Cardboard boxes are fine, but refrigerator door bins and vegetable crisper drawers are nicer for storing things. The good ones I used here are made from clear plastic so you can see inside them easily and they don’t block light.
Of course, they are terribly expensive to purchase for this use, but with the (lack of) quality of Kenmore /Amana refrigerators manufactured after 2004 you can find free donor components relatively frequently. I also believe that with the addition of standard closet shelving support brackets the glass shelves from these fridges can be re-purposed into standard wall shelves.
The Wreck of the River of Stars by Michael Flynn is a character driven space tragedy. The characters are excellent and the writing is superb. If you like happy endings, you shouldn’t be reading a tragedy, but if you like excellent writing you should read this book now.
I received two emails from “Emily Smithson” alerting me to broken links on a webpage I maintain. She recommended a website which has “mirrored” the original content as a place to link to.
How helpful, I thought, reading the first email. But then I saw that the 2nd email had the exact same format, almost as if it was sent out automatically by a spam bot. Continue reading →
After working perfectly for 4.5 weeks with the same podium setup, my Thinkpad X31 laptop refused to output VGA video to the Extron Electronics video multiplexer box at school.
It appears that the Extron Electronics box is not sending out proper Extended Display Identification Data (edid) which tells the laptop what resolutions it supports. My xrandr command finds the data for my laptop video display screen, but not for the VGA-0 port:
VGA-0 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1024x768 60.0*+ 60.0
800x600 60.3 59.9
640x480 59.9 59.4
I have no idea why this started today. I don’t remember applying any patches to X-org in the last two days, and the technicians in charge of the podium swear that they didn’t change out anything.
I figured out a fix to make it (mostly) work. Tell xrandr to go ahead and force the VGA-0 port to a specific resolution with the following command:
xrandr --addmode VGA-0 1024x768
This mostly works, but the sync signal is slightly off, leaving a black bar of 20-30 pixels on the left side of the screen. It is also annoying to have to run that command every time I want to display to the podium.
This is a photo of the radio transmitter inside of a Dakota Alert WMT-3000 wireless driveway alarm system. The wire coming through the hole drilled in the bottom of the case and soldered to the base of the antenna extends out to a 27″ wire whip antenna. Note the jumper circled in yellow. This jumper has a “high” and “low” setting. It is set to the “low” setting by the factory, and the “high” pin has been cut off. I found that the range was extended by soldering the “high” (cut off) pin to the center pin.
501 – 500 ohms, a metric boatload (filled up 2 squares in my organizer)
102 – 1K ohm, a large number
202 – 2K ohm, a large number
502 – 5K ohm, two
103 – 10K ohm, three
203 – 20K ohm, eight
503 – 50K ohm, two
104 – 100K ohm, two
204 – 200K ohm, one
304 – 300K ohm, five screw pots, plus six larger slider pots
504 – 500K ohm, a large number
105 – 1 M Ohm, five
205 – 2 M Ohm, seven
Of course, if you wait a few months, Jameco’s overstock may be completely different and their grab bags may have completely different distribution of potentiometers.
Update: His name is Marc DeVidts and more info about his costume can be found at his site.
The coolest technical “costume” I saw at Dragon*Con was a guy with a hundred or so individually addressable RGB LEDs under a white outfit. He had them under wifi control from his cell phone. He could select colors, speed, intensity and many different patterns of flashing. The video shows a “random” effect, but I also saw things such as a “line” moving up and down that made it obvious that each cluster was individually addressable. Unless he was supposed to be the guy from Quantum Leap, I think it was just a cool technical effect and not a specific costume. Download Video
I have used a Motorola Backflip for a month, and am now trying out an HTC Aria. The Aria is a much smaller phone that lacks a keyboard, but has a newer version of the Android OS (2.1) and has a faster processor. For the rest of my comparisons, keep reading. Continue reading →
One of the best ways to allow other devices to use your phone’s data plan to get on the internet (a process called tethering) is to have your phone become a little wifi hotspot. Then, any wifi device can get internet access via your phone. To do this with the HTC Aria, follow these steps: Continue reading →
I have been using a Motorola BACKFLIP as my primary phone on AT&T for the last month. It is my first experience with the Android OS and smart-phones in general (my previous phone was a Motorola Razor V3xx “feature” phone), as well as my first full QWERTY keyboard on a phone. Overall it has been a positive experience. For the rest of my review, keep reading… Continue reading →
by Michael Flynn is a character driven space tragedy. The characters are excellent and the writing is superb. If you like happy endings, you shouldn’t be reading a tragedy, but if you like excellent writing you should read this book now. 
as my primary phone on AT&T for the last month. It is my first experience with the Android OS and smart-phones in general (my previous phone was a