too much of a pain to always watch. Thats where Vitamin D comes in handy. Its currently free and I’ll probably buy it if they add remove viewing ability, but its a feature it currently lacks.

I have it currently setup in the only access point of my house. The front door and the large windows pretty much cover the major area of where all my toys are. I have 3 views. One from the TV in, One from the Back to the TV, and One from the Side to the front door. Pretty much there is no way you can walk into my house and not be caught by a camera.

Yes I own a rocking chair, why would you not want one? and Yes its a little bit of a mess because I was up late last night coding so eat me. I do want to do a side project with more cameras. I want to record the movements of the cats over a time lapse of a few days. I have a feeling that there are patterns that they use when they go place to place. I have 3 cats and I have a feeling they take turns in different areas. Although I don’t think the rotation is every 3 days, I think its more like a few weeks, I’m not sure I can record that much. I’m gonna see if its possible with some sort of camcorder and external drive. If I can get 2 weeks worth of sunrise to sunset. I think I can have some awesome video. If you know of a good way to do this let me know.

On another note, I did finally get a Couch (yes I was couch-less. we can blame the last breakup. I also replaced my entertainment center with the one you see pictured. Its very nice, and much more organized. The old entertainment center was more of two end tables pushed together and a board on the top. Yes it was ghetto, but it worked until I found something I really wanted.

The next big purchase is a new TV for the bedroom. Thankfully the Bed has already been purchased. I had to cancel and order and cancel it a few times to get it right, but the new Select Comfort is coming soon. I know its expensive. Like 2k expensive but if you think about it you spend about half your life in bed. I don’t know about you, but I love sleeping (not that I get to do much of it).  On that note, I’m going to make like a baby and head out.

http://www.exstatica.net/music/Pendulum-Essential-Mix-18-09-2005.mp3

Now onto some Pumpkin Pie. Hava brought over some pumpkins the night before Halloween. 5 of them to be exact. She had realized that I had such a lack of decorations. After all I am a guy that lives alone, and I live so far off the street that my Mail carrier can’t find the path to my house let alone some trick or treaters. So why decorate? This is actually the first year I havn’t decorated. I moved to this place about 7 months ago. Its my little beach shack, close to the water, far away from the street. I really like it.

Anyway, back to the pumpkin story. So Hava decides she wants to carve pumpkins, she offers to bring pumpkins, then asks if I have a pumpkin carving kit thing. Well yeah of course I do (not). I hang up with her, and make a mad dash to the store. After all I didn’t want her buying everything. On my way to the store I call Sister and invite her to the Pumpkin carving escapade. I do have a fridge full of beer. So we go from Ralphs, to Vons, to CVS, to Target, to Riteaid. Nada. Not a single pumpkin carving kit. What do we do instead? We roam the isles of Riteaid, and end up in the kitchen ware isle. Knives, peelers, giant spoons, come on, we have everything we need right there. Head back to the house, crack open a few beers and wait for Hava to show up with the pumpkins.

Not 5 minutes into carving….. ha, you thought one of us were going to end up in the hospital huh? Beer and Kitchen knives. (we thought we would too). Hava cuts the lid off the pumpkin and shouts “This sucks, I’m not carving pumpkins anymore”. What the crap Hava, it was your idea!

Sister and myself finished ours, Hava went to the store to get something that would assist in her intoxication, and sister finished her pumpkin.

Halloween 0921 pictures

Sister & I + Beer – 1
Hospital – 0

I was trying to go for a house with a moon and crap, but come on. I had none of the right stuff, and well it turned more into a Frankenstein with a tumor. Really the point of carving pumpkins was not to carve something that looks really awesome, but more so just to hang out with good friends, drink and attempt to carve something really awesome.  We did just that. We attempted, failed, enjoyed, and yet were still completely satisfied.

Minus the dog who attempted to assist by disposing of the insides of the pumpkin. He was good at first, then tried to consume all insides while we were not paying attention. It was pretty funny actually.

We only carved 3 pumpkins, which means 2 left over with nothing done. So I’m going to make pumpkin pie. Not that I really know anyone who like Pumpkin pie, but screw you, I didn’t make it for you, I made it for me, and I love Pumpkin pie!

So here is recipe that I’ve made up out of a combination of many others.

First we need Pumpkin Puree.

1. Preheat the oven to 325f
2. Slice open the pumpkins and cut them into chunks and lay them face up. (make sure you clean them out, Skin can stay)
3. Bake those bad boys for 45-60 minutes (yeah its a large margin as if your oven sucks like mine, then its closer to an hour)
4. let it cool and remove the membrane and skin.

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups of pumpkin (to puree this pumpkin just add the membrane to a blender or food processor. You can freeze it if you have leftover.
2. 2 eggs
3. 1 1/2 cups of condensed milk
4. 1/2 brown sugar
5. 1/2 white sugar
6. 1 tsp cinnamon
7. 1/2 tsp ginger (I enjoy fresh ginger way better, but its much harder to mix)
8. 1/4 tsp nutmeg
9. 1/8 tsp cloves
10. a pie crust about 9 inches

Directions:

1. Once again preheat the oven but this time to 425f
2. mix the pumpkin and milk together
3. mix the spices and sugar together, and then add the pumpkin mixture (I do it separately since otherwise its uneven.)
4. Mix the beaten eggs into the mixture
5. poor into the pan with the pie crust
6. Bake that bad boy for about 15 minutes. Then turn it down to 350f and then bake for 45 minutes
7. you’ll know its done when you stick something into it like a fork and it comes out clean.

Cool this delicious pie, and eat. Make sure you do it in this order or you will burn yourself from hot pumpkin pie. I assume that this is probably the reason that most of you don’ t like pumpkin pie, and well thats your own fault. Don’t put something hot in your mouth unless you have been specifically trained to do so.

Don’t forget to add some Cool W-hip.

I almost forgot, The new Kitchen project. I have these huge whiteboards in my office. They are actually pieces of panel board that came from Lowes. THey are white finished and you can write on them with a dry erase marker, I want to line all the large spots of my kitchen with said board. That way I could write on it things to get, draw pictures of dinosaurs, and take notes of something that has to do with the kitchen. So thats the plan for the very near future.