Rover Mark II – Codename: Ironhide

18 Aug

Hello folkes, geekes and geekettes. (yes, the extra “e”s are intentional).

Preamble

Last December, I gave you Rover, my first autonomous vehicle / prototype. My dreams for him where very very many, like, for starters, removing those blasted bumpers (tactile sensors) and replacing them with sonar ranging. Unfortunately, time and money wouldn’t permit. I got held up with other things and then realized that programming sonar range-finding in Assembly is not the same as programming simple input/outputs. Also, I didn’t have any sonar modules to work with.

Eventually, I got so busy I never even stepped into the lab for almost 5 months. Until recently.

I recently discovered (and fell in in love with) the Arduino. I realized it could relieve me of a whole lot of headaches since it was; cheaper, easier to program (the Arduino / Processing language is a variant of C/Java, which I had never learnt, but was much simpler than Assembly), the programming board was cheap, the chips were cheap and best of all, it had a vibrant active community. A true tinkerer’s dream.

The thing with robotics or embedded electronics is you have to worry about mechanics, electronics, and software. It made a lot more sense for me to be able to code in a higher level language than working at a lower abstraction level where I was moving bits around. It’s cooler yes, but it’s a level of complexity I don’t need (yet).

About a month ago, I finally got the Arduino, and after learning its basic functionality, I shelved it away for about three weeks. During the past week however, after relocating my lab to another more spacious room and moving the home office into the former lab, I unshelved the Arduino and starting tinkering again, with more determination. Here’s an update.

Building Ironhide

First, Rover Mark II is code-named Ironhide. Yes, transforming robots rule. Also, Transformers messed up my young tinkerer mind completely.

12th August 2010 – Building the Arduino Module

I wasn’t too keen on frying the $25 Arduino Deumilanove development board, and I needed something (inexpensive) that I could plug directly into my projects, while also being able to exchange it between different projects. I’d ordered for an extra Arduino bootloaded ATMega 328p and a 16Mhz oscillator, so that was enough to build one. Started building the Arduino controller board on 12th August, was done by 13th August. This is what it looks like so far. (Sorry, these pictures are much fuzzier than the others).

Arduino controller board next to Deumilanove

I’ve put side by side comparisons with the professional board to show you how crappy mine is, but it works like a charm. I also want to add an in-circuit serial programmer of FTDI USB chip to allow me to program without moving the chip from the board or from Ironhide. (more…)

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an ode to boring (and the bored)

10 Aug

Do you like boring?

Boring is safe and guaranteed. Boring is conventional and unchanging. Boring is bureaucratic, ridden with fail safe policies and guidelines chiseled in stone, locked away in a bullet proof glass cage. To be seen and followed, but not touched.

Boring is following protocol and standard procedure. Boring is looking at your friend’s boring car and thinking how nice and good it would be to have one just like that.

Boring is when you’re being evaluated and you know that the passing score is 75% and you aim for 76%, because it’s easier.

Boring is accepting that “that’s just how things are, so it’s aight!” following rules that don’t make sense because, heck! that’s what everyone has always done, and that’s what you’re going to keep doing.

Boring is a steady, dull 9-5 job. Yes, it gets the bills paid, puts food on the table. But it’s boring! Boring is being scared of change, of a destabilization of your status quo, of the sheer panic that grips you when you realise that your salary is going to be a few days late and you’ve queued up bills.

Note: [ Actually, the scared-shitless mindset is predictable and boring, but the panic, my goodness! is not. I like panic. ] (more…)

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MTN 3G+ Usage Scenario Review and Orange vs MTN

5 Aug

Disclaimer: This is NOT a paid review. No one buys the Rogue King’s opinion!

A few weeks ago, I received a request from MTN, asking if I’d like to take one of their new 3G+ Modems for a test drive. Now, I don’t know whether this was because of my rant on Facebook about them disconnecting me without my notice, or simply because people think I know these “IT things”, but either way, I wasn’t going to turn down free internet.

So, giddy with excitement, I picked up the modem from MTN towers, happily went back to the office and gave away my Orange modem. For a while at least. I wanted an unbiased, no-backup experience with the modem.

I’ll get this out of the way first:  The test modem I received is shaped like the Jabulani World Cup soccer ball with a very short USB cable, so it’s very inconveniencing both when carrying and using, as it gets in the way of other USB ports both on my laptop, and my workstation at home. It looks like this:

I believe the consumer modems look as sleek as the ones on the billboards.

Setup is extremely simple. Plug in the modem, Windows discovers a series of devices, asks you to accept a few things, installs them and you’re good to go. The only glitch I got was my modem refusing to connect, but it turned out it simply hadn’t been activated yet.

So I’ve been using the modem for three weeks now and as promised, I want to share my experiences.

Overall, so far, I can comfortably say I do not miss my Orange modem.  We are starting to get closer to our broadband dream.

I’m a relatively heavy internet user, I’ve so far used 14GB of the service in the last three weeks, and of that only about 3GB were torrents. My typical daily usage scenario is as follows:

  • Simultaneous viewing of video tutorials online while
  • Downloading huge videos (average 300MB),
  • Downloading source files and smaller videos (average 20-50MB). At any given time I have almost 5 such downloads running on Download Accelerator and a hundred more in the queue.
  • Uploading heavy files (about 8GB in the past three weeks excluding torrent data). We’re talking FTP, Photoshop attachments, image uploads, zipped document uploads, etc.
  • The average website I visit is very heavy on images (like http://www.africandigitalart.com/2010/08/coker-character-design/)
  • I’ve hit maximum download speeds of about 630kbps (not consistently though), my average is 200-400kbps.

Note that the above usage is in moderation because I’m afraid I’ll get cut off from over-stressing a free sample product… also, I don’t know if the test modems have data caps.
(more…)

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look ma! top of the world!

2 Aug

You ever had one of those moments when you’re very comfortable where you are? When you are so wonderfully resplendent in your relative I’ve-made-it-ish-ness that you think nothing can slow your roll?

And then something happens, a thought, a rebuke or just a passing comment… and your world is flipped upside down? And then you realize that what you thought you had achieved was so insipid, so unbelievably vapid that the very realization left you numb for days? Because, gotta face the truth, you are not where you should be or where people think you should be?

I had a moment like that last year. And it changed my life, for all of two days. Only two, you say? Yes. Because, I got back to thinking to myself (quite naturally, of course) … “When I say ‘I’ve made it!’, what exactly does that mean?”

What does making it mean?

Take a moment.

Sure. Take another.

I realized that for me, it is the journey that’s important. It is the doing that drives me. The journey is making it.

Fine, I have big evil overlord global domination dreams, as witnessed by the magnificently redundant muahahaha-status-updates on Facebook, but those dreams are an end. What do I do with the journey to the end? Stand around moping about how my death-shrink-warp-ray-thing is not working? Curse the world, Mojo Jojo style and lock myself in, curled in a corner feeling sorry for my pathetic failure self?

No. Hang on a sec, flip the coin.

Shouldn’t each day be filled with meaning, with purpose, with a gradual sense of achievement towards that end? Shouldn’t every failure be a step closer to success by elimination? And shouldn’t every success, on its wonderful own, be a moment of sheer happiness, even if it is just a moment? Isn’t knowledge by its very nature a successive collection of information about things that work and many more things that don’t? And wasn’t that knowledge achieved through a process, a journey, and not just arrived at with instantaneous pomp and ceremony?

And just to mess you up some; does the desire for success ever stop? When you’ve hit the big time, when you’re playing with the big boys, will you stop trying to make it, because (you think and fervently believe) you’ve made it?

No. I don’t think so.

Because there is always a higher level to aspire to. There is always something bigger out there, glinting wickedly and whispering lustily, goading you, donkey and carrot style, until before you know it, there’s a hearse and some strangers are lowering you six feet under.

And sadly, today’s I’ve-made-it-ma, top-of-the-world! moment becomes tomorrow’s fork in the road, and a self-inflicted perpetuation of the making it journey, and guess what? The bloody road still goes on.

Think about it; this life we’re on, however meaningless the quest seems, is a journey, and this success you boast so much about, is simply a detour.

I want to change the world, but I want to be happy doing it, even if that joy is painful, and even if that happiness is filled with the bitterness of failure. I want to enjoy every single passing moment doing it. I’m going to change the world, and it doesn’t matter if I’m cooped up in an office with only a glowing monitor for company, pulling out my hair, or if I’m screaming for dear life at the end of a bungee cord.

Who’s with me?

—

Rogue FM: Rascal Flatts – Feels Like Today

—

Offtopic:

“Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.”
- Mark Twain

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
- Henry David Thoreau

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here

29 Jul

Funny, the places our earthly journeys take us. The temporal and spatial landscapes that our long winding treacherous existences weave each passing day through paths wrought by the beautiful,  mundane, painful and banal ticks of the clocks that we watch so fervently.

Even funnier, the things, in our most exalted moments of weakness, we aspire to. And in our strengths, flee from. A coiling, writhing mass of causality that we hope to un-entagle, one thread at a time, and fail to realise that we are simple falling deeper into a place that is so painfully familiar, and yet so… predictably alien.

Like the eureka moments, when you look around and tell yourself, “Yes. Finally. I am here.” Only to realise that here was there when there was just another star in the night sky, and you were actually here before, and you couldn’t recognize how magnificent it was because, perspective, damnit!, it was not there.

Funniest of all, the realization that you do not in the slightest, know what here is.

And extending that ignorance to there is a lesson in futility… punched with a small measure of justifiable foolishness. Shaken and stirred.

I don’t pretend to understand this here. But while it is… here, while I am… here…

I like it.

—

Rogue FM: Lenka – The Show

—

Offtopic:

“I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.”
- Kahlil Gibran

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of 3D lighting nightmares and industrial design dreams

27 Jul

About two years back, I realised that if I were to go [back] to school for anything, it would be either Robotics / Micro-Electronics or Industrial Design. Why Robotics? It’s pretty obvious from the amount of noise I make on this blog, but Industrial Design, not so obvious. In brief, it is the perfect blend of the wannabe geek in me (who loves taking things apart and tries to make them better) and the wannabe designer in me (who’s so efficient at googling that he’s made a living out of it).

So about six weeks back,  I decided I’d systematically study 3D modelling and animation, as opposed to jumping from one online tutorial to another. The tutorials online thing has served me well, very well, I must say, but I need to be a little more serious. So I ordered a couple of books from Amazon which arrived week before last.

So this little post is to show what I’ve been upto so far: Prototyping a fictional USB thingie and properly learning 3D modelling and lighting.

Modelling & Texturing in 3D (Maya), GUI / Interface designed & composited in Photoshop.

Click for larger images.

Hope you like. There are lots of flaws, too many to list, but comments & critiques welcome.

This stuff below is for my own reference. Ignore it.

render time 7:39
U/V 10 Image Based lighting (building_probe.hdr from debevec.org) primary visibility off + Final gather – color gain: light gray.
Images based lighting shader. Adjust Emission On. Gain: dark grey
—-
render time 11:27
U/V 11 Image Based lighting (building_probe.hdr from debevec.org) primary visibility off + Final gather – color gain: dark gray.
Images based lighting shader. Adjust Emission On. Gain: darker grey. mia material preset 90% blend/gloss/reflect@.750-.450

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Rogue FM: Cranberries – Analyze

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Offtopic:

“If you’re a designer, get it straight right now: it doesn’t matter how much work you put into it or how much you wanted to do a good job or how much cool collaboration you experienced on the project or how silly the client’s constraints were or how poor the working conditions are at work. It is only the results of you…r work that matter. Ever. Period”

- Andy Rutledge

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Discovering Amadou & Mariam

14 Jul

I’m one of those people who never listens to entire albums, however hard I try. And even when I do listen to the entire album, only a few songs stand out. My music collection, while substantial, is mostly for the sake of collecting. One or two tracks on an album will usually suffice. So when someone told me to check out the Distant Relatives collabo album by Nas and Damien Marley, I wasn’t too enthusiastic. At best, I believed I’d like one or two songs.

Boy was I wrong.

I listened to the album for three days non stop, over and over again. It is that good. For that first week, I really didn’t have a favorite song, they all rocked in their own big (and little) ways. But over time, I started gravitating towards “Patience”, and before I knew it, it was, and still is, my favorite song on that album.

Today, I was digging a little deeper into its lyrics and found out that the song was sampled from a Malian duo called Amadou and Mariam. A few minutes of Googling later and I found the original track. I was blown away. The original song is very haunting, a tale about true love, sung in French and a Malian dialect. Beautiful, beautiful stuff.

See for yourself.

And did you know they’re both blind?In any case, it appears I’m late to the Amadou and Mariam bandwagon, so off to find the rest of their music.

—

Offtopic:

“Are, we born not knowing, are we born knowing all?
We growing wiser, are we just growing tall?
Can you read thoughts? can you read palms?
Huh, can you predict the future? can you see storms, coming?”

- Patience – Nas & Damian Marley

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a question then, for the heroes

4 Jun

We have a question for you, O Fearless One. You who the world looks at with awe and reverence. You who has reached into the heavens and plucked out a single star, and made it shine brighter than it ever could.

You’ve lived a lifetime of rules and conformity, and yet broken all these rules and set a new standard, and every time your standard becomes the world’s standard, you raise the bar again, higher than ever. You’ve defeated the naysayers time and time again. You have exceeded your fanatics’ wildest dreams. You’ve walked a road none of your ancestors even dreamed existed. You have faced fears some of us only imagine in the darkness of dreams.

You, sir. You, madam. You are our hero.

We look up to you for inspiration and hope. We turn to your shining light when our own weak flames burn out and plunge us into unfathomable despair.

My question then, to you, is this;

How do you do it? (more…)

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make me less a man

25 May

Now that we’ve dispensed with the whole fiction thing, back to regular programming.

For friend and foe alike. For those who’ve felt love’s true touch, and for those that yet seek the warmth of love’s gentle caress. For a friend who didn’t give up on the love of his life, when we all thought hope was lost. For the ladies out there who stay to the end, not matter what. And for all the men out there who realize you are nothing without the lady that stands by your side, day after day after day…

Gentlemen… and ladies;

make me less a man

With one hand, the world demands the best from me.
Yet with the other, it would seek to destroy me.
I stand tall and proud in life’s brilliant joys,
And I stand strong and brave through shadows deep.
Because there you are, by my side,
Always.

Make me then, the weakest of men,
If but your strength be mine.
Make me then, half a man,
But let the other half be you.
Make me fall in your arms and weep,
Like a child,
For the love words cannot express.
Make my heart then weaken,
A thousand times over,
With every kiss and touch.

My dreams and ambitions drain the life from me,
And I long for the quite solace of dreamless sleep.
Yet each waking day brings challenges anew,
And I would faint from weariness in the eve,
But you are there, giving me hope,
Always.

Make me cease to breathe,
If it be you that takes my breath away.
Make me then, a hollow heartless shell,
If my heart beats next to yours.
Make me less a man,
Needy and frail,
If you be everything my heart desires.
Make me, then and always, less a man,
But a man who finds strength
In the solace of your love.

Make me less a man,
That I may be more the man,
With you by my side,
Always.

Solomon King 2010

—

Offtopic:

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.”
- Judy Garland

“Your heart is my piñata.”
-  Chuck Palahniuk

Rogue FM: Sleep Like A Child – Joss Stone

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no more fiction

18 May

Hello, Reader Dearest.

After doing many funny brain things, I have decided that I will no longer write fiction on this blog. The reasons are many, the deliberations were long and tedious, but I have made a decision.

In summary;

  1. I want this blog to go back to its original theme. Life, Design, Business, Technology.
  2. Much of what I write here is heavily misconstrued as being true, even when clearly labeled as fiction.
  3. I like to keep things separate, helps me focus better.
  4. I want to write better, with more thought and meaning to the process, not a hurried scribble in one sitting.
  5. I can’t really write some of the stuff I want to write, for fear of content dilution, misinterpretation, or very simply, professional image.

So, no more fiction, on this blog at least.

I’m working on another blog, which will be strictly fiction under a different name. And it will be no no-holds barred, no reader-friendly censoring and no politically correct BS. It will be light and funny, dark and gritty, sad and contemplative or whatever I fancy. I will write anything, everything and nothing.

And maybe, just maybe, you may like it.

I’ll probably lose many readers here, but it is necessary.

This blog will not die, so stay tuned, I’ll be posting a link in a few days. Maybe. Because it may be a closed, invited readers only blog, I don’t know.

In any case, I’ll see you on the other side.

With much sincerity.

The Rogue King.

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