Richi's blog

A blog about personal projects and experiences

  • Screen went black

    This morning, I had a short moment of horror when I turned on my Netbook. After the ubuntu splash screen, it went black and didn’t respond to any keys. The only response was for the power key, where it displayed the ubuntu splash screen again and shut down. My Acer aspire one has the dreaded […]

  • Visited countries

    A long time ago, I found a web service to visualize a map with all the countries you have visited. Now I finally figured out how to get it displayed in wordpress using the code-embed plugin. Well, since we got kids, travelling is in hibernation mode, but we already have plans on where to go […]

  • Robot Arm part 1 packaging and simple manipulation

    Another project that I had in mind for a while was to experiment with robot arm path planning and inverse kinematics. If you don’t know what that is, think about how robot arms could be programmed. The simplest form would be capture and replay, in which you have a controller which which you record how […]

  • Speedflying in Andermatt

    Finally we have snow, good weather and I could take a day off. So, I went to Andermatt, my favorite ski resort. I had the intention to do speedflying, paragliding and skiing, all on the same day. It was wonderfull! But see for yourself …

  • Mixing boost versions –as-needed

    Some linux distributions defaulted to use the –as-needed linker flag for a while. Ubuntu tried it in natty, but then reverted. Now with oneiric, it really is enabled by default. I ran into this when one of my packages wouldn’t compile on oneiric. I always got linker errors with boost::filesystem and boost::system. Between natty and […]

  • Best names for algorithms

    I’ve worked in Baar for two months now and I go to work by train. It takes a while longer than to Schwyz as before, but I don’t have to switch trains or busses. That means it’s good for reading. Currently I read “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach” which is accompanying an online curse (ai-class.com […]

  • Schächental GoPro Fotos

    Yesterday I waited for the fog to disappear as predicted, but it didn’t happen. So today we went to Unterschächen in Uri where there is very seldom fog. When we arrived, I saw that WinWings were there just ready to dirve to take off. Sure enough they had a place left for me in the […]

  • RepRap part 3: Ethernet connection

    With the X and Z gears propperly glued, all axes moved. But it didn’t take long for the Z axis gear to break again. The gear that came with the kit was multilayered wood glued together and laser cut. The place where the belt is, is off the axle of the stepper motor. That’s obviously […]

  • RepRap Part 2 : It moves

    It’s been a while since I assembled the Gen7 Electronic board and the extruder. I ordered the extruder together with the steppers from the Netherlands. The hot end v6 is a very nice design compared to the original, where you had to wrap the heating wire around the nozzle yourself. But it’s too big to […]

  • My first night at a hospital

    Last time I spent a night in a hospital was when I was born moren than 34 years ago. I was never looking forward to the next one. But this weekend our son Levin hit the ground with his head really hard while playing. He cried badly, and the spot on his head that hit […]