Mood Lighting

This is a quick sketch I made up of a circuit to power and control a Red, Green and Blue LED with varying brightness. The processor at the core is an ATtiny2313 from Atmel. It will accept three numbers over a serial link and use that to set the brightness of the corresponding LED using PWM and 2N2222 signal transistors. The LEDs will be housed in a diffuser plastic to blend the colors and allow you to select a number of colors across the RGB palette based on some kind of numerical input like temperature, stock price, ambient noise level, etc. This circuit is more of a proof of concept idea to see if I can have the effect I want. It's not really suitable for powering/controlling multiple sets of lights away from the base station. Please comment and tell me what you think of the idea and the design and such. And I realize the design is probably flawed and needs more work, I whipped this up this afternoon on a whim, it is far from done.

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Tom, Danny, Diana and I (behind camera) waiting for a table at Applebee's tonight after watching Stargate: Continuum. Good movie, and as I write this we're still waiting!

Here is a shot of my new case!

This is the case I got. It isn't the official RIM case but it has the sleeper magnet and a much sturdier metal not-swivel clip. Since it is also a horizontal holster it solves the problem of needing a swivel clip for comfort. Plus it's nice to not have the same style case as "everyone else".

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Look, its me... I just wanted to post from the BlackBerry!

Awesome Day :)

Today was a good one in my book, went to Warped Tour, saw some cool bands and got a shit load of free stuff. Met up with some friends and spent most of the day doing random stuff at the concert, then later on mall hopping. Night swimming to top it all off, and I got to hang out with people that I never get to see anymore which was a plus.

Now that I'm home, I just watched something that made my night all the more sweeter, a spectacular loss by none other than......you guessed it...the Mets. Way to go champs, you just made my whole day even better, nothing makes me happier than seeing you guys get pwned in the bottom of the 14th inning. Now that I'm happy and have made this random post, I'm off to bed.

P.S. If anyone is a Mets fan on this site, no offense to you...just can't stand your team, sorry :P

Another picture...

I took this when we were getting ready to cut the final custom piece for the corner of the wall. We were almost done at this point.

Taking care of business...

Working overtime. We're halfway done with this wall. Time for the sheetrock.

Someone break a pipe?

Ok, I have a confession to make, don't laugh. At the age of 20, I have my drivers license but am still so inexperienced with driving that I might as well not have it. I don't own a self-moving car and I don't drive often enough that my parents even want me driving alone just yet. In fact, I've managed to avoid any bad weather driving since my accident a year and a half ago. So I've decided its about time I get back to driving so I can actually not be dependent on everyone else.

So Dad had to make a stop at a relatively decent distance from here and decided to pass the keys on to me. It went more or less fine, but on the way to the car I noted a stiff wind. After about five minutes on the road, we hit some stop and go traffic and then it started raining.

And when I say raining I mean pouring, with the wipers at full power I still couldn't see three feet in front of me. It got so bad my Dad, a seasoned driver, wouldn't even drive in it, so we pulled off and put on the flashers and waited for the storm to pass. I was relieved at this, because I was not a fan of trying to stay in the lines in a veritable river of a road, while avoiding the various lit blurs moving rather wildly around me. It also confirms my suspicions that people are undeniably stupid. Once the weather let up I got on my way, made it to our destination, did what needed to be done and started the return trip. We get mostly the way back, down to a fork, I could either take the long winding Patchouge-Holbrook road around behind my house and then up to it, or I could follow Portion down and take the straight shot south to my house. Since we took Patchouge-Holbrook up, I opted to take the slightly longer route down Portion back. Not even three seconds after I passed the turn, it started pouring again. This time it was too close to home to pull over so I had to ride it out. All I have to say is that I now can park blindly on the driveway with nothing but a blurry wet outline to go by.

So that was my adventure for the day. I just can't wait for Winter....

Oops.

I just noticed this ugly crack in my laptop's shell. I suspect when the bag ripped it had a closer encounter with the ground them I originally thought. Oh well. As a side note the weird high pitched buzzing noise my ThinkPad had on battery appears cured. I wonder if that is related...

It's clicking at me!

My faithful iPod has started acting weird, as of early this morning, the device crashed and refuses to power up, showing me the Sad iPod face accompanied by audible clicking from the hard drive. Now my first thought was, "oh no the hard drive is shot" but after careful testing, and playing around in the internal diagnostics, I've determined that the battery being bad is more likely the culprit, as it seems like the device cannot get far enough in its startup sequence to negotiate more power out of the USB port. A lack of power would prevent the disk from properly spinning up and locking the arm in place, and thus prevent boot. It also explains why the Sad iPod face kind of fizzles out after a few moments, like the LCD is losing power, and then it switches to the "Please Wait, Very Low Battery" screen. All symptoms point to a severely exhausted power cell, and I intend to fix this by using the cigarette light adapter I borrowed from Matt Franklin to power the sucker off a car, hopefully that will rejuvenate it enough to at least hang off the USB port for power while I determine if the battery is really FUBAR or if this is a fluke. Comments appreciated! Using a power supply that doesn't need any kind of confirmation before opening the floodgates should eliminate this problem.

UPDATE:
The car charger was ineffective at resolving the problem, so I'll be dissecting the iPod soon, but at this point it's academic. I've committed to purchasing this for my new BlackBerry when I get it next week and it will replace the iPod as portable music player simply because it's already in the budget (I can't afford a new iPod) and because it's one less device to carry. I will post photos of the disassembly and see if I can revive the iPod.

I cant escape this hell......

So many times Ive tried, but Im still caged inside. (title courtesy of three days grace - the animal ive become)

Ill preface this rant by saying that i try not to have my thoughts sound like they popped from the twisted mind of a lost emo kid, doesnt always work.

As night falls I sit here in the silence and find myself grasping at the same straws, haunted by the same demons. No matter how good or shittastic my day has been it always seems to end the same way, at least in recent times. Sitting here in front of my computer dreaming of what seems to be unattainable, at least for now. I feel time escaping me, 21 years gone by in what feels like the blink of an eye. 21 years is a long time, too long for some things, far too short for others! I've been feeling like my life needs a jumpstart, but what (or who) and when? Stuck in the monotony of life i often question could this be it? Is this how its suppose to be for the rest of my life? Will i ever truely find happiness? Yes, I know these questions can only be answered in time but what if time is the enemy? I guess in some small part thats why one of my tattoos will read "tempus fugit" the latin proverb meaning literally "time flees". The general message I meant to express through this tattoo was cherish the time you have w/ those you care about, for you never know when it will end. Some say tattoos are nothing more then a fad, something to give you bragging rights or make you feel important. However i feel they should hold a deeper meaning, a timeless reminder of something or someone special in your life, that which you don't want to forget nor are you ashamed to show the world its importance. Im truly not sure what to think or hope for these days, Im beginning to wear down and loose faith....in everything. The true question is why? Am i just torturing myself over nothing? Am i stuck in the past, the could haves, the what ifs, just afraid to move on?

I did something today that i haven't done in a long time, i bought a book. While at its root this really isn't anything to brag about, in some small way it prompted this rant. The book "the dangerous book for boys" is an awesome source of random, yet useful info that the authors deemed "shouldn't be forgot", and thus far I would have to agree. However awesome, little bits and pieces got me thinking, which snowballed into part of this. Why is it that when we were kids, time seemed to be in an abundance? Those long afternoons after school of playing cops and robbers, chillin in a tree house, riding a bike, kicking around a soccer ball? Did we just grow out of that time of imagination? The possibilities were endless, time was irrelevant, every moment was an adventure. Since departure from highschool its all been slowly changing, or has it? "When your a man, you realize that everything changes, but when your a boy, you know better." A sad reality that im not sure how to deal with.........

At this point in my life do i just need a long vacation or do i need a fresh start from everything? My life is complicated, always has been, hell probably always will be. But how do you escape that which makes you who you are?

For those of you reading this who know me and are probably wondering if you should worry, don't. Im discontent with life, most of you know that. It is what it is, for now i float from one day to another, hoping this one will be better then the last.

-Dj Biggs

Quick update on the light.

It is complete now. Just need to patch up the dirt around it. Holy frick it is bright though.

This is what I did today

Dad and I put up the new lightpost. Here it is mostly complete waiting for the cement to set. Already checked out the power. It's all working. Wasn't bad, just hot and now my back is killing me again. Shower and Advil time!

People Suck

Hey, well I'm gonna go ahead and rant about how humanity sucks, it might help me vent off some of this anger at all the bullshit thats been happening lately.
I work at American Roadside, its a burger place in Smithtown, and yesterday when I was waiting tables I had to deal with the largest, most impatient and greedy sea of humanity that I have ever seen. From 6 to 9, I didn't stop running from table to table, bringing food and other crap back and forth, getting harassed by a bunch of little "badass" pre-teens that left a huge ass mess, and getting yelled at by people who are too impatient to wait 15 friggen minutes for food. I served God knows how many people, and when it finally calmed down and we got no more people after 9:30, I ended up with nothing in tips to boot. How stingy can people be? I'm running my ass back and forth, on a normal day I make a decent amount in tips, but the busiest day we have had in weeks, I get jack. It just annoys me how people can be rude, inconsiderate, and cheap on top of it.
I also realize just how lazy people can be, I bring out food to these kids, one of them says "O that's mine" and looks at me, like he expects me to pick the tray back up and move it 6 inches so I can put it in front of him. Are you kidding me? Pick up your own food and put it in front of your lazy ass, its 6 inches away from you, do I need to feed you too? Worst of all he got pissy when I didn't put it in front of him, but at that point I was too busy and too pissed of to really care.

And now, the next day, my day off, I get dragged from my dad's to my mom's, where I expect it's because of a birthday we are supposed to celebrate here today......but no....it's to effing clean.
I'm just about done with people and their laziness, inconsideration, and just overall bullshit. I just thank God I'm almost done with this job for the summer. I can't stand much more of human stupidity at this point.
Alright....sorry about that...needed to vent a little....I think I'm good now. I'm sure this at least amused Biggs and Matt, so it's cool. I'm gonna go and clean some more *groan*...can't believe I have to do this today, anyway, I'll post again soon, hope you liked my crazy ranting explosion just now :)

Why I am still awake...

I will never know why I am still awake, I ran out of code to weave hours ago, I'm just sitting here goofing around. This is what I look like super super tired.

So, I saw the Dark Knight the other evening with Diana, it was epic. It was every bit as incredible as the hype led us to believe and better. Heath Ledger (RIP) played an excellent Joker with a perfect balance of humor, shock and evil, it's a shame he will never be able to do the part again. The story just kept delivering, right until the very end. More than once I braced myself for applause and credits before realizing the movie wasn't yet over. They handled multiple storylines in a row perfectly, allowing the connection to be apparent without being too blatant, and did the whole thing without making it feel dragged out at all. It was more than
worth the extra money we spent on the preorder tickets.

As far as the parade of computers, one I got out of here and on its merry way home, the other is on deck to be fixed tomorrow, I have a pretty good idea what needs to be done, so it won't be much of a problem. Then I need to put everything back together and get it all running again. Oh, and I've gotten the dates for the Disney trip, so I will start getting prepped to handle the photoblogging, though its mostly a need of getting the right equipment to transfer photos from my camera on the fly, as the built in camera will only suffice for some pictures. Alright, that about wraps it up for me, I'm gonna try to get some sleep now that I've channeled my insomnia in to something!

If this is hell......

Wheres the hand basket?

I feel i should warn those who may read this blog on a semi regular basis, out of our little crew here my posts will probably be the most twisted! Im stuck in my own little purgatory with a shit load swimming through my head, that which is suitable for here I will post. As for the rest , who knows.

Now while having a conversation w/ one of my co-workers today he made a comment about how myself and one of the other apprentices (who's a young guy like myself) should be "tapping" all the younger females (most of which i think are in their 20's) that work for the company. He continued by saying we're too particular about who were with. Now this didnt really sink in till a little while later when i was on my way home, I see many holes w/ this argument. First of all what happened to the days where relationships actually had value (generally speaking), is it wrong that i would much rather wait for a relationship based on actually having something in common other then just meaningless sex? Secondly, since when did becoming a "man-whore" become a past time? Honestly, as a society have we degraded that much and become so vain that the value of a relationship is based solely on how good the sex is? Now I'll admit that for any number of reasons my opinion could be considered slightly biased, but never the less i still dont see why such a heavy value is based on random casual sex. The very phrase casual sex seems like one big contradiction to me, but Im just one guy voicing his opinion. What happened to the days where being an all around nice guy was more important then your "experience"? Now at this point i could probably continue for a dam long time , but i think i got my main point across. Simply put, call me crazy but i think im one of the few single guys my age looking for a long term relationship rather then a one night stand or "friends w/ benefits" situation.

Now moving on to a lighter topic, movie review time. Now the movie "Dark Knight" is w/ out a doubt one of the most anticipated movies of the summer. As follow up movie to "Batman Begins", it was expected to top the level of badass in the first movie and boy does it deliver. The movie begins about a year or so after the first one ends. Gotham city is in a state of revival, their "hero" batman continues his work to crack down on the criminals. The new DA Harvey Dent is cracking down on the corrupt criminals and politicians like no tomorrow. All seems to be well, until the "Joker" rolls into town. A ruthless B.A.M.F w/ no obvious purpose aside from causing chaos rises from the shadows to bring the city to its knees. Now for the character of the joker, they could not have chosen a better actor then Heath Ledger, in this his final film he brings a strange balance of devilish humor wrapped in a kickass persona. This role was deff a make or break for the film and it deff made it epic! Without getting into too much detail, you quickly realize that all the main characters are nothing more then pawns in the jokers twisted game of anarchy. By the time all the pieces fall, some are dead, others are presumed dead and the city is in ruins again. In the end the city has lost their "true hero", lost hope, and now has a few more "villains" to deal with. And yes "true hero" and "villain" are in quotes for a reason. Overall a deff must see, great movie w/ a supreme balance of action, drama, and some well placed humor.

Thats all for now, im outtie 5000

-Dj Biggs

Parade of computers.... That aren't mine.

Both of these computers got literally dumped in my arms today to be fixed. I'm out of room to sleep now.... That kinda sucks a bit.

Is he too sexy?

Tom thinks he is too sexy for this coat.

Mobile Photoblogging with Email Posting!

Here is a quick how to I wrote up on how to set up email posting and use it to go photoblogging from your phone.

Step one - Enable email posting

Go to your Dashboard, then to Settings, then Email. On this page you need to pick a secret word which will make up part of the Blogger email address. Make this good, and don't worry about complicated, you can lock it up in your address book later. Also, I recommend selecting immediate posting because its not really mobile blogging if you have to use the computer to make it show up. If you're worried about ne'er-do-wells hijacking your blog then your secret word isn't good enough :) If you are really worried put your phones primary email (usually its your phone number @ carrier address, like mine is @vtext.com for Verizon) in the upper box and you'll get a confirmation of every post made this way.

Step two - Save the secret address to your phones contacts

Since this address is so complicated and secretive, you might as well save it to your phones contact list! Do this however you do it...I hope you know your own phone by now :)

Step three - Send post by MMS message

Using your phones MMS feature is the best way in my mind to post, even if you don't attach a photo, since you still get subject and body fields separate, which is important because the subject field is the title of the post and the body is the contents. Attach a photo if you want, it will appear at the beginning of your post before all the writing, after the title. Make sure to tail the body with #end so none of the usual provider advertising gets posted. (You know, this message was sent using Verizon blah blah). Also if you have an email capable phone (Palm Treo, BlackBerry, etc) feel free to just use email, as this usually lets you attach larger/more images to a post! Don't forget to use #end though!

Step four - Enjoy!

Now you can mobile photoblog to your journal at no added cost, enjoy! And be sure to remember to keep the address safe!

Broken laptop bag

Slung my bag over my shoulder on the way to work this morning and it just snapped. I really liked this bag but I guess it's time to move on..

[update]
Called up Targus, told them what happened and they arranged to have me send in the ripped bag for a free replacement. Nice.

Welcome to my little corner of reality.......

Hola, sub-humans of the interwebs.....

Im Dj Biggs, the second brainchild of that witty little piece known as nothing but mammals.
Im a 21 year old guy still trying to sort out his path through life, all while hitting any speed bump possible. As with my views expressed through the podcast, most of what i say will be raw, uncut, and what ever the hell is floating around in my head at the time. If it offends you, shit happens (unless i consider you a friend, in that case please dont take my bitching and moaning to heart. Because theres a good chance it has little to no reference to you). This being my "intro" post i wont send you running and screaming....yet (but dont worry there will be plenty of time 4 that later). I almost forgot, if your expecting perfect grammer, stuff it! A side effect of the internet age is all this shorthand "lingo" that just continues to add to the death of the english language, some of which i happen to use frequently!. Now that all that has rolled off the tongue, in all honesty I may be serious w/ some of my posts but most of it is just gonna be my form of entertainment to myself. If you cant keep yourself laughing, no one can.......then your just fucked!


Alright, i think that enough for this current moment. More to come in the future.........

One more test of the email photobloggery stuff...

Just to make sure it works... The attached photo is totally about me and my girlfriend :) Yoinked from http://www.xkcd.com/433/
[edit]
Did it again! Gotta remember that #end!

Mobile photo post test!

This is my desk as I set up and test email posts for my photoblogging adventures!
[edit] I just clipped off all the VZW cruft there, forgot to mark the end of the post! But it works from my cell phone so it should work fine from my BlackBerry when I get it next week! This is cool.

Hey

Hey, name's Diana, gonna be a new blogger here in the Matt Cave. I'm currently home for the summer, but am starting my sophomore year at Iona College in the fall. I just turned 19 bout a month ago, interests are movies, music, hanging out, all that good stuff...and of course my amaztastic awesome boyfriend Matt <3 if your on this site I'm sure your familiar with him. Gonna post random stuff about the happenings in my random life, hope you enjoy :)

Nothing but Mammals

So my friend Tom Bigelow and I have decided to have a podcast... webshow.... whatchamacallit for fun and such. We're calling it Nothing but Mammals and the first episode is ready to go, you can download it here. Let us know what you think at the contact emails in the show, or by comment here! Or on our Facebook group here.

Enjoy!

Summary:
Nothing but Mammals is a show about nothing. Specifically nothing specific. We pick something about life that tends to be a topic of great debate and let everyone hear our spin on it. This is unrehearsed and with the sarcasm dialed up to full, so listen as we bash the world and everyone in it!

All that work…

(Reposted from old blog)

….and I’m switching blogs in one of my classic impromptu switches. I backed up the original site and moved it to a safe place. Now I’m going to use that as just a blog, hosted by me published by blogger. The reasons are outlined here and the new blog is here.

New software

I've decided to use Google/Blogger here instead of the Quick-Install WordPress my hosting provider (GoDaddy.com) gave me. I liked WordPress but I found myself not wanting all the control and frankly, the responsibility. Plus I found it exceedingly difficult to be able to mobile blog to it, the solutions I found were all incomplete and lacked a simple way to add images. I'll slowly be reposting everything from the old blog here, but until that happens it will still be active at http://themattcave.org/wordpress/ so you can go there to get your fix!

Also if someone knows of some way to import WordPress postings in to Blogger that would be wonderful.

You may notice this site is in place of my old site. Its all backed up and I may revisit it in the future, but I only ever updated the blog and I got too many complaints about the logo, color scheme and style. So it's gone...for now.

I win!

(Reposted from old blog)

I just reactivated Akismet and its like night and day, its catching spam by the second… And I was able to re-enable email alerts on comments and I can now look at the moderation queue without getting shell shocked.

Of course I had to flush 23000+ spam out of the queue, it was such a mammoth job I did work directly on the database, WordPress brain surgery if you will. Hopefully there will be no lasting after effects of that. I took out the entire queue, then I nuked all comments from hotmail addresses as that took out 95% of the spam that got through, sorry if one of my readers used a hotmail address to post here. Hopefully it won’t be a problem anymore. Once I took out the bulk of it with phpMyAdmin I went right ahead and pruned the rest through WordPress. Whoo.

Magnets and Radiation….

(Reposted from old blog)

So in response to me complaining about both chronic migraine headaches and back pains that rival the Great Wall of China in magnitude, my doctor had recommended I go for a head scan MRI and a back X-ray….did those today. And I hated it.

The X-rays weren’t bad, I had to don lead lined pants to protect the boys, but otherwise it was a lot of uncomfortable postures in front of a machine that kept irradiating me for the sake of diagnosis. But that came second, first came the MRI.

Now I knew ahead of time that these machines can be cramped, but I wasn’t prepared for having my head caged in and padded to immobility, nor did I anticipate the rather echo-y sound my panicky breathing made in the machine. Luckily I was given headphones or I would have completely lost it. I am in fact mildly claustrophobic and this was not my favorite adventure in the whole wide world. To make matters worse while listening to low quality music on the headphones I was greeted to a loud, abrupt Windows error sound and angry mumbles from the doctor running the machine. That definitely did not help my apprehension and I nearly aborted the scan right there. However I let him finish it and have shiny pictures of my head to show for it.

Speaking of, here are some of them: Scans of my head

Preview of things to come...

(Reposted from old blog)

All I’m going to say is this is your warning that Tom and I are cooking up something downright scary…

Sound check

Power problems yesterday...

(Reposted from old blog)

So about, maybe 15 minutes after my last post there was a loud crash, followed by that unnerving electrical buzzing and then darkness. Some idiot met our telephone/power delivery pole with his car, then peeled out, making it a hit and run while our transformer gave quite a convincing, if overly dramatic delivery of its death scene.

The good news, after calling 911 we had power back in an hour, the transformer actually shut itself down to prevent a complete overload. The bad news, the pole was so badly cracked and the wires pretty cooked, that it warranted replacing. So we had the block coned off all afternoon while the guys from LIPA put up a new pole and transferred the system over, cutting off our power for another 90 minutes during the transition. At least we got a warning that time

A byproduct of my nerdiness, I was awake when the pole got hit and had my Mini-Maglite in my pocket. So I was out there in a second scouting for fallen wires. At least I wasn’t barefoot like my father

Testing!

(Reposted from old blog)

In anticipation of my Disney moblogging adventure I’ve decided to install WordPress Mobile, a plugin to make the admin page mobile device friendly. This post coming at you from my Dell Axim X30!

Checking in...

(Reposted from old blog)

Summer has been crazy, so I haven’t been working on my personal projects as much, which means I’m not updating as much, but two things are going to change that, well actually one thing…sort of…

First, I’m up for my Verizon upgrade on the 25th and I’ll be buying myself a BlackBerry(tm) smartphone. After much thought I’ve decided I’m going to go with the BlackBerry Curve 8330 model, as it has all the goodies I want (3.5 mm audio jack instead of headset jack, a camera instead of VZW crippled GPS, etc).

This sucker will be replacing my damaged Samsung A870 phone, and my aging and damaged Dell Axim X30 PDA. I swear neither damage was my fault. The phones outer display froze in a freak ice rain storm at school and the PDAs memory card slot was damaged by an uninformed friend of mine deciding her Sony MemoryStick was going in there whether or not it wanted to.

Anyway, this means I’ll be posting about it a lot once I get it and figure out all its cool toys, current plans for it include:

• Mobile blogging, which is where my next bit of news comes in
• Streaming internet radio through the Moodio project
• Mobile Instant Messaging and SMS, and obviously email
• 8GB of extra flash memory so I can carry this in place of my iPod most of the time
• Beyond 411
• Viigo for RSS feeds

I’ll be running on Verizon’s consumer BlackBerry(tm) Internet Service plan, which is an additional $29.99 a month for “Unlimited” data usage. There are rumors that it gets capped at 5GiB but as I’m not going to using the device as a tethered cellular modem I find it so unlikely I’ll hit that much data in a single month that I’m not terribly concerned.

Now on to the other exciting news… Thanks to my girlfriend and her father, I’m going to be joining them on a vacation to the Walt Disney World resort in early August, and I intend to photoblog the entire trip here using the camera and mobile broadband internet access the BlackBerry(tm) has. So expect lots of activity, pictures and posting as I finally cut the last of my cords and go truly wireless!