Audio embedding tracks

Well, I think I've finally figured out how to embed audio well. Here's a test audio track that I made, it's not especially good as I made it up as I went along, but it'll do for a test.

One of the many reasons I don't work in the kitchen

I complimented my sister on her nice smiley faces...

(can't you see them?)

And was soundly berated that it was piping, bunting and drapes!

CPU benchmarking

A while back I posted a video about replacing my CPU cooler and overclocking my CPU. It's currently running at about 3.42 GHz. It was originally a 2.4 GHz CPU, so this is a substantial overclock, especially considering it's using a $20 air cooler! I have been testing it out and having fun with it, I downloaded SuperPi, and ran their benchmarks. Interestingly enough, I had the fastest Intel Core 2 Quad Q6000 series processor!

I ran both the 1M benchmark and the 32 M benchmark, and here's where they came int:

32 M: http://www.superpi.net/Scores/?action=searchScores&test=-12&vendor=&platform=&series=Core+2+Quad+Q6000+series&rpp=20

1 M: http://www.superpi.net/Scores/?action=searchScores&test=-7&vendor=&platform=&series=Core+2+Quad+Q6000+series&rpp=20

On the other hand, people with i7's and i5's are doing it in about half the time mine will, but that's a different matter. I did find it interesting that different CPU's with comparable clock speeds and memory could have such vastly different results. Another interesting thing to note was that my CPU was faster than the fastest AMD CPU! (It was a floating point test)

When we have company over...

When we have company over...

;D

My current 3d models

These are some of my better Blender renders. I created the top two from scratch myself from start to finish, and the asteroid was based off of Andrew Price's tutorial.

Here's a satellite I made in Blender from start to finish. It's for Project 2.6, and this is the current render.

Here's a quick piano render I did one morning. It's not very good, and there's one obvious flaw visible right off! But, overall once I finish it I think it will look nice. 

Below is an asteroid I made in space. At some point I plan to make it collide with the satellite!

Audio system

I'm a bit of an audiophile, and was pretty excited when I got a chance to take home for a day a real honest-to-goodness Mcintosh amplifier! This is my current audio setup:

30 Watt Mcintosh amp

2 Polk monitor 40 speakers in parallel

Close up of the driver tube

Mcintosh amp end view

If you are wondering why the speakers are stacked on top of each other, and in parallel it's because this is a monoblock amplifier, and I only have one :( It still sounds great though. I've got the two eight ohm speakers connected in parallel so I could connect them to the four ohm tap on the amp. This is what I have been working on at my job, and I got to take it home to listen to it once I had fixed it. It had been rewired to some weird design with horrible distortion, and I had to rewire it to the original Mcintosh schematic, which took a while, and then I had to go through and troubleshoot what I did wrong, which took significantly longer!

At any rate, I've run hundreds of audio tracks through it in the short time I've been listening to it, and it sounds great! Now I have to take it back tomorrow...     ; /

Interesting computer

One of the more unusual and coolest computers I've seen in a while:



Click the picture to see more!

End of swim season slideshow

For the end of the Summer swim season team banquet I made a slideshow. I did it a little differently this year, and I like how it came out for the most part. The photos were all taken by me or my father. We showed it with a projector, and I set up my speakers for the sound track. It seemed to be popular, and I enjoyed making it. Here it is:

My submarine...

Many years ago... (well when I was about 8), I thought it would be really neat to have a submarine. So, I of course 'designed' one:

Fairfax cleanup

This slideshow details Fairfax response to the large storms recently that took out most of the area's power.Derecho Storm Response

View more presentations from Fairfax County

Wind up car

My sister wants a car with a wind up key in the back; http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol09/?folio=153#pg155, so when we actually saw one I had to take a photo:

(Also evidence of why I never use phone cameras if possible, though we were moving)

4th of July 2012!

For the 4th of July this year we went to our grandparent's farm. They live by the water, and they have some neighbors who put on a great fireworks show each year. It was lots of fun, and here are some of the photos I took:

(Slideshow, and the individual photos are below)

My first lightning photo!

The reflections in the water really add a lot.

They had a really cool machine fireworks gun that they could aim. 

All photos CC-0 by the way.