Lee.org

Hi, I’m Lee Sonko, the Head of the Kinetics and Electronics Department at the Crucible in Oakland. Right now we have a wide range of classes ranging from Mechanical Sculpture to Arduino Microcontrollers to Flame Effects. In the past 6 months we have had students (literally) from age 8 to 80.

Take a peek at our current offerings as an example.

Would you like to teach some of your art and science? Do you have an idea for a class? It’s not a full-time job but it pays some and it’s rewarding. If you think this might be for you, I’d love to hear from you. Contact me at Lee at Lee dat org.

Lee Sonko
Crucible Kinetics & Electronics Department Head

A friend asked the Lazyweb for help with Samsung Galaxy phone vs iPhone. Here’s my response:

I’m very happy with my Android Samsung Galaxy S. I’ve had it for almost a year now. My last phone was an iPhone 3G. My Samsung had a short battery life so I got a backpack battery for it; it’s a bit large but now no battery problems.

It took a while to get used to the Android. Some of the apps it came with aren’t as good as the stock iPhone apps. IE the calculator app. But there are free and cheap calculator apps that kick the iphone’s calculating ass.
More deets: http://lee.org/blog/?s=android

My vmail and email now belong to the Google, and I like it better than Steve owning them.

Android runs Flash in the browser. And it works great. That says just as many bad things about Apple as good things about Android.

I didn’t root my phone and I don’t feel I need to. There is just 1 tiny thing I would change if I were to go to the trouble of rooting the phone.

Your next phone should be an Android.

PS.
Oh but I have to say, the iphone 4’s High Dynamic Range camera takes pretty effing awesome pictures.

I saw this bumper sticker in Bernal Heights the other week.

“Don’t pay your credit cards till all our troops come home!”

Here is a terrific video piece about the art scene that I hang in.

The Art of Doing it Yourself by KQED Television

The Art of Doing it Yourself  airs Friday, December 16, 2011 at approximately 11pm, as part of the  PBS Arts Fall Festival.

Spammers evolve slowly. They were mud, now they are dirt. It’s a slow evolution.

NoSpamNX has been working well but nowadays it blocks 300 spams a day and lets through maybe 30. They all get caught by Akismet but Akismet also sometimes blocks legitimate commnets. 30 a day is too many for me to review by hand. :-(

So I installed Spam Free WordPress alongside the already installed NoSpamNX and Akismet. Hopefully it will keep it so the “gray list” of potential spams is small enough that I can review them by hand.

This new plugin uses an odd form of Captcha. It asks you to copy and paste a password. Please tell me if it gets in the way.

It’s almost time for the 12 days of Christmath. Here’s a warmup. If you get this joke, you’ll love this video
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An infinite crowd of mathematicians enters a bar. The first one orders a pint, the second one a half pint, the third one a quarter pint…
“I understand”, says the bartender – and pours two pints.
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(via)

Over the summer I went to a sourdough bread workshop at 18 Reasons Josey Baker. I love to eat sourdough more than I like to make it. He put on a good workshop and I picked up a thing or two.

Here’s the sheet he handed out:

I’m teaching “BeetleBots Zooming Everywhere!” at Workshop Weekend, Dec. 10-11 in Oakland! Come learn, make, or build something new. Use my coupon code BEETLEBOT2011 to get 10% off tuition. Register online at http://whatwillyoulearn.com/catalog

There’s a lot more classes running at the event, check it out.
I hope to see you there!

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Here’s the full class description of my class

BeetleBots Zooming Everywhere!

This workshop is best for 9-15 year olds.

In just two hours we’ll take some motors and switches and turn them into living, scampering, skittering BeetleBots! It’s a robot that zooms around your kitchen floor in the cutest/creepiest(?) way you’ve ever seen!

When you’re done, you’ll know how to build more of these little guys (did I just say Holiday Project with family?)

This relatively easy robot project gives great food for thought on the nature of artificial intelligence, robotic mobility and… nah, they’re just awesome to play with!

If you don’t have these skills already, you’ll learn how to use a soldering iron and hot glue gun. But the magic isn’t in the legerdemain, it’s in how we put these little guys together and make them go!

Instructor Lee Sonko
Tuition $20
Lab Fees $7

I just installed Sonic.net DSL service. So far, it’s going great. I called Customer Support 3 times to hammer out setting things up and they were always quick to answer, very helpful, and nice.

I’m using an SBGGlobal Siemens SpeedStream 4100 ADSL modem. I thought it did ADSL2+ as well but I was wrong. My modem will go up to 8mbps. I ordered a $65 (inclusive) ADSL2+ modem so I should be up to 20mbps in a week.

AT&T = 5mbps down, 0.5mbps up
Sonic = 7mbps down, 0.8mbps up
Sonic with new ADSL2+ modem = 20 mbps down, [??] mbps up

To set up your service:
* Switch your DSL modem to “Bridged Mode (PPPoE is not used)”
* Set your router to DHCP
* Set your router’s DNS to Sonic’s DNS
* * Primary DNS 208.201.224.11
* * Secondary DNS 208.201.224.33

Update 12-11-11: The new modem showed up today. It was plug and play :-)
The speed was limited at 8mbps so I called support. The technical support reps primary suggestion was that the wiring in my building wasn’t good enough. I plugged the DSL modem into the wall right next to my phone jack but that didn’t help.

Then he tried uncapping the line (telling the DSL modem to go as fast as possible even though it didn’t think the line was good enough) and I’m now getting 16mbps down, 0.8mbps up :-). With the uncapping, maybe everything will suddenly go bad when the humidity climbs or when there are sunspots, but then maybe not. Life is a chance.

I have to thank Cindy for getting me two tickets to the Glide Church Holiday Jam. Thursday night I took Allison to this event at the Warfield. It’s so easy to forget how music lifts the soul. The Glide Ensemble, Tom Johnston from the Doobie Brothers sang Listen to the Music and other amazing songs, Sheila E and her dad Pete Escovedo played several numbers, Maze Daiko rocked, and the greatest cover band I ever heard POPLYFE played (I suspect they won’t be a cover band for long! the father of the lead singer sat in front of us, he described how noone in the band is over 16. Correction! They have original songs, at the show, they did some AMAZING covers), Valerie Simpson (from the huge writing duo of Ashford and Simpson) sang “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing”, wow.

The food before during and after was great. The hors d’oeuvres after kicked ass, and the company was terrific.