Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.
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Now that it’s assembled and tested and such I’ve listed x0xb0x #888 for auction on eBay, with a starting bid of $1. If any of you are interested in buying it outside of eBay, let me know and we can work something out. I hope to get about US$800 for it, but I’d accept US$700 for it outside of eBay and PayPal, as this would allow me to avoid various fees.
Leave a CommentWhen working on electronics projects I tend to order parts from Mouser or Digi-Key, with a preference given to Mouser because of their lower costs and my familiarity with their site. However, the experience I’m having right now with selecting parts for building the AMB γ1 illustrates the complications one often runs into when ordering a large BOM.
Here’s the assumptions I must work under:
· Mouser is usually cheaper than Digi-Key.
· Mouser often has particular parts available in smaller quantities than Digi-Key does.
· Digi-Key has a wider variety of less common parts, like (in this case) a TOSLINK receiver.
· Digi-Key has what amounts to a $25 minimum order. Mouser has none.
· Almost every part I need is available from Mouser, making it difficult to reach the Digi-Key minimum.
This, combined with a 74-line BOM, makes for quite a bit of work just selecting parts for a hobbiest device.
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I have an idea for selling more salad dressing: suggesting that people combine dressings at home for new, exciting, experimental flavors. The key here is to cross-promote flavors so that people will buy both their normal dressing and a flavor which they wouldn’t otherwise purchase.
The marketing would be easy, as the salad dressing company simply has to supply a recipe book (such as the one which introduced us to the Fiberccino) which suggests multi-flavor dressing combinations. These combinations can be chosen by looking at data detailing who buys what flavors, then ensuring that only one of the two dressings for those chosen recipes are regularly purchased by a particular demographic.
Flavors such as Crete (Greek & Thousand Island), Morricone (Tuscan Italian & Ranch), and Absolute Power (Russian & Caeser) are sure to win people over and, of course, sell more dressing!
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Danielle and I had some excellent jacket potatos at a pub we visited with Dominic on the same day we took a tour of Fuller’s Griffin Brewery. Wanting the same sort of thing for dinner tonight, I put together this, from a baked (Idaho) potato and shredded cheddar cheese, topped with mushrooms, garlic, and black pepper that were fried in copious amounts of butter and olive oil. The oil was poured over everything to lubricate the potato a bit more and give it that unhealthy pub food feeling.
To keep the experience as pub-like as possible I’m eating it (as I type this) with a glass of lager. Rochester Mills’ Lazy Daze Lager, to be precise.
The verdict? Outstanding. Absolutely excellent.
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For Christmas I received some air which has been exhaled by a Chinese person into a Bodum Bistro double-walled mug.
Go globalization!
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VMware Fusion, for some reason, identifies the G1 as ‘High Android Phone’ when connected via USB. OS X only sees it as ‘Android Phone’ and Vista (once the drivers are installed) sees it as both ‘Android Phone’ and ‘HTC Dream Composite ADB Interface’.
(Thanks to the generosity of a friend I’ve recently come into possession of a T-Mobile G1 phone running Google’s Android. It’s only costing an extra $20/mo for unlimited data, so I’ve been using full time since I received it. It’s really nice, and I’m sure I’ll write more about the phone, its OS, and the dev tools later.)
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Being one of the coldest nights of the year (thus far), I decided to go for a bike ride. After a bit over a mile I had to go back in because my fingertips were becoming incredibly painful. At a few points while riding right into the wind my head became quite cold as well, but other than that I was quite comfortable. Something other than the waterproof / cold weather Gavia gloves and the thin head covering thing I have are definitely required if I want to do more riding like this.
(Here’s another version of that same photo, with flash.)
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That’s that. x0xb0x #888 is done. Now I just have to sell it.
Part of me hopes that this is the last x0xb0x that I ever build, but not the last 303 clone. More and more ideas have been swimming around my head about making a newer, better version of something similar to, but definitely not, the x0xb0x.
Leave a CommentDanielle is looking at acquiring a BlackBerry Curve 8320 with service via T-Mobile. When purchased via T-Mobile directly it costs $99 after rebate, but when purchased via Amazon it is -$99 after rebate. Yes, a negative number… Amazon has really low prices on phones, for some reason.
The intention is to sign up for the phone and then cancel the data plan, leaving her with 600 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, and a 400 text minutes per month for $39.99.
So, that gets to my question… I’m curious if any of you have any opinions about this phone. BlackBerries in general seem to be pretty decent devices, but do any of you have an opinion on this one?
If you are wondering why she would get a phone generally designed for data but without a data plan, the intention is to have something which meets X requirements:
Leave a Comment· Doesn’t flip or slide open, as these mechanics and their associated flexible PCBs / cables tend to fail before the rest of the phone.
· Has actual tactile switch / electromechanical buttons, and not touch-surface buttons, as these tend to become less (or overly) responsive over time.
· Has a full keyboard, to facilitate text messaging.
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As mentioned yesterday I made tapioca pudding. It’s quite good, but as the texture isn’t as smooth as I’d hoped for; I think that I whipped the egg whites a bit much before folding them in. The recipe said that they need to be stiff peaks, which is what I did. Unfortunately this made folding them in akin to stirring shaving cream and warm ice cream.
That said, it tasted very good.
However, if one lets some dry on the inside of a cup, say, while the cup sits on one’s desk all day at work that cup will smell of death. And by death I mean rotting eggs. And not rotting eggs in the good, wholesome sulfur dioxide fart-esque smell. No, just rotting animal parts.
I will definitely be making this again in the future.
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