Saturday, November 21, 2020

Trump, Biden And Arduino

Super short thought today.

Maybe the worst thing about politicizing everything in life is the way it diverts people's energy from improving their own lives to talking politics. That's also a feature of having a massive government and regulations that reach into almost every aspect of our lives. When you step back and think about what makes a difference to you and your family, it's what you and your family choose to do, not who wins an election. That's why all those ads saying that voting was the most important thing you could do drove me nuts.

The government is huge and politics is the dominant topic on the airwaves, but it's not where any of us should be trying to make the most difference in our lives. Crazy.

On the plus side, my Arduino learning kit showed up and I'm hoping to have some time to play with it this weekend. It was bought so I could create a time-lapse photography thingamabob and film my plants as they grow next year, but looking through the materials, I've already got some more ideas.

One idea would be to install photo sensors in my MGB so the headlights would turn on whenever it got dark. This is going to be fun.

In other news, I made Smoked Chicken with Alabama White Sauce again last night. I can't get enough of it. It's sublime.

2 comments:

Mostly Nothing said...

I have two links to politics, you and the Garage Logic podcast. I try to ignore it everywhere else as much as possible. As it is politics has nearly defeated me. Since I lump politicians with the Airline and residential construction industries. That is to say, all of them lie all the time, and only inadvertently tells the truth. 28 years in my house and I still can't get over my builder.

Anyway, the sensors in the MG sound interesting. I think the complexity is going to need a lot of careful design. The MG is so extremely simple, and you are making yourself into a DPO. I know the arduino is very very low power, but you do need to think about the alternator on that thing, it is also low power.

What are the California laws relating to that? In MN, a universally ignored regulation is that if you have your wipers on you have to have your lights on. I have lately been wondering why new cars even have light switches anymore, why aren't they just all always on? New cars pretty much all have "new" technology lighting that is much more efficient, so energy usage is much less than those old lights of the 70s and before. A busy-body can easily make the argument that it would be much safer. Much like when the 3rd taillight was mandated. For the 1st 6 months, being a novelty, they probably did contribute to reducing accidents. But when was the last time you noticed them?

I got myself a new Raspberry Pi 4 in the last month. And VMware has a hypervisor for it. So I've been playing with that trying to get it installed. Just because I can.

Foxfier said...

In other news, I made Smoked Chicken with Alabama White Sauce again last night.

You also made me bite my tongue to keep from yelling "Spatchcock!" and confusing my in-laws. :D