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Sense and Control: so many options

OK. got the Sonoff stuff going OEM. Now for the next step. I’m looking for two major features. (1) FOSS and (2) local without dependencies. Complexity is another factor as I’d rather the component count be in hardware rather than software. It’d also be nice if it was possible to get into customization and modification […]

What makes Python interesting

Python is different but not too different and that makes it interesting and worthwhile for study. An example is Loop better: A deeper look at iteration in Python by Trey Hunner — “Dive into Python’s for loops to take a look at how they work under the hood and why they work the way they do.” […]

Itead Sonoff for an easy start

USB does fine for a microcontroller power development platform. But what do you do when you want to let some project loose in the wild? That is one of features Itead includes in its Sonoff line. For about the price of an ESP8266 development board (~ $5) you can get an ESP8266 with 1 MB […]

Sonoff, VSCode, ESP8266, IOT

Another Amazon sale, another opportunity. This time is was a 4 pack of basic Sonoff switches. These are $5 boxes controlling a relay via Wifi meaning an app or Alexa. They run off of, and switch, 90-240 VAC and use an ESP8266 for the smarts and radio. As they are easy to take apart and […]

Sleep tracking

One thing leads to another and fitness trackers for sleep monitoring is no exception. The Simple Dollar post showed up referring to an app that tracks sleep via your phone’s accelerometer and microphone without needing additional hardware: A Simple Tactic for Improving Sleep That 84% of People Miss by  Drew Housman. The post has some good information […]

Wrist Actigraphy and Latest Crazes: Fitness Trackers

It started with a report based on How Much Sleep Do Fitbit Users Really Get? A New Study Finds Out by Danielle Kosecki. That lead to research about Wrist actigraphy. And then Amazon had a sale on the Letscom Fitness Tracker. Actigraphy has been around since the 50’s. The cell phone sensor revolution has put it […]

The problem with science is people

This is a book review. The field is medicine but the concepts apply to any ‘fuzzy’ research (including climate change and weather). Rigor Mortis: What’s Wrong with Medical Science and How to Fix It by Harriet Hall — “Medical research has been plagued by less-than-rigorous practices and a culture that rewards quantity over quality. In a […]

latency

Why Modern Computers Struggle to Match the Input Latency of an Apple IIe By Joel Hruska — “The system with the lowest input latency — the amount of time between when you hit a key and that keystroke appears on the computer — is the Apple IIe, at 30ms.” There is a table of measurements that […]

N1GNV Christmas Message

John Bee, N1GNV, of Quicksilver Radio Products  sent a Christmas greeting that contains good advice for the Amateur Radio enthusiast and some ideas everyone should think about for making and enjoying happy and prosperous I just want to take a minute to wish you and yours the very best for the Holiday Season.  May it be […]

ESP32 and where we are now

Back a year ago, Hackaday found a Basic Interpreter Hidden In Esp32 Silicon (by Elliot Williams).  Documentation now exists at Read the Docs. Now, for comparison, consider the TRS 80 Model I “introduced by Radio Shack on August 3, 1977….The initial price was $599.95, which included a typewriter-style (not membrane) keyboard, monitor, and cassette recorder. … It ran […]