tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72914767463719811452024-03-05T03:16:19.448-08:00Aging Hacker ChroniclesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-75827967114821874012017-02-11T07:38:00.000-08:002017-02-11T07:38:28.556-08:00Valentine's Day book recommendations<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
John Scalzi, one of my favorite Sci-Fi authors, has an <a href="http://whatever.scalzi.com/" target="_blank">ebook sale today</a>
only on his Old Man's War Series and several other books including his
Hugo award winner Redshirts. They are each $2.99. Scalzi is a
wonderful writer and the Old Man's War Series is great Si-Fi. As Jerry
Pournelle would say, highly recommended. Nice escapism for these days.<br />
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This is an excellent gift for that hard to buy significant other who's also geeky. Later! </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-91176930609841437942016-12-29T09:26:00.002-08:002016-12-29T09:26:52.360-08:00Tree Bien<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So since I began soldering again, we have had an electronic Christmas tree that was one of my first renewed soldering projects and it was similar to this <a href="http://www.parts-express.com/velleman-3d-christmas-tree-kit--320-166?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pla" target="_blank">kit</a>. Earlier this year I saw <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digistump/holiday-lights-interactive-kits-delivered-for-the?ref=user_menu" target="_blank">this kickstarter</a> and decided to go for it. The neat thing is that it is programmable, it has a <a href="http://digistump.com/products/1" target="_blank">Digispark</a> that is programmable with the arduino IDE. There is a bit of soldering but it works perfectly.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfhcelioGLMKTnoQdBIh1bvwDmRfzb0ujkw6hyphenhyphenr5Jl-rP4La1h725XGstjGqL0pwXpKA4pra2iCcTQp4iNE29sUmsc2XFwpoO5fpQ-RXfZrWIVxn5JSCGupXqOuTA-c6uLpR-wHdX2EyID/s1600/IMG_0094.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfhcelioGLMKTnoQdBIh1bvwDmRfzb0ujkw6hyphenhyphenr5Jl-rP4La1h725XGstjGqL0pwXpKA4pra2iCcTQp4iNE29sUmsc2XFwpoO5fpQ-RXfZrWIVxn5JSCGupXqOuTA-c6uLpR-wHdX2EyID/s320/IMG_0094.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
They use RGB LEDs so a host of colors are available and they also provide some script generation for standard setups. The digispark also is a cheap but lowered powered alternative to the arduino and I will be using it more frequently. Highly recommended. More soon, including a rant on the popular meme that machine learning = AI. Later!<br /><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-28090113464229488102016-12-02T12:41:00.002-08:002016-12-03T07:46:37.139-08:00Thunderboard Sense can Sense Thunder<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After a fairly long wait I received The <a href="http://www.silabs.com/products/wireless/pages/thunderboard-sense-kit.aspx" target="_blank">Thunderboard Sense board</a> from Silicon Labs. It is pretty impressive and could even be more impressive with a few more sensors.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouVanhocPfBX8_6ag1J4RKiTHirqZHPML1thxLhrViS0u1jSohN09rBjTrChzC37dh_M2dNuhnpTAqWGNm1STcOHm28zTP1z4m0OpNFLv5dLtqgl-ynNnunUXRrctrYI1USGlaF6A-_aX/s1600/NightCap+Pro-Photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouVanhocPfBX8_6ag1J4RKiTHirqZHPML1thxLhrViS0u1jSohN09rBjTrChzC37dh_M2dNuhnpTAqWGNm1STcOHm28zTP1z4m0OpNFLv5dLtqgl-ynNnunUXRrctrYI1USGlaF6A-_aX/s320/NightCap+Pro-Photo.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The board is powered either off a micro usb plug or a CR2032 battery. It connects to a smart phone app (android and iOS) by Bluetooth Low Energy.<br />
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I am most interested in the environmental sensors and they include:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>relative humidity and temperature </li>
<li>barometric pressure</li>
<li>indoor air quality and gas sensor, CCS811</li>
<ul>
<li>ethanol, CO, "a wide range" of volatile organic compounds</li>
</ul>
<li>UV and ambient light</li>
<li>MEMS microphone</li>
</ul>
The sensors communicate over I2Cand the board retails for $36 although they are still scarce and I paid close to $50 for mine. It offers quite a lot for a small package. Next step is to look at their app code and begin setting up our own system. And in reference to the title, the microphone seems fairly responsive and it could indeed sense thunder<br />
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Definitely something that would be nice in a Christmas stocking. More posts over the break. Later!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-13989642462313475832016-10-31T07:28:00.000-07:002016-10-31T07:28:38.010-07:00Who am I?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is my periodic Halloween post. First Happy Halloween! I wish I had the TARDIS to travel to another Dalek free time period at least until November 9th (day after US presidential elections)!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMO4neeLZsv0xSDuYsmaLxwjlWzlDGD03rPtjt3-w8QIqspMdNlSI-XlzJpJ_PCuJ1FzHYjmiXJccOla7chKaK8g_KZC_htgxKekJtjcb-fmb6nTBQ120gkcUr0S3lawZ-i5NE7uHGW4Uv/s1600/IMG_0016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMO4neeLZsv0xSDuYsmaLxwjlWzlDGD03rPtjt3-w8QIqspMdNlSI-XlzJpJ_PCuJ1FzHYjmiXJccOla7chKaK8g_KZC_htgxKekJtjcb-fmb6nTBQ120gkcUr0S3lawZ-i5NE7uHGW4Uv/s200/IMG_0016.JPG" width="150" /></a></div>
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Boards are still coming in, I just have not had time to do much. Folks in my lab do like the particle photon and we have done some interesting work with it and PIR sensors. More later - hopefully I will have sometime over the Thanksgiving break. Later</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-2747485908997460532016-10-16T15:17:00.001-07:002016-10-16T15:17:52.429-07:00Meet the Robots: Cozmo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have been collecting a few robots in the past year, some are kits and some are fully assembled such as <a href="https://anki.com/en-us/cozmo" target="_blank">cozmo from anki</a>. Here's a picture of my newest robot:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSlIvMOVQ-Z85ugjCcUlDu0h7kZVyqWYK9iz3i32y9VP9dAtvKyn6zEGAB9Bia9AgOMrttilzMtSu0ZA50K8-H3rhplTketgf5zaOOZqlxfA8qXSRdhSUnzsB7t8tjzkdpc4R2EcXoUyMW/s1600/IMG_1174.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSlIvMOVQ-Z85ugjCcUlDu0h7kZVyqWYK9iz3i32y9VP9dAtvKyn6zEGAB9Bia9AgOMrttilzMtSu0ZA50K8-H3rhplTketgf5zaOOZqlxfA8qXSRdhSUnzsB7t8tjzkdpc4R2EcXoUyMW/s320/IMG_1174.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
He comes with three blocks and a charging station. As is the case for most of this mew generation of robots, cozmo is controlled by a smart phone app. Saves the cost of a controller but I find it limiting. So far the pre arranged software includes recognition software, cozmo when he wakes calls me Gregg once he sees me (this requires a fare amount of light). He also has a display which is meant to show expressions. It plays a matching cube colors app and spending time playing it gives you points that result in upgrades (new software). This is all cute but what intrigued me was the ability to code it. I wish I had more to say but the mac instructions seem a bit warped and required using brew to install the necessary components. I am not a big fan of brew. I hope to finally get he sdk installed and give it a whirl. My goal is to try to develop some apps for it and explore its STEM capabilities. A stretch goal is to see if I can swarm them but at $179 a pop, it may take a bit.<br />
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The real world has me swamped so I have been slow to post and am creating quite a backlog. Experience with some of the new small boards on the market such as the <a href="https://onion.io/" target="_blank">omega</a> has forced me to search/modify new benchmarks since the linux version is rather limited. Later!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-18049167564736760132016-08-21T10:21:00.001-07:002016-08-21T10:21:56.912-07:00YUNimpressed!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I finally fired up my <a href="https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardYun" target="_blank">arduino Yun</a> and, well, I was really YUNimpressed, err I mean unimpressed. Admittedly I have only spent 30 min with it but I honestly do not want to spend much more time with it. I can see why the arduino folks retired this product. My advice if you are tempted to purchase it, is to avoid it. One has to stand on one's head to access the linux. For example one method is to load a sketch called YunSerialTerminal using the arduino IDE and then you can access the linux through the serial monitor. You also access it through Wi-Fi but it is not as smooth as the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/onion/onion-omega-invention-platform-for-the-internet-of" target="_blank">Omega</a>. I hope to blog on the Omega soon and the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/onion/omega2-5-iot-computer-with-wi-fi-powered-by-linux" target="_blank">newer Omega 2</a> when I receive it. I see these as much better choices<br />
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So if you are tempted to buy a Yun at the discounted prices don't. I fear I may use my pricey Yuns as simple arduinos in some of my projects. Sad really. Later!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-35724664526388468042015-12-28T11:30:00.003-08:002015-12-28T11:30:14.079-08:00A Luminary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Actually a few luminaries. It has been a tradition in our family to have luminaries lining our driveway and entrance during Christmas and often also for new year. A luminary is basically a brown lunch bag with about two inches of sand and a candle. It usually works quite well and is a nice touch to holiday decorations. However bad weather can make this challenging and it sometimes is difficult to get the correct candle at a reasonable price. <br />
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This year while teaching my <a href="http://aarphacker.com/" target="_blank">STEM classes</a> I had an idea of how to solve the candle problem. The first exercise in my STEM class is for folks to make a throwie. A throwie is basically a LED and a coin battery (usually a CR2032) taped together being mindful that the longer positive lead of the LED touches the positive side of the coin battery. My STEM course manual has directions if you cannot figure it out from this description. It provides a sense of accomplishment for the students and demystifies touching wiring. The history of the throwie was that makers also attached magnets and they would throw it at metal structure to decorate them. We usually place <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AQODM?keywords=wall%20tack&qid=1451328793&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1" target="_blank">tack on the back</a> and they place it on their id badges. I wondered if such an arrangement would help with the candle problem in the luminaries.<br />
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The first hurdle was that any LED would not do. It would have to be large 10mm and would have to flicker like a candle. I experimented with many a blinking, flickering LED and discovered the best candle like LED at http://evilmadscientist.com, a great site for LEDs and other geekie stuff. I experimented with a few and selected a <a href="http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/partsmenu/332" target="_blank">10mm white flicker.</a> It was perfect. I tested it one night with a paper lunch bag and sand. I secured the LED to the battery with electrical tape and shoved the leads into the sand until only the bulb was showing. It flickered nicely but simply was not bright enoungh. Next night I used two CR2032 coin batteries in series, second battery positive (+) side was against first battery negative (-) side. Fortunately this did not blow the LED but made it considerably brighter. Please be careful when you first test yours - since LEDs may differ - wear adequate eye protection. Here is a picture of them in our driveway.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQyP4tF84Agvl8h4g1v6WcO2FHYI8VjvXcAwHqP3CiFFnIS4BclyNuvtr_94wPdh4P3BDCq3j8Bpm3gAm3mLcQqRYpBQSc3XCHJK40o_2pmHqKCFHRMc8LGdR3sFkG_KllPL0MdcSDixK-/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQyP4tF84Agvl8h4g1v6WcO2FHYI8VjvXcAwHqP3CiFFnIS4BclyNuvtr_94wPdh4P3BDCq3j8Bpm3gAm3mLcQqRYpBQSc3XCHJK40o_2pmHqKCFHRMc8LGdR3sFkG_KllPL0MdcSDixK-/s320/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Not a great picture but you get the idea. Although they dim every night a bit, they are still glowing enough to see from the street after 4 days.<br />
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I am working on a bunch of new posts including benchmarks for the UDOO Neo and the CHIP <a href="http://nextthing.co/" target="_blank">computer</a>. Hopefully I will do better in the new year. The best to all of you in the new year! Later!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-38764828877749136982015-06-08T10:28:00.002-07:002015-06-08T10:28:47.294-07:00We will be the CylonsThere was a fantastic recent issue of Nature that had several great articles on Artificial Intelligence. I highly recommend the <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/insights/machine-intelligence/index.html" target="_blank">Insight articles</a> which review most current hot issues in AI, specifically Deep learning, Reinforcement Learning and Evolutionary computation.<br />
<br />
However the section that gave me pause and was the inspiration for the title was a <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/robotics-ethics-of-artificial-intelligence-1.17611" target="_blank">series of articles </a>from researchers expressing their concerns on the risks of intelligent machines. In particular, the <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/robotics-ethics-of-artificial-intelligence-1.17611#/russell" target="_blank">article by Stuart Russell</a> stands out. He expresses concerns over Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, LAWS for short. He sees them as being feasible in a matter of years, not decades. Once I started thinking about the technologies necessary to make this happen, I agreed and feel that the results would be as accurate or as inaccurate as aerial missiles and bombs. With advances in vision recognition and local processing power, it is possible. Robots without the human in the loop, explicitly ignoring <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics" target="_blank">Asimov's Laws of Robotics</a>. Russell provides some remedies, but nothing that would prevent rogue elements from employing them. We must prepare for a world with these autonomous entities and consider controls equivalent to those of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, unlike nuclear weapons the technology necessary to construct them will be available to most groups.<br />
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So have I given our technology too much credit? Please comment if you have any opinions and as always thanks for reading! Sorry it has been so long between posts! Later.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-81276557710483297952015-01-16T09:20:00.000-08:002015-01-16T09:20:08.097-08:00Bots ArriveOn Monday I received an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/oc/echo/ref_=ods_dp_ae" target="_blank">Amazon Echo</a>. I am impressed. "Alexa" is the keyword that gets the Echo's attention and it works near flawlessly. You can barge-in, get Alexa's attention, any time, even when the Echo is playing music. The speech recognition works well in our large kitchen, even with water running! It is limited in its range of tasks at this time, but they are sufficient to make it worthwhile. The music quality is fine, especially for an aging tin ear. Although Siri does much better in search, I am really impressed by the Echo's speech recognition which is better than Siri's due in part, I am sure, to the 7 microphones. I also am interested to see how Amazon uses the echo app in conjunction with the Echo device. Currently the app logs your interactions with the Echo. Also folks <a href="http://hackaday.com/2014/12/24/home-automation-with-the-amazon-echo/" target="_blank">have hacked the API!</a> If you come across it in a friend's house, Alexa deserves a talking to!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX5qttZkXS_4mTrrrPUgIDiWRjAwm9MfUyjQq7WRqmI-delG0p-pyRSGbF8jFc_fwtL6GPnt8zwsyaC2zp0T5gJHmZBRXlrDUsk1Pu5cV_kiBnku_KfNXmcYXt99nCzJFsoXAKd37kHZjI/s1600/Echo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX5qttZkXS_4mTrrrPUgIDiWRjAwm9MfUyjQq7WRqmI-delG0p-pyRSGbF8jFc_fwtL6GPnt8zwsyaC2zp0T5gJHmZBRXlrDUsk1Pu5cV_kiBnku_KfNXmcYXt99nCzJFsoXAKd37kHZjI/s1600/Echo.jpg" height="320" width="246" /> </a> </div>
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My experience with Alexa has me thinking more about home bots. Not all robots need to be mobile and my suspicion is that Alexa like entities will become more common in our homes earlier than <a href="http://thejetsons.wikia.com/wiki/Rosie" target="_blank">Rosie like entities</a>. It seems to be a natural transition to go from our smart phone based, social media and search engine interactions to an ambient bot that provides the same functionality by saying "Alexa."</div>
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I am still struggling with my copter but I did get software updates into it and learned a bunch about the arduino. May have to set for a while as I crank up my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBeacon" target="_blank">iBeacon</a> and other Bluetooth low energy devices. More on that in a future post. Later!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-53090330517755531732015-01-05T08:57:00.001-08:002015-01-07T12:45:38.540-08:00AnywareI just completed reading an article from <a href="http://www.oreilly.com/" target="_blank">O'Reilly</a> by Mike Barlow, <a href="http://www.oreilly.com/iot/free/when-hardware-meets-software.csp" target="_blank">"When Hardware Meets Software."</a> It is short and free and does a great job of framing perhaps one of the next technological revolutions. It makes at least three key points: (1) hardware is beginning to achieve the same speedup in product realization that software has experienced using similar techniques, (2) hardware and software will be more equal partners in the future, and (3) software has to raise the bar on quality, security, reliability, (name you favorite "ility"), internet quality of service is simply not good enough for the combination.<br />
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What does this say about the next generation of software engineers and especially hackers? They have to be as well versed in hardware too! I think the hacker culture still retains it to a certain extent but not as completely as early Ham Radio enthusiasts or the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_%28magazine%29" target="_blank">Byte</a> generation that had no choice but to pick up a soldering iron in order to do their software.<br />
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This next wave is a good thing. Just as the rise of social media increased how connected we were to each other. The rise of the Internet of Things/Industrial Internet/ Internet of Everything/Cyber Physical Systems will provide us with an appreciation of the things around us, how they work and what they provide. Great reading for my train ride to Hoboken!<br />
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I spent the weekend building some lego and trying to coax a <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1387330585/hex-a-copter-that-anyone-can-fly" target="_blank">mini-quadcopter</a> to life. Sadly it is not connecting to my iPhone so a new version of the software is in order. Double sadly I am struggling with earlier versions of Java related to earlier version of the arduino IDE. Hopefully progress this week and the next post will have a video of my success. Later!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-12311502930162736622015-01-02T10:05:00.002-08:002015-01-02T10:05:18.635-08:00Culture Mapping of Higher EducationWe are all struggling to understand how we can convey the joy and excitement of technology to our children. I have been involved at modest efforts focusing on grade school and high school students, some of which is chronicled at my <a href="http://aarphacker.com/" target="_blank">aarphacker site</a>.<br />
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Tim Stock and Marie Lena Tupot are focusing on using technology to understand what is available for students and using culture mapping and college syllabi to map and interrelate courses. What a concept, to understand what is available and how it relates. They have a <a href="http://bit.ly/mapedu" target="_blank">kickstarter</a> to accelerate this mapping and I just stumbled across it with less than twenty hours to go. So I am asking you if you read this on January 2nd would you please check out their kickstarter and hopefully back it and hopefully let others know. Thanks!<br />
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I did not meet my resolution of last year for more posts but in 2015 I hope to average a post a week. It has some probability of success since much of what I am doing in my new gig (Industry Professor at <a href="http://www.stevens.edu/sit/" target="_blank">Stevens</a>) will hopefully be of interest. I am redoing my previous <a href="http://www.udoo.org/" target="_blank">udoo</a> benchmarks and am working on some items from kickstarter, so hopefully more soon. The best to all of you in 2015, later!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-53237001475932411622014-11-09T08:49:00.000-08:002014-11-09T08:49:01.181-08:00Context and CitiesI just read a book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Responsive-City-Communities-Data-Smart-Governance/dp/1118910907/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415551036&sr=1-1&keywords=responsive+city" target="_blank">The Responsive City</a>, by Stephen Goldsmith and Susan Crawford that I highly recommend. First, it provides great case studies on how apps and analytics could transform city services and the relationship between city government and citizens. But the book is so much more.<br />
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In particular many of the case studies relate to what some folks are calling contextual computing(see for example, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Age-Context-Mobile-Sensors-Privacy-ebook/dp/B00FES6RLE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415551502&sr=1-1&keywords=Age+of+Context" target="_blank">Age of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data and the Future of Privacy</a>, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. To begin their foreword they provide a great <a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/" target="_blank">Nicholas Negroponte</a> quote, "Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living." They define five technologies as forming contextual computing: mobile devices, social media, big data, sensor and location based services. More on the <u>Age of Context</u> after I finish it, back to <u>The Responsive City</u>.<br />
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More broadly I think <u>The Responsive City</u> is of general interest to anyone interested in
understanding what is involved in introducing technology and building
high tech systems. The principles noted are as timeless as those
provided in Fred Brooks, Mythical Man Month. Some examples: (1) you not only
introduce a system but change the process and empower employees, (2)
management support is essential (3) user driven is key - test the apps
in actual use (4) be mindful of privacy (5) work within the system but
often with a small number of folks outside the system. I could go on
but hopefully you get the idea and each is supported by several case studies. Well worth the read for understanding city hall's side of smart cities and for understanding the general issues with introducing new technologies especially contextual systems. This goes way beyond the Internet of Things or Cyber-Physical systems and the issues it addresses will greatly contribute to the success of such systems. Highly recommended!<br />
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I have been away for awhile but hope to ramp up my posts as the year closes. My goal is one per week until the end of the year. Later!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-11094692914819027382014-08-09T08:50:00.000-07:002014-08-09T08:50:45.729-07:00Active STEMThis was my summer of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). First, with Matt Amoroso as my TA, I taught six workshops at Stevens for their <a href="http://www.stevens.edu/sit/admissions/stevens-summer" target="_blank">ECOES</a> (Exploring Career Opportunities in Engineering and Science) program. The workshops were three hours, half lecture and half workshop. Workshops were with raspberry pis, a breadboard and exercises. The programming language was Python. The high school students had variable experience in computer science, only about a quarter were active programmers. Nonetheless the labs worked well with some tuning through the summer. A later post will discuss some of these experiences.<br />
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We reprised this experience at <a href="http://www.r00tz.org/" target="_blank">r00tz</a>, a spin off workshop at <a href="https://www.defcon.org/" target="_blank">DEF CON</a>, with mostly grade school students. The labs held up, especially the first few, and it was nice to see parents becoming absorbed too.<br />
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I am making the labs available on my new homepage, <a href="http://aarphacker.com/">aarphacker.com</a>. I am adding resources and code to this site over the next few weeks and will keep you posted on the progress. You are free to use any materials on the site with attribution and the promise that if you improve it you wil let me know so I can incorporate it in future versions. Later!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-19826519352006930542014-07-16T09:56:00.000-07:002014-07-16T09:56:15.811-07:00Death and BitsI have posted a few blogs on how to prepare your digital property for your demise. This includes <a href="http://aarphacker.blogspot.com/2013/07/pre-singularity-post-life-bit.html" target="_blank">surveying the large ebook providers,</a> commenting on <a href="http://aarphacker.blogspot.com/2013/04/google-and-death.html" target="_blank">Google's excellent and ground breaking policy</a> and referring you to <a href="http://aarphacker.blogspot.com/2013/05/bequeath-bits.html" target="_blank">articles discussing the topic</a>. <br />
<br />
Well another article surfaced today that discusses the topic and how friends and relatives potentially can be in trouble for taking possession of your friend or relatives bits. Anne Flaherty does a great job in <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/happens-online-accounts-die-162929436--finance.html" target="_blank">her article</a>, much of the information is complimentary to what has been discussed in this blog. So take a look at it now or bookmark it to return when you need it. I hope that day is far away!<br />
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I will continually come back to this topic and hope you find the compendium of articles, knowledge and research useful. <br />
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Next blog on my summer of STEM with pointers to all the materials. Later!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-55777997193938159302014-05-25T08:28:00.004-07:002014-05-25T08:33:53.636-07:00Of Course(s)<br />
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I have been teaching courses for an Executive Master's in Technology Management at the University of Pennsylvania, <a href="http://emtm.upenn.edu/" target="_blank">EMTM</a>, since 2004. This is the last year of the program and I decided to provide all my class notes on the web. The class notes are for three courses: Software engineering, security and privacy in IT and human computer interaction. They can be found at <a href="http://vesonder.com/" target="_blank">my personal web site</a>. I hope you find it useful.<br />
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Some statistics from my involvement int he program: taught 26 trimesters involving 126, 3 hour lectures.<br />
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I hope you enjoy the material. More posts soon, I have a backlog finally. Later!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-40123949536956097902014-03-09T14:49:00.000-07:002014-03-12T08:59:13.855-07:00Pi EyedWorked on a few kits this weekend from my kickstarter collection. This one was <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4tronix/piringo-festive-fun-for-raspberry-pi-gpio" target="_blank">PiRingo</a> another flashing lights board.<br />
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I am doing this a bit more earnestly since I am teaching a summer STEM course for high school students on using python to do Internet of Things stuff using Raspberry Pis.<br />
I am appreciating <a href="http://rpi.gpio/">RPi.GPIO</a>, although the lower case i, is a source of error, even though it is cute.<br />
It i sonly 3 hours and I have to teach them the python logic to work the boards so it is going to be more tweaking the code. Can do light sensing and temperature sensing (and of course the blinking lights) but should I even attempt anything mobile? I would appreciate any suggestions and will post what I finally do. <br />
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Also stumbled across <a href="http://www.renpy.org/" target="_blank">Ren'Py</a> today, a "Visual Novel Engine." It is strange enough to give it a look. I will report on that and I owe you one on lua, I have been side tracked by a machine learning tool in lua, <a href="http://torch.ch/" target="_blank">Torch7</a> and am trying to get my arms around it. For all the apt-gets and brews in the world, some things are still just damn hard to install!<br />
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More soon. I just soldered my first surface mount for a DocJava <a href="http://www.docjava.com/store/" target="_blank">audio processing shield</a>. It is not pretty but I think it will work. Later!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-25362145517082106822014-01-26T14:31:00.000-08:002014-01-26T14:31:27.731-08:00Gone Fishing<br />
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This weekend I did a quick raspberry pi i/o kit, the fish dish from <a href="http://www.pi-supply.com/product/fish-dish-raspberry-pi-led-buzzer-board/" target="_blank">Pi Supply</a>. Not one of my best soldering jobs but it works. It is a nice, elementary and cheap shield to test using the i/o ports of the raspberry pi. The board has an elementary speaker, LEDs and a button. The test program that a user submitted uses python and its RPi.GPIO library, very straightforward on the Raspberry Pi. The kit is less than $15 and will be out soon. Mine was delivered early since I supported the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pisupply/fish-dish-a-raspberry-pi-add-on-board?ref=live" target="_blank">kickstarter that launched it.</a><br />
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One caution is that it seems that the latest NOOBS version of Raspberry Pi really needs more than a 4 gig SD card, I advise 8 or 16 gig. Now I am wondering whether python scripts or arduino sketches will be my i/o software of choice. For most embedded projects the arduino will win due to its size and the final will be in C and not in sketches.<br />
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So when does one stay pat with the programming languages they know? Well I am 62 and still want to learn new languages! I am wondering whether <a href="https://www.dartlang.org/" target="_blank">Dart</a> should be next. Any opinions? Later!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-6384573720356188102013-12-25T12:58:00.002-08:002013-12-25T12:58:13.067-08:00Christmas SparksI had some time to play with my newest chunk of hardware, the spark core. It is a sweet little board embedded in a breadboard for prototyping fun. It also connects to Wi-Fi and has a cloud to support it. You can read about it <a href="http://www.spark.io/" target="_blank">here</a>. Of course a picture is warranted:<br />
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Registration begins with a smart phone app that assists in Wi-Fi registration, much like chromecast but not as smooth. Nonetheless it did connect after some handstands - hint you need WPA-2 not WEP and this finally moved me to upgrade my home network! It is a good thing. <br />
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The spark core folks include in their smart phone app tinker which lets you do elementary operations on the pins. You can flash an led from your iPhone and more.<br />
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More on hacking with it later in the week. Later, and Merry Christmas!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-51162259503407130812013-11-09T07:39:00.001-08:002013-11-09T07:39:39.720-08:00Killer UX<br />
<br />
I just got finished reading <a href="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780987153098.do">Killer UX Design</a> by Jodie Moule. (Please note that O'Reilly provided a copy of this for free through <a href="http://oreilly.com/bloggers/?imm_mid=07dd44&cmp=em-orm-pr-brp-havent-reqd-product">their review program</a>,
which I recommend by the way.) The book has several features that make
it ideal for someone who is interested in usability or has been doing
it for a few years. What is unique about this book is that it provides a
very comprehensive case study and weaves it into a thorough usability
process. This book is a great complement for more encyclopedic books
such as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Designing-User-Interface-Human-Computer-Interaction/dp/0321537351/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384009955&sr=8-1&keywords=plaisant">Designing the User Interface</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Interface-Design-Evaluation-Interactive-Technologies/dp/0120884364/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384010087&sr=8-1&keywords=User+interface+stone">User Interface Design and Evaluation</a>. At the end an app, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/cook/id687560846?mt=8">cook</a>, is produced and I actually downloaded it from Apple's app store.<br />
<br />
The
book takes the reader through the process using the app to illustrate
the steps in the process: Research, Insight, Concept and Design.
Throughout she provides sage advice on when to delve deeper and when to
let it go. She also focuses on behavior and behavior change. A quote
from page 125:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Based on what we know about the users and the environment, what does a [new way of living and behaving] look like?</blockquote>
This
illustrates the constant strong emphasis on behavior change and not
just cranking out an app. The book is lavishly illustrated and I do
recommend it highly especially for folks interested in usability or in
their early years. Do not get it if you want a comprehensive survey of
Usability. Do get it if after reading the comprehensive books listed
above you want to then actually focus on usability in your next project.<br />
<br />
Bottom line is that I do highly recommend it. In fact, I am going to use it in <a href="http://vesonder.com/">my HCI class</a> in 2014. <br />
It has been a while sicn eI posted on this site, hope to do better! Later.<br />
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(cross posted - also on my <a href="http://thesoftwareuniverse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Software Universe</a> blog) <br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-47298311123391578022013-10-31T08:19:00.001-07:002014-11-10T09:36:59.612-08:00Tighten your bolts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Just a post wishing everyone a Happy Halloween and hoping you avoid <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_process" target="_blank">zombie processes</a> and scary code. Continuing from my post last weekend the UDOO is quite a board. More on it soon, later!<br />
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And this is my 2014 rendition of halloween: <br />
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Hop eyou enjoyed your halloween!<br /><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-66337764066666818912013-10-27T10:12:00.000-07:002013-10-27T10:12:03.492-07:00UDOO? Well I do.So I received my <a href="http://www.udoo.org/" target="_blank">UDOO</a> last week which I snatched during its <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/435742530/udoo-android-linux-arduino-in-a-tiny-single-board?ref=live" target="_blank">kickstarter campaign</a>. I was surprised at how easily it booted once I found the nearly appropriate power supply should be 6-15 volts dc at 2 amps, I found one at 9 volts 1 amp. My next amazon order will include a 2 amp 12 volt power supply.<br />
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Here are pictures of the board and the initial screen. Unlike <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/" target="_blank">rasbpi</a> you do not get all of the gruesome but useful details of the boot - at least for their ubuntu OS variant, which is unfortunate. I will probably boot android next and determine whether there are more initial diagnostics.<br />
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One immediate bit of advice for the aging hackers among us is to come prepared to create an .Xresources file and add this line:<br />
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xterm*font: *-fixed-*-*-*-18-*</blockquote>
Turns out the xterm in UDOO Ubuntu is initialized in 6 point font! Very painful for my reading glassses. You will have to reboot to make it so. <br />
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I ran the old Byte <a href="http://www.tux.org/~mayer/linux/bmark.html" target="_blank">nbench</a> benchmarks and got some interesting results with what I am sure is not exactly a tuned kernel. For example the numeric sort was 492.92 on the UDOO using gcc 4.4.1 while a <a href="http://www.math.cmu.edu/~florin/bench-32-64/nbench/" target="_blank">3 Gig Xeon</a> ranged from 684 to 973 depending on the gcc version (not as recent as the UDOO version). According to a <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=12579" target="_blank">post</a> on the raspberry pi site the rasb pi did score was 200.4. Not bad for a $100 quad sporting an arduino! I will keep you posted on my adventures with more extensive comparisons to the raspberry pi and beaglebone black.<br />
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On a totally unrelated note, one of my friends <a href="http://allanwilks.net/" target="_blank">Allan Wilks</a> is walking from Scotch Plains to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. You can follow him on the link I provided and his adventures are truly inspiring. Allan is one of the nicest, kindest folks I have ever met and if you are along the way, please offer, if you can, to have him stay at your place for the night. You will be rewarded with an evening with an outstanding and brilliant person. Allan Wilks along with Rick Becker and John Chambers invented the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_%28programming_language%29" target="_blank">Statistical package S</a> - you may be more familiar with the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/" target="_blank">open source package R</a>. If you are not along the way, check out the blogging on his site. It is interesting and inspiring.<br />
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Much more in my queue but no time for now. Hopefully more in another week. Later!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-89839254211080413072013-09-29T07:00:00.002-07:002013-09-29T07:04:52.477-07:00Kid's say the darndest thingsSo I am up a week on iOS 7 and overall I like it. From an Aging Hacker perspective the white glare caused by the thin fonts, results in a bit more page glare than I'd like An option to soften the white background would be great. It gets tiring to read after a bit. The bright colors will require an acclimation period too. My least favorite iOS 7 converted app is the New York Times. Absolute;y hate what they hav edoen with it, but not enough for me to unsubscribe.<br />
<br />
But the best comments come from my favorite class of early adopters, kids. Art Linkletter had a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_Say_the_Darndest_Things" target="_blank">show</a> with that title and he would ask children questions and would receive some stunningly honest and comedic answers. This frank approach to life makes children intriguing for product feedback. Therefore it was not totally a surprise to me that one of the members of my <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/software-universe" target="_blank">google group software-universe</a> posted this comment:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">To give you some background, my older daughter is 5 now and has been using my iPhone (and later iPad) since she was ~1. </span></i></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I
upgraded my iPad to iOS 7 over the weekend. When she asked to play with
it, I handed it over expecting her to react to the nice new wallpaper
that I set up and new look for the lock screen. Instead, she was
confused and no longer knew how to unlock it. Watching this unfold kind
of soured the update for me...makes me think that there are fundamental
issues with the design cues.</span></i></div>
</blockquote>
But then she acclimated:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
..<i>.She hasn't had any trouble since that initial reaction, and is back to
finding her Minnie Mouse puzzles and interactive books without issue.</i></blockquote>
Thanks Sean Kilpatrick for letting me blog those comments! Another group member, Brad Bershad, creator of <a href="http://zumic.com/" target="_blank">ZUMIC</a>, pointed to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnmYBB92vcY&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">this video</a> of a child's reaction to the change. Change is difficult!<br />
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On the hardware front I supported a <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/9-arduino-compatible-starter-kit-anyone-can-learn-electronics/x/3192204" target="_blank">project on indiegogo</a>, $9 arduino leonardo compatible board (which was actually $11, I got 2, but he threw in some leds, buttons, a small breadboard, misc resistors, diodes, ..., and cables) from <a href="http://borderlesselectronics.org/" target="_blank">borderless electronics</a>. I took it for a spin this weekend and really liked it. Looks like there is nothing in the way of moving to some Christmas lighting projects.<br />
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Sorry it was so long between posts, but I had a rough September. Hope to do better in the coming months. Later!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-64190997026317162082013-08-12T05:52:00.001-07:002013-08-12T05:52:24.485-07:00Fruit Pi, Clouds and a SnakeOkay, so maybe I went overboard on the title! If you are interested in effectively using the <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/" target="_blank">Raspberry Pi</a> and also working with admin on the open source cloud software, <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">OpenStack</a>, one of the best languages to use is python. Even if you are not interested in clouds or raspberry pi's, python is just a blast to use, so long as you pay attention to white space. I am brushing up on my python and was pleasantly surprised when I supported a <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1369857650/real-python-for-web-development-featuring-web2py" target="_blank">kickstarter on a python course</a>. Real Python and Real Python on the web are superb courses. The style quickly whisks you through the knowledge with lots of examples very efficiently. These course/books should be a model for future language texts. Highly recommended!<br />
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Although I have not been fortunate in generating much discussion, hope springs eternal. My topic for this post is, "What version of Python are you using?" I have been sticking to 2.7 since OpenStack uses it. Would anyone recommend learn 3+ or should I wait? Later!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-77556568218779214632013-07-28T02:42:00.000-07:002013-07-28T02:42:25.471-07:00The Twilight of Operating Systems?<a href="http://tingilinde.typepad.com/starstuff/" target="_blank">Steve Crandall</a> sent me a thought provoking pointer this week to a <a href="http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2013/7/20/the-irrelevance-of-microsoft" target="_blank">blog post</a> by Benedict Evans. The gist of the post is that Windows as an OS is declining in influence. This is backed with some nice analysis and charts. He contrasts this with the, "exploding sales of the new wave of mobile UNIX devices." Somehow I do not think that I would call iOS and iPhone and iPad a Unix device. However I think he is correct in suggesting the diminishing influence of the Windows OS, but I would extend this to all traditional OSes including linux. Simply I think a much smaller portion of the public will be interacting with an OS that supports command lines, editors and file systems and more will be interacting with information appliances (old school term but still relevant). Increasingly more folks are puzzled by a <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Shirt-Woot-c-DOS-1981-XL-/181174527045?nma=true&si=wuMH0nN5pRQTX3l78RFLwrwEuRU%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557" target="_blank">dos woot t-shirt</a> I wear and I think this is indicative of the trend Evans discussed. However I think the same could be said for classic unix prompts, $ or #. Folks are interacting more with apps than OSs. Within a decade, the number of folks who can work with OSs may approach 1970s levels. This of course is good and bad but I am beginning to feel like the old auto mechanic bemoaning the days of strictly mechanical cars that could be repaired without use of logic probes! I would be interested in your thoughts.<br />
<br />
On other fronts my <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1101297082/r10-quadrotor-powerful-inexpensive-and-customizabl" target="_blank">quadcopter</a> has passed all the checkout tests and should be ready for first flight this week, I just have to pad some wire/frame interfaces so that the wires do not fray. I will regale you with video when that happy event occurs. LaterAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291476746371981145.post-61281398030814390732013-07-21T06:53:00.001-07:002013-07-21T06:54:41.691-07:00Facebook versus Google+ ZeitgeistMy perception is that Google+ and Facebook are used differently by folks. Overall there is a more scientific, engineering and "let me impress you with my knowledge," slant on Google+, whereas Facebook reflects more of folks lives and aspirations. This impression was enforced a bit by a personal tally on Birthday wishes to me this week. I received 23 on Facebook and 2 on Google+. Of course it just may be that my friends differentiate the two but I suspect that is not the case. I would be interested in your opinion of the uses of each.<br />
<br />
On the hacker front I am in the midst of building an <a href="http://www.adafruit.com/products/184" target="_blank">adafruit power supply board</a>, I am hoping to finish it today, since I want to replicate the LED candle that I built and see if I can then flash an 8 bit atmel to replicate it. Seems like a gradual way to move into special purpose boards. By the way I have found adafruit kits to be well done with clear instructions that explain the purpose of each component on the board. This also is my 5th project using the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-937-Digital-Soldering-Station/dp/B000I30QBW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374414742&sr=8-1&keywords=aoyue+937" target="_blank">Aoyue 937</a> solder station and I am really impressed. I use a soldering temperature of 370 C and it heats rapidly and maintains the temperature. Highly recommended. <br />
<br />
Later.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217063110442590222noreply@blogger.com2