Real-time Satellites In Google Earth
In Google Earth’s recent newsletter they had a little paragraph talking about Earth’s satellites. We have currently 13,000+ satellites in our sky. Makes you question every “star” you see at night. Here is a video showing the real-time positioning of satellites using Google Earth.
Its MAME Time
Today at work I got a huge urge to play Gauntlet Legends again. I have always wanted to buy my own GL arcade cabinet but never seem to find one in a conservative range. Finding a cabinet that did not require a three hour drive seemed impossible. So instead of giving up I decided to make it myself.
The first thing I did was was google mame and various other variants of it to find what I was looking for. I found a site called mameaddicts.com to be very helpful. I would also recommend this video How to Install MAME32 and load ROMs. I got mame up and running within minutes. It was very easy. The tricky part was trying to find a ROM for Gauntlet Legends that would work. It seems that some more modern arcade games need a CHD (basically a compressed image of the hard drive used in the original arcade cabinets).
After three hours searching for the GL CHD I found some in torrent form that no one seeded. I was feeling pretty down about it until I found Doug! Doug Burton is actually selling all of the ROMs and CHDs on burned DVDs. It is a fair service as he has them and I have money. Simple!
UPDATE: It seems that people have found Doug Burton to be a scam. However there are some people that say otherwise. Hard to say if the guy is legit.
So far my resources I have found are:
- Book - Project Arcade: Build Your Own Arcade Machine
Software - Doug’s Roms Burning Page- How To - The guys at the podcast Systm actually did it themselves. You can find Episode one, Episode two, Episode three, Episode four, and Episode five by clicking on the episode.
Seems like a great start to a great project. Heck, maybe I could even start selling the cabinets to people in my neck of the woods.
Oh and one more thing. Since I love to take my gaming to the next level after beating a game, I am providing the tips for GL in the rest of the post. Enjoy.
Catching Up
Being away from your main computer can leave pounds of cobwebs in the rss feeds as well as your DVR (stuck with time warner). Today was my first full day back which was spent watching podcast after podcast, watching tv show after tv show, and watching my time fly by.
The one thing I wanted to sink my teeth into once I got back was google’s attempt to enter the cell phone market with their Android software.
Did you see how clunky the G1 looked? Even Android didn’t catch my eye. When it comes to accepting a new risk this would certainly be for those apple haters. Though in the mean time I will continue to applaud apple’s great design for the iphone.
Vacation Is Over
After six long days and five long nights my vacation is over. While Florida is great in many ways, I was never as happy when we landed back in Nebraska. In the end I believe I was just tired of everything and ready to get my life back on the set path.
The big part I did not like about the trip was the planning. It seemed nothing was planned out to the point where everyone knew where to go. Then when trying to contact people to tell them what was going on they never answered their phone. I’d be a hypocrite if I said I always answered my phone.
Did we go anywhere cool? I personally was hoping to get to visit a university or a theme park. In the end no one really wanted to say a “yes” or “no” to what they wanted to do. I myself didn’t really care because I was having a time of my life just swimming with family. I haven’t seen everyone so relaxed all together in a long time.
Another negative was the hotel. Now I can understand that the point of a business in the tourist capital is to milk as much money as they can but the JW Marriott surprised me. You had to pay for everything. The only place to grab a quick snack at night was in the mini bar; a snickers bar cost $4! The noon to noon internet cost $16 plus tax on top of that. You could buy internet access at 11pm at night only to have it turned off at noon the next day. Last but not least is the buffet. Yes they did have everything you could imagine and the orange juice was really good. However, you could almost toss up all those calories once you see the price for one is $23. Better yet you might as well throw up and go back for more to get your money’s worth.
After being home for a few hours I can look back and see how much joy this trip has brought. The wedding was perfect (lighting was bad but that is not my job); The reception was hilarious; The pool was huge. I still don’t like how pricey the hotel was though for the experience I left with it was well worth it.
Being with family for that long and having fun everyday makes me want to move closer to them. For the future I do see myself moving closer to be near them. I feel like I am missing out in so much.
So there you have it. Vacations are about getting away from life in the beginning and turns up making you appreciate family more.
$16 A Day Internet
I have been in lovely Orlando, FL for the past few days now. I am here for my cousin’s wedding. You could not ask for a more beautiful place to have a wedding. Not sure what the details are for the coming days but I know I am totally relaxed.
My hotel is the JW Marriott with the room on the 14th floor. The view is amazing with the balcony view is scary. You can see for miles when you sit back. When you walk out onto the balcony it feels as if the balcony is actually not connected to the building. I hope the pictures do justice when I upload them.
So now its off to continue relaxing. I think I may just catch up on Kitchen Nightmares.
