I’m feeling pretty good about pneumatics for this halloween.

My primary use is for a creature crate. This is working really well, money well spent as I don’t think I could have created anything as durable as this. I’ve “retired” my opening/closing coffin from last year as this crate is jus so much more effective.

A secondary use is for a popping ghost. I’m using an efx-tek prop controller with some 24vdc smc solenoids (off ebay) to shoot a blast of 120psi air at irregular intervals. The air is directed upwards along a line from the ground up to a tree limb, and a lightweight ghost (gauzy fabric around a clear plastic cup which catches the air blast) flies up the string 10 feet and then settles down. I’ll position it all behind a tombstone and light the ghost path. The pneuma and mechanics are rock solid, I’m happy with them. The ghost is fine, at night in sudden bursts no one will see how crappy it really looks. I’d love to have the skill/ideas to create a better lightweight ghost – it has to catch the air blast in a stiff inner cup structure, needs a lot of gauzy outstructure to float around, and needs to weigh very little – I am probably at 4 oz now and wouldn’t want it heavier. Oh and be weather resistant as this is for outdoor use.

Notes for 2007: better looking ghost. And build 3 of these for different spots in the yard.

Super Bright LEDs – lots of great LED products up here, I am getting some UV LEDs to replace some lamps in some Malibu lights.

Imaging Society: Halloween Photo Tips – thanks Alex

Haunters Hangout Epitaphs – some decent onces i hadn’t seen in a while.

Protect yourself from identity theft with Credit Monitoring from TripleAlert.com – i got a free subscription to this for a year because one of my financial institutions screwed up and released some data. and i have to say it is pretty useful. i get an email alert anytime there is a change to my credit record at any of the 3 major credit tracking institutions – any new account opened for instance. it is a nice part of your personal identity theft package – if all your defenses fail, you can get an alert when something does happen.

it would be interesting to write up and discuss people’s best practices for identity protection. the other thing i am glad i do is to maintain basically two complete bank accounts. one is the “public” account, from which i write all checks, do automatic bill payment, etc. the other is a private account that is where my financial assets are really kept. they are at different institutions. i routinely move money over to the “public” account to pay bills. with this setup, if someone learns how to forge checks or compromises my atm card or something else, they have access to only a teeny tiny part of my assets and i can shut down that public account if i need to.

It’s not enough to have the #1 college football team in the nation, he also decides to take on science instruction

* Woodland Park Zoo Pumpkin Prowl – might be fun to stop at * Seattle Times’ list of events – the bastyr event sounds good * The PI’s list and more PI

* Melodeo launches with cingular – congrats! * Rich on the Sony HD videocam – the perfect xmas present! * Also rich points me towards an IR-compatible camera – I’ve been using a Sony DSC-F828 for a couple years and been happy, but would be great to have some lens options. Get your mind out of the gutter, this is for Halloween pix. * Phil found deskfinder -- remote search of your desktop from your blackberry. pretty awesome. * As Brad notes, JudysBook has done a major facelift. Looks good… * Network Magic pricing has changed, and Jeff has gotten a lot of great feedback and support. Great to see the direct engagement with the customers.

2nd surround system up and running. My first system is basically for thunder and lightning and is fully operational. This second system is for the primary graveyard locale and will have a lot of graveyardish sounds panning across the space. I’m driving from a PC using the Creative Audigy2zs, hooked up to a Pioneer Electronics - VSX-516-K/S - 7.1 A/V receiver with Sound Retriever (picked up as an open box unit at best buy) driving 5.1 speakers. A little mysterious how to get surround working, not as nice a config utility as the turtle beach card. And then the receiver was just plain mysterious. I had to do a “reset” to finally get it to emit 5.1 sounds – hold down the tone button, the power button for 3 seconds, then enter and then setup. i can imagine why this unit got returned to best buy, it tries to be so smart about deciding what source and output mode to use, but i think it gets wedged into misconfigs. Reset is your friend.

Q-Manager Audio Playback and Show Control Software – meant to try this out this year but never got around to it. Perhaps next…

I raised a dispute with American Express concerning my problems with Alienware and I have to thank them, it is making things happen. I finally got a personal contact from alienware today:

_Dear Mr. Ludwig,

I tried to call you earlier today and left you a voicemail on the following regard. As I stated in the message, your system is ready to be shipped out, however earlier today Alienware received a chargeback dispute from your credit card company in the amount of $XXXX.XX. Unfortunately, we cannot ship the system out until this dispute is lifted. If you can please contact your credit card company and lift this dispute, it will be most helpful in expediting your order. Please feel free to contact me at anytime should you have any questions regarding this matter.

Thank you,

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXX Critical Issues Agent Alienware Corporation

Phone: 305.XXX.XXXX Fax: 786.XXX.XXXX www.alienware.com_

Needless to say I will not be lifting the dispute. It is apparently the only lever I have – the system is just coincidentally ready to ship out the moment they receive the dispute notice. They can ship me the system and if it is perfect I will pay. I’d rather the money back.

Google docs and spreadsheets – nice to see these combined. thankfully they picked up more of the writely interface for presenting your list of available docs, it was always kind of pain to always arrive at a new blank spreadsheet in google spreadsheets, when i normally wanted to open an existing sheet. much easier now. Still desparately want charts in the spreadsheet package.

A Sack of Seattle: The meeting that led to Judy’s Book insights – Andy is doing a great job of thinking out loud about his business. this is just one of a series of posts worth reading.

Was just wondering about airport facilities in some minor markets and came across AirNav – useful airport info, more than I needed

In service of the course I am taking at UW, I did a random walk thru MEMs investments this morning. Not exhaustive, just work in process notes for me.

VCs

* BA Venture Partners * Ardesta – “leading the small tech revolution” * Mobius

Investments

* IMT – a foundry * Xponent – surface mount photonics * XCom -- MEMS rf components * Translume – advanced glass micromachining * Sensicore – water quality testing * Akustica – single chip microphone

Other

* MEMSnet – portal