I'm asking this because I'm using up my new G1's battery much faster than I used my old cell phone's battery, which makes sense because I'm using the G1 almost like I would a netbook:Poll #1302400 electronics chargers
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

Buying a cheap consumer electronics charger instead of an expensive OEM one is

Here are the items I took from The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronics Junk. The only one for which I have a specific project in mind is the numeric LED display, which should be suitable for my remote lakewater temperature monitor project. That's a project I first blogged about a couple years ago and to which I've only given a spare thought since then. For the temperature sensor, I imagine soldering a DS18S20 onto the end of a piece of a cable and waterproofing it with some silicone caulk and heat-shrink tubing. This sensor would be connected to some sort of minimal microcontroller (would an Arduino be overkill?) that would be powered perhaps by solar cell. Besides talking to the temperature sensor, the microcontroller would send temperature readings to some sort of RF transmitter—say, the one from this? Or maybe this is an ideal application for ZigBee? The wireless link should span about 150 feet of lightly forested terrain. At the other end, the receiver should pass on the data to another minimal microcontroller that would also handle the display.

The target environment already has an 802.11b network, though, so if that signal can span the 150 feet and there's enough available power on the transmitting end, I wouldn't need to bother with a dedicated receiver. I suspect this setup might be more expensive, though, for the brains needed on the transmitting end.

Last night I participated in the first part of Make:DC's workshop on building, programming, and using motor controllers. This first evening we soldered together a driver board. The next part will be adding an arduino, programming it, and wiring it up on a platform with an actual motor or two.

The other day, for fun, I dissolved a spare SmarTrip card I had laying around. Here are the results. Turns out I could just have read this DCist article, but where's the fun in that? I was inspired by the folks across the pond dissolving their Oyster cards, but since the SmarTrip's antenna is more ephemeral (i.e., dissolved) than the Oyster's, I'd need to solder on my own antenna if I want to try using it again. This could make a fun HacDC project.

And in a final bit of geek news, I'm proud to be a temporary custodian of The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk. I'm still going through the contents, but once I figure out what I'm taking from it, I'll take some pictures before passing the box along. Actually, I might be taking some pictures so I can get some help in identifying some of the contents... Update: Here are pictures of some of the items I couldn't identify.

Photos of—or just including—me made it into two global media outlets this week, and for two different reasons.

First, if you look closely, you can spot me in the control room in the first photo in this Sky & Telescope article about MESSENGER's first flyby of Mercury this past Monday. Of the people visible in that photo, I'm the second from the left. Check out some great photos of Mercury while you're at it.

Second, I feature in the bottom photo of the Make: Blog entry on Wednesday evening's LED-cube-making workshop organized by Dorkbot DC and Make: DC. There you can see me soldering together LEDs that will eventually form a 3-by-3 cube—I don't think any of the participants got past that stage of the project during the two-hour workshop, but I expect there will be plenty of support for people finishing them at home.

I keep meaning to write a general update on stuff I've been up to, but I keep procrastinating. I can no longer complain that the weather's too hot, as it finally cooled back down to seasonal autumnal temperatures. And I can no longer say that DC LinuxChix "just" had its quasi-monthly meeting—indeed I'm overdue to schedule the next one.

I'm not taking a Japanese language class this term, but only because the intermediate one I signed up for was canceled due to low enrollment. :( I do have plenty of study materials of my own, but the discipline and conversation practice of a weekly class would help. Maybe it's time to look for a language-exchange conversation partner.

Tea ceremony lessons are going well. A few weeks ago our class went on an after-class junket to the Glenfiddich Farm Pottery store. The potter has been influenced by Japanese techniques and styles, and some of his pieces are suitable for tea ceremony, like the tea bowl I bought there. Aside from tea bowls, places in a Japanese tea ceremony where you might see ceramic items include the cold-water jar, the flower vase, the wastewater bowl, the sweets tray, the thick tea container, and the incense container.

You may have seen mention of New Horizons in the news recently with regard to results of science observations it made when it was close to Jupiter earlier this year. Mission news that I'm closer to is the maneuver from a few weeks ago where some thrusters were fired to tweak the spacecraft's trajectory toward Pluto. One of these days I'll write a "Day in the Life of a Deep Space Spacecraft Flight Controller" entry to share what it is that I do these days, since many people have expressed curiosity about it. I imagine that'll be a friends-locked LJ post.

As part of my ongoing interest in sewn circuits, I've ordered a set of LilyPad modules that were designed by Leah Buechley as part of an e-textile construction kit. Along with a main board and power supply, I've ordered an accelerometer, vibe board, and tri-color LED module. I don't know exactly what I'm going to make with them, but I will be careful not to wear it around any airports.

I've started using gubb to manage my (shopping, to-do, etc.) lists lately, and so far I'm favorably impressed with the site's features, like retrieving and updating lists via SMS or e-mail, sharing of lists, and all-around intuitive user interface. I recommend it if you're looking for a place to keep your lists.

Tornado Kitty is doing well. A recent veterinary checkup found her weight had decreased to 14 pounds, which is great considering how heavy she was a few years ago. Her teeth and gums aren't so great, though, so she'll be going in for a teeth-cleaning in a couple of days. Here's a picture of her enjoying the sunshine on my deck.

Yesterday I joined some friends for a day at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I don't remember whether this is the fourth or fifth year I've gone. We watched glass-blowing and some aerial silks performers, ate cookies in a cone, and watched as one of our group dipped her hand in wax for a plaster cast. We took in shows by The Interpreters and The Rogues. I was mesmerized by the blacksmith's forge, as usual, and as I was walking toward it from downwind I noticed there's a distinct smell to it that I've come to like. I bought a mysterious-looking iron key from the forge, and from other artisans I bought a sack of Blood Orange flavored black tea, a packet of frankincense tears, a sturdy belt from Potomac Leather (I'm thinking of sewing a pouch that would snap onto it), and a difficult-to-describe "hair slide" consisting of a leather cord with beads attached at intervals. We didn't spot any stormtroopers or Klingons this time; in fact I don't remember seeing any boldly incongruous costumes yesterday, to my slight disappointment.

More talks I caught at ShmooCon last weekend:

• Extend your Code into the Real World: This was an intro to tinkering with electronics. The presenter had about enough time to explain why hardware hacking is cool, tell us some good places to buy components, demonstrate how to remove the 180-degree-limiting stop from a hobby servo, and explain how to wire four switches in an H formation to facilitate running a servo backwards or forwards. He mentioned he'd gotten his hands on a .NET CPU. What most caught the audience's attention was the parade of web-server-on-a-chip devices he pulled out, especially the tiny Lantronix XPort.
  
  
• My Company's Trade Secrets: I wasn't totally paying attention during this talk, which included a demo of Mumsie (Malicious URL Monitor and Snort Injection Engine).
  
  
• The Church of WiFi presents: A Hacker in Iraq: This was a standing-room-only talk. The presenter was an active-duty U.S. Navy officer who shared what he could about efforts to counter improvised explosive devices. Both he and the audience were really hankering to create some way for the hacker community to help this effort, but military is not eager to share information.
  
  
• Wireless (and Wired) Networks @ Security Cons: The part of the discussion that I remember from this talk was about working with venue staff to set up a conference network.
  
  
• Hacking Disposable Digital Cameras: I was already vaguely aware of what could be done with disposable digital cameras from some Make blog entries I'd skimmed. It isn't quite as straightforward as I'd imagined, though; it took considerable analysis for the presenter and his cohort to build a working interface to Pure Digital's line of disposable still and video cameras, and a low-level sort of arms race has developed between manufacturer and hackers when it comes to the interface in successive product generations. Some potential uses for a super-cheap digital camera would be taking pictures from a model rocket or kite.
  
  
• VOIP, Vonage, and Why I Hate Asterisk: I didn't catch the first part of this presentation, so I don't know what's wrong with Asterisk, but since I now use VoIP at work and at home, I have at least a user-side interest in this stuff. PSKL showed off their SIPinator software, "an automated ARP spoof and dump against SIP/RTP Devices". Any home network that carries VoIP traffic and includes an unsecure wireless network is vulnerable to eavesdropping, and the SIPinator just automates that. You can secure your wireless network so you're not vulnerable on your end, but do you trust the networks of everyone you talk to? The presenters suggest telling your VoIP provider you want Secure RTP. Also, they made a cute video ad for ShmooCon.
  
  
• RFIDiots: Adam Laurie is a thoroughly entertaining presenter. RFID isn't an inherently unsecurable technology, but you could be forgiven for assuming so given how incompetently it has been implemented. Laurie demonstrated how easy it is to clone RFID tags—not just the simple ones that transmit an identifier but also the ones that follow a challenge-response protocol and which we'd hope would be more secure, like the ones in new passports and car keys. In the keynote address on Friday evening, Avi Rubin had already showed us some work his grad students had done two years ago in breaking the ExxonMobil SpeedPass's encryption algorithm and thus demonstrating that RFID device's vulnerability to cloning by anyone who brushes past you. Now I'm interested in exploring how the SmarTrip card works.
  
  
• Assess the Security of Your Online Bank (Without Going to Jail): This was a rather disappointing talk because it was so elementary. It was solid advice, but the technical level was just too low.
  

Outside of the scheduled presentations, I visited TOOOL's lockpick village to learn a little and acquire a few (legal!) tools. Although I'd normally hope otherwise, I'm sure I've got plenty of unsophisticated locks at home to explore, a few of them not even attached to a door.

Going into the conference, I only knew thewronghands and fireba11, but by glomming onto their social networks I met some very nice, very interesting people, notably ovrclokd and granting. After dinner at Roha with a contingent that took up half the restaurant, we wandered Adams Morgan and stopped for tea and conversation at Tryst. I was so happy to have a social alternative to the con's official cramped, beer-soaked bar party. Wandering back around to DuPont Circle, we landed at Kramer's, another treasure of a place I'd never visited before, and if it wasn't already 1 a.m. I could have been sucked in for hours.

I'm taking a Japanese class again, starting last night. I don't recognize the instructor or any of the students from the class I took there last summer, but they seem nice. We're going to cover the second half of the first Genki textbook. My classmates range from a high-school student to policy wonks to a young woman who's Japanese and can speak the language comfortably but who grew up all over the place and can't yet read kanji.

The first DemoCamp DC has been scheduled for February 28. It's supposed to be a warm-up to organizing a full-fledged BarCamp DC. My enthusiasm for organizing a BarCamp has been waning, though, since I found the local dorkbot group and since I feel overwhelmed at the prospect of finding a venue and sponsors. I'm good at complaining about poorly-organized events, but putting on a good one would take more energy than I want to expend right now.

Every so often, Tornado Kitty receives e-mail from a random admirer. She's quite the popular cat. I've been toying with the idea of having a Tornado Kitty Fan Club with, I dunno, membership cards or buttons or something? Maybe that'd be a good excuse to order some Flickr Mini-Cards.

In fabric arts news, now that she has received them, I can show you the set of placemats I made for aitai for Valentine's day; they feature characters from the Naruto series. It was an idea that came to me in that half-awake state as I was lying in bed before the alarm sounded (or was it as I was falling asleep?), and it seems it wasn't too crazy after all. Now I'm into some other sewing projects (which I won't disclose yet because they'll be gifts too), but on the subject of making placemats, I'd love to make something along the lines of Syuzi Pakhchyan's (sparsely-documented) Technoplay placemat. It's a placemat with some LEDs sewn into it and some sort of pressure-activated switch that turns them on when a plate is on the placemat. Looking through the components at Digikey, I'm guessing what I'd want is a low-profile, non-momentary tactile switch—as opposed to what they call a "pressure switch". If you know anything about this stuff, I'd welcome your input.

I went to my second Dorkbot DC meeting this past Wednesday evening. The turnout was, I'd guess, triple that of December's meeting, and it was great hearing everybody's little self-introductions. There were artists, web developers, radio engineers and enthusiasts, professors, activists, and all-around tinkerers—what a combination! I was pleasantly surprised by the interest when I mentioned BarCamp DC, a grassroots dorkbotty event I'm nudging, now and then, into its planning stages.

In the first presentation, Randall Packer of the U.S. Department of Art and Technology called for a renaissance of political art in DC; an assistant from Brussels contrasted the ease with which an ordinary person encounters political art in his city.

Second up, Gareth Branwyn talked about and demonstrated BEAM robotics, "a branch of robotics inspired by biology which eschews computer control whenever possible and focuses on simplicity, autonomy, and real-world survivability." The philosophy behind it's fascinating; rather than analyzing the world around them and constructing mental models, these robots take a more Zen approach of "let the world reveal itself." Plus, they're fun little toys.

As if I don't already have enough projects ongoing, I was inspired to order parts to make a tank-top LED display. It will be a big step up from the relatively simple LED cuff I made. For one thing, it'll be my first experience with a 'real' microcontroller (i.e., not counting the BASIC Stamp in my Board of Education). I'll be using an AVR mega16, and I'm pleased to see that AVRs have a healthy fan community and a good measure of support in Linux. It'll be a major undertaking for me, but I'm also thinking of how I could add my own touch to it, beyond just following the instructions laid out, as far as input to the microcontroller. Perhaps (once I get it working) I could add some sensor that could feed data to the microcontroller for display on the LEDs (I'm planning on a 10 x 10 matrix of LEDs).

I've finished making a fabric wrist cuff embedded with LEDs, based on instructions at SparkLab. Here are the pictures. If this were a Home Economics class assignment, I'm pretty sure it would fail. But I still think it's cool. Yay for conductive thread!

If I do much more of this, I may start coveting sewing machines...

A fine weekend at the lake was had. Pictures available. Since the lake's water level had dropped over the past several months, my dad and brother moved the dock and boat hoist out farther. On Saturday night we all watched for the Perseids, and we even saw them. On Sunday we went for a boat ride to the other end of the lake, stopping by the unnaturally calm Honi-Honi Bar (the county has outlawed liquor sales on Sundays).

On the electronics/craft project front, I'm very nearly finished making a cuff with embedded LEDs. Mine's pseudo-suede with a simple cut-out pattern. I'll probably make another one at some point. It would be nice to have a less bulky battery pack on it, and I'll try to think of a fancier design. Sewing occupies a nice cognitive niche for me, as something I can do while conversing or listening or otherwise 'being' somewhere—it's not as distracting as reading or web-surfing (which is just a particular kind of reading), so it can be a relatively social activity.