iControlPad using unlicensed dock connection, forced to go Bluetooth:
The folks at iControlPad can't seem to catch a break -- the design for the plug-in iPhone controller was finally finished, but the creators are now backing off of that design. Specifically, they're worried about Apple's lawsuit against...http://www.tuaw.com/2010/10/01/icontrolpad-using-unlicensed-dock-connection-forced-to-go-bluet/
Silicon Valley Snubs Social Network David Finchers Facebook movie about Mark Zuckerberg =)
Yes, I feel like a real celebrity now. Imagine--I, a spokesman for the "tech heartland of Northern California geeks."
You've disapeared again
Best regards,
Thank you for your note.
I am right here on golB.
Since you didn't seem to know about the most successful video game ever...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong
Atari 2600 paddles: http://www.bloodybits.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/atari_2600_paddles.jpg
Thank you for the Wikipedia link.
Here's another one for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_m3rerqJhE
Whoa!
Cool!
When did you do that? Yesterday you were wiring up the pots!
That's how fast I work.
I assume you know of these guys. Your thoughts?
Thank you for the link.
My thought is that Microchip want to sell to companies that manufacture iPhone accessories. Other companies have hardware development kits like this, e.g. Cypress. You must be an MFi licensee to buy one of these kits. Even then, you cannot buy the kit from Microchip directly, but only through Apple's MFi vendor.
The attached video of thermal footage was recorded from an AC-130 gunship from a mile or more away.
No rounds were fired by the aircraft. The problem solved itself with no American intervention. Some Islamic jihadists were trying to bury a roadside bomb made from a 155 mm artillery round. Evidently, they lost the instruction manual, or did not know how to read it.
Rule #1: After putting the bomb in a hole, do not, repeat, do not tamp the ground too much.
Rule #2: Do not forget Rule #1.
Had this thing worked as the bad guys intended, there would have been more NATO casualties - so the ending was more than justified and the hope is that this kind of result happens more often!!
Thank you for the video.
You may wish to bring your feelings about $CASUALTIES to a Tribe meeting as an entry point.
You might find this funny: stupid questions VCs ask
Q: Who else has invested?
A: No one yet, you are the first person we talked to.
Q: Did Sequoia pass?
A: No, we didn’t speak with them.
Q: Why did Sequoia pass?
Thank you for the video.
I can see Did Sequoia Pass becoming an Internet meme.
Ari,
I have just managed to finish reading Neal Stephenson's 1999 essay In the Beginning was the Command Line
I wish to thank you for sharing it with me... thank you.
After reading it I felt a little strange. Certain things slowly began to make sense; the fog gradually began to disappear and I could see through the window for the first time. So many different feelings overcame me at once. As I continued to read, I began to realize how much I didn't know. I have experienced that before... when I started my first job I had the exact same feeling. But now its worse. I feel like I'm the worst programmer on this earth, and I'm so late into the game I can never catch up to the level of the greatest, such as yourself, Paul Graham, Eric Raymond, Neal Stephenson, Peter Norvig and the like. I also feel enraged. Enraged about all the time I have wasted in my life not learning about unix, open source, programming, and the command line in high school.
But... even though I'm late in the game, even though I'm the noobiest of the noobs, even though I may not reach the level of great expertise of the Masters, I can still try.
I've got my LISP environment set-up and ready to go. I'm learning to use emacs with slime and clisp, I'm moving through Paul Graham's ANSI Common LISP, and I'm also working through Peter's online PCL, and I'm trying to figure out how to setup emacs gnus for reading comp.lang.lisp.
I am extremely thankful to you of your time, you have helped me a great deal, and you have taught me a great deal. I have deep respect for you and I sincerely value your mentor-ship. You have helped me sort-of stand on my own wobbly feet.
Thank you for sharing your process.
What you describe reminds me of an Eagles tune, "Wasted Time:"
You never thought you'd be alone This far down the line And I know what's been on your mind You're afraid it's all been wasted time
Good job noticing the different feelings that overcome you. When adjusting to drastic change, people go through a process similar to the Kübler-Ross stages of grief: [$DENIAL, $ANGER, $BARGAINING, $DEPRESSION, $ACCEPTANCE].
You may wish to bring the feelings that come up in this process to a Tribe meeting.
And maybe someday you can find That it wasn't really wasted time
Hi Ari....
I see a trend of government invading every area of our lives. I wonder if the trend continues if government will incorporate ever higher levels of technology to address issues like speeding. There are cameras at stop lights now that snap a pic of your plates if you run a red light...you get a ticket in the mail. I wonder if ultimately a microchip embedded in everyone is the logical conclusion? The government can monitor your speed and GPS location with the chip. They would definitely get more revenue with the microchip concept monitoring speeding. Just a thought.
Thank you for sharing your observations.
In futures trading as in venture capital, once you identify a trend, you have a choice. You can stand idly by, or you can take a position.
I, too, notice governments using technology to monitor citizens. I notice a corollary trend of citizens using technology to monitor governments and share information with other citizens. My venture capitalizes on this corollary trend.
What I want; dream list;
Someone who understands both web and GUI engineering. Can go beyond the standard toolkit and create well optimized and architected UI design.
Design that is architected to be user customized and will work with additional api’s and visualizations. Must be comfortable working with vendor apis, web interfaces and java.
Must understand layout and work closely with designer to implement new and possibly non standard widgets.
Nice to have architect: and code middle layer that contains user customizations of views and layouts.
[Name] has sent you [a gift] using [Company's][Service].
Memo: Ari, This is a gift, intended to help you catch your breathe, on a day when most everybody said 'no' to you, one person said 'yes'. In friendship, [Name].
Thank you.
Your gift touches me deeply. Thank you for your continuing support and encouragement. Thank you for saying "yes" to me.
Ari -- [Name] is looking for someone.....who
Go getter who dreams in Code
Who is creative
Who is not too big for his britches
Puts things together
Puts stuff on the table and
See write through the tech finds work aroundSome one to write code -- share ideas -- show progress.
There is a very clear picture of what [Name] wants to achieve -- [Name] does not want
[My son], who you met at Incline, completed his accounting degree in August and is now enrolled in physics/math working on completing either a doctorate in physics or going engineering after completing his undergraduate physics degree
Very cool! Thank you for sharing your son's success. Please pass my "good job" on to him.
Hi Ari,
We are working on securing a couple of interesting projects. When they come through we will need additional programming resources.
Are you still available for 20 hours a week? If anything changes in that status, will you pls let me know? Thanks.
Regards,
Thank you for your query.
There is no change in my availability.
A controller for the iPhone ... or bust
The iControlPad project seems to have fizzled out, so another group is trying to bring the dream of a hardware iPhone button-based controller to life.http://www.tuaw.com/2010/10/13/a-controller-for-the-iphone-or-bust/
Thank you for the link.
I am noticing a lot of interest in game controller peripheral for the iPhone.
Ari writes:I, too, notice governments using technology to monitor citizens. I notice a corollary trend of citizens using technology to monitor governments and share information with other citizens.
great observation Ari...I feel your intensity and passion for your work and for bringing greater levels of freedom and awareness to citizens of intrusion into their privacy by government
Thank you for your encouragement.
Ari
Can you give me a quote on doing an app using this: http://www.mobileorchard.com/iphone-app-video-out/
The app needs to work on an iPhone 4 while outputing via composite video the whole screen in landscape mode while running Facetime
Thanks
Thank you for your request. I am unclear on what you want the application to do. The article you link to describes a private API. The API has two limitations: you can only call it from an application that you compile yourself, and Apple rejects applications that use it.
Hi Ari, how are you? I've been looking at general trends and reports...trying to get a picture of medical and other markets use mobile peripherals. I am looking where the market demands well engineered solutions as a trend...assuming time/money is there.
Not promising anything, but there are plenty of dollars looking for a well thought out solution. I'll keep you posted here and there.
btw Do you have time to send a little bio?
Thanks again
Thank you for sharing your observations.
I notice your commitment to keep me posted here and there. Your commitment is weak but clear. I like clear commitments.
I was thinking more like a FICO score for speeding. Something that tells you how likely your behavior is to trigger a speeding ticket.
A) Application tracks data
B) You input when/where you get a ticket
C) Compile statistics on driver profiles and assess how risky driving behavior is compared to legal limits
--1 standard deviation get tickets going 25 mph over the speed limit
--2 standard deviations get tickets for going 12.6 mph over the speed limit
--changing lanes 4 times/minute increases likelihood of getting a ticket by 543%You'd need large sample sizes for this data to be meaningful, but it would be fun to research the data.
Thank you for sharing your ideas.
Fair Isaac Corporation collect data on individual consumers and sell a an aggregate score that facilitates price discrimination for lenders. FICO's customers are the banks; consumers are their commodity.
My customers are the people who buy my radar detector. I respect their privacy. I keep no records on them. I don't see what benefit my customers can possibly derive from someone else knowing about their driving habits.
You may wish to bring your feelings about $ALIGNMENT between your interests and your customers' interests to a Tribe meeting.
iPhone-controllable LED strip lets you take the rave with you for $300
They're charging $300 for some LEDs
Thank you for the link.
A wise man tells me that we're all in the same business, just that our price structure's a little different from each other.
Ari,
I'm forwarding to you an ongoing conversation with [my associates]. As you may recall, [we] are competing int he Google Lunar X prize, and we are one of six teams selected by NASA to sell Lunar data we gather back to NASA.
Anyway, the team is anxious to play with/test/build software to control/simulate the rover on the Moon.
It seems that one of the more popular systems is the Lego NXT system. Personally, I'm skeptical of this system, cause it's built for toys. I would like to inspect other software solutions.
Basically, I'm looking for standard, open source software systems that would be used to remotely control (via a network) a radio controlled car, or jeep like the ones you have built with iPhly.
What suggestions would you make for my research.
Thank you for your inquiry.
You can build surprisingly functional pieces out of Legos, if that is what you wish to do.
I encourage you to clarify your design parameters as part of your hardware selection process.
You may wish to bring your feelings about $TOYS to your Lunar Lander program meeting.
Ari
Please answer the question:
Is it possible to implement a audio notch filter in software?
Say you wanted to delete an audio tone of 400 Hz in the left audio channel.
Could you do that in software?
The answer to your question is yes, if you can write tight enough C code to do it in real time. The APIs for that are public, if poorly documented. I use them to generate the RF modulation waveform in iPhly.
I have no background in signal processing, and the algorithms that implement the filtering you want are obscure to me. The competitive advantage of this filtering is equally obscure to me.
I was lucky to follow a link till your pages.
Wondreful ideas. I am not so much on microplanes presntly, but I will see where to put some links to your page.
Congratulations. Continue. A+
Thank you for your encouragement. I wonder if you remember how you found a link to my site.
I mostly concentrate on smartphone peripherals now. One of my projects is an R/C transmitter.
For fun and education, i recommend this excellent view on evaluating social media websites.
Thank you for the link.
I recall at the height of the first internet bubble people making the case for a 30,000-point Dow. Facebook has all the magic of the late 1990s dot coms, including a 20-something CEO, explosive user growth, mystique around finances, and an elusive business model.
"Social Media" is an euphemism for "Facebook and Twitter." I wonder about the positive intention of dreaming up a "business sector" around these two companies.
The great iPhone serial port hack - Slideshow - Computerworld
While the majority of the iPhone's easter eggs and secrets have over time been discovered, pulled apart and analysed to the umpteenth degree, the smartphone continues to have one, little-known trick up its sleeve: A hidden serial port.
[..]According to Chris Pollock at io Networks: "the real benefit in all of this is that there are so many console packages for iPhone in Cydia now that [..]
Thank you for the link.
Just like every generation seems to think it inveted sex, every so often someone "discovers" the iPhone's serial port. You can hack your way into it--or you can sign up for Made For iPhone developer program and get Apple's official documentation.
You may wish to bring your feelings about $JAILBREAKING to a Tribe meeting.
Ari,
My goal is to re-learn Java - I learned it a long tome ago, but I'm terribly rusty - and then to learn Android programming. Trying to figure out the best way to go about it.
I've tried installing Eclipse, but it does not work. I'm a user of Windows, but find debugging in it a chore. If I had a linux system it may be better - but I do not have that.
A straightforward way to learn (or re-learn) a language is pair programming. You find a programmer who is an expert in the language, and have him tell you exactly what to do. He does the talking, you do the typing. I recall training an entire development staff of a startup in JavaScript in two weeks using this method.
Dual Instruction: These pilots are following a similar process. The expert (in right seat) is instructing. The student (left seat) is the sole manipulator of the controls.
