Amazing... how robotics can help in medicine...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIbquVk06mM

FIRST Robotics program to get much improved system for 2009 competition

I have been involved as a mentor of FIRST's Robotics Competition program (FRC). There is a lot of excitement these days about the new system to be utilized in next year's competition.

YouTube - nifirstrobotics's Channel

Bluetooth headset

I use a Sound ID SM100 "EarModule" and I am very very happy with it.

Except that one time I dropped it (it fell from my ear while walking... ) and one of the tiny buttons has lost its function....

I have left a message with their customer support.

Update: They will send replacement as soon as they get the right color in 2 weeks. Most excellent !

The name of this blog...

I was chatting with an intern student today who happened to use the term "1+1=2" to refer to simplicity.... that caught my attention and it occurred to me that I never really explained the meaning behind the name of this blog.

It dates back to the development of Lotus QuickPlace..... I believe it was in the "end game" where most of the work is based on debugging problems being reported against the product (vs creating new function/feature).

I was "coaching" other members of the development team on how to interpret and break down problems... There were moments of "mystical programming" at play so I wanted to put a stop to it.  I embarked on a "crusade" to ensure people got to understand problems by breaking them down and understanding things as well as they understood that 1+1=2......

A few weeks later someone in the group printed a sheet of paper with a big 1+1=2 and it was taped to my door....  It has served me well as a reminder to not fall pray to "mystical programming"... specially nowadays with so many different software layers.... libraries and so one....

So there.  I posted to my blog :-)

Today is tax day

Ask yourself, how am I influencing how the money I put to run this country is being utilized?

Direct manipulation IU - literally

From here...

Checkout this movie of a demo about using multiple fingertips to directly manipulate UI elements. Very cool. The next step is to do it in '3d space' much like the UI in Minority Report

Delicious Library.... wow

Today I discovered (I know, all the geeks probably already know and it is old news...) this cool piece of technology. It is called Delicious Library. I had been reading the title over the last few hours thinking it had to do something with recipes, but no..... It is a cool use of a camera attached to a computer (like the iSight) to scan barcodes from all your stuff and then create a library of it with facts and info gathered from the web. I guess this would be good also for asset management for insurance purposes. Check it out.


Via: Breaking Windows 2.0

Hello again

I am making this post using Dash Blog. A 'widget' for Tiger for making blog entries. Cool stuff.

A hack to line up the blog roll from bloglines on the sidebar at the right

Basically insert an empty folder in your bloglines subscriptions at the beginning. Name the folder with just a ' ' (a space) so that nothing appears.

The quest for my first programing device....

Today I got one of those automated emails from eBay that tells you that something you are interested in is out for bidding. In this case, it is an HP 33E. It is the first serious calculator I had and the one I learned how to program. I owe both of these things (well, definitely the calculator) to my uncle. He showed me how to do a simple program:

LABEL 10
1
+
PAUSE
GOTO 10

That was all it took. I was hooked. I was about 12 years old.



Lots of info on this calculator and many others from HP at the HP Museum

Finally something that I think will work...

This is really cool. I have just setup a blog with the best
ingredients.

It has an easy to use experience with nice graphics and usable from any
browser.

Its contents are hosted on my own site (which is hosted by an ISP....)
which means I can do whatever I want to them post publishing

I can post from email which is how I am writing this first post.