Ten Points Random

I’ve been working on a protocol for communicating with many generic devices easily.  Much there is that I can say about it, but it’s still fairly early prototype. I already incorporated some work from linmctool. With it, some glue, and carefully setup systems, I have been able to write a simple thunderzipper client that functions as a basic DMX light board – controlled exclusively with a PS3 controller.

It’s still quite an early prototype – and all the settings are hardcoded – but it’s still functional and a optimistic proof-of-concept of what I can do with  this protocol.

I need to get work on my main “glue” application that routes everything thunderzipper.

In other news, I just pushed a commit that makes basic WiiMote buttons available and functional. (And without the need for a scan utility or setup.)

Here’s a project I’ve been working on a little: http://repo.asdfa.net/lua-convert/overview

It can take, as input, JavaScript (actually, a subset of JavaScript syntax, not real JavaScript) and turn it into Lua code.

It also does language-agnostic preprocessing.

It’s still in the earlier stages, but is quite useable as it currently stands. The whole thing can be transported as a single, cohesive jar file. You can embed the functionality into you application (perhaps your Lua-foo program wants better syntax?) using pipes and the –slave mode.

This was just too good.  I was playing with video codes for real-time streaming of data off my webcam-crane-contraption and decided to try MJPEG.  I wasn’t a fan of rewriting code to put it in the proper format, so for now I thought I’d just set a JPEG to refresh frequently.

So I did.

And it worked, moderately well:

The best part though: It also works on my iPod! Plain ‘ol Safari and JavaScript.  I thought that was pretty cool.  I guess Google, in building Google Chrome to handle the next generation of applications, wasn’t too far off the path.

Let’s see, so I bought a house, switched to Linux and now am hacking away at this:

K'nex, RC servos, a Phidget, and if you look closely, me!

Codename: TelePlaymutte.  ‘Cause I wanna play games remotely.  VOIP, CheckersOIP, DNDOIP, etc.

One of the things that I’ve hated about my favorite photo editing program since they release version 2.6 was that the tool boxes jumped on top of everything (like always-on-top for just the application).  Despite my best efforts, I never found the option to change that until today.

Because the option is named very, very poorly.

As is pointed out here, the name of the option you are looking for that will change the window behavoir back to how it used to be in previouse versions is hidden under Edit -> Preferences -> Window Management -> “Window Manager Hints”.  Yeah that’s right.  Poorly named to anyone but the developer that made it.  Under that change the Hint for toolbox/other docks options to “Normal Window” instead of “Utility Window”.

Restart and there you go!