How to ride your bike to LaGuardia Airport
Biking to LGA is not only possible, it is sometimes the fastest (and always the most predicable) way to get there. Here’s how to do it…
Read moreA world without pain?
You can train yourself to not feel pain. Anyone can learn to do it in about 15 minutes. There are youtube videos. Continue reading
Pneumatic Hydraulics Are So Fricken Fun!!!!
How did I not know about Pneumatics before now?!? They are just like the hydraulics on your backhoe, except they are super cheap and easy and fun- and they don’t smell, won’t ruin your shirts, and won’t turn your arm into a meat pie (warning! gross!!!).
Today I share with you the full breadth of pnuematics wisdom that I’ve painstakingly acquired over the course the last 20 minutes so you can start playing with them too.
Full video after the break….
Porno for Pedophiles?
Thought experiment:
Assume someday the VR sex-machine experience gets so good that pedophiles would prefer to have a virtual encounter with a child than a real one.
Should the software that generates these experiences be illegal to create? Own? Use?
Thoughtful answers requested in the comments section.
FAQ
Q: Children are still harmed even with a VR only encounter.
A: Assume that all the characters in the VR simulation are completely computer generated and synthetic. If this is the case, then who is hurt- and how?
Q: Having access to VR porn would stoke pedophiles to action and create more victims.
A: In this thought experiment we are stipulating that the VR porn is preferable to real life and would supplant it for some people. This is not a necessarily hypothetical conceit.
Q: Why would the software be illegal? It is just 1’s and 0’s.
A: Things can get legally non-intuitive around this issue.
Q: You sick fuck.
A: I am not a pedophile. Instead, I am interested in thinking and talking about ways to potentially reduce or eliminate the harm that they do.
A software only solution to the vexing Beagle Bone Black PHY issue
Sometimes the Ethernet port on a Beagle Bone Black does not work on power up. It takes either a physical reset button press or a power cycle to fix it. This problem affects all BBB’s and until now could only be solved with hardware hacks.
The final official word from TI on this problem:
This sucks. If you are thinking of using a Beagle Bone Black for anything important… then don’t. And don’t bother reading the rest of this article.
If you already are stuck with the Beagle Bone Black and wish that it worked right each and every time you turn it on, then read this article.
Here is a workaround that can guarantee that an unmodified Beagle Bone Black will have a working Ethernet port within a few minutes after power up.
Continue readingQuick observations on looking for an NYC rental apartment
The NYC rental market is a deeply broken market. Things like rent control, high switching costs, and crazy tenant protection laws (that horribly hurt good tenants) cause mind bending distortions and completely disrupt the normal supply/demand balance.
If you are new to this market, get ready to learn some new rules.
Continue readingDeconstructing Kitty
“Google called, and josh.com needs more cats.”
So today we look inside these amazing cats that can somehow keep on wavin’ using less than 15 microwatts (!) of power. If you are into either ultra low-power or extreme design-for-manufacture, the you will want to see what is inside of these guys!
“What I can not create with an Arduino, I do not understand”, so we then proceed to recreate a lucky cat under Arduino digital control.
Stranded on a Deserted Isle with NitCoin
You and Nakimoto are stranded on a deserted island with nothing but your notebooks and pencils. Luckily you each have dual PhD’s in cryptography and macroeconomics, so everything is going to be OK – you will survive by your wits alone.
Make your BeagleBone Black am355x magically turn itself on with the built-in alarm clock
The am335x ARM chip in the BeagleBone Black has a Real Time Clock hidden inside that you can use to have the board spontaneously turn itself on anytime in the next 100 years.
Here I present a new utility to manage that built-in clock from the Linux command line, and explain how to use it to keep time, shutdown, software power cycle, and more!
“A man walks into a bank….” (A Bitcoin parable)
A man walks to a bank with a $1 million check.
M: I’d like to cash this check, please!