Richi's blog

A blog about personal projects and experiences

  • The crapware platform

    I complained many times that there is no standard package manager on Windows, and that installations and especially upgrading software on that platform is an unholy mess. On my office computer there are probably close to ten different mechanisms present to keep different software packages up to date. Some lurk in the system tray, and […]

  • The most beautiful car ever built

    I usually don’t write about books I read, or even reviews. So, this is a rare occasion, but it’s also a type of book that I only rarely read. Usually I just give ratings on goodreads. This book is about the Jaguar XJ13.  Now, beauty is a matter of taste, so you’re free to disagree, […]

  • Chiemsee Holiday

    Like for most people around here, summer holidays for us usually means going south. And that is what we usually did in the past. This year, we wanted something new. The countries north of Switzerland were unexplored territory for us in regards of holiday destinations. We had ideas to go to the netherlands, Belgium or […]

  • Computational neuroscience class

    This year didn’t start out so great for my online classes. I signed up and started a bunch, but quit all but one so far. Some were not as interesting as I thought, some didn’t contain enough new stuff or the material covered was too different from what I expected. I just couldn’t motivate myself […]

  • AtTiny Advent Wreath

    An advent wreath in late spring, you ask? Yes, the timing is a bit off, and that’s not just because the coldest spring in ages has not finished yet. While browsing for the topic of my last post, I discovered a nice little one-evening-project: Geeky advent from tinkerlog. I had all the required parts here, […]

  • AtMega breadboard header

    A while ago, I ordered some AtTiny breadboard headers from tinkerlog.com. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any boards for AtMega’s left. The ones for the AtTiny’s are very handy, and I used them whenever prototyping something with an AtTiny. In fact, I used it almost whenever flashing an AtTiny. Many times I wished I had one […]

  • Jumping ship as google is getting evil

    For many years google stood out of the big IT enterprises as an example of respecting their users and embracing open standards. Sadly, they are drifting away from that, and it looks as if they want to get as insidious as the others. Gone are the times of “do no evil”. Just recently, I wanted to […]

  • Jaguar headliners repair

    Remember the Asterix & Obelix comics, and that the only thing they feared was that heaven would fall on their heads? That happened to me lately. But it was not as bad as that might sound. Well, the joke doesn’t quite work in English. In German, we call the headliners of a car “heaven”. Last […]

  • Variable fan speed for the camper

    The T3 VW camper vans came with a three step fan speed switch. Maybe it broke just like that, or maybe it was due to the kids playing with it endlessly. No matter what, the broken switch was a good opportunity for an upgrade. I ordered a 15A PWM motor speed controller which I thought […]

  • tinkering with the kids

    This Easter weekends the weather was really crap, so we stayed home. We had lots of time to spend with the kids, and we all enjoyed that. The boys are still a bit too young for the projects I usually do, but we just did our first electronics lession.. Even if Levin didn’t fully understand […]