Author Archives: David

Kaoss Guitar (Update 2)

Posted in Electronics | Tagged | Leave a comment

How fucked is my database?

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

AVRDUDE 5.10 with FTDI bitbang on Linux

Programming an ATmega168 using SparkFun’s FTDI Basic Breakout. This guide works for other FT232R-based devices as well.

Posted in Electronics, Linux | Leave a comment

Quantum lolcats

“Funny fact: lolcats cannot be put in a Schroedinger state, because quantum rules don’t work on a macro level.” – qvantamon on MetaFilter

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Kaoss Guitar (Update 1)

For a while, a friend and I have been planning to build a specialized MIDI controller into a guitar to control a Korg Kaoss Pad KP2. The idea came from the guitar used by Matt Bellamy of Muse (check out … Continue reading

Posted in Electronics, Linux, Programming | Tagged | 2 Comments

Client-side Prediction

I was reading about client-side prediction in the context of video game physics today and thought of an idea: client-side prediction on streamed video (e.g. on Skype or similar video chats). Each pixel could be assigned a velocity and “color … Continue reading

Posted in Silly Ideas | Leave a comment

Using Cairo in Pygame

This is a method of using Cairo with Pygame. It works by sharing the same block of memory for the Cairo drawing surface and the Pygame image surface. The only trick to it is making sure that Cairo and Pygame … Continue reading

Posted in Programming | Leave a comment

Relation between motor’s torque/speed and its voltage/current.

The torque of a motor is proportional to the current flowing through it (). The angular velocity of a motor is proportional to the voltage across it (). Details and derivation here: motor.pdf.

Posted in Physics | Leave a comment

Wacom Jitter Fix (for Linux)

My Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet has been exceptionally jittery on my Lenovo ThinkPad. I assume this is probably caused by EM noise from the computer (though I’m not sure). [Update: it's actually caused by a noisy power supply.] Today I … Continue reading

Posted in Linux | 2 Comments

Python/Unix Calculator

david@second:~$ cat /home/david/.local/bin/= #!/usr/bin/env python __import__("sys").argv[1:] and __import__("subprocess").Popen(("bc","-lq"),? stdin=__import__("subprocess").PIPE).communicate(" ".join(__import__("sys")? .argv[1:]+["\n"])) or __import__("os").waitpid(__import__("subprocess")? .Popen(("bc","-lq")).pid,0) david@second:~$ = ’5*5 + 5′ 30 david@second:~$ = 3+1 4 last*2 8 david@second:~$

Posted in Linux | Leave a comment