The Arduino: Playground has given me so much that I felt it was time to contribute back.

So I wrote this article: Arduino + PERL

Apparently blogger upgraded one of the backend pieces of their atom / rss feeds, migrating from OpenSearch 1.1 to OpenSearch RSS 1.0.

There aren’t a lot of people this really effects, but since this blog is driven by a blogger feed, it screwed with me for a second.

I recommend maple bacon

Thanks for curing my grumpies Voodoo!

(image ruthlessly stolen via google image search from this blog…just attributing. Cause my camera battery is dead.)

Semaphore-bot 3.0 is on its way!

I went through and rewrote the control code from the ground up in PERL, letting me eliminate processing from the equation all together and making everything run more efficiently.

I also built some gear boxes so that I no longer need to stack servos.

All in all, major improvements all around.

Tomorrow I rebuild the casing and get it ready for show.

Interested in the script? Click here!

…actually… [PERL here] [Arduino here]

I’m still at my parents house in California (until my 6 am flight tomorrow) and I found an old Klutz book sitting on my shelf. (Specifically a Klutz Aerobe book)

After reading it through, and completely loving it, I decided to hit up Klutz’s website to read up a bit more on the company.

On the bottom of the about us page I saw this line “For those of you who collect corporate mission statements, here’s the Klutz credo: “

Collect corporate mission statements? I’ve never heard such a thing. But really, they tend to be modern day equivalents of Confucian doctrine, so it’s a neat idea (there I go using the word neat again.).

I’m going to begin my collection with Klutz: Create wonderful things, be good, have fun.

I’m down in the Bay Area and the internet was down for the last 4 hours. But that’s ok. I’m on vacation.

I’m a little irritated with myself. I ordered some servos, servo gears, shafting, and plain bore gears last night, and while doodling up schematics today, I realized that I reversed the ratio in my order. Seriously lame.

I went back and ordered the propper ratio (4:1 not 1:4). What irritates me is that if I’d gotten it right the first time, I would have saved a buck, this way I spent an extra twenty-three.

Lesson learned.

This is pretty amazing. The women pictured above are all the same woman, made up and lit to look like she’s 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 years old.

She’s actually 20.

…I’m not sure why she’s topless at 10 and 20 though…

[via NOTCOT]

Wind sprints are for out doors, or at least, not for 3 am when Dom is asleep down stairs.

…sorry.

Wednesday night I made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies, and brought them with me to school on Thursday.

Baked goods have a strange socializing ability. They spark conversation. Questions, comments, anecdotes, and eating. They’re pretty much the ultimate ice breaker.

Last night I made a(nother) cheesecake, and brought it to school to share. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon something. Now I just need to figure out how to go forward with it.

…I’m thinking lemon bars.