Thursday, February 14th, 2008
My article on custom cables was published up on NSMB.com, if you didn’t read it on my site before go check it out over at http://www.nsmb.com/gear/customcables_01_08.php
That’s the second time my work has been published. The first time was in Elemental, a art book dedicated to 3d art created with Autodesk software.
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
So I recently finished playing The Witcher by Polish developer CD Projekt. It’s a RPG in the same style as Neverwinter Nights, it even uses the same engine that was used in Neverwinter Nights 2. Luckily I played this game using the 1.2 patch and didn’t have to deal with the retail release version of the game. Because the game was released a bit premature, the reviews suffered and I’m sure the sales did as a result. Having never seen sales numbers released or never seeing it in a weekly top 10 sales chart I believe it hasn’t down all that well which is really too bad because with the 1.2 patch this game was very enjoyable and deserves more recognition. Early reviews harped on long load times and game crashing bugs. 1.2 addresses the crashing and the load times, but every time you enter and exit an area you are presented with a loading screen which slows down the game play a lot.
Monday, February 4th, 2008
Last Friday I hiked up to Cowbell to try and ride some nice downhill in the snow. But there was so much snow it made it very difficult to get down, even the steepest parts required a good deal of pedaling to keep momentum up. I ended up off the trail a lot preferring to ride closer to the tree wells where the snow was less deep. Even though all I can think about is long flowy singletrack where the trail isn’t so white, mother nature has other ideas and keeps dumping Nelson in snow. Time to put the ski boots back on…
Friday, February 1st, 2008
Another month another guide. This time around I’m going to show you how to solder your cable ends for a nice clean look on your derailleur cables and brake cables.
I have never liked the cable ends that come on bikes. They tend to come off when they get caught on something, most of them are ugly with multiple crimp marks, or are way too big for the cable they were used on, and will fray your cable ends once you try to take them off so you can’t reuse your cable.
Why would you want to reuse a cable when they are so cheap? One would be the environment, why waste more materials? And two, no need to adjust your shifting once installed because the cable has been stretched already. With a quick wipe down and lube your cable will be good as new. So what is the alternative to cable end crimps? Soldering the end of the cable. Here is what you will need to accomplish this:
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Just a quick model I whipped up last night, 498 triangles, 1 128×128 texture.
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
I updated what I’m reading, listening, and playing sidebar. Since I’ve last updated it I read 7 Years in Tibet, Into the Wild, now to start Rewired. For what I am listening too I added Games for Windows Live which I find to be a great podcast that is supposed to deal with games, but is more just funny stories about playing them. Also I discovered CBC Radio 3 after listening to CBC One and Two for too long. For what I’ve been playing I played through Call of Duty 4, Crysis, and have UT3 but only play it to check out the mod features.
Friday, January 18th, 2008
A new set of goggles for UT3. Tested with the Hurin model, will work for other models but won’t be placed or scaled correctly. I included the XSI scene file as well as the original Photoshop file for you to check out and modify if you wish.
Saturday, January 12th, 2008
I made a quick Bender model for Unreal Tournament 3. Modeled, textured, and imported into UT3 in the time it took to watch Bender’s Big Score (2 hours). Theres a couple issues with the character but it was done quickly to see what limitations there are for importing custom characters into UT3. (Right click the picture to download)
Monday, January 7th, 2008
Are you sick of having stock black cables on your bike? Not only is black boring but the hard coating on the outside of the cables can rub through paint and even aluminum. I have seen a Hayes brake cable eat right through the stanchion on a Fox 40. Braided stainless brake lines look nice, but are expensive running over $50 a line and don’t match your derailleur cable. By using the same heat shrink tubing electrician’s use, you can protect your frame and match your cables to any color scheme for your bike.
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
My new bike finally arrived on December 28th. After a very lengthy and expensive delay at customs my bike left Grand Forks, North Dakota crossed the border into Canada to Winnipeg. After having a nice Christmas dinner in Winnipeg it traveled to Calgary where after a rough night of partying on Boxing Day must have lost the pieces I need to finish building it. The box arrived with a hole at the bottom where the top cap, headset spacers, and the seatpost clamp escaped into the abyss. I have called Fedex and have started a claim to try and get reimbursed.
I have slowly been building it up in between partying. I sold the brakes and have some new Shimano XT discs coming in from Thailand, and the rims are off getting painted. To highlight the blue and white theme I’m going for I picked up white heat shrink tubing to cover the cables. It helps to accent the theme as well as should provide some protection from cable rub.
