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Observations from an outlier

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Philips has a new led lightbulb coming soon for $12, but of course it doesn’t have wifi or bluetooth radios for that price. cheap and hackable led bulbs are being done on kick starter too (but also without a radio). this is because just the wifi radio costs $15 dollars. but.. is a sweet rgb…

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Here is a short video of us testing the elevation wheelchair with the disk brakes we designed. This project has been both frustrating and rewarding. The tiny details add up quickly. The disk brakes require a bit of extra chair width, and this can be deal breaker for most users. It can make getting into…

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testing the camera on the seawall. this is simply the goPo handle bar mount attached to my wheelchair. I imported into final cut and shared to youtube directly. I did the colour balance step after a few basic edits. be sure to try it in different resolutions. the 720p and 1080p version look really good….

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Jonah Lehrer: The Origins of Creative Insight & Why You Need Grit Do we sometimes pay too high a price for our dreams? Or worse, pick the wrong ones to follow? I remember having many conversations like this while making all the gear for rock climbing. It was NOT at all a practical goal (given…

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From drawing board to being ready to install in single day? Colin, same guy that is now selling wifi robots, salvaged an old power drill to go with the new Lithium-ion battery pack for my chair. More Ardiuno and IOIO protects are possible now that I have a power supply I can remove and charge…

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Solid state sensors and high torque servos are getting cheaper all the time, but it is the software methodologies that needed to change for walking to be considered a “primitive behavior”. Any kids learning about robots would, and should, assume that we have walking sorted. Getting back into standing from an unknown state, say on…

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Summer is in full swing and we are going to set up the climbing rig in Squamish on August 21st. We have done this route several times, but with everyone in different jobs. I’m going to put all the details here because much of the planning is buried in email and will be best to…

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In past posts, I’ve ranted about resistive vs capacitive screens for typing. Apple’s phone and tablet are great, but as a quad with poor hand function, most will prefer to use a finger nail to type. On my Nokia 5800 this works well and the new firmware has better smooth scrolling (inertia in the flicking…

As part of the Annual CSEP Conference, I was invited to give an hour talk on our rock climbing efforts. Presenter 2: Brad Zdavinsky (VerticalChallenge.org) •Overcoming Obstacles: The Story of a Tetraplegic’s Drive to Beat the Odds and Challenge Beliefs in His Pursuit to Climb (15:00-16:00) (not my title) My slides as a PDF (NOTE:…

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I’ve seen “Dr K” at his clinic and recommend him to anyone dealing with Autonomic Dysreflexia (AD). I’ve copied an article here to make sure it doesn’t disappear. http://www.webcommunications.ubc.ca/ubc2010/2009/04/28/researcher-aims-to-end-paralympic-boosting/ Dr. Andrei Krassioukov wants the International Paralympic Committee to change how athletes are evaluated – Photo by Martin Dee If Dr. Andrei Krassioukov gets his way,…

I never thought I’d say it, but Windows 7 is good, great even! I got my hands on a Beta copy and installed it.. and it all worked. Yes, everything worked first time with no snags. Admittedly I had low expectations thinking of past installs and driver nightmares, but not one dialog box asking for…

Is Symbian going to make it on mobile devices? I’ve used java a long time now and hoped the fragmentation would be sorted out for by now. My first experience with S60 was pretty shocking. Sun’s SDK for wireless devices is actually really good, but runs on the emulator generally won’t on the actual device….