The Swizzler!

November 15, 2009 by Justin May

The Swizzler is a software synthesizer implemented on a Dorkboard, which is an Arduino act-alike developed by Don Delmer-Davis of DorkbotPDX. I started developing the Swizzler using the Arduino platform. I soon found the Arduino library to be a little limiting and eventually turned my project into a standalone C++ project with a Makefile that handles the build. I currently keep a copy of the Arduino-0017 system library with my code and link against it, but I have modified some Arudino library functionality.

I changed the Arduino’s Timer 1 interrupt into a standalone function, then implemented my own interrupt handler in order to control my envelope generator and portamento generator. My custom interrupt handler calls the Arduino’s original ISR to make sure the delay() and millis() functions still work.

I will soon post up a link to the subversion repo where all my code lives, and more docs to come! For now I’ve gotta eat some dinner and play Guitar Hero with my wife.

Swingaling!

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Linux Meditation Timer

March 8, 2009 by Justin May

Hi all, I’ve been getting back on my meditation practice and it’s starting to feel good again. I got tired of constantly setting my cell phone’s timer, and the alarm sound it makes is abhorrent. So I did some hunting around and found a great meditation timer for Linux, it’s called “Sit Quietly” and can be found at
http://quietwatercourse.co.uk/sitquietly/ . The author didn’t include a .deb package for those of us using 64-bit Linux, so I compiled my own and you can snaggle it here:  sitquietly_101-1_amd64.deb .

Happy meditating!

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Pizza Dough

February 20, 2009 by Justin May

Here’s the pizza dough recipe I always use. Simple and works great for pizzas or calzones. Actually, to let you in on a little secret, I’m setting myself up to post a recipe for pesto pizza.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup warm water
• 2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (throw in a little whole wheat if you’re into that)
• 1 tsp. salt
• A pinch of sugar, or other natural sweetener like maple sugar
• 1 tbsp. of olive oil

Directions:

1. Put yeast in a little bowl along with 1/4 cup of warm water and stir it together with a fork. Then set aside for at least 5 minutes.
2. Put the flour, sugar, and salt into a large bowl and mix it up.
3. Stir in the water/yeast mixture, olive oil, and the remaining 1/2 cup of warm water until combined into a nice ball of dough.
4. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it’s smooth. About 3-5 minutes.
5. Transfer to a a lightly oiled bowl and cover it. Let it rise until it has doubled in size, usually about an hour.

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Vegan Pesto Sauce

February 19, 2009 by Justin May

This is some very VERY killer pesto sauce. Really easy to make, and totally vegan! You can also get creative and add kale or cilantro to the mix.

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves of garlic (peeled)
• 1/3 cup pine nuts (actually any kind of nut works great. I usually use almonds, they’re cheaper.)
• 1/2 tsp.  salt
• 2 cups loosely packed fresh basil
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Finely grind the garlic, nuts, and salt together in a food processor.
2. Add basil and process until minced.
3. With the machine still running slowly add the olive oil until the pesto is blended into a paste.
4. Transfer to a bowl, cover tightly, a refrigerate it until you want to use it.

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Re-Screen when you login!

February 17, 2009 by Justin May

After gabbing on the #orlug for a few months I have fallen into the common habbit of running irssi in a screen session on a Linux server. A lot of people have this same habbit, and define their manli/womanliness by it. Ok, I don’t actually know any women who do this, but I didn’t want to be a dick about it. So anyways, here’s a great snippet to stick in your .bashrc, or .bash_profile, or wherever you stick your bash stuff. Every time you ssh/console into your linux box either a new screen session will be started, or your old one will be restarted. YAY! I’ve just saved myself from typing “screen -r” 2 or 3 times a day for the rest of my life!

Check it!

http://parsed.org/tip/195/

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