I thought I'd add this future post, so it will always be at the top of my list as I've seen several people do. Feel free to use this as a place to send me general comments not related to my other posts posts, or request that I post some kind of information.  Also, now I'm adding links people may want to be able to reference quickly.

Persistent information:

Saturday morning Tea:
Just in case the world goes to hell:

( Comments will be screened, but I reserve the right to cut and paste them into a current dated entry of my own to start a topic unless you request otherwise. )

http://www.indiegogo.com/ironbuds

I know a few of you might be interested in getting in on this.

This is a second-part of a Kickstarter campaign I sponsored back in August. They're about to get their first run of product going, and are opening up an Indigogo campaign for people who want to get in at the original Kickstarter costs, to fund their company's future products.

I've followed the development of this product pretty closely with all their emails and they look like solid products. I'll know for sure once I get my pair.

Upon the screen a visage of exquisite triumph and sorrow, it did lead the heart to beat rapidly, as the darkness of the theater entombed the audience. In our seats we suffered as the great artist Poe himself did, we cried out in tragedy with each anguishing moment, and smiled at each breif glimpse of loves warm embrace.

I've decided to put up a webpage of all the techie projects I've made over the years, and will make into the future. All the cool kids seem to be doing it, why not me?

I need your help. Over the years I've done some fun things, made some unusual creations. Which ones do you remember? I'll work on adding projects to the page based on a list of what people remember first.

Wow, things are happening really quickly. We're going to have tea on May 12th 11am, there will be some guests in from out of town joining us as well, so it should be a fun time!

http://pawz.cattech.org/~posicat/Saturday_Morning_Tea.html

Soon, we'll start having Saturday(sometimes Sunday) morning Tea again. I was smart this year, and created a mailing list for it, you can sign up here if you're interested. : http://pawz.cattech.org/~posicat/Saturday_Morning_Tea.html

My cat has apparently learned to open cabinets, and yesterday his crowning achievement, I walked into the kitchen to find him inside the oven. Thankfully it's electric.

There are some people on this planet who know how to push my buttons, and take me from 0 to pissed almost immediately.

So, tell me, am I an asshole for seeing red over this?

Voice mail : Hi, haven't talked to you in a while, give me a call back as soon as possible.

Called back ...
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Went to Big Lots with Tybis and Axle. Looked into their case, and there was an Android tablet there. Tybis quick to his phone discovered it was actually a fairly capable machine, 1ghz Cortex 8 equivilent, 512mb ram, 2gb storage for $120. There were 3 under the counter, there were no longer 3 when we all left. Mine's got custom firmware on it already (surprise). Let's call it a ... class expense ... for my Android Class.

http://www.nextbookusa.com/productdetail.php?product_id=7

Van was broken, died in the middle of a snowstorm, the tensioner pulley died (like the deck plate vs alien blood in Alien) and the belt fell off, and the alternator stopped spinning, and the battery went dead, 1/4 of a mile from a parking lot. We were rescued by Tybis's dad.

Today I went over and replaced the tensioner and pulley. There are two ways to put the serpentine belt back on, the way the instructions say, and the right way. I tried both, the right way worked (pulled it back with a rope). Jumped the van, started up, and it's fine now. Yay.

Whoo, direct from across the pond, I have kilt socks that fit!

So, after a discussion this weekend, I'm thinking of trying to organize an electronics club that meets monthly. There are a few folks now I know with Arduinos, and it would be cool for them, and others to get together every once in a while and experiment. Who all's interested?

Goodbye TDS, you've screwed around too long with my auto-billing, it's still not working since your change in SEPTEMBER. I'm pissed off enough to go to Comcast (AT&T didn't have anything higher than 1.5m at the moment)

I don't know if "hehehehehehe" or "whoohoo, *giggle*" is the right thing to post.

I just got this shirt in the mail, I love it!

http://shirt.woot.com/friends.aspx?k=23117

My Saturday mornings until May are officially busy, I've just enrolled in an Android Programming course over at CLC.

Happy New Year!!!! May 2012 bring new magic into your life. Also cross your fingers that the world doesn't end in December.

So, I got one of these PS3 things for my Birthday (Mostly to be a 3D Bluray player). It says something about friends on their network, anyone else got an account I could friend?

Merry Christmas!!!

I could be offline for a few days, my ISP TDS Metrocom has it's head straight up it's ass. I've already spent hours trying to fix the problem, wrote a mufti-paragraph complaint to a manager (no reply until about 3 weeks later asking "why don't I see your credit card on the account yet"). Since Sept when they switched billing systems, and didn't migrate credit card information, I've been unable to pay other than calling them and waiting 30 min on the phone. I gave them the "I can get more for cheaper, why should I stay" email today, curious how they'll respond.

No plans on my birthday yet, I kind of like it that way. So, who wants to meet up at my parking lot on the morning of Dec 27th, hop a train and have an adventure?

I have too much stuff in my apartment that needs to be sorted and weeded out. Part of the problem is that it's not all my stuff. Stuff needs to leave. If you've talked to me about a plan to get rid of said stuff, thank you, please stick with the plan. If not, you'd best talk to me about said stuff before I enact Tybis's favorite word, defenestration.

No, the dark is afraid of me. I've always loved flashlights, the brighter the better, darkness, fear me, for I have photons, and they don't get soggy in milk, just diffused!

I want to get a PS3 Slim, mostly for the ability to play 3D Bluray movies. Slim because of the die-size on the processor, they'll be less prone to overheat.

I have 3 options:
1) Buy new (Problem : I'm cheap, $200-$250 is more than I care to spend.
2) Buy used (Problem : I'm not seeing them for less than $150 on Ebay)
3) Fix a broken one (Problem : I don't know the typical failures)

I've got a soldering iron, oscilloscope, etc. I've torn laptops/pda's/phones/etc apart (and put them back together successfully) so repair doesn't scare me, other than having absolutely no knowledge of PS3's internals other than online videos.

Has anyone had to repair a PS3? What are signs of a dead for good PS3 vs one that can be repaired? Is there any trick in swapping the Bluray drive from one to another (same model, different model, etc?) The HDD I understand is fairly generic, and I can put a disk in if I need one. Just looking for any experience anyone has with fixing PS3's.

I was there for pre-reg, and Sunday for the late afternoon. I was home the rest of the weekend with a sick cat. Those few moments I was at con was pretty cool thought.

I think I just built a dude-what-duino ... it's not going to win any design competition, but it works. Yes, for those of you keeping track, I'm a little behind on my staff design.

Sore as hell from paintball yesterday, but was a fun day! Today, I watch movies and let the welts heal and my joints relax. Crouching behind a pile of wood while trying to shoot people and not get shot is a surprising workout.

Electronic geek friends, I have a problem I need some advice for...

I have 2 circuits, completely seperate, one is 12v and drives a plasma ball (yes, that project) the other is 4.5v and is driving 64 LED's off of an Arduino. When I turn on the plasma ball, I'm getting shocked by the LED strand. The LED strand is 2 meters of copper backed flexible circuit which is wrapped around PVC pipe, inside which is the 12v source (8 D batteries).

I'm guessing some of the problem comes from the grounds for both systems being seperate, but will connecting the grounds have any effect? I really want to keep the signal from the plasma ball from backfeeding down the ground/power and keep it from bleeding into the LED strip (I've already lost 2 LED's red channels to a zap). Any advice? Connect ground, don't connect ground, diode, choke coil? I've got little experience in these kinds of RF things.

Sharp knows customer service, A+ on their support.

New TV and the huge benefit so far : I've gotten to spend an hour on the phone with their tech support so I can get one that actually has ALL the pixels lit up. I'm not angry, they're handling it well, just I'd rather watch it rather than diagnose problems with it. On the other hand, I now know how to get into the factory menus.

Here's a small bit of the LED strand I removed because the circuit board needed to be re-soldered. It ended up being my test-strip for programming.

Here's what happens when I tell my friend Spir that I wonder what my online persona would look like in the My Little Pony universe .... it's awesome Spir, thanks!!!

So I broke down and now have a hosted Minecraft server, it's friends-only, so if you'd like to join us on the server, send me a message here.

Last minute plans. Tea in the park Saturday morning, around 10:00-10:30 (probably closer to 10:30).

http://pawz.cattech.org/~posicat/Saturday_Morning_Tea.html

To solve the "6-months is not an anniversary argument I've refactored ...

public static int aniversaryInt(Date date)
{
return (int) aniversaryDbl(date);
}
public static double aniversaryDbl(Date date)
{
double yearsSince=0;
// Some calculations go here
return yearsSince;
}

Weekend project? http://xkcd.com/941/

Saturday Morning Tea, August 27 11:00am - 12:30pm

Details : http://pawz.cattech.org/~p​osicat/Saturday_Morning_Te​a.html

I didn't go to faire with the plans to buy a vest, I wanted to get gauntlets ... however walking into Felix's store has that effect sometimes.

You know what's funny? Power goes out, and we whine and complain we don't have the electricity we paid for. Then we pay money to go to RenFaire, where we spend the day without electricity, technology, etc and pay them for the privilege.

Yay!

So, Google+ ... it's like Facebook, but not Facebook ... sign me up!!!

Tonight I got a grinder for my mixer. Not just because ... I had a plan...

Tonight I also made haggis, as close to authentic as I could manage, I cheated a little bit, butter instead of suet, and it's cooking in a crock pot. I managed to get tripe, liver, heart and tongue to put in it, along with some onion and various spices. It smells good, can't wait until it's done.

Found a monitor at Goodwill tonight, $15 ... that makes monitor #4 finally! It's a Sceptre something with a nice picture and a small scratch on the display.

http://pawz.cattech.org/~posicat/savanna/Savanna%20Plan.pdf Just in case the world ends.

I surely had one of the most epic dreams ever. Dr Who and Optimus Prime fighting to save the world in a post-apocalyptic California.

After working on this over the course of 3 weeks, here and there, I finally figured out how to control a MAX6956 over I2C from an Arduino clone (the Diavolino). Mostly I was stumped from lack of sample code, I could get all the LEDs on, or off, but not get the brightness control to work. I was home sick from work today and decided to take another stab at it, and figured it out. Because I couldn't find examples of how to control brightness online, I'm posting my code for anyone to take a look at.


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New computer and all I've done is play Minecraft, watch videos, browse ... and turn in a ton of results in the Fight Aids at Home project. I don't think it's going to waste.

As a very last minute plan, I ended up going to Penguicon this weekend. WOW, it was awesome, especially watching the weekend evolve from "hanging out with one friend" to traveling with 2 others, and getting to see 2 good friends out in Detroit. Wow, there are some awesome geeks in this world too, I had a blast all weekend eating liquid nitrogen icecream, attending various panels on geekery, and putting together 2 kit circuit boards. One of those boards has 126 LEDs on it ... that's quite a bit of soldering.

Weekend is over, but it's far from forgotten, it was amazing, must do this again.

Does anyone know what's going on for satisfaction of my curiosity?

I have 2 cards in my computer, an ATI X800 and a Nvidia Gforce 210. The ATI can't render OpenGL under Windows 7 because of driver limitations, that's why I got the Gforce.

However, I can now run OpenGL apps on all 3 of my monitors, one of which runs off of the ATI card. Um ... nearest I can think is that the 3D rendering and the actual video-display are de-coupled, meaning that the card can render 3D to any chunk of memory it cares to, video memory, system memory, or over the PCI-E bus to the video memory on another video card entirely.

Anyone know for sure?