Trevor Klee: How to fix how people learn calculus: make calculus exciting again — “I only realized in college that I had been cheated out of a deep understanding of math and given a shallow collection of tricks instead.” There is a hierarchy in learning math and Klee provides insight into why with his diagnosis of the […]
Dan Maloney has a summary of the development of the BNC connector at Hackaday. The connector that would eventually become known as the BNC connector when it was invented in the 1950s has its roots in two separate connectors developed in the 1930s and 1940s for the burgeoning radio and telephone industries. … Salati’s connector […]
These guys figured that the way to learn how to sail a boat was to start by building their own boat from trees on the family farm. The Mind of a Boat Builder – Acorn to Arabella is an interview with two 30 somethings who decided the thing to do with their lives was to build […]
The reaction to Microsoft acquiring Github says a lot about how tough it is for Microsoft to change the image it built in the 90’s. John Edwards explains Why Microsoft’s GitHub Deal Isn’t a Sign of the Apocalypse – “Fear not, developers. The open source development community will thrive, no matter who’s running the show.” […]
In 1998: For $1,299, you came home with a 233MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 32MB of RAM, a 4GB hard drive, a 15-inch built-in monitor, and stereo speakers—all in an amazingly stylish case. 8 ways the iMac changed computing By Benj Edwards (first published in 2008) — “Apple’s most iconic desktop computer.” Popularizing the I’net, USB, floppy […]
Trying to display, store, and calculate date and time values can be a significant challenge. This is why there are 6 Python datetime libraries by Lacey Williams Henschel — “There are a host of libraries that make it simpler to test, convert, and read date and time information in Python.” “beyond converting strings to more […]
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 […]
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.” […]
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 […]
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 […]