SD Logger
Here’s my protoboard for the SD Logger project. What a thing of beauty. And far be it from me to point out any of its obvious defects. Just bask in the glory. I wrote a little post about it at the Gardenville website this evening. Check it out! Tell a friend! Buy all our playsets and toys! I really need to put some Blatant Commerce on that site, don’t I? Part of my famous Machinery series.
No post yesterday. As predicted, I had a church meeting that required me to go directly from work and return home just in time to eat a bit of dinner and go to bed. So, no post. I have no idea how my Loyal Readers survived.
Busy weekend planned. I have to prepare a talk on Saturday morning, attend a youth dance on Saturday evening, and have my adoring family gather around me and heap praises – and gifts – upon me all day Sunday. Gonna be stressful.
Plus, I hope to find some time to get some more soldering done on the Arduino SD Logger. I really want to get that done so I can clean up and update its software, write a bit about it and publish it on the Gardenville website, and start working on the accelerometer navigator.
Still have to decide whether to design a board and have a couple built. I really want to do it, so I guess I might just as well. Probably should have skipped the breadboard step and gone right for the custom boards. If I had it to do over, that’s what I’d do. Mainly because I had no idea how hard it would be to build that stupid breadboard. It’s too late now, though – the Arduino and SD card reader are both soldered to the thing and way too hard to get back off. So I’ll make the best of it and finish it.
And the most important question of all – what color should I choose for my company’s boards? I’m thinking of yellow or orange – they’re kind of gardenish colors, don’t you think? Other suggestions? I need a corporate identity, and I might as well get started right.
I also need to practice my C++ and get ready to start learning Qt, as discussed earlier. Also need to finish the Mitt Romney book. Only a few pages to go, and I’m still enjoying it. Recommended conservative thinker reading.
I decided to register with the church’s community software development project. They’ve had an invitation out for quite some time and I’ve been wanting to do it. It only took a couple of minutes yesterday, and I’ve already received a couple of specific invitations to do things. I offered my services to help manage a new project they’re just getting started on. Sent them a bit of a resume this afternoon and we’ll see whether they’re interested in what help I have to offer.
I attended an interesting discussion group this afternoon on my company’s advanced engineering think-tank-type work. They’re working on some very interesting long-term research. That’s the kind of work I would absolutely love to be involved in. Sometimes I wish I had stayed in school and gotten a PhD and spent my career teaching and doing research. I don’t know if I would have really enjoyed that, but it seems attractive. I kind of doubt that’s a feasible thing at this point, but I’ve been puzzling over how I could do some part-time research projects – maybe get onto the cutting edge of software thought in some area. My friend Grant is self-employed and does that kind of stuff. I think the biggest problem with trying to start my own software R&D company is that I can’t think of a business model for it. That’s the kind of stuff that’s done by grant-supported institutions like universities and well-established labs, neither of which am I. I also have gotten used to making a bunch of money. Must think harder. Can it be done part-time? Would some additional formal education be a good way to start? Do I have time for that? Am I interested enough in it to make the sacrifices necessary? Can I skip that and just start reading some of the journals and doing a bit of work on my own? Why am I asking you?
Anyway. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. In the meantime, I’ll stick with my Arduino project and try to get it working, self-publish the results, and see if I can get anybody interested in it. Navigating via a single accelerometer with a very low powered computer isn’t exactly cutting-edge stuff, but it’s interesting and challenging, and that’s a step in the right direction.
Got this month’s issue of Imprimis, the interesting and free monthly newsletter from Hillsdale College in Michigan, today. They’re a very conservative and constitutionalist institution, and their newsletters generally consist of a reprint of a recent speech given either on their campus or at their think tank in Washington. Highly recommended reading for conservative thinkers. Interested Loyal Readers can sign up here. Fair warning – each issue contains a pitch for money. They’re not obnoxious, though. Not nearly as obnoxious as the ones I get from Texas A&M every year, or that LRN4 gets from BYU.
My liberal thinker Loyal Readers are welcome to give their reading suggestions in the comments. Let’s be fair about this, after all.
And that’s about it for tonight. More information on my software think tank to come.
I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food news: funeral food fraud.
See you on Monday.