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Quorten Blog 1

First blog for all Quorten's blog-like writings

Raspberry Pi 1-bit speaker wiring, CodePlex to be shut down, and the "Medium" website

quorten

2018-01-17

Categories: raspberry-pi   misc  
Tags: raspberry-pi   misc  

Just to verify. Yes, indeed it is okay to wire up a pizoelectric speaker directly to the 3.3 V GPIO pins, PWM for best results. Use a small one, though, if you don’t want it to be too loud.

20180116/DuckDuckGo raspberry pi zero pizoelectric one-bit speaker
20180116/https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/38758/alsa-piezo-buzzer-directly-on-pwm-pin
20180116/https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/2e0v7d/how_do_i_connect_a_piezo_speaker_to_the_raspberry/
20180116/https://www.adafruit.com/product/160?gclid=CjwKEAjwpcGfBRDni__JqrTIqx4SJAB9BpSO5n34p42eNieFX4nD4vhMcc5rEWIfS2PtiKKwPUAb1RoCQu3w_wcB

Wait, CodePlex is being shut down??? Yes, GitHub is the cited successor. How well is GitHub actually doing in their financials? They seem to be doing somewhat well.

20180116/https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/03/31/shutting-down-codeplex/
20180116/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub
20180116/https://medium.com/@moritzplassnig/github-is-doing-much-better-than-bloomberg-thinks-here-is-why-a4580b249044

Interesting. In case you are wondering about this “Medium” website, social journalism, the response to declining revenues in traditional journalism.

20180116/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_(website)
20180116/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_journalism
20180116/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism
20180116/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism

Importance of thumbnaiils in an inventory system

quorten

2018-01-16

Categories: inven-sys  
Tags: inven-sys  

Important! As it turns out, the “thumbnails” view needs to be very complicated and support multiple modes for what to display. For example, it also needs to be able to support displaying a “time lapse” of an object, possibly with all angles.

Humans are “movable objects” too, albeit much more fragile than typical artificial objects. Humans can generally only be moved around in standing, sitting, or laying position, or with shoulder straps with wide body coverage. More importantly, humans and animals tend to move primarily by their own mechanisms rather than being carried by something else. Nevertheless, especially for the purpose of organizing photos, the same visual and spatial disciplines apply.

Tiny microphone and sound card for Raspberry Pi Zero?

quorten

2018-01-16

Categories: raspberry-pi  
Tags: raspberry-pi  

Tiny microphone and sound card for a Raspberry Pi Zero? There’s a lot of events you can sense around the house just by recording sound and analyzing the results.

Failed search.

Or so I say.

20180115/DuckDuckGo raspberry pi zero cheap microphone
20180115/https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-zero/audio-outputs
20180115/https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tinkernut-diy-pi-zero-audio/
20180115/https://learn.adafruit.com/adding-basic-audio-ouput-to-raspberry-pi-zero/pi-zero-pwm-audio
20180115/DuckDuckGo raspberry pi zero cheap electret microphone
20180115/https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/5inj0r/tiny_ranged_mic_for_raspberry_pi_zero/
20180115/https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/5jlail/tiniest_sound_card_mic_for_rpi_zero/

Reflection on 3D printing, control over the world

quorten

2018-01-03

Categories: 3d-scanning   3d-scanner   3d-printing  
Tags: 3d-scanning   3d-scanner   3d-printing  

  • My desire for 3D printing? What is that? It is the embodiment of consciousness: having control and direction over the world and one’s environment. So, that’s why.

  • What do people really want? Conscious force. But they don’t necessarily want to control everything in the world, i.e. other people. Mainly, they want “enough” conscious force.

    • In a highly constrained physical world, paradoxial. The difference between mere intelligence and consciousness. And, the lowest level, rote-mechanical simulation of the constraints.

Read on →

Get myself started on 3D printing

quorten

2018-01-03

Categories: 3d-scanning   3d-scanner   3d-printing   pentax-k-1-camera   mac-classic  
Tags: 3d-scanning   3d-scanner   3d-printing   pentax-k-1-camera   mac-classic  

Okay, to get ourselves started on 3D printing. Let’s just look for some interesting designs that other people have made that I need and see if I can 3D print them. Wow, this is really great. It almost makes me feel like the future of purchasing manufactured objects is in 3D printing.

20180102/DuckDuckGo thingiverse macintosh se program key buttons
20180102/https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2579509

Indeed, this part does reveal that making current generation 3D printers still don’t produce parts as strong as injection moulding. The fact that the poker geometry had to be altered for structural integrity and the part has to be printed from a certain orientation. Oh, and the knowledge required to be good at making 3D printed designs.

20180102/DuckDuckGo thingiverse xmods evolution lug nuts
20180102/https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:157642
20180102/DuckDuckGo thingiverse ti 84 plus graphing calculator battery cover
20180102/https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:264522/

Okay, but I should not limit myself to Thingiverse. What other online 3D design repositories are there out there that provide a similar function? Well, Wikipedia is the place to go to find out about these.

20180102/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thingiverse
20180102/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Printing_Marketplace

Read on →

Important info and lessons learned from the black and white Macintosh family

quorten

2017-12-03

Categories: mac-classic   important  
Tags: mac-classic   important  

Important! Some very interesting things about the Black and White Macintosh family:

  • QuickDraw is one of the first drawing routine libraries to use region clipping.

  • QuickDraw used custom microcode of the MC68000 microprocessor to achieve its speed.

  • The Computer History Museum interview contained lots of explanations about particular shortcomings in the decisions made in the early Macintosh user interface. Some of them were made solely for a world where very few people actually had experience using a computer graphical user interface. Others had long since become artifacts of widespread graphical user interfaces despite their suboptimalities.

    • Scroll bar at the right? That was for the sake of the placement of the sizing box, to avoid accidentally clicking the window iconify button.

  • The menus were originally located at the top of windows, but then relocated to the top of the screen for the Macintosh. This was seen as advantageous given the small screen size. Yes, for larger screens, menus attached to the windows does make more sense.

    • In order to use use with this setup, pointer acceleration was also implemented in the Macintosh.

Read on →

Bootloaders and Device Tree

quorten

2017-11-22

Categories: unix   raspberry-pi  
Tags: unix   raspberry-pi  

Bootloaders. Okay, so let me try to organize.

First of all, let’s talk features.

  • The lowest level of manipulating a computer is a “front-panel control switch” or similar. In the case of more complicated microcomputers, this is typically a “monitor program” that provides serial console access to a command-line based user interface to do the most important things that you can do from a front-panel control switch. Namely, reading memory locations, writing memory locations, and executing memory locations.

  • Next up is the availability of a built-in programming language. This is typically a very simple programming language such as BASIC or FORTH. A built-in programming language provides an easier alternative to programming a computer than typing in hex bytecodes of machine instructions.

  • Next up is an interface to load programs from disks or network interfaces. Strictly speaking, this can be called a “bootloader.”

  • Next up is a software program that can configure hardware settings that would traditionally be set via physical hardware jumpers. This historically called “BIOS configuration.”

Read on →

Do-it-yourself battery backup system summary and components

quorten

2017-11-19

Categories: battery-backup   raspberry-pi  
Tags: battery-backup   raspberry-pi  

Okay, to summarize. AA battery backup power for network equipment.

  • AA batteries can deliver 2500 mAh per cell.
    • Thus, 8 AA batteries can deliver 20 A. Plenty good power for backing up network equipment.
  • The best choices on battery chemistry are alkaline and Nickel Metal-Hydride.
    • Rechargeable alkaline does not have good capacity and life.
  • You can use the LTC4412 IC from linear tech for gracefully switching to backup power.

20171118/DuckDuckGo electronics switch between aa power and dc input outage
20171118/DuckDuckGo electronics switch between AA battery power and dc input outage
20171118/DuckDuckGo AA battery 12 volt power supply

Somewhat on track, but it doesn’t provide a DC pass-through for line power.

Read on →

Raspberry Pi Zero powered from sun, still limited sale per customer

quorten

2017-10-14

Categories: raspberry-pi  
Tags: raspberry-pi  

Power a Raspberry Pi Zero from the sun? You can do it.

20171013/DuckDuckGo raspberry pi zero continuous solar power
20171013/https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=192481

Raspberry Pi Zero is still limited to one per customer, unfortunately.

20171013/https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=188011 20171013/https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/power-your-raspberry-pi-zero-from-the-sun-using-the-solar-pi-platter-07-07-2016/