Baby Don't Hertz Me

  Since starting grad school I have gained a whole new appreciation for linux. Ubuntu has been my primary OS since 8.04 (Hardy Heron) but I hadn't really looked much at how to really streamline and optimize my workflow until this year. At my university, all Windows computers run an antivirus program that kills performance. It runs ruthlessly and suck up a lot of computer resources. This has only reinforced my choice to use linux as the IT guys will not provide any support and will not install anything on your computer, thus allowing complete freedom. Not all workplaces may allow for this but it does make things much easier if they do. What is SSH? SSH is a cryptographic network protocol that allows for secure network operations over a non-secured network. What this means is that users have the ability to securely login to remote systems on almost any network. Why should I use it? I have known about SSH for years but never used it extensively. It has only been this year...

Audio Some of the earliest uses I found for my personal computers was recording audio. Though these recordings were generally low quality, in both content and equipment, I did get the "recording bug". For the first era of my creativity, I was stuck using the family computer. In order to record, I would have to lug my synthesizer over to the family computer or the family computer to my upright piano before I could begin. This made it tedious for not only myself, but my four older sisters as the family computer would then be locked down by yours truly for hours on end. Shortly after this, my father agreed to let me have the old family computer, an old Pentium III that we installed Ubuntu 8.04 on. I remember the first recording tool I used was Rosegarden. It hasn't changed much even after 10 years but as always is a polished piece of software. After a few equipment changes I had a beastly computer and a full digital workstation (Roland RD-700GX and various perip...

This May I started my Master's in Electrical Engineering. My supervisor is very supportive of me reading anything that might be related to my research but also things that interest me. One of my favorite things is his insistence that I read at least one paper a day. I generally end up reading more than one most days as well as reading chapters from numerous textbooks. I enjoyed most of my undergraduate degree but found that the purpose of it was to follow a curriculum. My experience with grad school so far has been nothing but self-guided learning. In the Fall and Winter semesters I am taking some courses that are required for my studies but for the most part my learning will be managed by myself and guided by my supervisor. Due to a number of professors in department getting to take their sabbaticals in consecutive years, I will miss out on taking a few courses that I really wanted to take but my supervisor has given me access to all the course notes so I can teach myself. ...

Despite all the woes around internet accessibility and net neutrality occurring in the USA in recent times, the internet remains a modern marvel. Sure, there is always the risk of your data being sold (if it isn't already) but in exchange you gain access to the majority of humankind's knowledge. All of our joy, sorrow, science and math. The internet is an endless supply of data and learning. It isn't all about making pretty graphs like you might find on /r/dataisbeautiful but amazing stuff can be done regardless. The massive amounts of data accessible on the internet will allow for the identification of the driving forces of certain actions. As can be seen below, Bitcoin prices correlate very nicely with Google searches relating to it. From /r/dataisbeautiful and /u/DeanLa As my second last semester in university wraps up I realize the true power of data. In a course I took about pattern recognition and machine learning we got to see first hand what can happen wit...

Writing register level code is something I have always viewed as both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is absolute control over almost every aspect of the system while the curse is trying to understand all of the system requirements at the lowest level. As I have previously mentioned I am working on a micro-satellite prototype for my senior electrical engineering design project. My role in the project is the communication system. I was required to select and setup the hardware and software to be able to transmit data from the satellite to the ground station with handshaking and error correction.  HopeRF RFM69HCW Transceiver Module This is the transceiver chip that we decided to use. It is surprisingly inexpensive considering the features it includes. The version we are using is the 915 MHz model (ITU ISM band in the Americas) to avoid having our own spectrum license or to have to request usage of an amateur radio band.  One of the instructors in the course ...

Canada is a wonderful place to live. Hot summers, beautiful trees in the fall, and snowy winters. As December raced away, Mother Nature decided to turn the thermostat down to -15°C. The ground was covered in a blanket of snow and going more than a few days without snow was rather shocking. Several of my siblings live on the other side of Canada. My parents were gone to visit for the holidays. As the only child still in town, house sitting naturally was my duty. This job does come with its own perks. Instead of living in my relatively small apartment I have access to a large house and two cars. The only downside of the house is that it is across the river on the other side of town. So the day my parents were leaving they planned to drop their SUV at my apartment building and then take a cab to the airport. I had an exam that morning and driving my parents to the airport at 3 AM was definitely out of the question. I get up in the morning and get ready to go write my exam. On my way...