Some Sweet Anti-Scamming Action

So, today I was the target of really weak sauce phishing attempt. The whole interaction was pretty funny, so I figured I'd pass it on. Enjoy!


Original Message

According to our records, today (February 26th), there have been made several unauthorized attempts to log into your CL account. Immediate login is required in order to authenticate you as the owner of this account.

<phishing links>

Reply

I'd love to log in and fix the problem, but I'm actually an African prince in need of money. My uncle will be giving me money when he gets back to my country, but right now my car broke down in England and I need money to fix the car. I'll go ahead and send you 10 dollars, just give me your account number and we'll make it work. You can get others to chip in too. I'll give you 10 percent of everything that they donate. I have been selling Avon to try to get the car working; perhaps you'd be interested in some? I am also very well connected with a series of well reputed Canadian pharmacies and can get you all the Viagra you could ever want. All I need is your credit card number and CCV, maybe your social, date of birth, mother's maiden name, etc. Heck, go ahead and add me as a friend on Facebook while you're at it so I can learn about your crazy all night drinking and puking binges, then bring them up in awkward social situations in 10 years. I bet my uncle, the king, would be really excited to meet you, and will reward you handsomely for your generosity in my time of need.

Sincerely,

Mufasa Jabar

Fire Eater, the Simple Steam Engine

I've been wanting something more complicated to model lately, so I went online and found a site for steam engine enthusiasts, downloaded some plans, and started modeling. And after a day and a half, here's what I've got:

I don't have everything in yet, but it's coming. This was really an exercise in assemblies more than modeling. I learned a lot of neat new things about putting objects together that I didn't know before. Three cheers for self-paced learning!

Steam Boiler Parts in Inventor

Today, I wanted something a little bit more challenging to model, so I went online and found plans for a steam boiler. This one really upped the ante for me in a couple of ways. First, it had more geometry than I had previously modeled. Second, all the instructions were in French. Turns out call-outs are done differently in France. anyhow. Here's a picture I rendered out of it. Enjoy!

A Letterpress Arm Assembly in Inventor!

Last night, Amy and I took dinner and our electronic devices over to my brother's house. Rob, my brother, owns a letterpress studio which has a massive array of mechanical pieces (great for modeling). So, after dinner I went out to the studio and modeled the crank arm on a press.

This was an interesting exercise for me. The project presented a couple of challenges that I had not dealt with previously, primarily that the arm assembly tapered on all three axes, in addition to having a job in it. This was also my first assembly (meaning that I created multiple components and then incorporated them together into a single model). It took a bit to find the options to constrain the measurements and figure out how they work for assemblies, but in the end it came out pretty nicely!

Next step for this is to add a screw to the end of the handle and some holes at the top of the crank to hold it on a rod that projects from the press.

A Little AutoCAD From Screencasting Today

Today I worked on homework, and while I'm sure it would both thrill and excite, I'm only including half of it (the electrical drafting half of it). That's right, you'll need to get your structural steel fix elsewhere. Here's a bit of what I did today.

Inventor Pieces From Some Screencasting

Screencasting got a little split up today, but it has been interesting so far! I did some more work in Autodesk Inventor and did some renderings. Enjoy!

Inventor Rendering Numero Deux

Here's a little bit I put together in Autodesk Inventor today. Apparently, this is what a flag pole holder would look like if it were made of opal. The rest are some interesting ice cube concepts.

Orbital Camera Rig, Part 2

Yesterday was manufacturing day for the camera rig. All the pieces were measured, cut with the chop saw, then assembled.

The sawdust from cutting the PVC was pretty intense.

Finally, I put it together for a dry fitting.

So, I brought it home and put it up...

And it was too big! It was then I realized that I had measured for 1/2" PVC, but had purchased 3/4" for added stability. So tomorrow, I'll be doing a little trimming up of the top and bottom, as well as a little re-cutting for the top to make it easier to mount my tablet for live streaming. Here are some more pictures f how badly off I was.

At least the fire's been nice.

Orbital Camera Rig, Part 1

I have really enjoyed screencasting lately. I find that it is fantastic motivation to do my homework. However, there is a problem: not all of my homework can be done on my computer. Specifically, I am taking a structural steel class and an architectural drafting class which both require hand sketches. Last week, I played around with that a little bit by propping my laptop on an angle and using it's webcam which was okay, but it didn't give all that good of coverage and my drawings were a little difficult to see. So yesterday I decided to model a camera rig. First, I  measured my coffee table (as that's probably where the rig is going to be spending most of its working time).

Then, I downloaded a pile of PVC components from Google's 3D Warehouse and built the model. I used the model to calculate parts and quantities, then made a trip to Home Depot to acquire the parts. To mount the camera, I am using a tutorial I found on Instructables. Here's the model.

Early Morning Screencasting Recap

Today I decided to switch it up a bit and work on some photogrammetric modeling rather than the usual Google SketchUp bit. I decided to model something simple (an old travel chest) and something a little more complex (my guitar). I am really excited by the potential of photogrammetric modeling, especially when it comes to using it to model organic props (see my previous post about modeling my sister's tree for a tree house). The ability to generate a model and then be able to work around it in other software (like Revit) really opens up a lot of possibilities.

Anyhow. Here are this morning's workings. The last one is a render I did using a V-Ray demo inside of Google SketchUp.

Early Morning Screencasting, Day 3 Recap

Yet more on the same building as yesterday. I decided to frame it a wall at a time and see where we go from there. Then I got a little bored, so I pulled the model over to Revit and did some renderings to mix things up. Fun!

Early Morning Screencasting, Day 2 Recap

Today's early morning screencasting started a little later than anticipated and ended with me forgetting my mouse on the table in the southwest corner of the Computer Science building (which I was fortunate enough to retrieve intact). More work on yesterday's house. I was going to extrude it and make a simple model, but then I got thinking about it and it rapidly became more complicated. Down to the individual brick complicated. I'm beginning to see a pattern in my drafting behavior.

Here are some screen captures from today's session. Watch me draft tomorrow morning between 7:00 AM and 10:00 AM on USTREAM.

 

Early Morning Screencasting, Day 1 Recap

This morning I started something new for me: live screencasting. And guess what? I really like it! I spent an hour or so this morning drawing the floor plan for a house I found online. I'll be working on it again tomorrow morning starting around 7:00 AM Mountain time. I am using USTREAM and my channel can be accessed here.

I tried doing this a little differently. Rather than drawing the walls and then extruding them, I decided to draw the rooms, then infer the walls around them. We'll see how it goes... I don't have an Architectural Modeling with SketchUp instructor telling me I'm doing it the wrong way, so I guess we're going by trial and error. I'll be picking up again first thing in the morning. Check out my channel when you've got a moment if you're up early and are interested!

A couple of quick ones

Today I started a mechanical modeling class focusing on Autodesk Inventor. Today's assignment was to go home and play with the software by modeling something around the house, so I modeled the cap of a bottle of facial wash. I'm loving the ray tracing!

And just in case you're not sure if these are real or CG, here's the model in wire frame.

The Tables, Finished

Yesterday, Matt and I finished the second table and put it up against the wall, after which we broke them in by playing League of Legends for several hours. I couldn't find the camera yesterday, so there aren't any pictures of the work in progress. However, there were some major improvements that should be noted.

First, we used sawhorses, rather than working on the piece directly on the ground. Words cannot completely express my appreciation for saw horses at this point. It's like going from rocks and sticks to gunpowder.

Second, we belt sanded the edges to flush them up a bit more once the top had been assembled. This made routing the front edge WORLDS easier, and the whole thing looks a little more put together.

Third, we didn't leave the stain on nearly as long. It looks really nice!

More pictures. Less words. This Saturday we're breaking it in with their inaugural LAN party.