Neodux.com

Building a CPU

skaven — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

I've decided to take the plunge and start working on a project that has been sitting in the back of my head since college. I'm setting out to build a CPU from scratch.

I thought that the Neodux crew might want to follow along as I work on this insane project. But not too insane...I've already figured out how I'm going to do it. I just need to do it now.

Follow along and watch as I walk the thin line between avocation and insanity!

...And I know some of you guys are EEs -- maybe you can give me a hand when something eventually goes wrong...

Notes for web developers.

Mackieman — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

Attention website developers:

Have you spent the last six months living on Twinkies and jet fuel grade coffee to turn out your latest ~~abomination~~ creation? Does it incorporate validated syntax? Does it adhere to all of the W3C standards? Is it fully driven by CSS?

If so, that's great. You've worked hard to achieve what countless Geocities authors could only dream of.

However, this does not give you the right nor the justification to resize my browser without asking first. My personal window settings for my browser are just that: personal. Your content, while possibly revolutionary (but probably wholly unexceptional) is not special, and it does nothing to endear me to whatever your website is trying to tell me.

And woe be unto you if you're trying to sell me something. Not only will I never patronize your site again, I will post rants on websites explaining exactly how you should be publicly flogged for forcing your sizing preferences on the rest of us.

Stop being a butthorn and realize that your, "creatives" aren't anything more than some rendered text and a few pictures.

Kisses,

Mackieman

Kindle v iPad

Grendel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

I figure it's high time I publicly weighed in on this whole ebook wars thing. I was just reading and article over on Wired about the whole pricing dilemma currently plaguing Amazon.
I'll start off by saying that I am a Kindle owner/user, so take that as you will.

I was initially unimpressed with the launch of the iPad. the iPod blew us all away when it was announced, the iPhone blew us all away when it was announced. The iPad will take some getting used to. The screen still isn't e-ink like the most successful ebook readers, but it does have touch screen - something Amazon just realized customers want. It doesn't have the battery life of a Kindle, but it does have brand recognition.

The redeeming value about the Kindle, and I've said this all along, is that it adopts the UNIX mentality: "Do one thing and do it well". The Kindle is perfect for reading books. The great part is you can download the books via Whispernet wherever you happen to be. The iPad kinda offers this, but you have to pay more for the 3G device plus you have to pay for the data plan. (The Kindle data plan is free!) [sure, the basic iPad has wireless, but wifi may not always be available. it's not something I have to think about with the kindle]

Ok, so the iPad will let you surf the web, i'll give you that. Yes, the Kindle is essentially the links browser and Whispernet is slow compared to wifi, but remember, the Kindle is an ebook reader, first and foremost. It does that and it does it well, web is an after thought, the same way that iBooks was an afterthought to the enlarged iPod Touch.

There, I said it. The iPad is a grown up iPod Touch. It can surf the web, it can play apps, it has an ebook reader app - so does my iPhone. It does not have e-ink, long battery life, or instant free access anywhere. Is the iPad a Kindle killer? I think killer is too harsh a word for this situation. Capitalists: Competition is a good thing. The Kindle helped design the iPad, and the iPad will help redesign the Kindle. I'm excited to see what the next revision of the Kindle comes out looking like. I'm almost certain it will feature touch.

The iPad is definitely neat, but I think the Kindle will hold its niche - if Amazon can hold its publishers in place. I believe something definitely underhanded is going on between Mr. Jobs and book publishers, but I'll delve into that soon enough.

update: Well looks like gizmodo beat me to the punch with this article - however I'll expand on it with my thoughts later.

Neodux Mobile

Grendel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

As any of you reading this on a smartphone may have noticed. Neodux now comes in a leaner version: Neodux Mobile.

By examining $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] report for elements that reflect the most common mobile browsers, I can detect (usually) if you're viewing the page from a mobile device. (Blackberry, iPhone, Android, WinCE, PSP, Kindle are all supported.) As of this writing the layout is very spartan and only the main posts are displayed. Users cannot login to leave comments or shouts at the moment, but I hope to add that in the future. For now, it's just the core content of neodux but it loads much faster.

I'd label it alpha for the moment, but it should make reading any posts from a smartphone, Kindle or PSP much easier.

Texas is Growing (hands off)

Grendel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

So the other night I was thinking about the map of our United States of America. I began to ponder just how states' boundaries are defined. Some states are defined by rivers, lakes and other bodies of water. Some states are defined by man-made boundaries (which can lead to some interesting disputes).

Currently, Texas' western boundaries are defined in the Compromise of 1850 as "that which is south of the 33rd parallel, and that which is south of the 36�30' parallel north and east of the 103rd meridian west." The eastern edge of the panhandle lies along the 100th meridian west. To the south, Texas has the natural boundaries: the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico (src: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo). Along the north, a natural border to Oklahoma exists along the Red River. To the East we have the Sabine River from the Gulf up to the 32nd parallel, then straight north to the Red River (Adams-On�s Treaty). Interesting, but so what? Plate Tectonics.

In the early 20th century, geologists developed a theory that described continental drift. They dubbed it Plate Tectonics. It has been discovered that continents do move, so naturally so does everything on them. Texas, and the vast majority of the United States "lower 48" (plus Alaska) ride on the North American plate. The North American Plate moves at about 1.5cm/yr more or less toward the Southeast. This means that Texas is slowly taking land away from New Mexico while losing land to Oklahoma and Louisiana. Texas will not lose land to Mexico, thanks to the natural boundary, the Rio Grande (which rides on the plate). Astronomical longitude/latitude lines do not move (they are based on the proximity to the poles and prime meridian (which is physically drifting too, but now there exist astronomical definitions to account for this) Because of this, the land that moves under the aforementioned longitude/latitude boundaries become, in essence, Texas.

Because of these findings, I hereby proclaim that at the time of this writing, I become sole owner of unclaimed lands that move into the boundaries of Texas. Hands off.

update: By my rough calculations, in 69,971 years I'll own all of present-day Texico, NM; and in 1,399,429 years I'll own present-day Clovis, NM. (I will cede Cannon AFB to the federal government.)

update #2: I also claim ownership of all lands that have entered the Texas boundaries dating back to the formation of said boundaries (1850). That should give me a strip of land about 6 ft of land about 241 miles long (assuming 1� is about 69mi) plus whatever land runs along the line from El Paso to the Pecos region.
2009-1850=159yrs, 159yr*1.15cm/yr=182.85cm ≈ 6ft

Wikitization

Grendel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

Now for something for our regular visitors and contributors - is there such a thing? I've added a small feature that will allow authors of articles, commentors and shouts to be displayed as links to wikipedia. No longer will you have to copy/paste the word in to Wikipedia and type in your "a href" HTML to have a link created, instead you only have to put the [ wiki ] tags around the word, vbCode style. (Contributors should know what I'm talking about.)

Now it is easy to make a direct link to a [wiki]wikipedia[/wiki] article. It's a simple use of a [wiki]regular expression[/wiki] that matches both of the tags. And these are just more words to display more [wiki]URL[/wiki]s to wikipedia articles.

reCAPTCHA

Grendel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

Ok, I finally got off my duff and fixed the signup page for those of you seeking new accounts. Long ago I decided to implement the reCAPTCHA mechanism to both block spammers and bots from creating accounts, but also to do some good.

For those of you that may not know what a [wiki]CAPTCHA[/wiki] is, it's a block of text that is hard for computers to decode. Humans are great at pattern recognition, so it's a quick, easy way to ensure the person looking at the page is a real, live human - versus an automated spam bot. For more information about CAPTCHAs, check out the wikipedia article above.

How is reCAPTCHA different? Glad you asked. reCAPTCHA's aim is to assist in digitizing text of printed materials to help save and archive them for future generations. At the time of writing this, reCAPTCHA is helping to digitize old issues of the venerable [wiki]New York Times[/wiki], which is over 150 years old. reCAPTCHA's website says that over 200 million CAPTCHAs are solved per day, so if every CAPTCHA did something productive, you can see the benefit. So, that's why I went with reCAPTCHA, just my little way to help do my part.

Christmas Season 2009

Grendel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

Well, that was Thanksgiving and [wiki]Black Friday[/wiki]. I was able to take advantage of a couple of good deals at Ace Hardware where I picked up a 12gal Shop-Vac ($19.99) and toolbox ($4.99). I didn't brave any stores very early, I chose to sleep in.

But, with the beginning of Christmas Season comes the Christmas Lists. Below is a list of Wishlistr links for Neodux members. Members, feel free to edit this post and link to your wishlistr.

Mom's Wishlistr

Other Folks:

Mackieman's Wishlistr

~~Get your links in soon, I'm going to make this a Christmas-time widget.~~ update: Widget created. See upper left corner.

Crap and Trade

Grendel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

With all the talk about healthcare and the oh-so-scary "public option", it's hard not to touch on the increasing obesity problem in America. A recent infographic outlines the American obesity problem. (Americans eat the same as the average Chinese citizen, plus 19 slices of bacon!) Is there some sinister plot out to get you? Surely not. It's mostly due to portion control on behalf of the consumer. (Remember how small a "small" used to be?) Also think about how seemingly offensive it is when you order a meal at a restaurant and you finish it all! Heaven forbid you finish your plate and not hurt afterward!) But, for the most part, food is cheap and we love to eat. Salt, fat and sugar: our big three food groups. You'd be hard pressed to name a favorite dish that isn't just mounds of these three. But, again, those 3 are the cheap ones. Most vegetables aren't very cheap compared to a bag of chips. Calorie for calorie, junk food is cheaper. Why? Corn.

After watching the documentary Food, Inc., I began to realize just how extensive corn has become in all of our foods. Corn subsidies have helped junk food (of which corn is the #1 contributor) become the cheapest source of calories in the American diet. You can buy a ready-made hamburger for less than you can a head of lettuce. You can buy a order of french fries cheaper than you can buy a potato. These artificially low prices are due to corn subsidies.
Subsidies ensure Americans have access to cheap food. The problem has now become that our subsidized food is now too cheap. It's time we come off of our subsidies.

If we look at the infographic above, we learn that Americans consume nearly 4000 calories a day. That's almost 2000 calories more than we should, given our sedentary lifestyles. Essentially we're subsidizing excess calories that never get burned off. Excess food intake does one of two things, it either become fat (giving us the obesity epidemic) or it becomes waste (meaning our tax dollars are paying for crap).

So with the whole healthcare issue at hand and Americans upset about government spending, consider how much of your tax dollars are going toward financing turds.

update: Just in time for the holidays, if you don't believe that overeating causes more moves, consider this: The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day for plumbers in America, of course Americans also appear to toss out about 40% of our food. So, whatever we're not flushing away, we're just throwing right in the trash.

TGIMBOEJ Received

Grendel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0600

Well, today I received my first box from The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk. As predicted, there was a lot of random stuff inside. Several bags of discrete components (capacitors, LEDs, etc), some DC motors of varying sizes and ratings, some copper-clad PCBs for homemade etching (with transfer film - very tempting), a couple of pagers, some random gears and knobs, a nice pack of 7 segment LEDs, some project enclosures, some random PCBs, wire wrap supplies, a DIY 9-pin serial cable and connector, and a nice looking character LCD that was unfortunately cracked right in the center.

Quite a bit of stuff to choose from. I chose to take out a 9V battery clip, some 7-segment LEDs, and the 2 project enclosures. I plan to use the parts for a solar-powered arduino project I read about and have been wanting to try out.

I'll probably pick some unsuspecting geek and mail the box out to him in a couple days. That is, after I dig up some worthy additions to the box. Interested in joining the ranks? Sign up!