A few er... INTERESTING hacks.

"Andreas fixed an electronics problem with a chair"
I know I've been quiet for quite a while (not that I have as many followers who care about it). I've been messing round with the ESTCube project, soldering in a week more than I've ever soldered in my entire life.
Today was mostly fun... There was a fundamental flaw in a board design and I had to figure out a way to fix that. After 4 hours of messing round doing nothing helpful, I in frustration came up with the most ideal way to fix the problem: a chair! The problem was that the disigner had left pads poorly aligned to the actual component that was meant to be on it. So, I simply bent a pin-header array to create a small stool for the component to sit on. I have no idea why I hadn't thought of that earlier...
Next I'm going to have to figure out a way to get some USART inputs and outputs out, so that we can use them, because the wise guy designer didn't think it neccessary to put pins for them. Let's see what my crazy mind thinks up this time!

So, I lost this PCB...

Someone threw a wet towel right in the middle of my pancake day with this message: "Bring the debug board tomorrow." That's the same debug board that I remember having put in a drawer down in the ESTCube lab a month or so ago. That meant only one thing: the debug board grew legs and some hands and found a more comfortable place to be (which didn't include all the places we searched). And me being the last person to have seen the board made it MY fault. Wonderful, isn't it?
I also had an interesting time today soldering some SMD logic gates. With the right music, it's pretty good, just that I made the mistake of letting the media player shove ALL my music into the playlist and shuffle. That meant, I had NO idea if the next song would fall under "the right music". Needless to say, I didn't like the outcome of my work. It was functional, but certainly got 0 points for beauty and style.

PANCAKES!!!

Yesterday I cycled around 20 km in the rain in half an hour, all in the name of PANCAKES!!
A friend had so much milk, she didn't know what to do, so she got some friends together and we had a nice day, where we bummed and had pancakes. It was great! I must do similar things more often.
Yes, I really DID go cycling in the rain and yes, my granny went berserk, but hey, we're talking PANCAKES here!!!

Another annoying day

Right!
So, I didn't post yesterday so I'll post today.
I slept in yesterday and was late for the Peer Counsellor seminar (again)... Did I mention that I DON'T like such things? At least I had a chance to remember the good old days, back when I didn't have a care in the world. Aah... Life was grand!
The guy I'm supposed to be helping with the physics exam actually DOESN'T need my help, so... I guess that's that. One thing ess to worry about.
The AVR Butterfly thingy is still broken and my professor isn't gonna help me till Thursday. So, I have until then to put together a working program, so that as soon as I get a new Butterfly, I can show him that it works and give him back the butterly on the spot (that's what's gonna happen in my fantasy world, of course...). Life may be interesting, but I REALLY dislike it at the moment. Gah! I need a woman to make me a sandwich!

I overslept this morning and couldn't find my phone. Where the blazs dod that thing go?! I didn't even hear the alarm clock go berzerck, like it should have...

Oh, and I'm at my aunt's place typing this on a Mac. I'm not a fan of the keyboard, but the system itsself is pretty awesome...

A rather annoying day

I woke up at 10 after spending most of the night watching the Matrix trilogy. I was pretty sure my day would be nice and simple, with nothing important to do besides paying a visit to my old Physics teacher. It was very annoying, when I realised, at around 11:30, that I was one and a half hours late for a seminar that I had registered for and was under obligation to go for. Well done, Andy! Well done indeed!
I really need to get serious and start carrying round a planner! Las time I tried it, it worked perfectly! That is until I misplaced it at my aunt's place. Not the cleverest thing I've done, certainly, but not the stupidest either.
The seminar was for potential Peer Counsellors in the university. A group of people who volunteer to help freshmen get used to the incredibly fast and annoying university life. And boy, is the university life fast! It's like a car that runs on NOS alone! There's only one speed: FAST!
The seminar is a two day intensive course thingy where we sit in a circle in a room and talk about what we should and shouldn't do and what to do and what not to do with the freshmen. And, like all seminars on such topics, we should get to know each other and stuff and for some reason it seems that people thing "nametag" is the best way to do that. I have nothing against it. In fact, if the nametags are in the form of stickers, I LOVE to play the idiot, who sticks his nametag on his forehead. Classic. Simply classic. At least nobody will be able to say that they didn't see my nametag (sSomething that seems to happen a lot with every OTHER place the nametagsare put)... Aside from the relatively long (but much shorter than what I'm used to...) talks about stuff I already knew about public speeking and getting to know new people, it was pretty fun! I made a handful of new aqcuaintances and there was free food.

Afterwards, I went back to the robotics lab at the university to try and finish off my project. The most unbelievable thing happened. I soldered an Infra-Red receiver onto an AVR Butterfly, turned the Butterfly on and..... nothing. The damn thing simply didn't work anymore. I don't need to say how annoying that was. So now I have an Infra-Red receiver on an AVR Butterfly that doesn't work! I still need to program some blasted remote's protocol onto the Butterfly in question so that it can do something smart when you shoot a telly remote at it and the thing picks NOW of all BLASTED times to STOP WORKING!!! Oh, and did I mention that the Butterfly isn't mine? Great. Simply great. There's nothing I can add to that.

I think that's enough ranting for the day. What to look out for tomorrow: a visit to the physics teacher, tutoring a stranger, getting an angry e-mail from my professor regarding the Butterfly and... er... oh, yeah, the seminar's second part!

Summer

So, today I did my last exam. Computer Architecture. It was a very annoying exam, mostly because I, for some idiotic reason yet to be established, didn't take along a calculator or my laptop, for that matter even though we WERE allowed to bring all sorts of materials along. So, it ended up with me using the very annoying Windows calculator and not having the information stored on my laptop with which I could have had an easier time. BUT, no ue crying over spilt milk, eh?
Anywho, I can, TECHNICALLY, declare today to be the begining of my Summer Holiday, but, hey, let's face facts: I have NO idea what a Summer Holiday is meant to be and everyoe else around me has exams and stuff, so I get the feeling my Summer only begins when everyone else's begins. In any case, there's a chance that I need to sweet talk a professor into giving me a better grade, or something and that takes work. I also have a project or two still waiting to be completed so I get the feeling that Summer for me will simply be extra time to do school related stuff. It seems that I am simply INCAPABLE of having anything that I'd consider to be a Summer Holiday (not that I know what it is to begin with :P ) Where the blazes are the smileys in this text editor?!

So, if I'm to consider this to be the begining of my holidays, I might as well have a look at what has already been planned... For the handful of readers who have the interest to read this blog, it should be the stuff to look forward to, because I'm sure to blog about them.

• Work on EstCube.
• Klarnetisuvi (I'll explain when the time comes)
• Flight to Kenya (still in the planing stage)
• IPhO
• Viljandi Folk (maybe?)

So, it seems that only five major things come to mind. Well, for three months, five things (some of which will take a LOT of time and planning) may be just right to make sure I have an interesting time. Oh, well, we'll see.

The Begining

So, I chose to change the site of my previous blog "Thoughts of a slightly disturbed gentleman" to the site http://viewsofandy.blogspot.com/. The reason was because I chose to have a small paradigm shift. "Thoughts of a slightly disturbed gentleman" is a blog onto which I add my thoughts on relativelt big issues. My life had very little to do with it. I also neened a second blog onto which I'd post small comments on my daily or weekly life.
So, sorry for the confusion and hope you'll adjust accordingly.
This "new" blog, "Life... Interesting Life." is also a small experiment to see how it grows WITHOUT any active publicity on my part.

Have fun and take it easy. It's LIFE!!!