Anybody ever do any microcontroller programming? I just bought one of these: [link]
Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board, and a development environment for writing Arduino software. The Arduino programming language is an implementation of Wiring, itself built on Processing.
Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP.)
I also bought a sonar thingie and some servos - I'm gonna build a Sonic Death Ray. OK, not really. A sonar camera. It will pan the sonar (an ultrasonic range finder - [link] ) up and down, left and right, and build a 3-D image of whatever's in front of it.
I wish it wasn't tied in to Cingular (which I thought was about to die anyway?)
really? i hadn't heard about this. i'm actually pretty happy with my Cingular service. i've pretty much tried them all at this point.
gonna build a Sonic Death Ray. OK, not really. A sonar camera. It will pan the sonar (an ultrasonic range finder - [link] ) up and down, left and right, and build a 3-D image of whatever's in front of it.
Seriously, tommyrot? That's so cool.
Seriously, tommyrot? That's so cool.
Yeah, it's pretty much just hooking together off-the-shelf components (even the two servos with tilt and pan mechanism came as a kit from a robotics company). The hardest part will be programming the microcontroller (and also programming my laptop to communicate with the microcontroller via USB) but for me that'll be the fun part.
I wish it wasn't tied in to Cingular (which I thought was about to die anyway?)
Cingular is owned by AT&T, right? So I doubt it's going to die. At worst, it would be absorbed by AT&T.
I thought Cingular bought out AT&T.
I'm saving my pennies now. Maybe when my contract is up in a year, they'll be ready to cut deals on upgraded phones.
Cingular bought out "AT&T Wireless" (a separate company from AT&T) a couple of years ago. [link]
More recently, AT&T (not AT&T Wireless), merged with the baby bells that owned Cingular, making AT&T the sole owner of Cingular. [link]
I'm dizzy now.
Academic proclaims "end of the internet is nigh, um, or at least possible."
[link]
Film at 11.
I think the phone is cool, but the AppleTV thing is disappointing. If it could take cable cards and be a TIVO type device instead of being a media player, then it would be interesting. At some point my Myth box may lose it's TV recording abilities due to DRM issues and I'd like to see more products that could compete with TIVO, cable company DVRs, and insanely expensive media center computers. I can turn any old computer into a media player.
I've got a question. My parents' TV setup stopped working last week. The way it was set up: cable into cable box. Coax from cable box to TV. Component audio from cable box to receiver, and then sound to speakers. It had been working fine, but then last week, for no reason we could discern, the video stopped working. When we turned it on, we'd get sound, but a flat grey screen.
The cable company said we needed a new cable box. Tried that, still didn't work.
So today, I tried going through all the cables, to see if I could figure out where the problem was. Connecting the cable by coax from the cable box to a spare TV worked fine. I tried a few different paths, but no way of connecting by coax to the regular TV worked at all.
So I tried using the s-video out on the cable box. Connecting that to the s-video connector on the regular TV gave just static on the screen, which was a change from the flat grey, but still no good.
So, I tried connecting the cable box to the TV using both coax and s-video. And that worked, and with a much better picture than we'd had before.
Anyone have any idea why that worked, when neither the coax nor the s-video on its own worked?
