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Today I gave some navy blue Rit dye a try.  The parts looked good after only 10 SECONDS!

Cutting the test blocks in half with a bandsaw revealed that the dye took only to the outer surfaces.  There appears to be some bleeding into the centers, but a closer inspection shows that the dye leaked in through tiny holes in the part.  The most noticeable was the part that was soaked for 45 minutes.  The dye leeching into the part slowly over time explains why that one stopped floating and sank.

Perhaps with some additional SkeinForge tweaking I can get my prints to be completely watertight.

Twin Cities Maker ordered 5 lbs of white abs along with our makerbot.  I’m aware that the MakerBot Store currently sells colored abs, but 5 lbs of white is nearly a lifetime supply and my method allows for more colors.  While Rit dye is relatively safe don’t use any cookware that will be used for food ever again, and be careful as it will stain just about anything.  I’m told that bleach will remove it from white sinks, counter tops, etc. but I can’t guarantee it will, so try to be careful.

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War Again by Balkan Beat Box off of their new album blue eyed black boy.  Reminds me of a southeastern European Black Eyed Peas.

So remember that batch of cider I started a few weeks ago?

Sorry the photos are still rotated weird.  They look fine on my computer, but as soon as I upload them something happens.

Here’s what happens next:

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2. Scrobble (Scrobbl for 3.0+)

See to the right over there? —>

The last 10 songs I listened to, that comes from last.fm a free music service that tracks the music you play and is able to do many things.  It has an online radio portion to it that many people swear by, even over Pandora.  However, my favorite part is that by tracking your songs it is able to give you recommendations based on what other people listening to the same music also like. (continue reading…)

This is the first of a series of posts I am planing to write on why I love my jailbroken iPhone so much more than a vanilla , out-of-the-box device.

1. Music Controls

Music Controls is probably my favorite app in the Cydia app store.  If you don’t know what Cydia is, don’t worry I’ll have a post on it later, but basically it’s the app store for jailbroken phones.

My first real disappointment with my phone was the inability to run anything but the core apps in the background.  So while I could listen to anything from my ipod while surfing the web or sending a text message, if I wanted to listen to Pandora, I had to stay in the Pandora app and was unable to do anything else.  If I got a text, or an email, I had to quit it.  So as soon as the 3GS was jailbroken I hopped on the train and my first stop was Backgrounder.  This app allows you to run any app in the background, while it worked for what it was meant to do, it also caused problems for me in other functions of my phone.  Mostly not being able to turn it on occasionally requiring me to reboot the device.  I’m pretty sure that this problem has been fixed by now, and Backgrounder is a great app, but the only thing I really needed to run in the background were music apps.  While searching for a fix to the freezing problems I came across Music Controls and have been so happy with it I never went back. (continue reading…)

Gogol Bordello – Live From Axis Mundi

Having seen Gogol live, I like this album very much.  I love comparing the two versions of “Start wearing purple” that were released on different albums, and now I can compare the album versions of songs to these live ones.

If you’ve never heard of gogol, well… you should have. (Here’s a good place to start) Where else can you get your daily dose of gypsy punk?  Yeah. I thought so, NOWHERE!

Here’s a quick overview on how to make your own 5 gal batch of cider.  I may or may not post more in-depth description of some of the steps, leave comments on what you’d like to see.

What you need:

5 gallons of juice – I like to use Indian Summer apple cider, its only ingredient is apple juice, no preservatives.

Some extra sugar (optional, to raise alcohol content) – I used 4 cans of apple juice concentrate, plenty of sugar, not much extra water.

Yeast – I used a starter made with the sediment from the bottom of one of my bottles of cider and 1 of the cans of concentrate, left on my stir-plate for about 48 hours until it started bubbling, if you can’t make a starter, I recommend Wyeast labs #4766.  My starter is a 3rd generation of that strain.

First step, clean and sanitize your container and add your first gallon of juice:

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So if I’m going to renew my hosting I’m gonna need to get more use out of it that just hosting photos like I have been for the last couple months.  I’ve got several things to write about so check back soon.