Today Today Today

Posted by HELiX

Today — yes today — 13th of March 2007, is perhaps one of the most eventful days ever.

I’m not — or at least I don’t think so — much of an emo person. Some of my days have ups and downs, but nothing like today. Quantitatively, it was LIEK WHOA.

For certain superficial reasons, I’m intentionally leaving out one major event of today to blog in the next post, more… privately. Ask me on MSN for the password. AHAHA.

Let’s put today into some perspective.

There was this… Sputnik Camp organised by ACJC. I was dragged in last minute to help, although I ain’t in the school. Nah it’s perfectly fine with me.

It’s basically a camp organised by the Science Council. The camp tries ever so hard to have a mere linkage to Science but fails to do so terribly. Instead, the camp could be describe like this:

A camp promoting ACJC.

A revised edition with more than 100% increase in content goes like this:

A camp promoting ACJC to MGS girls and miscellaneous schools.

And one of the more attractive points to us organisers was the truth in the second definition. Let’s see… it’s like, 80-90% MGS turnout? NO I’M NOT IMPLYING ANYTHING HERE DAMMIT >.>

Yeah so just like that. I rotted the whole morning, and a good deal of the afternoon. We were supposed to do the Treasure Hunt towards the late afternoon. Dong Wei had everything planned out nicely.

And perhaps nice is also the word that could describe how well it screwed up. We have groups taking the wrong clues, and more groups taking the wrong clues. And… let’s just say it didn’t turn out well, overall.

And yeah, that’s a down.

After the whole camp, we finally — no, I mean FINALLY — get to leave. Right in the middle of a heavy downpour. And like, we just walk through the heavy rain, yah. Going home drenched isn’t my type of fun.

And yeah, that’s a down as well.

Oh wait- I forgot about this!

UM.

Okok.

I can’t believe this. That’s why I try not to think about it. And that’s why I forgot.

…After 3 years, 8 consecutive championships, and 13 golds…

BP Astro lost.

Which is utterly..

OK. Let’s face it. I expected it.

Call me a pessimist, but it was merely being realistic.

I can go on about this. There’s a lot of talk about, particularly the flaming of people, but I don’t think I should do it so openly. But it shall be done.

Bye now.

Comments(0) 11:05 PM 3 March 2007

HELiXATED.COM v2.0 in Progress

Posted by HELiX

Still sick, so I’m rotting at home in front of the computer, which is no different from any other day in general.

Right. After about 4 months since I got this domain and using the same general skin and layout, it’s time for a change.

Yup. That’s right, I’ll be making an entirely new skin, not just replacing the banner.

FYI, the current skin took 2 weeks over the November holidays to create. It involves tons of HTML deciphering, photoshopping, debugging, flash designing, and even the torturous task of integrating the skin to work with Wordpress. But hey, it eventually worked out.

Now I’m gonna start on something completely from scratch. It might end up worse than the current one, but I think it might work out.

Some people asked how I acquire my HTML skills, or learn how to design blogskins and all that yada-yada of how geeky I am, so I’m gonna give a run-through as I progress on the new skin.

Today started off like this:

Then, you gotta… have ideas. These ideas can come from websites you visited before, so you just steal their idea, and add together a number of ideas from a number of websites you get a UNIQUE OVERALL skin. AHAHAHA.

Uh. Then you start on the HTML.

Different HTML coders have their own style, and I’m a Tables whore.

So basically, I see everything as tables, tables and more tables. I use both Dreamweaver and Frontpage to code the tables, and from there, just simply throw in images where necessary.

I’m still in the process of doing that, so… that’s all for today!

Comments(0) 5:46 PM 3 March 2007

So You Think You Are Ill

Posted by HELiX

Okay, get this:

My eyes are burning my contacts out.

My forehead might ignite my fringe any moment.

My throat wants to cough itself out.

My voice decided to take a holiday ahead of me.

My neck might be suitable for frying an egg.

My brain feels like it’s gonna go nuclear.

My nose doesn’t take in air anymore, but instead gives out an endless supply of some kinda liquid.

My mouth serves the sole purpose of taking medication.

And the rest of my body feels like Chernobyl.

…

Very exaggerated, but I hope that gives you the rough idea of what I’m going through.

Comments(0) 7:00 PM 3 March 2007

Crap, I don’t feel well.

Posted by HELiX

This morning I woke up with a flu, sore throat and cough. Happens, you know…

Perhaps it’s the anxiety of waiting for a damn call which is kinda promised and assured to me, but hasn’t came just yet. At any rate, the call has to come or my life is screwed. Nononoo, I won’t become emo right now.

But now, instead, I feel so sick. I spent my remaining bit of energy on crashing ACJC’s campfire, and now my body feels warmer than normal.

The Tesla Coil project is going at an incredibly slow pace, considering how I managed to spend $187 of my own money in a day. Some materials are missing here and there, and it all adds up to nothing that I can work with.

Well, that’s all I wanna blog about right now — I don’t feel well, so spare me.

Comments(0) 12:50 AM 3 March 2007

Lab@Home: Jacob’s Ladder

Posted by HELiX

EDIT: How can I forget. 200th entry! ZOMG, LIEK WHOA.

I did a Jacob’s Ladder a few days ago, didn’t really want to publish because I’m going to make a better one soon, but a short write-up for now.

What is a Jacob’s Ladder?

A Jacob’s Ladder is the type of high voltage “climbing arc” display seen in many old (and usually bad) Sci-Fi movies. Jacob’s Ladder come in all shapes, styles, and sizes.

How Does a Jacob’s Ladder Work?

The high voltages involved allows the electric current to leap through the air to a nearby contact point. The air acts as an dielectric, resisting the flow of electricity. When a high enough voltage is built up between two points, a spark jumps through the air like lightning. Through air, it takes about 1 thousand volts to jump 1.1mm. The voltage determines the distance the arc can first strike the other electrode. The current on the other hand determines the distance the arc can be drawn after it has connected the two electrodes.

The simple explanation is that an arc starts at the bottom and due to the fact that hot air rises, tends to move up the diverging rods until they are too far apart for the voltage provided by the power source.

While it is true that warm air pushes the arc up the ladder, there is also the typical ‘high leakage’ or reactance curve of the transformer contributing to the effect. The transformer will happily arc across the bottom as long as Paschen’s Law will allow. Once this arc is struck the current in the arc will actually increase to the transformer’s preset limit. The heat is also creating higher resistance.

Normally the transformer would try choke the voltage down as current increased. But just above the arc exists a path that the transformer can easily maintain and which in fact will lower its current.

At the top we are not only at the upper limit of the transformer but it is also where the current is very low and so all the fun breaks apart only to reignite down below.

WARNING:

A Jacob’s Ladder is extremely dangerous. Make sure no one should come into contact with one - particularly curious onlookers. The thousands of voltage involved can jump through a significant distance in the air to objects with sharp points and edges generally. This distance occaisionally varies unpredictably with humidity. The current of 30mA of a typical transformer is near lethal, if not worse.

Construction

There are only two major parts to a basic Jacob’s Ladder: a high voltage power source and a pair of metal rods arranged in a narrow V configuration on an insulated and fireproof support.

A few types of transformer can be used. Generally, amateurs look for a few types of transformers. These range from luminous tube transformers to microwave oven transformers, but I’m only going to comment on the type I use: Neon Sign Transformers.

Neon Sign Transformers (NSTs). They can be obtained from neon sign shops. The cost can be from $30 to over a $100, depending on the condition and ratings. They are generally ranged from 6kV to 15kV, with about 30mA. There are 2 kinds of Neon Sign Transformers, one of them is Iron cored and run at 50Hz, the other are the new smaller switchmode ones which run at 20kHz and are a lot lighter. The heavy iron-cored ones usually perform better.

The metal rods could be anything. A length of thick copper wire would do, so would thin copper pipes, and even the metal frame from old metal hangers.

The general design is as follows:

Just like that. As simple as it can get.

Testings

1st Attempt:

For the first attempt, I used the metal frame from old metal hangers. I removed the outer layer with a pair of scissors and some hard work. The metal was terribly rusty, so I spent quite some time sanding it.

I cut the metal frame into two lengths, and bent them to shape. They were held down to a plastic support with random weights I found around my house.

Nothing is tuned and adjusted to produce the best looking Jacob’s Ladder, but it’s just a proof of concept.

And power’s on!

Comments(0) 8:31 PM 3 March 2007

Beyond the Game

Posted by HELiX

Extremely coincidental.

I never did checked the WCG site for months, but somehow, today I got bored. So I took a look.

By an amazing coincidence, they updated their site, for the first time in many months, TODAY.

AHAHAA SO I’M LIKE THE FIRST IN SINGAPORE OR SOMETHING TO READ ABOUT IT.

Yeah-hoo indeed.

And YEAH, the selection of the games are up, along with all the yada-yada.

And BLEH, the selection of the games suck.

Eat this, DW and XJ and KH, it’s CS1.6 I believe. Lols.

And other than that, they have a sickening selection of RTS games, BUT I CAN’T PLAY RTS GAMES AT ALL. I mean like, how’d you do those 200+ apm stuffs?

Let’s see… Warcraft. Starcraft. AOE3. C&C3. And they have like what? 1 FPS Game? CS duh.

Interestingly enough, Singapore is ranked 23rd in the world for e-Sports by WCG.

Woots: We suck.

So now I can’t do pro gaming this year T_T

Comments(0) 1:42 AM 3 March 2007

The Lunar Eclipsed, by the @#$% Clouds

Posted by HELiX

So, yesterday, me, Rong’en, Dong Wei, Xin Jie, Damian and Sujay had an overnight stay at West Coast Park to watch the Total Lunar Eclipse.

It’s total, and it’s lunar. ZOMG LIEK WHOA.

It’s SUPPOSEDLY one of best of lunar eclipses in years, to quote American sources. It’s also an “Easy-to-See” event, to quote American sources again. Just cos the Americans have the eclipse timed nicely during their night, high up in the sky, while the folks in Asia gotta catch it in the ungodly pre-dawn hours, with the moon hovering somewhere slightly below the western horizon. Sickening hard to see with a azimuth of 7 degrees. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Let’s not talk about that first, but let’s talk about the hell I went through to get the 10-inch Meade LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope out from BP’s Physics Lab, into my Dad’s car, back home, into my home, stoned there, into the car again, and finally finding it’s way at West Coast.

Then again… I’m gonna lose visitors if I do that.

YAH SO ANYWAYS.

In chronological order, or perhaps no order at all because my memory’s messed up after having only 4 hours of sleep and playing with some kinda rotating thing at West Coast’s playground.

10.30pm - I met up with XJ. S’posed for everyone to meet at 10.15pm at West Coast’s Mac, and everyone’s fashionably late. Woohoo. Sky looks great.

10.45pm or so - Everyone reached, we left to find the observing location. XJ led us there, it indeed had a good unobstructed view of the west sky with BEAUTIFUL LIGHT POLLUTION FROM JURONG ISLAND THAT WOULD DWARF LAS VEGAS’. So, we carrying the equipments there. Yes, the entire 10-inch telescope.

11.15pm - We walked around West Coast Park aimlessly. The eclipse is going to start real soon in about 6 hours.

11.30pm - Walking around aimlessly turned into 16, 17 and 18 year old boys playing at West Coast Park’s playgrounds at midnight.

11.50pm - We got bored of the fun and ended up in Mac, and had to carry the 10-incher back into Mac again.

12am - We’re thinking, why are we wasting our life in Mac and me, Rong’en and Sujay went to the playground again to chit-chat. We climbed some… pyramidal rope structure (?), sat up there and talked. Clouds came rolling in…

I don’t know - We return to Mac and slept. Hmph. To each his own technique.

I lost track of time - I woke up, and dragged DW and XJ and Sujay to chit-chat at the playground. Sky sucked as bad as hell, just that I can only imagine how hell’s sky looked like.

4.30am - The Sky, amazingly amazing, CLEAR. ZOMG LIEK WHOA. We set off to Mac to get the equipments out.

5.30am - Telescopes finally ready, clouds came in again. We stand around and rot and lalalalala and trustmeyoudontwannaknowwhatelse.

6.45am - Peak of Eclipse, where full totality sets in, but it’s merely the middle of the attack of the clouds.

7.15am - Sky brightened, let’s go home. What a night.

Well, that’s basically to make the short story shorter.

But well, when it could’ve been completely unproductive, with us dragging the 10-inch around for no particular reason, photoshop saved the day! I took a couple of shots of the moon with my Nikon D70s prime focus on the 10-inch, and with some stitching and… uhh… picture restoration I’d like to call it, I got this! The lunar eclipses at roughly 3/4 towards totality, picture is a mosaic of 3 shots.

It’s the clouds, the damn clouds I tell you!

You may blame my poor astrophotography skillz, but here’s what I got years ago with the exact same setup and lesser experience:

NICE ONE LAH, STOOPID CLOUDS.

Comments(0) 9:44 PM 3 March 2007