Emergent Properties of Meat

Soldering "helping hands" made with Loc-Line coolant hose


Two-part clamp grips circuit board	(M) (L)

I ran across "Third Hand" and decided to make my own. The main feature of my version is the two-part circuit board clamp. The clamps were manufactured with Chris's help on Jr, his new cnc milling machine.

hostmot2-firmware 0.4

The files on this page are experimental hostmot2 firmwares for the development version of emc2. For more information, see my post and followup. Update, 20100123: New 0.3 version works on 3x20, has debian packages.

Installing Ubuntu 9.10 on TA790GX XE + AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor

Ingrid's organization got a grant to pay for all-new desktop PCs. The systems aren't particularly cutting-edge, so I didn't anticipate problems installing the systems. To my horror, 32-bit Ubuntu 9.10 consistently blackscreened when trying to boot the live CD. Booting without 'splash quiet', the last message was the unhelpful "Disabling lockdep due to kernel taint". Short answer: boot Linux with 'nomce' and/or install a BIOS update. Read on for more details.

Lights


img_7289	(M) (L)

I bought a white LED ring to try out this macro ring light idea. Then I got distracted by the pretty images I could capture shining the light at a blank CD-R. In some shots a glass jar was also involved.

Arduino Random Number Generator


Random Number Generator Schematic

Inspired by other designs I've seen online, most directly Rob Seward's design, I decided to build my own random number generator based Will Ware's "avalanche noise in a reverse-biased PN junction" (try this mirror of Will Ware's page)

RELEASED: emc 2.3.4

I'm pleased to announce the next bugfix release in the emc 2.3 series, emc 2.3.4. A number of problems with the last release have been fixed.

The new packages are now available for Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" in the package repositories. Packages for Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake" should follow within the next few days. If you have already installed an earlier 2.3.x version of emc, this will be offered as an update.

Ingrid's Minnesota Photos


Swiss chard	(M) (L)

Except for the first picture, the first batch are from our late August trip up to the Twin Cities. We enjoyed visiting cousins and exploring some of the sites. Most of the photos are from the beautiful Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

The second batch, beginning with the rocks, are from a trip over Labor Day weekend to Omaha's Lauritzen Gardens--lots of fun flowers, and even some veggies.

Lauritzen Gardens


Moth on flower	(M) (L)

We took a trip to the Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha today. Here are a few of my photos. Apparently I've done about 6600 shutter releases on the camera I bought this spring--wow!

Minneapolis Bugs and Stuff


White Crab Spider	(M) (L)

We took a weekend trip to Minneapolis to visit some relatives. For sights we visited the Walker art musem and the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I found photographic subjects at the Arboretum.

Zenbot is back in business


Small circuitboard injects home switch signal into encoder cable	(M) (L)

After weeks of not touching zenbot, I finally milled some circuit boards. Of course, they were for the zenbot itself.