You are looking at posts that were written in the month of November in the year 2005.
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JimmyC
Computer Memory Tips, Computer Memory Guide, How to PC Memory, PC Memory Help
Computer Geeks has a good tech section with tutorials. I am here now to upgrade the RAM in the kids’ pc.
Lego Mindstorms
found this on the web - he has a lot of great links there. Perhaps this will be the path (looks at the correlation to visual basic) Daniel will take as he learns to program. I like the “almost C” path better though.
lets see… He can start here, learn to program by middle school and by the time he graduates highschool he can make us all rich like Jobs and Gates! Well, they weren’t the coders but you get the idea.
Faster
is a new weblog I found via the Triax site. Kevin seems to be a dedicated runner just as enamored with the Triax technology as me.
His recent posts made me think. This one talks about HR spikes and jumps and the differences on different runs. I respond:
You have a nice start here. I’m not sure about more of your profile, like age, goals, history, etc. You should share.
I saw your graphs - I find it pretty normal, you didn’t change the sampling rate did you? (can we do that?). Your HR is more jagged on your faster day, which makes sense. When I run faster I tend to have a much more erratic HR - especially when I hit the hills and get tired. Even more when I haven’t taken an off day in between two hard days.
Rest is important, its the best thing about a HR monitor. My opinion is its not so much there to make sure you run fast enough on your hard days or races but that you run LSD slow enough to build base and capillaries and endurance and muscle.
Thanks for the time, good luck in your training. The 5K was my favorite in high school CC (but that was over 20 years ago when I could run one in less then 16 minutes). 10K’s are harder but at least there is more room for excuses to not have to run as fast :-).
My last 10K was at an 8:06 pace (I was injured to be fair to myself). My goal is to first get back to 2004 when I ran a 46:34 and then to find 7 again after that.
So after two weeks off, I’m hitting the road again tomorrow. Thanks for the inspiration Kevin.
I’m selling the iPod Mini we have had on our shelf for 5 months. Never opened. Perhaps we will get a new Nano.
Go buy it:
BRAND NEW APPLE IPOD MINI 4GB MP3 PLAYER BLUE 2ND GEN
I have had an iPod - second generation - still with the buttons on top - 40 gig and I love it. What a great invention. I may make it an external drive soon and get the new video. Who knows.
Jim
Daniel got Mindstorms from his Grandma and Pop Pop today for his birthday. We are a Mac house - they are Windows based. Need to get started hacking…. I will list them all here as I find them to accumulate for others.
Lego’s Mac OS support is spartian. The LEGO MINDSTORMS GhostAPI
* USB Tower drivers and API for Windows 98/ME/2000/MacOS9
* Ghost communication stack for Windows/MacOS (Intel/PowerPC)
* Ghost API w/ for Windows/MacOS (Intel/PowerPC)
Header files
Libraries
* Samples for for Windows/MacOS (Intel/PowerPC)
* Documentation
USB Tower interface documentation
Ghost API documentation
Programming the RCX-brick is essential to getting the most out of your LEGO® Mindstorms set. However, after having programmed in RCX-code you will soon bump into its limitations. It is not necessarily fun just to have your robot moving forwards and backwards. Fortunately the internet is booming with alternatives. Here I will not go through every single one but only mention the languages with which I have some experience. The 3 languages are: Robolab, NQC and LeJos. Furthermore I have some experience with using the ActiveX control named Spirit.ocx which is included on the Mindsorms CD. Spirit.ocx controls the communication between the RCX and the IRtower
Not Quite C
This page - Managed by
The Mac version - command line only, seems to be in release NQC 3.1r4 Mac OS X but the link to it is broken. The latest link from this site is to NQC 3.1r1 Mac OS X.
Not Quite C is a simple language with a C-like syntax that can be used to program Lego’s RCX programmable brick (from the Mindstorms set). If you are just getting started with programming, then graphical environments such as the Mindstorms RIS software or Robolab are probably better choices. If, however, you’re a C programmer and prefer typing a few lines to drag and drop icon programming, then NQC may be perfect for you.
Even more than Lego, I love my Mac. Though trying to combine the two has caused some headaches. As the Lego group has not yet endoursed the Mac platform for their Mindstorms, Spybotics or MovieMaker sets. All the official software is made for Windows, though their education department, Lego DACTA, has some Mac versions of their RoboLab software.
So if you are the happy owner of a Mac and a Mindstorms set, you might be in a bit of spot. But don’t despair, you are not alone! Many Mac lovers have developed several solutions. And in the hope of helping others in the same situation, I have here tried to gather a description how I make it work on my iMac running Mac OS X.
Mac NQC
This appears to be an OS/9 application, not sure but it does based on the screen shots.
MacNQC was originally written by Dave Baum and when he was not able to keep it maintained I took it over. The main window of the program is an editor for the NQC language. The editor color-codes the syntax of the language. Multiple files can be edited at the same time. From the editor you can call the compiler and download the code to the robot. There are many other functions, like windows to watch
what is going on in the robot, to control the robot directly, to control the robot with a joystick, diagnostics, to let the RCX make music, and tools for downloading firmware, etc. Online documentation is also avaiable for both MacNQC and the NQC language.
MacNQC X Requires:
* System 9.0 or later.
* System OSX 10.0.4 or later.
* 10 MB Disk space available.
* The Macintosh USB & Ghost communication package for USB tower support on System 9.0.
Barney’s Mac Software Robot Controller
Robot Controller is an application for controlling and testing Lego Mindstorms robots using the RCX with firmware version 2, on Mac OS X version 10.1 or later. It is the ideal companion to Dave Baum’s NQC.
Looks like we may just start with the Windows version on an old machine and then move forward with these mac version as Daniel gets more comfortable. But I have to thank Robert Bate, Tormod Lund and Dave Baum .
THE RIOTING IN France by primarily Muslim youths and the hotel bombings in Jordan are the latest events to prompt sincere questions that law-abiding Muslims need to answer for Islam’s sake, as well as for the sake of worried non-Muslims.
Here are five of them
Five questions non-Muslims would like answered - Los Angeles Times
By Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager’s nationally syndicated radio show is heard daily in Los Angeles on KRLA-AM (870). He may be contacted through his website: www.dennisprager.com.
(1) Why are you so quiet?
(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?
(3) Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?
(4) Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?
(5) Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?
Daniel Charanis’ Haiku Poem
Mosquitos suck blood,
in the cold winter they Die,
They can be evil.
Is it fear, is it hope, is my future on a rope
Up all night, is my future looking bright
How will it end, as a memory or a friend
What will I do, with our without you
— confessions of a salesman
So as you can imagine, the job is going pretty well. I’ve been so busy I haven’t written.
Many thoughts have come and gone. Life with famly has been good - though I’ve been on the road so much I haven’t seen them as much. Have heard a bit the kids don’t like daddy’s new job. Spirit - we have been consistantly going to services and enjoyed the Retreat. I went to a Tora study last tuesday and enjoyed it. This week at work was good - down to the wire on a deal so spending a lot of time with it. But had some good time prospecting as well.
Woke up slow - achy. Decided it was time to start again. Rather then go long, go easy. Felt pretty good by the second mile. Stuck with 3.
Start Time:8:12AM
Location:Dunwoody Club
Duration:35′55″
Distance (Miles):3.21
Average Pace (Minutes per mile):11′12″
Heart Rate Average (BPM):148
Mile 1
Time:11.27
AHR:150
Mile 2
Time:10.14
AHR:155
Mile 3
Time:10.14
AHR:147
Cooldown - .216miles @ 16′47″ pace
