I’ve loved the irrational number set for most of my life. There’s something magical about numbers that have no finite limit. Pi is one of those.
Author Archives: Rob
The intersection of IKEA and hacking
I heard a really fascinating episode of one of my favorite podcasts recently (99% Invisible). It was about hacking IKEA furniture. They interviewed the curator of a website devoted to the niche art form.
The economics of urban chicken ranching
My wife had a dream of raising chickens and she made it a reality. It wasn’t something I was extremely eager to get into at first. But I have to admit that they are fun, curious little creatures.
From iOS to Android, part 2: ecosystem shock
Last time, I talked about two key aspects of technology that tend to make loyal customers: platform ecosystem and user experience. It was a natural transition from owning Macs for the better part of a decade to iPods and then finally iPhones. Apple has done well to keep the user experience very fairly consistent between …
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online IDEs
I love IDEOne. It’s a fully debuggable online compiler for a bunch of software languages. And there’s no need installing a plugin to format source code correctly on my blog, when this service offers embeddable links. Like this: By the way, this isn’t compiling. Anyone have any pointers? See what I did there? Pointers?
The collision of Boxes
I’m a big fan of Dropbox. I (and the rest of the internet) have been using it in free mode for quite some time. I probably don’t need to tell you what it is . What I particularly love about the cloud is that it kills two birds with one stone: Syncing your files painlessly …
Bearable wearable
I’ve always loved following tech. The emergence of the wearables market has been a fascinating one: a convergence of small form factor, low power, and high performance electronics. In particular, this market really couldn’t have happened without the smartphone industry blazing the trail, since wearables leverage multiple technologies like touch screens, accelerometers, compasses, and wireless interfaces. And …
From iOS to Android, part 1
You read that right. I’ve made the switch. Got rid of my iPhone(s) and careened over into Android territory. And so far, the grass is still pretty green over here.
Inaugural Maker Faire
Well, I’ve officially joined the DIY electronics community. Last week, I attended my first Maker Faire. It was my city’s first ever, and I was determined to take one of my projects as a booth participant. Nothing like a deadline to get my hind quarters into gear and (kind of) finish a project!
The state of the Arduino ecosystem
*** The following is a “bitter old engineer” rant. You’ve been warned. At this ripe old age, I have come to value most the quality of a toolchain. I’ll go a step further and say that the coherency and consistency of the umbrella that toolchain inhabits is a most prized quality. And what spurred this revelation? …