Skeletons and Labyrinths

This video is of my favourite little friend Skrash, pre-vivisection. I went out shopping today, looking for a 9.6V battery pack to put in this monster, but I found out that 9.6V battery packs cost upwards of $40, and O instead opted to cheap out and rig up two 9V batteries in series to get the job done. One 9V will make the hood open and shut, and will allow the wheels to turn, but it won't drive the big motor enough to get things moving. I finally found out that it was my amperage, not the voltage, that was the problem, and a quickly cobbled together parallel circuit was just the ticket to make this thing go. It works just fine now, and it's already a little monstrous, so I'm happy as is.

After my first little victory, I decided a change of pace was necessary. I started to do a little bit of research into my area of studies and related tidbits. I started out with radio and the history of Radio, and Guglielmo Marconi. I found a book about him as well, which is told like a story. It's a bit wordy for my purposes, but it's a nice contrast to the other technical stuff I found. In the book's description, it talks about how Marconi himself didn't even know how the machine worked at first, and that he had somehow managed to transmit signals through the "Ether".

I also found a book about the Ether, which is a little bit on the odd side. It talks about how ether is the "Superflux of the sky". When I figure out what in the blue hell that means, I'll let you know, but it certainly sounds cool, and I'm all for it.

I also found a couple of books that dealt with the anecdotal side of radio history. "Voices in the Purple Haze: Underground Radio and the Sixties" has insofar been an interesting read, if a little on the strange side. "Free Radio" is a book that I actually found while looking for "Voices in the Purple Haze", and I actually think it might be a bit more useful. In it, the author talks about the various kinds of pirate radios that have sprung up over the years and how the government is trying to regulate them.

"I Hid it Under the Sheets" is interesting, too, but it also has a more verbose and less to the point writing style. I did find it quite interesting on a personal note, though, because the author, Gerald Eskenazi, talks about his experiences as a child with the radio, and I have to say that it reminded me of my own childhood. The connection for me, however, wasn't to the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet, and Superman like it was for Eskenazi, it was for Link, Mario, and Samus Aran from the games I played as a kid.

In his intro, Eskenazi describes how he enjoyed the radio programs he listened to so much because, as a child, he had such a vivid imagination. He never saw any of the characters, but his imagination filled in the blanks while he listened and helped paint a picture in his mind. this is the same for me when i was young, playing my 8-bit games on the floor of my bedroom with my brothers. In the original Legend of Zelda, there's not much to look at in the labyrinths you enter, but in my mind, the blue bricks that formed the pixelated walls and floors were covered with fine dust, old vines, and smelled like my friend's musty basement. The bats that are in it look like a simplified batman logo in black, with big, blocky pixels, but in my mind's eye they were hideous flying creatures with four foot wing spans and glistening teeth, intent on ripping the flesh from an unexperienced adventurer's bones. The graphics were very simple, but that's never what I saw, because imagination played such a big part in the experience then. Now, when you play video games, each enemy and area is intricately detailed and spelled out for the player and almost no imagination is needed. I miss those old days, and I still find myself using emulators on my computer to recapture them.

In my day.... Oh, God, it's starting already....