New projects!

Below are a couple images of the upcoming projects we are cutting this weekend on the CNC!
In other news....Derek has emerged from the basement!
The good news? The 3D printer is printing! Yay! The not so good news is that it is only printing grotesquely malformed lumps of orange plastic.
Other than a working 3D printer, there is only one thing that could have caused Derek to leave the basement....BEER.
And lots of it.
We ordered a keg from http://www.uneedabottle.ca/ of Lagunitas IPA from the States.
Being in Canada, Americans would think, by our reputation as fine ale connoisseurs, that good beer would be fairly easy to come by. Not so my American friends. The Canadian government has put all sorts of silly rules in place which means we have a cruelly limited selection (Molson, Budweiser and our foreign import.....steady your nerves...Corona *gasp* and maybe a few other local brands elbowing their way in for a brief spell of glory on the shelf.
I weep openly every time I walk into our government controlled liquor store - which we have to hike 60 miles through the frozen tundra to get to - and don't talk to me about our grocery stores where the only alcohol you'll find is in the mouthwash aisle.
Anyway, I digress, so we have struggled with these government workers, pleading, cajoling, begging for them to help us bring in some US import beer.
Incase you are an infant in your mother's womb, or in a religious cult which forbids all pleasures or simply sadly deprived and unaware, the US currently makes the best beer in the world.
It is a crime against mankind that we don't get more of it, seeing as we are two countries divided only by an invisible barrier, most definitely permeable by liquid of the acoholic sort.
Derek and I have fought valiantly, travelling far and wide and we finally found our break when Ali at the BC liquor Distribution Branch pointed us in the direction of uneedabottle.ca. (Thank you Ali)
Sadly we were not able to get our first choice which, of course, was of the Dogfishhead variety - http://www.dogfish.com/ - makers of the finest ales in the world, probably ever created in the history of mankind. However Brad at uneedabottle was able to procure an IPA from Lagunitas, a very fine ale indeed. The catch....it only comes in 60 litre kegs. Roll that around for a minute....sssssixxxxty litres. Think about how much beer that is. We need drinking friends, and we need them now. Any brave souls who would like to volunteer for this worthy charge, step boldly forward now. ..(Stagger backward later).
A side story to this is how Dogfish head Brewery in Delaware, overwhelmed by their recent surge in popularity, thought it would be a good idea to just not deliver to the folks out west. Thought we wouldn't notice. That we didn't count. I would like Sam to know that he should prepare to receive a nasty letter from me this week about how much Dogfishhead means to us and how we fought a grizzly, two polar bears, forded a river, killed a moose and lost 3 fingers due to frostbite to pick up our last 6 pack of 90 minute. Now I ask, what have your East coasters done for you lately?

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We were there! Vancouver Maker Faire 2011!!

Firstly, I would like to apologize for the lack in updates over the past 2 months.
Sorry to keep you all on the edge of your seats, you may now resume normal seat position.
Couldn't be helped.
We've only recently recovered from Vancouver's first Maker Faire that took place this year on June 25th to 26th.
It's taken this long to dig ourselves out of the disaster zone that we call our workshop and get things reorganized, or, as the term organized didn't apply to begin with, how about we just say organized.

Vancouver Maker Faire was fantastically successful with nearly 100 exhibitors and over 7000 attendees. After four months of fast paced making, Derek and I managed to pull off our projects! Yay! In total, making a display, backlit sign, upholstered bench, 2 bookcases and many other smaller projects.
It was great to see family and friends and many familiar, friendly faces at the event.
We brought along our mini CNC Andre to the event to demonstrate how a CNC works and talked about how we made the large projects on Big Ben our big CNC.

So what's planned for next year? Lots of course. As usual, far more than is entirely reasonable.

Derek has a new toy in the basement which is why he hasn't seen daylight in the past 2 weeks.
It's a 3D printer. He's just finishing up the building of it this weekend.

I'm working on several new designs, clocks, furniture, pub signs etc. We will post more photos soon!
Derek will also be posting about the building of the 3D printer as soon as I can draw him out of the basement, blinking into the sunlight, following my carefully placed trail of electronics parts.
He's currently fairly non-responsive to vocal prompts.
I check on him once in a while, feed him, check to see that he isn't setting anything on fire, that sort of thing.
However, there is a burgeoning feeling of excitement in the air, and I feel the printer's completion is imminent, which means we should be 3D printing in the next few days or so.

Until then, check out a few photos of us at the event:

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Vancouver Maker Faire - 2 more sleeps!

I'm getting super excited for this weekend. There are so many makers projects that I want to see. There will be a woman teaching workshops on how to make bacon from scratch! Mondo Spider and Panterragaffe will be there.
Any conference that requires all visitors to sign a waiver before they're granted entry (seriously) is pretty awesome in my books.
Only 2 more sleeps to go!
Speaking of sleep, I've been having strange dreams lately. I dreamt last night that I was being ticketed for Scottish dancing without a permit.
I didn't know I could Scottish dance.

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MAKER FAIRE IS THIS WEEKEND!! June 25th and 26th

Vancouver Maker Faire is this weekend! It's the very first one in Vancouver so make history and be there!
Get your tickets here:
http://www.makerfaire.ca/
Derek and I are putting the final touches on our projects. We actually finished everything! Amazing!
Here's a pic of the brass octopusses/pi on the bench arms. We added these this week.

We've put a grainy video up of the project set up in our living room.
http://youtu.be/qVgIQcwGovI
Everything designed and built by us in 3 months. So tie-tie.

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Maker Faire - Media day

Here's us at the Maker Faire media day!

Maker Faire is next weekend so get your tickets soon!

Maker Faire - Flight of the Bumble Bee

...has pretty much been the sound track to our lives for the past 4 months. Check out our Flight of the Bumble Bee video here:
http://youtu.be/DwVyVqM3BAg?hd=1
This video will be playing in "ContainR" at Maker Faire.
It's next weekend folks, step right up and get your tickets!
It's only a 2 day event and there are a limited number of tickets.

Maker Faire update - a few last things to do

We've spent the weekend updating http://www.armyofevilrobots.com/
Also finishing a few last things on the big project.
The bench is built with purple heart wood for the main pieces and birch plywood for the structure underneath.
There were a couple of places the the edge of the plywood showed and we thought it wouldn't be a big deal. Turns out it was.
It doesn't matter how much work you put into something, if you leave one thing shabby, that's where your eye will go.
It also turns out that it's a super easy fix. We found pre-glued iron-on birch veneer stripping that comes in a roll and it's super easy to use and looks great.
Just cut a length, iron it on (be sure to press it down after ironing as the heat can make the veneer curl away a bit) trim the overhang with the edge trimmer, sand edges and varnish! Super quick and looks much better.
I think we will use the birch plywood for a lot of projects in the future, it comes pre-varnished, it's strong and easy to work with.
You can see in the photos I'm attaching the veneer onto the finished project. Next time I'll do this bit before the project goes together.

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Vancouver Maker Faire less than 3 weeks away!

I've just updated the projects gallery! more updates coming soon!

May 23rd - less than 5 weeks to go...

Only four more weekends left before Maker Faire. Four more weekends and still so much to do. No more time for slacking off.
Curiously, I feel no sense of panic. Just the calm before the storm. More of a ... fuzzy mellow blissfulness.
Come to think of it, that may have something to do with the nearly empty pint glass in front of me.
"Nah. Probably not. Probably just my deep rooted confidence in our general awesomeness." I tell myself as I quaff my pint of liquid courage.
Seriously, I'm getting really excited. Progress is actually going very well - the bench bookcase combo is almost finished.
I designed a mockup of what our booth will look like in my imagination. So if it doesn't end up looking anything like this, at least you will know that I imagined it would be cool. And that's almost as good. Here is the image of the mock up in the gallery but it's too small to read the writing:
Projects Gallery Image
You probably shouldn't read the writing anyway because it's got a bit of my crazy showing, but here it is larger anyway.
Crazy Close Up Image
We will have LED track lighting in various locations, such as behind the sign and behind the bench and bookcases.
I'll post more photos of everything soon, but not now. I'm feeling far too lazy now. After two solid days of sanding all I want to do now is have a bubble bath and a cup of tea.
So the photos will have to wait.
PS As you can see I have usurped Derek's blog name for our new CNC company. It's a cool name and I like it! We shall be relocating his blog to www.armyofevilrobots.com/dereksbloginthefurnaceroom . But don't feel sorry for him. I've bought him a new red stapler.

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May 1st 2011 - Maker Faire Update...

We've sent our info and photos in for the Maker Faire website today!
Check out the website here:
http://www.makerfaire.ca/
Progress on our projects is actually occurring. Don't look so surprised!
I've posted several new photos in the projects gallery. The bench is now half done, next are the bookcases.
View larger photos...

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Puredata EXTENDED 0.42.5 Deb for Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 x86_64.

http://armyofevilrobots.com/sites/armyofevilrobots.com/files/Pd-0.42.5-e... *download url corrected. Sorry.

Works great on my system, you may need to run LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so pdextended in order to get it to use some cameras.

Keyboard Progress.

Arduino base keyboard design continues apace. More details coming soon....

Model M Refurbishment

I recently went to the local freegeek and picked up an old Model M 1391401 for a STEAL. Part way through my USB upgrade, I found that not all great deals are created equal. While the condition of the plastic and electronics seemed pristine, there was a full cup of coffee poured into the bottom of the keyboard and congealed. I am assuming this happened about 20 years ago or so, and I would later discover that the mess had crystallized into a horrific and conductive smear on the bottom trace on the key membrane.

Now, on a lesser keyboard, I would have tossed it in the garbage and started over with a new one. This keyboard however, was a model M. It deserved better.

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KeyboarDuino

KeyboarDuino is an arduino with a full usb/hid stack on it.

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Grapefruit Bitter

Details after the break...

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Yog Sothoth Blackberry Porter Recipe

Yog Sothoth Blackberry Porter
O.G. 1.065
10 lbs Pale Malt
6 oz Crystal Malt
12 oz Black Patent Malt
14 AAU Magnum (I used 1.25oz magnum hops)
32 fl oz. of concentrated organic blackberry juice (to primary).
Pacman Yeast (Replace with any decent Ale yeast).

Extrapolated from Dan's Strathcona Porter recipe, this one adds a face-full of blackberry juice to create something like the Cannery Blackberry Porter.

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Imperial IPA

Just brewed a BIG Imperial IPA. OG 1.095. Should be VERY Tasty.

There is so much food value in it that the yeasties are having a little party.

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Santas Disgrace: My best beer yet

Just kegged my new top secret* xmas ale/barleywine. It is a very strong (approx 9%) dark ale, very thick, and very tasty, with orangepeel, cinammon, chai spice, and golden syrup. Nom.

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Dry Irish Stout

After my pale ale turned out so well, I decided to make a batch of tasty tasty stout. Dan's brewing supplies had a very "Guinness-y" recipe, which I wanted to make, so I got all the ingredients there for an all grain batch. Never having tried all grain before, this was a bit of an adventure.

Much like the partial mash that I made last time for the Strathcona Pale Ale, this turned out to be a piece of cake as well. I did my best to remember my mindset from high school organic chem labs, and methodically followed the instructions, and everything seems to have worked out OK.

I have attached my brew log for the curious.

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Ganglia 3.x DEBs for Ubuntu Jaunty

Why does debian/ubuntu package Ganglia from 2004 in their newest operating systems? I am not kidding, RHEL 4.x has newer packages at this point. This is a pretty stunning indictment of their ancient and dysfunctional ganglia packages. If you were wondering why your monitored debian servers never show up on your RHEL ganglia nodes, well, now you know why. 2.x and 3.x are not compatible with each other.

UPDATE: I created new i386 packages since there were missing plugins.

Anyhow, here are some packages (Ubuntu Jaunty only, no warranty, stated or implied, may be infected with the SchweinFlu, etc):

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