Classic Arcade Games My first Arcade cabinet - Day Three by Michael Earls After acquiring a new (non-working) Pac-Man arcade cabinet, I set off to get it up and running. My first two days were filled with adventure and more questions.After replacing the fuse blocks
Classic Arcade Games My first arcade cabinet project - day two by Michael Earls I did some more troubleshooting today and I have to admit that I'm a little embarrassed. I took the power supply and harness out of the cabinet so I could work on it
Classic Arcade Games My first arcade cabinet project - day one by Michael Earls I woke up early Saturday morning so I could get started before it got too hot (it still smells bad from having the dead rat in it, so we're keeping it in the carport to air out). I plugged in the cab and the speakers made a crackling sound for a few seconds and then went silent.
Classic Arcade Games Pac-Man Fever - My newest electronics project - Part 1 - Maggie and the dead rat by Michael Earls Every story has a beginning. The story of how I acquired my first arcade cabinet is no exception. It started when I was contacted by an old high school friend on Facebook. She
Electronics Building a Magic: the Gathering Life Counter with Arduino and MAX7219 by Michael Earls Before dedicating myself to the task of soldering 64 LEDs to make my 4x4x4 LED cube, I decided to build a life counter for the card game Magic: the Gathering. Basically, it is
What does a software developer do all day, anyway? by Michael Earls The story is a little different for all software developers, depending on the technologies they use and the work environment, but I'll describe what my day looks like as a developer at the
Michael Why I quit working for Microsoft by Michael Earls Back in mid 2000, I realized my lifelong career goal of getting a job at Microsoft. It was awesome. I wasn't selected after my first interview for a Software Engineer in early 2000,
Programming Is it Intelligent? The Braitenberg Vehicle by Michael Earls Back in 2010, I started reading a book titled Vehicles - Experiments in Synthetic Psychology written by Valentino Braitenberg in 1984. Braitenberg was a cyberneticist and wrote this book as a series of
Blog Comments are back by Michael Earls I fixed the comments system on the blog tonight. I use Disqus for comments and I had not yet modified the new Ghost Casper theme to include them. I love using this theme,
Electronics 4x4x4 LED Cube - Part 2 - Schematic by Michael Earls I sat down and built the schematic for my 4x4x4 LED cube tonight. I only built out 2 layers. The other 2 layers are identical to the first two. They are stacked on
Electronics 4x4x4 LED Cube - Part 1 - Design by Michael Earls This post is the first in a series on making a 4x4x4 LED cube utilizing a Max7219 as a multiplexer.
Programming GitHub is not necessarily the best judge of developer skill by Michael Earls I recently read where someone said that GitHub was the place to go to determine a developer's skill level. I have to say that I totally disagree with this statement. It might be
Pathfinder Being bored has never felt so good by Michael Earls Ater two 55+ hour work weeks and a 17 hour day (we didn't leave the office until 1 AM and I worked through lunch that day), I've been a bit lazy. In fact,
Pathfinder Easy and inexpensive bases for paper and cardboard RPG miniatures by Michael Earls I print my own miniatures for use with Pathfinder. I buy the PDF version of the Pathfinder pawns and print out the pages that I need to use, cutting and gluing the pieces
Pathfinder The Adventure Begins by Michael Earls We just had our second gathering to play Pathfinder (Pathfinder is based on the D&D 3.5 Edition Rules). We started playing the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path last
Programming How to add Prism Syntax Highlighting to your Ghost blog by Michael Earls I have been using Ghost pro for a few years now as my blogging platform and I love it. However, its lack of code formatting (syntax highlighting) has made it difficult to use
.NET Beyond the Demos - Part 3 - The DTOs by Michael Earls To make passing data between the various parts of our application easy, we need a way to encapsulate that data in such a way that it can easily be transported across the network and consumed by various clients.
.NET .NET Beyond the Demos - Part 2 - The Architecture by Michael Earls In order for me to communicate this particular story, I first need to outline the overall architecture. At the highest structural level, the architecture is really quite simple. Let's start there and work our way down.
C# .NET Beyond the Demos - Part 1 by Michael Earls I like code demos. They're good for getting you familiar with how a specific technology works. However, many times, it's hard to get a feel for how different technologies work together to create a larger ecosystem in the enterprise environment.
Star Wars Solo: A Star Wars Story actually looks good by Michael Earls I just watched the latest trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story. I have never been a Han Solo fan, but I'm really excited about a new Star Wars movie since Rogue One
Addiction Goodbye Facebook (for real this time) by Michael Earls Update: July 11, 2018 - Facebook is just too darn useful. I have rejoined to keep up with local gaming groups and other user groups for things I'm interested in. Maybe this time
Art Staring at a blank canvas by Michael Earls I recently bought painting supplies. The whole works; Brushes, Canvases, Paints. I even bought a new easel. I managed to paint one painting using the intuitive painting technique. However, I keep finding myself
Electronics I have officially turned to the dark side by Michael Earls Slowly turning to the dark side, I just purchased my first Apple watch.
Facebook Hi, my name is Michael, and I'm addicted to Facebook by Michael Earls I don't remember life before Facebook, and that bothers me. We recently went on a week long vacation, and while we were there, I never once checked my Facebook. Sure, it kept bugging
Music The New (and arguably improved) Tangerine Dream by Michael Earls I've been a Tangerine Dream fan since 1990. Since that time, when someone asked me who my favorite band was, I instantly answered "Tangerine Dream". I was usually met with blank
