Chumby guts!
Stayed up a bit too late last night with my newest distraction--Chumby Guts!. It arrived about a month earlier than I expected, and was easier to put together than I'd anticipated (in great part thanks to mtbf0's helpful flickr photos, and *despite* the ikea-like directions that came with the package).

Still tinkering to figure out why it's hanging up when downloading the control panel, but pretty happy I did it. Makes a great present for the geek in your life, btw. (And yes, they can borrow my soldering iron.)
Labels: chumby, chumby guts, cool science, diy, geeky, make, makers faire, making

:: ewee 12:15:00 PM [+] :: 1 comments ::
...

:: Thursday, July 17, 2008 ::

kludgey bluetooth
my totally ridiculous a2dp solution for my non-a2dp phone:
s9 motorola headset (on sale, got one for sy too)
bluetooth but not stereo a2dp-friendly phone that i love (with existing wire for fm and such)
sony bluetooth transmitter

totally not slick, but it works, and i can answer calls. i figured my next phone will be a2dp-friendly (cmon iphone, you can do it!) and this way i'm in compliance when talking and driving... (and still cheaper than some bluetooth headsets plus i can listen to music...)

when i'm better at soldering, i'm gonna shorten the wires and make the whole thing more streamlined.
Labels: geeky

:: ewee 4:14:00 PM [+] :: 0 comments ::
...

:: Sunday, May 04, 2008 ::

Maker!

I made it! The makers faire ran outta the minty usb kits so i tried this one instead. And it works! TVs beware :)
Labels: cool science, geeky, makers faire, photos, tv-b-gone

:: ewee 11:13:00 PM [+] :: 0 comments ::
...

:: Friday, March 28, 2008 ::

end of an era?

my handspring visor edge is dying after many years of cataloging the minutiae of my life...i could opt to put money into replacing the batteries, but with the palm desktop struggling on the mac platform...seems like a kinder gesture to move on. so now i get to obsess over all the details. iphony, itouchy, or just make my lil sony w810i (that i adore) work?... stay tooned!
Labels: geeky, glitch

:: ewee 7:19:00 PM [+] :: 0 comments ::
...

:: Monday, February 04, 2008 ::

i heart users
it was looking like my handspring visor edge was a goner...the calendar's nearly full, the desktop app's been a bit more crashy than usual on my work pc, and i couldn't get'r to work with my new (heart) macbook. after six plus years (and on a refurbished model, too!) i couldn't really blame her if she wanted a rest.

just when i was ready to throw in the towel, and as i was researching how to make the itouch work as a proper pda (i'm not ready for the iphone yet. i love my phone!) -- the forums presented some hope! and thanks to an ancient article by james hromadka, i was able to get my palm to sync with my mac!

so here's to a bit more outta my trusty ole edge! (at least a few more months, so i can wait for the itouch/iphone sdk to come out, for cool third party apps to emerge, for the hardware and phone plan to drop in price, and for me to use my existing phone a bit longer...) but mainly, here's to users who provide the support that the vendors won't.
Labels: geeky

:: ewee 5:41:00 PM [+] :: 0 comments ::
...

:: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 ::

toilet math
well, i just got older, and this lovely math book was a gift from the ever toiletry-minded loo. this morning i was excited to learn about fibonacci numbers. you wanna know what i learned? great! (thought you'd never ask...)

take any two numbers, let's say 3 and 17. add them together. this gives you the third number in the series, 20. now add 17 and 20 together. this gives you the fourth number, 37. continue adding numbers in this way until you have a series of 10 numbers.

(ok, here's the exciting part.)

the sum of all 10 numbers is a gnarly bit of addition, eh? nope! all you have to do is multiply the 7th number by 11.

so using our series above: 3, 17, 20, 37, 57, 94, 151, 245, 396, 641.

3+17+20+37+57+94+151+245+396+641 = 151x11 = 1661

cool, eh? well, kinda. turns out, like much else that's been incorrectly attributed, this knowledge predates Fibonacci in India. [From Wikipedia: "Pingala's work also contains the basic ideas of Fibonacci number (called maatraameru)."]

and yes. i also learned the proof for this cool trick, but i'll spare you from that bit o' geekiness (unless you really must know). but learning on the toilet! that's multitasking...
Labels: 37, birthday, fibonacci, geeky, math, numbers, pingala, random, toilet humor

:: ewee 9:57:00 AM [+] :: 0 comments ::
...

:: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 ::

pi day: 3/14 1:59:26 ;-P
Labels: geeky, math, pi day, random

:: ewee 1:59:00 PM [+] :: 0 comments ::
...