Here’s my brand new stupid idea. I bought a old S27, not sure of the manufacturing date for a little bit of money. I plan on completely tearing it down and rebuilding it custom. Basically there are no panels or drip tray cover.

My great idea is to take my two Mac G5 tower cases, chop them up, and make a new case for the S27. Good idea, amiright? The machine is not in terrible shape, it’s pretty dirty, some of the dirt is quite stubborn. But the fact that this thing is something like 38KG and takes up 3 times more than space than my Silvia? Not sure I like espresso so much that I need a machine who’s boiler is nearly 4 liters. 

The saddest part is that it’s a HX (heat exchange) machine. Meaning that it’s a moot point to really install a custom PID if you were to have one of those. So it’s kind of a waste in that regard. 

This damn thing is already running some kind of z80 embedded platform. I’m sure it’s ridiculous. Hopefully the board works so I don’t have to get it in my head that I can rebuild the board myself.

I figured I’d make a post for my new project, creating a Linux-based PID. Not sure why, I’m waiting for xCode 4 to download and I have nothing else scheduled. Basically a PID is something that can measure the heat of an object (coffee roaster, espresso machine) and control the heat by activating the heating element and controlling it more finely than the simple thermo switches the machines come with (thermistor? I don’t know).

Basically at this point I have gotten quite far in the project, maybe half-way. I’ve researched the chips, built the circuit board, and learned enough about Linux development to get an application more or less complete. It compiles, and appears to measure the temperature at the end of the wire and appears to activate an LED which we can imagine is the electrical supply. 

Guess what, Linux dev is hellish. Mac OS X does a lot of the header garbage for you. Not to mention this thing they call documentation. I now have about a dozen forum/mailing l list posts throughout the internet. Don’t search for them, I didn’t get any responses. 

Here is a rundown of the project, and why it’s maybe not the best idea. There are existing 200-300$ PID kits on the market, I could have been up and running 70 hours ago.

1. HEADLESS. I did not plan this project based on having a LCD screen or any buttons. I still have the GPIO space to include up to three buttons and one pot, but I don’t have an absolute certainty of needing it. I want to not have to work with the espresso machine’s case or damage how it’s built. 

Pretty much 90% of the PIDs out there include a big ugly box that slaps onto the side of the case, or others make you modify the case to include it in the front. For my project I want to have it be entirely invisible. You won’t know it’s there unless you notice…

2. THE ANTENNA. It’s based on a wireless router that runs OpenWRT. So it can either be its own access point, or connect to your network as a client. It will have a little wifi antenna out the back and feasibly can have a HTML interface too if I get around to it. 

I had considered a HTML interface before, but I’ve reconsidered since I think this will ultimately be just for me. Having a Linux system means I can have a network-time synced device that is on all the time. I can have cron scripts or other scripts that activate the heater or do other tasks. But the end result for the interface will be in my hand.

3. iPHONE. If you have a wifi enabled PID device and you’re already an iPhone developer… why not combine the two? You can have a very advanced configuration utility that is easily configurable just by getting the iPhone involved. It sounds like something that I can probably do quite simply really. Some of the setup might be kind of manual, kind of broken, kind of specific… but why not?

Monsieur Duceppe, 

S’il vous plaît noter que ceci est d’origine anglaise et a été traduit par voie électronique. 

Pouvez-vous s’il vous plaît me dire comment Bell Canada est en mesure de ne pas améliorer la vitesse d’Internet ou de la fiabilité, mais est en mesure d’augmenter les frais? Non seulement ils sont plus leurs propres frais, mais le gouvernement canadien a accepté force et la croissance pour tous les autres transporteurs? Est-ce que ne sonne pas comme la fixation des prix? T la participation du gouvernement canadien en quelque sorte donner ce genre certains de la légitimité? 

Partout dans le monde (même au Canada) et des prix de l’internet ont toujours baissé, avec des plafonds de téléchargement (limites / et les frais excédentaires) disparaissent. Je travaille à l’Université Concordia pour le département Réseaux, et je sais pertinemment que chaque année, nous doublons notre bande passante sans aucune augmentation des coûts pour ce service. Le fait que nous l’internet devient de plus en plus nombreux et plus chers que le nombre d’utilisateurs augmente à travers la terre. 

Comment est-ce différent pour des millions de consommateurs canadiens? Est-ce toute la population canadienne en quelque sorte plus petit que dans une université de 80.000 personnes? Ce n’est pas, et il est déprimant de voir que ce qui se passe à tous. Ils sont une foule de services licites de haute bandwitdh comme Netflix, Apple TV en streaming et même l’ensemble des uYoutube et autres services vidéo en streaming. Je pense que vous devez admettre que l’Internet est à ce point un service incroyablement important que tous les citoyens canadiens doivent avoir accès à. 

Mais avec la bénédiction du gouvernement du Canada, vous avez réussi à étouffer l’accès des populations au service. Vous avez étouffé leur utilisation du service existant et que vous avez étouffé le commerce qui s’est passé grâce à ce service. 

Le fait est que Bell Canada et tous les transporteurs d’autres internautes ne versent pas des sommes importantes pour un montant de surplus pour le consommateur. Les appareils à connecter les utilisateurs sont là, de même que les techniciens et les analystes de la maintenir. Il n’y a pas de supplément pour les photons supplémentaires pour passer à travers ces dispositifs. Un pourcentage énorme des frais excédentaires sont des bénéfices. C’est comme si le gouvernement canadien a convenu que les messages texte de la cellule-téléphone devrait être fixé à un prix de 0,25 $ à tous les niveaux pour tous les transporteurs. Pourquoi cette sembler une bonne idée pour le gouvernement canadien? 

Êtes-vous en essayant de sauver Bell? Une société tellement confus et compliqué qu’il ne sait pas si l’argent est à venir ou aller? Malheureusement, il n’ya rien de particulier sur ce que Bell fait avec l’internet, c’est une base, ennuyeux, de services génériques comme l’électricité ou l’eau. Bell ne présente aucune valeur ajoutée au service et ils n’ont certainement pas avec l’Internet. La barrière à l’entrée, partiellement place par le gouvernement canadien, a gardé le jeu de la concurrence. 

Plus d’argent dans les poches Bell ne fait que traduire en une société mal gérée faire beaucoup plus d’argent. Je suis sûr que ses dirigeants sont des gens sympathiques, mais que cet argent aurait été dépensé par un citoyen canadien ailleurs sur quelque chose de plus important. L’internet a moins de valeur que jamais auparavant, un prix plus élevé pour la même chose. 

Le fait est que l’Internet au Canada n’est pas seulement aujourd’hui l’un des plus chers, mais aussi l’un des services Internet plus lent sur la planète. La raison en est parce que Bell n’a aucune raison d’augmenter la capacité de service, ils ont une configuration assez doux où ils obtiennent d’augmenter les prix en utilisant le même service et le matériel ancien ils ont installé il ya 10 ans. Pourquoi auraient-ils dépenser de l’argent à mettre dans un service de vitesse plus élevée lorsque la technologie de 2001 peut encore commander des prix du marché? prix DSL devrait être beaucoup plus bas qu’ils ne le sont déjà, et Bell aurait dû travailler dans l’introduction de la prochaine génération de services Internet comme pratiquement tous les autres pays occidentaux et asiatiques. 

Au lieu de cela, ils ont un quasi-monopole de sorte qu’ils peuvent simplement de vous vendre du thon en conserve au même prix rouge de l’Atlantique. 

Maintenant, le gouvernement canadien, après accord avec Bell qu’ils devraient faire plus d’argent avec le même service, a également implicitement accepté d’étouffer les services Internet de demain, de devenir populaire ou étendue au Canada. Le Canada est destiné à tomber derrière tous les autres pays de la planète tandis que chaque citoyen doit penser très fort avant de se rendre les pages Web, de payer pour le streaming vidéo et le partage de fichiers en ligne parce qu’ils sont constamment frapper avec les coûts excédentaires. 

J’ai déjà connu cela avec service de téléphonie cellulaire. Les appels téléphoniques, messages texte, photo, internet, tous les coûts de portage excédent séparée et punitive. J’ai donc utiliser chacune de ces services aussi peu que possible. Alors maintenant, je doit être pensée à ce sujet lorsque je suis services bancaires en ligne ou de louer un film en ligne? Le gouvernement canadien est maintenant activement étouffante consumérisme. Cela devient une question différente lorsque vous l’avez fait à tous les petites entreprises et des consommateurs pour leur internet à domicile.Très différent. 

S’il vous plaît essayer de penser à ce qui se passe et ce qui est juste. 

Cordialement, 

-Nathan Van Fleet 
Network Analyst 
Université Concordia 


———————————————
Dear Mr. Duceppe,
Please note this is originally english.
Can you please tell me how Bell Canada is able to not improve internet speeds or reliability but is able to increase fees? Not only are they increasing their own fees, but the Canadian government has agreed force and increase for all other carriers? Does this not sounds like price fixing? Does the Canadian Government’s involvement somehow give this some sort of legitimacy? 
Across the world (even in Canada) internet prices have historically gone down, with download caps (limits/and overage fees) disappearing. I work at Concordia University for the Networking department; and I know for a fact that every year we double our bandwidth without any increase in costs for that service. The fact us that the internet is getting more plentiful and more cheap as the number of users increase across the earth. 
How is it different for millions of Canadian consumers? Is the entire Canadian population somehow smaller than a university of 80,000 people? It’s not, and it’s depressing that this is happening at all. The are a bevy of legitimate high-bandwitdh services such as Netflix, Apple TV streaming and even the aggregate of uYoutube and other video streaming services. I think you have to admit that the internet is at this point an incredibly important service that all Canadian citizens should have access to.
But with the Canadian Government’s blessing, you have succeeded in stifling people’s access to the service. You have stifled their use of the existing service and you have stifled the commerce that has been going on through this service. 
The fact is that Bell Canada and all other internet carriers do not actually pay significant amounts of money for any amount of overage for the consumer. The devices to connect users are there, and so are the technicians and analysts to maintain it. There is not extra charge for extra photons to pass through those devices. A massive percentage of the overage charges are profits. It’s as if the Canadian government agreed that cell-phone text messages should be set at a price of 0.25$ across the board for all carriers. Why does this seem like a good idea to the Canadian government? 
Are you trying to save Bell? A company so confused and complicated that it doesn’t know if money is coming or going? Unfortunately there is nothing particularly special about what Bell does with the internet, it’s a basic, boring, generic service like hydro or water. Bell does not add any value to the service and they certainly didn’t come up with the internet. The barrier to entry, partially place by the Canadian Government, has kept the competition out.
More money in Bell’s pockets only translates into a poorly managed company making a lot more money. I’m sure its executives are nice people, but that money could have been spent by a Canadian citizen elsewhere on something more important. The internet has less value than ever before, higher price for the same thing. 
The fact is that Canadian internet is not only now one of the most expensive, but also one of the slowest internet services on the planet. The reason is because Bell has no reason to increase the service capacity, they have a pretty sweet setup where they get to increase prices using the same old service and hardware they installed 10 years ago. Why would they spend money to bring in a higher speed service when technology from 2001 can still command market prices? DSL prices should be much lower than they are already, and Bell should have put work into introducing next generation internet services like practically every other western and asian country. 
Instead, they have a near-monopoly so they can just sell you the same canned tuna at blue-fin prices. 
Now the Canadian government, after agreeing with Bell that they should make more money with the same service, has also implicitly agreed to stifle future internet services from becoming popular or widespread in Canada. Canada is destined to fall behind every other country on the planet while every citizen has to think very hard before visiting web pages, paying for video streaming and online file sharing because they are constantly hit with overage costs. 
I’ve already experienced this with cell phone service. Phone calls, text messages, picture messages, internet, all carry separate and punitory overage costs. So I use each one of those services as little as possible. So now I should be thinking about this when I am online banking or renting a movie online? The Canadian government is now actively stifling consumerism. It becomes a different matter when you’ve done this to every small-business and consumer for their home internet. Much different. 
Please try and think what is happening and do what is right.
Regards,
-Nathan Van FleetNetwork AnalystConcordia University

It makes me feel like everything I’ve posted over the past four years on Twitter, Jaiku, Friendfeed, Plurk, Pownce, and, yes, Google Buzz, has been an immense waste of time. I was shouting into a vast echo chamber where no one could hear me because they were too busy shouting themselves. All this time I’ve been pumping content into the void like some chatterbox Onan. How humiliating. How demoralizing.

This article is exactly how I feel about social networks. Everyone gets to broadcast whatever they feel like broadcasting to everyone that follows them. Finally, broadcasting huge email letters about myself is socially wrong, and even mass-mailing jokes went out in the 90’s. But with Twitter and Facebook, there is no social stigma against this. It’s actually ALL about that.

It’s really interesting how the author realizes how trivial it is. Realizes how no one was reading or following his tweets close enough to even expect them. Not even the author himself. Is there a possibility that social networking is a fad? Something that will surely exist for the younger navel-gazing aged children. Something you grow out of? For now everyone is using social networks. But could there be a blow back? 

I hate finding people that I’m interested in (authors, thinkers, celebs) on Twitter and thinking I might like to see some small observation of theirs every now and then; and then to have them hyperactively tweeting, retweeting others and responding to other peoples tweets. It’s like you’re a detective that has to eek out exactly what that public conversation they having is about. Why are they having a public, broadcast conversation at all? 

This is almost and onion article. A 90-year old couple dies of heat exhaustion in their private homes elevator. Here are some quotes from family members.

We always said we hoped they would go together because if one went, the other wouldn’t survive long.

Especially if they were trapped inside a closet sized elevator for days before they die. Who knows how far apart they died? What an elegant mystery. Did they fade away at the same time? Did one of them cry for days after the other perished?

They were so dependent on each other.

The only thing missing is how cute a couple they were.

We all know one day we’re going to die. This is one of those horrible ones where you’re stuck somewhere.

Perhaps the understatement of the century for people who were found in the fetal position 4 days after they died.

I’m just surprised that they didn’t have an elevator phone. It’s a standard thing for public buildings. Did they cheap out about this necessary expense?

So this is it. The whole planet earth, and the lifeforms that have developed gradually over billions of years are going to be undone because of frail and shallow human psychology.

Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal put a ceiling on the amount of carbon to be emitted each year, and would force electricity providers and other polluters to purchase permits directly from the government or from each other for their emissions of greenhouse gases. The system, if successful, would have had the effect of reducing carbon emissions to 4 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. This would not, even by administration calculations, have been sufficient to prevent the 2º C temperature rise that a consensus among climatologists insists is the maximum level the planet can sustain without dire effects taking place. But the cap-and-trade plan was chosen over a straightforward tax on carbon production in part because it enjoyed the support of not only of the likes of McCain but also major corporations such as Shell Oil and Dow Chemical, who stood to profit from it.