Category Archives: Friday

Feb 11

Friday Post: Simplify3D customer service is the best!

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Hey All,

Not much to report on this week.  I was having issues with really bad stringing on my prints from my SeeMeCNC ERIS 3D printer.  On fully enclosed prints, it’s been great, but on anything with overhangs or open spaces, the stringing has been incredibly bad.

I use Simplify3D as my slicer, and it’s been worth every penny.  This past week I get fed up with making the adjustments myself, so I emailed Simplify my settings file, pictures of the issues, and within a day they sent me back a new settings file, for a printer they don’t even officially support, and it’s now working 100% better.

Prints are more dimensionally accurate and I have almost zero stringing!

CURA and Slic3r are really good free open source slicers, but it’s been totally worthwhile to pay for Simplify!

I also bought ANOTHER new 3D Printer, which should arrive in a week or two, and I’m excited to see it in action.  I will be doing a review of it so be on the look out!

The model is a surprise for now.

Feb 03

Friday Post: No broken foot and open source software is awesome!

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Hey All,

Got some great news.  My wife didn’t actually break her foot.  We went to a orthopedist who specializes in feet injuries, and he says it’s only a MAJOR sprain.  She’s still in pain, but at least it is a lot less serious.  The brace only needs to be worn during the day, she can walk around again, and best of all she can drive and go to work.

Baby is also doing well.  We are in the third trimester and he is kicking up a storm!

Also, open source software is amazing, and I am so proud to be able to make software that is open.  My campaign donation software is now being used in a city council race!  This is not an endorsement, but Scott Casey is using it for his race: https://www.scottcaseycitycouncil.com/

Have a good weekend all!

Jan 20

Friday Post: Broken Foot

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Hey All,

It’s so weird to realize it was my birthday, and it passed by this year with little fanfare from me.  Knowing I’m having a baby in less than 3 months kinda takes your mind off those things.  What is on my mind is my wife broke her foot this week and I am now taking care of my pregnant immobilized love.  Luckily the baby is perfectly fine.  I feel so bad for my wife.  I have broken both arms, and both legs (at separate times), and I can tell you this is no walk in the park.

Everything is still being worked on, just going slow and steady.

Have a good weekend everyone.  Stay safe out there.

-Shea

Jan 07

Friday Post: 2017! New Year New Stuff!

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Hey All!

Happy New Year! Less than 99 days till the baby is due. I’m building stuff for the nursery, getting stuff ready. Feels more like demolition because it was our game / media room and most of the week was spent moving stuff out.

I installed my first ceiling fan today! Feels good, feels accomplished.

I am also working on a homemade DDR pad for Stepmania. It’s still not great on the Pi2/Pi3. I can get it running at 30FPS, but the audio is too choppy. I want to try to offload the audio to a USB sound card and just output it via HDMI, but I don’t know if that will help.

Found an awesome Mario mushroom power up beanie.  This kid is going to be a geek 😀

The PiPlay Advance board is coming along!  I am super happy with it and it’s almost ready to release!

Apr 29

Shea Silverman for Florida House of Representatives District 49

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Hey All!

I have some exciting news.  I’ve been wanting to announce this for a while now, but tonight is the night.  I am running for Florida’s House of Representatives District 49 as a No Party Affiliation candidate.

The Bernie Sanders campaign has resonated very closely with me.  I believe that honest, transparent individuals can make a difference.  I believe that everyone deserves healthcare, an education, and that with technology, we can provide those resources.

This is a map of district 49, courtesy of statisticalatlas.com:

d49

Please follow me on Twitter and Facebook, checkout my platform and campaign site at sheasilverman.com and I would be super humbled and thankful if you were able to donate to my campaign.

Thanks all, have a great weekend!

-Shea

Mar 18

Friday Post: Cool Stuff

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Hey All,

Got some cool stuff to post!

First off, got my Pi3 and have pics to show.

IMG_20160305_123135035_HDR IMG_20160305_123142557_HDR IMG_20160305_123151811_HDR IMG_20160305_123201893 IMG_20160305_123221663 IMG_20160305_123230360 IMG_20160305_123255506 IMG_20160305_123303098 IMG_20160305_123338411Love this device so much!

BUT, what I’m more excited to show off is a very early prototype of a project a coworker and I are working on!

12722257_10104959026967052_78897063_oIt’s a Raspberry Pi Zero powered portable gaming system styled after the Nintendo GameBoy Advance using an SPI TFT and some other little cool things.

This is the first PCB I’ve ever helped design, and I placed the order for it this week.  Boards shipped today, which means they will get here between 8 and 40 days.  Argh, the waiting sucks!

On another note, Pokken Tournament came out today for the Wii U.  It’s a really cool Tekken inspired Pokemon fighting game and so far I am loving it!  My Nintendo Network ID is SSilver2k2 so if you want to fight, add me 😀

I also picked up some really cool Nintendo retro consoles this week.

IMG_20160318_212020422 IMG_20160318_212026477 IMG_20160318_212054261 IMG_20160318_212134085

This is the Sharp Famicom Twin.  It is the Japanese version of the NES (Famicom) and the Famicom Disk System combined into one unit.  I also picked up the Family BASIC addon which allows you to do rudimentary programs in BASIC (HuBASIC) for the NES.  BASIC programs can be saved and loaded off of a cassette tape player, or loaded from any audio player.

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

 

 

 

Mar 04

Friday Post: The Flu Sucks

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Hey All,

Sorry for the lack of updates, I got the flu and it kicked my ass!  I’ve also been dealing with school, my grandma being sick, work, and just so much stuff on my plate.  But yay It’s spring break right now, so I’m back for a bit.

While I was gone the Raspberry Pi 3 was released!  How awesome is that!  A 64bit Quad Core ARM core running at 1.2ghz with 1GB of RAM AND built in WiFi and Bluetooth.  And it’s still only $35!

IMG_4090

I’ve also almost finished the Storm Trooper Helmet

12508738_10104843734668742_463041508399623894_n 12650865_10104843766814322_7455261063869867793_n (1)

2016-03-02

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Feb 12

Friday Post: StepMania on Raspberry Pi2

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Hey All!

So this week the Raspberry Pi Foundation released a new version of Raspbian that includes experimental support for OpenGL.  This is a big leap from OpenGL ES.  This is real OpenGL that tons of games and software use.  No mobile versions required anymore.  That being said, its super experimental.  It basically breaks the official screen and the camera doesn’t work.  It also only works in xwindows and not on the command line.

BUT! One of my favorite games (and the way I lost 50lbs) is now available on the Pi!  StepMania!  The Dance Dance Revolution simulation game!

Here’s how to compile it:

First clone the StepMania repo:

git clone https://github.com/stepmania/stepmania stepmania
cd stepmania

Install the dependancies:

sudo apt-get install cmake gcc g++ libmad0-dev libgtk2.0-dev binutils-dev git-core make libasound2-dev yasm libc6-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libbz2-dev zlib1g-dev libjpeg8-dev libpng12-dev libxtst-dev libxrandr-dev libglew-dev libglu1-mesa-dev mesa-common-dev automake autoconf libva-dev

A lot of these you will probably already have installed.

Now cd into the Build directory and start the configuration process (and run it one more time afterwards)

cd Build
cmake ..
cmake ..

Now you will want to edit the CMakeCache.txt which has some of the configuration options.

nano CMakeCache.txt
Look for CRASH_HANDLER and set it to OFF, SSE2 should be set to OFF, and Full Release should be set to ON.
press ctrl-x then y to save.

Now lets compile StepMania!

make

Let that run until it is done, should take about 3 or 4 hours.  When it’s complete run

cd .. 
./stepmania

and you should now be playing StepMania!

All of your configurations  will be under ~/.stepmania, and your songs and stages go under ~/stepmania

Have Fun!

Also, GO SEE DEADPOOL (if you are 18 and older!!)

-Shea

Jan 22

Friday Post: AdvanceMAME 1.4 debs

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Hey All,

Updates maybe sporadic for the next few weeks.

AdvanceMAME updated to 1.4 so I have recompiled the source and made .debs out of it.  This will work on the Pi and Pi2.

AdvanceMAME 1.4 Deb Download

To install goto a terminal and type:

sudo dpkg --force-install -i advancemame_1.4-1_armhf.db
advmame

You will now have a directory in ~/.advance and will need to edit your advmame.rc file.

nano ~/.advance/advmame.rc

Add to the first line:

device_video_clock 5 - 50 / 15.62 / 50 ; 5 - 50 / 15.73 / 60

Then press ctrl-x then y and hit enter to save.

You can now place your game files into the ~/.advance/roms directory and launch a game with the command:

advmame gamename
advmame sf2

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea