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

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

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBchiNAZexw

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI6wVtCY99E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jANDq2Ad5H4

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.

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.

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

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!