Monday, September 24, 2012

Experiment 1: Traffic Light

These days, I'm very interested in automating things.

As my friend Vic would say, I haven't the foggiest when it comes to electronics. Putting on a positive spin on my relative cluelessness, it's a great opportunity for my girlfriend and I to learn something awesome together. One hour in, I think we are — just look at that focus!

Ginger Programs

For our first experiment, we needed three things:

  • Arduino Uno microcontroller
  • breadboard & jumper wires
  • LEDs (lights) & resistors

30 minutes later, with the help of this makeuseof article for beginners, we had our completed our mini traffic light!


note A breadboard is a way to connect circuits without having to solder.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Timesheets: Travel

In two years I've come to learn the United terminals in a handful of airports like the back of my hand. Curious as to how much time that took, I knocked a spreadsheet together and found myself bewildered. I've missed a few weeks here and there in my timesheet, but I'd say about 90% of the data is there.

Project
Location
Recorded Weeks
with Travel
Total Travel
Hours
Hours/Week
Recorded
Los Angeles, CA40462.0011.55
Little Rock, AR19127.756.72
San Francisco, CA33128.753.90
Total92718.507.81

The overall average of 7.81 is, of course, awfully close to an extra full working day per week.

Monday, July 2, 2012

7 Sentences This Evening

  1. You know what would be fun? Let's cut your hair.
  2. This is going really well.
  3. Why is the side so poofy?
  4. I just don't know how I'll blend this.
  5. Okay, okay. Now we've turned the corner.
  6. This poofy-ness is making me look bad.
  7. I didn't like your last haircut at first, either.

The Cut