conversation with kalamari2000

Charles Truett: he seems to be quite awesome

kalamari2000: I might email him see if I can talk to him

kalamari2000: wanna know how much programming it's gonna be

Charles Truett: you should become a kickass programmer

2:25 PM

kalamari2000: I'll become a kickass duke

kalamari2000: lynda.com

Charles Truett: you can learn to be a duke at lynda.com?

kalamari2000: no, programmer

Charles Truett: damn

2:30 PM

Charles Truett:

Direct Instant Message session started

2:35 PM

kalamari2000: did you look at my course list?

Charles Truett: no

Charles Truett: i should have a been a share cropper

kalamari2000: you should have

Charles Truett: do you order all your physcomp stuff?

Charles Truett: where do you buy from?

kalamari2000: I buy from a bunch of places.

kalamari2000: sparkfun

kalamari2000: jameco

kalamari2000: digikey

kalamari2000: mouser

Charles Truett: i need to start buying shit

Charles Truett: damn

kalamari2000: depends on what you need

kalamari2000: shit adds up though

Charles Truett: what am i going to do

kalamari2000: we need to talk it over first

kalamari2000: and we have somewhere to go this summer

Charles Truett: if i put a pc in willy, then I still need a microcontroller to attach the sensors too, no?

kalamari2000: http://www.biennialtehran.com/Poster.html

kalamari2000: you know I was wondering about that

kalamari2000: I think you do

Charles Truett: i can't just go directly to the pc

kalamari2000: i don't know any other way

Charles Truett: i mean, of course i could

Charles Truett: but i'm not that awesome

Charles Truett: so but that's fine, cause they can work together

kalamari2000: yeah of course

Charles Truett: i still need the pc to serve the site and database and what not

kalamari2000: you need to know exactly what your application is

kalamari2000: the 1st International Roaming Biennial of Tehran

Charles Truett: i can't go to Iran

kalamari2000: it's in istanbul

2:40 PM

kalamari2000: submit willy

Charles Truett: ok

kalamari2000: why not? I mean you're building it

Charles Truett: ok means that i agree in essence with what you are saying and am offering no objections at this time

Charles Truett: if i just stop working nobody will get hurt

kalamari2000: so talk about willy's application on it

kalamari2000: I mean to me

kalamari2000: the duke

Charles Truett: who is the duke?

kalamari2000: me

kalamari2000: I am

kalamari2000: the duke

Charles Truett: you're going to have to explain that

kalamari2000: just tell me about willy

kalamari2000: and what he does now

Charles Truett: now he does nothing. he's kaput

kalamari2000: you know what I mean

kalamari2000: come on, I'm slim on time

Charles Truett: he used to serve a website, through which you could ascertain his global
position, and you could turn his lights on

Charles Truett: which was the first step to two way communication between me and willy over the web

kalamari2000: how did he tell you his position?

Charles Truett: once i had that, i could hook up anything to him

kalamari2000: how did he know?

Charles Truett: he has a Garmin

kalamari2000: oh wow

kalamari2000: I didn't know that

Charles Truett: he sent the serial data to the stamp, and then from the stamp to the
webserver, which posted the location

kalamari2000: yeah

kalamari2000: that must have a pain to parse

kalamari2000: have been a pain

Charles Truett: it was so awesome when it worked the first time

kalamari2000: yeah I can imagine

Charles Truett: i nearly wept

2:45 PM

kalamari2000: full sizes garmin or just the module?

Charles Truett: it has no screen, it looks like a mouse

Charles Truett: it's to hook up to a pc

kalamari2000: ok yeah module

kalamari2000: things have gotten more advanced sincethen

Charles Truett: i'm sure

kalamari2000: but the protocol is the same

kalamari2000: it's the NMEA protocol

kalamari2000: so what you learned is still valid

Charles Truett: oh no that's what i had to work with

kalamari2000: the protocol remains

Charles Truett: i see

kalamari2000: the stuff gets smaller and cheaper

kalamari2000: did you get making things talk?

kalamari2000: the tigoe book?

Charles Truett: no

kalamari2000: order it

Charles Truett: k

kalamari2000: if nothing else so you can see what's up

kalamari2000: besides location what else should willy be able to do?

kalamari2000: you could load him with environmental sensors

kalamari2000: temperature, humidity, gas, infrared, UV, just go nuts

kalamari2000: and post those on the website

kalamari2000: funny thing, a friend is working on something very similaer

kalamari2000: how you gonna power it?

kalamari2000: this is what you're gonna use btw:

kalamari2000: http://www.gumstix.com/

kalamari2000: this will create a wifi node

Charles Truett: yes, all environmental sensors

kalamari2000: it's a linux pc

Charles Truett: i know about gumstix

Charles Truett: kaho worked with them

kalamari2000: yeah that's your best bet

kalamari2000: plus there's working knowledge at itp right now

Charles Truett: easy interface?

kalamari2000: it's linux

kalamari2000: I'll ask to take a look at the working environment

2:50 PM

kalamari2000: how do you want this powered?

kalamari2000: your power requirements are pretty big

Charles Truett: wall socket

kalamari2000: ok so back to your original premise

kalamari2000: you send this out to people

Charles Truett: if it moves, we get a generator

kalamari2000: they plug it in

kalamari2000: it creates a dynamic site

kalamari2000: this is all doable stuff

Charles Truett: indeed

kalamari2000: you need to flesh out the framework a bit more though

Charles Truett: ohyes

kalamari2000: because here's my perspective: 3-4 years ago it was bleeding edge, today, this
is what we're all doing at ITP

kalamari2000: it's run of the mill

kalamari2000: I'm working on an idea you'll love

Charles Truett: my projects are not about physcomp

Charles Truett: so, cutting edge technology is not the point

Charles Truett: in fact, being a little old fashioned and crappy adds to the overall concept

kalamari2000: I get that

Charles Truett: willy is only interesting as part of a larger whole

kalamari2000: so it's how you frame it

Charles Truett: by itself, it doesn't mean anything

kalamari2000: I don't mean to be pedanitc

kalamari2000: it's because I don't want willy to be a physcomp project

kalamari2000: me and willy, we go way back

kalamari2000: I was there when he was born

Charles Truett: there's little chance of that, because i'm not that into physcomp for it's own sake

kalamari2000: did you know I would get into the physcomp so much?

Charles Truett: i'll jsut do what i needed to do to get the idea across

2:55 PM

Charles Truett: and have it be on the edge of believability

kalamari2000: then why incorporate web stuff at all?

kalamari2000: restate that idea

Charles Truett: just a few things

Charles Truett: they help create the story

Charles Truett: they're not really interesting, they're background

Charles Truett: because they're there, it's easier to believe the whole thing

Charles Truett: but push it too far, and then it goes over the line, and becomes ridiculous
again

Charles Truett: it's a subtle line

kalamari2000: I see

Charles Truett: at some point it gets close to being a real probe, then i'm in a different space, talking to different kinds of people and being evaluated in a whole different way

kalamari2000: exactly

Charles Truett: it's still make believe

3:00 PM

kalamari2000: ok we'll talk more later

kalamari2000: I gotta get to tigoe's class

Charles Truett: YES!

kalamari2000: http://adage.com/brightcove/single.php?title=1506582278

Direct Instant Message session ended

5:35 PM

Reconnecting to kalamari2000...

kalamari2000: oh btw, getting stuff into google earth is really easy