New project: Using a Atmel ATmega168 to control a graphical Everbouquet LCD that itself uses a T6963C Controller. Right now it seems that I can read the status-register and data successfully. The integrated DC/DC controller (for the negative LCD driving voltage) powers up and delivers –9V.
After fighting with Linux's v4l2, alsa, pulseaudio, mencoder, mjpegfoobarblahblubbtools etc.. I just borrowed one of those. Probably it will just work.
I started playing around with a breadboard. Until now, I never had done this, but I have to say, it’s kind of convenient. The only downside: I don’t have pre-cut cables, so I used the one from a big spool I found, but they are kind of pink-ish ;-).
It hums. And I’m annoyed.
What did I do on Saturday? Well, via the wonder of the web, I watched my friend burn both himself and his baby daughter with his home-made amplifier, then rail against excel and python in an attempt to print out some gradesheets. He eventually got so angry he threw himself out the window. He was in the basement, but you have to appreciate the attempt.
Update: I modified the last stage to have less gain (4 instead of 20), so it better matches my source, furthermore I added a 5k resistor at the input to have less input impedance. That helped a lot.
Our junta of incompetent politicians have passed the law that will now introduce censorship in Germany. Ignorant assholes.
Just a quick note about the harm that you can suffer, should you try to install the “dmraid” package in your linux distribution: It’s EVIL! The problem is that for me it installed the dmraid signature in my harddisks last sector, so that Ubuntu’s initrd would automatically create useless mappings from…
Everything completely pointless, and wrecking my distribution’s ability to boot. I usually run my self compiled kernels which exclude the device-mapper for this exact reason, but it’s not possible on my other PC for one reason or the other. And the final and correct cure is to boot with the greatest bootable live-system there is: GRML, and overwrite the harddisk’s last sector (which holds the signature) with zeroes:
# dmsetup remove_all # get rid of the mappings
# cat /proc/partitions
…
8 0 12345678 sda # your harddisk
…
# sdd bs=512 –inull of=/dev/sda oseek=12345677k count=1 # overwrite last block
Reboot and enjoy. Use this recipe at your own risk!
There’s a post over at slashdot about the Twitpocalypse… What it’s supposed to mean is that twitter, this stream of useless short-messages you can (or, if you are like me: you don’t) follow to be informed about the social life or bodily functions of your peers now has accumulated over 231 items, a number exceeding the range of a 32bit signed integer. I’ll never understand how anyone can care about such a thing, but it for sure made it’s inventors famous and rich. And there’s one comment about the stupid choice of words and names I think is especially hilarious (see screenshot).
To download a ISO image for Windows XP (as a member of a university, I joined the Microsoft Developers Network Academic Alliance programme) I have to download a special windows-only binary program... Which doesn't work right in WINE (the windows API for Linux). But they didn't even get it right on Windows either, as the screenshot here suggests.
This is what will become my new home-office... as soon as both mould and hole are removed from the wall :-(
I ordered a GPS antenna, checked that the list of "compatible" GPS receivers include +5V types, asked them in a Email about it, to which they replied "3.3V - 5V is ok", and now got the product depicted next to this text.
I don't own something like a Kill-A-Watt but was interested in the power-consumption of several computers, so I had to improvise. Upper trace: Voltage, lower trace current. The result is that the fluorescent lamp illuminating the still-life depicted consumes 7.2W. A 1.2 GHz Athlon is 95W when idle, 105W when busy. A Pentium-II needs 45W of juice.
I repaired my second Competition Pro (german article) joystick from the old Amiga days. It works remarkably well with the linux db9-driver:
$ jstest /dev/input/js0 Driver version is 2.1.0. Joystick (Multisystem joystick (2 fire)) has 2 axes (X, Y) and 2 buttons (Trigger, ThumbBtn). Testing ... (interrupt to exit) Axes: 0: 0 1: 0 Buttons: 0:off 1:offThis one now has two buttons: I had to repair the broken cable, removed the auto-fire electronics and then just rewired the small triangle buttons to fire2. (not-so-recently).
Subject: Drucke hierher und bekomm die Postkarte. Von wem erkennst du spater Sie haben eine virtuelle Karte erhalten! Sie konnen die Karte innerhalb von 30 Tagen ansehen, unter der Verweisung gehend: http://xxxxx.xxy.ru/card/123566.html Klick der Verbindung auf oder Kopie es zur Adressbar des Internet-Browsers. ------- Befreien Virtuelle Karten! xxxxxxx.xx.ru
Ebay #330212923460:
Wissenschaftler, neuwertig(Scientist, like new. First class scientist, graduated, lecture qualification, able to work under pressure, creative, can work in a team, multilingual, communicative, talent for organizing, young, not married, not planning to have children (work first!), good publications, no private life, works 65-70 hours/week, possibly also on weekends. Nights are reserved for researching literature. Will also do lecture-work, will present results on conferences, writes review and publications, prepares results and does misc inspections, like work-security, biohazard, radiation and animal-rights. Does short-term contracts until retirements, will not take holidays or sick-days... (...) Looking for repetitive, boring work without perspective in academic resarch with poisonous, radioactive substances or animal experiments. Everything that others won't touch. When all others are fleeing in foreign countries, a real scientist will take the burdon, frustration is a word he does not know.)
Erstklassiger Wissenschaftler, promoviert, habilitiert, auslandserfahren, belastbar, kreativ, teamfähig, multi-lingual, kommunikativ, Organisationstalent, jung, unverheiratet, kein Kinderwunsch (Arbeit geht vor), erstklassige Publikationsliste, kein Privatleben
Arbeitet mindestens 65-70 Stunden pro Woche, wenn das nicht reicht, gerne auch zusätzlich am Wochenende. Die Nacht ist bis auf Ausnahmen für Literaturarbeit reserviert. Übernimmt sämtliche Lehrverpflichtungen, präsentiert Ergebnisse auf Kongressen und Tagungen. Schreibt Reviews und Publikationen, bereitet Vorträge vor und organisiert Begehungen (Arbeitssicherheit, Gentechnik, Radioaktivität, Tierschutz …). Gerne auch drittmittelfinanzierte Zeitverträge bis zur Rente. Garantiert kein Arbeitsausfall durch Urlaub oder Krankheit. Wer nicht zu Hause schläft, hat auch keinen Unfall.
Gehaltsvorstellung BAT 2a oder weniger (auch mal Hartz IV wenn es sein darf), gerne auch in Hessen (kein Tarifvertrag). Geld ist eh nur schnöder Mammon.
Sucht perspektivlose, frustrierende Routinearbeiten in der akademischen Forschung mit Giftstoffen, Radioaktivität und Tierversuchen, alles was andere liegenlassen. Wo andere ins Ausland abwandern, steht ein echter Wissenschaftler seinen Mann. Frust ist ein Fremdwort.
At least where I live the end of the year 2007 is near, and we'll never be able to go back (see photo ;-) ). I wish everyone a happy new year 2008 and much fun with their new-years celebrations.
