Pi and RCX – step 1

My boss and I were talking about Raspberry Pi (he is buying one) and LEGO Mindstorms this week. We were both wondering if there was an easy way to connect the Mindstorms peripherals to the Pi.  A quick Google search tells me that the LEGO motors are 9 volt, so no.  But I did find a blog post that got me going using the RCX brick and programming it from the Pi.
https://minordiscoveries.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/using-nqc-on-a-raspberry-pi-to-program-a-lego-mindstorms-rcx-brick
I got pretty far, but it didn’t respond to the raw command.  I did skip loading the firmware on my RCX 2.0 because I’m paranoid it might be an irreversible step.  But that is probably why it didn’t work, so I’m going to do some more research

Slate 7 – quick usage update

Since I’ve been working at home, I’ve been using my Slate 7 more.  Most of the time I use it as a convenient Pandora terminal, hooked in to the two Rokit 6 studio monitors I was given from a previous project.  That works pretty well, and the battery life is good.  But I still occasionally have issues with the wireless.  It will randomly loose touch with wireless, and the only solution is to shut down and reboot.  It has been happening about once a day this week, and it seems to be related to having Pandora paused from the lock screen when it goes into a deep sleep.  But I have no easy way to debug it.

Oh, and the Amazon Music app on it just screws up all the time.  Which is too bad, because I’d like to add that variety to my listening.

I also still use WordPress on it to write blog posts. 🙂

Interview skills – a new category for the blog

Years ago, during yet another round of corporate uncertainty, I took some advice that you should be keeping up your interviewing skills and do some interviews to keep in practice, even if you don’t want to change jobs. And you never know when you might find an awesome offer. So I made a goal to do at least one interview a year sometime during the summer.  It has been good for me to push my boundaries, talk to some cool companies, and get a feel for what I’m lacking in an interview.
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