With nights drawing in, many people particularly in the northern parts of the world are being affected by seasonal affective disorder. A Finnish company called Valkee claims to cure the winter blues with its bright light headset. According to the company, shining a bright torch in your ears has been shown to have a therapeutic [...]
Here are a few pictures of my sous-vide PID controller project. Inspiration came from the Seattle Food Geek. Being an engineer, I wanted to create a standalone system so I added sockets for the heater elements, pump and thermometer probe. I also didn’t see the benefit of hanging the mains-powered system above the bath, so [...]
I tried to find a Linux solution to automatically record scanner traffic, something like Scanner Recorder for Windows. It looks like I am not alone. Anyway, I figured it out. This is how I did it under Ubuntu: Download xpvox here. Compile it (I had to install libforms and then change all instances of #include [...]
Some animal rights terrorists have been asked to hand over decryption keys under Part III Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) a mere few weeks after it was activated. Completely apart from the fact that I disagree with their cause, I think this is a worrying development. I hope it accelerates the development and adoption [...]
A common complaint about Linux is that it doesn’t support all hardware. Of course it doesn’t. Neither would Windows if Microsoft had to write drivers for all hardware devices. Most manufacturers still see Linux as too small a market to bother, so writing drivers is often left to users and volunteers, not the hardware vendors. [...]
For the past decade or so I’ve maintained that Microsoft should drop their useless software side and focus on what they do best: hardware. I’m having a hard time admitting it, but much of the hardware Microsoft puts out is actually pretty good. I loved the original 1995 Microsoft Natural Keyboard, and their first sausage-shaped [...]