Servos vs Pneumatic Systems. As I was poring over my links to pneumatic systems for Halloween projects, I noticed all my links to servos as well. It is easy to get confused about which system to use and why. Either servos or pneumatics can be used for interesting animation effects. At Delta Computer Systems there is a good comparison of fluid power versus electromechanical power systems [PDF] – some of the advantages of hydraulic are explained here, including better performance for limited duty cycle applications which will certainly be true of my props. Electromate has a short comparison of the different kinds of motion systems.

A couple of sites that talk about theatrical flats, for making prop walls. HSTech, Northern VA Community College, and NC State.

Worst Breakfast Ever. The Hungry Man All Day Breakfast.

Vibe Install. After reading Walt’s glowing review of vibe yesterday in the Journal, I downloaded and tried today. The download and install were fine but I hit a brick wall – it requires a static IP address. Ouch, that seems like a pretty big mistake.

The Sonics Could Be Worse. OK, the Sonics have a history of bad decisions at the center and power forward positions. And you have to lay the blame at Wally Walker’s feet. Still though, I guess it could be worse – Vin Baker is imploding and Shawn Kemp’s troubles are legend. We could have stood pat with one of those guys, the team would have been worse.

Jahshaka. Looks like a pretty comprehensive authoring app for video. so much of the low end commercial stuff is garbage. might be worth trying.

audblog audio post – just my free trial, boring test message.

A great pneumatics primer. I may have posted before.

Pneumatics for Halloween. A pointer to a good pneumatics primer on my Halloween at the Ludwig House blog. I’m thinking that a pneumatics project will be my big effort this year. I’d like to learn about the gear and my feeble attempts at animation last year (small motor driven) basically sucked.

Great source of lighting gear

Jim Allchin vs Google. I have to agree with Frank – Jim’s comment struck me as a little over the top. I think Jim meant well but this comes across as incredibly insulting to Google and very egotistical. I am sure the Google guys feel all warm and fuzzy this morning about Microsoft and Longhorn.

Haloscan on a short fuse. Haloscan, the external commenting service I use, seems to be down more than up, and it kills page load performance when it is unavailable. I am giving them this week to fix it before I give up. May be what drives me to moveable type finally, I’ve been too lazy to move to it, but I hate it when my pages load slowly.

A great midi setup for haunt control. I am ok with my system today (primarily DMX512) but this might be worth looking at.

threedegrees – ha ha ha ha ha. It is the day for bad technology experiences I guess. I installed the threedegrees beta from Microsoft. Firstly just a laughable install for a consumer product – i had to download and install a separate system component, i had to reboot, i had to register AND i had to log in with my passport AND i had to provide the double secret beta key, and i had to use the miserable microsoft download manager. Then when i tried to use it, it gave me some error message about my IPv6 stack not being properly configured! an IPv6 stack that it had installed. Just hilarious – who would build a dependency on an IPv6 stack into a consumer product?

Miserable experience with Alienware. I have nearly begged Alienware to take my money for a new machine. After nearly a month trying to get them to take my money, I give up. Because I wanted to ship the machine to my office, while my credit card bills go to my home address, they required a fax of my driver’s license (why I don’t know). I faxed it to them 4 times over two days as two different people called me to complain that they couldn’t read the expiration date. I zoomed the license and toned down the contrast so that the expiration date was as visible as possible. I thought they were happy and I went away on vacation. I got back after two weeks and – no machine. I contacted them and they said they still couldn’t read the license and are still waiting for me to fax me a new one, though they hadn’t bothered to call me. In this time of course a credit card charge could have cleared but no, that apparently isn’t good enough for them, somehow a faxed copy of a driver’s license is the key to their entire system. Today I gave up, I’ll order from someone else.