Monthly Archives: October 2006

GX Remotes

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As some of you know, we have been working on the GX at Matrix Orbital for some time. Well, today we received our samples of the remote control. I am very proud of the design, we did have to use an off the shelf remote, do to the prohibitive cost of designing one ourselves. The button layout is not optimal, but I think we did very well with the limitations we had. The remote design is aimed at MCE, but we are focusing on the MythTV people as well, adding an arcade button and the GX button (which will be for system stats, and GX configuration). Ray has also been working with Microsoft/Philips on using their remote control, and we might be able to offer that in the near future as well, so with out further ado, the GX remote.

New Winter, New Jeep…

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It is here, the snow, the cold the Jeeping FUN! For those who keep up with my life, I got a new Jeep. It’s a 1998 5.9 Limited in silver. It’s the one I have always wanted, the perfect Jeep. It is fully loaded except for one thing, it is missing hooks and under body protection. I am not overly happy about that, but out of all the things about this Jeep, it worries me the least. It cost me $8000 even, that’s about $3000 less then it should have, so I’m extra happy. And with that, today we got a dump of snow, and with that the yearly curling ring on my hill. Today there was one near accident of a guy in a small car trying to drive down and almost hitting a parked car. From the looks of it this must have been his first year in Canada and his first winter. There was a guy in a Pathfinder trying to help him out and was pulling him out with those red little tie straps. Seriously, if you are going to be driving a SUV, and trying to pull people up slippery hills, get a real town line, they are not that expensive and much safer!!!

Anyway’s, here is the add for the jeep I got!

Now it’s time to start buying some of my new parts for it. The first this is a locking differential from Auburn. It is called ECTED and is a electronic locking differential and a limited slip when it is not locked. After that a minimal lift kit and then some real bumpers!!!

Genographic Project part II

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Today the DNA kit came for the Genographic Project from National Geographic after many many months of waiting. The problem was that it was shipped to the wrong address so I never received it. I e-mailed National Geographic and it was sorted right away and a new kit was shipped. 

 

 The kit contains a DVD with a National Geographic episode detailing the human genome project and information on how the test works, such as what DNA markers the test looks for. It also contains the necessary cell sampling equipment. There are two swabs and two tubes to store them in.

 

The idea is to scrape the inside of my cheek on two different occasions to gather enough cell samples to get enough DNA to test with. Then it’s time to place the swab inside the container, and tomorrow do it again for the second sample.

The rest of the pictures are here…