The Great Internet Migratory Box Of electronic Junk

http://www.tgimboej.org

I've found a place to get rid of some parts I've been collecting and will probably never use. I mean everyone has that box of 1000 LEDs that they will never use even half of. Well I don't, but I have got plenty of similar finds. Let's see if I can start a box, or at least add to one this summer holiday.

Instructable fun

I built one of these yesterday quickly - http://www.instructables.com/id/Pocket-Drunken-Robot/

I have a few motors, anyone who wants one can mail me, and I can look at P&P to cover things, so you can build your own one.

A hint from me is to cut your template with quite long arms for the battery holder, you want just over 1 inch square to start. Have fun.

I have also recycled/rinced some tiny LED displays that go by the part SLX 2016, where X is RGY(Red Green etc.) You will need to use 10 output pins on your micro to control this beast, but it's very bright (too bright for my webcam).


I am going to hunt for a few more of these in the dumpster, they are text-only, and tiny, but they have some cool possibilities.

Latest toy.

Oscilloscope for doing diagnostics. And playing of course / this one can trace up to 60Mhz at -3dB. It's interesting once you really get into it, spec sheets for 'scopes are not that easy to read. So if you are buying one, have all the stats in a list, because comparing is not trivial. This one grafts fine for about 18Mhz clock, all I need now is some decent probes of various types. Will prolly get a pair off Ebay next week (which is where I snatched this pic:-] ).

He's pulling through doctor!

No, it was not that bad, and I refer not to 'that' use of pulling either, operation looks successful no? At least I can walk without limping, and can move the knee through most of the normal angle to be able to get up and down stairs. the doctor say I should be able to dance again int 2 weeks; Just like the sanitary pad advert that boasts you will be able to do anything, for example abseiling dancing or riding a bike afterwards, It prompted little Johnny to go to the chemist and get some so he could get onto his new bike - yes I can run - but then again I never could dance before anyway.

My latest Microcontroller project is a tiny game of battleships. I wrote all the code from scratch and tested it in a Win32 application console-app, which I will port to the AVR micro. It's probably the tiniest Battleships game ever - 5x8. I got the idea from a PIC project, since I could not use any of the code, I have shamelessly used the requirements-spec to create my own implementation in the 'C' language. Next week I will post the code to avrfreaks.net, so there you have it.

back trace - www.zaphodikusrealm.blogspot.com

NHS (My first run-in)

It all is a bit of apprehension to start with, the system is slow (under-resourced), but the staff at Addenbrooks and Ely were really great, comfortable/reassuring. The once thing that worked for me after having a general anesthetic, was not having a really bad tummy feeling like I want to bring-up afterwards. It's never nice having someone open you up, but in reality you can probably do lots of research on orthroscopy type jobs beforehand using this great 'internet' tool.

I think that the NHS funding is being wasted on procedures that are elective more than necesary, people with drugs/smoking and fertility should pay their own way- this sounds harsh, but the system is opened to more abuse as a result. A hospital stay for instance is a much less stuffy affair than it may have been in the past, and 'hypo' people probably like to use the system to get a pick-me-up. I am glad that the system is going more digital - something like to pitching up for a appointment for instance is another abuse which rightly should show that either the reminder never whent out, or you are a forgetful soul or worse still an abuser.
If I have one suggestion for the day-clinic it would be to give people an extra half-hour to get re-aquainted with reality post-op. - otherwise it was a perfect process for me.
I wrote this 2 hours after waking, so please excuse the grammar.

Grace

God is good, God is great,
and we thank Him for our daily food.
we're gonna thank Him morning, noon, and night,
we're gonna thank Him for His power and might.
Amen, (clap clap) Amen (clap clap)
Amen; Amen; Amen-Amen

Why the UK is a great place to live

There is a list someplace, probably something the home office do not know about, so I decided to create my own list, I have been here 3 years, and my Visa is up for renewal in 2011. So here is a list, in no specific order, but perhaps the order I discovered them.

• Royal mail, I can put a CD in the post to a friend on the other end of the island in the morning for early collection, and it will be there the next day.
• Online shopping, for almost anything you desire. If it's in stock, you get near instant gratification without leaving your home. Decent internet access is easier to get too.
  
• Walking in the dark. It may seem a simple thing, but general security is miles better except if you live in the big-city. But then anything goes in big cities, and village life is a gas.
• Friendly people. You get these everywhere, but because there are so many cultures, you get accepted as a foreigner (still a foreigner, but you can come over for tea).
• Great for Kids. Childcare is expensive due to this silly organisation called OFSTED. But for kids themselves it is magic, tonnes to do and learn in safety.
  

There are a whole list of things that come to mind after more than a few minutes, great transport - offset by overcrowding. Great holiday spots, child-play equipment. child safety....

IBM or ISM?

What happened to ISM? Well todays rant is about an IBM product, called Clearcase.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1IC50214

The problem is when the client is used disconnected. That's fine you say, but the client insists on doing pop-ups from a Visual Studio plug-in. It's a over simplified diagnostic, and in-ellegant to say the least.

---------------------------
ClearCase
---------------------------
Error determining type of current view.


---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

...I am just annoyed that there is so little help to be found to help users work around this problem, because it is possible if someone just put a tiny bit of effort into the plug-in to add a checkbox into the code, it's about 10 lines of code, but unless more folk stick out their tongues....

Or do we?

It's better than Africa, but for most of the wrong reasons.
1. You are not going to get jumped walking home from the pub.
2. Literacy is high, but indigence is still indifferent
3. The grass is green

I think I get grumpy sometimes because I miss having these kind of things in plain sight when they are and are not as they seem in Southern Africa. Life was simpler in some ways, but in other ways it was an environment of hope and of dispair. Mixed? Yes, but not the mix I get here, so while the mix in the UK is good, it starts to feel comfortable, and eventually like home. At the end of the day, the people here are great - and that is what counts. I hope they will count on me someday too.

We love this country

I am talking about England, well really the United Kingdom, and its called that because it is more like a gathering of kingdoms, its not like United States, but more Like USSR than UK in some ways because it has so many tribes.
That said once you stop offending the natives, who are very friendly btw, there is a lot on offer. Like park&ride, which is a clever way to get cheap parking far from the city centre, and then ride the bus into town without really paying for a bus-ticket. It seems to work in most towns, Cambridge is one of them, and I now regularly use the city to just avoid the stress of driving in a built-up area. Yes, we love the countryside! It's green and safe! At least there are no dangerous wild animals (like in Africa LOL.) running about.
Well there are some dangerous things - dangerous if you are dumb or live in a city. The sidewalks everywhere are narrow and crowded, but with all this danger about, women are more likely to get beaten up by their partners than fall under a bus or suffer other vehicular incident.

Signing off, from the flattest bit of England.

April fun

For anyone who has already discovered the joy of buying cartridges online, go no further, if not....
click here.

OK, only kidding, there is no such printer - but Cartridge Monkey really are the boz.

Software and LEDs

These are the beasty linux boxes that I have to develop for for a living, neato :-)

A whole whack of them all together.
These are some of the beasties I work with, they are much friendlier than the Linux boxes!

In case you are wondering, the LCD looking bits are actually OLEDs, and the glowing buttons are really multi-colored, the illumination uses PWM'd LEDs to produce a few basic variations on red and green.

Microcontroller hackingness stuffness

It's nothing great really, but since arriving in the UK, I've posted a little about resuming a hobby in electronics. One thing that has happened to electronics since I as in school is that CAD and digital electronics have become affordable areas to hack about in.

For instance, if you have a very fast micro-controller (which is a CPU with some peripherals), and I say fast, because micros are not fast, they are intentionally slow because they are not supposed to be used for applications that use lots of data. A CPU is different, it typically has minimal peripheral support and maximal memory bus support, and generally uses 100x more juice. OK, back onto topic - a fast enough micro can actually simulate lots of things you would have done in a basic analog circuit, but at a lower component-count. Enter Atmel AVR. I could have opted for PIC chips, but something in me always opts for the fresh or the underdog over going with the stale or the old leaders.

Here is where it starts.
3 AA batteries to run it, some optional transistors and you have a moving display.

Net Noobs

OK, so you go to a website that offers a callback service - and they ask you for a email address, why does anyone need my email address? I am just so confused by people's eagerness to offer you crapinstead of service sometimes. unfortunately for auto-glazing (not autoglass), they will be sending mails to santa@northpole.com. I know it's cruel, but somebody in lapland needs to tell dumb internet citizens where to get off. After submitting a form and getting no response, I can only assume they are thinking it's a prank post. Seriously now?

The Hop Bind Menu

Cottenham, High street : ph 01954200701. Lunch menu

How long is a M$ minute?

Once again the Desktop clean-up wizard appears, it seems to wake up every 2 months, and then has the cheek to say that a shortcut that I last used 4 months ago, has never been used.

It seems the M$ definition of 'never' is totally off the wall, and today I am disabling the silly program. I see it has been striped from Vista, I can only guess that the OS is either showing it's age or we are forgetting that how to go about making a system easier to use for beginners, yet powerful in the hands of the advanced user is actually not do-able without a "I am a noob" switch. Am I just blind to all things PC?

/edit
If you look under your desktop properties, there is a tickbox hidden away there. just clear it to stop the wizard.

Capitalism or Faith

I got a mail yesterday, it may feel a bit like hate-speech at first, but before I share it I would like to put my take on things forward too.
The Western world and most democracies have happily pushed capitalism on the world (oh sorry, I meant to say push democracy), and mix it all in with Christianity. We use large corporations to establish bases in heathen countries employ the natives to work in factiries there and build things for us all to buy and sell, pay the natives a pitance and ship the profits back home. BUT WE DO NOT KILL ANYONE.

If I go live in another country, (which I did do 3 years ago) I first study that countries culture, I mean for pete's aske, I could have emigrated to the Netherlands, but did not on account the language barrier my family would face, I'm in the UK now, its not my intention at all to change this country, but rather enjoy it to the fullest. And it's hard not to disagree with the content of this disgree, in fact I think Kevin is one of the few gutsy citizens of civilised Earth.

Ok the email I got:

'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians. '

'This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom'

'We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!'

'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.'

'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.'

'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'.'


'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.'

see : radio and article.

How to change Scalextric Drifter braids

Google search is not your friend in this case, so here is my how-to. For some reason the Scalextric homepage has got no instructions on how to do this, and 5 minutes of googling (my limit) yielded no results. So to save you breaking things, or wasting any more time, just click play on the video.


I am still puzzled about the lack of an instruction published by anyone, hence my contribution. (also on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZbcU3Ruvfs) / A better video is available here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvfvRmbrS_o but missing the explanation:
The big thing to help figure it out is the little arrows on the underside, visible only to anyone with good eyes. A bit of firm downward pressure is needed, I found it easier when the blade is rotated 90-degrees to either side before slipping it off.

I finally spotted a small slip of paper latter in the packaging, which shows the little arrows more clearly. Duh!

I've not made a blog post for a long time now, and was loosing courage until now. It's at times when I feel frustrated by everyone just going around and expecting to find the answer and then greedily consuming without ever giving in return, that I get "rilled". I probably have a healthy net-esteem that let's me do this kind of contributing while knowing that if my work is junk, nobody will link it, if it's great, then someone will link it. It's like the law of averages.

Anyway, so if you have kids who love scalextric and you have discovered the joy of drifting, share it. It's the best scalextric fun ever, and you can use your existing set, but beware, the cars take a beating, and so do the braids and tires.

God bless.

Microcontroller projects

My first ever project, is hosted on avrfreaks.net http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?module=Freaks%20Academy&func=viewItem&item_type=project&item_id=1555
There is not a lot to say besides what you can see in the video. To get the source code login to avrfreaks.net - (you will have to. If you are programming an Atmel micro already that's a given) and to find a schematic.... Hmm maybe I will paste it up here too.


(diagram drawn 'ona' copy of the spec-sheet for the AVR microcontroller)


See also this digital solar powered clock done in basic on 2 CPUs:

http://www.cbaird.net

Cycling

Check out this cycle route, about 25 miles which is a nice circular route: the bits
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Cottenham-Longstanton-Swavesey-and-Aldreth Cottenham-Histon is road, as was Rampton to Longstanton mainly, but the good bits are above Swavesey. I completed it using a hybrid with only a piston in the seat although more suspension was needed for the bits over broken up concrete encountered around Swavesy/Earith. I also have road tyres with no knoblies. Since I do not go to a gym or anything equally defeatest as running to nowhere particular and then right back again, and hate looking at people - some sightseeing which is really great in the area is good. If only one could get a robust camera or camcorder to take a long to capture more of it.
My next bit of bike-work will involve getting knoblies and securing my water-bottle better. actually I loaned my eldest son's Power-rangers bottle. It is cheaper than one from the bike-shop to do it this way; although you do need to drink a lot if you are going quite so far.
A month odd ago we followed a really nice route that have a tea-break in the middle, something we missed out on this time. Once again this rode was fun, and no major problems - I believe that something for the stinging-nettles is probably in order esp. if you cannot jump into a bath afterwards, since the stingers will not just fall off it seems, but maybe that's because I am a hairy bugger.
Kudos to nick for arranging the mapping and finding the route. Right now I try to cycle a few days a week to the office which is only 5 miles away. But since you cannot cycle more than 2 miles without starting to sweat, it's best done as a 'run' with a shower afterwards. I will have to map it out sometime.