It’s exciting!

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I was tired of slipping and sliding on my soft DDR pad, so last night (at like 2:00 in the morning) I decided to convert my soft pad into a hard pad!

Here’s my result:

First, I took apart one of my old soft pads that was “broken”. After opening it up and poking around, I found that the inner layers were merely out of alignment, and that the sensors themselves were fine. I taped the layers down one at a time to a piece of plywood with my trusty blue painters tape and ensured that they were perfectly positioned.

I found some wood squares that my dad cut for who knows what. First, I tried just taping them down, but an E on No. 13 said that having to retape the squares after each song wasn’t going to work. So, I found staple gun. But the staples weren’t long enough. So I grabbed some screws and a screwdriver and went to work.

The first prototype (pictured here) had some critical flaws. First, the screws couldn’t be too tight, or else the sensoes would be constantly pushed by the wood. My playtesting revealed that you had to stomp on the wood boards because it wasn’t very responsive because the design of the sensors necesitates some sort of curved force to work correctly. I decided I needed to make some revisions.

This afternoon, I ran to Lowes and picked up some rubber washers and felt feet. I used the rubber washers as spacers for the screws, and attached several feet underneath each wooden pad. I was proud of my handiwork, and after adjusting the tightness of a couple screws, I determined that it was suitable for use.

Initial playtesting was a mixed bag. I found it hard to adapt to the raised buttons. Apparently I had developed a style of “sliding” on the soft pad that resulted in some hurting feet when I tried it on this pad. I did like the tactile feedback the raised pads provided, but my scores said differently. I was getting more “random boos” on the hard pad than I used to on the soft pad. This was because the wood occasionally stuck down. I AA full combo’d a couple 7 footers, (which I think was luck), but most of the songs I played were riddled with random boos (mostly the left and back buttons). I kept adjusting the screws, but never really found a sweet spot.

So, I think I’m going to ditch the wood raised platforms and go with a flat surface. I still want some sort of tactile feedback, so I might try changing the texture of the edges of teh buttons with like velcro or something. I suppose it was mostly a waste of time (and of $15), but it turned out looking cool (thanks to my pro blue tape).

I’ll post again when I revise my pad!

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Finally a good use for an iMac.

I edited and sung this spanish version of my two favorite David Guetta songs for a spanish project. It turned out… interesting?

Lyrics as follows:

Aaaand Download Here (10.5 mb)

Enjoy?

Oh, and I realized afterward I butchered a lot of pronunciation. Mainly “sin”. OH WELL…

Here’s a song from a CD I actually bought! Incredible!

Embedded Video

I absolutely love the song, and its one of the better videos I’ve seen in a while!

David Guetta’s Love Don’t Let Me Go has been my favorite song for over a year now. It’s a perfect blend of elctro and house! I discovered earlier today that my favorite version has a music video.

And since the music video is absolutely amazing, it just makes the song even more special for me!

Remember, I remixed this song a while back:

I finally got around to tweaking my remix of Love Don’t Let Me Go. The second (final?) version is below:

Download here! (6 megs, 5:17)

The original song and post are below!

I’ve created my first remix! It’s a mash-up of three songs:

• Love Don’t Let Me Go – David Guetta
• Walking Away – The Egg
• Love Don’t Let Me Go (Walking Away) – David Guetta vs. The Egg

It’s kinda funny, but I made a mashup of a mashup! It’s not the best, there’s a couple rough transitions, and I’ll release a 2nd version this weekend.

Download here! (6 megs, 5:12)

Ugh, double quote action, oh well!

I just registered the domain name crediblesources.net.

It will be filled with anything but credible sources.

My first task is to make it look like a site that would have credible sources, then add things that certaintly aren’t credible sources.

One of my first plans is to upload my 1300+ picture lolcat gallery.

Here’s the current list of colleges I’m applying to, in alphabetical order

• Caltech
• Carnegie Mellon
• Cornell
• Harvey Mudd
• Olin
• Rensselaer
• Stanford

Wish me luck!

I’m in debt and need some cash, so here’s a list of items I’m considering for sale:

Dell Dimension XPS Gen 2 (P4, 3ghz, 1 gig ram, 9800XT, 120gigs HD) + CRT – $300 OBO
Olympus DS-30 Digital Voice Recorder (Like New) – $60 ($110 on Amazon)
Logitech Blue MX510 Mouse – $15
FM Car Adapator suitable for any MP3 Player – $15 (2 available)
100w Power Inverters for Car use – $15 (3 available)
12v 18ah Sealed Lead Acid Battery – $30 (3 available)
500W 2000 RPM 36v Electric Motor – $30
512mb iPod Shuffle – $15
17″ Samsung LCD monitor (dying stand) – $100 OBO
IBM Thinkpad T23 Motherboard – $60
Palm Zire PDA – $15
HP Professional Stereo Headset (with cool Bass effect) – $15
Grado SR-60 Premium Headphones – $30
Blue Binary Clock – $15
WoW account with Level 60 gnome mage (no TBC)- $50

I’ll add stuff as I think of more.

Heard this on MSNBC and it made so much sense.

The President, who is a Republican and Conservative, vetoed the S-CHIP bill, which would have granted healthcare to 4 million currently uninsured children. S-CHIP would’ve been funded by an increase in the Tobacco tax. That’s right, the President vetoed a bill that would tax cigarettes and help poor kids. As horrible as it sounds, it’s also extremely ironic. The President and most Republicans are pro-life. They care about the life of unborn babies for (usually) religious reasons. Yet Bush vetoed a bill that would’ve saved 100s of sick, uninsured kids, instead condemning these sick kids to death. How can someone support life for babies, yet kill children? What is wrong with America?

In other news, I now like MSNBC. Farthest left of the cable networks? At least Olbermann is.