Tuesday 24 March 2015

Super Mario Rewards Chart

Hey Guys SighFye here.

Bellistik and I were going to do a really special Easter for our kids this year and get them 3DS'. Currently they only have DSi's. The last few weeks our kids have been little ratbags so we decided against it. They don't deserve to get a 3DS when they have disrespected us so many times. The problem was we had already bought them. We decided, instead of just getting the 3DS they must earn it.

We came up with a reward's chart for them. It's based from the Monopoly board. Here it is.



So they start at Go. They have set rules that they need to abide by each day.
For each of these rules they follow they are allowed to move 1 square. There are a maximum of 8 squares to move a day. Every time they pass go they get a Mario rewards card which is...
  1. A lollypop
  2. Go to a playground they love is a long drive away.
  3. $1
  4. $2
  5. Mum / Dad does your dishes
  6. Ice cream from the shop
  7. Drink from the shop
  8. Extra DS day (Currently they get 2 days they can play DS after 3pm)
  9. Play Minecraft
  10. Play 3DS on next DS day.
As well as getting one of these, they also get a star in the centre. Each child goes around this board independently and gets rewarded when they pass go. The kids are working together to get the middle grid filled up with stars to earn their 3DS, once all squares in the middle have stars, they get their 3DS.

Now here's the twist. If they fail to follow the rule for the day they...
  1. Don't move for that rule
  2. Get a strike next to that rule on their name.
If they get 3 strikes against 1 rule they are sent to the jail that is closest to them, behind them. They also get to pick up a Bowser punish card which are as follows...
  1. All dishes done for a day
  2. Clean the kitchen
  3. Do a load of washing, hang it out and bring it in.
  4. Lose your DS for a week
  5. Grounded for 2 days
  6. Clean BOTH bedrooms
  7. Lose $2
  8. Clean up lounge including vacuum
  9. Pick up the dog poos.
Once they have been punished for their 3 strikes those strikes are removed. Another way to lose their strikes is by passing go. Each time they pass go they get all their strikes removed.

There is one more rule of the game, No Cheating. If caught cheating, the game resets, REGARDLESS of who did it and how far they have made it. Cheating is not tolerated.

So lets see if this smartens them up a bit. Last time we did a rewards chart, although it wasn't this complicated, they started behaving very good. I'm looking forward to seeing the outcome.

Well that's it, Geek it up...

SighFye

Sunday 22 March 2015

Surviving 7 Days To Die: First Steps

Hey Guys SighFye here.

Recently I have got myself into a new game in alpha called 7 Days To Die. Today I am going to teach you how to survive.

When you first spawn you will have 1 can of food, 1 jar of water and a few other things so you don't need to worry about food and water yet. You need to get a tool and a weapon, so lets do that now.

The first thing you need to do when you spawn is build yourself a stone axe. This stone axe is a multi-tool. Its great for everything. Digging, chopping, killing, building. This will be your basic survival tool until you find all the replacements. The recipe to build a stone axe is as follows.

So that's 1 stick, 1 plant fibers, and 1 sharp stone in this pattern. So lets collect these parts. First we'll look at the stick. There are two ways to get sticks but the easiest to start would be to punch a plant... literally. You will need to punch them a few times to break the plant.

There are other ways to get stick which are far easier later on but this is the best way at the start.

The next thing we need is plant fibers. This time we are going to punch grass for a while. It's so realistic. Punching grass equals collecting grass. Don't just grab it and rip it out. lol. Now the grass you need to punch is not the green textured floor. Its the blades of grass stood up and blowing in the wind.


The grass you collect will need to be crafted into plant fibers. This is done like this...
The recipe only requires 1 grass but I always craft all my grass into plant fibers. I haven't found any other use for grass.

The last part of the puzzle is a sharpened stone. You need to first collect a stone. My game play requires always picking up stones so whenever you pass them, pick them up. I don't go out of my way to get them, I just get the ones in my path.
To turn the stone into a sharp stone just throw them into your crafting table at the center.

You now have all the parts for the stone axe. The next thing I always make is a crossbow. The recipe is as follows.
You will also need crossbow bolts. That recipe is...
You only need 1 of each item to get 1 crossbow bolt. Okay so we need A LOT more sticks, A LOT more sharp stones, 2 plant fibers and a new item, feathers.

The only way to get sharp stone, at this stage in the game is to keep collecting stone. This is why I keep collect them as I ALWAYS need crossbow bolts. Collect the stones as you pass them while we do the rest of the recipe.

Your stone axe will make quick work of breaking plants and grass to collect those parts but you really don't want to take that long. Grass you have no choice but you don't need much. The stick, lets look at a faster way. You need to collect wood. You can get this two ways. You can use your stone axe to chop down a tree. Be warned, when the tree falls it will attract zombies to that location.

This can then be crafted into wood planks.
Then craft these wood planks into sticks like so...
If you are near a river there is a quicker and safer way to make sticks. Walking down the river you will find aged wood. Collect as much as this as you can.
This aged wood can be made into planks too.


This is much quieter and quick to get. Next is to find feathers.

Feathers can be found in rubbish piles or birds nest. I always love birds nest as you have a high chance to find both feathers and eggs. You also get much higher amounts of feathers.




Now make your crossbow and crossbow bolts. You are now ready to start killing zombies. To aim the crossbow, right click and place the red dot on the zombies head. ALWAYS aim for the head. This is my favourite weapon as it silent and kills all zombies with 1 shot if hitting the head. Stealth is everything.


Aiming while to stealth mode, use the eye pupil as your red dot.


Now remember to always collect stones and feathers. These are your main items for ammo.

The next post will show scavenging techniques, collecting food, water and being safe from nightfall.

Until Then, stay safe.

SighFye

Wednesday 18 March 2015

NES-top Computer: Part 3

Hello Guys, SighFye again

If you haven't read about the NES-top yet click here.

The NES arrived in the post the other day. On first look I was a little disheartened as the console is rather discoloured. Now I know it's an old system and finding one it better condition would not be very easy so all in all I am happy with it.

Stripping the console down was rather an interesting task and I learned something I did not know about the NES. At the bottom of the NES is a port. The housing would need to be cut to access it but half of the plastic is already cut for you. I looked in forums for what this was and there are a lot of speculations. One thing was an unreleased Minnesota State Lottery cart, another being controllers.

Don't worry I didn't cut mine. This is from Google

So I have the NES in pieces and have placed all the parts on Ebay to try of set the cost a little. I already have a bit on two items so that's something to take of the cost. The parts I am left with are The Housing, the front switches and all the screws.

Now as I said the NES is a little discoloured. A lot of people think it should stay that way as it makes it more vintage but I think I agree with a post I saw. I do not like urine coloured plastic. Bellistik and I looked on the net for painted NES's and my oh my are there some nice looking machines. I have decided I will also paint my NES. I haven't fully decided how but that can be another post when I get to it.



The ASRock Q2900 motherboard has also been purchased from PC Case Gear.

ITEM: ASRock Q2900 ITX Intel Quad Core J2900 2.67GHz
PRICE:  $149 + $17.98 Postage
TOTAL CURRENT PRICE OF BUILD: $264.98

I was going to prepare that NES before the motherboard came but I want to see if I can use any of the screw mounts already in the housing. Saves me having to glue some in.

So that's it for now guy. Now we wait for the motherboard to arrive.

To read the next post in this series click here.

Until then
Geek it up!

SighFye

Sunday 15 March 2015

The Country Geek

Last November Bellistik and I moved out to the country. We wanted to be free. Free from the slave chains of society. Everytime we camped out in the country we noticed our stress was completely gone and we are a hell of a lot more relaxed, so we said, lets just go. We've been out in the country for almost 4 months now. But what does it mean as a geek to be out in the country, beside the lack of stress?

Well I'll start this on a positive note. I have a Skywatcher Dobson 720p teliscope.
Being out in the country there is very minimal light pollution. This makes it a lot easier to see the stars and I don't just mean with the teliscope. With the naked eye you can see SO many more stars its amazing.
I didn't take these photos but its just like it. Through the teliscope I have also seen the rings of Saturn, Jupiter & 4 moons, and of course the moon up close.



But living in the Country isn't all peaches. Lets look at internet. The only internet I can get out here is ADSL 1. It's not slow but it is touchy. Playing Black Ops I can get 110 ping to Sydney. But when its having a bad day, which is more often then you would expect my ping fluctuates for 200 to 999. Its total unplayable. Downloads sometimes can take 30 min for 800Mb. Other times its faster. But don't try to do multiple things at once. I have found the best way to get a good ping in Black Ops is to disable wifi on ALL other devices. The NBN is coming to the rural areas, which I was getting excited for. Until I learned that our NBN is city ADSL2+ speeds.
So is the internet bad? No it's not. Is it annoying? OMFG YES!!!

There are other small things like, driving 35 minutes to go shopping, to find Country Target is a joke. But all in all, I love living out here and I will never move back. The town I am in is a real community based town. Everyone gets along really well and it quiet. No burn outs, no street fights, no drunken street wanderers.

Well thats about it folks.

Stay Geeky,

SighFye

Tuesday 10 March 2015

NES-top Computer: Part 2

Hey guys SighFye here.

I was going to wait until the NES actually came in the mail before I blogged again, but I have done a lot of research on motherboards that I want to share.

If you haven't read about my plans with the NES yet then read about it by clicking here.

When I first started looking at motherboards I knew two things. 1) It needs to be small, 2) it doesn't need to be powerful. Its only running old emulators so there's no need to over do it. I knew a few things I did want. First I wanted it packaged with a CPU and I didn't want integrated graphics that required a CPU with integrated graphic abilities. So here's the motherboards I looked at and the pros and cons I found.

ZOTAC IONITX-P-E Intel Celeron SU2300 (1.2 GHz dual-core) NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo


This motherboard stood out to me because of the NVidia ION which I read was a decent upgrade from integrated graphics. I also liked that it came complete with WIFI and could take a max of 8GB of RAM. Not that I would ever need anything like that. The CPU is only a 1.2GHz processor which made me not 100% happy with this board.

 

ASRock Q1900-ITX Intel Celeron J1900 Motherboard/CPU/VGA Combo

This motherboard comes complete with the Intel Celeron J1900 CPU 1.99Ghz CPU.  So this has a lot better CPU capabilities than the ZOTAC IONITX-P-E. The graphics are only Intel HD so the graphic power is not as good. This worried me a little as I wasn't too sure if this was enough to run emulators and FULL HD 1080p blu-ray. After further research I found this graphic would be more than sufficient but by then I had moved away from this motherboard.

ASUS AT5IONT-I Intel Atom D525 (1.8GHz, dual-core) BGA559 Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo


This motherboard I loved from the moment I saw it. I mean LOOK AT IT!! That cooling system is awesome. The ASUS AT5IONT-I CPU is the Intel Atom D525 1.8Ghz. Its a small decrease on the
Intel Celeron SU2300 in the Q1900 but the graphics in this motherboard is the Next Generation NVidia ION. NVidia boasts that this graphics gives 10 times the performance of integrated graphics and has the ability to play modern games like World of Warcraft and Spore. The downside to this motherboard is it can only have a max of 4GB of RAM. But in all fairness, why would I need more.

THIS IS THE MOTHERBOARD I HAVE SELECTED.... was what I said until...

A friend of mine introduced me to a controller operated menu system called Hyperspin. Basically it give one place for all of your emulators to run and the roms too. You select the emulator and then select the game. It doesn't come with emulators or roms but thats not really a problem.

Without a doubt THIS is what I want to use. I looked at the requirements for this and it is recommended to use 2GHz and 2GB of RAM. So now my ASUS AT5IONT-I is not good enough. I also found that it overheats so I was starting to lean away from it anyway with the lack of airflow in the NES. I did learn something new when looking at all of this. Emulators up to the Nintendo 64 & PS1 are CPU intensive not GPU. So now all I need the GPU to do is be able to play FULL HD 1080p Blu-Ray. A little more research brought me to this little baby.

ASRock Q2900-ITX Intel Pentium J2900 2.41 GHz Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU/VGA Combo

This motherboard is host to the Intel Pentium J2900 Quad Core 2.41GHz processor. This motherboard only has intel HD graphics which is the same as the first one but it does have HDMI which supports FULL HD 1080p blu-ray playback. So thats the Blu-Ray playback sorted. With a max of 16GB of RAM I have more than enough RAM support and 2.42GHz is more than enough CPU power. With added extras like 7.1 HD audio, 2x Sata2 and 2x Sata3 and full spike protection from surges, lightning and ESD, I feel I have now found my motherboard. It also only take 37watts of power so I should get away with a picoPSU. The only downside I could see was the lack of wifi support but I can always get a USB wifi adapter and all is good and fix.

So that's it guys, if you have any input that would better my choice then please comment below.

Until next time... Geek it up!

SighFye

Read the next part in the NES-top development. Click Here

Monday 9 March 2015

NES-top Computer: Part 1

Hi guys SighFye here.

Over the last few days I have been playing around with the idea of building a blue-ray player/retro gaming system inside a Nintendo case. To do this I will build a PC inside the case. This will give me my blue-ray player and by using emulators I can fill the beast with emulators for Nintendo, Super Nintendo, N64, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, PlayStation and Xbox I can achieve the retro gaming system.

The main problems I can see straight off the bat are space and heat. Computers generate a lot of heat in general and then cramming it all into a space one tenth of the size will highly increase the chances of over heating.

So first steps to this whole thing is finding a NES. I found this one of Ebay.

THIS PAL VERSION NES CONSOLE IS SUPPLIED IN NON-WORKING CONDITION - IT BLINKS A RED LIGHT WHEN TRYING TO BOOT UP GAMES. IT SUPPLIED "AS IS" WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE FLINSTONES AND SUPER MARIO BROS. / DUCK HUNT GAME CARTIDGES ARE ALSO INCLUDED WITH THIS BUNDLE.
PLEASE NOTE THAT NO CONTROLLERS, POWER SUPPLIES OR CONTROLLERS ARE INCLUDED

 Personally I think it was a little pricey for something that's not working but I couldn't find anything better without the case looking like shit. I don't want to get one that is working as that will take one away from someone else who wants a working one. With this I do get two games I can sell to gain my money back. So I bought this one.

ITEM: Nintendo
PRICE: $78 + $20 postage
TOTAL CURRENT PRICE OF BUILD: $98 

Jumping onto Google I found the external dimensions of the NES.
  • Height: 88mm
  • Width: 254mm
  • Depth: 203.2mm
I subtracted 5mm from all edges to estimate the thickness of the plastic and drew together a basic blueprint. Here is the current plan.
As you can see everything fits nicely. The motherboard will be a mini-ITX board, blue-ray player a slim line player and the fans 30mm fans. I also found you can get power supplies that are the size of two AA batteries so that won't take up much room either.

The next step is to do my motherboard research and find one that, 1) Fits and 2) Is powerful enough. I don't want this build to be weak.

So that's it for today. I will start my motherboard research and when the NES comes get some proper dimensions. Until then, geek it up readers.

SighFye

Read Part 2 Here