Sunday, June 26, 2016

What have I been reading this week? (20160626)

A very light list this week. I was approaching my deadline and needed to work on the Element14 submission, which I posted last night. The project turned out to be much larger that I'd originally thought but I did manage to complete what I'd proposed, as well as adding in a couple semi-related sub-projects. Notes and code are at the bottom of this page.

I'm looking for reading recommendations. Just finished binge-reading Charles Stross's Laundry series. I have three text books to wade through in the next month and will be looking for recreational reading after that.

I used the last gift card from Christmas and the newly acquired one for Father's day. Bought a case and multiple cables for the Bus Pirate, a handful of ESP8266 boards, a few logic level converters, and some cheap smart cards (to run through the laser engraver). I may be a bit ESP8266-obnoxious for awhile (at least until the 8285 becomes available). Some of the components arrive this week, the rest are estimated to arrive sometime around 17 August. UPS must have moved their distribution hub off-planet again.

The Frankenbox is still ticking along. Came up with another short-coming for the motherboard though. Apparently the built-in NIC doesn't handle WOL, though the BIOS does. I now there's a usable NIC in the junk box somewhere. Just need to find it.

I've also been meaning to update the Github page for the Si4703 code. Another Element14 user asked a question about the reset function, which led to a D'oh! type moment. I'd been brute-force coding, using the chip's spec sheets and ignoring the board's spec sheets. This led to a function that servers no purpose, other than to cause more knowledgeable people to scratch their heads and ask "Why?" What I'd missed was the statement about the board being hardwired for I2C mode and that attempts to reset into SPI mode will not work. Sorry, Niko! Will have the code updated shortly.

In any case...

2016-06-23

- Espressif Releases ESP8266-Killer!

2016-06-26

- Build Your First Thing With WebAssembly
- Cygwin library now available under GNU Lesser General Public License
- How To Brainstorm Like A Googler

Above was generated by a homegrown bolt-on script for Wallabag, which is a free utility for capturing web content so that it can be read later.

Monday, June 20, 2016

What have I been reading this week? (20160619)

The Frankenbox is still running. Added memory to it this week. Found an old 3TB hard drive in the junk box and added that. Have a mix of Xen and Docker running on it at the moment. Looking to install a Win 7 or Win 8 VM in the near future (before the free upgrade ends). Probably won't be able to do much more on it, before the end of Summer, since I have a number of writing assignments (mostly point papers and critiques) to work.

Speaking of writing assignments, the Raspberry Pi 3 review should be completed this coming week. The final sub-project turned out to be easy. Getting the FM receiver working was simple as I'd already ported the controls to a non-WiringPi version. The most difficult part was determining the proper settings for DarkIce.

For those that asked, yes, the RPi3 has enough power to run the controls, DarkIce, and an instance of Icecast. The periodic cache exhaustion still exists, as it did in the previous RPi models. The difference is that it appears less often and is less pronounced in the RPi3. I have some proof-reading and a bit of tweaking to do, then I'll post it on the Element14 site.

From this past week...

2016-06-13

- Feck! A history of swearing from the very first F to the 21st C
- Machine Learning Trading Stock Market and Chaos
- bash aliases for Harry Potter enthusiasts
- How Intel Makes a Chip

2016-06-14

- Berkeley AI Materials
- AI Deep Learning and Machine Learning: A Primer

2016-06-15

- OSC Semantic Search with Latent Semantic Analysis
- What is Differential Privacy?
- Get C.H.I.P. - The World's First Nine Dollar Computer

2016-06-17

- Deep Learning Isn t a Dangerous Magic Genie. It s Just Math
- Intel NUC Kit NUC6i7KYK Features and Configurations

Above was generated by a homegrown bolt-on script for Wallabag, which is a free utility for capturing web content so that it can be read later.

Monday, June 13, 2016

What have I been reading this week? (20160612)

Missed posting last week due to having to (yet again) rebuild the Frankenbox. It's up and running (somewhat) with a super-powered CPU (4+ GHz!) and an ancient video card. Many thanks to friends for donating parts from their junk boxes. I'm glad that the old Frankenbox waited until after the end of the embedded programming course before it fell over.

The RPi3 review is almost done. I've completed the portions for Docker, the Jabber/IRC bridge and the home-grown, Liquidsoap/Icecast-based jukebox. Hopefully I'll have the tuner/streamer notes finished this week so that I can start another project before the summer class craziness starts.

The world is just a bit emptier as Christina is now missing from it. If you've ever enjoyed her music, please consider helping her family.

From the past two weeks...

2016-06-01

- Out-of-Box Exploitation: A Security Analysis of OEM Updaters

2016-06-02

- Free Linux training

2016-06-03

- Cyber security basics
- Most For-Profit Students Wind Up Worse Off Than If They Had Never Enrolled in the First Place
- CBS Beats Lawsuit Over Pre-1972 Songs With Bold Copyright Argument

2016-06-07

- We want information
- Why IQ matters more than grit

2016-06-09

- Mastering Programming

2016-06-10

- A Lament For The LAN Party
- Inspired by Genius: How a Mathematician Found His Way
- Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused and that's how it's supposed to be Jeremy Kun
- Untitled

2016-06-11

- A Lament For The LAN Party

2016-06-12

- The Golden Age of MOOCs is over and Why I hate Coursera

Above was generated by a homegrown bolt-on script for Wallabag, which is a free utility for capturing web content so that it can be read later.