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Team Fortress 2 - Voice Lines with Animations

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Not a particularly interesting post, but I couldn't find this information on the Internet when I searched, so after figuring it out, I thought I should post my results. If you play TF2, you know that some of the voicemenu lines you can say are accompanied by the character doing some animated move.  Everybody is familiar with the "Thanks" voice line giving a thumbs-up animation, but exactly what voice lines give exactly which animation isn't obvious, and the first person models we play in don't animate when we say it. Voice lines are not always clear to the other players, but animations are, and this is especially the case if they're on the other team. So, I started a server, turned on sv_cheats, went into third person, and tried the different voice lines.  I tried every voice line with every character.  I didn't try it with every loadout, but I did notice some differences depending on the weapon choice. I didn't try it on Passtime mode, so I didn...
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Graph of Recent Air Quality and Allergens in Albuquerque

Since the City of Albuquerque only publishes a daily report of this information but no graph, I started making a Google Spreadsheet graph of it in 2015 (actually in 2013, but that was allergens-only). They take 5 or less readings a week so this is around a year's worth (the last 220 or so readings). I offered the city website a link to one of my graphs a while back, but I guess I have to publish it myself instead. The pollen is a moving average on a logarithmic scale since those numbers vary wildly. I also included two dim lines for East Side and West Side totals. They stop taking pollen readings between about November and March. I personally have an issue with something that has an extra bloom right at the end of October, probably Juniper, and so the stop in readings doesn't help, plus I have only graphed TOTAL pollen here. The Air Quality is on a scale that approximates their warning system.  Usually the only significant things are particulates and Ozone. Some d...
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Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA
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Enter Webz 1.0 - TiVo Apps

I have finally released Enter Webz out of beta. While it is still available to download at http://David.Blackledge.com/tivo/enterwebz/ , I am also running it on a public server at http://EnterWebz.tv Enter Webz brings Internet content to the TiVo DVR as Weather, News, Video, Music, Comic, and Social apps. It includes the ability to play MP3s and Internet Radio, and to play MP4 and MPEG video as well as YouTube videos. I will mainly provide support for it via the Tivo Community Forums at this post: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=524163
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Enter Webz - Beta Release

Today I'm announcing "Enter Webz" - the world's first web browser for the TiVo DVR. This is just a Beta release. This release is available for download from http://David.Blackledge.com/tivo/enterwebz if you have a TiVo DVR. More information is in the documentation . Just download, unzip, and run the .bat file, then look in "Music, Photos, and More" or "Showcases and Apps" or equivalent, depending on your TiVo model. You'll get Enter Webz, and a couple of shortcuts to Google and Archive.org (where you can listen to public domain music, or watch public domain videos and movies on your TV). It will also launch the TiVo's YouTube app for any YouTube URLs you encounter. It's ugly and buggy still, but today's the last day of my vacation, so I may not get a chance to work on this for a while.
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Natural Rotational Ambigrams

What's that? Ok, an ambigram is a word that reads the same (or reads something else) when turned in some way (reflected, rotated, etc). Natural Rotational Ambigrams are a subset of that which I like to experiment with. They're rotational ambigrams (they look the same when you turn them over (rotate)) and they're natural in that they don't use any artistic alteration to create them, just a typical English text font. It helps to have non- D'Nealian a's ("hook" a's) since they look like e's (and vice versa) when rotated. Anyhow, over several years I experimented more and more with what was possible, at different levels of rigor, and I haven't messed with it in a few years, so I might as well post what I came up with, right? Here's some of my favorites. They aren't much, which gives you an idea of how hard this ended up being. Single words: I o nu axe ale pod mow seas haley paled saxes sales swims solos passed sasses Symbiotogram ...
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Solitaire, FreeCell, Mahjongg, Calendar, etc. for TiVo DVRs

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I know I mentioned Solitaire for the TiVo before, but now I've packaged it up nicely so it is easy to install and run... in fact I did that for a bunch of things. All are available at http://David.Blackledge.com/tivo Solitaire and FreeCell are about what they were before, but there are now 2 versions, one without and another with all of my "Multitasker" features added (pictured) since those features are still difficult to configure and are a little unstable anyhow. And, of course, they're easy to install now (one download, unzip it, run the .bat file, enjoy on the TiVo DVR) Mahjongg for TiVo was actually created by Gene Wadleigh a long time ago... his project was abandoned and didn't work with the current TiVo software, so I fixed it up and have finally made a good package that is easy to get running. The Calendar is a handy little application for checking any "ical" format file or URL to check out what is on that calendar... it comes preconfigured with ...
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Thanksgiving 2009

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N ow that was a Thanksgiving worth blogging about ;] Of course we have to start with the food. Tricia tried two turkey techniques she hasn't done before and was ecstatic with the result. Brining the turkey for a number of hours, and using Alton Brown's Turkey Triangle to keep the white meat moist. She said it was the most moist and just all around best turkey she has ever made. Although she wasn't happy with the experimental spelt dressing (which she enhanced the next night to great effect), that didn't take away from the fantastic meal which also included Charlene's requested sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and homemade mashed potatoes and turkey gravy all pictured here (in the foreground is a half-price centerpiece find from the turkey-buying trip... plus some embellishments by Ian). I, on the other hand, successfully carved the turkey for the first time by getting a few turkey carving pointers from another video (I picked the shortest listing from search resul...
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