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Friday, September 24, 2010

Fritz the Cat


This is why I'm in the program, man. I started bitching about hardware creation in the "ancient networks" section of a class, and someone said "Oh, you should check out Fritzing". Never heard of it. Apparently, they are using the Romulan Cloaking Device to keep underground, and I was surprised there was something I hadn't already rejected.

Got it, crashed it several times (it's in Alpha state right now) - but also got the board I wanted in the sizing I wanted. Its parts list is limited, but they are doing the right thing w/r/t limiting the wholesale creation of bogus parts; you can use generic parts easily, and the labeling allows you to make sense of them in the schematic and PCB views.

This is going to be THE KILLER TEACHING TOOL for hardware-focused media tools; I'm going to dive into this whole-heartedly, because it radiated "The Future".

[ddg]

Monday, September 20, 2010

Notes to self...

... about proposed network plans:

- The military thing I've been talking about.
- The musician thing I've mentioned, although it might have to be an older style of music to meet the "collapsed network" requirement.
- The network of word/vocabulary usage, origin and spread.
- Nefarious hackers to newly presented servers (using a bee-like algorithm).

That's four. More to come I'm sure. In all of the reading, it is the bee activity that resonates most clearly with me - perhaps it is that I see more bee-like behavior than any other, or maybe it is my history with bees (a long story to possibly be related later...).

In any case, some of this is starting to formulate in my pointy brain. I'm not sure how some of the Cell Designer-like software is going to help my in my quest, but I'll keep on sniffing the area.

[ddg]

Making Military-time Progress


Sketched out, on paper, the basics of the military piece. Basically, I'm going to try using some basic algorithms to simulate a tank battalion that goes after goals set by a "military leadership". When the goal is reached (or not), the results are transmitted to a general populous through a news-reel style communique, complete with Great Big Arrows showing progress and movement.

I was drawing this up during a class when a friend said "Hey, are you planning an invasion of Normandy or something?" That's when I knew that the overall graphics were appropriate.

Now, the questions is whether I do this in Netlogo, Processing - or something a little more heavy-duty...

[ddg]