Dragon's Eye News

Someone up there has a sense of humor

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:32:21 -0800

"To dissipate any doubts, one morning on the way to the lab I bought a pocket-size bottle of cheap white tequila and we did some tests," Apátiga said. "We were in doubt over whether the great amount of chemicals present in tequila, other than water and ethanol, would contaminate or obstruct the process, it turned out to be not so. The results were amazing, same as with the ethanol and water compound, we obtained almost spherical shaped diamonds of nanometric size. There is no doubt; tequila has the exact proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms necessary to form diamonds."

http://www.physorg.com/news145255770.html

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Obama for President

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:31:19 -0800

Why?

What he said.

x 10

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DC Zoo Kitty-rat

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:54:16 -0700

I didn't get any good pictures of the pandas at the zoo but did get a good picture of the cat below. I don't remember the full name of the species but it's a cat that fishes for its food. It was separated from its future mate and seemed anxious to get things started.

Click for a larger image.

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Civil rights

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:44:31 -0700

Seen at the Lincoln Memorial bookstore.

Do those belong next to each other?

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Cape May 2008 Pt V

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 17:22:27 -0700

Sigh. The weekend is over.

It started with a gorgeous morning with a bright sun and huge breakers.

Padraig started off with the Kilyon Set.

We then moved over to finish up the Sliabh gCua set.

And wandered the boardwalk and saw dogs everywhere. Poor little bored puppy.

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Cape May 2008 Pt IV

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:07:29 -0700

I have been suitably chastized by Jean and while Susan and I drink Jack and cokes here's what we did with Dwayne and Margie today.

This has been a seriously dance-filled day.

It started out with a workshop led by Padraig McEneany on the Antrim Square Set followed by the Aherlow Set, trailed by the Tory Island Set and part of the Sliabh gCua set. The first one is a very short, but very fun set that the people back home can look forward to learning soon.

At some point during the workshop someone out in the crowd had a senior moment as observed by Padraig but Susan said it sounded like someone had had a senior movement. We were both glad it turned out not to be the latter.

Between the workshops we wandered around a bit, took pictures of the taffy house and the Sea Witch Festival.

After a quick slice of pizza it was back to the afternoon workshop to finish out the sets.

We had time for Susan to run about town while I slept and then met Margie and Dwayne for dinner and then back to dancing!

I don't know how many sets we danced. Most of them because it seemed that most were ones we had done before or they were sets we'd learned that day. We both love it when someone calls a set because even with an unfamilar one we can figure most things out on the fly by listening to what's coming up.

We closed the evening by dragging our very tired legs upstairs and soothing them with some Jack and Coke.

Here's the last dancing picture for the day.

Once we'd sort of settled in back at the room, with the sound of the breakers on the beach, we were wandering through the TV channels looking for something that was worth watching. One does have to be careful about flipping through TV channels late at night though. You're likely to hear "What's the secret to moisturizing your hair?" click "Cleaning your nose."

Ewwwww.

On that note... Goodnight.

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Cape May 2008 Pt III

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 07:25:31 -0700

It's relatively early in the morning given that we went to bed about 1am. I'm sure many other people stayed up later but we were done.

After a snack of pop-tarts which is a bit of a story in itself, we collapsed and woke up to this:

It doesn't look all that different from yesterday's picture but it's a wet windy morning. Perfect for staying inside and dancing all day.

First up is breakfast followed by a workshop with Padraig and Roisin followed by another workshop with Padraig and Roisin!

Oh, and a bite to eat in between.

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Cape May 2008 Pt II

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:54:12 -0700

Wow.

I'll say it again.

Wow.

More details later but for now, rest.

I'll leave you with this though.

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Cape May 2008 Pt I

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:10:57 -0700

The trip began with a 6:30 am flight to DC followed by a metro ride and short walking trek to meet Margie and Dwayne near their hotel.

There was a definite chill in the air in DC but nothing a drive to Rehoboth couldn't cure. With Margie driving we made it to the coast in just a couple of hours although their GPS tried to get us there by way of Canada.

Once in Rehoboth we went in search of Linner which ended up being fish & chips, beer followed by hot chocolate .

After that it was time for a short nap and a bit of blogging before the first ceili.

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Lochrann's Oct 19, 2008

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:14:00 -0700

We had a fun session this past Sunday at Lochrann's. There was a good bit of dancing including sets and a two-hand hornpipe as well as a bit of stepping about to music by the Needfire bagpiper.

The next session is Nov 16th, come on out!

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Powered Peanut Butter!

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:05:00 -0700

So, you think you've got good peanut butter.

Do you have Arduino Powered Peanut Butter?!

I thought not!

This is a Modern Device RBBB with a custom program to display a variety of messages. The button on top turns the display on/off (with magic peanut fading in and out) and switches between messages (out of office, at lunch, etc). Every once in a while a random message will appear only to be replaced by the regular message.

There's a CAT5 connection on the back of the jar for connecting to the display which will eventually have two or more panels. The display looks a little funny because of the long'ish exposure needed to get the glow of the button. The glow is provided by an LED also hooked to the Arduino to provide fading there as well.

It's powered by a 5v 2A supply also plugged into the back next to the CAT5 connector.

I'll also be adding control of two 1W lights, a Presagis Aeria LED ball and an R2D2 figure that makes noise.

I'll be using a duplicate as part of my HoloController to show text messages outside the lab.

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SCMA Ceili Oct 11, 2008

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:29:50 -0700

The second ceili at the ArtCentre of Plano was a success.

Mimi Rogers and Ken Fleming came out to play and were joined by two sets worth of dancers.

Come on! We're ready to go!

We don't know why we have our hands that high, but whatever!

Continue reading "SCMA Ceili Oct 11, 2008"

Holocontroller II

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:57:15 -0700

The next iteration of the HoloController is just about ready for use.

The on-board software is finally (no, really) ready to be wired up in the lab and I expect to do that tomorrow sometime.

The prototype controller is shown below with LEDs in place of connections to the relay board. I'll likely leave those in as I'm wiring the two together so that I can clearly see that both ends are working. The lit LED below is a temporary status light that shows me the software on the Arduino is running.

The resistors are all 10K pull down resistors for input from the several switches that I've got on my workbench for turning laser and shutter power on/off. The 10K pot serves as a stand-in for the light sensor that sits above the table and is used to verify that the shutter opened as expected. Two voltage regulators provide 9v and 5v for various applications. I'll be expanding their circuits soon to add diode protection and capacitor smoothing. An external board has TIP20's for controlling the 1W LED status lights out in the hallway. At the moment they just blink or are steady-on but with the Arduino I can make them fade and add sound back back to the experience with an external piezo speaker. I miss having an R2D2 in the hallway like I did with the Lego RCX controller I started out with.

I've got one digital and one analog pin open so sometime soon I expect I'll be expanding the system with more monitoring and someday with a touch screen or something similar.

The Arduino software is capable of driving the lab all by itself but since it doesn't have a UI, I still need to use the PC to provide an easy to use input interface.

I've updated the HoloController software with an Arduino driver that simply sends port commands like the K8000 driver did and otherwise still controls the lab and exposures. Soon I'll modify the PC software so the Arduino handles all the work which means the interface will move to an all-serial command set that can be more easily ported to other languages. The protocols are all written and tested now.

Woot! for Arduino!

A view of the table is available over here.

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Oktobahfest

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:33:31 -0700

I was in the general area so I stopped by the St. Charles Oktober Fest.

As a customer recently put it. "It didn't suck."

Unfortunately there wasn't much German music and less dancing.

I'll have to get my dancing fix tomorrow night though as the tent was full of "sitters."

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Something positive

nospam@example.com (Michael Harrison) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:08:19 -0700

Now that I've posted about something annoying, here's something pleasant. Phoenix Sky Harbor airport has free wifi now. I'm sure it didn't the last time I was here.

Thanks guys.

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