Discovered on YouTube. Vanilla singing ‘No Way No Way’.  Supposedly this was in heavy rotation circa 1997 in Great Britian.  I find it oddly (embarrassingly) appealing…

Sometimes I just want to run away and spend the crisp Northeast fall in a small town with quirky chicks. Sipping hot coffee, watching the autumnal colored leaves drifting by on a chill wind as bundled-up people breeze by in colorful woolens… Sigh…

“If you’re out on the road
Feeling lonely, and so cold
All you have to do is call my name
And I’ll be there on the next train

Where you lead, I will follow
Anywhere that you tell me to
If you need, you need me to be with you
I will follow where you lead”

[addition: He’s fine. Neurology Specialist saw no problems on the X-ray (contrary to our local doctor) and his diagnostic tests showed no overt neurological damage. Riley might of simply pulled something, or at the worst injured a disk. He’s appeared markedly better that last few days, almost approaching normal, so doctors orders are to keep him less active for several weeks to let him heal and simply watch him for signs of problems.]

Checking into Riley’s back problem… Didn’t think I’d see a dog flower…

Welcome to my new interest. RFID’s (pronounced arphids) are small electronic devices that when put near a specialized electrical field, generate a structured pulse of energy that contains a unique number.

You can use this number to validate an objects identity and perform many interesting functions. One supermegacool function that has been floating around the web in the past year has been using an embedded RFID ampoule to unlock a deadbolt on a door. As the air turns cold in my neck of the woods and thoughts turn to indoor projects, I have begun the process of building my own RFID deadbolt.

I have already collected many of the parts. This was the first test of combining the embedded controller, RFID reader, and reed relay. It worked perfectly and I was able to get a decent video of the action. What you are seeing is me waving a test RFID tag in front of the reader, then the controller (bottom right) reading the serial data from the reader, it comparing the input against approved ID’s, and then finally the controller triggering a small reed relay to turn on the led.

More detail, including the breakdown of the components and code, in the upcoming posts. Along with fun discussions about how you actually go about embedding the RFID tag and the type of people that think this is the mark of the beast.

THIS…

…is a thing of beauty.  It makes my geeky little Discworld-loving heart go pit-a-pat.  I have officially experienced cake-envy.  And seeing as how I’ve just finished Thud! and am currently Discworld-less, it gives me something to gaze at while I await the next installment in the series.