Racer -- Driving Simulator

I hate to admit it, but I'm hooked on a video game.

Ok, maybe "video game" is too strong a term. It's not a video game. It's a simulator. A car simulator, to be precise. It's a beta version, it's a community effort, and it's free. Here's the URL:

http://www.racer.nl

Right now I'm running 0.5.3b16, which is an astounding piece of work. The simulator itself only comes with one track and one car (two cars now, I think) but hundreds of cars and tracks are available from other people in the Racer community.

The physics of the simulation is quite good. Maybe that's what attracts me to it. I've downloaded some cars I've actually driven, and by and large they drive the way the real car does (except that I'm using a mouse -- Racer supports most force feedback wheels and pedals, but I don't own any.)

It's possible to bend the laws of physics with this thing (for crying out loud, someone made a Lego car), but for the most part people have gone after real vehicles rather than "what-if" cars.

I finally got good enough at driving to record my first AI line on a track. Once you think you've got a pretty good line with a given car, you can record a lap and use it to feed acceleration and steering PID loops inside the simulator. At that point you can race against yourself, or against other people.

My first AI lap was in a Ferarri F1 car at Watkins Glen. Woohoo! I can still beat it, given the same car, but that's just a matter of beating it, recording a new one, beating it again, etc.

It's bad just how addictive this thing is. I find myself wanting to develop cars and tracks for it, but deep down I know I won't. I do enjoy 3D modeling. I do enjoy tweaking physics until something is just right. But I also enjoy reading, writing, machining, hand tool work, etc. I could devote a year to developing cars and tracks, and considering the learning curve on the software involved, I doubt I'd impress anyone, least of all myself.

I really would like to make one track, though: The drive to work. It involves paved roads, half paved roads (you call that a road?!) and dirt roads. I'd like to see what it's like to drive to work in a cutting-edge World Rally Championship car. Hey, for that matter I'm curious how some of these high-end race cars perform on dirt!

We'll see if that project ever gets off the ground. Probably not. Still, it's a thought.

Pencil

Hold the Torches

I didn't get to do torch work with my friend. Not yet, anyway. They called in sick that night, and I started feeling pretty rotten shortly after. Last night they were back in their shop doing settings, so I'm hoping we can get together to do rings later.

I took some time to clean out my own shop over the weekend. My material storage area has been an absolute disaster for over a year. I feel like such a hypocrite when I tell people how important it is to keep your shop clean, organized, and ready for action, when areas of my own shop look like the results of urban saturation bombing. But no more! Everything's sorted, everything's organized, and I found out I had way more Delrin and Perspex than I thought I did. I also have more Nylon than I ever care to use. The stuff is horrid to cut.

I feel pretty good about the Delrin. One of the people at work did some destructive testing on Delrin acting as a thrust bearing with a stainless rotator. It took enormous loads (upwards of 100 PSI at 240 RPM) to put it into a regime where it underwent permanent damage. In this case the Delrin melted into a blob. So now in addition to being an absolute joy to work with, I also have second-hand empirical evidence that its bearing properties are highly respectable.

Which brings me to another project I now have no excuse not to do: For years I've been wanting to put a camera up on a kite and take pictures. No, scratch that. I want to put a camera up on an articulated mount on a kite. Scratch that. I want to put up a highly adaptable articulated camera mount... no... You can see how the project has taken on a life of its own.

I have a 6-channel RC transmitter and receiver, and four servos. I have the necessary gears to build gear trains to get true 90 degree rotation out of each axis (except for the azimuthal axis, which should give me 360). I have cameras. I have a shop. Now that I know I can make all the bushings out of Delrin, the one thing I don't have is an excuse. I can build it. Now I just need to design it.

So once again the number of projects in my shop outstrips the amount of free time I have. And with the projects going on at work, keeping everything straight is getting tough.

I really do hope I can help my friend with those rings. That'd be a nice break from all the stuff going on in my own shop.

-- Pencil

Gears Grind On

No clue yet what fallout there will be from the stuff that happened last week. The silence was more or less broken, but from the way the conversation read, it has the feeling of a bunch of people gathered around the kitchen table during a hurricane, and even as the house is falling down people are ignoring it for the sake of being pleasant.

Despite that, nothing overt has happened, so I have to take that as a good sign. In the mean while, the gears in my head continue to go 'round and 'round. I'm learning about hard mold casting, soft mold casting, open face molds, two and three-part molds, injection molding, resin molding, the whole nine yards. It's fascinating!

For a modeler, open face molds have got to be the coolest thing ever. Let's say you're building up a new master of a house. You can... A - Model everything from scratch. B - Pull down your stack of open-faced molds, cast up a bunch of doorknobs, mailboxes, house trim, windows, doors, doorbells, etc., and get to work. Option B saves countless hundreds of hours. And lest anyone say this takes the artistry out of the art, I must disagree. In a way it puts the artistry back into the art. You can spend a few days designing and making the perfect set of doorknobs, and rather than face the drudgery of repeating that each and every time you need one, you get one in just a couple of minutes. So you get to devote the time and energy necessary to make perfect masters, and then get to use these perfect parts every time you need one. The artistry in the final work improves because your previous efforts are so readily available.

So I'm looking at making masters for open face molds. Eventually there are a few projects that will require two or three-part molds, but open face molds are an excellent place to start. If I can crank out a couple of sets of useful things in order to try the technique, that'd be great.

So my head's reeling from that. It's also reeling from some new software I'm picking up at work. The Powers That Be agreed that getting a 3D modeling program that can make honest-to-goodness parts would be a Good Thing. So I'm learning Rhino 3D. People design real things in it, not just soap bar blob things, and a couple of machining buddies of mine swear by it. A license is only around $500 US from a reseller, so it's not as lethal as, say, AutoCAD. From what I've seen the software is fantastic. What's even better is it works really well with my CAM software, so if I can draw it in such a way that tools can lay cutting edges to material, I know I can make it.

So despite the misgivings of last week, things are still looking up. I'm past the hump, so to speak, and even if I'm dropped tomorrow (or today... the day is yet young), I won't let it get to me worse than it already has.

On another subject, I'm getting together with a friend of mine who's a jeweler. They're making up a bunch of silver rings to put settings onto, and I get to help. Yippee! I've been wanting to learn torch work, and can't wait to give this a try. I'm a little apprehensive about messing up, but from what my friend said it's not too bad. If things go horribly wrong, you can always melt the joint out or sawcut it and start over. Even the worst gunk can be taken care of with careful pickling, filing, and polishing. I can't wait to find out!

Pencil

P.S. See? I'm really not morose all the time!

Curl Up and Hide

I should've expected it. The list went dead-silent after that mail went out.

I have to wonder if it's even worth trying any more. This kind of crap just wears me out. Part of me wants to jump up and scream, "Unless you have TS, whatever you're thinking, that's not it!" But a bigger part of me is regretting I ever reached out in the first place to try and make friends. I just want to curl up and hide.

I know that's not the answer, either. Isolating yourself because others can't deal with you doesn't address the root issue. I wouldn't be doing myself or anyone else any favors that way. And yet, when placed in a threatening situation, what creature on this planet dosn't have the urge to go somewhere secret and safe?

Only time will tell if others can get past this, or if this will be the decisive moment that gets another door slammed in my face. It won't be the first time and certainly won't be the last. But what a waste.

And people wonder why I'm reclusive. Just wake me up when all this is over.

Whoops! Too Late!

I don't know anyone who's used email who hasn't, at one time or another, royally put their foot in their mouth with this wonderful new medium of communication. But today I think I pulled a doozie that's bad, even for me.

I'm not very open about having Tourette Syndrome. I don't share that information with many people. Most of the time I can clamp down on it enough that people describe me as being eccentric or wild or something rather than having a mental disorder. It took me almost two years to open up about it where I work now. At my previous job I only ever told two people, and even that was out of sheer desperation.

Today I was trading email with a friend and as part of an explanation for a reaction they had to something, they let me know they had ADD. Thinking it was just an exchange between the two of us, I replied, saying I had TS, and understood altogether too well. It was when I was reading their reply to that mail that I realized all of this email had been going out to a whole list of people. Whoops!

I'm pissed at myself. I'm usually on top of such things. I read headers. I look at recipient lists. I used to run mail servers, for crying out loud, that was my job! But today I slipped. Oh well. Too late now.

My friend's reaction was what I had hoped it would be. It was information received, but doesn't seem to have changed their views of me. For anyone who's never been in my shoes, please understand this reaction is as rare as gold. I never would've mentioned it if I didn't suspect this was what their reaction would be.

But everyone else on the list? No telling. I can say one thing: It'll be something. And that's the catch: It's always something. People always react. Knowing this always changes things. I've had people drop me like a bad habit (and probably put me in the same category as one). I've had people go all sympathetic and pitying, which isn't at all appropriate, given the severity of my TS (or lack thereof). I've had people turn on me like wolverines, almost as if they were afraid it was contagious and that I was Patient Zero, Source of Contagion. It's not and I'm not, but try convincing anyone of that.

So for good or bad, for better or worse, I've utterly and completely changed my relationship with the people on this list. It wasn't my choice, but it was by my own uncoerced admission. I can only blame myself.

Sometimes I drive myself crazy.

More on Blog Advertisers

The comments I've received on my posts are disheartening. In the time since starting this journal I've received one comment that indicated the person had actually read what I'd written. Just one. The rest have all been advertisements.

I'm not against advertising one's own goods. Without that effort, products wither and die. The difference between a shop that sits on its thumbs and a shop that goes out and finds business is the difference between layoffs and profits.

But I have yet to meet a successful advertiser who wasn't concerned about their market, target audience, and venue. The operative word here is successful. I get the feeling the people who post their ads as comments are not very successful.

By way of illustration, let's play a little game: Let's say you're reading this journal, for whatever reason, and you happen on one of my more angsty and vitriolic posts. I can't say what emotion you might be feeling, but I'll hazard a guess it'd fall into a handful of categories including disgust, irritation, anger, sympathy, or outright disinterest. But lo! There are comments! The thought crosses your mind, "I wonder if anyone else who read this drivel feels the way I do." With curiosity sparking, you click on the comments and read them.

And there's one right there, addressing the very emotion you're feeling: Hot swingers!!! Explicit pics!!! Click on this URL now!!!

No? Doesn't address the emotion you're feeling? Doesn't give you a sense of completion and closure? Doesn't even pertain to what you were reading? I thought not.

Now suppose you're the person running this explicit swingers' site. Do you really want a bunch of angsty irritated angry and disinterested people on your site? Does that really do you or your business any good? I thought not.

Then what's the point? I know it's free advertising. I know how simple it would be to write a script that'd post similar ads on thousands of blogs in a matter of minutes. But who's to say what kind of clientele would be attracted? Who's to say if these are even people you want? And who's to say the mood they're in is one you want people to be in when they show up at your door?

Please. I beg of you. Think these things through. The logic is not that difficult.

Just in case the verbage was too dense, I'll boil this post down to a single sentence:

Only stupid assholes post ads as comments on blogs.

It's really that simple.

--Pencil

P.S. Aha! I found out Blogspot has a setting to require people leaving a comment to look at an image and type in what they see! So they are aware people use their comments as advertising forums. I'm experimenting with this. We'll see.

More Small Things

The fix I was working on back in December for making those model parts did pan out, after a fashion. It didn't work out the way I'd expected, but the eventual solution gave far better results than I was getting earlier.

I'm absolutely stoked. I ran three new sets of parts and sent them out. The very next day my mill computer finally gave up the ghost and died. No smoke, no fanfare, it just quit finishing the POST part of the boot process. I'd dig deeper, but it's a laptop, it's old, and a pristine specimen would go for about $20 on Ebay these days. It's simply not worth it.

I picked up a donor machine from work. It's 500MHz (about 5 times faster than the previous model) and is a full tower machine. If it's in decent shape I can probably nurse it along for another five years. I'll play tonight.

Meanwhile I'm drawing up as many of these parts as I can. They're all round, so it's all lathe work. Each one has a different profile and a different length. I'm making life easier by making the toolpaths all begin and end the same, and expect the same size stock. That way I can pre-dice the stock and have it in a pile, then just load and hit go. Each part takes between three and four minutes to run, so it actually goes pretty quickly.

I'm hoping by the end of this I'll have swamped them in parts so they can stay busy for a while. That'll give me the breathing room I need to do the R&D on the next class of parts. These will all require I make hard molds for resin casting. One of the simpler parts will require at least three parts to the mold. Heck of a way to get into the mold making business. Over my head? You bet.

But back to the round parts: So far I've made five runs for these folks at six parts per run. I've got thirteen drawn up and plan to get at least eight more drawn up before I start. Now that I've worked out how to do the workholding, tooling, toolpath strategy, etc., the process should be pretty quick. The more parts I have drawn up beforehand, the easier it'll be. I'm hoping by the time I have the mill back on its feet I'll have over twenty new sets I can run.

The next question is material. All of these are made from 1/8" brass rod. I've depleted everything the local hardware store has. It's time to either order from an industrial supplier or find another local source.

I'm glad this part of the R&D cycle is done for these parts. They've been needing them for over a year. I've felt pretty rotten about being a bottleneck and holding them back. I'm hoping with a deluge of these things hitting them, it'll take them long enough to make all the mating parts to give me a chance to do the R&D on the mold making.

There's another side to all this: I can see where these techniques can be used on other projects. At one point I was making rocket nozzles. Unfortunately the size of the nozzles I was making were tiny, no more than a few millimeters in diameter at the throat. At the time it stretched my tools to their utmost. Now? After making these parts for these folks, a few millimeters is huge. I could make nozzles with my hands tied behind my back using this setup.

I'm also eager to experiment with molds. One fellow rocket enthusiast I used to trade email with made some nozzles for cold rockets by casting them. He had mixed luck until he started using an honest to goodness casting resin. After that he was limited by the quality of the mold. I'm hoping the combination of techniques I develop making these small parts and making these small molds will put me in a position to offer this guy better nozzle molds for his rockets.

What else can I do using these techniques? Seems like there are a lot of possibilities. I just need to explore them and see where they lead me. One thing is certain: Using my mill as a lathe works amazingly well. I need to make a multi-tool magazine to really take advantage of it, though. Right now I'm limited to a single tool. With multiple tool setups incredibly detailed parts could be made completely automatically. It's a fantastic thought. Can't wait to play with it.

--Pencil

P.S. I was curious to see if the same people who have been leaving me advertisements in my comments would want to use my last post as an advertisement. Incredibly, no one posted comments. No one posted ads on that one. Guess I should be angry more of the time. It makes for lousy advertising.

P.P.S. Know what's even worse? I came back an hour after writing this post, and found two advertisement comments that were utterly unrelated to the post. One was for a swinger's site, another for a porn site. Go figure.

P.P.P.S. Three more this morning, not a one related to the topic or the content. Forget it. No more comments.