Random crap with Uno.

[Unorthodox]

~$100....

It's quite tempting. 

[Buster's Uncle]

You do know that I'm a practicing miser, right?  I don't approve of reckless spending.

If it looks to your engineer's eye like a substantial mechanism that'll last, I say go for it.

[Unorthodox]

I'm asking folks that bought one last year.  See if I can get a shot of the actual mechanism, not all dolled up. 

We normally wind up getting a discount at that store as well, so I'd wait for that to get it down to the $60 range. 

[Unorthodox]

To give you a frame of reference, here's the industry standard of how to do this:

http://youtu.be/de_VRUkbiwI

Such a mechanism runs $200+, requires a compressor, controller, and trigger to be added.


The Spirit one is running electrical actuator somehow, and has the trigger and controller included (but I would need to replace the trigger for my purposes)  The big question is does the electric actuator hold up?  There's also the reset speed being a concern to some degree. 

[Buster's Uncle]

If it would last, I think it's very safe to assume you'd get $60 worth...

[Unorthodox]

More info:

The Spirit spider is SPRING driven, the electric motor is only used to reset the device.  This is actually good news for longevity.  I'd want a way to turn down the delay between release and motor activation if possible, though.  This also means weight is not much an issue with the device, you could adjust springs to compensate for a heavier item being thrown. 


I almost want to get one just so I can reverse engineer the thing. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I kinda figured that last...

[Unorthodox]

Marathon 6 hour session today... 


Goal of the day, get Trevor assembled...



We had him attached previously, but well, he was upside down.  So, after removing the old foam, getting the new little pedestal to get him sitting properly, I decided Great stuff was going to make a great adhesive for this project.

We cast some quick and dirty hands and feet forms from my sons'.  I'll have to sculpt some toes and SOME of the fingers, but the fingers are mostly going to be hidden by the 'cloth' that we will be adding. 

So, left arm down, left hand will be grabbing the 'cloth'.




Right are will be holding some cloth in modesty...



Great stuff knees to connect the Femur and Tibia, quick and dirty feet.



Thighs...



More great stuff to fill in a bit of meat to the bones. 




For some reason, getting this guy assembled, he's starting to creep me out just a bit...

[Buster's Uncle]

That's probably a very good sign.

[Unorthodox]

The boss has signed off on the spider...

Going to play wait and see right now, we normally get discounts to that store, and if the local stores get them in stock I can save shipping. 


Neighbor swears they can see Trevor breathing. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Good news on all fronts, then!

[Unorthodox]

Job offer today.  I turned it down, but nice to be thought of. 

Some 10 years ago, I got introduced to Sonny.  My dads 2nd cousin, so god only knows what that makes us. 

Anyhow, strange character.  Idiot.  Terrified of bigfoot. 

So, he got married to an artist that goes and makes real fancy versions of those light up reindeer and whatnot for christmas.  She makes anything and everything.  And, they were starting a business buildign a ton of those, setting them to music, and charging people to drive through the area. 

Got an entire campground/marina at a local reservoir (since no one is camping in Dec, no problem) and hired my older brother to install the sound. 

Well, after a couple years, he decided to expand the idea to Halloween.  And, as you may guess, it was suggested he come talk to me. 

Lets just say we did not agree on the artistic direction he was wanting to go.  NO ONE wants to go pay to drive through a christmas light show in October.  I suggested having his wife instead build and animate some characters we could skin instead of light up, and make a halloween themed 'dark ride' people could drive through, and had a set of plans for him at the time. 

They went the christmas light direction.  It utterly failed. 

Well, apparently last year, they took my plans and did the dark.  Ran into him at the gas station this morning, and he has advertisement for it plastered all over his truck.  Did better than their christmas lights and he wants to expand, and was hoping I would make him bigger and better plans. 

Well, I never got paid for the last time (that he didn't use at the time, so I was fine with it then) and he never paid my brother for the sound, either.  Not to mention several other endeavors that have similar complaints against this guy.  Too bad, it's a new field for the holiday in general, and that aspect interests me, but guy is bad news. 

Bonus:  Video of his christmas stuff.

http://youtu.be/-XSRB3X9HKE

[Buster's Uncle]

That would be be second cousin once removed.

[Unorthodox]

Didn't know if I should put this up in the 'research' sections.

Zombie outbreak.  Yeah.  For real.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/21/mysterious-zombie-disease-afflicts-thousands-of-ugandan-children/

Mysterious ‘zombie’ disease afflicts thousands of Ugandan children
By David Ferguson
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 12:52 EDT 904
Topics: Agnes Apio ♦ northern Uganda

 
Agnes Apio has to tie up her son Francis before she can leave the house. In his state, he is a danger to himself. Where once he walked and talked like a normal child, now he is only able to drag himself along in the dirt. Francis is suffering from “Nodding Disease,” a brain disorder that, according to CNN, afflicts at least 3,000 children in northern Uganda, leaving them physically stunted and severely mentally disabled.

“I feel dark in my heart,” Apio says as waves flies away from her son’s face and mops up his urine after a seizure, “This boy has become nothing.”

“Reportedly the children gnaw at their fabric restraints, like a rabid animals,” says The Daily Tech.  The article calls them “zombie children,” having “no cure” and “no future.”


First the victims become restless, can’t concentrate. They say they have trouble thinking. Then comes the nodding, an uncontrollable dipping of the head that presages the disease’s debilitating epilepsy-like seizures. It is this nodding motion that gives the illness its name.

Nodding Disease first attacks the nervous system, then the brain. As the epilepsy-like seizures progress and worsen, the children become less and less like themselves, and more and more distant and blank. Eventually the brain stops developing and the victims’ bodies stop growing. So far, no patients have recovered.

Grace Lagat also has to tie up her children in order to leave the house. Daughter Pauline, 13, and son Thomas are bound hand and foot to keep them from shuffling away and getting lost. Pauline recently disappeared for five days.

Experts are baffled as to what causes the disease, which only occurs in children. Early findings suggest a confluence of the presence of the black fly-borne parasitic worm Onchocerca Volvulus, which causes river blindness, and acute vitamin B6 deficiency.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, onset usually takes place at the age of five or six and progresses rapidly, leaving the victims severely mentally and physically handicapped within a couple of years.

Victims can wander off and disappear. Some 200 “secondary deaths” have been blamed on fires and accidents caused by children with the disease.


Physicians and workers with the Ugandan Red Cross are frustrated by what they see as a lack of urgency in the government’s handling of the disease. After months of lagging, officials have only begun an official tally of cases within the last two weeks.

The situation was already dire when a team from the World Health Organization visited northern Uganda in 2009. CNN quotes one doctor from the team, Dr. Joaquin Saweka as saying, “It was quite desperate, I can tell you. Imagine being surrounded by 26 children and 12 of them showing signs of this. The attitude was to quickly find a solution to the problem.”

Solutions, however, have been slow in coming.

Doctors have been treating the seizures caused by the disease with epilepsy drugs, but their efficacy is limited. The drugs only slow the progression of the disease, but fail to stop it.

Currently, Ugandan government officials say that they are doing everything they can to fight the epidemic. They say that new epilepsy drugs are being tried and special training has been instituted for local health officials. This, they say, is as much as can be done for a disease whose cause and cure are largely unknown.

Saweka said, “When you know the root cause, you address the cure. Now you are just relieving the symptoms. We don’t expect to cure anybody.”

Watch a CDC video about Nodding Disease, embedded via YouTube, below:

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't see why not - something where some science had taken place would be better, but still.



Your 2nd-cousin-once-removed-in-law's Christmas light thingies aren't bad, BTW, if you like that kind of thing.