Matt's Garage

0603 Green LEDs (Digikey) when you solder them “on” turn kinda orangish when the cathode (I think) gets hot. Interesting side-effect of overtemperaturing the part.

I think I shall be using the following in some of the code I release:

Software License Agreement

YOU MAY ALLIEVE YOURSELF OF THE OBLIGATION IN THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH BY PROVIDING THE AWESOME DUDE AN ATTACHE CASE FULL OF UNMARKED, NON-SEQUENTIALLY NUMBERED $20 (US) BILLS.


We must sue Newt Gingrich for breach of the contract with America. We as citizens are due consideration!

The wiring is a frightful mess (at the moment), but my CNC machine project that I started about 6 (!) years ago is running! Linux-cnc powered, 3 axes. I used a Harbor Freight 44991 Mini Mill, driven by a Geckodrive G540, along with some parts from LittleMachineShop, among other online suppliers.

I’m very surprised at how well the Geckodrive motor controller works. Of course, it connects via a parallel port, so I had to find a PCI parallel port card at Fry’s (covered in dust, and having to dodge the helpful white shirted minions that were sure that USB was better for me).

Now my challenge is to clean up the wiring, dress the cables, mount the computer out of the way of metal shavings, and become proficient at G-Code.

A while back I got a cassette from Doug (previous post) and it took me way too long to get it posted. Finally did.

With the example of the manufactured California electricity crisis of 2000-2001, we know that large scale manipulation of markets has, can, and will happen. With the recent rise in gold prices, I’m wondering how much of the most recent debt crisis is a result of political and media manipulation by people driven solely by profit at any cost?

Yep, they took down Enron, but they were not the only player in that game. I’m not terribly prone to conspiracy theories- and I feel that this is mostly idle speculation, but opportunistic sleazeballs like Glenn Beck and his Goldline scam are coming out on the positive edge of this, while the vast majority of us want to work, produce something of real value to the world, as opposed to profit by market manipulation.

I’m not someone who believes most conspiracy theories- I’m a big fan of Occam’s razor.  I just don’t think the evidence is there to support most of ‘em (like the disguised racism of the birthers, the WTC being taken down by explosives). I have no evidence to support this- I’m speculating. What some believe to be conspiracies occasionally turn out to be closer to the truth than what was initially reported. From what I see and understand of human nature- most conspiracy theories are more about media profits than truth.

I tried to install a newer version of Android onto my old Samsung Moment. I may be no super 133t uber-hacker, but I’m not exactly a newbie. I ended up wanting to stick forks in my eyes! I first installed Linux in 1993, and have had at least one Linux server up since then.  I’m more comfortable in a command line environment, and I’m a pretty passable coder in languages that range from assembly to C and Perl (here’s a secret that most computer folks don’t want you to know about: having a huge list of programming languages on your resume is entirely irrelevant! At worst, every computer “language” is just another dialect of the same language!)

The bastards at Samsung decided to abandon the Moment (SPH-m900) after upgrading it to Android 2.1.  I’d really like to be able to have 2.3 on it, so I figured I would try to see what was available (2.2, for now). Some dedicated hackers have ported newer versions of Android to the Moment, however, even their super-basic instructions appear to require very specific experience.

You may ask, why do I really want to do this? My big reason is that I want to play around with an IOIO I got from Sparkfun, here. I really want this environment to succeed, particularly Google‘s Open Accessory (ADK) protocol. Yes, I have a Honeycomb tablet, and a phone that would work with it, but I’d really like to use the Moment- which is definitely fast enough (but not fast, relatively). Plus if I break the Moment, I don’t have to worry about signing up for a new contract!

Just finished my LED work light project, using parts from Deal Extreme, Home Depot, Lowes, and Harbor freight.

I started with 3) PN  70688 High Power 16W 950LM LED Emitter Metal Strip (12~14V) 3 for USD $54.90.
I pop-riveted these strips to some aluminum C-Channel, using JB Weld instead of heat grease.  I also used JB Weld to hold on some additional aluminum c channel on either side of the main channel that holds the LED strips. I wired the LEDs up in series and connected it to (1) PN 48280 Waterproof 1A 30W Power Constant Current Source LED Driver (100~240V) USD $17.10.  Added a bunch of rivets, drilled some holes, added a fuse on the AC, wrapped it in heat shrink tape, and plugged it in. Looks about right- a rated 2850 lumens.  I’ll have some more pictures eventually. Mostly I needed some decent light over where I want to build a workbench in the “dirty-side” of the garage.

Heard about Tyrone Baker and Justin Fletcher getting a chop shop taken down in 2004. The company was called Tybrid. Once I heard about it I decided to google it- definitely got some strong reactions, of course, you see very little media follow-up after the arrest.  According to what I heard, they were also running a legitimate business, but mostly stripping Hondas for VTEC engines, modifying engine serial numbers, and reselling, often via eBay. The culprits were convicted, got probation(!) and 2 semi-truckloads of equipment returned to them.  Shortly afterwards one or both of them moved to Arizona. It seems that the leaders managed to keep themselves pretty clean.  Of course, I don’t have the full transcripts of the case. Clearly there were some smart people involved in the legitimate and the criminal businesses going on. It also seems that they should be smart enough to see what was really going on.

I thought one review was pretty interesting:

I wouldn’t change anything about my local shop. Tybrid Performance in Austin, Tx. I get all my parts there really cheap (one time my car broke down in the front of the shop and the owner Tyrone gave me a used alternator and the tools to fix it there right in front of the shop). People are friendly, no rice in the shop, Tyrone is the ultimate Honda G (he drives a Dually and his GF drives an NSX) that knows everything about Honda’s, they only work mainly on Honda’s nothing else, he’s always got car’s laying around with extra parts, shop has B and D series whatever you can think of laying around, I could go on but everthing is just awesome,  [...]

Posted early December, right before the shop got busted. Really cheap, and always got car’s laying around with extra parts, nope. No warning signs there at all! No doubt these guys knew what they were doing with Hondas, but it is hard to believe that so much illegal activity could have been going on without their knowledge.

Trying this out from my Motorola Xoom. Maybe this will inspire me to post more. We will see.

Don’t program ARM devices!  They are a company based in the United Kingdom, and we all know, they want their colonies back!  I wouldn’t be surprised to find that ARM bases their design principles on the Lucas model of vehicular electrical design.

Desi’s truck wouldn’t start last night when we went out for dinner.  The ground wire was broken, and all I could find was some speaker wire- just holding it against a bolt wasn’t working too well, so I pressed it down really hard with my thumb. Well, it got really hot. Instantly. But the truck started. I guess it might be a 3rd degree burn according to the NIH: “Third-degree (full thickness) burns extend into deeper tissues. They cause white or blackened, charred skin that may be numb.” Cut myself too, while stripping the wire.

There are be zombie ants. They have been around for at least 48 million years. Could it have jumped up to humans?

Went to San Antonio on Saturday to pick up something I won on Ebay. Saw lots of “no socialism” signs. Yep, socialism sucks. I assume it has mostly to do with healthcare reform, but why the signs now? Why not when the previous administration was emulating a failed socialist republic (Ignoring Habeas Corpus, warrantless wiretapping, invading Afganistan)?

This is our fault. As I sit, drinking my diet coke from a plastic cup, listening to traffic going by, and pondering the lawsuits going on about the oil spill in the gulf, blaming BP, Halliburton, etc. When are we as a society going to accept it’s our own damn fault?  They wouldn’t be drilling for oil if we were not asking for more, more, more… Even the BP shareholders are suing BP for the loss in the stock!

If we are going to live in our society today, as we have made it, this is one of the ugly costs. The gulf fisherman are upset … but what powers their boats?  Those aren’t sailboats out there! People are upset about their vacation spots and wildlife preserves- how do they get to that vacation or observe that wildlife?  How are you reading this right now? Those electrons don’t move themselves!  If you dive into your 401(k) or mutual fund, I’m sure you have investments that involve oil in some way.

Litigation won’t solve it, though it will probably make whole lot of money for a whole lot of lawyers. And a fraction of any settlement money goes to actually cleaning up. BP probably can’t pay for the entire cost of the cleanup and various lost revenues without bankrupting the company (and even then it would be left incomplete).  Are we going to go after the current and past shareholders? After all, they made money off of BP before it all went to hell.  Do we really want to sue ourselves?

BP has pledged to pay.  We’ve also gotta pledge to pay, quit whining, start cleaning, and if we don’t want to see something like this happen again, use the oil infrastructure we’ve built to help us move to something that doesn’t just keep pushing the costs down the line.

I’ve now got an Android phone- the Samsung Moment. Found (and am now trying out) the app that I found to post to this blog.

Something I say frequently: if money can’t buy happiness, it can’t buy sadness, either. While it doesn’t buy either of those, what I do find is that it helps me manage my anxiety- when I have more cash in the bank, and smaller fiscal responsibilities, I’m less anxious. And anxiety is what kept me from going back to sleep when I got up at 5AM this morning. Gotta focus. Today, and this week, the goal is move stuff out of the old house to the new.

(Disclosure: We adopted a child.) There are a huge number of kids (right in this country) that, through no fault of their own, don’t have parents that can appropriately take care of them. Raising a child is hard. Raising an adopted child is harder. So what? IVF is the technological approach to buying a child, and the most selfish thing I can think of.

If I’m pissing you off, please try to change my mind. Before I go deeper into the reasons behind this opinion of mine, I’d like to hear some of the reasons from the other side. I’m not trying to piss people off, just trying to understand something that seems so selfish.

I’m moving, and I’m shopping for new high-speed internet service.

I’ve been using speakeasy DSL for 7 or 8 years, and I’ve been very happy with the service. They give me static IP, no restrictions on servers, a really fast link, and incredible uptime. With Speakeasy, by my rough calculations, my uptime (not counting scheduled outages) has been on the order of 0.99991. When I’ve had to make changes, the customer support has been quick and knowledgable.

I run my own servers (SMTP, HTTP, DNS). It hasn’t been cheap (but not incredibly expensive). I do know that AT&T UVerse and Time Warner Cable are available. (For television I use DirecTV, and I do not want to change, particularly to Time-Warner… when DirectTivo comes back in HD, I’m on it immediately- that was the way TV was meant to be watched).

A couple of years ago, I tried to order DSL for a business we were starting up, and frankly, the business side of speakeasy was kinda crappy- we couldn’t get the speed they promised initially and support was kinda iffy.

I’m opening up my options.

• I want to retain at least one POTS line for the reliability. (doesn’t POTS service have some regulatory responsibility for reliability that VOIP does not?)
• I have a cell phone, and I don’t want to bundle
• I want at least one static IP, with options for others
• I want no restrictions on servers- all ports MUST be open (I will sign the appropriate “I understand the consequences of running a spam server and I am not, will not, nor have I ever been a spammer”
• I’d like to keep the budget of at something * Access to a NNTP (news server) is a plus- I get 5 GB a month with speakeasy, and have found that it can be really useful.
• As far as I know T1 is not available, and I’ve gotten better download speeds off of ADSL than T1. I can’t remember what my package speed is, but I see >3Mbit/s typical download speeds.

What is out there?