« March 2006 | Main | May 2006 »

April 30, 2006

That was dumb: Chemical burns

Yesterday I ha a full day of carefully using paints and associated chemicals. I made sure that no skin or eye exposure to any dangerous solvents. This morning I saw that I had left the can of brush cleaner out on the porch and picked it up and put it in the shed.

That was the mistake, believing that all the solvents where safely contained within. There was apparently some residue on the outside of that can that transferred to my hand. By the afternoon I noticed a slight tingling on my fingers. I looked down to find chemical burns all over the finger tips of my right hand.

I ran (not walked) to the nearest bathroom and cleaned my hands for 20 minutes. However, the damage was already done. So now i've got these lovely red splotches on my right fingers. I bet if I position them just right, you can see the outline of a square chemical can.

Posted by binhqx at 2:14 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 29, 2006

Room done.

I finished the work on my room today. It is not quite as pink as it was before.

The night before I filled in the cracks in the ceiling with a sheetrock repair kit. Jack and Devin came over around noon. We cut and tacked down the new baseboard molding. Much to our dismay the walls where not nearly as straight as the molding so there where tones of spaces between the walls and the boards. So we gave up and started using more of the sheetrock repair kit to fill those cracks too. It ended up working very well but now we had little white patches everywhere. That was okay because I wanted to paint the walls anyway.

Jack and I spent the rest of the day panting the walls and ceiling. Two gallons of paint later we where done. Then I jest put down a quick puzzle floor and by Sunday the paint should be completely dry and ready for me to move in.

Jack did a fantastic job helping me out (Devin was there too).

Posted by binhqx at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 28, 2006

Making plans to fix my room.

I asked Jack to come over and help me fix up my room. If everything goes to plan, I should have it finished by Sunday. i just need to make sure that I have everything I need for the fix-up. Paint, sand paper, etc. It just goes on and on.

I am rather excited about it.

Posted by binhqx at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 27, 2006

Nintendo Wii (as in 'we')

It's... It's... a name. It's a name that sounds a lot like the english first person plural pronoun. It is meant to create brand awareness by being unique. However it sounds like a very common word. So it will probably create more confusion then awareness.

Oh, and it sounds really dumb.

Posted by binhqx at 9:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 26, 2006

Philosophy: body and soul.

The soul can never be corrupted with the corruption of the body, but is in the body as it were the air which causes the sound of the organ, where when a pipe bursts, the wind would cease to have any good effect.
-- The Da Vinci Notebooks

Posted by binhqx at 8:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 25, 2006

Château is now online.

I gave a call to Comcast support to find the whereabouts my cable modem install kit. I discovered that the internet portion of my order was never processed and no kit was ever sent. If I wanted to order another on it could take another 10 days to get it.

Forget that! I have been without internet at home for too many weeks already. So I decided to go to Best Buy and get a cable modem + service. The modem and install kit was about $70. However I got a $15 rebate for kit and a free $50 Best Buy gift card for ordering the service there (at lest I will in 8 weeks when the rebate is mailed back).

I gout the stuff back to the Château and the self provisioning software that came in the kit did not work. It was not too hard to fix. I just gave a call to Comcast tech-support and they provisioned the modem for me. I was rather surprised how quickly I got through to tech-support at 10pm. They must have really buffed their support staff.

Tomorrow we will see about getting internet to all the rooms in the house. We got a 802.11g router earlier. The plan is to mount it at the center of the Château so it will broadcast internet throughout the entire place.

Posted by binhqx at 11:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 24, 2006

The 2nd Chevalier du Château (and his floor)

SB will become the second Chevalier du Château (Knight of the Château). We got stared tonight by moving some of his stuff. In addition we installed a new floor in the room where SB will be living.

The floor was a bit of a experiment. While out at Sam's Club I saw a stack of interlocking foam mats for sale. These are usually intended for children play rooms or exercise areas. I thought to my self, why could these be used for any type of temporary flooring. The foam has good sound and heat insolation properties, they are easy to clean, and can be taken with you if you decide to move.

So SB bought a few stacks. I roughly calculated them to be about $0.75 per square foot, not very expensive for a new floor. We brought them back to the Château and Matt, SB and myself started putting them together in SB's room. The mats went down super fast. It took about 15 min to put down all the whole pieces, then about a hour to trim all the bits around the edges. The foam cuts easily with a box cutter.

In no time we had a brand new floor ready for what ever we wanted to do with it.

Posted by binhqx at 5:55 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 23, 2006

Take care when using WebDAV.

Ok, this mess-up is purity my fault. I learned today that one must be vary careful with the apache config directive "DAV On." If this is active on a directory that is writable by the web-server and there are no other limits on the PUT, DELETE, PATCH, PROPPATCH, MKCOL, COPY, MOVE, LOCK, and UNLOCK commands, anyone can walk in and start overwriting files.

If you do want to have WebDAV, then you must, must, must restrict who has access to it. Here is a sample apache Location setup that limits the WebDAV commands to user greg.

<Location /mypages>
    DAV On
    AllowOverride None
    Options None
    <Limit PUT POST DELETE PROPFIND PROPPATCH MKCOL COPY MOVE LOCK UNLOCK>
        Require user greg
    </Limit>
</Location>
--source: http://www.webdav.org/mod_dav/install.html

I stopped using WebDAV a long time ago. However I forgot to turn it off. Now I use scp for all my remote filing needs. It has encrypted certificate authentication and encrypted file transfer. I only wish more GUI scp clients existed.

Posted by binhqx at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 22, 2006

The mystery of the clicking plumbing.

The Château is far from being in a pristine state of maintenance. One particularity annoying issue it has is "clicking" plumbing. Every 2 seconds while the water is running, every pip in the house clicks. So I ran the water while running around the Château putting my ear to the pipes to find the source.

Note: Check to make sure a pipe is hot enough to burn you before pressing you ear against it.

Eventually I tracked the sound the system that takes the water in from the well before entering the house. This system has three major parts. A well pump control and power box, a water pressure sensor, and a pressurized water storage tank. The system is designed to maintain constant water pressure throughout the Château without constantly running the well pump.

When water is used in the Château, ion theory it is supposed to work this way:
1. Water is drawn from the pressurized water storage tank.
2. The tank runs out of pressure triggering the well control box.
3. The well pump kicks in to maintain the pressure. At the same time the pump also re-pressurizes the storage tank.
4. Once the tank is pressurized the well pump can tun off and water is once again drawn from the pressurized water storage tank.

This process is meant to run the well pump a little as posable to increase its operational life time.

When I observed the Château's sure pressure, I found the water pressure would drop to the low threshold in just seconds. Then the well pump would kick in and it would reach the high threshold instantly and shut off again. It is obvious that the storage tank was not pressurizing the way it is supposed to.

A little research revealed the way the storage tank works. The tank is separated into two parts. A water chamber and a air chamber. A flexible rubber diaphragm separates these chambers allowing them to press against each other.

Quick physics lesson: One of the properties of a fluid is constant volume. It can not be compressed to increase pressure. To pressurizes a fluid in a closed tank, it must be kinetically pressed against by another object.

The air chamber in the storage tank is under pressure. It pushes against the diaphragm and applies force to the water. I checked the air pressure in the tank with a tire gauge and found it was zero. The tank could not pressurize because there was no air to compress. It was just full of water.

So I got a tier pump and filled the tank to 40 psi (that is a lot of work). The system immediately started working properly. However, the next morning the tank had lost half of its pressure. The tank had a leak and was loosing air pressure. The first place to check for a leak link that is on the inlet valve. Applying some soapy water to the valve showed that it was leaking (the valve head starts to bubble showing air is coming out of it).

Luckily the inlet valve on the tank is a Schrader valve. Replacement cores for these valves are vary common can be found at bicycle repair shops. The only trick is getting a the toll that can be used to tighten the valve in place. Once again, bicycle repair shops to the rescue. This specialized cap can be flipped over and used to adjust Schrader valve cores.

The core was just loose and only needed to tightened to restore it. Now the well pressure system works and does not loose pressure over time. The only injury endured by myself is the killing of my right shoulder muscles from continuously refilling the air pressure with a hand pump.

Posted by binhqx at 10:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 21, 2006

PHP-Nuke: a playground for hackers

We have given up on PHP-Nuke over at the Medaverse. As long as we have been using it, major security security holes have exploited over and over. The PHP-Nuke developers have be less then helpful about providing usable patches for their previous revisions of the software. Many times the only way to apply the patches without extensive hand editing is to get the latest revision of PHP-Nuke. However, the developers charge a subscription fee to get the latest version. It is almost like it is a form of extortion, you need to pay up for "protection" against hackers.

So now we are looking for a a alternate content delivery system to move Medaverse to. So far we have looked at PostNuke, but we are having a hard time finding a clean upgrade path from the old PHP-Nuke to the newest PostNuke,

We work on this all Friday evening but no success. I will need to sleep on this one.

Posted by binhqx at 11:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 20, 2006

The bottom if the internet.

I believe that the Internet has a bottom. A place where intellectual garbage and mental filth from all the users accumulates. A preverbal drain that of the communal shower we call the information super highway that catches bites of hair and goo that no one wants to touch. This lowest part of the internet does not stand still, it moves from venue to venue as new internet services come to be. Historically, the usenet had this title. Then then P2P networks. Right now, that place is myspace.

I started picking around there of my own accord. On the surface it appears to have a juvenile appearance. But as you start digging deeper down the social chain things start to become scary. You may find a former quite class mate now has tattoos emblazoned down her chest. Or a professional dominatrix is available just a few towns over.

Too much information. Too much scary information...

Posted by binhqx at 11:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 19, 2006

12 channels of pure entertainment.

I guess the cable guy did not need to do much to get the cable installed. I got home yesterday to find a note on the doorknob stating that the cable had been successfully installed. So now I have 12 TV channels (basic cable) that I can watch at my discretion.

However I still have no internet. Part of the setup process consists on me receiving a internet "self install kit" in the mail. I have no idea when it was ship or when it will get here. I do know that I will have no internet until that package arrives.

Until then I will keep not watching my 12 channels.

Other stuff of varying interest:

I was board on a phone conference so i decided to take out my aggression on my mysapce account. I just when through and add more info about my current self. Someday I will need to construct a "emo" personality profile that I can use to slip in and out of that social scene undetected. It will need to be good, those guys can smell self esteem.
Link: http://www.myspace.com/binhqx.

Posted by binhqx at 6:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 18, 2006

No internet at home till Monday.

I called ordered a cable internet connection from Comcast. However, it will not be installed till Monday. Till then I will keep doing all of my internet stuff from work.

Other random stuff:

I find it hard to write blog entries from work, there are too many distractions here. I can never spend the time I would like to to craft out a proper entry.

I am filling a bit tired today, I just want to go home and sleep. But I can not do that, I still have a few hours of DDR to play. My rigorous DDR schedule has been slipping lately. With the whole moving thing I have not been feeling energetic enough to play. This becomes a real self-confidence killer as every day I think I am putting on weight again.

Cap forgot to get a copy of the latest Medacast for editing. I will need to drop a copy off at his house tonight.

Posted by binhqx at 9:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 17, 2006

The old house is SOLD!

This morning the sale on the old house finally closed. So it is done, the house is sold.

Now it is time to settle into the Château. There are four bedrooms in the Château. Each one is panted a different color, yellow, green, beige, and pink. The room that I like the best is the pink one, however, I do not agree with the coloring. The walls are a off-white pink, but the floor is a deep pink. I think if cover the floor with a different color, it will not look nearly as pink.

Posted by binhqx at 7:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 16, 2006

Post Saterday (a.k.a Sunday) Part 1: Famlty reunion

So here is how Saturday went down.

9:30 AM: Got in the car and drove to Mass to see many distant relatives. On the way down I showed Animal Crossing to my mother. Now she is thoroughly addicted to it.

The whole family get together went well. I met and re-met many relatives. It is so nice when you see somebody who is vaguely familiar and you say "Hi, who are related to?" Then eventually you discover that you did meet once 12 years ago at a similar family get together. Sometimes the question gets shortened down to a simple "Who are you?"
It is important to never say "How are you?" or even worse "Good to see you again," because these express a known familiarity. Unless you can back these up with some known history, you are up uncomfortable social situation creek without a paddle.

The most interesting facts learned at this event where the number of people who lived near me in New Hampshire. I had one cousin that lives in Dover and another one who is moving to Newmarket.

Toward the late afternoon I left the reunion to go see my grandparents on my fathers side. They live in Quincy and it is always good to see them again. We stayed there foe a hour and then my father drove me into Boston for Saterday Part 2.

Posted by binhqx at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 15, 2006

One day's plan.

This Saturday has a interesting plan. Because it is the day before Easter, I am spending the day at my Grandmother's house in Massachusetts. There is a big family get together happening there with 30+ of my relatives on my mother's side.

Around 6:00 PM I will go into town to meet with my friends to see Dane Cook at the garden. Then it just partying till we drop and go back to the hotel.

We will see how it goes.

Posted by binhqx at 11:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 14, 2006

Welcome to the Château

I need to clear up come confusion. The house that I just moved into belongs to my aunt. This is the same house that I would like to rent with SB and others. To prevent further confusion, SB and I can up with a name for the house. We wanted something gratuitously pompous and arrogant, so he came up with the name Château Mets le Dans.

From here on out I will be calling this house the Château.

Posted by binhqx at 2:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 13, 2006

Pushing furniture around.

So all the furniture got into the house Wednesday night. Then I had the job of arranging into a usable configuration. I was surprised how fast unpacking was compared to packing. I guess it is easier when you don't need evaluate each item for usefulness verses weight and volume.

I finished my unpack of this morning and the room is starting to feel like a home. There are a few bare essentials I will be needing before I really settle in. The first of which id broadband internet access. I checked all the DSL providers and found that none had service to the house. My only option is cable internet from Comcast.

The funny thing is the way the pricing works out. If I want to by just high-speed internet it is $60.95 per month. While high-speed internet and basic cable TV is $58.50 per month. I'l do the math for you; thats $2.45 less per month by buying basic cable. Figure that out.

Posted by binhqx at 10:56 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 12, 2006

1,2,3 and MOVED!

I had a window of opportunity tonight and ended up moving out of my house. SB, Matt, and Jack offered to help out. So in a few hours, I moved to my Aunts house....

More updates later.

Posted by binhqx at 10:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 11, 2006

It puts the lotion in the box.

I have started packing up my things and putting them into boxes. My greatest discovery so far is that my heaviest possessions are my books. Now my back is paying the price of this discovery.

My mother and sister have come down from Maine to help with the final cleaning of the old house. But they are not really in to heavy lifting so they will not be much help to me. I hope I can con some friends into helping me move some of the bigger bits of furniture.

I have also learned that only a specific size of allen wrench will breakdown my bed. Until I find such a wrench, the bed can not leave the room. Hopefully I can dig one up at work tomorrow.

Posted by binhqx at 9:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 10, 2006

Doing taxes.

I got my boss to give me another copy of my W-2 forms. I decided to do the right thing and file my taxes immediately.

One perk of being poor is you can e-file your taxes for free. There are quite a few online filling sites available for people in this situation. I just go to irs.gov and click on "Check Out Free File." They will direct you to a free e-filing site.

Aint the interweb great?

Posted by binhqx at 3:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 9, 2006

Weekend update 4/10

T-7 days till I have to be out of the house. I was hoping to have the whole house renting issue resolved before now, but that has not happened.

To night I am going to start packing up all of my worldly possessions and putting them in cardboard boxes. This ought to be a interesting experience.

My aunt has offered to let me stay in a room in her house till I get it all sorted out. It look like I will be taking her up on that offer. Did I ever mention that I have the best aunt in the world? She has plenty of her own problems, but is generous enough to take me in. I could not ask for anything more.

I have been bad about getting my taxes done this year. I put it off too long and have lost my W-2 form. I will need to ask my boss for another one.

Posted by binhqx at 4:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 8, 2006

Re-watching NGE

I have decidesd to go back and re-watch Neon Genesis Evangelion(NGE). The first time i saw it was back in college. back then I did not understand enough about human emotion to fully grasp the finer points of the series.

Now I see that NGE is a cornucopia of psychological disorders. If you watch closely, you will see charter displaying attempts to deal with their condition.

Clinical depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, post-traumatic abandonment disorder, codependency, borderline personality disorder,obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcoholism; are just the short list of problems I have identified in various characters.

Why do mental disorders mixed with Hebrew mythology and giant fighting robots make for such interesting television? I wonder if anyone has ever considered using Neon Genesis Evangelion as teaching materials in a abnormal psychology class?

Posted by binhqx at 2:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 7, 2006

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion -> This Years Sleeper

Today we rented The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the Xbox 360. The large continuous world that Oblivion takes place in is a nice idea, but in reality it has technical limitations. The majority of time is spent haphazardly wandering into load screens where the players waits. Much of this games is spent waiting. This kills any type continuous world.

With half the time being spent waiting around and the other half wandering about a large world, the game progresses at a snails pace. After a few hours a play it starts to put you to sleep. Penny Arcade was not joking about this.

Posted by binhqx at 6:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 6, 2006

The Longest Journey

I just started playing a adventure game called The Longest Journey. I'm only on chapter two, but story-wise this game is excellent. The charters are diverse and interesting without being flamboyant. The way the story is unfolding keeps a good level of suspense right from the start and keeps it fresh. I also like the music scoring, it fits well to the visuals and adds depth to each scene.

The puzzles are mediocre, they have quite a few "items searching" ones that are not my cup of tea. I decided i have better things to do then hunt and click a game, so I'm using the UHS system to save some time.

The only other problem the game suffers from is its age. It came out in 2000 so its 3D graphic are geared to the directX 7 generation. I hope to do a full review of the game when I finish it.

Posted by binhqx at 2:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 5, 2006

Sack one soft dance pad for +2 agility.

Getting my butt kicked at DDR arcade machine continued.

This afternoon I bought a $20 Xbox dance pad at GameStop. My plan was to use the controller board from the pad to build a USB controller from my Cobalt Flux platform.

Replacing the Xbox controller plug with a standard USB pug was easy enough. I just used this diagram and soldered the USB cable to board. Next I installed the Windows drivers available here and OS X drivers available here. Then I just plugged in and it works.

Now I need to get a 15 Pin Sub-D connecter to interface the control board with the Cobalt Flux. I will need to do a RadioShack run and pick one up.

Of course, no project is complete without a soldering iron burn. This time I gave myself quite a burn on my left palm. But that is the always the risk when working with hot tools.

Posted by binhqx at 3:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 4, 2006

When it rains it pours

I was looking back through my past week or two and noticed a depressing trend. This blog has become Binhqx's list of personal problems.

Here is a new one for the pile, I have contracted a nasty cold. It has primarily manifested as upper respiratory congestion and throat aches. My biggest gripe about this virus is its killing my DDR performance. That is a pretty funny complaint, uh.

Posted by binhqx at 10:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Severe automotive deficiency

I am temporally carless. My exhaust system was giving me some trouble so I made a appointment and took it into the shop. When I called at the end of the day to see what had broken, they said that they did not get a chance to look at it.

So annoying.

Luckily I have SB to cart my lazy butt around.

Posted by binhqx at 8:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 3, 2006

Binhqx's says #0215:

Neon Genesis Evangelion is as much about giant fighting robots as Animal Farm is about livestock.

Posted by binhqx at 4:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Binhqx's says #5926:

"Be careful where you walk in the internet, you might leave tracks..."

Posted by binhqx at 12:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 2, 2006

Weekend Update 3/2

Here is the followup for the events of the week:

Posted by binhqx at 3:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 1, 2006

Back to playing Animal Crossing.

I would like to write something interesting, but I have been playing Animal Crossing: Wild World.

SB was kind enough to give me the Nintendo DS and copy Animal Crossing of that he won. So I have been having fun playing that.

If you want to visit my town, here is my friend code:

Town: Madbury
Name: Robin
Code: 3307-8074-172

Posted by binhqx at 11:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack