My First Mission Trip

Posted by Wally Atkins on April 7, 2012 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

To Those That Visit My Website:

I will be heading down to Ensenada, Mexico to build a house with my brother and sister (and about thirty more people) in June 2012. I’m sure it will be a fun time to reunite with my siblings since we all live apart from one another these days but it will be even greater to see God at work through throughout this experience. What will we be doing, you ask? Well, the group that is going will split into three teams and each will build a modest house for families in need within a week’s time.

So, why am I writing about this on my blog? First of all, it’s not free to travel down there and to build a house so I am asking for donations if you feel lead to give. If you do feel like donating to this cause then please use the PayPal button to send as little or as much as you would like. More importantly than money is that if you feel lead to pray for myself and the team that is travelling along with those that we will encounter – please do. I also posted the letter that I am sending out to friends and family if you would like to read that for more details.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts, prayers and generosity. If you have any questions please leave a comment on this thread.

Wally Atkins

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Beagle Boys Reference

Posted by Wally Atkins on September 24, 2010 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

When was the last time that you sat down and enjoyed the adventures of Duck Tales or came across a reference to the Beagle Boys? Well, for me … once again SlashDot has provided a nostalgic look back into my youth with a crazy story of burglars over in France. I will have to do some more research when I get a chance to try and find the exact episode that this appeared in but there was a very similar scenario where the Beagle Boys used a vacuum to steal gold and money and surely it must have been the inspiration for this group.

Anyway, here is a grab of the post and link to the Vacuum Burglars article on Slashdot:

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Importing Shape Files into MySQL

Posted by Wally Atkins on July 14, 2010 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

I recently was interested in getting some shapefile information quickly into a MySQL database. It seems like it should be a relatively simple task but you never know until you try, right? Well, thanks to the wonderful GDAL there is a great command that should be shared with the world:

ogr2ogr -f "MySQL" MySQL:"geospatial,user=user,host=localhost,password=password" -lco engine=MYISAM shapes.shp

It’s a thing of beauty! One little command line entry will take the entire contents of the shape file and push it into a MySQL database with the geometry. The only catch that I have run into so far was needing to increase a setting for increasing the MySQL allowed packet size. To change that just edit the /etc/my.inf file to include something like:

max_allowed_packet=100M

Works like a dream.

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Bluegrass Tribute to The Goonies – The Whiskey Rebellion

Posted by Wally Atkins on November 1, 2009 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments to Read

My brother-in-law, Jared Pool, with the band “The Whiskey Rebellion” released on Halloween their tribute to the classic movie – “The Goonies”.

A wonderfully done video and song if I do say so myself. Check it out and passit on!

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Google Building Maker

Posted by Wally Atkins on October 13, 2009 under Uncategorized | 3 Comments to Read

Wow.  Seriously … just wow.

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OS 3D Laser Map – Most Accurate Mapping Ever

Posted by Wally Atkins on under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

Just thought that I would share a video I came across this morning:

Could you imagine being able to see the entire Earth at this level of detail from the comfort of your own home/office/school/whatever? The technology behind enabling us to capture and share our world in amazing precision and likeness is just a bit mind-boggling to me right now.

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Work Out While Playing World of Warcraft (WoW)

Posted by Wally Atkins on September 23, 2009 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments to Read

Recently Slashdot revealed to me: Using a Treadmill and Wiimotes To Run and Fly in Aion

Now I know that MMORPG’s can be highly addictive and can even cause rather interesting interactions between the physical and virtual worlds. However, this is the first time that I have heard of people attempting to get a workout whilst playing these games. I just close my eyes and imagine a single guy in his apartment running on a treadmill flapping his arms up and down so he can move his Level 23 Elvish Mage across the virtual landscapes of WoW.

WoW.

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Researcher Dies After Studying Plague Bacteria

Posted by Wally Atkins on September 21, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

I am loving the headline of this story over at Slashdot. Apparently the guy died after working with a weakened strand of the bacteria that causes “The Plague”. Look, I understand that medical research is a good thing and all … but it’s the freaking plague!!! If I were the guy I would have avoided the thing.

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Play Contra, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and more in Google Chrome

Posted by Jason Crowder on September 17, 2009 under Uncategorized | Read the First Comment

I love underdog stories.  When it comes to browsers, Google’s Chrome web browser is definitely the underdog as compared to Firefox and Internet Explorer in terms of popularity and market share.   But in terms of JavaScript speed, Google’s got them all beat.  Case in point:  Someone has written a pure JavaScript NES emulator that runs very well in Google Chrome and very slowly in Firefox and not at all in Internet Explorer.    I expect to see good things coming from the Google camp in the browser wars.

Play Contra, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and more in Google Chrome.

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How to Build a Nintendo Arcade

Posted by Wally Atkins on September 3, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

I found this article over at Instructables:

When  I was growing up I loved playing games in the local arcade for hours on end.  There were always a great variety of games and with just a few dollars I could play a whole bunch of them … and then Nintendo came about.  Once that wonderful system hit the market I spent hours on end in my basement playing the latest 8-bit games and never really looked back at the video game arcade scene.

Now that I am “all grown up” I get to play games with my kids on the Nintendo Wii.  It’s a great system and you can download most of the nostalgic games and reminisce whilst sharing 8-bit glory with the kids … but it’s just not the same as playing them in front of a six foot tall video game arcade box!  How in the world can you recreate this beloved memory of old school arcades for yourself and share it with your children?

Well, if you want spend a whole bunch of money you could actually purchase these arcade machines and designate a room in your house to truly make a real deal arcade of your own.  On the other hand, you could follow the wonderful instructions from this Instructable and make your own miniature/portable arcade box that could emulate all of the games in one box. Genius!

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