My Dad is pretty damn cool

Have you read about these new solar plants?

They basically use a field of mirrors to focus sunlight on a tower or a series of pipes that contain water, so that water gets turned into steam that powers generators. The whole thing is very efficient and basically free & clean. So that's pretty cool all on its own, but my Dad is actually plant manager where they make the stainless steel tubing for these things. The plants require super-high quality tubing to avoid corrosion and leaks, and very few places can produce it.

My Dad's plant is one of a very small number of plants left that makes the high-quality tubing for nuclear reactors (only two US sites remain that are approved for new reactors, and they're building those, but otherwise no new ones are going up, so no new tubes are needed). But having the expertise to produce those nuclear plant tubes means they can actually make the tubes for the new solar plants.

Producing the tubes for these solar plants is becoming a big part of their business now. The tubes are very long - something like 150 feet, so my Dad also had to figure out how to ship these things (can't do train, can't do truck), his plant is in East Troy, WI, and the plants are currently in the South. So he's setup special trucking to get the shipments over to Lake Michigan, and then they're going to barge them down through the lake, and some canals and eventually the Mississippi. So I actually talk to my Dad about how he has to go down to the docks to talk to the Barge captain because he's planning to store his cargo inappropriately.

For future shipments he's talking about using helicopters or even a derigible if one of the companies developming a cargo-carrying air ship gets its shit together.

So, basically, my Dad is using heavy machinery to manufacture industrial tubing and then negotiating with barge captains to secure shipment to solar power plants which are spearheading a new way to generate electricity that may well play a major role in making the world a better place. Pretty cool, Dad.

Let's Make a Deal

So some of you may be familiar with the fact that Dan's FIFO queue is clogged up with a lightbulb room at the top. But if you're not, here's the quick backstory:

During college, Pat and/or I and/or someone else (the details are foggy) saw this music video:

Someone asked Dan to make us a lightbulb room for the house (in which to dance), and he said he would. Sure, he may have been kidding, but we can't worry ourselves with that now. Being the incorrigible youths that we were (are), we've since insisted that he do it, often to the extent that Dan threatens us with stabbings.

Dan has also created a "first in, first out" (FIFO) queue of tasks, so that when fellow 208'ers asked him to do other things (build us an arcade machine, clear the queue, etc), he could not do it until he did the first thing (build the lightbulb room). Over the years Dan has purported to have built the room, only to have it destroyed or lost in the mail, but I am confident he has in fact has not mounted a single lightbulb. To the best of my knowledge, the comment he made in the last post was actually the first time he's come right out and said he will not build the lightbulb room. And it breaks my heart.

So, Tin Snips, let's make a deal. I'm moving this to Life After 208 for negotiations.

I don't know what to call this idea

A while ago I was thinking how it would be neat to setup an overly-complex automated drum set which used flashy methods to hit the various drums to play beats and whatnot. The backbone of the idea was always having reservoirs of superballs hung from the ceiling which would drop balls at a regular rate to hit the drums. (You could use other things like series of gears or sticks falling down or whatever as well, but balls from the ceiling was always appealing (holy crap what a rhyme).)

Laying in bed last night I was thinking about this again, and specifically thinking about the sort of basin one would want to recollect the balls after they fell and redistribute them properly. I was thinking you wouldn't want to send the same number of balls to each reservoir, as you'd certainly hit the snare more than you hit the splash cymbal or the floor tom. Also, different types of balls may work better on different drums. So, two birds with one stone, let's use different sized balls. The stage would be slanted so the bals would bounce around and go crazy for a while, then eventually collect in front of the drum set and fall through a filter. The filter would basically be a series of halfpipes of different sizes that converge, one above another. At the point where they converge, they would have holes cut through them to let balls fall through (the top being the biggest so they fall through properly). A wheel that grabs one ball at a time, centers it, and drops it through the hole(s) would keep the balls centered to fall through the holes and spaced so they don't hit each other.

But all that is sort of boring. It'd alow for an automated installation somewhere, which is sort of cool, but I like audience interaction (sing with me). So I was thinking, instead of all that, what you should do instead is ditch the filtering basin thing, and set this up in an empty room with no explination at all. There would just be different colored balls scattered all over the room, correspondingly colored tubs hung on the wall and a drumset (everything else would be hidden above the ceiling). So people would walk in, find this thing, and it'd be like fucking MYST.

Some people would bang around on the drums and walk away. Some would steal balls. But some would put a couple of balls in the tubs and they'd hear the soft click-whrrr of an motor coming to life, and a few seconds later those balls would fall on the drums from holes in the ceiling. They'd smile, look at each other, and start running around grabbing all the balls they can, putting them in the tubs. Again, click, whrrrr, but this time a full beat comes to life! The room would drum until it ran out of balls, and they'd learn that if they keep running around putting them back in they'll get farther and farther into the song! Eventually maybe some recorded guitar joins in, the longer you keep it up the better it gets, building and building until eventually fog starts coming out of the vents and lasers slide out from the walls and it's a fucking rock concert that you're powering by putting balls in tubs!!

Then it would end and everything would slide back into place and the rest of the balls would pour out onto the floor, and the people would catch their breath and high-five and leave the room for the next fateful soul to stumble upon.

I really do love this idea.

P.S. The tubs would have holes in the bottom so any samller balls that shouldn't be in there would fall out. And during the automated process that brings the balls into the ceiling they'd have to pass under a just-high-enough stick so balls that are too large would be knocked off and fall back to the floor. At the end of the concert, all tubs would pop open trap doors on the bottom to dump all balls back onto the floor.

P.P.S. Also, maybe all tubs will have some sort of indication when they're running low on balls so you know where to focus.

P.P.P.S. Oh, fuck, or what if there are just a few big yellow balls, but no yellow tubs? You'd keep wondering what to do with them. Then when the lasers slide out from the wall they each have a yellow tub under them, and if you put a yellow ball in there the laser turns on and starts swinging around? You'd be like - "Lasers?? Aw, they must be broken - no, wait, let's try - AWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

A wee little update in honor of St. Patrick's day

Just saw the tv. Lines are straight'n an arrow, and I'm taking it home tomorrow. Hai tee tai tee tai!

TV hunt update jr

The video supervisor at my local Best Buy ordered a 50" Samsung DLP from another store for me (man, that's a large television). I've enlisted the help of Pat and the help of Ben & Lindsay's truck, so as long as that screen looks okay I should have a new tv within a week or so. If there are any problems, then we're in for some Hayden-style tv watching.

Also, I was at a friend's place last night who had an LCD that looked crystal clear. I think it was a 32" set, which enforces the idea that the smear problem is greatly amplified by the size of the set (it makes sense - for an object to go 10% across the frame it has to move a lot more on a 46" set than a 32"). So I withdraw my universal denouncing of LCD TVs - it just seems they're not ready for sizes above 40" or so.

TV hunt update

There are a couple of people actually interested in this, so here's an update of what I've found thus far:

First of all, I should correct myself. The problem with the Sony LCD is not the refresh rate - it is the response time of the pixels. LCDs take about 8 milliseconds (give or take a few) to change colors. DLPs and Plasmas, on the other hand, take about 16 MICROseconds (CRTs are even faster). This is very well exemplified by hockey - watch a game on an LCD and it actually looks like there are two pucks sliding around; the first is where it's supposed to be, and the second is where it just was in the last frame but the pixels are still struggling to change to white. It looks terrible if you notice it (I know some people with LCDs who love them). It might not bother you, so check it out, but it kills me. I also think it's worse on larger screens. I keep trying to convince myself that I'm getting used to it and the tv is fine, but I can't.

My ideal replacement would probably be the Panasonic 50" plasma that came out with a matte screen last model year. Best Buy actually carried this, but they sold out of them just a few days ago. Drat! And to make things worse, I can't find anyone making a plasma with a matte screen this year. So my options remain unwatchable LCD, glossy plasma, or giant DLP.

My last hope for getting a new tv right now lies in the 50" Samsung DLP that they have left in a few stores. The two big downsides are 1) it has a normal bulb, not the new LED system, and 2) I've read countless reviews of this model shipping with screen defects. If I get a bad screen, they won't have any replacements, so I'll have to return it and be SOL again.

My plan at the moment is to see if the video manager at my local store can get me one of those sets. If he can, I'll see if we can set it up in-store for check for defects. This plan involves asking my parents or someone else with a truck to help me out for about an hour one afternoon, but I think I can find somebody willing to lend a hand.

If I can't get my hands on that TV, or it has a problem, I'll be going Pat Hayden style on this for a while - probably just sticking the 19" from the bedroom in the living room for a few weeks until a suitable replacement becomes available. All in all, this may not have been the best time to go looking for a new television... oh the embarrassment!

The great television hunt

I'm in the midst of a hunt for a new television. Last weekend I sold my 46" DLP to Harry, and bought a 46" Sonly LCD to replace it. The new screen looked fine in the store, but upon bringing it home I've realized that the LCD refresh rate just isn't up to snuff; any movement smears images all over the screen. It looks awful, and it's going back. The question is, what replaces it? And did I make a horrible mistake? TV is important to me. TV, movies, videogames, these are the things I do when I get home from work. I want to find the best screen I possibly can, but I'm starting to worry that even an acceptable replacement may not exist. That can't be true, can it? The options available are pretty straight-forward:

LCD: The current industry favorite, and what seemed to be the obvious choice for me. My living room is (and probably always will be) full of windows, so the matte screen is perfect. But, as I know now, the screens look terrible when things move around (which is known to happen). I've read the particular model I have is worse than some, and 120Hz models may work better, but I'm cutting LCD out completely.

Plasma: Almost perfect. The screen refreshes much faster, and looks better to boot! But, that screen sits behind a sheet of glass. There have been matte-finish plasma screens made in the past couple of years, but they're rare, and I don't believe Best Buy carries any (I need to buy from them as a major chunk of funds comes from gift cards). Putting a glossy screen across the room from a wall of windows isn't going to fly. The one possible savior is the Pioneer Kuro, which has some sort of antireflective screen. They are very expensive, but if the price is right and the screen works... maybe?

DLP: Ah, DLP. The old stand-by. I've never had any problems with the screen, and I thought both Joe's Mitsubishi and my Samsung looked great. The top-performers right now come from Sony, I gather, but again, they are nowhere to be found at Best Buy. The only DLP screens they carry right now are at least 50", and the only good ones are 65"! I don't want to go any larger than 46", and I certainly am not going to get a 65" screen. If Best Buy does stock the right 46" or 50" model I'd probably go for it - but I'd need to enlist the help of a truck.

So, what's a guy to do? The plan right now is to stick it out with the blurry Sony mess I have at the moment, and hope the Best Buy stocks some new models in a week or two (Paal says that should be the case).

Just to make it through