Posts Tagged ‘whiney’

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Too many podcasts

January 15, 2015

We didn’t record the movies show for Christmas and that put us off. Instead, we recorded two shows the next weekend. Isn’t it lovely to be ahead?

No, no it is not.

Yesterday, we posted the show on Bluestamp Engineering, a neat summer program for high school students. I feel like it was a month ago since we talked to them, I know I had some things I wanted to tweet. And I really should be posting that to Facebook and other places so it gets a few more listens.

For a week from yesterday, last weekend we recorded a show about hula hoops (it is awesome). I really should write the show notes before I forget the relevant links. Last weekend, I also wrote the guest outline for a show about words (yes!) that will got up two weeks from yesterday.

Today, in an apparent effort to get very little work done this afternoon, we recorded the show about words (also awesome). Once I finish writing show notes for hula hoops, I should do notes for words.

Yesterday, I had coffee with a gatekeeper to have Famous Person on the show. Today, I wrote the email that the gatekeeper suggested (Dear Zuul). We are booked out to April (I think there may be one slot in Feb and one in Mar but those were offered to people and I’m waiting to see who accepts) so you’d think it would be one less thing to worry about. Except the wheels need to keep turning on guests so I have two emails received today that I need to respond to in order to schedule future guests.

Also, I should start thinking about the outline for the next show. I think it is about processors but I’m not sure that’s the next one or the one after.

Oh, and if I’m doing an at-conference recording for DesignCon or She’s Geeky, I should start playing with the new recorder. And how in the world am I to do a mash up between those two very different conferences? Two episodes? That seems like a lot of editing and since I only left one slot, that puts us even further ahead.

All of this isn’t to say podcasting is too stressful. My problem is really the intermingling. Being ten days ahead sounded nice: if someone cancels, it is much easier to find another guest. But Chris and I do ok when it is just us.

I think that if I do at-cons, they will be bonus episodes and we’ll remove our buffer. My brain will feel better when we go back to recording 3-4 days before we post. I still have the same amount of work but it will spent less time on the stack.

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Here’s how you can’t do it too!

August 7, 2014

I just cross compiled an application for Raspberry Pi: camcv combines the Pi’s camera program raspivid with OpenCV.

It took hours and hours. Not just to build the cross compilers (though that did hours) and figure out cmake and figure out what code I needed, it took hours of tweaking and fiddling to make it work.

I suppose now I’m supposed to write up how I accomplished it, so you can reproduce it, glossing over the tricky bits and making it sound like a walk in the park.

First, I must give credit to

Well, and to be fair, I’m still at Step 3 of OpenCV and Pi Camera’s instructions (of 7 (and a half)). I finally got the program to compile but I have a new Raspberry Pi board and haven’t even powered it on. Oh heck, if I’m reading step 4 correctly, I haven’t actually managed to pull in OpenCV.

I had this neat plan for what to do with the Pi, a camera (two maybe!), and a small display. But I’ve been so battered by compiling something that already existed and isn’t even really what I meant to compile anyway.

I find that many Linux projects have this exponentially expanding scope. My initial initial plan was to play with the camera in python using the actually pretty simple SimpleCV computer vision tools. But it was horrifically slow (a known issue to people who have tried the python and camera but a new issue to a newbie like me).

Worse, I don’t know cross-compiling has been truly worth it. Is multiple hours of setup worth many times two minutes of recompile time? Also, the RPi Compute doesn’t have an Ethernet port so it isn’t as easy to set up a tftp that would all my device access to the cross compiled executables without even a scp copy.

So I’m not going to give you the “here’s how I did it”… I’m not even sure how to post my trees. And I went through so many strange turns, I’m not sure my results will be useful (“and then at step 1123, spin in your chair, clockwise three times, the next cmake .; make instruction will then work”).

 

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Not every project works out

May 15, 2014

I don’t think we talk about failure enough. Sure, everyone says “you have to fail, it is the best way to learn” but not one likes to talk about it.

I thought about sharing a big failure story but I think, in the end, I’m not going to because it is also sad.

Still, I can’t just close this and tuck it into my drafts folder (that is a scary and slightly hilarious place) so I’ll tell you about this thing I thought “I’ll just hack that together while I’ve got free time”.

I made those motor boards (and I’m not ready to launch myself in to working on my posture shirt (though I probably should)). And I’m waiting for more hardware to make another ayok widget. But I do have the little dog stuffed animal, now with an RGB LED.

What if it could snore? Or sort of breath? Or have a heartbeat? Not for the ayok feature, just because it can be really comforting to be near something that is alive-ish and has no expectations. (I have real dogs, they have expectations. And my beagle thinks I’m stupid so that really helps my ego.)

Anyway, I got the idea, have the hardware, and thought it would make a cute little demo.  I also have this thought of trying to use the coin cells to con my hand into believing it touched something (briefly).

I went for the Arduino so I could post it on github, write about it a bit. I had a slight plan to show the result to someone, but not a solid thing.

I coded up a little command interpreter for Arduino’s serial port. Then I played with PWM, discovering that the timer configuration is annoyingly nontrivial. I was surprised as Electric Imp and mbed both hide the guts of PWM. I read timer sections of the ATmega328 datasheet, remembering how much I prefer other companies’ method of information organization.

I made commands for changing the duty cycle and the frequency. I make a little script parser so I could have a snore be inhale, snork, pause, exhale, pause, changing the duty cycle and frequency for each stage.

But it didn’t work that well. The snore wasn’t all that consistent and the code freaked out sometimes. I fixed the freak-out by modifying my PWM code to use the overflow interrupt to reload the registers. But it still wasn’t good.

And then my computer’s screen started acting really strangely, strangely in time with the PWM going on and off. I had the Arduino and motor board powered from my USB port.  The motor only takes ~0.5A and the Arduino isn’t a big load. Maybe it was just how dirty the power got. Or maybe it was completely unrelated.

That was the last straw. My results weren’t good. The processor was more annoying to use than I expected. My end goal is fuzzy (and not in a cute-fuzzy sort of way).

Motivating myself to do these projects requires me to like the project. Sure, there were times when the ayok widget was less than fun, debugging can be a grind. But this was just a mess all over. The most fun I had was with the command line parser.

I could persist through this, maybe make something I don’t hate. Probably switch to an mbed to drive it, use a USB hub or external power, maybe get a selection of small motors. But I don’t really want to.

The failure here is not in stopping. The failure is that I’m not learning anything.

I know that with the right motor and PWM tuning I can get snoring working (I’ve done it before). I’m confident heartbeat isn’t tough. And I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to make a determination on my haptic hand-touching-wall thing because it won’t work and I won’t know whether to blame the mounting or the code or the unreality of the situation.

So, it is a little fail and, accordingly, a little depressing.

And I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. I’m hoping to get a contract soon (maybe today, we’ll see). But I’m also borrowing a BeagleBone Black because I’ve been wanting to try it out. I don’t know what my plan is with that. I’ve also been pondering putting ucLinux on a Cortex-M3 devkit (NXP or ST? Or something else?). It is always nice to see how OSs go on processors. I could compare it to FreeRTOS or some of the other small OSs. Build up a library of what’s good for what. But that sounds soooo boring.

Without a goal, I am far more likely to get discouraged.

 

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Before it is too late, I should…

September 27, 2012

The electrical engineer thinks I need to design sensor boards so I can build up a dozen prototypes: part selection, schematic, layout, PCB fabrication and assembly.  I should do it soon so I have prototypes to try out and demonstrate to potential customers.

The software engineer thinks I should keep repairing my initial prototype so I can debug the heuristics. I should verify the efficacy of the product before sinking too much time into the idea.

The patent agent wants to know why I haven’t finished the disclosure form, let alone the patent application. I need to do that before I share the idea with potential customers/partners.

The business person thinks I need to refine the idea with a clinical-style study, using powerpoint decks to talk to potential users,  see if the idea needs modification before continuing development (and seeing if they’ll sign up to purchase). If I can’t demonstrate a real market, it isn’t worth doing the rest.

The marketing person thinks I should make a looks-like model (doesn’t matter if it works) and that it should be beautiful, no rough edges, incredibly well-designed. My hot glue and electrical tape prototype is no good; if I can’t make it alluring, no one will consider buying it and any potential market will evaporate.

The subject matter expert is moving to North Carolina and doesn’t have time to have lunch or discuss the idea. I suppose I’m glad that she doesn’t have another thing for me to do. And yet all the work I’ve done for the last few days is in preparation for when I do see her.

 

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Since

August 3, 2012

Dragging myself to the shower and standing there, bemoaning my aching head and extreme tiredness, I thought “I haven’t felt this bad since the end of getting over mono.” The thought made me feel a little better, I got from that stage to feeling pretty good in not too long. Clearly this stupid summer cold is not going to last much longer: I’m sure I’ll feel better before my head gives up containment and explodes.

Jarringly, it hit me that the thought wasn’t true. Between the time I had mono as a senior in high school and now, I have felt far (far^25) worse. “I haven’t felt this bad since three weeks after I got out of the hospital last time” doesn’t have the same ring of hope. Catastrophes ripple through the fabric of life, taking away the small quiet comforts as well as the large obvious ones.

I like the shape and feel of the mono metaphor but I don’t know how to reconstruct it into something that is true without glossing over the other things I have survived.

“I feel like I’m in week three of a four week course of mono” sounds like maybe I’ve had too much of the kissing disease (it was only the once!).

“I feel like a truck ran over my head” is a somewhat exaggerated. Plus, I’d feel the need to describe the size, weight, contents, and color of the truck for better verisimilitude. And, let’s face it, that seems like a lot of work given my brain is attempting a jailbreak of my skull, using a dull spoon to dig its way out.

“I have a headache and I’m going back to bed even though I spent all of yesterday sleeping, reading stupid sci-fi, and watching Olympic soccer” represents what I’m really trying to say. Well, I’m going to work for an hour or two first since yesterday was a total loss. Probably.

But I miss my comforting metaphor. The plan for the day brings me no joy, no comfort that tomorrow will be better (though today is better than yesterday).

I’m going to quit whining now. Really. Probably.

 

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