Archive for March, 2009

Okay, here’s the scoop. I’m AMAZINGLY busy right now. I shouldn’t be writing, but I can’t keep all of this bottled up! I’ve been adding small notes, images, and links to an ever-growing blog entry which remains unpublished. It’s getting out of hand! It’s clear I’m busy and lack the time to write sufficiently right now. My thesis defense is tomorrow, and I have a lot of work to do before then. Hopefully soon I’ll write more, but until I do I’ll just give you all of the little fragments of potential blogs I’ve saved over the last couple weeks. Since I’m not writing much about them, you’ll have to assess them for yourself and (if you’re lucky) maybe even decipher their significance. Anything that I post must be significant, right? Okay, here are the blurbs:

Look at this amazing figure I created thanks to Inkscape (I love free, opensource software!). Doesn’t it look nice? I think so too! =o)

First things first - here are some free songs! Okay, they may be illegal, but we’ll see what happens. I don’t know their title (I ripped them from Pandora and lost the XML tags for them) but I found them by creating a radio station based around the fantastic plastic machine) and they’re pretty cool. I know they’re weird, and they don’t represent the pinnacle of musical complexity, but they’re entertaining.

>>> Song 1 – Candy?

>>> Song 2 – Long Time?

>>> Song 3 – Nothing Better?

I don’t know how long these will be here, so grab them while you can!

Outer space project: This website is fascinating. natrium42.com/halo/flight2/ Briefly, a group of people decided to try to get amateur equipment in outer space. They attached a string of devices (including a video camera) to a weather balloon and let it go. The images and videos half way down the page are spectacular. This project is similar to something I wanted to do a couple years ago… I think that with my growing knowledge of radio, I might be able to build a transmitter for a similar device to aid in its location. Either by direction finding on my end (tracking “beeps” emitted from the transmitter) or possibly by interfacing the balloon with a GPS and broadcasting coordinates over the air.

I’m becoming obsessed with programming microchips. Okay, so I’m mostly a n00b when it comes to chip programming. I only know how to work with simple microcontrollers. I had a BASIC stamp in my closet for years that I interfaced on and off when I got bored. More recently, I’ve been utilizing PICAXE chips because they’re so cheap and easy to program. Yeah [ducks scorn], I know that dumping BASIC code to PIXAXE chips isn’t exactly the same caliper as directly programming a PIC chip in C or ASM or whatever. Hopefully down the line (when I have more free time) I can get into that more. Currently I’ve been working with 8-pin and 14-pin picaxe chips (about 3$ each – way better than the 60$ BASIC stamps that were popular a few years back). Their inexpensive nature is good because I’m prone to fry things. I fried a PICAXE 14M last night by accidentally shorting out my voltage regulator, sending 9 volts into the chip (it can’t take more than 5 volts), frying it quickly. When I’m done with my degree requirements (hopefully this week!) I’m thinking of working with the super-cool and brand new PICAXE 40x, which has up to 20 inputs and 17 inputs! That’s enough to interface a parallel LCD display with a handful of output pins to spare! The chips are about 10$, and might be a little outside of my price range. The 28-pin PICAXE might be a good intermediate step.

In case you haven’t seen it somebody actually made a “do-it-yourself” laptop with a picaxe chip at its core. It’s completely impractical, but the humor associated with it makes it worth it. The guy went through so much work to make it look fancy too – it’s hilarious!

The guy’s website is here

My public writing project is still on hiatus. For now, I need to concentrate on completing my degree requirements. I anticipate that graduation will be in order by next week. Until then, hold on a bit longer, and brace yourself for an outpouring of blogs related to obscure and geeky projects. In the mean time, this is what I’m working on, and sure you’re invited. It’s at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. Show up, say you’re from my blog, and I’ll buy you a round after the examination!

Today is the much-awaited day of anticipation, mystery, excitement, and dread. Yes, today is the day that I will sit down (with the intent to) actually begin writing the content of my master’s thesis. Molecular biology is one of the most boring subjects invented. Luckily, my thesis has little to do with molecular biology and more to do with cardio-neurological anatomy. Today is Wednesday. Supposedly one week from Friday (9 days from now) the thesis should be complete and turned in. I have my work cut out for me. Luckily, the outline of the thesis is already finished, and I believe I have all the representative figures I will need. Yesterday my PI (principal investigator, aka: lab manager, aka: my boss!) told me that my paper (which I’ve neatly compiled into the outline of a single document) would be better if it were split into 3 documents, and published as 3 separate papers (one for sympathetic findings, one for parasympathetic findings, and one for findings involving sympathetic/parasympathetic interaction). I guess my plan is to proceed as originally planned, writing a single paper for my thesis, then splitting it up into 3 and sending them off for review/publication after I graduate.

I’m counting the days until I’ve fulfilled my thesis requirements and have graduated. I cannot wait! Why? Am I excited because I’ll finally have a masters degree? no. Am I excited because a lot of the academic pressures in my life will be temporarily relieved? no. Am I excited because I, having graduated in 19 months will have set the new department record (the current fastest thesis-track molecular biology masters graduate took 22 months)? no. Well why then, why are you so excited about finishing. BECAUSE IT GIVES ME TIME TO WORK ON MY PROJECTS! I have a huge list of projects I’ve wanted to work on but couldn’t (or decided not to) because I wanted to devote all of my time to graduating. I can’t wait! First and foremost, I’ve definitely decided I want to dip my toe into the field of amateur radio (AR). I know what you’re picturing – a bunch of old guys sitting around wooden desks with 50’s style microphones and headphones jabbering about little things over the airwaves (like how good Catfish Cory’s is, or how some guy is in a fight with his cable company over his service, or why gator tail tastes so much like chicken). For the most part, your image is probably correct. However, why not get into it? I’ve done the comptuer thing. I’ve done the linux thing. I’ve done the computer programming thing. Heck, I’ve even done the microchip programming thing. But radio? There’s something I know absolutely nothing about, and I can’t stand it! I don’t feel the need to be a crazy obsessed expert, but I definitely want to have an advanced working knowledge of the concepts.

From my [very limited, internet-based] research I have discovered that there’s far more to AR than just talking to random local folks. Yeah, you can use satellites to connect with people far, far away, and you can even talk to members of the space shuttle or international space station but I don’t think it’s conversation that will ever satisfy me. I’m not much of a conversationalist. I much enjoy making/hacking things. I’m really wanting to get into QRSS, or simple-low power slow speed data transmitting circuits with the potential to broadcast signals around the world! I think it will be fun to combine my microcontroller programming knowledge with these simple circuits. Sure, I don’t have any data that I necessarily want to have transmitted, but that’s not important. I just want to be able to smile knowing that I sent it =o)

Last night I built a makeshift antenna for my balcony. (pictured above) The antenna (theory/plans) are good, but I kind of hacked it together at the last minute. The basic design measurements were obtained from “this online calculator:http://www.qsl.net/wrav/2mjpole.htm but the surprising thing is that I purchased the copper/connectors/pvc without knowing the plans. That’s right! I was initially going to find some 300Ohm TV antenna runner wire to “assemble a ghetto 2m jpole antenna” but when I couldn’t find the correct wire at WalMart, and 100FT of it at RadioSh*t was almost $20! Not cool. So I went to Lowes hoping to find the wire but they didn’t have it either. I walked by the plumbing section, saw the huge copper pipes (for about 1$) and remembered the copper jpoles I saw on the web earlier that day. I didn’t have any plans with me, so I didn’t know what I needed. I closed my eyes in the isle, pictured the Google image searches, and decided to go to town and buy as much as I could remember. I totally lucked out too! After getting a ton of random copper and PVC pipes and connectors (mostly Ts, couldn’t find copper elbows of the right size) I took it all home, looked at the measurements I needed, and I had everything!

Haray! I quickly assembled my makeshift antenna with the parts I [blindly] purchased. I’m sure that it requires tuning for maximal efficiency (and to decrease the possibility of damaging a future transmitter I attach to it), but I don’t have the equipment I need to tune it. Perhaps after I get my radio in, get my license, and start making some local contacts, I’ll find someone who will help me tune it. Oh! I haven’t written about that yet. A couple days ago I purchased some cheap Chinese electronics that (fingers-crossed) will work decently. I went cheapest of the cheapest and got a 5W 2m (VHF, ~144MHz) handheld – the Puxing-777! I figure it’ll help me establish some local contacts and get used the the whole AR scene. Why do I see myself taking it apart for some who-knows reason? I freaked out the other day and almost went psycho on my frequency scanner when I discovered that it was controlled by two boards (likely a logic board and a radio board), which were only connected by ~12 pins. It was the perfect reverse-engineering / hardware hacking project, and the perfect excuse to build my own logic analyzer to intercept the data being communicated. Bah! Anyway, I backed off the project, even though (if I had more time) I would have loved to do it. (Imagine how cool it would be to turn old cheap scanners into software-defined radios!?)

I completely forgot where I was going so I’ll just end this rant. Goodbye, so long, farewell, and I love you, oh sweet blog of mine. I’m sorry I neglect you so, but I promise that I will return to you shortly and garnish your sweet pages with beautiful words. Until then, I have a thesis to write!

It’s save to say I’m a completely overloaded individual these days. I spend 12+ hours a day in the laboratory (it’s 11:30pm and I’m in lab right now), have a masters thesis to write, propose, defend, and submit all within about 30 days from today (I haven’t even actually started writing it yet), I am in the middle of being accepted into dental school (involving tons of deadline-ridden paperwork dealing with housing, immunizations, certifications, transcripts, finances, etc), somehow I have to find the time to do my taxes (1st time my wife and I will file together), and now that I mention it, yes, I have a wife at home to think about! We’ve been married a year plus a few months. I have to remember wifey things. Is an anniversary coming up? [ponders...] Wait, one just passed. I’m good. Anyway, I’ve got a TON of things on my plate, and no matter how quickly I try to scrape them off, more keep piling on. So, with all this stuff I have to do, and tons of stuff I should do, could I ever justify taking time out of my day to do stuff that I actually want to do? Yes and no.

I’ve reached an inconclusive conclusion. Although my heart yearns to get involved with with a lot of small projects, they all have to be placed on (indefinite?) hiatus. Examples of projects I’ve wanted to get into for a long time include furthering my knowledge of pic microcontroller programming, writing a python-based Pandora internet radio streamripper, completing the hardware/software for my homemade electrocardiogram (and actually using it to analyze long periods of cardiac activity), becoming an active member of the development team for an interesting piece of software (like fluxbox or inkscape or some other opensource application). More recent projects include re-coding the web-interface for this website (the current coding is ghastly, archaic, and difficult to modify without breaking the UI, which doesn’t even display correctly in IE anyway), getting into AR (amateur radio), and buying that 5” XD 45 ACP tactical semiauto I’ve been eyeing for several months now. Because I have an evergrowing list of things I want to do, and an even faster-growing list of things I need to do, I have to somehow conjure up contentment in the brief periods of free time I can use throughout my day researching these endeavors. I know it sounds silly. But, I know I can’t do all these things I want to right now… yet somehow, spending 10 minutes on the internet here and there reading up on something I want to do appeases the roaring (whining?) within my soul to do something more fun. (more fun = anything that doesn’t make BLOOD SHOOT OUT OF MY EYES like retarded paperwork for dental school or monotonous experiments in the laboratory)

One of my more recent fascinations is QRSS, a super-low power mode of transmission over the airwaves. Think about this. You get a ham radio setup which outputs at about 3 watts. “This is call sign blah blah blah blah saying yadda yadda yadaa, over, [pssht].” Ya’ got it? Now picture using a microcontroller (It’s time to break out the old pic microcontroller programming gear I’ve had in my junk boxes forever!) to transmit data (Morse code?) over the airwaves by varying frequencies and using FFT transformation (2d plot, with respect to time) to view it on the computer. Now, increase the time between “beeps”, and decrease the power. Way down. Think, 5mW. That’s how much power a laser pointer puts out. Now imagine that a homemade circuit, broadcasting from a single AAA battery at 5mW can produce a signal which can be received on the other side of the world in Australia. How freaking awesome is that? I’ve been inspired by the QRSS page here where a guy reported his efforts doing something similar. I want to try this so bad. GRR! [sigh] I have to get back to lab.

One quick news update: I’ve completely finished the investigative work required for me thesis project. Yay! This is big news. I’ve been hear almost two years! Here’s my “money shot” image. Unfortunately for you, I will not describe what it is on the internet. It will suffice to say that it’s the fruit of months’ labor of a super coding ninja money.

I have several current hacking projects and one of them that I keep coming back to is Pandora , the internet radio service. You tell it a song or artist you like and the service customizes a radio station just for you with music which has the same qualities as songs you like. They don’t offer mp3 downloads however, and they don’t allow you to fast forward, rewind, or skip songs. It’s a flash-based web interface, and my digging (both on windows and in linux) has led me to realize that these songs are temporarily being downloaded to the hard drive. (They’re in M4A format, which is essentially videoless MP4). The problem is that these files have garbage filenames (random letters). If I can just obtain the artist and song title to associate with each, I’ll be able to write a Python script which will allow me to copy these files as they download, assigning their ID3 tags accordingly.
I know this is possible, because I can spy XML data being transferred over my network (thanks to tcpdump) which contains all this information. The timing corresponds to the download of each subsequent M4A file. Where does this XML data go? This is the tough question. I could accept the fact that it is loaded directly into flash and begin attacking it at the TCP protocol level, but the fact is that a lot of weird files show up in /tmp which I have a hunch are these XML files. The problem is that when I go to open them, they’re blank. My theory? Pandora is downloading files and keeping them only as long as they’re needed. The M4A files are readable for as long as the song plays, then they’re deleted. Perhaps XML files are being downloaded and deleted after they’re needed (1/100 of a second later), so they’re hard to “catch”. Alternatively, I see a lot of “temp.js” files which are empty. Perhaps they’re being overwritten with /dev/null rather than being deleted…
My current approach is to write a Python script to log file activity (creations, deletions, modifications, etc.) which I hope can be run at least 1,000 times a second (am I dreaming?) to elucidate this issue. Optimal scenario: I’m able to identify XML files as they make their brief appearance on my hard drive, copy their contents, and use this data to attach meaningful names to meaningless M4A files on my hard drive.
Below, a photo of me in my quest. (I’m working on my new laptop in the confocal microscope room as tissue sections are being scanned into the computer) Yay linux. Yay python.