06/04/2008 by peter.

I just noticed that there have been a spike of hits on my site. After a little snooping through the stats i see that slashdong gave me reference. It looks like someone has been reading what i write. Apologies for anyone else who was waiting for the next instalment. I will try and post some more stuff about the progress as things get done. Comments welcome (they let me know that people are in fact reading this stuff since most of my stats say that the visiting browsers are just search engine robots).

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06/06/2007 by peter.

I have’t written anything here for a bit so i thought i’d rectify that.

I have just bought a new camera, a Canon EOS400D. Here is an example of the capabilities.

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21/03/2007 by peter.

I recently ordered some sample microcontrollers from Freescale. The four little DIP16 chips came all the way from Thief River Falls in the middle of nowhere in Minnesota and in less than 24 hours they were in my hands. Interestingly they were originally manufactured in China. Anyhoo after 5148 miles I now have the little buggers and have to wait for the programmer to arrive which should be coming form where ever Elektor ship from. Below is a pic from google earth of where the UPS tracking data said it went.

EDINBURGH,
GB 03/21/2007 12:28 P.M. DELIVERY

03/21/2007 7:41 A.M. IMPORT SCAN

03/21/2007 7:40 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY

EAST MIDLANDS AIRPOR,
GB 03/21/2007 12:50 A.M. IMPORT SCAN

EAST MIDLANDS AIRPOR,
GB 03/20/2007 7:01 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

PHILADELPHIA,
PA, US 03/20/2007 8:24 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

03/20/2007 6:13 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

LOUISVILLE,
KY, US 03/20/2007 4:33 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

03/20/2007 12:16 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

MINNEAPOLIS,
MN, US 03/19/2007 9:47 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

03/19/2007 7:44 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

BEMIDJI,
MN, US 03/19/2007 6:40 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

THIEF RIVER FALLS,
MN, US 03/19/2007 1:08 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN

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16/03/2007 by peter.

I stumbled across this on the CIA website. It is the official report on what was found in Iraq and makes for interesting reading. I have yet to finish it but it seams that Saddam was not producing NBC weapons yet but was in the process of developing the delivery system. The confusion seams come from his constant hinting that he had these capabilities to various bodies as he wanted Iran to think he did or they would most likely invade him. Also a lot of scientists claimed they were working on things that pointed to the productions of big weapons however much of this research had been cancelled or was not as advanced as claimed. So basically this ended up being a premtive attack. This then raises the question of whether this kind of action is justified or not.

Overall it seams that since the sanctions were imposed on Iraq by the UN they were adhered to less and less and had this continued any longer then perhaps a few years latter there may have been middle eastern nuclear turf war. Given the intelligence presented here, invading seams like a good idea even if they found no functional weapons and only bits, (bit like busting the guy who all the drug dealers says is the Big Cheese and then finding that he was only selling the bags they used to distribute it).

Of course there is the “Do you trust the CIA?” question….

North Korea (Democratic Peoples Rrepublic of Korea to its friends) could be next target since hating the US is the national past time, motto and party line. China may also become dangerous as the government is weakening and nuking the US navy and major manufacturing centres may be in their interest.

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11/03/2007 by peter.

The US has been the worlds super power for the best part of last century and has little to fear but China. Although it is unlikely that China will ever declare war on America and if they did, the days of good old fashioned camo and trenches has been replaced with the “Big Red Button”. However assuming that someone has decided it is not BRST yet and it’s time to do things the old fashioned way, there is still one problem, they are outnumbered.

US population: 298,444,215

Chinese army: 667,657,509

If each American was to fight hand to hand with 2 members of the Chinese army they would still be out numbered. Lets just hope the Americans are better trained/equipped to make up for this deficit in numbers.

Of course Inda is also big with an army of 556,075,946.

(all figures taken from CIA )

Just a little thought for you…

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23/02/2007 by peter.

For those of you mad enough to be building PCBs you probably want to check out these 2 sites. KiCAD which is a free, yes free, schematic capture, PCB tool with auto route. Its a bit quirkey and takes some getting used to but once you do its great!! The other site is PCB POOL who put your design in with other peoples so you get a good price. i wanted a 1″ x1.5″ PCB and PCB123 would charge me $200 +pp for 10 or PCB POOL would charge me €25ish.

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23/02/2007 by peter.

For years now BEAM style electronics has used energy harvesting as a power source. The idea is to take some source that produces a very small, yet continuous, supply of electricity and use that to charge up a low-leakage capacitor or battery and then use the  power to do a burst of work. Now Advanced Linear Devices have announced an advanced module that does more or less the same thing for powering wireless sensors. This is not all they can power though. Connect a magnet to a spring and attach the spring to a coil and you have an inertial generator, power as you walk. Connect it to a piezo stack and mount this on the chassis of a vehicle and you get power from road noise. One of the most interesting things you can do however is make a thermopile and paint one side black and one side white and the temperature difference will generate electricity which this unit will then turn into usable chunks. The other interesting idea is to attach a small inductor to this harvester and leave it in any built up area, the stray radio waves and magnetic coupling to power lines will give you a free source of power.So could this mean the end for batteries? Could charging your phone in the future just be a mater of leaving it on the window/radiator/ putting it in your pocket or just leaving it on your bed side table?

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22/02/2007 by peter.

Do you remember the James Bond film with the safe cracking machine? These guys have built one. Not very complex for a modern mechatronic system but it works.

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18/02/2007 by peter.

The monster in question is the Rank Organisation. For those of you who don’t know, everyone who grew up from the 1950’s to 1980’s bought something from the Rank Organisation. They pwned everything form Hovis Bread and Sharwoods Sauces to Butlins, CetreParks and Oasis holiday resorts. From Xerox to Pinewood studios, Deluxe Film Services and Odeon Cinemas. over the last 2 decades however they have been selling off all these companies the last 2 being Deluxe and Hard Rock for $750m and $965m respectively. This is however still not enough as they are still $800m in debt. From its start in film and media, through its diversification and now its decline it has always been known for being very influential both socially and politically, buying up it’s competitors and becoming as much, if not more, of a monopoly as P&G are today. Interestingly, the UK government has just passed a bill making “Las Vegas style super casinos” legal and lowe and behold what are Rank Group Plc interested in now but gambling. Owning only 4 companies, Mecca Bingo clubs, Grosvenor Casinos, Top Rank Espana bingo clubs and Blue Square. One has to wonder whether the J. Arthur school of gong beating has struck again…

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15/02/2007 by peter.

No not that one, the other one. The anniversary of D-day February 1971 (36 years ago) they day the world went to hell in a handcart and Britain changed from L-S-D to decimal money. On that day the everyone thought that there would be chaos and the news papers would be reporting Armageddon with everyone engaging in rape, looting and pillaging (and other fine British traditions). The news rooms sat and waited. Then they waited some more until the story came in. A woman accidentally swallowed one of the new coins and was admitted to hospital but was soon released in perfect health. Whether you want to look at this as one of the least painless major changes in recent times or the efficiency of the NHS is up to you…

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