Ape Boy Monkey Girl

Please Stop The False Facebook Privacy Crap!

2012-11-26T19:28:02Z

It has started again. Another ‘privacy protection notice’ has been spreading virally on Facebook. People are told that by posting the notice they are protecting their personal data from unauthorized use. Sound like a good idea? Problem is it is crap.

When you signed up to use Facebook (or any service) you agreed to their terms and conditions and nothing you can post on your profile can change that.

This seems to get passed around every few months and people fall for it every time. Can you send a letter to your mortgage company saying “Although I have agreed to pay you $800 a month, I have decided that I will be paying you $600 from now on.”? What makes people think they can agree to a legal notice and then change it to fit their needs?

Want to make sure your data is not used? STOP POSTING IT ON FACEBOOK!

Here is a sample of the current notice that is being passed around:

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my 
personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of 
the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!

(Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under 
protection of copyright laws. By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to 
disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile 
and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or 
any staff under Facebook's direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential 
information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if 
you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will 
be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your 
profile status updates.

Raspberry Pi Mesh Network

2012-11-14T22:52:02Z

Only one day after posting my top Raspberry Pi projects I came across this on Hack A Day. Eric Erfanian has created a four part series on how to set up a mesh network using Raspberry Pis with Wifi dongles. I have been playing with this as a side project, but Eric has gotten much further than I had.

While it does not solve all my issues, it certainly is a great starting point.

10 of the Coolest Raspberry Pi Projects... So Far

2012-11-13T18:55:02Z

The Raspberry Pi is a $35, credit card sized computer that was created so that kids could learn programming. One of the coolest things about the Pi is that it has a set of general purpose input/output pins (GPIO) that allow you to communicate with items outside of the computer. This allows hackers to build some pretty cool projects.

Here are ten that I am watching closely:

Camera Pi

David Hunt is a professional photographer who has embedded a Pi into a Canon battery grip.

This opens up all sorts of cool functionality including wireless tethering, image backup, remote control, time lapse shooting, and on-the-fly image conversions.

Coffee Table Pi

I am a sucker for arcade and pinball games, so I am very happy to see the Pi being used in MAME projects. instructables.com user grahamgelding posted the steps he took to make a cocktail arcade game from scratch.

He is using GPIO inputs for the joystick and button controls. Love this idea, but lacking the woodworking skills so I will be looking for a cocktail arcade cabinet to repurpose.

Advice Machine

I am currently working on a an animatronic fortune telling machine based on the Pi, which is why I was SUPER excited to see this project. Nick Jonson has built an advice machine.

The machine communicates with the user through an LCD and thermal printer. I love that the quality of the advice is determined by the amount of money that is donated to the box.

I wish there was more information on this project, because I want to build it. Robofun who does some kick ass technology based marketing created The Social Drink Machine.

Users download an app on their mobile device that produces a QR code when a drink is selected. The code is shown to a camera and the machine gets to work making the drink. I would love to have this during parties, I could actually hang out with friends instead of playing bartender all night. I am not sure how much work is being handled by the Pi versus the Arduino, but thinking with one of the many expansion boards the Pi could do it all.

Pi as a PBX

I have been wanting to setup an Asterisk server for sometime, the Incredible PBX allows you to run one from a Raspberry Pi.

Free calling with google voice, call routing, voicemail, IVRs, music on hold, and text-to-speech and speech-to-text are just some of the things you can do with this PBX.

Wearable Raspberry Pi

It will be a while before we can get computers implanted directly into our brains, but for around $100 you can create a wearable computer today. Zack Freedman hacked together a pair of MyVu glasses, a mini keyboard and a Pi for some cyborg goodness.

While it’s not exactly Project Glass and you might get your lunch money taken away by wearing it… It would be nice to write code while on a walk.

Netlight

Anyone that deals with servers knows what a pain in the ass it can be when you are having problems with one. The folks at haxogreen 2012 needed to keep track of a faulty switch so they built a network light that signals when the network is up.

They have made the python code available for anyone to use along with a schematic of the relay board to turn the lights on and off.

Pi in a Commodore 64

I love projects that bring old broken technology into the modern age. Retrotext had a C64 that suffered water damage. Instead of tossing it into the landfill he decided to put a Pi into it.

I am not a big fan of his choice to paint the case, but I dig how clean he kept the build looking. His blog has quite a few details and makes for a interesting read.

Repurposing a Roomba

Another project keeping technology out of the dump is this Roomba hack. Ben J had a broken Roomba 400 that he opened up and tracked down the transistors that make the wheels spin. He then used the Pi GPIOs to control the movement and added an IP video camera.

Ben has made his python scripts available that allow you to control the robot with a Wii Remote.

Audio Book Player

Some of the best projects are the ones that seem the simplest. Michael Clemens designed a One Button Audiobook Player for his wife’s grandmother. She likes audio books but is visually impaired and can not handle normal audio players. Giving her one simple button that controls play, pause and will restart a track shows the brilliance of this design.

The code and schematics are available on the site. While some of the other projects here are flashier, this audio book player solves a true problem and shows how great thoughtful design can be.

What projects are you excited about? Let me know in the comments.

Welcome to the blog

2012-11-12T23:57:13Z

Welcome to the new Ape Boy Monkey Girl blog. My name is Chris Rockwell Breshears and the goal of this blog is to document my experiments in electronics, code, pinball and art.

I am in no way an expert on any of these topics, but love to always be learning something new. Feel free to comment how dumb or wrong I am on any subject, I am always looking for a better way to tackle a project.

The blog is published with nanoc which is a publishing system that outputs static web sites. It is much different than Word Press or other blog engines in that there is no content management actually done within the system. You write the pages in simple markdown format, and the code on your local system compiles it to static pages. While you lose the dynamic functionality, you gain speed and security since there is no code or database that is required to run. For most blogs this is a prefect and simple solution. I did run into a few roadblocks using it and I will write more about those later. If you have come here looking for The Daily Download, I am sorry. That project has been put on hold, but I will be making the episodes available at a later date.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you get something out of my brain dumpings.