Being quite old now (relatively) I have now been through several PCs. My first custom build, a rebuild, and several other pcs that have made their way into my collection. They are all previous generation intel Pentium 4’s and Celerons. They litter corners of rooms, lofts, cupboard, and garages. The question is what to do […]
While trying to work out how you would model dependency inversion and how it would looked in UML, I came across an image of a person soldering some wires directly into a wall socket. This was an interesting way to describe how dependency inversion decouples software components to essentially make them pluggable. One of my […]
I am in the market for a 3D Printer. The problem is funding it. As always I’m interested in the less expensive and more educational DIY varieties. With a meager budget of £300 – £500 there isn’t a lot of choice. However, there are two 3D printers that stand out. The RepRap Prusa Mendel and […]
While the title makes me sound like a substance abuser I assure you I can anything but. A gambler? I don’t think I qualify. Although gambling does play a small role. I have been playing online poker since I was old enough to open account, that was more than 10 years ago. I consider myself […]
Preliminary thoughts about how to build the irrigation system is to divide the system into several independent parts. The power system – a solar powered system that uses a 12v rechargeable battery. The water distribution system – a normally closed 12v solenoid valve that is opened for 5-10 mins each day. The timing system – […]
My mum, bless her grew up as a simple farmer in the rural back-end of Vietnam. She spent most of her childhood working in the rice paddies. 50 years on, and she still enjoys growing vegetables and plants. She probably wouldn’t admit it but I believe she gets a sense of achievement when the vegetables […]
Working in a Chinese takeaway, we have an old school way of doing things. Pen and paper. Its fast, its cheap, its easy to use. However, lately we have been considering how information technology could help alleviate some of the short-comings that our antiquated system has. After a little fantasizing, day-dreaming, blue sky thinking … […]
A year of so ago I came across the Arduino. A handsome looking programmable prototyping board. After which I discovered the world of Makers and Make Magazine. A bunch of geeks creating cool looking gadgets and robots. I love engineering and innovation, and creating stuff from scratch, and seeing all these people do it makes […]