Comments for Joey's Blog

Comment on My First Casting by joey

joey — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 20:02:06 +0000

Good question. You know, it’s amazing what you can learn from YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NheSwpYZs6s has a good video about it. Probably the simplest method for casting I’ve seen. I’ve done quite a bit of research on forges. Right now I just have an old bbq grill with a pipe and a hair dryer. It takes some work to get the temperature hot enough.. You have to let the wood burn down, the stack the charcoal (the black parts of the wood that turned to charcoal) over the air outlet, and then mix it up some. Put the crucible on top, wait, when the fire cools off, repeat. I had to do this 3 times or so before the whole pot melted. I want to build a waste oil burning furnace. They are REALLY simple, cheap to operate, and when running properly make almost no smoke. Here’s a crazy simple and redneck one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cczsy4HQykY (Pardon the language) and a few more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw4qsOWSjrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NheSwpYZs6s

I do have a few books on the way, but the basics are available all over the internet.

Comment on My First Casting by Jacob Allred

Jacob Allred — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 18:16:38 +0000

That is really neat. Definitely going to have to add that to my “projects I want to try” list. Have you found any good references you’d recommend, or are you winging it?

Comment on Reverse Engineering Canvas Rider – Part I by QueryPath – jQuery for PHP with Caveats…

QueryPath – jQuery for PHP with Caveats… — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 18:56:10 +0000

[...] I’m doing a little fun project that converts svg files from Inkscape to Canvas Rider track code. Parsing XML is ALWAYS a pain, xpath makes it better, but xpath is usually overkill for simple [...]

Comment on A Better BYU Speech Player by BYU Speeches player with history | Jacob Allred

BYU Speeches player with history | Jacob Allred — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 02:28:55 +0000

[...] can easily find what you want to listen to. I’ve also added some social sharing stuff (per Joey’s request) in case you really like a talk and want to send it to a [...]

Comment on A Better BYU Speech Player by Jacob Allred

Jacob Allred — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 02:23:35 +0000

Thanks for the positive feedback!

I’ve added some social sharing stuff per your request (shows up at the top when you play a track, and updates when you switch tracks). This could probably be improved, but hey, it works.

The rating system sounds like a great idea. I could probably scrape some ratings from the BYU Speeches site to get it started.

A personal favorites section sounds great, too, and would be really easy I think. I could just add a little heart icon next to the item in the history which would add it to a custom playlist.

Comment on Downloading Fonts from fast.fonts.com… by Jacob Allred

Jacob Allred — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:08:09 +0000

Keep in mind that this violates the Fonts.com license and copyright. It isn’t likely anyone would notice for an internal page, but it’d be risky to do this on anything public facing.

Comment on Creating a CakePHP, WordPress, Joomla, etc… theme from an Existing web site / page. by Downloading Fonts from fast.fonts.com…

Downloading Fonts from fast.fonts.com… — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:38:40 +0000

[...] October 25th, 2012 by joey | Filed under Geek Stuff. For the same project as the previous post, wget was not able to download the fonts from fast.fonts.com, they seem to have a system that [...]

Comment on I WILL NOT be a victim. by Michael Quiner

Michael Quiner — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:37:34 +0000

I watched vanUhm’s TED talk a while back and thought it very insightful – and now we often hear him commenting on events in the middle east. It becomes even more important to consider what it means to express freedoms and to protect freedom.

Comment on Why I LOVE Freshbooks!!! by Jacob Allred

Jacob Allred — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 20:59:15 +0000

Thanks for this post! I’ve been doing some contracting work, and have been using a free FreshBooks account for a month or two now and am also very satisfied.

Comment on Opportunities In America by Thomas Hartmann

Thomas Hartmann — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 22:11:16 +0000

My father was an East German immigrant. I grew up taking his example for granted, for example popping popcorn in a cast iron skillet and dumping it into a shopping bag to eat from during the movies. Now I admire how creative he was. I think it’s true that if given opportunities, creative people can thrive.

My father tried to stop me from taking life for granted, but I had the wrong values. The main one is that I didn’t like to work. I stayed in school as long as I could, until one day in graduate school I was struck by a 18-wheeler in a snowstorm.

The resulting brain injury took away my ability to be creative, as well as broke up my marriage. I could not see opportunity anywhere. But I was incredibly motivated and worked very hard to recover, even trying whatever alternative medicine I found. Fortunately I met a new wife who modeled a good work ethic for me –– to do whatever work one finds as best as one can.

This country is blessed by its immigrants. I’m glad it has a social security net too, for those people like me who need it while being incapacitated.