Archive - 2013
January 3rd
Playing with the Raspberry Pi - Part 1
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 21:43For Christmas, I got a Raspberry Pi. This is a $35 computer that you can do all kinds of interesting things with. I'm just starting to explore the device. Here some of the things I've done, or am thinking about doing:
To start off, I bought four different 8 Gig SD cards so I could put different builds on each card. The first card is currently running Wheezy (the default Linux distribution). It is great to get a feel for the machine. I've added Pianobar and use it as a Pandora Box. I haven't started adding much else yet.
I've been downloading distributions and then installing them using the RPi Easy SD Card Setup. Yes, it is very easy to set up cards this way. The one downside is that you end up using small partitions, depending on the image you start with and whether or not there is any automatic repartitioning.
The second card has OpenELEC. A very nice XBMC distribution. I've used it as my media center, similar to how I use my Roku. Very simple. Works great. A little slow at times.
As I was loading pictures off a camera today, and it struck me that I could probably load OpenElec on an SD card in a camera. Then, when I popped the card out of the camera and into the RPi, I could view the pictures. So, I loaded OpenELEC on a 16 Gig card I have for one of my cameras. Sure enough, the pictures are then viewable in XBMC. The video, which my camera saved in .MOV format, however, did not play, although I could hear the sound. The bigger issue, was that it created an initial partition of 125Meg. I haven't found a nice way of resizing. I'll save that for another day.
However, a better approach may be to use Raspbian. That would allow me to install XBMC as well as GIMP so I could take a card out of the camera, load it in the Raspberry Pi edit the pictures, view them on XBMC or share them via Raspbian to social networks.
I also want to play with other operating systems on the RPi. I have a Nokia N900 and I'd love to get some of the development from that community on the RPi. There are instructions for loading Mer on the Raspberry, which provides a good framework for exploring Tizen as well. Likewise, I'm interested in Android on Rpi, and when Ubuntu mobile comes along, that as well.
I like virtual worlds, so I'm wondering if I can get OpenSim running on an RPi, perhaps even with a viewer loaded as a great game machine. Or, since Scratch seems to be working, can I get Croquet or Open Cobalt running.
I also read about a project to Build Your Own Google Glass-Style Wearable Computer. I started looking around and found a promising looking head mounted display, the Vuzix Corp. Wrap 920. It looks like it should connect easily to the Raspberry. For even more fun, it should be possible to connect the The PEREGRINE Wearable Interface - Medium Glove. This would make a great gaming set up.
A possible related project includes AR, Kinect, Head mounted display project which has led me to OpenKinect
So many great projects possible!
January 2nd
Will This Be The Year?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 01/02/2013 - 20:40Each new year brings renewed anticipation.
Will this be the year?
For some, the anticipation may take the form of dread
as they fear an apocalypse or some personal catastrophe.
For others,it may be the hope of transcendence and transformation.
I am seeking the later.The evening sky,
passing on the last light of day,
like a painting
from the British romantic landscape painters,
or perhaps the Hudson River School,
hung over the interstate
on my drive home.
Will this be the year?Yet day after day,
the drive regains its old familiarity
and too easily sinks into monotony or tedium.
Can I keep the image of the nineteenth century romantics in my thoughts as I worry about work, family, and finances? And how do I hold onto perseverance when the cherished event, whatever it might be, continues to be delayed?
Hope deferred makes the soul sick.
Yesterday, I watched Elizabeth Gilbert's TED Talk, "Your elusive creative genius".
She talked about just keeping at it, even when inspiration, her elusive creative genius, did not help carry the load. Yet in the daily grind, the just keeping at it, the repetition, there remains the opportunity for the transcendence, for the transformation to come. My mind wanders to the beginning of Samuel Beckett's Endgame:
Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished.
Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there's a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap.
When does the pile of grains become a heap? When does one achieve the creative tipping point? When do the blog posts amount to something, some magnum opus?
So, I continue to write my blog posts, to explore ideas, to share, in hopes that the repetition will lead to the impossible heap, the transcendent transformation.
January 1st
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit; Resolutions and Resilience
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 01/01/2013 - 13:24And so, another new year starts. 2012 was a challenging one. We'll see what 2013 brings. I start the new year off, like I try to start every month, with "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit", hearkening back to a simpler day when hopes for good luck and fortune could be invoked with a child's chant. Life seems harder now. I'm working on ways to be more intentional, to have more impact.
Before I go into my resolutions, I thought it might be good to go back and look at what I've written on New Year's Day in previous years. Last year, I wrote about wanting to improve my writing and learn new things. That's not very specific. What does it mean to improve one's writing? Is it about quantity? I wrote much less last year than I have in other years. Is it about creativity? Has my writing become more creative? I'm not sure, nor am I sure how I'd measure it. Is it having more of an impact? Again, I'm not sure, and I'm not sure how it would be measured.
In terms of learning new things, I wrote about watching TED talks or RSA animations, maybe attending some online classes. I've been doing this, and it has been good.
Two years ago, I was more reflective, looking back over the preceding years. Some of the blogging communities were more active back then and I had more comments.
With that, let me explore a few different resolutions. One resolution is to be more intentional and to try and have more impact. I'm not sure exactly how I'll go about this, and this blog post doesn't feel like it will be as intentional or impactful as I'd like. Another resolution is to be more resilient. This goes back to the Jane McGonigal's TED talk about SuperBetter I've been talking about in recent blog posts. She breaks resilience into four categories, physical, mental, emotional and social.
For physical resilience, there are some simple things. I'll try to drink more water, eat less junk and walk more. I'll work on finding small ways of building physical resilience while sitting at my desk at work. For mental resilience, I'll keep on with my searching of TED talks, RSA animations and other online material that makes me think. Hopefully, some of this will come out in my writing. Perhaps, I'll find ways of being more creative in my writing. For emotional resilience, I'll try to stare out windows more often and look at cute pictures. Perhaps I can view more great art work online. For social resilience, I'll work on more meaningful messages on social media as well as face to face.
So, that's what I'm thinking right now. What are you thinking?
