I discovered that my code was using the screen zoom in one of the DXF export calculations, and that the math used to guess at a good connector radius was not quite right. After fixing those two issues, I also made a change to improve the solid link…
Continue readingI need to name these things somehow. I’ve been using the colors to name them, but this one is a sort of muddled blackened steel. This post contains a video of the finished sculpture as well as some historical photos and commentary on the construction of this RBS….
Continue readingThe ball lifter now has a track to go with it: The track screws onto the ball lifter mechanism frame. It can all be disassembled if maintenance is needed on the mechanism. A little oil is all that the mechanism might ever need, but building this as a…
Continue readingThe Linkage program is showing a really weird bug. Bug In the picture, it is obvious that the dotted line that is the arc between two connectors A & C, is not passing through the sliding connector D. This gets worse with time until the triangle shaped link…
Continue readingI love computer games. I try to deny it, but I love them. In a computer game, you can do things that are impossible in real life or even in any non-computer game. In a computer game, you can build an empire, kill lots of bad guys, explore…
Continue readingThe above image is part of a patent. I found this while searching for kinetic sculpture images. It never occurred to me that a person could patent a kinetic sculpture, or any art for that matter. I wonder if my ball lifting mechanism (below) could be patented. I…
Continue readingUPDATE December 30, 2015: I made a new and improved version of the progress ring control. The code is not shown below – that is older code – but you can get a complete Visual Studio project by downloading this zip file: http://www.rectorsquid.com/CircleprogressRing.zip Here’s a picture of the…
Continue readingI don’t often write about computer games, but two iPad games that I recently player seemed outstanding to me. DEVICE 6 by Simogo This was one of the most unusual games that I’ve ever played. The “game” consists of a small number of puzzles wrapped up in an…
Continue readingI remembered seeing a clock app in the Petzold book, and I needed to make a spinning “I’m working…” indicator. It’s a fairly good book, although I’ve only read a small bit of it. So I looked back in it and found the clock app. It’s a nice…
Continue readingIn my last post, I ranted about the SmartScreen filter. Since then, I discovered that SS is one word with word capitals. I also discovered that it took about one day for my app to download without the SS filter warning from Windows 8.1. Apparently, my new certificate…
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