Adorable!

Much cuter than these creepy mall santa shots.

Laetificus Saturnalia.

Merry Christmas!

Any particular traditions people enjoy doing? My family wasn't feeling too festive this year, and didn't even get a tree, but we stuck to a few Christmas Eve traditions, mainly a couple movies* we watch on the night every year, and going to our church. Tomorrow night is the tradition of inviting our Jewish friends over for Christmas dinner (going on at least 20 years strong now ).

Anyway, it's a tough Christmas this year, but it's great to have friends and family. Hope you all have a great one!


*not sure if anyone else here has seen it, but I highly recommend the TV production of "A Child's Christmas in Wales." Denholm Elliot reads this story like no other. I could simply listen to the narration and feel an instant sense of calm.

Merry Christmas all.

Strangely enough, none of the gifts this year use batteries.

Happy day after Christmas.

Here in Minnesota we had a snow storm over the past few days. Everyone freaked out and canceled some the larger extended family get togethers. We still made it to the immediate family stuff though so it was probably better that way. Those extended family ones aren't all that fun anyway

Since getting married there is much more rushing around because we have to go more than one place in a day.

Also our poor Shih Tzu had to ride around in the are a lot which she doesn't like. She gets freaked out and pants the whole time she doesn't jump around just lays there and pants really heavy. (anyone have suggestions for helping with that )

So, did anyone get anything especially good for Christmas? From my wife: some great graphic novel collections (the first 3 hardcovers of Powers and the trade paperback of I Kill Giants) and an IOU for the sold-out FitBit, among other things. From mom, a shiny Zune HD and Zune Pass.

The Zune's interface is simply gorgeous. It's going to take quite a bit of time to work out some of the UI quirks, but when it looks that pretty I don't mind spending some time with it.

And if you haven't checked out Powers (and you like comics), please do. I know it's not exactly unknown, but I still try to bring it to folks' attention. It's currently tied with Y the Last Man for me as my favorite comic. And please check out I Kill Giants. It moved me quite a bit reading it, particularly with the year I've had. It's a little gem of a book.

If you didn't already know, Powers is being made into a TV show.

I got a Chumby One.

I was aware, but didn't know about the showrunner. I loved Journeyman.

Here's a cut and paste from my Livejournal about an inexpensive thing that made me very happy:

We're all sitting around the TV, watching "Die Hard" because Seanan hadn't ever seen it. Plus, it's a Christmas movie. A completely different kind of Christmas movie than Grinch or Wonderful Life, but a Christmas movie nonetheless. Plus, Alan Rickman. You can't go wrong with Alan Rickman. (Side note: We all want a sweatshirt now.)

So we're watching it from a DVD, which is playing on the Playstation 3. The PS3 is great for watching DVDs in terms of sound and picture quality, but the pain of having to use the PS3 game controller to pause or rewind a DVD is nearly unbearable. When you pick up the controller, it's either already powered itself off to save battery charge, or you accidentally bump one of its soft finger triggers and inadvertently skip forward a chapter.

We've got a fantastic universal remote, but the Playstation doesn't have an infrared transceiver, so you can't use the remote with it. Each time someone curses at the PS3 controller, I have to explain that I need to get the proper "doohickey" (technical term) that lets me control the PS3 videos with the remote.

So Vixy takes a present out from under the tree and makes me open it, despite my protests that it's two days early, since we're not doing presents until Tuesday. And what do you know, it was an honest to goodness doohickey!

After industrial-lasering the blister packaging open, I was worried about having to interrupt the playback of Die Hard to make the doohickey work. I figured it would need some kind of setup or configuration. But the amazing thing is, I plugged it in during the movie and it just worked. Plug in the doohickey, and suddenly I can pause and unpause the movie in progress without touching the game controller. That's what amazed me: A tech gadget that actually Just Worked Exactly Like You'd Expect It To. No rebooting the console, no having configure it via setup menus, nothing. Just plug it in, and poof it works. Now that's a good OOBE. (We're going to disregard for a moment that a better OOBE would have been for the PS3 to have had an IR transcever built-in in the first place.)

A few prods at the Universal remote, and now that works, too. The Nyko's only drawback seems to be the lack of a dedicated power button for turning the console on and off, but I don't think that's their fault, the doohickey probably just emulates a game controller, which doesn't have a dedicated button for that purpose either (you have to select a menu option, i.e., multiple keystrokes, to turn off the console from the game controller).

So are you using the Nyko remote or did you just get it for the dongle and use a universal remote ?

One of the things I got was an official sony ps3 remote. The only thing I don't like is I can't run the TV volume. Yeah I know it's using bluetooth for the ps3 but that doesn't mean they can't also put an IR transmitter on the remote so it could run my TV.

There were many movies give to various people but the one we ended up watching was Caddyshack when two people said they had never seen it.

My wife got the laptop from dell that I didn't think would make it Link . On the 24th I got an email from Dell saying it has shipped and would arrive on the 16th yikes !

I got a Schmartz IR500 instead. It does require that you do some very minor setup — the same that you'd have to do if you got an official Sony remote — but not needing to waste one of the PS3's USB ports, and not having a big dongle hanging off it either, is nice.

It's basically just an IR-to-Bluetooth bridge. You can power it off of an AC adapter or from a USB port, though not the PS3's USB port, as it's turned off when it's off. I have it powered from one of the useless USB ports on the back of my TiVo. And it's thin enough that it sits between the feet of my AV receiver, so it's virtually invisible.

It also has a macro built in to turn the PS3 off. It just takes one IR code to activate it, so you don't have to point your remote at the thing for liek 20 seconds while it does all of its stuff.

I'd highly recommend it. It's only drawback is its price.

The latter. Yeah, if I hadn't cared about the IR universal remote, I could have just used the PS3 bluetooth remote. But making full use of the universal remote is important to me, and to the other members of my household who all need to be able to use the dozens of pieces of gear hooked up to the TV set.



Nifty device. The built-in macro for shutting down the PS3 is a great idea. I might be able to accomplish the same task in my universal remote's programming features, I'm going to give that a try tonight.

I opted for the official Sony bluetooth DVD remote. I keep forgetting that it's bluetooth and I always point it at the PS3, though :-)

When I finally get around to getting a proper home cinema setup, I'll have to deal with the universal remote implications, though.

Oh, and you can shut down the PS3 by holding the 'PS' button until the menu appears. Shutdown System is one of the options on there, then press X to select Yes. You should be able to set up an Off macro easily enough, surely?

Is it always that way, even if two game controllers are powered on?

I've seen that "hold the PS button" menu look different (and require different keystrokes) depending on what's happening on the system at the time and where you are in the menu structure (are you playing a game, playing a DVD, etc.)

But yes, it's my intent to create an off macro, I just need to make sure I'm taking everything into account when I do it.

It's always the same button combo to power off the system. The menu adds new choices at the bottom depending on if the system is in a game or other conditions, but the top two are always the same.

That's not the way I remember it. Are you sure?

I could swear that sometimes "Turn off the system" is the top highlighted choice, and sometimes "Turn off the system" is the third item down and you have to joystick-down a couple times to reach it.

I may be remembering it wrong...

(belated) Merry Christmas and "Joyful Season's Greetings" to all the empeg brethren!

The geekiest (or 'techiest'?) thing I received was a thumb drive.

It was a very simple celebration- quite welcome.
Good friends and a lot of family around.

An Arduino Nano v3.0, with which I intend to (finally) do something about this.

I was too busy working to ever give anyone any hints, or even update my Amazon Wishlist (which, BTW, will now allow you to include products from other web sites). As such, I only got one "real" present: a Shun Nakiri knife, which I had mentioned to my wife previously, but had forgotten about. It's a very nice knife. Despite its profile, it's very thin and is actually a vegetable knife, though it works well for boneless meats. It's definitely not a cleaver, though.

If anyone is in the market for nice kitchen knives, I wholeheartedly recommend Shun. They are incredibly sharp. I have a small set of Henckels knives and if I had it to do over again, I would definitely get the Shuns. I definitely need to get the old knives sharpened now.

Bookmarked. Thanks!

Have you tried a ceramic one? I got one for Christmas a couple of years ago, and it was sharper than any steel knife I've used, and still is. The first time I tried it, it cut an ordinary small tomato into forty slices, most of which were basically transparent.

You can't use them for anything that puts any twisting force on the blade (boning meat) because they aren't flexible like steel, but for straight-up-and-down slicing of vegetables, chicken fillets etc., I'd say they're definitely worth the rather high price.

Peter

Ooo, I've wanted one of those. That one looks quite nice, too. Is that the same Kyocera as the electronics company?

Do they break when a twisting cut is attempted?

Matt... Same Kyocera.

Mark... If you're looking for a good deal on Kyocera blades, check out HomeSense if you have one in your area - they frequently have a couple in stock at steep discounts.

For Americans... "HomeSense" is the "home" sales component of the store "Winners" which is the same store as "TJ Max" in the US.

Most of the large Japanese corporations produce a vast variety of products and have a lot of different departments or smaller companies under the overall corporate umbrella.

An example would be Panasonic make rice cookers along with high tech electronics like phones.

Yes, they break. If you apply torque while the edge is cut into something then the blade will chip. I've chipped mine on butternut squash, even -- doesn't need to be bones or the like.

You need to use good knife skills with it, which I learned the hard way by chipping the crap out of mine. You can't resharpen it on your own, it needs to be sent to the manufacturer to be reground.

That said, it's a fantastic knife. They make a paring knife now for about $30 which is really great. I also just picked up a Kyocera vegetable peeler with the same ceramic blade technology. That is a perfect application, and it's the best peeler I've ever used.

The Shun knives are awesome. I got Melanie a Shun Bob Kramer chef's knife and it's just ridiculous.

I think it's really true that you only need 3 knives for cooking, so you're better off getting 3 super-high quality knives than a whole set of trash.

After my experience with both, I'd say get a Kyocera for your paring knife and stick with high-quality steel for the chef's knife.

Jim

I have a ceramic jackknife that I mostly use when working around electricity or electronics. It is quite sharp, but it's ground to a relatively obtuse bevel, which makes it not so useful as a kitchen knife.

I'm certainly working on instinct, but it feels to me like a disposable product, which I hate. Yeah, I know, it's supposed to last for a long time, but any damage is likely to render it unrepairable, thus making it disposable.

The term you're looking for is keiretsu, or, in the case of Korean companies, chaebol. (I hang out with too many unabashed Japanophiles.)

I'd go even further to say that you really only need one great knife. You can do pretty much all your cutting with a chef's knife.

That said, I have 3 chef's knives. A 12", 8" and an 8" santoku. All Wüsthof Classic. The other knives are more of a luxury and get used far less frequently. Bread knife which is also awesome for cured meats like chorizo and salami, paring knife and narrow kitchen knife (this is the one I pretty much never use, though my wife likes it).

I want to add a tomato knife to the collection, even though I don't eat raw tomato - it's great for cheeses and also cured meats and other odd and ends. I also need a long meat fork, but so infrequently that I haven't picked one up yet.

Which would make the American version "HomeGoods".

"TJ Maxx", BTW.

I just tried it on a lime (an Arabian/Mexican lime, not a key lime), and got about 35-ish slices out of it, not counting the discarded ends. Not that I'd ever normally cut a lime like that, but it's not exactly tomato season.

Actually, is your ceramic knife single- or double-ground? That is, does it bevel in on both sides or is one side flat?

I just came across a ceramic honing, uh, "steel", which makes a lot of sense. You want your … honer to be harder than your knives. I'm not sure that the Henckels steel I have is doing a damned thing to that super-hard Shun steel.

Which reminds me: I never pointed out that the reason that the Shun knives are so sharp is that they use a really strong steel for the edge that can hold a much more acute angle than most knives. It's 16° rather than the 220° you see on most European knives. Then they clad more normal steel around the edge piece to make up the bulk of the spine, which is what gives it that Damascus-y look.

Yeah, I'm looking for a new steel. You've also got to steel at a different angle, for the reasons you point out.

It always amused me that Mitsubishi makes pretty much everything from pencils to supertankers. And, it turns out, beer.

Though, a steel technically is not supposed to hone the edge, it's just supposed to realign it.

For a hone, you want to pick up a Norton waterstone. But if you steel often and correctly you shouldn't need that for 12-18 months.

I got a Norton waterstone when I switched to shaving with an old-fashioned straight razor, which has to be outrageously sharp to work. Instead of steeling a razor, you strop it, but otherwise it's the same principle for cutlery. The razor is a very, very hard carbon steel rather than a stainless, which is always going to be a compromise. The Shun is a super-high quality stainless, but still not as hard as the razor. The Norton works well on the Shun knife.

Come to think of it, I have a Dovo stainless straight razor also, but I never use it because I can't get an edge on it like the carbon razor. It works, but the difference is really noticeable when you're scraping your face.

Mine (which, I've just checked, isn't actually the 16cm one in the link I gave upthread, but the 14cm version of the same thing) is double-ground.

Peter

Dependant on your final installation I can recommend the Sparkfun Arduino Pro Mini as a much cheaper alternative to the Nano. It dispenses with the USB interface, which in an embedded application you're unlikely to use anyway. You can then just use a simple FTDI breakout for programming/testing.

Yeah, I looked at that. The reason I went with the Nano is that it handles the automotive voltage range, without me having to deal with adding my own voltage regulation. I can code, but my electronics experience is near-nil. I agree that it would be nice to drop the USB interface eventually, though.

Happy New Years all.

I can see how that would be helpful, although looking at the schematics of the Nano, it's just a 5V reg. Given it's got to step 12-14v down to 5 and it has no external heatsink, I wonder how hot it will get?

Yeah, I know that; I just don't know the right words, apparently.

Looking at the schematics for the Pro Mini, it says max input voltage is 16VDC, so this should also be able to handle automotive voltages.

Stig

The spec on the Arduino website actually lists 12v as the upper limit of the 'recommended' range. The absolute maximum is 20v, although I get the feeling it wouldn't last long at that voltage.

Given there's no heatsink on the reg I'd be reluctant to use it in my car like that given the normal operating supply voltage with the engine running is approx. 14.5v. If it was running all the time I wonder if that could reduce the lifespan of the device.

If I understood what I read correctly, the worst you should get is a spike up to 18v -- unless there's something disastrously wrong with the car. Being able to handle up to 20v should protect against any spikes.


Looking at the board, it appears that the microscopic heatsink is soldered to a pad on the board. Perhaps it'd be wise to add a small voltage regulator of my own, regardless.