Apperent Lack of Projects.

Yea I know.

I've been trying to clear my desk for the holidays. Not as easy as it sounds. Getting my homework caught up and ahead so I have nothing to worry about over Thanksgiving. Not to say I haven't been doing other things.

Kernel update. I used Windoz for well over two decades in my own home. So I did cringe when it said it was updating the kernel... went off without a hitch, other than it took awhile for my soundcard to figure itself out, but that was all worked out fine. I haven't tried the Wine programs yet, but for what I'm using it for right now it's working just fine.

eeeepc 701. le sigh. I don't work on this one much. I did crack open the OS like a melon, now it looks like a computer normally does. Xandros is a Debian thing and so it has a package manager that is pretty extensive. Samba is having a problem on it, as soon as I get it worked out I will have aircrack up and running. I assist people as a hire on nerd for their home systems, and may need to help someone back into their wireless network.

I've hit an interesting project that is a bit outside of my realm of expertise. Mental fitness. My brother is required to do mental fitness games. I was reading about it, and the brain is, for lack of better terminology, subject to atrophy. So to develop a way to exorcise the brain. Not as bad for a student, who has to constantly track long term projects as well as short term projects and is subject to constant social interaction. But particularly problematic for elderly. I'll put it on the back burner and let it simmer.

Back to the homework machine.

Google Wave

As you can see I've been watching Google Wave for some time now. With mixed emotions. I got my own wave invite (don beg me Juan) and it quickly degenerated to an argument between a close friend of mine and a chatbot. I can see that it is a good collaboration tool. I can see the point that it is merely another distraction in the office. Most of all what I saw, was an interesting new way to expand usability. The bot. Not the chatbot, she is just annoying. But if you ever find yourself asking the same questions over and over again, a chatbot is something you might want to look into. Their answers are all there, the chatbot can actually form them into a nicely packed form. "I have an Idea." "what is your Idea" "my Idea is A" "How would that work?" and so on. But the bot itself is a nice concept. You could write a bot to translate between English and Spanish and it would do the rest. NOW you can talk internationally with anyone. Write a bot that points out deadlines, and gives you heads up. A bot that makes you aware of timezones. Still can't make one that makes coffee.

"Hipcat, WTF is your point with all this"

It's another level of automation, to make life easier. In a setting that is... well.. more a distraction at this point, but still. They are currently only working with Java and Python. I have been looking for a challenge, perhaps this is it. But what do I personally think of the GW? It has potential, we shall wait and see.

First Posts are normally the most difficult, but this time...

We will take an exception.

I'm an Electrical Engineering student that honestly enjoys electronics. Opposed to those that just heard that they get paid a lot. So I do do a bit on the side. Of course I'm notorious for taking things apart.

Today is Veteran's day. I support the veterans wholeheartedly. I have my reasons. I took on a project today, Was kind of a surprise. It was a fiber optic ghost, they had dismantled the ghost part was was left with a geared motor that turned the filter, and a halogen light. That is what surprised me. I was expecting a set of white LEDs and a filter and a motor, but the whole thing ran on 7vac. That was the other surprise. I'm pretty sure it was AC power. The light wasn't coming on and they wanted me to check the voltages... no big deal those types of bulbs don't always 'look' burned out, and they are easy to mishandle.

The other project I took up was a video of WOW playing. I fraps ed it, put it together with some music I had lying around on the hard drive and sent it to him to see what he thought. We'll see I had always considered doing some tutorials, but never did. Perhaps I'll do them.