There are three pictures of alive creatures I made yesterday with my Pixel Phone near Alameda Beach.
First one I believe is chipmunk. Why not squirrel? There were plenty of them and no one climbed on the trees. And they all looked smaller and there tails were not bushy. But chipmunk expected to be striped, and these were not. So I put question mark in the title.Bytes, Volts & Pulleys
Various projects to keep hands busy...
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Rocking Chair
For stringing I have chosen the simplest conventional pattern. The same pattern you usually see in tennis or badminton rockets. I did stringing just with my hands without using any machine or tool. My muscle strength was more than enough for the job.
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, Magic Number Seven, and Sixteen LEDs
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Let us start with this episode of StarTalk Youtube channel. Here Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the reason why all mechanical clocks (almost) have hands moving in the same (clockwise) direction.
This episode only fifteen minutes long, but in case you are too busy to watch it I'll provide short brief.
2. Shadow of sundial moves clockwise only in Northern Hemisphere. In Southern Hemisphere shadow of sundial moves counter-clockwise. If mechanical clock would be invented in some place to the south of the equator clock scale and clock hand movement would be opposite of what we have now. This picture of a backward clock shows us how southern invented timepiece may look. You can buy such clocks on Amazon and after some time even get used to it.
3. Apart of clockwise and counter-clockwise movement Neil in this episode discusses how invention of digital clock changed human perception of the time. Mechanical clock makes human think about time from geometrical perspective. Angle between axis and clock hand corresponds to the time which already passed or left. Recent invention of digital clock creates illusion of precision but deprives us from geometric association.
LED clock presented here is a hybrid. It works partially as a regular (like invented in Northern Hemisphere) clock and partially as backward (invented in Southern Hemisphere) clock. And I want to think that it is a hybrid in other aspect: while be digital it still gives some geometry perspective. To understand this timepiece interface I invite you to play with the web model: Half-Dial-Clock-Model Link

Model has four clocks, which all synchronized and show the same time.
1. First clock at the left is the regular analogous clock. Nothing to comment here.
2. Second clock works similarly to the first, apart of the fact that in place of clock hands there are circular arcs. Normally clock shows time by angles between vertical axis and hands . This arc clock shows time by angles occupied by arcs (outer arc for minutes, inner arc for hours ). Arcs start at twelve mark and grows clockwise.
3. Third model is a half-dial version of ark clock. For hours less than six and minutes less than thirty reading the time is not different of the previous clock. Arcs start at twelve mark and grows clockwise. But when hours are in the range 6..12 or minutes are in the range 30..60 there is the change. Hands of the regular clock under these conditions are positioned at the left side of dial. But for this arc clock there is no left side. Arcs here occupy the same right side but there are change of starting points and direction where arcs grow. Under these conditions arcs start not at the twelve mark but at the six mark and they grow counter-clockwise. That way clock show hours from 6 till 12 and minutes from 30 till 60. In other words this clock works closer to normal clock for hours from 12 till 6 and minutes from 0 till 30. Otherwise this clock works closer to backward (Southern Hemisphere) clock.
4. Fourth clock is similar to the previous model but arcs are dotted not solid. This clock does not need dial marks: dots itself are marks. White dots of inner half-dial shows hours, green dots of outer half-dial show time with five minutes precision. Additional one minute precision achieved by a color of the last dot of minute arc. Just add color reading to the time provided by green dots (for cyan add +1, for purple add +2, for red add +3, and for blue add +4 ). This last clock model is very close to the real LED based clock (just substitute dots with LEDs).
Model allows to play with clocks dynamically. Three time modes exist:
1. Manual mode. Top slider allows to change clock time.
2. Real time mode. Clock shows current local time on the machine where browser is running.
3. Simulated mode. Time change is simulated (bottom slider allows to increase or decrease simulation speed).
Real LED clock is different of dot half-dial model by having two more lighting elements.
1. Central LEDs changes color each fifteen seconds (cyan, purple, red, and blue). When clock is in set mode this LED is dark.
2. LED on the left part of the clock is AM/PM flag. This LED is OFF during AM half of the day and ON during PM half.
Clock is built around Atmega328p microchip. Circuit diagram, C program and Microchip Studio project you can find in the Git repository: https://github.com/jumbleview/Clock16
And one last thing to say about the project. The clock has seven LEDs on the hours scale and seven LEDs on the minute scale. There is known psychology phenomenon: "Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two". Invented by psychologist George A. Miller, it argues that seven is number of items human can keep in short-term memory to operate. Anything significantly more is out of cognitive capabilities of average person. In this regard clock presented here looks just right. I believe it is easy enough to get used to its interface.
Saturday, February 1, 2025
Not Really Tiny
Until recently I used for my hobby electronics projects two types of microchips:
- Atmel Atmega328p (in case I needed at least ten in/out pins);
- Atmel Attiny85 (if five or less in/out pins are enough).
It occupies less space on a breadboard than Atmega328, but still big enough for many hobby projects. But what makes this chip outstanding is the fact how convenient it is for breadboard prototyping. Look at pinout of this chip in PDIP package:
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
The Prices Are Down!
As you can see prices of the gasoline are down almost by 10%! Not bad. There are some more positive changes: green grass instead of mulch. Bench disappeared as well, but I can't tell is it for the good.
Friday, November 1, 2024
Halloween 2024
Several photos I made this year in our neighborhood.
Monday, September 16, 2024
Crane
Yesterday, on the trail in neighboring town, I have taken with my Pixel 6 Pro couple of pictures .
First one I made when crane just walked out of creek water.
And here is the same crane again staying still next to a wired fence.
Friday, September 6, 2024
Wallpaper
I just published small Go project on GitHub:
https://github.com/jumbleview/decor
This is the program which takes jpeg picture as argument and set it as Windows desktop background.
Command line looks like this:
- decor.exe [-s] path_to_jpeg_file
Program reads jpeg file, encodes it, crops image so it's width-to-height ratio matches width-to-height ratio of computer monitor, saves the image as bmp file and sets it as a screen background.
It is pure Go program. It should be compiled with command
- picshuffle.exe [-s] [-l] path_to_folder_or_jpeg_file
Friday, August 23, 2024
Deer , Turtles, & Heron
Get lucky to make this shot of two deer (probably mother and child) roaming around neighboring town.
It is good that may Pixel 6 Pro is always with me. Its telephoto lens is excellent.
One more picture I shot next day in another neighboring town. It is a pond near town hall.
The same phone, the same lens.
And one more at the park lake.
Monday, June 24, 2024
Four Years in Use
Four years ago I published post about my Go terminal application which I use as personal password manager.
https://www.jumbleview.info/2020/04/here-we-go.html
During all these years I used it on constant basis making some tweaking here and there. This post summarizes major changes.
- Application now supports mouse interface. User can utilize keyboard hits and mouse clicks interchangeably.
- At start application can be supplied with some flags. That allows to select application colors, initial application mode, even add new table column or delete existing one.
- In case current cell contains valid URL user can open browser window on that URL with the help of WWW button.
- There is no button Add anymore (its functionality absorbed by button Edit).
- When table is in focus user may select row by hitting key which corresponds to the first letter of the record name.
- Initial implementation had a security vulnerability: content of clipboard was not cleared in case application was terminated by closing console window . Now it is fixed: disregarding of which way application is terminated (by Ctrl+C, Exit button, or window closing) clipboard is empty.
Saturday, June 1, 2024
Tetris House
Couple of photos of new street art artifact : "Tetris House". It is private house in Duboce Triangle neighborhood of San Francisco. Owner recently made his house to become piece of art.
Saturday, May 25, 2024
Syntax Prototype Board
From my experience succuss of electronic DIY project in a big part depends on how good you solder circuit components. And high quality soldering depends on the prototype board. Three years ago I have published my review of Adafruit Board . It is indeed excellent for small projects accommodating Attinny85 processor but for project based on Atmega328 it is too small. For a long time my favorite boards for such projects were Radio Shack catalog numbers #276170 and #270150. Alas, there are no anymore Radio Shack stores around and, while Radio Shack web site still exists, boards are not on sale on there site. Sometimes Radio Shack boards can be bought on E-bay, but cost with delivery reaches $15 or even more. I consider this as too much. So I have started to look for a replacement. Eventually I found this site They sells some useful stuff including prototype boards. On the picture below you can see the board taken from there. I paid for five boards with delivery ~$25 (~$5 per a board).
Boards came nicely wrapped into transparent material. On wrapper of each board there were labels: "Made in Taiwan". As you can guess board has two power buses and six rows of three hole pads.
Below you can see project I made with this board.