HacDC

This summer I took my first vacation in years. I spent half of my summer in India. While I was in India I got to work at the hospital of a service ashram doing IT development work. The work done was almost entirely related to desktop Linux, a topic that has grown in leaps and bounds over the past decade.

Click “Read More” below to read the story of introducing desktop Linux to a hospital in India.

Will

Once again, HacDC is planning to launch a near-space balloon this weekend (on Saturday if conditions permit) to capture pictures of the Earth's horizon. To learn about the blimp's behavior and to assist in the recovery, the payload sends packets of sensor data through the Automatic Packet Reporting System, a quite interesting amateur-radio-based system to distribute real-time information through a repeater network. This time, however, we are parsing this data to send it through a number of useful communication channels.

One of these includes a voice phone number, 202-559-1100, powered by Twilio's phone application API. By calling this number during the day, people will have the opportunity to listen to the current data about the blimp's status and location and to receive SMS messages with the same information, including direct links to Google Maps. The flight team will also have the option of recording updates into the phone menu system. And there will be a Twitter feed with the data at @hacdcspaceblimp.

Unfortunately, however, the recovery team is capped according to the "Hackerspaces in Space" contest rules, so we do have to warn against any enterprising people from taking this information and tracking the payload down themselves. However, if you are interested in being involved, there may be opportunities to observe the launch and recovery this weekend.

We also will update this blog with details on the final launch time!

As previously mentioned by Todd F., a team of HacDC'ers are participating in the Hacker-spaces in Space competition...

We've put together an Atmel ATmega based TNC (Terminal Node Controller) to send out position reports over a VHF radio link using APRS (Amateur Radio Position Reporting System) and are now testing antennas.

We have been shopping for balloons, bottled gas, cord, and other various bits. Tom C. got a worn out parachute donated to us by Skydive Orange. Mark A. & family are busy making a parachute and polystyrene capsules. Nick is building a surface mount board for the TNC, GPS, transmitter module and cut down circuits. It looks like we'll easily make the weight budget and cost.

Many of us are acquiring radio licenses and honing radio skills to learn how to track the beacon and coordinate chase teams. We are learning how to study radiosonde data and use flight planning software to figure the best best launch locations.

Many thanks to the Vienna Wireless Society for much help and for letting us watch their very successful May 1 flight (photoset by Mark A.).

We anticipate a full-up test flight mid-June. You're welcome to join us on the mailing list.

(This post was drafted by Martin R. Thanks, Martin!)

In honor of Columbus Day, the AVR class took a night off from "formal" instruction and messed around with noisemakers.  Specifically, using analog-to-digital conversion techniques to control the pitch of a square wave run through a small speaker.  Hilarity ensued.  (Follow along with us at the

• By hexagon5un at 10/17/2008 - 10:44am
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Mitch Altman, microcontroller hacker extraordinaire and inventor of wonderful gadgets like the TV-B-Gone will be at HacDC on Sunday, September 7 at 2:00 PM to help show you how to build your own Brain Machine. Mitch will be bringing all the parts, tools and inspiration necessary, all you need to do is show up!

The event is free and open to the public, however, if you want to build your own Brain Machine, bring $25 to cover the cost of the kit.  (HacDC will be purchasing some kits you can help build if you don't want to take one home.)

The truth is, we are more than our credit scores.  Who gave 3 companies the right to use secret calculations to determine if we qualify for credit, for a job, or even renting a house.  We did.  Credit scores are used everywhere as a standard measure of character.  But the truth is, humanity can't be summed up by looking at open lines of credit and how close you are to your credit limit.  Did using your credit card to replace your fridge for your family devalue you as a

[caption id="attachment_78" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="what I see through the beauty of 2x *sigh*"][/caption] This weekend has been full of rocking out the surface-mount soldering for my current project - Building the Proxmark3.

We're having our first meeting, to discuss the roadmap for the multi-touch interactive display (MTID), on Wednesday July 30th at 7:30pm.

Thanks to DCist - http://tinyurl.com/5spogg - I got inspired to rip apart an extra SmarTrip card I had lying around for when friends/family visit me in the D.C. area. Unfortunately for them, they will now have to buy the day-long pass until I am done playing! To start, today I took the extra card and soaked it in acetone for about an hour and after that time I was able to rip off the initial plastic of the card.

The latest rage in computer user interfaces is known as 'multi-touch'. Multi-touch is essentially a touch screen and software that recognizes multiple simultaneous touch points. Multi-touch provides a radical interface and opens up a new ecosystem of computing applications that do not rely on a separate mouse or keyboard. Probably the easiest method for building a multi-touch interface is to take advantage of a property known as Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR).