An adventure I've had in Minneapolis has been featured in a popular technology blog. It's titled Rolling in the Money and I'd like to thank The Daily WTF for sharing it.
The article mentions my friend Calvin's game Venture the Void, so if you want to help out a pal, go buy a copy of his game.
Update: You can also read the original email I sent to Calvin about this outing.
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
New meta-blog and meta-meta-blog
Okay, I agree with others who have said that there is no reason to blog about not blogging. I am now posting at least one entry a week, which might not be a torrent of information, but does at least mark this as an active blog. However, my goal remains to post quality content every day. One reason is it would be unfortunate if I embark on the next portion of my trip before bringing the story up to Minneapolis. Another is a couple people (primarily the couple who raised me as a child) do remark if I fail to update.
To prevent further pollution of this blog by a morass of excuses for missing a day or writing poorly, I have created a new blog Kevin's little blogging excuses, where I will speculate on the probability of a new blog entry being written up that day, and at least offer some lame apology if I fail to update.
When I got that site up, I realized that there was a problem. What if I don't update Kevin's little blogging excuses as well or often as I should? So, I set up the blog Excuses excuses where I may or may not apologize for the "little blogging excuses" blog.
Now, I admit to being a little worried about what will happen if I have trouble with that blog. If necessary I will have to petition blogger to allow an infinite progression of meta-blogs.
To prevent further pollution of this blog by a morass of excuses for missing a day or writing poorly, I have created a new blog Kevin's little blogging excuses, where I will speculate on the probability of a new blog entry being written up that day, and at least offer some lame apology if I fail to update.
When I got that site up, I realized that there was a problem. What if I don't update Kevin's little blogging excuses as well or often as I should? So, I set up the blog Excuses excuses where I may or may not apologize for the "little blogging excuses" blog.
Now, I admit to being a little worried about what will happen if I have trouble with that blog. If necessary I will have to petition blogger to allow an infinite progression of meta-blogs.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Airplane in Island Park
Oops. I meant to post a blog entry every day, but I accidentally skipped this one. So instead I will post this photo of an airplane I saw in Portage la Prairie, the town which is the subject of the next two posts. I have started posting some other photos as well, not in any particular order.
While I'm here, I may as well mention the ads you might have noticed running all around the page now. I had an ad up during the blog's hiatus that pulled in a couple bucks, so considering that I don't have enough work right now I am going to see if I can pull in any real money with content rolling again. Let me know if these get too annoying. I am thinking of writing up summaries of the OLPC, Brompton, and other things targeted to certain communities in the hopes of pulling in a couple waves of people.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
[LIVE 46] Fort Qu'Appelle!
Here I am in the Fort Qu'Appelle Library, uploading posts! Although this is day 46, I only have up to day 28 ready to upload. Sorry about that. They'll be appearing over the next couple of weeks. I probably won't have another chance to post until Brandon, Manitoba.
I am starting to think of my blog as a very early draft for perhaps a book, assuming everything ends well and interesting. A very early draft, I say. A book should probably be less confusing in grammar, tense, and quality. It might not be organized into days like the blog is.
If you are just joining, the first post is http://kevinfloat.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-1-off-without-hitch.html Just keep clicking Next to proceed.
I have photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinsaff
I hope you all enjoy the blog!
I am starting to think of my blog as a very early draft for perhaps a book, assuming everything ends well and interesting. A very early draft, I say. A book should probably be less confusing in grammar, tense, and quality. It might not be organized into days like the blog is.
If you are just joining, the first post is http://kevinfloat.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-1-off-without-hitch.html Just keep clicking Next to proceed.
I have photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinsaff
I hope you all enjoy the blog!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Day 11: One laptop per camper
I liked the gravel bar location so much I decided to spend all day there, alternately rereading Steinbeck's "Travels with Charlie" and typing up blog posts. I do record a brief summmary of each day in my journal, but these entries often have as much to do with worries about weather, or fears that some farmer will come tell me I have to move. Generally these worries are unfounded and uninteresting, so I find it best to wait a few days before trying to write about what happened in detail. This gives me a little time to forget all the unimportant stuff, and mythologize the memorable things.
To type up my blogs, I use a computer called the "OLPC XO-1". OLPC stands for "One laptop per child". They are an organization which hopes to put one of these little computers in the hands of each child in a developing country. The idea being, I guess, that education brings freedom. The XO doesn't stand, but does look a little like a kid if you look at it sideways.
Since these computers were made for people in rough conditions with limited access to electricity, they are almost ideal for the camper as well. The small form factor packs well, the ruggedized housing is handy, and the keyboard is even covered with a rubber membrane to take spills and light rain. There is even a built-in camera and microphone, so it would be possible to make videos with this machine.
The power input is optimized for 12VDC, the same as a car battery, but it can handle a range of voltages. I have with me a 20W solar cell, which is mounted in the bow of my canoe. Its output is about 18V, but the computer charges quite well off of it. The panel is powerful enough to charge the computer in reasonable time despite not being rotatable to the optimal angle with the sun. Apparently because of the high voltage, the computer buzzes when charging off the solar panel. By moving my hand over the solar panel, I can get the pitch to change, and play the computer like a poor musical instrument.
Unfortunately, the OLPC takes a nonstandard sized plug and so it is a bit of a trick to get a cord going from the panel to the computer. I was able to find a Radio Shack size "M" plug that was the correct diameter on the outside, but too wide on the inside. Fortunately, this plug uses little pins for the inside connection, and using a needle I was able to push these pins in to get a good fit. Unfortunately again, I neglected to completely solder and seal this plug to the wire at home, and I have had some trouble keeping a good connection in the corrosive environment of the river. It seems like every time I want to recharge the computer I first need to repair the plug.
Overall, I'd say the computer hardware is spot on. One of my favorite features is the special screen that is both reflective and transmissive LCD, so you can turn the backlight completely off, saving considerable power, and still read the screen in most lighting conditions.
The software, on the other hand, has some issues. A pet peeve is that the browser seems to have a bug which disables keyboard input after a random period of time, making typical browsing tasks like google and email impossible. More generally, they were going for an ambitious redesign of the operating system in general, which is a mixed success. The graphic design is quite nice. Instead of programs you have "activities", and instead of saving and restoring files you are supposed to stop and resume activities. But this couples the concepts of files and programs too much. It seems, like many before them, they deemed the file system to be too complicated and were looking for a way out of it. But the result is that programs instead have to interact through a complicated cut and paste system, and it is hard to talk to computers in the more traditional ways. So even though there is a "Write Activity" for the OLPC, I tend to use the vi text-mode editor to write all my blogs, just so I know where and in what format my files are so I can easily transfer them to a USB stick.
Day 11 ended: 50*03.087N, 111*15.466W
To type up my blogs, I use a computer called the "OLPC XO-1". OLPC stands for "One laptop per child". They are an organization which hopes to put one of these little computers in the hands of each child in a developing country. The idea being, I guess, that education brings freedom. The XO doesn't stand, but does look a little like a kid if you look at it sideways.
Since these computers were made for people in rough conditions with limited access to electricity, they are almost ideal for the camper as well. The small form factor packs well, the ruggedized housing is handy, and the keyboard is even covered with a rubber membrane to take spills and light rain. There is even a built-in camera and microphone, so it would be possible to make videos with this machine.
The power input is optimized for 12VDC, the same as a car battery, but it can handle a range of voltages. I have with me a 20W solar cell, which is mounted in the bow of my canoe. Its output is about 18V, but the computer charges quite well off of it. The panel is powerful enough to charge the computer in reasonable time despite not being rotatable to the optimal angle with the sun. Apparently because of the high voltage, the computer buzzes when charging off the solar panel. By moving my hand over the solar panel, I can get the pitch to change, and play the computer like a poor musical instrument.
Unfortunately, the OLPC takes a nonstandard sized plug and so it is a bit of a trick to get a cord going from the panel to the computer. I was able to find a Radio Shack size "M" plug that was the correct diameter on the outside, but too wide on the inside. Fortunately, this plug uses little pins for the inside connection, and using a needle I was able to push these pins in to get a good fit. Unfortunately again, I neglected to completely solder and seal this plug to the wire at home, and I have had some trouble keeping a good connection in the corrosive environment of the river. It seems like every time I want to recharge the computer I first need to repair the plug.
Overall, I'd say the computer hardware is spot on. One of my favorite features is the special screen that is both reflective and transmissive LCD, so you can turn the backlight completely off, saving considerable power, and still read the screen in most lighting conditions.
The software, on the other hand, has some issues. A pet peeve is that the browser seems to have a bug which disables keyboard input after a random period of time, making typical browsing tasks like google and email impossible. More generally, they were going for an ambitious redesign of the operating system in general, which is a mixed success. The graphic design is quite nice. Instead of programs you have "activities", and instead of saving and restoring files you are supposed to stop and resume activities. But this couples the concepts of files and programs too much. It seems, like many before them, they deemed the file system to be too complicated and were looking for a way out of it. But the result is that programs instead have to interact through a complicated cut and paste system, and it is hard to talk to computers in the more traditional ways. So even though there is a "Write Activity" for the OLPC, I tend to use the vi text-mode editor to write all my blogs, just so I know where and in what format my files are so I can easily transfer them to a USB stick.
Day 11 ended: 50*03.087N, 111*15.466W
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