Awesome

I really have nothing to say.  Just noting that Im -$1 cause I bought yogurt...then minus another $1 cause I got it from Wal-Mart

so...

Yoplait yogurt - $0.66 -  $2


Owed so far....$7

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Ardusat Update 2014 15 High School Students Working With Live Arduinos In Space

This is an update on the Ardusat program which was mentioned in a July post, "Skys Not The Limit For Arduinos In Space."

Ardusat (from Kickstarter)

In an August 27 press release, Ardusat announced that their Arduino satellites program is now available globally for K-12 students and teachers. ReadWrite has a pretty good article about Ardusat and their program in the recent post titled "Soon Students Will Be Able To Control Satellites In Space." It starts out with a overview of what the program consists of:

"...Ardusat is publicly launching a program to offer "space kits" with programmable sensors that it will place in small satellites in partnership with commercial satellite company Spire. The space kits cost $2,500, but the company has made the curriculum and online resources available for free...Ardusat is running a science competition beginning Sept. 2 to provide 15 high schools with a free space kit and the opportunity to work directly with an astronaut...more than two dozen schools are currently using Ardusat, and with its public launch, the kits are available to everyone...Ardusats “space kits” contain an Arduino board—a cheap, widely available circuit board for DIY electronics projects—and multiple sensors that can be programmed to capture data on temperature, luminosity, and magnetic fields. The students can program the sensors using Arduino to test scientific hypotheses based on

Ardusat exploded view (from Kickstarter)

data that can be measured from satellite orbit—for example, finding the relationship between El Niño weather conditions and the ocean temperature near their schools...Satellite sensors will capture data and send it back to students in real-time, so classrooms can monitor how the experiment is performing each day."

The ReadWrite post also talks about one specific teacher and class thats working with the Ardusat program:

"Rachelle Romanoff is a physics and chemistry teacher...This year, Romanoff is bringing Ardusat to her 10th and 12th grade classrooms. Her AP Physics students are so excited to program sensors in space, some students enrolled in the class just for this particular project—she now has 23 students in the class...Because students can configure the sensors in real time, Romanoff says shell be using Ardusat throughout the school year. Students will write code to then send to the satellites housing their particular project. It will be crucial in helping students understand concepts like electricity and magnetic fields. The satellites will send the data back down to Earth, and students can collect and view the data on their iPads, and make graphs out of the information received from space to observe patterns or work out hypotheses...As the Ardusat programming gets more advanced, and more satellites become available for students, Ardusat envisions more technical experiments like thunderstorm tracking."

I took an AP Physics class in high school, and would have loved it if wed had access to sensors and microcontrollers (MCUs) on a satellite orbiting the earth. Can you imagine the cool projects a few creative, imaginative and determined K-12 student hackers will be doing in a few years on Ardusats system and other cube sats or other type of education or general public satellites that get launched and have this level of access. Instead of writing "Space Invaders" in BASIC and playing it on Apple II or other early PCs, theyll be programming MCUs with the Arduino IDE (integrated development environment) or other program development tools to play real-time "Orbital Space Spy," gathering real-life data in space and figuring out how to capture and package information that lets them become globally-recognized experts on their area of interest or sell information to governments or corporations.

Early breadboard circuitry for Ardusat (from ExtremeTech)

Like many other developer platforms, the truly valuable and innovative outcomes from widespread access to microcontrollers, sensors and other related satellite components that can capture or generate information or physical products in space will be things that the satellite launch companies never expected. Students, teachers and others with access to this space equipment will first do weird, fun and somewhat pointless things with the equipment, as well as activities initially envisioned by Ardusats and other organizations, such as thunderstorm tracking. True hackers rarely work on ideas suggested by someone else as being valuable or appropriate. Theyd rather work eight or twelve hours a day on

something they came up with on their own, something that fully engages them, something that no one else is doing as far as they know. Or something interesting to them that they think they can do much better than someone else.

The initial sensors in the Space Kit are listed on the Ardusat website as luminosity sensor, temperature sensor, magnetometer, ultra violet light sensor, infrared thermopile, and photoresistor. But Im guessing Ardusats have a few more sensors onboard, either for testing or for unveiling at a future time to maintain interest in the program. Early on those student hackers will also come up with additional MCUs and related components that should be added to the next satellite launched, with a clear explanation of how those MCUs and components will be used. At least one of the student hacker improvements will end up able to accomplish the purported task, but will turn out to have unexpected capabilities, either because someone figured out a new way to use the equipment or because the slightly-devious student hacker planned to use those capabilities all along but was intelligent enough to not tell people that before the equipment was launched into

space. These escapades will bring us ever closer to the day when scifi like "Space Cadet" by Robert Heinlein and "Live Free or Die" by John Ringo will be eclipsed by true life stories.

We havent reached the hockey-stick inflection point yet for democratization of the civilian aerospace sector, but programs like Ardusat are getting us a lot closer to the tipping point. If you work with STEM programs at K-12 schools, I highly recommend you consider getting involved with Ardusat. And if youre a student hacker interested in space, I recommend you start planning your personal participation in off-planet computing.

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dealing with an angel

or not haha. well maybe

So before I did wolvix I did a system called DreamLinux.

It is a sister to Ubuntu (Debian both being the mother system) but a lot like mac...so I thought Id give it a try.

Again it had a really gay and ugly boot screen...generic

but when everything was done it looked like this




not bad.

It has a little icon for the internet that looks like Safari but its really Firefox lol.

Random.
aaaahhh

I also ran Fedora with KDE and with Gnome

It was orgasmic

working on Mint...not that anyone cares

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Swimming With The Fish

I hope to set up a small pool this summer.  I would like to incorporate what Ive learned about water chemistry and create a natural swimming pool with plants and fish rather than chlorine or salt.

Click Here for a Slideshow of Beautiful Natural Pools

Here is one of my favorite videos

Heres a report about the added value to a home with a pool. Notice the 1000 to 2000 square foot range.

Go Figure

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OHara maple syrup festival

OHara tapped trees in maple forest

We decided to take a trip to the OHara maple sugar festival and see what it was all about, and let me tell you, it can be described in one word, maplelicious... thats a word, right?
In goodol Madoc is where you can find this feast of all things maple. Hankering for some pancakes laced in syrup, you gotem. Drizzed maple syrup candy-pops made over snow, gotem. Maple butter, candies, and syrup for sale, you betcha!. It all starts off on a horse drawn ride through the maple forest, then, a trip back in time through an old pioneer house to show you the instruments used to collect sap. They also have old knickknacks for sale, everything from quilts to cast iron hooks.

OHara pioneer house

OHara maple syrup festival

I just love these old pioneer houses, any log homes for that matter. These modern homes with steel beams and fake formaldehyde filled flooring just feels.... blah.
Ive always wanted a fireplace like this, just right there, no safety, keeps ya on your toes I suppose, lol.
The house was filled with treasures from yesteryear; wooden water buckets, snow shoes, old fashioned saws, candy presses, and all sorts of tools that were essential to life back then. To be honest, alot of the stuff they had there I would prefer to what we have today. Plastic this and plastic that, I see why they were healthier then my generation.

Old fashioned maple syrup supplies- OHara

I couldnt help but turn this photo in a vintage like feel. The wooden piece beside the wooden buckets was used to make candies, I think thats what the piece at the far left is too. There is a large screw beside the candy box that was used to drill the trees for sap and the wooden taps ( to the left of the screw ) were used to collect the sap from the trees, all of which dripped into wooden buckets. Wood, wood, wood,  does a body good.

Old fashioned snow shoes

For some reason whenever I see stuff like this I always want to try it out; it takes every ounce of my strength to not ask, I know they never would let me, and I know I shouldnt because Id probably break them, but I want to, oh lord how I want to.

OHara Maple butter

 I always thought maple butter was maple syrup and butter mixed, and since I gave up butter, I never tried it. Turns out, its just maple syrup made in a specific, scientific like way. Its almost like soft maple candies, but smoother, more spreadable. In fact, right now I am eating this on a piece of bread with a mug full of how water and maple syrup -Canadian to the bone.

OHara water mill

They have this neat watermill and log building, Im not sure if its functional but I will definitely be coming back to see this place in the summer as there are a bunch of festivals and things going on when the warmer weather arrives; fingers crossed the mill flows.

Pioneer cemetery

Along the drive there was this old pioneer cemetery intermixed among the trees. Ive never seen anything like this, some of the plots go back to the 1800s

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Rocket Mass Stove

Ive mentioned this before, but this is such a neat way to heat that I wanted to make an entry just for Rocket Mass Stoves and include the best videos and links I have found.  

Paul Wheaton from Permies.com demonstrates in this first 2 minute video just how efficient the Rocket Mass Stove is.  You see this video frame here where this lady has her face over the flue pipe.  The heat and fumes from the flue are warm not hot and very clean.  I hope you will explore the videos at  Permies.com.  It is one of my favorite sites!

 

Efficiency is the key to heating a green house.

This simple low tech stove with exceptionally high efficiency is something anybody could build.

Why do we continue the spend thousands on air tight stoves that pollute and burn more wood?

http://tinygreenlove.blogspot.com/2012/02/amazing-rocket-mass-heater.html

Below is another favorite video educator.  Rob Torcellini shows the details of how he built a Rocket Mass Stove to heat his greenhouse.  The same stove could heat your house.

Add a self feed bin for pellets!  This is how Rob did it.

Rob has taken the Rocket Mass Stove to a very sophisticated level. His excellent engineering skills and preparations while building his green house have payed off well.

Hear are some more ideas

Ive included this video because it demonstrates the effectiveness of a rocket mass stove

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Projectiles Building a blow gun with laser sight

I thought Id build a blow dart gun with a laser sight.

It turned out to be a total success.

It works well, and is much more fun than regular darts of the non-blown variety.

I started with a couple of pins, some string, some cotton, and a thin pipe. A broken car aerial works well, so does a pen casing. Even a drinking straw works at a pinch. The longer the better, and its best to avoid flexible things as your pipe. Drinking straws tend to be a little less accurate.

I started by piercing the string so I had four strings stuck to my pin.

 I taped up the strings so they wouldnt move when I started to wrap them.

This next bit is really important.

Add a loop of cotton running the length of the pin.

Take some cotton and wrap it tightly to make a binding along about a third of the length of the pin.

I also made one where I used electrical heat shrink instead of cotton binding. It worked well, and was much faster to make, but didnt look as nice as one with binding.

Trying to tie off  the end of a binding is difficult unless you have that loop we added.

To finish your binding, pass the loose end through the loop.

Then pull the back of the loop all the way back. This will draw in the lose end, and secure it by tucking it under itself... under the binding.

Thats really important string tech. As long as you plan it beforehand and add that loop its easy, but without the loop, its next to impossible.

 The end result looks something like this.

Next I took another pin and frayed the string.

Wool would work better, but I didnt have any.

When its fully frayed, it looks like this.

You can us it like this, but it was a little slow, and not very accurate.










I trimmed mine down a bit.











The point of the tail is to create drag so it flies straight, and with the sharp end up the front where it belongs.

If you have even one thin strand longer than the others it can cause trouble.

A long strand will make your dart turn off course a bit, and can also get stuck between your lip and the tube, resulting in a blowing noise but no shooting.

An easy way to trim it is to put it into the blow pipe and cut any excess with scissors.

Next, I found my container full of prototyping plastic. I explain it in this post about its possible use in making hand made fishing lures, but basically its stuff that gets soft at 65 degrees centigrade or so, and sets hard once it cools.

Next, I got hold of a laser pointer ($15 or so), then it was a simple matter of heating up some prototyping plastic, and wrapping it around both the tube, and my laser pointer.

I added three screws that sit through the plastic so I can tighten them against the laser to adjust where it points in relation to the tube. That way, its easy to adjust and make certain everything lines up properly.



I shot some video while I was sighting it. I placed the laser sighted blow dart gun in a clamp, and repeatedly shot it, and adjusted the screws to get it more accurate. A simple matter of firing, then moving the dot to the same spot as the dart hit.

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Ultra Low Power Microcontroller With A Supercapacitor

This post is a follow-up to this blogs FRAM (ferroelectric random-access memory) post in June, and takes a look at a recently-introduced Texas Instruments (TI) FRAM LaunchPad development platform, as well as how to use FRAM effectively in a particular use case.

TI MSP-EXP430FR5969

First the FRAM development platform. It appears from a post on 43oh.com that the MSP430 ULP (ultra low power) FRAM board, MSP-EXP430FR5969, was soft-launched in February 2014, then rolled out with more fanfare and distributor partners in June 2014, per the Australian post, "element14 offers ultra-low power with Texas Instruments LaunchPad dev kit," and a number of other similar new product posts. The Australian post above says,

"Embedded FRAM, a non-volatile memory known for high endurance and high speed write access, together with ultra low power makes the MSP430 development platform suited for a wide variety of applications ranging from metering, wearable electronics, consumer electronics and the Internet of Things (IoT) to industrial and remote sensors, home automation and energy harvesting. The new development kit includes TIs new EnergyTrace++ technology, the worlds first debug system that enables developers to analyse power consumption down to 5nA resolution in real-time for each peripheral...Key features include MSP430 ULP FRAM technology-based 16-bit MSP430FR5969 MCU; 64KB FRAM/ 2KB SRAM; 16-Bit RISC architecture up to 8-MHz FRAM access/ 16MHz system clock speed; 5x Timer Blocks; Analogue: 16Ch 12-Bit differential ADC, 16Ch Comparator; Digital: AES256, CRC, DMA, HW MPY32; 20 pin LaunchPad standard leveraging the BoosterPack ecosystem. Various components including on-board eZ-FET emulation for programming, debugging and energy measurements have been provided in the evaluation kit for a fast start; on-board buttons and LEDs on the board enable quick integration of a simple user interface in addition to a SuperCap allowing standalone applications without an external power supply."

MSP430FR5969 LaunchPad Power Domain Block Diagram

The part that especially interests me is the SuperCap that enables a minimal level of operation without an external power supply (and without a battery?). Enabling MCUs to operate without external power sources was the topic of an earlier post on this blog, "Microcontrollers: Batteries Not Included. Or Needed." That post discussed getting the MCUs power from small energy harvesting devices. It would be nice if a supercapacitor turns out to be another no-batteries-needed option for MCUs. The boards Users Guide shows the power domain block diagram to the left and says, "The board is designed to support five different power scenarios. The board can be powered by eZ-FET or JTAG debugger, external power, BoosterPack power, or standalone super cap power." A bit of online research is needed, it appears, for me to totally understand just how much the MSP-EXP430FR5969 board can do using just the 100 mF capacitor and no external power. If Google and I cant figure that out, Ill check with Ed Smith to get my answer!

If youre interested in the MSP430FR5969 microcontroller (MCU) that powers the above development platform, consider reading the Electronics Weekly article, "Exploring FRAM microcontroller-based design – Texas Instruments." The graphic at the right from that article shows how flexible the memory configurations are in that MCU. Here are a few more resources to help you learn more about the MCU and its platform:

1. MSP430FRxx MCU overview page on TIs site.
2. MSP-EXP430FR5969 LaunchPad Evaluation Kit page on TIs site.
3. Overview of MSP430 Ultra-Low-Power MCUs PDF on TIs site.
4. MSP-EXP430FR5969 LaunchPad Development Kit Users Guide PDF on TIs site.
5. 6-part video tutorial on YouTube for the MSP-EXP430FR5969.

If you want to buy the MSP-EXP430FR5969 kit, Id suggest you consider either direct from TI ($24.00) or from Newark ($24.05). Octopart gives a good look at the price spread and availability of the kit, with costs ranging from TIs $24 up to more than $39 from Arrow. The 43oh post above shows one way manufacturers entice hardware developers to buy newly released components. For $5 extra ($29 for the kit instead of $24), when you ordered the MSP-EXP430FR5969 kit from TI when it first came out, you got both the kit and a "LS013B4DN04

SHARP Memory LCD display...1.35?...96×96 pixels wide...booster PCB has touch capability, with touch strips on either side of the LCD" which retailed for $18. I dont know if $5 for that LCD is a better deal than the small LCD Ed Smith had at the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting last week, but the touch strips would have made it an interesting component with which to experiment. Element14 also has a road kit for the board which includes the same LCD.

The other part of this post was going to be on an ideal use case for the MSP430FR5969 MCUs FRAM. However, I wrote more about the TI development kit than I planned on, and Im being mindful of feedback I got that said (at least some of) my posts were too long. So for people interested in reading about that use case right away, heres a link to the article about the FRAM-MCU application I mentioned at the start of this post. Ill discuss that use case in tomorrows post, and maybe have a couple other examples of good applications for an MCU that doesnt pull much amperage and has FRAM. If you read the FRAM-MCU application article, send me your comments and questions regarding that article -- arcatabob (at) gmail {dott}com. Thanks!

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like youd know dude

Starting with today...my teacher for Psych 305 was talking about how men were the leaders of the house so they were used in commercials to promote sort of a..."Im telling you to do this cause Im a man" sort of thing even on a tampon commercial. Well she was like "cause youd know dude."

XD

And last night my Anthro teacher was talking about how a science person would view a philosopher. Its like they cant feel or see their theory. "Its like imagining pleasure...like mental masturbation."

XDD

Ugh I was walking home and it was lonely and cold. My fingers were freezing and I think I started having a panic attack. I hurried home but...i didnt want to really be there. Id rather be going to Adams bed...warm and cozy.

on my way home from the dark bus stop I walked alone. A man jumped out of the bush. He grabbed me and tried to rip off my shirt. I tackled him to the ground and tied him to a pole. I found a large knife in his pocket. I smiled and slipped off his pants. I shoved his pants in his mouth so he wouldnt scream. I wandered around the avenue and found a branch and placed it in between his legs. I picked up his testicle and slowly cut his skin. I pushed his testicle to the ground and gave it a quick whack with the blade. He tried to scream. I closed up his scrotum and did the same on the other side. WHACK. I pulled out my stapler and stapled his scrotum closed. I put his pants back on and walked away.

This is why I shouldnt walk home alone. I get crazy thoughts like this.

=]

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My Problem With Biracial Identification

Husband and I have decided to make our family consist of bio kids and adopted kids.  Our bio kids, no doubt about it, will be biracial.  Our adopted kids may or may not...who knows?  I personally would prefer it but it isnt that big a deal to me.

What made me bring this up is a whole heap of things talking about black identity and this crazy biracial problem with identifying with a race blah blah blah.  Let me be forward.  This is stupid.  Husband has it in the back of his head but I started researching now so Im at least somewhat familiar with it when the time comes.  When I started researching adoption in the US, I saw that it could be tricky especially because wed prefer an orphan/foster child.  It seemed like a lot of the younger children had needs beyond what we could handle or in sibling groups with older children (which we dont know if we could handle...maybe in the future.)  That settled it.  We would either fost adopt a young child/baby or go international.  In the end, we will probably go with fost adopt but this didnt stop me from looking into international.  After all, there are cases of parents that were likely to have rights terminated that turned their lives around and got their children back.  I can see how fost adopt can lead to some major heartbreak.

If I had the room, money, and if husband would let me, this would be what our family would look like. Large and full of children with varying races.

In my search for international, I checked out China due to the mass amount of orphans there.  I also checked out Korea which I read had more boys than girls.  There are heritage camps just so these children can know their culture.  Fantastic!  As I started looking back into domestic adoption, I saw that a lot of black/biracial children were being adopted by white parents.  They also felt social identity was a huge part of adoption and thus tried very hard to bring culture to their children.  There is a huge problem with this.

Black kids...lets talk about black people.  Black people in the US are, in general, a mix between a bunch of African people at least and usually have at least a teeny bit of something else (Native American or white) in them.  Personally I identify myself as black mixed.  This is because my Native American, black, and white ancestors dont go that far back.  A good handful of my family, including my mom, could easily blend in with snow.  People can tell that my hair isnt as kinky and my face has Native features.  My hair is longer with a mixed texture.  Most of my hair curls with very few ringlets.  

Back to black people.  There are a bunch of people in Africa, all with different cultures.  To say that you are learning about black culture is just plain stupid.  Black culture is American culture.  Unless you know your African tribes, you can only go back to slavery times (AKA the start of America.)  So please tell me...what culture exactly are you teaching your black/biracial children?  Is it not just American culture?

Two very different tribes.  Where ya from?  How do you know?

You can also say the same for white children.  When I say white, I mean pale-skin-multi-ethnic type children.  In other words, if you adopt a child from Russia, they have a culture to learn.  If you adopt a Spanish child, they have a culture to learn.  Adopt a child who was born from a family of predominantly Irish people, they have a culture to learn.  If you adopt an American "Caucasian" child, their culture starts right here in America when people started coming here on boats.  

Now since black people have this American culture and white people have this American culture, guess what black and white kids have?  Well you know...American culture!  Teach em about AMURIKUH!

By all means learn about your children.  Kinky, curly hair is much different than straight hair.  Thick, Mexican hair isnt like thin, European hair.  Hell it seems even thin, Asian hair isnt like thin, European hair!  Must be easy with boys but girls...we like to look pretty.

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todays real blog about non nerdy things

Today is the first time...I have paired Navi and Eddie and fur hasnt gone flying.

Christmas litter? Maybe so =]

Hoping for some christmas babies

So someone ate all my cookies...and I cant find any pie.

>.>

<.<

I put a lot of work into those cookies. Shouldnt I choose where they go?

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Thinking Baby spinach with blue cheese and a drop of lemon

Baby spinach with blue cheese and a drop of lemon is really nice.

A small amount of cheese on a leaf like a cracker, add another leaf and a drop of lemon juice.

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Visualizing Music With LEDs And Lasers

If youve been reading this blog, you probably know about the Humboldt Laser Harp project (HLH). Todays blog post is closely connected to the HLH, and addresses the general topic of ways to visualize music with LEDs and lasers.

John Van Duzer Theatre

The HLH is the first foray for the Humboldt Microcontrollers (MCUs) Group into connecting music with light. Nick A has done a little music-into-light on his own, but the HLH will be the first collaborative group project for this type of application. It will be fun to see where the HLH leads. If we can involve some of the fabulous Humboldt musicians with our projects to visualize music with LEDs and lasers, including some of the Humbodt State University students and instructors, the skys the limit. Maybe in a couple years there will be a Humboldt Electronic Light Orchestra performance at the Van Duzer!

Laserium

My first experience with music and lasers was a Laserium laser light show in Seattle -- it was an impressive and immersive experience that I really enjoyed. That was many years ago and musical-light technology has come a long way since then. At this point the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group isnt trying to replicate or out-do the Laserium experience or compete with existing advanced lighting technology in the music world. As far as I know we dont have people in the group (yet) who have the knowledge and interest to design and build top of the line music light show equipment, or the funding to buy the components. But it will be fun to see what MCU-based instruments and systems we build or experiment with. It will be fun if we can get some people in the group whose main passion related to MCUs is in the area of music or music-into-light.

Echo Rises 800+ LED music-into-light system

The Hack A Day post "800+ LED Wall With Diffuser Panel is a Work of Art" was the catalyst for todays blog post. It shows a music-into-light system from Echo Rises. If you watch the video in this post closely, youll see its title or subtitle is How To Visualize Music Using LEDs. For the Humboldt Electronic Light Orchestra, Id like to extend that theme to include lasers. The Hack A Day post gives this overview of the Echo Rises system controlled by a Teensy MCU:

"What happens when you take over 800 individually addressable super bright RGB LEDs and house them in a giant diffused panel? You get awesome...[Epoch Rises] is a small electronic music and interactive technology duo who create cool interactive projects...for their live shows and performances. They love their WS2812B LEDs...it can take any video input, it can be controlled by sound or music, an iPad, or even generate random imagery by itself. The 800 LEDs are controlled by a Teensy 3.0 using the OctoWS2811 library...which is capable of driving over 1000 LEDs at a whopping 30FPS using just one Teensy microcontroller."

Noomis

Whoa!! Wouldnt that be fun, controlling 800 - 1000 LEDs with one tiny Teensy MCU. If we had one or two systems like that, and combined them with the HLH and Jonathan Sparks Noomis electronic musical instrument, wed have a pretty good reason for serious and innovative musicians to collaborate with the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group.

Hack A Day also did an interview with Paul Stoffregen, the creator of the Teensy, talking about his latest version, the Teensy 3.1. You can buy the Teensy 3.1 direct from Pauls website, or from the regular places like SparkFun. I dont know of anyone whos used the Teensy, but I foresee that happening in Humboldt before too much longer.

Teensy 3.1

If you think it would be interesting, challenging and fun to help create eight or ten unique Humboldt music-to-light different but complementary systems that would form the nucleus of an awesome performance, show up tomorrow, July 23, for the next meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group. At the meeting well talk a little about the Humboldt Laser Harp, and also review Serial Peripheral Interface, the subject of Jeremy Blums #8 Arduino video tutorial. See you from 6 - 8 PM at 1385 8th Street, Arcata, California, USA.

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Linduino USB Isolated Arduino Working With DACs and ADCs

Linear Technology products, including ADC & DAC

So a lot of microcontroller (MCU) topics I write about in this blog are mini-research projects for me, because Im new to MCUs and to electronics in general. Through my research I get to learn more about MCUs and how theyre used, and, with a little luck, you get to be informed or amused, or both, by the posts here. But todays topic, Linduino, DACs and ADCs, is even further than normal from my experience and knowledge base, so this post will just give you an overview of the Linduino board from Linear Technology.

"Linduino is a USB-isolated Arduino," an August 11 post on EDN.com, caught my interest because of the *duino name and because the post mentioned applications involving temperature sensors (Humboldt MCU Garden project), audio systems (Humboldt Laser Harp and other music-light instruments) and car systems (Ed Smith is a great resource for vehicle-related MCU projects, possibly something with on-board diagnostics, or OBD). Familiarity with the Linduino board isnt required to do any of the aforementioned Humboldt MCU projects, but at some future point a Linduino could provide major benefits for us. If nothing else, it would be worthwhile to connect with some of the *duino people at Linear Technology, the manufacturer of the Linduino, to expand and strengthen the statewide and worldwide network of the Humboldt MCU community. Plus, their headquarters are in Milpitas, California, so maybe theyll get the urge to drive north behind the redwood curtain and participate in a Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting or a Humboldt Makers meeting!

Linduino board

Onward to tech specifics about Linduino. The EDN blog post mentioned above says:

"My pals over at Linear Technology have developed the Linduino board to drive their ADCs (analog to digital converters) and DACs (digital to analog converters) as well as temp sensors and other devices...in addition to the normal shield headers on an Arduino, there is a header that Linear Tech has used for years to drive their demo boards. This computer interface function used to be done with their DC590 interface board. Indeed, the firmware that comes shipped with the Linduino emulates that board, so you can run the original Linear Tech interface program on your PC...The Linduino board will accept all the shield mezzanine boards for Arduino, but has this extra header to control Linear Tech demo boards...Linear Tech also used one of their USB isolators on the Linduino board. This means that the board and what you plug into it are galvanically isolated from the computer you have the USB plugged into. This means you can measure things off a car or an audio system without worrying about ground loops polluting the measurement...Since Linear Tech is also a power supply chip company, they beefed up the power supply on the board, using a switching regulator to replace the linear regulator on the Arduino. This means you can get 750mA out of the power system. Since a USB can’t supply this much power, that means you have to feed the board with an external wall wart. Now you have the power to drive actuators or other heavy loads..."

Were in the early stages of refining the Humboldt Laser Harp, and depending how deep we get into developing the Humboldt family of laser harps and other light-music MCU instruments, there may come a time when well need, or at least want, a board that can be used on "an audio system without worrying about ground loops polluting the measurement." Thats one of the reasons I am interested in the Linduino board.

The main Linduino webpage has lots of info and links about the board, including several internal blog posts and an overview video about Linduino. Since getting two viewpoints about what the board is and does might help you better understand its value, heres the Linear Technology webpage description of what Linduino is:

DC2026A-KIT

"Linduino is Linear Technology’s Arduino compatible system for developing and distributing firmware libraries and example code for Linear Technology’s integrated circuits. The code is designed to be highly portable to other microcontroller platforms, and is written in C using as few processor specific functions as possible. The code libraries can be downloaded by clicking the Downloads tab above and used as-is in your project or individual code snippets may be viewed in the Code section of a supported part. The Linduino One board (Demonstration Circuit DC2026A) allows you to test out the code directly, using the standard demo board for the particular IC. The Linduino One board is compatible with the Arduino Uno, using the Atmel ATMEGA328 processor. This board features a 14-pin “QuikEval” connector that can be plugged into nearly 100 daughter boards for various Linear Technology parts, including Analog to Digital converters, Digital to Analog Converters, high-voltage power monitors, temperature measurement devices, RF synthesizers, battery stack monitors, and more."

Humboldt Laser Harp and Ed Smith

Linduino is not inexpensive, so participants of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group wont be buying them on a whim like a $3 Arduino Micro clone from China. But if someone has a genuine need for the board, especially a business-related, revenue-generating need, it would be good to know its available. You can order the board from this Linear Technology page, and there are two options. One option is the DC2026A-KIT for $125, and the other is just the DC2026A board for $75. Digi-Key, Newark and Arrow are also distributors for Linear Technology.

So now you have a general idea of what the Linduino board is and can do, and youve got links above that lead to more info about this member of the continually-expanding *duino family. Ill have to check in with Ed Smith to find out exactly what value this tool might have for us while working on the Humboldt Laser Harp, the Humboldt MCU Garden or any other MCU projects our MCU group or maker group gets involved with.

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◊ ♦ ◊ Gold in madoc ◊ ♦ ◊ 金 Theres gold in them there hills!! 金

Location is secret, the stash is plenty, the element is in question. Is it gold flake on this quartz or some form of pyrite? I believe its gold....well, Im hoping its gold. If its true, this might mean there is more in this little off road area, tucked away in a place never mined before.

As you can see, the pieces were substantially large in some areas. Compared to my hammer, its a decent sized specimen.

This is probably my favourite of the bunch, it glows a shimmering gold colour in any light. from front to back its got showings of gold.

Uraninite? combination specimen

(If anyone can help me with this I would appreciate it) 

There is quartz on the bottom with what appears to be a layer of pyrite followed by these black crystals BUT WAIT!! to the left of those crystals/gems is a tiny piece of galena. I need to take a better photo as my iphone just wasnt getting a good shot. but its quite easy to tell in person that its galena, so, that leaves me with these mystery crystals/gems. all in all, 4 elements on one matrix makes me one happy hiker.

Is the black mineral uraninite?

 Another shot, still cant see the galena but it gives a better showing of the quartz.

 any ideas? shale with iron staining?

 Its seems to have pyrite on some samples.

 schist?

View of everything collected in Madoc trip. Large batch of gold covered quartz separated into two categories, quartz with visible gold on/in it, and D grade gold quartz, barely visible with gold but from the same area.

 Another large quartz with gold wrapping around it.

 This is the last of the large gold covered quartz, WOW, what a looker.

 One more shot of the mammoth quartz gold rock.

 Found this in my backyard, It seems to have many fossils in it.

There seems to be three different fossils embedded that I can see so far.

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