thoughts to blog

I was reading this article about how $8 a gallon gas would do the US some good... and I have to say that a few of his points are very good... I won't repost all of his points, but I will touch on two of them that I feel passionate about:

• RIP for the internal-combustion engine

He makes the point that for too long, we haven't been as innovative or developing alternatives to the gasoline powered engine as best as we can. I will venture to say that it's mostly people lobbying to stop funding or limit funding to get these things done. I don't quite fully believe in all of the hype that car companies put out about developing the latest technology. We have had the know-how on hydrogen fuel cells for a while, we just can't get it compact or efficient enough for every day use in vehicles... We're a brilliant species who has tackled things like LANDING ON MARS... But we can't figure out how to take a technology we already have and make it more efficient for daily use... it would eradicate our need for gasoline... Does this not add up to people invested in oil trying to deliberately stop the research? It's along the lines of right-wing theists who are abusing their power to stop any kind of stem cell research to better people's lives... But I digress...

• Mass-transit development

This one brings up a lot of interesting dialog as I used to live in Minneapolis... where it's underdeveloped mass transit system isn't large or expanding enough to reach a broader audience... They have been making improvements yes... BUT MOST INTERESTINGLY enough is that downtown Minneapolis USED to have rail lines and other features built into the road system to HELP WITH mass transit... but was paved over for streets thinking that they wouldn't need them... But to bring my point around is... I think that by forcing people to use mass-transit systems, it can go a long way to help our environment... Side note: Kind of nice to see the Fort Worth bus system running on natural gas... and that some Fort Worth cab companies are using hybrid cars...

With that said... I have this strong will to see hydrogen fuel cell cars... and I think that oil companies are behind the slower development of those technologies... And I'm always torn about giving up my fun, sporty 6-speed Civic Si Sedan for a techy, neat looking smart Car... We'll see what happens next I guess...

An interesting little twist on the micro-blogging concept... adocu is taking it a step further into nano-blogging...

It's a super simplistic blogging engine / site that only allows you to have a continuous stream of characters (read: no spaces allowed).

What can it improve on?

• They just added friends and RSS... thankfully, but they need to have auto-discovery of RSS (meta tags)
• They need a simple API or a way to add status updates quickly... the website is nice, but something like IM or email would be great as well...

Other than that, they should continue to keep it very very simple... don't want it to be a clone of another service!

Here's mine:

http://adocu.com/thoughts (RSS)

So I was driving over to meet up with the Improving crowd to watch the new Indiana Jones movie in Dallas, TX... and I saw this in my rear view mirror...

For those of you who aren't into cars... it's a 2008 Audi R8

Why is it so special?

• Only barely over 4000 made
• They go on sale in the US in Summer of 2008... Which means it could have possibly been one of the first US R8s...

This... is... just... wow...

Doesn't this look absolutely tastey?

It's my newest creation... the PCCT Breakfast Sandwich of Geeks and Champions...

PCCT Recipe:

• 2 Pieces of bread
• 1 to 2 Tbl of Peanut Butter
• 20 Morsels of Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips

Toast the bread, spread the PB, and sprinkle the chips. Simple

This one is for my boy Mike... he's trying to build some toys for his air hockey table and I thought I'd help out and do a simple demonstration... of course, with my Arduino...

I'm pretty proud of this one, as I did this entire thing without any help at all... With basic Arduino commands learned from some tutorials, I've put together a simplistic program that displays numbers on the 7 Segment LED

I really wish I could get good with drawing schematics and layouts with Eagle, but it's soo dang hard!

int a = 2;
int b = 3;
int c = 4;
int d = 5;
int e = 6;
int f = 7;
int g = 8;

int pinSets[10][7] = {
  {a,b,c,d,e,f,-1}, // 0
  { -1,b,c,-1,-1,-1,-1}, // 1
  {a,b,-1,d,e,-1,g}, // 2 
  {a,b,c,d,-1,-1,g}, // 3
  {-1,b,c,-1,-1,f,g}, // 4
  {a,-1,c,d,-1,f,g}, // 5
  {a,-1,c,d,e,f,g}, // 6
  {a,b,c,-1,-1,-1,-1}, // 7
  {a,b,c,d,e,f,g}, // 8 
  {a,b,c,d,-1,f,g} // 9
};

int switchPin = 9;
int bState;
int val;
int buttonPresses = 0;

void setup() {
  pinMode(a, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(b, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(c, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(d, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(e, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(f, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(g, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(switchPin, INPUT);
  bState = digitalRead(switchPin);
}

void loop() {
  val = digitalRead(switchPin);

  if ((val != bState) && (val == LOW)){
      buttonPresses++;
      if(buttonPresses == 10)
      {
        buttonPresses = 0;
      }
  }
  clear();
  bState = val;
  displayNumber(buttonPresses);
}

void clear() {
  int i;
  for(i = 2; i < 9; i++){
    digitalWrite(i,LOW);
  }
}

void displayNumber(int n) {
  int i = 0;
  for(i = 0; i < 7; i++) {
    if(pinSets[n][i] != -1) {
      digitalWrite(pinSets[n][i],HIGH);
    }
  }
}

Here's a simple demonstration of controlling the speed of a blinking LED with a potentiometer...

And the code:

/* Setup pins */
int potPin = 2;
int ledPin = 13;
int v = 0;

/* Set LED to Output */
void setup() {
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  /* Read from potentiometer */
  v = analogRead(potPin);
  /* Turn LED on */
  digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
  /* Wait relative to where potentiometer value is */
  delay(v);
  /* Turn LED off */
  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
  /* Wait again */
  delay(v);
}

Ahhh... the lovely Arduino... an open source physical computing platform... such lovely geekery comes out of it.

Here's the snippet of code:

/*
 * Blink
 *
 * The basic Arduino example.  Turns on an LED on for 50 milliseconds,
 * then off for 50 milliseconds, and so on...  We use pin 13 because,
 * depending on your Arduino board, it has either a built-in LED
 * or a built-in resistor so that you need only an LED.
 *
 * http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Blink
 */

int ledPin = 13;                // LED connected to digital pin 13

void setup()                    // run once, when the sketch starts
{
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);      // sets the digital pin as output
}

void loop()                     // run over and over again
{
  digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);   // sets the LED on
  delay(50);                  // waits for 50 milliseconds
  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);    // sets the LED off
  delay(50);                  // waits for 50 milliseconds
}

Final Product // ATTIGO TT from Scott Hobbs on Vimeo.

Hot to death... everyone's all up on multi-touch tech...

A quick video about a new electronics toy I got in the mail today... to help feed my new hobby

The kits are available here, via Adafruit Industries... they are pretty cool and give you a chance to learn simple electronics on your own while making something cool...

So if you haven't noticed... the blog has been going up and down the last few days...

But thanks for my hombres Mike and El, creators of Feather (the software that runs this blog)... they hooked me up with a new nginx kung fu configuration and now my site is blazing fast AND stable...

Give those guys some props, they are ninjas...

Btw, check out my plugins I wrote:

feather-mephisto - an importer that works with Mephisto database

feather-search - a stupidly simple AJAX search component

and coming soon... Akismet and Recaptcha integration!

Not quite sure what to think of this one... but the Google Health product finally went live (read: beta launch)...

I'm all for centralized and open standards for information... but I'm not too entirely keen on centralized data stores of that information...

For instance, I think with putting your health stuff in Google, the amount of integration and relevant information you could attain given your records shoots through the roof! If the storage standard becomes open, then other companies will be able to utilize and talk with the service... aka instance updates, automated appointment scheduling, xfer of medical records. But, do you want Google to have yet another piece of your life? They store your wants, desires, friends, email, blog posts, and now your medical health records?

We'll see what comes out of this... I have other rants about the health industry and software that I'll bring up at another time...

This one is for Becca... everyone together now... ::awwwwww::

Top 5 Things I Couldn’t Live Without Under $5

• White Hanes™ ankle socks
• AA Batteries (though most of the time they go for >$5)
• Box of green tea packets
• A Barbacoa torta from Meli's Taquiera
• A transistor

Top 5 Favorite Movies

• Forrest Gump
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
• Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
• The Matrix Trilogy
• The Goonies

Top 5 Baby Names You Love But Won’t Use (or maybe will) - this one is kinda random

• Matthew
• Eleanor - Ellie for short
• Madison
• Scott
• Google

Top 5 Songs I Could Listen To Over and Over Again

• Justice - D.V.N.O.
• Bobby Blue Bland - Stormy Monday
• Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey
• Count Basie - April in Paris
• Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (Yeah so what, it's got a good beat)

Top 5 People Who Have Influenced Your Life in a Positive Way

• My Mother pushed me in my academics
• Grandpa Freitag - he was a stubborn, selfless, gentle, farm boy...
• Grandpa Warden - he was a giving, kind, motivated entrepreneur...
• Rebecca Anne Kelm
• A tie between John Howes, a good friend and colleague who pushed me to be the best and Eugene Wallingford, a college professor who I spent the most time with in college and still keep in touch with.

Top 5 Things That Stay in Your Purse Wallet at All Times

• Business Cards
• Driver's License
• Insurance Cards
• My Lego and Apple Gift Cards
• Barnes and Noble Member Card

Top 5 Moments That Changed Your Life Forever

• The day I graduated college early... it pushed me to excel in my career and education
• The day I drove up to Minneapolis to interview, it set off my career...
• The day in highschool when I figured out that I wanted to write software for a living...
• The day Becca and I went to pick up Lucy... early on a Saturday morning...
• The night at the bar when I asked Becca for her number

Top 5 Obsessions You Have Right Now

• Electronics and Circuits
• GTA IV
• Writing software (it has been and always will be)
• Thai Food
• Documentaries

5 Places You Would Like to Go

• Galapagos Islands
• Cairo
• South Africa
• Thailand
• Rome

I know this is going to sound funny... but the new album from Gangstagrass is hot to death! Seriously... A mashup of bluegrass with hip-hop... It has a comfortable feeling, almost as if you've heard it before. The production value is through the roof, for a free album...

Whao... Wait? Did I say FREE album? Yup! Go snag the torrent while you're bored... and go check them out! If you know me, you know how much music I listen to and how diverse it is... this is something I recommend...

So with my new found hobby, electronics... I have a list of things I want to get:

• 2860 Point Solderless Breadboard - $24.99
• 100 ct. jumper wire pack - $4.99
• Arduino Nano - $44.99
• Arduino Starter Pack - $65.00
• Dremel - $59.00
• Dremel Accessories - $21.50
• USBtinyISP AVR Programmer Kit (USB SpokePOV Dongle) - $22

Wow... so yeah, I'm in need of someone who can fund my new hobby. Any takers?

Gamer 4 Life...

Before:

After:

I've come to the conclusion that I'm starting to get bored with information...

Books are starting to become dull... I'm cleaning house on Twitter... I'm dropping feeds in Bloglines... I'm visiting news sites less often... I'm playing fewer games... I'm actively thinking about schooling / education outside of computer science...

And yes, I know we just got cable today... and that will provide yet another information stimulant, but I think the change of pace is needed...

I'm learning new disciplines... electronics... new media outlets... TV again... and hopefully if I cut back enough, I'll get some passion again and start being active in the amazing world that is the intrawebs...

The blog shouldn't suffer, in fact, I've been blogging a little more lately... and now that Becca has a blog, it's extra pressure to stay ahead of her in the blogging game...

At any rate, I'm in an information burnout... and I need to be healed...

Becca and I signed up for a package deal from Charter (meh) that basically gives us extended cable for an extra $11 a month over our cable internet fees... gotta love promotions and choices...

Still not sure about it either... We've been without cable television for 6 months... but since our first promotion deal was up, I had to call in to see what other kinds of deals were there...

And the lady sold me... I couldn't say no... We were paying a hefty premium for average cable internet... so why not pay a little more for some boredom cures...

At any rate... this might not be the best thing for my goals... but I'm going to actively try to limit my TV usage... and who knows, maybe I'll only program in the Food Network, Discovery, Military Channel, and the History Channel... so at least my watching can be practical or educational...

So there used to be this hyper passionate, hyper loyal kid that I grew up with named Toran Billups... and throughout the years his level of excitement never faded...

I took him on as an intern once... and have mentored him throughout his career... and he's been gaining talent and momentum in his core development skills and his web development skills...

At any rate... he recently entered a competition, The Dice Tech Challenge and is one of the top 10 finalists...

So go check out his application, Things to do in Des Moines and vote for him on the Dice site (no registration or email required)...

And if you're looking for a junior developer with amazing potential, he lives in Des Moines and is fluent in PHP, C# (ASP.Net), and VB... and if you can see by his site, he has more design skills than the average web developer (application / system side)...

The Charles Babbage difference engine... used to calculate polynomial functions... by hand cranking and setting initial values, with each column having a decimal value... you could do number crunching and generate large tables of calculations (logarithmic and trignometric)...

The math behind a difference engine is pretty simplistic...

1. Given a function: p(x) = 2x2 + 3x + 6
2. And values of x: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
3. We can calculate the p(x): 11, 20, 33, 50, 71
4. Then calculating the differences we get the first set to be: 9 (20 - 11), 13 (33 - 20), 17 (50 - 33), 21 (71 - 50)
5. We can then calculate the second difference: 4 (14 - 9), 4 (17 - 14), 4 (21 - 17)... note the 2nd difference is common
6. Since we have a common value, we can now use simple addition to generate tables for p(x) very quickly.

Here's how...

1. Take the 2nd difference, in our case 4 (constant)... and add it into the previous first difference, in our case 25....that gives us the next first difference, value A in the table below.

2. We can then take A and add it to the previous result: p(x = 5) = 71... to get the value 96, value B.

3. We have now calculated p(x = 6) = 96 by only doing 2 additions instead of putting the numbers through the function.

Let's double check our work:

1. p(x = 6) = 2x2 + 3x + 6

2. p(x = 6) = 2(6)2 + 3(6) + 6

3. p(x = 6) = 72 +18 + 6

4. p(x = 6) = 96

w00t!

So with one very simple calculation, you can quickly generate tables of values for any given polynomial... pretty interesting huh :).

Side note: someone took the time to build one with Legos as well... love it!

So the "Java Kid in a .Net World" is back... and with a newer professional position and more family on the way, he's got a lot of interesting things to talk about...

Welcome back Justin... Welcome back

The good ol' boys Mike and El have created a new blog engine using Ruby + Merb + Data Mapper... it's called Feather... and if you had visited the site the last 4 hours or so, you would have noticed it was down and out... and now has a new look (well, for now)

It's pretty sweet stuff.. I imported ALL of my old items from whoisjake.com/blog and thoughtstoblog.com... using my nifty feather-mephisto plugin that you can find in feather-plugins git repo...

It's pretty cool, they got a lot of press coverage up front (read: Ruby Insider, et al)... and have put together a really light weight and unique platform. In fact, this blog is now running off of two merb processes and sqlite3 database...

At any rate, take the time to check out their project and let me know if there are any problems with the site...

That magical elixir of dreams! And sometimes nightmares…

So I have decided that I need to have a set of goals for the summer… and to use my blog to help track them and attempt to hold myself accountable for them…

Goal #1 - Read Things - I want to finish reading The World Without Us, Freedom Evolves, and a piece of fiction (does anyone have a suggestion?)…

Goal #2 - Build Things - I want to build a dog house for lucy and some form of a robot from scratch…

Goal #3 - Learn Things - I want to learn more about starting a small software product / service company. My main focus will still be drop.io and probably will be for a few years… but I want something to do on the side and get a taste of what it’s like…

Goal #4 - Code Things - I want to write a concrete example (real world) using my genetic algorithm framework, EvolveStuff

Goal #5 - Write Things - I want to continue to write on this blog, perhaps with some more effort. I also want to think about a book proposal… It’s always been a goal of mine, and recently had a chance, but decided I didn’t have time when we first got Lucy and Becca started school.

I think that 5 goals is quite a bit, but at the same time it will push me to get these done (or at least I hope)…

At any rate, any thoughts on the goals? Should I add some? Change them?

Of course I’ll post images and thoughts about the goals through the summer… so stay tuned.