What did you do today? 2018 version

[TromboneAl]

DD picked out her wedding dress today and paid for it with my CC. I can't wait for this wedding bloodletting to end...in April.

We simply wrote DD a big check. Like ripping a band-aid (make that a big bandage) off all at once.

 

[NW-Bound]

...I'm doing my write-a-book-in-one-month thing. I find it's the best way, but it's a love/hate experience.

One thing is that when I've finished my word count goal for the day, I have the feeling of being free. On vacation.

Of course, I am on vacation all the time, but this makes the feeling more intense.

Setting yourself a word quota? Man, that's work.

This reminds me to spend sometime away from the keyboard and to get back to the soldering iron.

 

[aja8888]

Been there, done that. Something tells me you will be all smiles at the wedding! Congrats to you and the new couple in advance!

Thanks! it should be a nice time for her and the future SIL!

 

[Moemg]

I'll start with this unaltered pic at the dress shop today (I was not there) but DW was:

View attachment 27797

Gorgeous daughter & dress ! Dress shopping with my daughter for her wedding dress was one of the high lights of my life !

 

[Moemg]

We simply wrote DD a big check. Like ripping a band-aid (make that a big bandage) off all at once.

I did that but I also bought the dress and veil . Best wedding ever !

 

[aja8888]

Gorgeous daughter & dress ! Dress shopping with my daughter for her wedding dress was one of the high lights of my life !

Thanks, and you can bet that DW is enjoying the time spent with her during this process.

 

[lwp2017]

Did our income taxes.

 

[misshathaway]

Finished a Google Paper Signals project. You set up a $30 Arduino board that includes Wifi, to receive commands from the Google Assistant app on your phone. The project produces a very limited device. For instance, I did the timer and there is about a 30 second lag time between the time you tell Google Assistant to "Set a timer for X minutes" and when the device starts timing. It's better for tracking when some sort of data point changes on the web, like weather or stocks. But you learn about how the programming works, how to connect modules to the Arduino, and the mechanics of building an enclosure, in this case, cardboard.

I have been curious about these little boards since they first started coming out, but there were more practical things to do while I was working. For me, this is the ultimate joy of retirement - being able to spend time on some little pursuit just for the heck of it.

Loved NW-Bound's dissection of an LED bulb, even though I know nothing about electronics.

 

[Ronstar]

I'll start with this unaltered pic at the dress shop today (I was not there) but DW was:



View attachment 27797

Congrats, aja8888! Your DD looks very nice and happy in her dress. Looks like she is a model for my DW’s favorite tv show “Say Yes to the Dress”

 

[aja8888]

Congrats, aja8888! Your DD looks very nice and happy in her dress. Looks like she is a model for my DW’s favorite tv show “Say Yes to the Dress”

Thanks Ron. Yeah, she is happy as any bride-to be-usually is. Dad will be glad when it's the day after the wedding. But this is a fun time for the family and that's what it is all about!

 

[NW-Bound]

Finished a Google Paper Signals project. You set up a $30 Arduino board that includes Wifi, to receive commands from the Google Assistant app on your phone. The project produces a very limited device. For instance, I did the timer and there is about a 30 second lag time between the time you tell Google Assistant to "Set a timer for X minutes" and when the device starts timing. It's better for tracking when some sort of data point changes on the web, like weather or stocks. But you learn about how the programming works, how to connect modules to the Arduino, and the mechanics of building an enclosure, in this case, cardboard.

I have been curious about these little boards since they first started coming out, but there were more practical things to do while I was working. For me, this is the ultimate joy of retirement - being able to spend time on some little pursuit just for the heck of it...

I did not know about Google's Paper Signals. Very interesting. You are leveraging off Google's tool in the cloud, and that makes it easier. I am surprised at that 30-sec lag.

I see that you are in CS. I am an EE, and when I was in school my university did not even have a CS department. However, I did a lot of Fortran and assembly language early in my work, later switching to C which I taught myself.

Arduino makes it very easy and fun to build things and see it work. When one wants to go another step, there are other more powerful microcontrollers to play with, but they take more effort. I am experimenting with a few.

I did not keep up with technology since I stopped work 6 years ago, and when I looked into it again a couple of months ago, was amazed at what was available. So many things to investigate...

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Yesterday turned cooler and cloudier by us so we ended up staying home and getting household chores done. Our neighbors moved to assisted living and the adult kids are having a hard time clearing out all the clutter, so seeing that is giving us an extra incentive to take pity on our adult kids and declutter now.

Yesterday I tackled the front closet and found we had something like 12 umbrellas and 30 baseball caps collected over the years. So we pared that down and combined with some other closets I cleaned out I have two more bags of clutter for Goodwill. It feels good seeing the closet cleaned out and I hope someone else out there can use our surplus baseball caps and umbrellas.

 

[bbbamI]

aja8888....the pic of your daughter sure made me smile. I needed that because....

Got an email from my primary care doc this morning. He left his practice at the end of 2017. He's now going the concierge route...the membership fee will be $3k a person. But hey, this includes valet parking...what a deal.

At this point in my life, I think I'll pass.

 

[MichaelB]

aja8888, a wonderful photo and beautiful bride-to-be.

 

[REWahoo]

Got an email from my primary care doc this morning. He left his practice at the end of 2017. He's now going the concierge route...the membership fee will be $3k a person. But hey, this includes valet parking...what a deal.

At this point in my life, I think I'll pass.

DW's doc tried and failed at that, discovering far more than the expected number of her patients wouldn't fork over the $. By the time the doc contacted all the patients who declined her concierge invitation to say "never mind", they had found new docs and were moving on (including DW). Had to be a big financial hit to her practice.

 

[aja8888]

aja8888....the pic of your daughter sure made me smile.

aja8888, a wonderful photo and beautiful bride-to-be.

Thanks folks!

 

[bbbamI]

DW's doc tried and failed at that, discovering far more than the expected number of her patients wouldn't fork over the $. By the time the doc contacted all the patients who declined her concierge invitation to say "never mind", they had found new docs and were moving on (including DW). Had to be a big financial hit to her practice.

Makes me wonder how well he'll do. We got a letter in December of last year saying he was leaving his practice; he won't begin the new practice until April 2nd.

I figure many of his patients (like yours truly) has made other arrangements.

He's a fine doctor, I hope he's successful...time will tell.

 

[MRG]

Woke up to some welcome snow. Had coffee with DW watched the lovely white flakes all around us. We're blanketed in clouds and flakes.

I didn't want to cook breakfast so I volunteered to go fetch McDonald's. It's only a couple of miles. I took the Wrangler as it's better in snow. No big deal, a nice gentle 25 mph drive. I guess they'd plowed the road, polished the snow, they don't put anything on it.

About the time I get towards town the road opens up with parking lots next to it. It became harder to see where the road was. Suddenly I know I'm headed into the right hand ditch! Oh crap! I stepped on it and cranked the wheel to get out. That happened too quickly and I'm in the left lane getting ready for a 360° turn. Luckily it managed to straighten out and I survived. There was a person ahead of me that did the same maneuver. Where folks were going across the main road and starting and stopping it was ice!

I almost turned around right there but it was only a few hundred yards. I chatted for a few minutes with the gal at the counter, she claimed there were a couple of rollover accidents on the highway.

A very slow drive through the icy patches. Probably ought to get the snowblower out, looks like a couple of snowy days(we hope)..

I did change our e-mail address on Fidelity, Vanguard, Alley, and Amazon this morning as our old one is too secure. OK, it's more difficult to change e-mail on Amazon than Vanguard.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I did change our e-mail address on Fidelity, Vanguard, Alley, and Amazon this morning as our old one is too secure.

TOO secure?

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Spent most of the day organizing and categorizing medical expense records for 2017 taxes. Felt too much like w*rk sitting in front of a computer all day. This is the first year we're able to deduct medical expenses since our income is much lower and we're paying health insurance premiums with after-tax money. Swore we'd do a better job filing records this year.

 

[MRG]

TOO secure?

Yes! Somehow the password is not the same and I don't agree with the challenge questions(perhaps I've been hacked on the Y?). I asked for a new password, and they delivered one. They delivered it to the e-mail account I can't access!

Yahoo mail has no customer care. Their phone number is a marketing campaign. The chat is somehow always unavailable!

My biggest concern is; have I been hacked? I don't think I care about e-mail, what about the other issues?

Actually, thank you for making me more concerned. I'll change passwords on those financial systems tomorrow.

 

[NW-Bound]

The mailman today delivered my long awaited chips for my project. This is going to keep me busy for a while. The soldering iron has been turned back on.

If you don't see me here, you know what I am busy on and don't assume the worst, like I jump out the window because of the market or something.

 

[RobbieB]

Nah, we'll think you got fried by the 480 VDC coming out those solar panels.

I installed my Arlo 4 camera surveillance system today. I can see all around the outside of the house from my office -

 

[misshathaway]

I did not know about Google's Paper Signals. Very interesting. You are leveraging off Google's tool in the cloud, and that makes it easier. I am surprised at that 30-sec lag.

I think the lag is from the assistant interpreting what you ask in the cloud and then sending back the command. I think that's why they recommend using the timer project to track something in days, like days to Christmas.

You can plug one of these into its own power supply and then make a program that tracks one data point like a stock price in a loop. In that case the lag would only be once, at the beginning, when you asked it to start tracking.

I see that you are in CS. I am an EE, and when I was in school my university did not even have a CS department. However, I did a lot of Fortran and assembly language early in my work, later switching to C which I taught myself.

Total opposites. I worked my whole life in highly abstracted from the hardware languages. I remember breadboards from one course, but that was a long time ago.

Arduino makes it very easy and fun to build things and see it work.

It is a very well-designed project for hooking kids and ahem, some developmentally stunted adults. Even the visual design of the pages communicates that it is something easy to do and fun.

When one wants to go another step, there are other more powerful microcontrollers to play with, but they take more effort. I am experimenting with a few.

Hope you post what you build. I am inspired. My next project will be a custom internet-of-things gadget since you can load in a custom looping program with a named custom callback and get Google Assistant to kick that off.

Yes, I know that anything I dream up is already available for $5 on Amazon. That is not the point, people.

 

[NW-Bound]

This is what I received last night: ARM 32-bit microcontroller chips.

Last night, I was able to solder 2 of these chips onto breadboards. I could also download firmware onto them, so they seemed to work. Now, I need to build out the rest of the circuit.

This is for the BMS of my RV batteries. I got 3 that look like this but bigger (100Ah each instead of 60Ah). Mine do not have the fancy keyfob remote controls.

I have to finish this project for the RV before heading to Alaska this summer. The home battery storage project is on hold until this much smaller project is done.

Will make a thread on this, when I have some purdy photos to show. I need to compete against that woodworking thread, ya know? People cannot see the elegant firmware that I wrote, nor the clever hardware design that I spent days devising. All they see is the photo of my solder work, and I have my reputation to protect.