---
author: Chris Hodapp
comments: true
date: 2008-08-04 04:10:45+00:00
layout: post
slug: 20080726-20080803-stuff
title: 2008.07.26 - 2008.08.03 stuff
wordpress_id: 95
categories:
- Scratch
tags:
- electronics
- food
- Music
- politics
- programming
---

**Music**



	
  * [Kaskade](http://www.myspace.com/kaskademusic) - House/electronica artist I came across many times on [imeem](http://www.imeem.com/)... was good for calming me down while doing homework[
](http://www.imeem.com/)

	
  * ["5th & Avenida" by Afterlife](http://www.imeem.com/groups/rGPu33gx/music/ftln18R0/afterlife_5th_avenida/) - an ambient track I liked... it's on "Café del Mar, Volumen Cuatro" ([Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Caf%C3%A9-del-Mar-Vol-4/dp/B00000JZO3))

	
  * ["100 Billion Stars" by Lux](http://x.imeem.com/rtgRivRc3j) - another ambient track I liked, from "Cafe del Mar, Volume 8" ([Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Cafe-Del-Mar-Various-Artists/dp/B00005LNH3))

	
  * ["Alive" by Mads Arp with Julie Harrington](http://www.imeem.com/anniebettyblue/music/xEHhE7nf/mads_arp_featuring_julie_harrington_alive/) - yet another, from "Cafe del Mar Dreams, Vol. 4"  ([Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Caf%C3%A9-del-Mar-Dreams-Vol/dp/B000H5UKHG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1217798510&sr=1-1))

	
  * [Cafe del Mar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_del_Mar), since I didn't realize all those songs came from the same set of albums until I looked them up


**Food**



	
  * [The Black Beast](http://www.chocolatebytes.com/the-black-beast/) - my friend Jessica made this flourless cake and it's pretty supremely awesome


**Research**



	
  * ["The Limits of Quantum Computers" by Scott Aaronson (draft)](http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/limitsqc-draft.pdf) - or, why articles professing how quantum computers can do anything are complete bullshit

	
  * [Rendering for an Interactive 360-degree Light Field Display](http://gl.ict.usc.edu/Research/3DDisplay/)

	
  * [From RenewableEnergyWorld:](http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=53145) More efficient way to convert waste heat to electricity, from research at Ohio State University

	
  * [arxiv draft](http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.2781) - Funky chemical bonding that happens at very high pressures (officially, "Tetrahedral clustering in molten lithium under pressure")


**Political & hippie stuff**



	
  * ["In Debt We Trust" by Danny Schechter](http://www.indebtwetrust.org/) - film about the national and personal debt crisis in the US (trailer [here](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8816019997709201699))

	
  * ["If This Is a Man" by Primo Levi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_This_Is_a_Man) - novel by an Italian author, inspired by his time in Auschwitz during WW2

	
  * ["No Tech Hacking" by Johnny Long](http://www.amazon.com/No-Tech-Hacking-Engineering-Dumpster/dp/1597492159) (Amazon) - "A guide to social engineering, dumpster diving, and shoulder surfing."

	
  * ["Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow](http://craphound.com/littlebrother/) - novel, available freely online if you so desire


**Programming & computerish crap
**



	
  * [Papers about Self and OO](http://self.sourceforge.net/papers/papers.shtml) - I haven't read any of these, but I should

	
  * [Bad Mojo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Mojo) - some pretty well-reviewed adventure/puzzle game from 1996 which happens to run on DOS/Windows/Mac

	
  * [The not-so-short introduction to LaTeX 2e](http://tobi.oetiker.ch/lshort/lshort.pdf) - PDF about [LaTeX](http://www.latex-project.org/)

	
  * [Kile](http://kile.sourceforge.net/) - integrated LaTeX environment

	
  * [XeTeX](http://scripts.sil.org/xetex) - a merging of [TeX](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX) with Unicode and modern font technologies

	
  * [Apache FOP](http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/) - "print formatter driven by XSL         formatting objects (XSL-FO) and an output independent formatter." from the [Apache XML Graphics Project](http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/)

	
  * [Hercules 390](http://www.hercules-390.org/) - The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator... incidentally, [TRON Guy](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3609OtM138c) is in charge of the project

	
  * [The LiveCD List](http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php) from FrozenTech - Table of info about Linux distros available as LiveCDs

	
  * [INSERT](http://www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html) - the Inside Security Rescue Toolkit, a Linux distro that comes with various tools for rescue and recovery; it's a 60 MB download so it works well as a LiveCD or USB-stick

	
  * [Open64](http://www.open64.net/) - the Open Research Compiler, used originally on Itanium and now on Nvidia [CUDA](http://www.nvidia.com/cuda); it is under GPL

	
  * [BrookGPU](http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/brookgpu/) - "Brook for GPUs is a compiler and runtime implementation of the [Brook](http://sourceforge.net/projects/brook) stream program language for modern graphics hardware."

	
  * [OpenCL](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL) - "a language for programming heterogeneous data and task parallel computing across GPUs and CPUs."; initial implementation is on [LLVM](http://llvm.org/) (Low Level Virtual Machine) and [clang](http://clang.llvm.org/)


**Electronics**



	
  * [LM317](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LM317) - According to Cowclops, this variable linear voltage regulator can be a good way to limit current and voltage for charging an SLA.

	
  * [JOP: A Tiny Java Processor](http://www.jopdesign.com/) - A hardware implementation of the Java Virtual Machine; it can be put onto a low-cost FPGA, so the site claims, with the VHDL source (which is GPLed)

	
  * [OpenPCD](http://www.openpcd.org/) - Open RFID Reader for 13.56 MHz; site provides the schematic, PCB layout, Gerber files, bill of material, and some software

	
  * [OPEX](http://www.atmanecl.com/EnglishSite/opex.htm) - A "Unique Operating System" for the AVR microcontroller

	
  * [Use, Abuse, and Misuse of Amplifiers](http://www.national.com/onlineseminar/2002/amps/transcript.html) by Bob Pease - online seminar from National Semiconductor (or "webinar" if you prefer... which I don't); beware, page is quite large

	
  * [Operational amplifier usage](http://www.national.com/an/AN/AN-31.pdf) (also from National Semiconductor)... handy for stuff to do with op amps.


**WTF?**



	
  * [The Roommate Files](http://www.wyseguys.com/default.asp?pg=roommate) - This will put to shame any story you have about bad roommates.


