working on the bed project

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bed project: box of the right side

sometimes projects take longer — much longer — than anticipated. one such project is the bed project, aka the bed project from hell. well, today, on my first day off that came consecutively after another day off, i managed to get back into a woodworking mood. it helps that i no longer have people over after a rash of houseguests, but the two consecutive days off were the clincher. thanks dear employer, i couldn’t imagine getting things done without this highly esteemed gift: the weekend. (if that sounded sarcastic, it wasn’t, i love my job and yes i do love my new two consecutive days off!)

pictured above: what i finished today is the right hand frame of the bed, all of this will be covered with foam and dark grey fabric and will fit on the frame/legs that i completed months ago.

pictured below: the frame (that came with a mirror) that will be the frame of a purple tufted satin headboard mounted landscape-wise behind the bed.

frame minus mirror

math of the future: fewer computers please

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memory, all alone in the moonlight

i’m not sure if i disagree with this prediction out of frustration because i’m much more of a fan of pure math or if i truly believe the contrary. for me, applied math brings back memories of bunny population problems in calc 4 aka ordinary differential equations. if the future really brings a blurring of pure math, i would hope it would do so more because mathematicians collaborate and reason across disciplines.

it seems sort of a safe prediction to me to say that the advent of powerful grid computing will help mathematicians solve problems in fancier ways. that’s a cop out because software will still be buggy, hardware will still deteriorate, and ultimately it’s down to the programmer/mathematician to code something up that would help her. grid computing has some incredibly cool applications, putting together huge high def photos being one of the coolest, but it’s not a band-aid for boring old problem solving and proof writing.

i think the whole thing smells of the math vs. comp-sci department debates that happened halfway through the last century. perhaps i’m just a jaded girl with a math degree, but please if you are making predictions for the future, spice it up a bit!

technorati killers, all of us

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as i mentioned two blog posts before, we are going to kill technorati with this link fest. perhaps we are going to trick google’s sensitive linking algos — we will all be labelled as spammers by the end of the week.
chris tagged me, (the chris whose last name i tragically mispronounced at netscape-a-palooza), so now i have to sprint across the virtual field away from others in hopes that i don’t lose this game of tag. without any further ado, five things you unfortunately might not know about me:

1. i don’t remember learning how to read music and i played classical recorder before clarinet.

2. i had each year, on average, zero to one friends before the age of eighteen.

3. i hate having wet socks more than anything in this world.

4. i have credits on a movie that is listed on imdb, but i never worked on the film directly.

5. the next language i want to learn is mandarin. (that makes language number five if you count latin, four if you don’t, and no i didn’t count programming languages in there)

because i’m not a huge hater of technorati and because i think this silly meme has lasted long enough, i’m not passing it on. yep, that’s right, i lost this proverbial game of tag.

wreath building and soup making

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open in the dark comparison

apparently all it took was a few days away from my normal environment to turn me into a veritable craft and bake-a-thon. i built a wreath out of the leftover boughs from the tannenbaum (and even added a red fabric bow with stitches on the back to keep it from flopping apart). last night i even made a leek/potato/celery root soup from scratch. apparently it was a hit. lesson 1: step away from the computer while you can. lesson 2: have your family document your every move so you can blog about it later.

memes-r-us

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so when internet chain letters attack, i think spammers are behind them. now with this list 5 things blog meme, i’m pretty sure someone wants to take down technorati. think about it: if everyone links to everyone, technorati ingrown links will multiply like the pennies in that infamous doubling puzzle. i bet someone is already writing a whitepaper about this meme.

newness: nokia e70

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open side by side

this is a nokia e70 above and a nokia 6230 below. those of you who may have seen my previous work hacking popport cables for nokias may have noticed that i tend to overlook semi-badly built stuff because i rebuild it. however, i decided that a full flip over keyboard is sexy, and the addition of unlocked 3g and triband and wifi and voip compatibility puts this phone over the top. apparently i’m not alone in this sentiment, because even though this phone isn’t the newest of devices, a ton of people around me thought the same thing at the same time. hopefully i will have some time to enumerate the bugs/hardware deficiencies and share some fixes as well as do some mini-reviews and how-tos for software for the phone. i bought it through dynamism, but i think i got the last one they had.

the first order of business on functionality, i found that the sim card holder was a bit loose. my phone kept losing contact with the sim card (error message: no sim found). it turns out there was a bit too much space between it and the battery, so i folded up a little torn off piece of paper and placed it between the battery and the sim holder. now i don’t lose sim connectivity.

the second semi-annoyance was that when i set up the navigation joystick right push to go directly to my email inbox, i couldn’t get back to the main menu. workaround: none for the moment, just activate incremental email checking and when “you have a new email” pops up on the desktop, then you can easily navigate to your inbox. maybe a firmware upgrade is in order for this one.

i will enumerate how i got my email working with a private email server in the next post. for the time being, this phone is so feature-full that i will need some time to put it through its paces. i do love the feel of the keys on the keyboard and the screen is of excellent quality so you can view larger chunks of webpages zoomed out and still read text. pictured below are the nokia e70 and 6230 in the dark.
open in the dark comparison

don't buy this suitcase by c.comberti

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don't buy this suitcase from c.comberti

this carry-on sized suitcase made by c.comberti was the result of a long search through two department stores and a luggage store. my last small carry-on suitcase, a 30 dollar black no-name brand from chinatown in nyc, lasted four years before the wheel housings broke. this new fancy blue one is something you don’t want to buy.

1. the main zipper is of such poor quality that it catches and doesn’t zip at certain places, and not only when the suitcase is stuffed.

2. the front pocket is too deep and unpadded.

3. there is a hard plastic hook on the back which presses into your thigh when carrying the suitcase up and down stairs. the hook caused a bruise on my leg.

4. the pull out handle is rickety and looks like it may break.

verdict: don’t buy this suitcase.

Workshop for the 23c3 in Berlin

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inside of wifi detector we'll be hacking

I will be giving a hardware hacking workshop at the 23rd Chaos Computer Congress, aka the 23c3, in Berlin, Germany (exact location: 52.520693,13.416452) on the first day of the conference, the 27th of December from PLEASE NOTE TIME CHANGE 11:30 to 13:45 (11:30am to 1:45 pm). This workshop will be a hands-on workshop where attendees will repurpose an existing wifi detector into a soft housing that can be velcro-ed around a messenger bag strap or a backpack strap. When I built this project the last time, I built everything into the backpack strap. However, today’s world with vacillating fashion trends and frequent security checks demands more flexibility. The wifi backpack strap will therefore be removable in this newest iteration. There is a flickr tag for the project which goes into a bit more detail about the materials you will receive with payment for the workshop (about 35 euros / 45 dollars).

The materials for the project include: a wifi and spy wifi detector, usb cable to recharge batteries, rechargeable batteries, and a handy wrist strap which you can use for something else, black techie fabric pre-stitched with velcro closure, el-cheapo soldering iron, solder, bits of cable, glue gun to borrow, needle + thread, screwdriver to borrow, and the materials for squishy switches (foam, aluminum foil, paper, wire, silver conductive paint).

There are only about 30 seats in the workshop room, so attendance will be limited to that many. Also, if you prefer to use your own materials, by all means contact me to reserve some space in the workshop room and let me know what brand wifi detector you will be bringing to hack and if you need any other tools. To register with me for the workshop, please contact me using “mail” @ the name of this site with the subject of “23c3 workshop”.

Favorite Headphones

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ghetto electrical tape bulge

When your favorite headphones’ mini jack gets crushed and bent (tragic airplane seat incident), do you throw in the towel? Not I. I spent three tedious hours stripping and re-soldering those tiny plastic-string-cored cables. Word of warning — don’t breathe the fumes that stuff gives off when melted. After attempt number one, left was soldered to right and right was soldered to left. After attempt number two, only the left side worked. Attempt number three finally yielded working headphones with no alligator clips and my classy-looking signature re-soldered together bump of electrical tape on the cable. Sometimes great headphones (sony mdr-7506) are worth the extra time.