Passengers worse than dogs

Motor passengers were today treated worse than dogs, it's unclear why sanitation, and security was withheld for 4 hours when trapped on the M10 on Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, I think you get the idea, caught in a tailback that took an our to get out of, and 3 hours totally stationary with no information, no loos, and hence missing the plane at Heathrow by about 40 minutes.
I started out at 12:30, leaving 2 hours, with an hour and a bit to spare, to get there at around 4pm. M25 expeditions (it really is an expedition using this bit of gravel-way) have proved they can have 2 hour delays, and since I use it about 10 times a year, I get caught in a delay at least twice a year. I vipped myself (no that's not an english word) this time though, the customer experience was totally crap, I was treated worse than a bloddy dog. I am unsure of why people put up with this crap, probably because many other civil services are just as dismal.

Anyway I have started out to write to the Highways agency to find out why incident scenes are so dangerous. I'm not suggesting portable toilets get dropped off, just that people with problems get some kind of help. Hey I feel sorry for anyone ho got killed on the motorway, don't get me wrong. I also know that the boy-racers who cause the problems also get out of these accidents unscathed most of the time.

I know many people who turn even a 1 hour stint on the M25 into a "great trek", because it is concievable to get stuck for 5 hours. This has to stop.

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home

What do you call a cluster of ladybugs?

This little group of 8 (two of them are rather dark) were found above the front door, where it's pretty cold. I don't know what they are surviving on, or are they simply resting here for a few days out of the way? The question about the 2 darker ones is probably the most interresting, any clues? They are alive, I gently dislodged one and it waddled off begrudgingly.

This is my test-victim, as you can see he is not dead at all, and giving me the 1000-yard stare after being rudely woken up. I feel bad about shifting these diligent predators outdoors, but it's probably better that way.

Update:
- A Ladybird fact sheet .
- Ladybirds do hibernate .
- How to make a bug motel - this is something I think we have seen again and again to death, but this time it's a tiny hotel that the kids can help make at home.

Sanity for sale

Maclaren are recalling childrens strollers in the US after more than a dozen children had their findertips removed. A mum over here in the UK is rightly angry, and I sympathize fully. But then again I can only wonder how many children have had function loss after getting a whole knuckle trapped in a door jamb - child-friendly and many public places now have hinge covers fitted for this reason.

The world is a dangerous place, but right now the greatest risk to my mental health stems from being jobless because of some ass-covering bankers and accountants.

Redundancy/Jobseeker SPAM

We do have a job offer available for you in response to your initial inquiry in reference 
to the job search directory in USA, CANADA and AUSTRALIA, which we have not been 
able to process completely since we do not have a Book Keeper/Payment personnel in these region. 
 
We have decided to recruit payment employee online, hence we will be needing a representative 
to process our payments in your region. if interested please do supply the following order of requirement 
as it appear below:
 
FULL NAME 
CONTACT ADDRESS (not p.o box)
STATE
CITY
ZIP CODE
PHONE NUMBER
COUNTRY.
 
ALLEN GIOVANNI
 
ALL CORRESPONDENCE SHOULD BE KINDLY DIRECTED TO lg-uk@i12.com

Whatever will they think of next? I see people slipping into believing tricksters harvesting info all of the time. Businesses need to cough up on data protection all around the globe or else this kind of crap is going to get lots of people hurt.

... Conrad thinks Blair needs to learn how to use a 32-bit computer.

Job Wanted

Posted my VC online Web 2.0 style this evening.

It's amazing what you can do when you suddenly have time on your hands.

Website update due

This is a test, if you can click on the image to the left, then you are in the right place.

Resistance is really futile

That is if you name is David Nutt .
But, if you are made of ABS plastic, then it looks like it could be hours and hours of fun, 'you shall be assimilated'.

So long and thanks for all the fish

Today was my last day gainfully employed... for an unknown interval it would appear. I thought this subject-line would be an friendly goodbye, but it appears it was a bit too accurate. I've gone from Angry to disappointed, and just grumpy and nervous. Don't ask how to get grumpy and nervous all at once, I just am. Now I'm disappointed all over again.


Synopsis : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long,_and_Thanks_for_All_the_Fish
Buy the book : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thanks-Hitch-Hikers-Guide-Galaxy/dp/0330287001

It's gonna be a chilly weekend in the UK, so we are going to huddle together and watch more telly.

Cycle ride update

Pics here

First Donation

I have recieved my first donation (hence the picture in the post before this one) from Melvin Philips on an Open-Source project I published ages ago.
So it's not that I'm turning to drink, I am just celebrating 3 years of open-source contribs.

Programming STDERR

It's frustrating when you want to get something to work, and nobody's solution fits. I had already gotten quite far on a problem and had it almost done when I found this neat solution to the problem of piping error messages sent to STDERR to a file on MSDN.

I needed to either write a huge perl-script(and without a debugger that's a cramp) or reidirect the stderr and stdout from a static code analysis tool called splint so that I can gather statistics on any dodgy lines of 'C' code.
Why a beer? Well that's a celebration of a slight change in the wind. Where it will go is probably nowhere, but it's a change nonetheless.

/edit
Returning to the redirecting of standard error and pipes, the downside it the default pipe-buffer size, in fact although you can easily increase the pipe buffer size, we all know a huge buffer is in-efficient. You see, unlesss you can empty a smaller buffer in the background while the child-process is filling it, the child will get blocked if it tries to overflow the buffer. A very bad thing, normally solved by spawning a thread to process and empty things while you wait for the child to terminate. I hate and love threads, so forgoing a complex solution, I solved this by simply waiting 100ms for the child to terminate, and then emptying the stream buffer in between by polling using WaitForProcess(). It appears to solve the problem, but exactly how?.... because someone has to close the stream in order to detect the end and not get blocked yourself in the parent waiting for a read on a dead stream?
As it so happens, the parent can happily close it's copy of the redirected stream handle and then keep reading from the duplicate knowing all will unblock when the child terminates (because the handle closes in the child when it does so). Problem solved.

It often looks too far away to even work

It was said Goliath could throw his spear half the length of a football field, so that's probably how far David was from him. Furthermore, Goliath had body armour protecting him from head to toe, except for a small opening between his eyes and his forehead. That's what David aimed for.

black thief in my yard

Black squirrel entering the back-yard over the fence....


Yep, he's carrying something there.
They are easy to photograph up close (contrary to some reports) and I soon got within 3 meters of this one because black squirrels are more aggressive than their gray cousins. The black colour is actually caused by melanin, coming from a dominant gene.

Zoom in and you can see, it's a nut!

It is possible to fall off

Solid proof that it is possible to fall off. To be sure that's not all I have fallen off recently.

In other unrelated news, I have fallen off the social ladder by staring at unemployment. This is the first time ever for me that things are not my own choice; so how do we take it? I suppose we could talk about hope, we could talk about prayer, we could talk about humility.
Maybe all it means is time to clear out the closets, air the loft and start anew. Bad thing happen to bad people, bad thing happen to good people, even to great people. God lets sh%t happen all the time, I mean He let stuff like life and intelligence and self-awareness happen. He let random subatomic particles happen too, I don't do that stuff at all tho.
Time to get the shovel out and find work because I expect I have only got a few more weeks of real motivating work still to do. I hope it's not so, but due to the lack of respect held by some people in suits, I now shall have a chance to get to the loft.

Hey if that was glum!
My mum is coming to stay with me next month. maybe I will let her hold the camera, which I so closely guard every time we go out so as not to monopolize every photographic composition. (grin)

999 and Facebook Apps

The sticker that means my house could blow up due to a gas leak on 10/10/10 and it would be my fault.

FaceBook Flood
Do you have millions of friends on facebook? I find I am staying in contact with a lot of people I would never have, and in so far it creates a way of publicly meeting with folk I know - but Facebook Apps (the advertising/Commercial side of FB) are invading my time, every day I have to brown-down at least one person by ignoring a request to install a virtual vaccum-cleaner or aquarium. Every home needs a vacuum cleaner, but it's like ice cream, fun - but not achieving anything more than a environment to chat a little longer.
So if I dont' respond to your Pokes, Bloody Marys or Bacarat, it's because I'm busy cleaning up a desert island oil-slick, not offense meant nor taken.

Just wondering

Hey, I was just wondering about what happened to all the kids who are turning 40 around now who came from a small southern african coastal town, and how many have been blown to the four winds of adventure or circumstance.
I mean, how many have stayed behind. Those who have not, why have we moved, and is our generation especially mobile today or not really.

Fuji Finepix F60

DSCF1083
Originally uploaded by zaphodikus

This video is pretty much the old one, but with my new tiny camera (like this one: http://bit.ly/ckbhn)

Holiday Banana

tgimboej Cambridge update

Links to follow, but John got and has forwarded "the box" to another (evil mad scientist), proving we can take over the world one box of junk at a time.

Netizenry notes

Getting a bit swamped by the net?
Some of the networking tools you may or may not have a use for...
www.bit.ly/ is an unusual tool used to shorten URLs and most useful for mobile applications and tweeter integrated. So here's mine , and although clicking on your own link generates a hit I have 10 clicks (2 of them mine) in just 5 minutes, go ahead click this one too, it should bring you back here or at least closeby.

Mailing List, Electronics Junk, Holiday Reading

North Cumbria - Wow, that was a beeeuutifulll bit of England. If this pic of the back yard is interresting, visit Dickinson Cottages site.

I read another book from my fave Clive Cussler -'Plague Ship', and am still drudging my way through David Gibbins' 'the Last Covenant'.
But now we are back, with a vengeance.

TGIMBOEJ
I have picked out some basic character-LCD units off E-Bay and should drop one spare into the 'box'. I am slowly adding bits because it looks to me as if it is no simple matter finding someone who wants more curiosities clogging up the workbench.
So far I've crossed off the royal-mail list:

• Scott (busy moving)
• Tristan (no response)
• Trying - John Lindley (found, and arranging)
• double-booked : Martin (sorry) I'll start a second box.

After getting a few non-responses and a non use-able email address or two, I started to double-up my attempts to move my box of junk, and got 2 responses almost at once. I'll be sending it off to John in Bristol - and starting a second box to send to Martin.

• Update: box sent to John in Bristol - 11 August.

Updates to this TGIMBOEJ post to come once the first box moves.

Going on Holiday

here at the Dickenson Cottage, Allonby on the Cumbria coast. Looking forward to that. Will have to take along my laptop, microcontroller and a good book in case it rains.

Twitter/Ditter/Shitter
Created a account so I can try and reach somebody, dunno why I bothered because twitter is very buggy and useless anyway. I am not sure yet, whether 99% of all internet content is for consumption of the over-commercialised, or just lame? Can we start a brand new internet task-force and hire some reliable Italians to "mark" and off the internet profit-wasters?

Either make money or don't, this in-between place where everything is just noise and spam is getting to me.

PS:
I'm still waiting for a twitter reply from Scottofthedead1. Update: I got a NAK from scott, and worked out how to "send" in twitter by prefixing with an @, there are many more incantations in the twitter religion. Perhaps I will learn a few next week.

Starting a box of old bits

This is the box I am starting for TGIMBOEJ clicky on the flickr link to get some detail.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40917542@N03/3768395819/#comment72157621758426659

Waste of time applications on the web

I am making a list of antisocial web applications:
[rant]
1. facebook - it's a huge time-gobbler, but it is at least interactive and you can do almost anything, it's also integrated into more systems than other web apps.
2. twitter - frustrating, since it's like you are a radio station. You have sweet fanny way of knowing what your audience (I do not need one) thinks.
Can someone list more than 2 profitable things twitter can do for an introvert in only 10 minutes per week , and I will become a user.


Yahoo answers - who benefits? Anyone who knows how to add links to products they purvey. Answers is very much something you do as a challenge, and to better the human race. But minimal personal profit.
[/rant]

Latest experiment - it just says "Hello World!"

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.

This time it will not take 4 weeks

... to count the vote in the Zimbabwean elections. I can only wonder why that is. But I suppose the answer is a dirty white-lie. Is that an oxymoron, or deos it take one to create this situation. I am not sure that the MDC are a party that is really it is baked up to be sometimes. If I had a vote, I would rather have stayed away or spoiled my vote, because neither party is fit to rule, least the MDC at this point. So what can we do? nothing Zanu hold the peoples best interests in mind and their priority to feed the masses of loyal citizens who are leaving in a steady stream as we read this. Can MDC actually run a country, I doubt they have the guts.

Why do we even bother sometimes? is the world a fair place? It's at times like this where going home to RSA is just so senseless.

Comedy of errors

One is never too sure whether you get your moneys worth, but for a laugh, it's got to be a string of things going wrogn . It starts with

1. Register new game online, registration screen wants my street-address, so I fill in the normal -number "1234" -street "icicle lane" -state "south pole". Never ask me for my address unless it really is your business or you are a cop.
   
2. Next, the form crashes telling me I made a SQL error, normally users are not interested in: see dictionary (sql = school, shortcut to a word school)
3. ...I send off a mail to their support, the auto-response has a subject-line "2K Games USA Techncial Support", this is only getting sweeter. so I am at least laughing now.
4. The support login screen has been designed for visual impaired computer-gamers, see where I filled in my e-mail address in some kind of yellow. (browser = IE, with the form auto-fill on).

I log in, and get to manage my support query no problem, one more happy user.

Please do not get me wrong, I think they are a great crowd, and I want to do business, just not on the comedy-circuit. If you had a good chuckle recently why not decipher the little yellow box above and drop me a line.

Amazon.com is land-filling

I am inclined to think they have shares in a disposal company. Why do we need such a big box for some solid-state electronics like a USB wifi dongle? The original Belkin box (contents and inner-box shown) can surely fit into the 'container' about 10 times over. My biggest worry is how does the postie deliver these? By van of course, its not safe to carry huge junk like this around on a bike.
It's not all evil mind you, I just ordered some more stuff of Amazon today, lets see if they are going to add a 'save-the-planet' delivery option next to 'super-saver' and 'express'. I really would like it if other mail-order stores could take up this challenge too.

Last day at work

(image: copyright zaphodikus)

Some thoughts on my last day at work. It's a strange feeling to be 'unemployed' for a few days. I must say it is not the same as a bank-holiday at all. I have 2 boys to look after every bank-holiday, it's no party I tell you. Deja vu? not-really I only ever did this twice before, the first time was packing all my stuff into a 2L ford station-wagon and driving from Cape Town to Johannesburg. I battled a bit in Johannesburg, but at least I had a job to go to, and I must admit there are always things I would have changed. But one thing I would not, I was not glad to be rid of the old place at all. You always think to yourself, at last I am getting out of this wretched place, and away from all the work that I hate. Hey, for some of us, work is fun, challenging, learning or stretching and something I generally want to enjoy 50% of the time. The other 50% is pure hard work (normally mental effort for most of us).

(image: copyright zaphodikus)

When the fun things get less, or you see something where you can do more - that's when you need to move out of the comfort-zone. At heart I am a comfort-zone man. I like to tune my environment to suite me. I have learned lately that it really is more and more 'who you know, not what', and this pushes the work-focus onto working with people more often, and doing it better. Strangely most engineers are right-brain thinkers, not left-brainers getting all creative on you, as a right thinker, emotions in the workplace is not my forte'.

Leaving my Job in RSA at Adroit was hard (doubly because I was leaving the country too), and as always the last day still feels funny - it's not something I want to do again and again, so last Thursday was hard, luckily my login is supposed to lock me out after 4:30, so I had a hard deadline (well I assumed that even if my network account is still working, that it's a bad time to be working hard). So I was lucky to have some code to prototype and hack together and keep me busy on my last Symbian day. I would have been disappointed if I got pushed to do extra work-things in a hurry, I mean what motivation is there to build something of quality?
Bad things in my experience at Symbian were the total flood of people to deal with, the difficulty in getting help and documentation, and then the huge open office. Day 1 was overwhelming to be honest. I mean working at Adroit was not easy either, we did not have as much easy access to training - but we had a lot of code-ownership responsibility over time. Chance to grow was less, but the tools all worked without complaint - something I never experienced while working with the arm tool-chain script was a feeling of peace when hitting that compile->link->rom button. Sure, App-level development on Windows is no cakewalk either, but the support is so much more accessible.

(image: copyright zaphodikus)

I like to keep the work door open if possible, I have met lots of very clever people (I am told I'm also clever, but I'm actually lazy so it cancels out) at Symbian. It's quite scary when you have all the clever guys in one room, and Clear Com will be no different I imagine. Next posting is all about how great Amazon.com sometimes is.

New Timed Posting Test

OK so this is simply a test-post, it should not count, but it will. Now does that count? Hmmm anyone got good guidance on creating help-files that can squash into a small file?

Going just a tad Batty

Yesterday we took the boys off to the Donarbon waste management site open-day. Getting a bit of info into my skull about 'friends of the earth' , Cambridge county etc., and generally technical detail on how things work - they have an annual open-day, it was pretty good display with lots of agencies putting up demos, and a site-tour, which seemed a strange thing, but the site is right next to our village, and hey, it's batty really, I will be working in the office-park right next door in a fortnight. Managed to get a replacement green box! Yay. Must go again next year, the site-tour sounded like great fun.

We have a bat-box, I have a bat-book by Phil Richardson, and well that and trying to build a basic bat-detector is turning into a bit of a mission of fun and learning. I have a lot to learn about the maligned creatures that inspired the vampire legend. UK bats munch mainly insects, not fruit, and there is really a lot that we have been misinformed over these tiny night-time clean-up squads.

Weekend project - nightlight

It's a simple project, build a night-light because the bathroom lights are blown out and I am renting so not included to climb into the ceiling and DIY. The boys need a night-light to get to the bathroom with, so I normally leave just 1 globe on in there. I broke-up a 'power-saver' downlighter with about 50 leds in it, not a bad price for superbright leds which can cost 80p each; if you do not count all the time and fussing with broken glass, splinters, serious desoldering etc.

(above picture looks blue on account the camera, and the leds being on very dim)

OK Drilled holes 5mm into the enclosure, wire them up with 1KOhm dropper, but in a series parallel network - all connected to a dumped phone-charger wall-wart i found as the supply.
Next we drill a hole in the back of the enclosure to allow the ~12Vdc cable in, and epoxy the enclosure to the top of the wall-wart. Normally this would create a heating problem, but I'm in a cold country.Since it's proved the PSU is good enough for the light-output need (tested on Saturday night as a burn-in), we move to the automatic light sensor - all prototyped on the project-board. You can see how I decided on a double-decker circuit arrangement. I only did this because I have a mental disease, no other reason at all. Besides the easy way was too easy.

Finished assembly with transfer of components to the veroboard. Because the LDR is a very flimsy model, I soldered a paperclip into the board on one side, covered it in heatshrink, and bent it to make a kind of stand-off before soldering the other leg of the paperclip into the far side. It made a very strong handle to which I epoxied the LDR - you can just see the 'window' on the right at the bottom of the enclosure. Lastly to stop junk and anything poking into the enclosure I stuck a clear window into the box to cover the hole from inside.

One assembly trick I also like to use when moving stuff from project to vero is to use a IN4007 diode clamp or similar across everything - I find that the 1 in 10 times that you work on the circuit while live and inadvertently cross power wires it will save your (I assume you do not use a 10Amp PSU. LOL) semiconductors.

The prototyping; you can see the flimsy LDR sticking up on the left. Apart from junkbox, recycled and bulk-bought resistors the onlybits I paid for are the LDR, LM741 and the enclosure.
Want a diagram?

Search plugin update

My idiots-guide search plug-in how-to-add-search-engine-to-ff in 15 minutes was great, but missing an icon. THe problem was FF stores the icon in a base64 text tag - needed to convert my bmp to a base64 text - if you have a codeproject login, go here image-base-64-converter - download the sample app, run it, paste the output (there's even a nice button in the demo that pastes the text to your clipboard).

Paste it into the XML file in the right place, (the IMG tag) and viola!