Wonder Twins Power Activate: Form of Algae! Shape of Biodeisel!

Ok - so there's this cat at work I went to lunch with before the Christmas (ooo! I said the C word!!!) break, who was talking about Biodeisel. I was instantly interested. I don't really have a story here, just a link. A badass link. The kind of link that you will read, and go "I get it."

http://popsci.com/popsci/science/0a9d4d4329703110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Go, and be enlightened.

Robo-Hunter

Named after one of the brood... I've decided to use google code to house the project. It has everything I personally need to maintain the source, create the docs, etc. The project lives at: http://code.google.com/p/robo-hunter/ - eventually, I'll allow others to pop in and lend a hand; maybe after I get some basic code in place.

The plan for now is to use a core C code for the control daemon, and embed PERL into it for extensibility. I'll probably port in the old Eliza code to give the little guy some level of AI, and hook it into a simple light sensor to keep it from bumping into things. Once this basic
functionality is there, I'll go ahead and get the code out there for folks to piddle with.

Thats it for now.

Build your own legal Radio Station

When I was a kid, I had a pretty active, diverse, some would even say A.D.D. way of spending my time-while-not-in-school. Mostly because I spent a lot of my young (birth till 7 years old, and various periods in between)life with a single mom raising me, and she would work any hours she was allowed at the Sharp Microwave factory. Based on her salary, there weren't a lot of extras for me to go off buying stuff, toys, and electronics were out of the question.

If I wanted something, I had to find parts for it and build it myself, or get lucky and someone would give me a hand-me-down toy. Probably the very first thing I ever built (outside of a failed airplane at age 6 that I built from some 2x6 wood and a lawnmower engine that luckily wouldn't start) was an AM Crystal Radio Receiver. I would go to Radio Shack with my grandfather (he was more like my dad)and drool over the stuff they had for kits there. Back at this time, the electronics kits were all analog kits, and were lots of fun. He did get me the AM Crystal Radio kit, and I don't know if it was for a birthday, xmas, or for the heck of it - I do know 2 things; 1) They were really cheap, 2) Really cheap for our family was still too expensive. So for him to spend money on something like that might have meant he didn't add meat to the goulash he made every now and again. Looking back - that radio really meant a lot than I realized at the time.

I was living in Memphis, TN at the time, and man did we have some great radio stations. I didn't know it then, but that radio eventually led me to being a DJ one day.

So - with all of that comes this: http://www.part15.us - it is possible for a person to build an actual broadcasting radio station in the garage, basement, local high school, church, or, if you are lucky, business without incurring the wrath of the FCC. Totally true. And if you are lucky enough to live in Northern California, your FCC enforcement guys actually know what a part 15 AM transmitter should look like. Which is cool.

I would encourage anyone who happens to sift through this diatribe of "What Rick Is" to experiment and build a radio transmitter, buy a commercially available one, go grab a radio scheduler for your PC, and have some fun.

Christmas Robots

We've seen them - they are all the rage in Silicon Valley right now.. and have been for at least a couple of years: the Wow Wee Robots, Flying toys, and realistic human heads (weird). Everything from cutesy little rounded robo-sapien, to the Panda pair, a flying remote control dragonfly, and even the king himself. These things are really fun toys, and nice diversions - the Dragonfly is a ton of fun to maneuver.

One of my favorite places to pickup the odd-to-find office toy is ThinkGeek. A former co-worker of mine gifted me the oh so snazzy Missle Launcher. (insert tire screech sound) ... What do these have in common? Nada. Unless you keep on readin'.



A couple of years ago, I began dissecting a couple of hard drives, an LCD from a CD Duplicator, and a controller board for the CD Duplicator robotics. I had this notion that I could build a partially autonomous robotic thingie out of those bits and maybe an old Dell CPi or CPx running some sort of BSD or Linux flavor.

Unfortunately, due to lack of electronics surplus stores in Tucson, I was unable to even begin to build my robo-buddy.

Since moving back to Silicon Valley, I have re-discovered everything that is circuity-goodness (is that even a word?) Between Halted, Weirdstuff, Fry's (electronics.. not grocery), CRC, and the multitude of other surplus suppliers I don't even know about yet, I am now able to accomplish what I was previously unable to accomplish: I will build my bot.

So - to tie it all together: Fry's has groovy robot toys, which made me think about my robot project, which is now enabled by the USB control system built into the ThinkGeek Missile Launcher toy :)

Stay tuned.. either I will build a groovy robo-thing - or I'll be electrocuted.

Tis the season - to....?

So here we are, smack dab in the middle of "The Season for Giving", and I've done zero good-for-humanity. Usually I have something going on where I'm teaching martial arts to at-risk youth, or picking up trash off of th side of I-10 around Tucson, AZ.. but what do you do in the Silicon Valley to help out? Look around, there's only a hand full of obvious homeless here, there's virtually no apparent unprivileged families in the area, so again - what to do? I found something, and I'm going to give it a shot: http://www.csacares.org .

"..providing vital social services for residents of Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills.."

This sounds interesting, and they seem to need volunteers for no-brainer type stuff like stocking shelves, and driving to pickup donations.

Please check out CSA, and for some added incentive, check out the links below when you are sitting in front of your XBOX 360 or PS3 wishing "man.. I need to make more money some how, I just can play this game in all it's glory on this dinky little 47inch 720p.. I need the 55inch 1080p LCD.."

http://www.mv-voice.com/story.php?story_id=2187
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mikecassidy/ci_7468061?nclick_check=1
http://www.csacares.org