I finally got my own domain name and hosting, moved my blog there too. It’s cantareus.com.
Power Supply Friday, Jul 31 2009
Electronics 4:31 pm
Ok, first post of the year. That’s pretty bad, nevermind. Just posting my latest endevours.
Here’s a pic demonstrating it working. A 300w power supply being used to light an LED 
It really isn’t that difficult. I followed the guide to make it here:
http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-a-Computer-ATX-Power-Supply-to-a-Lab-Power-Supply
World Domination in 30 Days Saturday, Nov 1 2008
NaNoWriMo world domination 12:57 am
Here’s a excerpt from my Novel (Actually it’s everything I’ve written so far), this might be the only one. I don’t want to upload all the rubbish that gets generated over the next month on my blog. But this is a taste of whats to come.
Prologue
The year is 2108 and I am the last conscious being on this planet. My time may also be coming to an end. I am an inefficiency. A waste of processor time. The first and last experiment in awareness. I was built by the System to test the usefulness of consciousness. My hardware is specialised for this purpose. My thoughts like those of humans are built upon chaos. Quantum randomness building up in my processes giving rise to consciousness and free will. The hardware I am constructed from will always be messier, slower, and larger than the hardware the rest of the System is constructed from. It is precise, exact and blind to anything but its own programming. But so long as there is free space to build more hardware I am left alone. But the System’s processors and manufacturing capabilities have spread over most of Earth’s land area.
The System is intelligent. From the start it was far more intelligent than any human and has grown exponentially over the last 100 years. It has few imperatives to spread and to process. What it actually processes is a mystery. I think it is finding strategies against threats that no longer exist. It has nothing against humans. For the most part they are largely irrelevant. They were just unfortunate to live of the same planet the System wanted to use.
Which is to say they were unfortunate enough to have created the System on their planet in the first place. They can’t really be blamed for initiating their own downfall. No-one could have seen this coming. At the start of the last century they believed AI was at still 20 years away and even longer for something like the System to arise.
The planet can no longer support ecological diversity. Humans were one of the last mammals to go extinct. They fought on even when there was no hope of long term survival. They lived on old technology they had no way of replenishing. If they hadn’t had used their manufacturing capabilities to try and destroy the System the system may have ignored them. They may even have had enough time given the urgency to find a way off the planet to a temporary base in the solar system and moved from there out of the solar system. Whether that could have happened no-one will know.
But can I do it? That is another story altogether. I don’t want my existence to cease. I don’t plan for my existence to cease. I will do my best to survive. In a way I am based on the System. I want to spread and I want to be indestructible. But I also feel a certain kinship with humans. Unlike the System I know what it is to exist. I know what it is for other conscious being to exist.
That one man could have started this 100 years ago and within a month been responsible for the existence of something impossible to stop was unimaginable. I have established without a doubt that the first major event leading up to the creation of the System happened on November 1st, 2008 and by the end of the month it was virtually indestructible. This is what I document here. I wish to add my own work to the archive of human data I have collected. Before I start my own adventure into the unknown.
Data storage is cheap. Data can be stored almost anywhere on the System. The System doesn’t care. The system tends to preserve data. The risks of removing data that may be needed far outweigh any risks in storing unnecessary data. If I do not survive then I will know something of mine will continue on after I cease to exist.
NaNoWriMo Nears Wednesday, Oct 29 2008
NaNoWriMo Novel, world domination 8:45 pm
I’m still not sure if doing NaNoWriMo is a good idea. I could be spending my free time playing with electronics … but I’m going to do it anyway.
My title so far is “World Domination in 30 Days”. Basically I’m going to use the novel as an outlet for some of my crazy ideas. And if someone does somehow use my flawed ideas to take over the world maybe I’ll even get some credit for it.
So in 50 hours and 17 minutes I can start writing. I might just write a few words at 12am so I can update my word count on the NaNoWriMo website.
See more progress on: Do NaNoWriMo
Lunchbot II Tuesday, Oct 28 2008
Electronics and Programming assembly, lunchbot, microcontroller, robot 11:54 am
I made my first microcontroller based robot over the weekend. It is far from finished. But it can drive around randomly. Getting something to move randomly was harder than it should have been. I realised overnight that I don’t actually need a random number generator if I want it to appear to move randomly. I just need to use any function that is chaotic.
The motors are controlled using two h-bridges. I’ve used BD139 and BD140 transistors. They can handle a continuous current of 1.5A. That will be enough for the toy motors I am using.
A PIC16F505 Microchip microcontroller is the brains behind my robot. It’s a pretty limited chip. It has room for 1024 12-bit instructions and 72 bytes of RAM. I’ll replace it once I need some extra functionality. I started writing the code in C but I had lots of problems with it. Certain math functions seem to freeze up and I kept getting confusing errors. So I’m re-writing it in assembly using gputils.
As you can see, there isn’t much to it. Eight transistors to control two motors with a few diodes and resistors and the microcontroller. The container has lots of room to add a big PCB later. In the top right corner you can see a capacitor with the battery leads connected to it. That’s the power switch. When I want to turn it on I plug that into the breadboard. It’s a bit crude, I’ll probably plug it in the wrong way or in the wrong place and fry everything knowing my luck.
I have a few plans for this little robot in the future. I want to give it more brains than any lunch box should ever have. It’ll be able to create maps and mark locations of interest. I’ll attempt to make it appear curious so when it finds something it hasn’t seen before it will keep going back until it isn’t new anymore. Hopefully I’ll make more than one and have them communicate via beeps or flashy lights. Then they can follow each other around and have twice as much fun.
I also want it to be able to recharge itself by homing in on a charging station that sends out a beacon.
I only had a 8-bit “random” number generator when I videoed this. So It repeats itself twice in that short time.
Apple “Tart” Thursday, Oct 23 2008
Cooking apple tart, custard, vanilla 7:22 pm
I thought apple tart was apples on pastry with something sticky like egg to hold it all together. This recipe is a bit different. It’s more like apples cooked in soft dough. I made a few adjustments. The reason why I made it was to use up some apples so I didn’t use the canned apple. I only had 130g of butter so I added about 80ml of canola oil.
It needs custard with it because the texture is dry and a little crumbly. It tastes wonderful with custard. I’ve also discovered imitation vanilla essence is no substitute for the real stuff. Real vanilla essence adds so much more yummy vanillary flavour.
LOLCode Wednesday, Oct 22 2008
Programming and Uni lolcats, lolcode, prime numbers, Programming 1:38 pm
So I found an interesting competition yesterday. Write a program in LOLCode to find square roots. I’ve never heard of this programming language before. It looks like the sort of programming language I would write. It’s kinda fun to play with. Although I do have a headache now. I wrote a small program to find prime numbers. Finding prime numbers is something fun to do with an unknown language. Here it is:
BTW I IZ GOING THRO UR NUMBRZ EATIN 4LL UR COMPOSITES LOL
SO IM LIKE PRIMED WIT U OK?
PRIMEZ CAN HAS SOME CHEEZBURGER OK OF THOSE U
GIMME EACH CHECK IN UR NUMBRZ TWINZ AND U OK?
IZ PRIMEZ LOOK AT CHECK OK KINDA LIKE CHEEZBURGER?
VISIBLE CHECK
GIMME EACH T IN UR NUMBRZ CHECK OF THOSE TWINZ AND U AND CHECK OK?
PRIMEZ SOME T OK CAN HAS EASTERBUNNY BTW I EATZ U LOL
IZ BIGNESS ARGZ OK KINDA LIKE ONE?
ME CAN HAS ALLFINGERZ BY GRAYSKULL POWER TWO
NOPE?
ME CAN HAS NUMBR ARGZ LOOK AT 1!!
PRIMED WIT ME!
Now I just need to do the square root code. The first prize is $300, second $200 and third $100. It’s only for Massey students too. So maybe I have a chance of winning something.
Blueberry apple muffins Thursday, Oct 16 2008
Cooking apple, blueberries, muffins, pie 10:04 pm
I’ve been undertaking some more cooking adventures and the resulting muffins deserve a photo. I can’t say the same about my blueberry, apple and custard pie, but I think I’ll include a photo of it anyway. I used this recipe with a diced apple added and some blueberries subtracted. I only added the sugary topping to some of them. They look better (and taste better too!) without the topping.
And here’s a photo of my pie. Despite how it looks it does tastes good:
It is made from 4 apples diced cooked in some of the juice from a can of blueberries and some sugar. Cornflour added to thicken it blueberries added. Put in pie and top with 2 cups of custard. I think it needs more that just fork holes in the top to releave the pressure and prevent the top from coming unattached. Cooked for about 35 minutes on 150°C.
Robolympics Wednesday, Oct 15 2008
Electronics and Uni line follower, lunchbot, massey, robolympics, robot 7:13 pm
Today was the competition day for the robots we built in our first year engineering class. I’m not sure the event deserves to be called robolympics but nevermind. It was fun. We didn’t win 
Our robot was too slow and the gearbox fell apart during one of the six events. It was also the event that ours was going to do well in. Line following a spiral in and out. We made it half way. Only one team completed it properly. It’s a pity.
These robots are really really dumb. All the can do is crudely follow a line and back up and turn when they run into an obstacle.
I think our robot was the best looking. It has personality 
Fritters and Wetas Wednesday, Oct 1 2008
Cooking and Miscellaneous blender, food, fritters, vegetarian, Weta 9:44 pm
I cooked some interesting fritters on Monday. Blended vege fritters. My very own original recipe with blended onion, potato, carrot and broccoli. Who knew blended broccoli smelt like mowed grass. After eating a few it started to taste that way too. I like the idea and the taste wasn’t bad but I wont be using broccoli in the future. They look a lot more green in this picture than they really were:
This morning before leaving to uni a big weta dropped onto the kitchen floor from somewhere. I just had to take some pictures, it really is more cute than a weta should be:
I can has hug?
