I found out that some of our panels were modified by someone in the past to do … interesting things.
Home built new video-patch panel. Waaay more sensible, understandable, and usable.
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Category: Uncategorized
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AV updates, mid drydock.
Before: After:
I think it looks a little better. Still messy, but at least understandable. Pretty much everything is plugged in now, and from preliminary tests, we appear to have somewhat better clarity in EVERYTHING, and some of the video signals are visibly higher signal-to-noise with much less interference.We bought two new audio patch panels too, Behringer ones. Strangely, Behringer also seem to do unbalanced patch panels. Fortunately, the shop had both, and I noticed. What on earth would anyone want unbalanced patch panels for?!
I also had to butcher the two panels which we were replacing to get enough parts to fix a third panel which was very glitchy. Here are some of the internals which are slightly broken.
You can see a bit of corrosion on the top contact – even with jackplug cleaners and everything, the equipment is just plain old.
Today, hopefully, I can do the full system tests (need to borrow a oscilliscope and reference signal generators…), and then get the whole thing boxed up and leave it until the end of drydock. Then I can work on more fun projects. Videos, song composition, etc.
That’s all for now, I’ll post more shorter posts later, with more pictures.
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Life carries on…
So. Short post.
We’re in KK, Malaysia. Beautiful place.
A whole bunch of people left, and a whole bunch of new ‘uns joined.
The crazy Swedish dude left my AV team and headed home, after two years on board, and now I’ve got a new American the team. It’s fun training him, although kind of strange. I’ve taught AV stuff to so many people now. It’s hard to remember what I’ve taught to whom. I’ve got a basic Doulos AV curriculum, finally, but it’s difficult to get it all together. Theres so many little bits of randomness.
So now the team is one Korean, one Brit, one American, and one confused-not-quite-sure-ean(me).
Amongst the new recruits is one of my friends from the UK, which is very cool. She seems to be enjoying the ship so far, and is working in the “Accomedation” team, cleaning the inside of the ship, doing the laundry, running the bookshop cafe, etc.
Anyway. So. This was intended to be a short post, and mostly informational…
Yeah.
It’s my girlfriend’s birthday tomorrow. The whole present-buying-birthday-celebration-rituals-cultures-thing terrifies me. Like, I dunno. Something about my INFP/TCK nature, I guess. I want everything I do to be meaningful, and genuine. Especially with those who are really dear to me. That’s the INFP side… But also, I feel like so many things (such as buying presents on birthdays, putting up signs, cards, etc) are very superficial, and just a crass part of some culture.
I want to buy presents that are really real – not just bought “because” of the birthday. Yet I don’t know if buying presents *for* the birthday, like, “doing the birthday thing” is also a way of being real, within a culture?
I don’t totally relate personally to any culture, really, and find almost all cultures have things which offend me, and which I don’t fit into.
Also, on the other hand, more practically, I know that there is an element I also probably ought to have of simply “Daniel, just grow up, accept the fact that you’re not all that great at buying presents, so get over it, stop making all these stupid theoretical excuses and work harder than everyone else to actually do it well, and on time. Stop being so lazy.”
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Oh dear.
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Oh dear.
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Modern Christianity.
We’re not sure of the difference between baseless optimism and faith.
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Blinded by love?
Just a random thought.
I was walking past a sign today, I don’t remember what the whole sign was about, but it contained the phrase “love makes you blind”.
Does it?
It’s a weird concept. I know what it means, but isn’t it kind of antithetical to what we would want to believe?
We say love (in it’s purest form) is the highest of virtues, biblically, it’s one of our main goals, God uses “love” to describe himself, Paul waxes lyrical about it, and almost every page of the scriptures are saturated in it. Songs have been written from the beginning of time about it.
Surely love does the opposite of blinding. It’s only in love that we are actually able to see. Without love, we are blind.
If what we call “Love” causes us to no longer see (flaws, problems, sins, etc), then is it really love? Or infatuation, idolatry?
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Bolts and other bits and bobs
Ever wonder what a stainless steel bolt looks like when it completely rusts into oblivion?
Well. Now you know. This fell off one of our lifeboats. Makes you feel very secure, right?
This is the latest addition to the AV room:
It’s getting quite full, these days. Well, it has been for YEARS now. Any time we want to change anything, it gets quite major and complicated, trying to shuffle things around. Basically, I was fed up of having our stationary drawer jam because of too many tools inside it, so had the carpenters make us this. Makes me feel all reminiscent of the keyshop. *sigh* good old days.
Here it is, in place. As you can tell, the room isn’t all that tidy, still. Just SO MUCH STUFF! Other additions, the mug hooks on the wall, the per-day form hooks too, and also a removable wall-mount for the fan (which always used to just sit on the floor and get kicked…)
and lastly, we’ve FINALLY got the slot on the door for request forms!
exciting! I’ll post pictures of the opposite side of this amazing slot soon. It’s small, subtle, elegantly engineered and discreet. You’ll love it.
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Avoid Sudoku!
I hardly ever do Sudoku.
But occasionally I fall into temptation, and picked up the following problem:
[4][ ][ ] [ ][ ][3] [ ][9][ ]
[5][1][ ] [ ][4][8] [ ][2][7]
[ ][2][ ] [ ][9][ ] [ ][8][ ]
[ ][4][ ] [3][7][ ] [2][ ][ ]
[7][ ][2] [ ][8][ ] [9][ ][ ]
[ ][ ][6] [ ][1][ ] [ ][5][3]
[ ][ ][7] [8][6][ ] [4][ ][9]
[9][6][ ] [ ][ ][7] [ ][ ][2]
[ ][ ][4] [ ][ ][1] [ ][7][ ]
Apparently DEAD EASY to do. It took me about 2 minutes.
Except the last 4 squares, which are impossible.
I’m almost annoyed enough to almost go learn what the rules for making a sudoku are, and find out which one this particular sudoku has broken.
Grr.
It sucks.
I’m somewhat tempted to leave the post at that, but feel a little elaboration may be at least polite.
We are finite individuals. We cannot know completely, comprehensively. We can only know in part.
Modernism claims that we can know definately. That our knowing something to be true can be true, and right, and accurate.
I don’t believe that. Our finite, human perspective is so limited, so small, so warped, that how can any one human’s perception be absolutely comprehensively true? It could, in theory, be an absolutely honest viewpoint, but a small, finite, limited and warped honest viewpoint, nevertheless.
So then. Where does that lead us?
Claims of truth being relative.
Counter-claims by modernists that not believing in God as absolute truth absolutely denies you access to Him.
Declarations of nonsensical “Pan-Everythingism” as Francis Shaeffer would call it.
Refutations by absolute logic.
Definitions of logic as equally relative and therefore meaningless.
I dunno.
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There is a road, and along the road there are signs pointing along it. Some travellers wear green-tinted glasses and so say “The Signs are Green! Unless You Believe In the True Greenness Of The Signs, You Will Never Reach The Destination!”
Others have red tinted glasses, and so say exactly the same, “The Signs are Red! Unless You Believe In The True Redness Of The Signs, You Will Never Reach The Destination!”
Others wear glasses where the tint is red at the top, green at the bottom, yellow on the left, blue on the right, and purple in the middle. “It depends which way you hold your head!” They say. “Everyone has their own perspective on the signs. There is no absolute colour of the signs.”
I have several sets of glasses, and I can put them both on. Neither of them really fit my nose, but without them my sight is so poor I can barely see anything. Everything looks distorted, confused, and wrong when I wear the glasses, and I don’t want to settle on any one of them.
I want the sign maker to come, take my hand, and lead me to His home: the destination at the end of the road to which the signs point.
I trust Him. I don’t know fully where I’m walking, but maybe that’s enough.