Mine the Harvest

With Lucid, the standard Ubuntu repos no longer contain the Sun version of Java, having opted instead to just go with openjdk. While I can certainly understand the desire to have openjdk be the truly open solution, I am accustomed to the Sun version. Also, when using java-6-openjdk , I ran into a very annoying situation where apt kept running into the following issue when you attempted any transaction:

error adding signet.pl/signet_ocspklasa3_pem.crt
error adding signet.pl/signet_pca2_pem.crt
error adding signet.pl/signet_pca3_pem.crt
error adding signet.pl/signet_rootca_pem.crt
error adding signet.pl/signet_tsa1_pem.crt
error adding spi-inc.org/spi-ca-2003.crt
error adding spi-inc.org/spi-cacert-2008.crt
error adding telesec.de/deutsche-telekom-root-ca-2.crt
failed (VM used: java-6-openjdk).
dpkg: error processing ca-certificates-java (–configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

In addition, I was having trouble with the openjdk in Eclipse with Subversive and was longing for the Sun Java version. But it was nowhere to be found in the repos. Sigh.

I Googled about and saw a lot of similar difficulties and frustration that the Sun version was not available. Sure, you can install it and the browser plugins, etc. manually, but really – why? Fortunately, I was able to find a simple solution to install sun-java6-jdk on Lucid!

This very simple fix came from this blog site.

Just remove openjdk if you already installed it:

sudo apt-get remove  openjdk-6-jre icedtea6-plugin

Now, set up the partners repo and install Sun Java from there:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner"
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install sun-java6-jdk
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-plugin

Done!

My Arduino arrived just a few days before Easter, and though I’ve been busy with work and school I couldn’t wait to dive into playing around with it. The whole concept of the Arduino, being able to write little programs in C, compile them, then upload then to this little programmable prototyping board – it’s just so cool.

I decided to start by following the great introductory tutorials at the Adafruit.com site, they are so well written and so fun. One of them consists of learning how to program three different LEDs to cycle on and off. By having more than one on at a time, and through using a box to diffuse the light, you can mix the colors to get yellow, purple ect.

Well, that looked like fun, and as I was constructing it I realized that it would be a perfect Easter Egg, the colors diffusing and illuminating it. I wired up the schematic, modified the sample source code to blink and mix as I wanted it to, compiled it and uploaded it to the Arduino. I made a little paper box and filled it with tissue as shown on the adafruit.com site. As I made the box I drew some easter egg style symbols, and some other stuff, on each face of the cube. Once fixed up it worked pretty darn good and I presented it to Syd as her E-aster Egg!

Here is a little ogg video of the finished project:

E-asterEgg

(If that does not work here it is in mpeg4 too)

If you would like to learn more about the Ardunio, see this wiki article which has some information on getting started and links to some great resources.

Syd really liked her digital colored egg. I’ll have to come up with some more projects to make for her, but I sure it won’t be too difficult to come up with ideas, the Arduino is a remarkably versatile little gadget.

Wow, check out this new Mares Icon HD dive computer:

* Full color TFT LCD screen
* Built in digital compass
* Dive site map feature
* Very clear presentation of information
* Up to 3 Nitrox gas mixes
* RGBM algorithm

Current cost is about $1,100 US (non air integrated).

From reading on line it also seems the air integrated units will be out end of 1st quarter (now) or 2nd quarter 2010. No official word yet on future trimix support, but as the Uwatec Galileo Sol offers that I can’t imagine that this won’t as well. The Sol has looked pretty interesting, but honestly the Mares Icon HD looks damn good and just might be one of the best and most fully featured dive computers to hit the market yet.  I also like that it uses the RBGM alorithum with deep stops, which I use on my original Nemo and have liked very much.

Watch the very cool demo of it here.

I love the sliding display showing position in the water column and how deep stops, deco and safety stops “slide” into position. What could be easier than that?

Here is one company making dive site maps specifially for it. (Though I imagine a simple command line application of image magick to make images the correct size would do quite nicely.)

Here is a  review of it, and a decent scubaboard.com thread on it can be found here.

One thing I can’t help but think of is the possibility of a device like this that ran on an Android stack. The pros of course being that it could run apps and you would not be exclusively dependent on the manufacturer supplied software, the liability that more complicated software introduces the possibility of bugs and instability. Hummm . . . do you want to risk your life on a Java stack? Then again, if you could play Tux racer while on a deco stop, it just might be worth it.