Month: July 2008
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Howto: Talk to arbitrary USB devices with Processing (1.0 Beta)
I’ve been playing with the Processing language (http://processing.org) a little bit and liking it so far. For anyone not familiar, it’s a Java-based rapid-prototyping language that includes very friendly libraries for graphics, sound, video and select hardware (e.g. serial port). One thing I couldn’t find much info on was talking to arbitrary USB devices (not…
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House wiring, A Beautiful Mind style
Our power went out sometime in the last couple days’ raging thunderstorms and reset all the computers/clocks in the house, so I figured before I reset them, this was an excuse to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: map out the breaker box. (Exciting, ya? Well, this anti-electrocution research is…
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Evil thought of the day…
When I noticed more and more Web sites trying to detect and block ‘bad’ or otherwise unprofitable users (e.g. those using ad- or popup-blockers, privacy tools, etc.), and banking sites like the one I use trying to detect potentially compromised machines, I thought, “How long will it be until some unnecessarily clever dickface just adds…
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My Fossil Collection
Fossils in ironstone nodules I collected near my folks’ place on a strip-mine lake near the Mazon Creek in Grundy County near Morris, Illinois. This area is sometimes referred to as one of the Lagerstätten (i.e. mother lode) – one of few places on earth where conditions were just right to preserve a rich deposit…
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The Pomp Room
Near my parents’ house in IL. Laugh, it’s funny (in Afrikaans, anyway – a good name for a place that might rent rooms – and companions – by the hour).
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Couch denting at a 14th grade level
Some random observations on being back in my hometown for the week of the 4th… I know it’s not the first time I’ve felt this way, but I was particularly amazed at how this place… no longer feels like home. Yeah, a few things have changed – buildings where there were no buildings before, a…
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Entropy Is
Destroying information. I’ve never had an easy time with this. Feeling in a productive mood the other day, I made a plan for my next side-project* (picking back up my interest in building gas discharge tubes, i.e. those decorative plasma globes, except doing it right this time), and set my sights on clearing some space…
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Camping in Maine
Kr* an I went camping/hiking in Acadia for this weekend…her first time in South Canada Maine. So we made camp on Friday evening, and ran up to the top of Cadillac Mtn. on Saturday, followed by a trip back down the steep side to Bubble Pond (~6mi). This was just after the Corporate Challenge (the…