Like many of my co-workers, I jumped on the Wii bandwagon. I've been able to enjoy many of the classic games again. Last night I started playing Kirby's Adventure when I noticed that Kirby started moving for me without any intervention. He kept squatting and moving right. I could move the D-Pad or analog stick on the classic controller or the Wii Remote up and left and that would keep him still. Let's try Legend of Zelda, surely the problem isn't across all games. Yikes! Link is moving down and to the right as well!

Batteries, surely this must be it. Even though the Wii home menu showed full power I figured maybe this would fix it. I couldn't figure out why a controller would drift on low batteries, but maybe this would help. Nope.

Restart the game. Maybe because the virtual console allows it to suspend, the down-right got locked in to the emulator. Nope, restarting the game changed nothing.

Resync the controller! Yes, maybe? Now Link is moving only to the right! Uh resync again. Now he's moving down and to the right again. Yarr.

Check the forums. Aha, someone else has had a similar problem, but didn't post a solution.

What then what is the problem?

My Wii is nestled between the 5-disc DVD changer and has about 5 inches of clearance to the edge of the entertainment cabinet. My co-worker Dan Noland let me borrow a gamecube controller. When I packed the controller away last night, the gamecube controller's analog stick was pressed down and to the right. The gamecube controller, classic controller, and Wii Remote were all fighting for Player 1. When I resynced the Wii Remote that inadvertently mildly bumped the controller. When I resynced the Wii Remote again that bumped the stick a bit more.

Lesson learned. Keep the gamecube controller unplugged, or keep the gamecube controller from leaning against the analog stick!

Rick writes:

This is AWESOME!! The power that is Google has brought this page and I together. Do you think a USB -> Serial adapter would work on the same code?

As long as the adapter pinouts supply enough voltage to switch the relay (and current for that matter) it should "Just Work TM".

Paul writes:

Hi Joe
Have just come accross your page on how to control a relay via the serial port. I am doing a small project that controls a relay using 3rd party software but looking at your solution I would love to let the computer control it. All i have to do is turn on the relay for 1 sec every time a program is run. I have looked at your code but cant understand it as I have very little experience. My software allows me to run .exe files so it would be neat if it your code could be compiled into an .exe file, can this be done.
Many Thanks
Paul

Pending his response I'll probably be posting a binary soon that toggles the serial port on/off for a given amount of time.

Sebastian just demonstrated proficiency in using a mouse. Not bad for a two year old.

I'm back at work finally. I'll expand days 7-13 when I'm not at work. It's good to be back, and there is still much to do. That being said... back to work!

Tuesday - Unpack and Rest

Monday - Drive back to NC

Sunday - Visit with Christine, and head back to Charlotte, Celebrate New Year's Eve with Stephanie & Stephen and friends.

Saturday - What should have been 6 hours of travel became 12 hours

Friday - Travelling to FL and Bowl game

Thursday - Travelling to SC

Wednesday - Taking care of the kiddos

Tuesday -

Monday - Christmas morning started with Sebastian at 6am on the dime. Since all the presents had been open prior to the day intended, it looked like it might be a slow day. As it turns out, it was very eventful.

At 6:10am, Sebastian and I went downstairs to begin breakfast. He was hungry. A bowl of frosted mini-wheats later, Nana came downstairs to begin preparation of the annual Biscuits and Gravy, and Toast and Creamed Eggs. Sebastian enjoyed second breakfast and soon the whole house was active preparing for 9am mass.

The rest of the day was consumed with games and eating.

Sunday - Christmas Eve had arrived. We opened presents with the Abbeys, and I believe we all shared in the happiness of giving and receiving.

The most notable gift I got was Programming Python. While I do currently prefer Perl, that is probably only because I know it best. The scripts I tend to write rely heavily on Perl's tight integration with regular expression searching, or utilizing the weak-typing with flexible built-in data structures like the associative array. However, I do agree that Perl can be difficult to maintain.

Anyway, many folks at work use Python and it seems to be listed a requirement for getting a job at RedHat. Regardless, it's yet another book to add to my growing library of quality computer books. I've collected a mish-mosh over the years and really want to improve the signal to noise ratio.

So after opening gifts, we packed up the van said our good-byes, and headed off to Charlotte, NC. The boys were on best behaviour AGAIN! They both slept 3 out of the 3.5 hours. We were greeted by a smiling Stephanie Guild and Cindy Hellmann. Shortly thereafter we headed downstairs to meet the rest of the family and the Hellmann family visit had begun. After losing terribly to Corey Testerman and Stephen Guild, Greg Hellmann and I determined that Stephen must have stinky feet.

If the morning weren't enough gift giving, we decided that it would be easiest to go ahead and open gifts tonight. I got another book to add to the library, Design Patterns. The boys received a multitude of plastic toys that will be entertaining for years to come. An excellent end to an already wonderful day.

Saturday - Dad went into work at Lowes in the early AM. Kristen woke up feeling awful and spent a great deal of the day in bed. It was up to me to take care of the two wee little men. It truly is an exhausting full time job to be a single parent.

Sebastian, Will, Michael, Mom & I had a pretty enjoyable day. We decided that we should have Christmas dinner today. It was yet another delicious dinner prepared by my mother. Turkey, real mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, rolls, gravy, and other yummy items were on the menu. Fortunately, Kristen was feeling well enough to eat dinner. The boys went to sleep without great fuss, and the rest of the crowd watched Unbreakable.

Friday - Since the day was filled with rainfall, my brother and I decided it would be fun to go to the fitness center at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston. There we played five games of racquetball. He was a bit out of practice, but I believe good times were had by all. That night the whole family sat down for a rousing game of Apples to Apples.

Thursday - After only three hours of sleep, I woke up with Sebastian placing my shoes in my face. I guess he wanted me to get up. So we had a nice breakfast and awaited my Mom and brother to return from NC. After lunch the boys went down for a nap, and my dad and I had a nice conversation about kernel synchronization and hard drive design considerations (NERDS!). I was describing the methods used to protect critical sections in parallel processing, and that made him ask about hysteresis in hard drives. I told him I didn't know much about E&M but I could probably find some folks who know. As the conversation was winding to a close we got a call from my mom and Mike. They had arrived, after Mike's visit with old friends. It was nice to see them both again. Not long after they arrived, we piled in to the van, and went on the hunt for a Christmas tree... bout time eh? Two hours later with Christmas tree in hand, we were hungry dinner. Mom and Dad treated us to their favorite Chinese restaurant in the Summerville area. The atmosphere was very nice, and it certainly was one of the nicest chinese buffets I've every seen.

That night after the boys went to bed, we watched an episode of Grey's anatomy. Not longer after the end of that episode, my brother and I engaged in the time-honored fraternal bond of horseplay. Apparently being in the armed services gives you alot of time to exercise. He has become a very formidable opponent.

More to come!

Wednesday - We ended up leaving West Lafayette around 1:45pm and the boys, Kristen, and I were excited to embark on the first 780 miles of the 2800 total miles to travel. Since it was around naptime the boys eventually entered a nice slumber shortly after leaving Tippecanoe County. William woke up briefly in Indianapolis to stick out his tongue suck his thumb, and then return to sleeping.

After we were on the road for about two hours we decided to take a break to grab some lunch. An hour and a half later (it was a long break!) we were back on the road. We stopped again, and then got back on track. Ultimately we got in to Ladson, SC at 2:45am and were very happy to see Grandpa Joe.

Today I received the complimentary PowerPrep software from registering for the GRE. The application deadline for Fall 2007 admittance was Dec 15th... I took the GRE back in October.

Now thats... timing.

I think Schneier captured it best:

"Remember to vote, everyone (in the US). If you don't, there's no chance your vote will be counted correctly."

It's $_SESSION not $SESSION.

*sigh*

Now I have working sessions with train & track 2.0!

Happy Halloween!

Let's say you want to implement something like a two-column ledger in TWiki. So that everyone in your organization can access the financial data, edit it, and audit each other. But you only really want to edit the data in one place, and have genereal reports and stuff like that. Furthermore, you're picky and don't want see the same table multiple times

So rather than using php and a database, let's use the wiki. This assumes you have a TWiki, and that you have a basic understanding of the Spread Sheet Plugin:

First create an AccountsReceivable topic, and set a variable. The example I'm giving sets a variable that is the sum of all debits in a table.


%CALC{"$SET(accountsReceivableDebits, $SUM(R2:C2..R5:C2))"}%


Now to "access" the variable in another topic without seeing the topic, we get to do some CSS trickery. Create a new topic, BookKeeping for instance:


<STYLE type="text/css">
.hidden
{ position:absolute;
left:0px;
top:-500px;
width:1px;
height:1px;
overflow:hidden;
}
</STYLE>
<div class="hidden">
%INCLUDE{"AccountsReceivable"}%
</div>


The CSS listed above will hide the inclusion of the AccountsReceivable entry, and will allow you to "access" all variables declared in the AccountsRecievable topic.

Enjoy!

On boingboing.net, there was more of a discussion of DRM. I just wanted to make note of this.

Benjamin Franklin Somebody once said:

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I think in times such as these with the Patriot Act, NSA AT&T stuffs, and proposed bills, we should remember the words of our forefathers somebody.

Edited 4:02pm

I am reminded by Dan Noland to RTFM.. and in the URL for Ben Franklin's quotes it says that he probably didn't actually utter the quote. Regardless, the idea is sound... whoever said it.

Forge:

v.
1. To form (metal, for example) by heating in a forge and beating or hammering into shape.
2. To give form or shape to, especially by means of careful effort: forge a close relationship
3. To fashion or reproduce for fraudulent purposes; counterfeit: forge a signature

"forge." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 14 Sep. 2006.
http://www.answers.com/topic/forge

Lots of project, two kids... busy man.

I recently purchased a lot of 6 juiceboxes.. the Mattel video thinger. Apparently it runs Linux, and is hackable, but it seems like not many folks have aggressively tapped this.

I've been gearing up for the Half Marathon.

That's all for now.