I’m nearly finished with Ravenswood, and just about ready to give it to my editor for his Red Pen of Doom. Before I jump back into the short story that became a novella that is dangerously close to being a novel, I’m going to reward myself with a couple of fun non-writing projects. One of them is building and configuring (and hopefully playing) my PiCade kit. The other is just an idea, but I think it’s doable: I have a 7″ Android tablet that I don’t use very often, because the battery on it is crap. But I have this idea to keep it plugged in all the time, and use it to display a scrolling news ticker, the current weather, and my security camera feeds. It’ll live on my desk. Does anyone know if there’s an existing Linux or Android project that does that sort of thing? I don’t have the knowledge or ability at the moment to put all that together on my own, but I think I could learn, given enough time.
I’ll be on the pre-game show tonight, before the Kings vs. Bruins, on Fox Sports West, around 7:15pm, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
My friend, Robyn, is an amazing woman. She made a video this morning that I want to signal boost.
Anne and I are way late to the party, but we saw What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? the other night, and it made me want to rewatchWho’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Sunset Boulevard. I’ve mostly been watching genre films (SF, Horror, Anime) and I realized this week that Classic Amazing Hollywood Studio Pictures is also a genre that I need to watch more of. I’m also on Team Bette Davis Forever, now.
I finished Dune. As I hoped, it affected me much more deeply and significantly than it did when I was 12 and didn’t have the ability to fully appreciate it. I kinda want to dive straight into Messiah, but I’m going to read Neil’s new book, first, and then maybe I’ll finally read Fall of Hyperion.
Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I think DakBoard does exactly what you want for your tablet plan.
Holy crap that is exactly what I’m looking for! And it has DIY instructions!! Thank you!
!! I was just going to post saying that I’m in a similar boat (Nexus 7 that has a slight touchscreen issue) and was hoping someone could find something. Thank you!
I loved the Hyperion novels. Alas, I then read Ilium, and Dan Simmons is dead to me now.
I am not aware of any Android projects that combine various stuff. I am sure you could do it as a web page, but then you need a web server to run it, so then you are looking at probably a Raspberry Pi to run it, so instead just use on the existing Pi projects that does it…. Like a magic mirror without the mirror: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/
One concern with using the Android tablet always plugged in, particularly if the battery is already on the way out. Eventually the battery will die, start to swell, and then explode….. Won’t happen if you leave it unplugged, but will if plugged in all the time (I speak from experience here, luckily caught before the explody part). It may kill it, but you might think about opening it up and removing the battery and just running it on external power, but likely it won’t boot without its battery 🙁
I’ve been re-reading Dune as well. I’m on Heretics of Dune right now. Surprised at how relevant these are to today.
Thanks for sharing that video. I really needed some support from a fellow trans person. I’m not on Twitter so I probably wouldn’t have seen it otherwise, and it was just good to be reminded that we’ve got each other’s backs
Watch this Seinfeld clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En9rx7M3TNs
Do you get Turner Classic Movies? I don’t anymore and miss it. Certainly not everything they play is a classic, but it’s a good channel.
I listened to Dune and now need to listen to the rest. Think I will also listen to Norse Mythology before moving on in the Dune Universe
Wil, just wanted to say you were great and funny on @Midnight the other day and I thought you’d looked healthy and happy to be there—so multiple points for that win and THE win too in the game!
Hi Wil,
I have the first generation Sansung/Nook marriages of 7″ tablets and have been quite pleased. Although, like you, my battery doesn’t last as long as I like because of bloatware. Gggrrrr.
Have you checked your tablet for the amount of “bloatware” it has running when it boots up? Google puts a LOT of items that if the tablet isn’t rooted, you can’t store the apps to a micro SD chip,, or shut them completely off and not turn on unless you want it. However if you haven’t rooted one of these, get someone who has so it doesn’t turn into a cooling looking paperweight.:-)
I always love your posts but this especially. I am a big oldies fan myself. Have you seen “The Whales of August” with Bette Davis. She was great until the end! I’m prejudiced; I love all your work! Keep it up, Wil Wheaton!!!
The Old Maid (Bette vs. Miriam Hopkins), Now Voyager (wonderful for learning coping skills when existing with a selfish parent, plus Claude Raines in a good-guy role), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (Bette in a rather minor, unusual role — the good girl/love interest — oh, but the dialogue!).
It’s sometimes kind of hard for me to get into older SF, since the projected technology tends to get dated within a decade or so, but the Hyperion series really knocked my socks off. Enjoy!
Yay, for having something nearly ready for the Red Pen of Doooooooooooom (you had the opportunity for dramatic use of of o’s and you did not take it, so I’m doing so for you)! And yay for being able to take a break from writing and focus on other fun things! Also, I legitimately have a list of classic studio films that I compiled for myself when I was a teenage baby queer, realizing that this was an genre I needed in my life, especially after All About Eve and Now, Voyager. Happy to share some suggestions. 🙂
Also, yes. Team Bette Davis Forever. You have chosen…wisely. 🙂
Is the battery in the Android tablet hard-wired? If not, a quick trip to Batteries and More might solve that issue. Could still have it link into stuff, but a bit more portable. Also would make controlling the heavy laser turrets easier.
I read Dune when I was 16 rather than 12, so was perhaps slightly more able to appreciate it, but probably still not enough. I should give it a re-read/listen. Also, I tried to continue the series and was quickly knocked out of all interest by the second book; maybe that, too, will have changed with maturity… or maybe the rest of the books are just not my thing after all.
In the Old Hollywood genre, I recommend “Arsenic and Old Lace” as a fantastic dark mystery/comedy, and “Auntie Mame”, which is… also a kinda dark comedy. Hm. I’m detecting a pattern.
Dune is incredible, but it does follow the standard tropes where by the end of the novel the hero acquires superhuman powers, vanquishes the evil Harkonnens, becomes Emperor of the Universe, and gets the girl (i.e., Princess Irulan). Where do you go from there? In Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert proceeds to deconstruct these themes, which makes it a difficult read. I got through the 2nd book, but didn’t have the interest to continue the series.
Hi Wil, my first idea for your tablet was a smart mirror: https://magicmirror.builders/
I does the stuff you want to do with it. Although it uses a Raspberry Pi as it’s hardware. On the other hand I’m sure it can be tweaked to work with a tablet.
In terms of older classic movies, I’ve recently watched “The Three Faces of Eve” and “All About Eve”. Both highly recommended.
And then I watched the two versions of “Gaslight” – the original made in the UK, and then the slightly newer US version with Ingrid Bergman (and a very young Angela Lansbury).
Interesting watching them back-to-back and comparing the performances of the lead actress. Bergman chews the scenery more, IMO, and I consider the English actress better. Also, the UK version could get away with more explicit infidelity from the husband because they didn’t have The Hayes Code. Worth digging them up and taking a look.
As an aside, Mr Wheaton, do you have an opinion as a professional – and a movie fan – as to IMDB shutting down their message boards?
Messiah is a much different beast than Dune… but it puts important pieces in place for the next book, Children of Dune, and God Emperor… I would say, bear that in mind, because Messiah can otherwise be an off-putting experience, and the books that follow exceed it.
I too read Dune as a teenager (14 I think). I also re-read it in my 30’s and 40’s and it was a different book each time. That I missed so much stuff as a teenager isn’t surprising, but the things I picked up on in my 40’s that I didn’t ten years earlier was. I never did get past the first 20 pages of Messiah though.
For the Android Tablet thing, you may want to look into Tasker if you haven’t already. There’s probably something put together by someone somewhere already!
for the love of all that’s holy, read the fall of hyperion 🙂
Glad you’re re-reading Dune. Honestly, I re-read the entire saga (and yes I mean the “prequels” too) every few years. It’s probably been almost 2 years now…so probably time to start reading it again!
So, just to make you go SQUEEE, the director of Arrival is putting the finishing touches on Blade Runner 2049 before he goes on to his next project… Dune.
You just made me want to re-read Dune. I was too young to “get it” when I read in in seventh grade. (I read it because someone told me I was too young to “get it” and then pretended that I “got it”. lol) I’ll bet it would be a lot more interesting now that I’m all grown up. (sort of).
Although I like Dune, (I am currently reading it for the first time), I can’t help but think that I’ve read better. The film adaptation back in the 80’s was pretty bad though – maybe that’s what ruined it for me. Read anything by Neil Gaiman – he is my go-to guy in a pinch (I am so sad that I can never again read Neverwhere for the first time). Some easy reading, and stuff that is really rather brilliant, would be Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.
If you have problems integrating your camera feed into DAKboard (looking cool, I will try that), I think Freeboard (https://github.com/Freeboard/freeboard) is a nice alternative.
I remember reading the Hyperion novels as a teenager, and being a little bit “WTFFFFFFFFF” with them. I’d like to revisit them now, 20 years later, to see if fresh eyes will help with that at all.
My wife and I for the last year or two have been taking turns reading to each other before bed once or twice a week, with each of us choosing a sci-fi or fantasy novel we’ve either read in the past or have wanted to read. We’ve knocked out some classics together – Silmarillion, Neuromancer, and some Jim Butcher. My wife chose Dune a few books ago because it’s one of her favorites, and I had never read it. I really enjoyed it – it was an odd blend of political intrigue, environmental drama, and psychedelic religious experience I’d never read before. Now I’m really interested in trying to find the old Avalon Hill board game.
If you get stuck on getting the TI-99/4A emulator to work on your PIcade, the TI gurus hang out here: http://atariage.com/forums/forum/164-ti-994a-computers/
FYI: the’ve ported Pitfall to the system and some of Super Mario Brothers.
Check out some of the other projects they have going, too.
Interesting (for me at least) was a line from original movie, that I thought for “sure” was in the book BUT when I recently re-read Dune found out was not. Duke to Paul (paraphrasing): “Without change, something within us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.”. A few lines like that in the movie that I thought were just amazing….
My Sons & I built a PI based arcade this past summer. I was a lot of fun. We didn’t buy a kit though. I read through several DIY articles, and based most of it off this article http://www.iliketomakestuff.com/raspberry-pi-arcade-part-1/ (mainly just the electronics)
I used many of the parts listed in the article. I added a PI Power block module http://blog.petrockblock.com/2015/07/04/powerblock-another-power-switch-for-the-raspberry-pi/ So I could have a on/off switch (cleanly shuts down the pi & OS – bad ass) http://blog.petrockblock.com/2015/07/04/powerblock-another-power-switch-for-the-raspberry-pi/ , and added 4 relay module for turning on/off a fan, the button LED’s, and future purposes. We ended up using the RetroPI distribution to power the PI. All in all it was a fun project to do with my boys, and they still love it.
My Boys are 8 & 9 years old, and I use the arcade now as kind of their allowance. For example I will tell them that if they pick up all the sticks in the yard (or whatever chore) I add a new game to the machine. Works great!
I am about the same age as you (born in 72), and it is really great to play old dos & Commodore 64 games again (on top of the real aracade games). I loaded up Pool of Radiance (SSI Gold Box – 1st real AD&D game). My family didn’t see me for several weeks after that 🙂
Best of Luck on your PiCade project!
I forgot to include a few of the photos. Here are a few pictures of our PiCade the first days we had it working.
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMY70YrziZUf0ByXZRsqedFN_YzM4j4uGVkKJg2vXB9tXJrrW6EW4Zyq4RWad4xDw?key=M2l0ZXRXYnFBRlZ1TmR4WGRydU9BREtGWE83Mnd3
One more word of advice (if your kit didn’t include precut wires), invest in a high quality wire stripper, wire cutter, and crimper. I used a cheap one for my project. I did all the wiring in one night. I woke up the next morning and could barely move my hand that used the tool.