Author: Ross

Waiting for parts…. hack something else!

So I’m still waiting on the final parts for my CNC machine I took my hacking time this weekend and put together my own Rootooth. I bought the bluesmirf silver, a voltage regulator (and associated caps) and a cable to hack from http://www.sparkfun.com/.

CNC Machines – Printrbot and Shapeoko

For the past few years I’ve been pretty obsessed with 3D printing. I’ve read through forums (reprap.org), followed blogs, hung out on irc (#reprap, #makergearv2, #mendelmax) and tried to learn as much as I possibly could about these awesome devices and the massive potential I see in them. I’m technically a programmer by trade and so the idea of designing...

The Printrbot – Some more details and my thoughts

Brook Drumm is also selling an interesting smaller scale, smaller priced 3D printer which is causing quiet the stir on the #reprap channel. The main challenge people seem to be making is about the wobble that could exist because of the open Z design. I asked Brook some questions via Kickstarter about the PrintrBot, the new 3D printer, and some...

UIMA Quick Start – SDK install & Plugins

Previously I wrote on my first impressions of UIMA and how great it is, for a quick look at that go to this post. To help people get things running quickly I thought I’d throw down a quick tutorial to get the UIMA SDK up and running and working with Eclipse on your machine.

UIMA introduction and reactions

Right now I’m working on learning more about UIMA. What is UIMA and why would you want to learn it? Well, if you work in the Computational Linguistics field would you be surprised to know that UIMA is what powered Watson on Jeopardy? The head guy over at IBM in charge of Watson development is also the head guy of UIMA...

Doctor visits, who needs’em?

I recently had another run in with the American Medical system and it reminded me how much I dislike visiting Doctors. I have nothing against doctors but lets lay out how the experience came about and what happened with a little bit of reactionary text thrown in for good measure. First off, the issue I was seeing a doctor for...

Linguistic Institute 2011

I’m a member of the committee that is organizing the linguistic institute being held here in Boulder July 7th through August 10th. I’ve been handling a lot of e-mails, making sure a few dozen of the hundred+ incoming visiting faculty get the information and answers they need for their courses, and apparently designing flyers as well. Thanks to Henry Koren...

Chrome and Firefox

I just realized that on my new laptop (new as of two months ago) I don’t have firefox installed. I wanted to preview a webpage I’m working on in another broweser so I typed into the windows app search bar “fire..” and got windows firewall. How did this happen? Usually the first thing I do when I get a new...

Pandora brought FM Radio back into my life

Today I realized that after living in Boulder for almost 10 months I still have no idea what radio stations I should or would like to listen to. Why? I had a 6 CD changer in my last car, and my new(er) car now has an aux input (Pandora). You’d think that I would know at least one station, but...

Writing groups are awesome

Recently I started writing an actual novel. I’ve had some experience writing short stories and volunteered at The Leading Edge Magazine while I was in college for my undergrad so I’ve read a lot of slush. However, despite all this, and taking a class from my favorite author (Brandon Sanderson) on writing I have never produced my own novella, much...