nonrandomly

Perovskite Facts

2018-03-10T04:00:00-05:00

Moving Content Alert

I started a blog titled ‘Renewable Energy Information’ at ‘renewable-solar-information.weebly.com’. This link is dead. I’ve close down this Weebly site. I originally wrote this on 1/5/2016.

What is Perovskites?

Perovskites have a specific crystalline structure. What if I told you this material could be produced in quantities more abundant then silicon and could be used to create a more efficient solar panel. You would probably think I’m crazy or trying to sell you snake oil. Let me provide some facts about Perovskite and you can decide if it’s worth exploring for yourself.

Perovskites are easy to make

Stanford University researchers found that by mixing lead, ammonia, and iodine, anyone could make a lot of Perovskites on the cheap.

Perovskites and Silicon made for a more efficient solar cell when paired

During the study listed above researchers at Stanford, developed a silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 11.4%. They added perovskite to increase the efficient to 17%. The school of this is to use perovskites to augment silicon solar cells and not phase them out complete.

Tandem Solar Cell (Silicon - Perovskite)

Tandem Solar Cell are high-efficiency and low-cost hybrid solar cells. There are Startup companies in the space. They are promising releases in 2017. Yes, that’s only one year away.

Perovskite benefits from multi-light absorption

Silicon solar based cells are one light-absorbing panel. There’s a theoretical limit of 34% efficiency. Yes, we will only collect a 1/3 of the light with our current approach. It’s great we have come so far, but we can do better.

Using two light-absorbing materials, tandem cell pushes the limit to 46% efficiency. This is amazingly close to %50. It’s a matter of perspective on your views. Yes, we are only getting to 50%. If you were a baseball player, that hit .500 or 50% of the time, you would probably one of the greatest players of all time. To play devil’s advocate, I can see someone pointing out you are missing out on the other 54% of energy. Good point, but I will make a deal with it. How about I take all of the 46% efficiency panel now, and you can have all of the 70% efficiency panels when they come out?

Wait, did you say lead?

Yes, I guess you were reading. Creating lead-based perovskite solar cells could provide safe ways to re-use lead from discharged/spent lead-acid batteries. What do you think we do with your car battery when it dies? We throw it in a landfill or the ocean. At least this way, we have a safe way to reuse lead. We are all about renewability here!

Why Do People Hate Java?

2018-03-03T18:00:00-05:00

A little background

Back in 2013 I recorded a video capturing my take on why people hate Java. This is my most popular video on Youtube. Here’s the video if you’re interested.

Abbreviated Transcript From Video

The question is why do people hate Java. That’s a really good question. I’ve been working with Java for at least eight years. Probably longer but it’s been a very long time. For me it’s an enterprise language. I understand why people hate it. I’ve heard very good reasons why they don’t like Java.

I think the biggest problem that Java has, you start to see other languages being developed on the JVM, is that Java has a lot of boilerplate code. So what do I mean by boilerplate code? In order for you to do very simple things, you may have to write ten lines of code to do it.

Let’s say you wanted to reverse a string and you wanted to capitalize the first letter of every word. You don’t want to have to write ten lines to complete a tedious task. So that’s the kind of thing that I’ve seen. Java is very verbose in code. You have to write a lot of boilerplate.

Still Reading?

I really appreciate you getting this far in the post. Can you do me a favor? Can you tell me why you hate Java on Twitter? It’s super simple. Just click this link, tell me why, and click ‘tweet’.

If for some reason you arrived here because you have to learn Java. Here’s a great book for learning. I read the first edition a long time ago.

Code in the Schools Game-a-thon #1 Recap

2016-09-17T06:52:39-04:00

On June 18th, 2016, Code in the Schools (aka CitS) had a Game-a-thon. What is a Game-a-thon you might ask? Don’t worry, I will explain it all later in this post. Members from team Pearson and Redding joined team CitS for this great event.

After attending the event, I had a few questions for team Pearson and Redding about the event and gaming in general. Before we get into it, here’s a quick bio of the interviewees.

Team Pearson

Ty: Ty games with the best of them. While not currently super active gaming wise today, she’s put in tons of hours playing Diablo and Diablo 2.

Eliot Jr: Eliot’s studying engineer in high school and loves to game. He represents the up and coming gamer group for this post.

Team Redding

Jason: Jason’s a Software Engineer and gamer. Jason and I have been talking about games for years. We’ve worked together in the past. Pretty great Engineer to work with. An I’m not just saying this because he’s going to read this.

Team CitS

We were able to hang out with the Code in the School staff. Here’s everyone that was there.

Derek: An instructor at Code in the School.

Josh: An instructor at Code in the School.

Ore: An instructor at Code in the School.

Paul: A Code in the School volunteer.

Taylor: An instructor at Code in the School.

Questions

We all enjoyed the event. I wanted to raise awareness with this post. I also wanted to get multiple perspectives of the attendees. The questions had some great responses. I also added follow up questions inline and some personal take-a-ways. Enjoy!

What’s a Game-a-thon?

Ty: A Game-a-thon is gaming over a time span while raising awareness and funds for a cause.

Eliot Jr: A marathon of playing games continuously.

Jason: An event where people gather to enjoy (or endure) extended gameplay?

Me: This isn’t jeopardy no need to answer in the form of a question. Just looking for your raw response. But yes, you are correct.

Jason: Well, I meant it as a sort of joke.. But ended it with “?” because I wasn’t sure if that was acceptable.

Me: I get it and it’s totally okay.

Me: I searched but couldn’t find a wikipedia page or a solid definition for Game-a-thon. I largely agree with everyone’s answer here. If you know of a good definition please send me a link. I will post it and give you credit!

Why did Code in the Schools have a Game-a-thon?

Ty: They had a Game-a-thon to raise money and awareness for there programs geared towards kids learning coding and computer science skills.

Eliot Jr: To raise money so that they could improve the programs that they have for teaching children code.

Jason: To raise money for their purpose (teaching programming/coding in an academic setting/context).

How long was the Game-a-thon?

Ty: The game jam was 12 hours.

Eliot Jr: 12 hours I believe.

Jason: 12 hours. Are you assessing how well I absorbed info?

Me: No, just polling the group.

Me: Yes, I totally was seeing if everyone was paying attention. Ty called the event a Game Jam, but I know she knew the difference between the Game-a-thon and Game Jam. I wonder if we should call the Game-a-thon something else. What do you think?

What was your favorite game that we played during the game-a-thon?

Ty: My favorite game was I am bread, when you played it of course.

Eliot Jr: I am bread lol.

Jason: Either “I Am Bread” or “Uncharted 4”. But I wasn’t there for the first 2 hours, and I left kinda early. I’m also not very familiar with many games.

Why was this your favorite game?

Ty: It was so simple yet impossible. I like games that make me freak out when someone else is playing.

Eliot Jr: It was very entertaining, and gave a good challenge. It had good coding, a solid goal, multiple solutions, and great graphics.

Jason: I Am Bread looked pretty fun, especially in a social setting (as it was when we were all watching and commenting on your gameplay).. It’s also a cool but simple challenge/idea for a game. Uncharted 4 because I’ve already fallen in love with the game series (I own 1, 2, and 3) and I was kinda anxious to see/play the 4th.

What was something you learned at the event?

Ty: I learned that they serviced over I think it was 800 kids. I may have the number wrong but it was in the hundreds.

Me: You mean the number of kids that participated in a CitS program this year?

Ty: Yes.

Eliot Jr: That many people believe that games should be more immersive, to improve how entertaining the game is. An example of this that we went over was how Uncharted 4 had many cutscenes throughout the game, which made for a much more in depth and creative gameplay style.

Jason: That Derek taught Javascript to Middle schoolers (I think).

Me: Derek, Taylor, and Josh are really into gaming. I’ve known them over a year, we never talked about games not outside of what was developed at Game Jam. Jason was also correct. Derek taught middle schoolers Javascript. That’s amazing!

Other than team Pearson and Redding, who else was at the Game-a-thon?

Ty: Josh, Taylor, Derek, and 2 other associates. Why?

Me: I just wanted to see what you remembered.

Eliot Jr: Taylor, Josh, and Derek.

Jason: Josh, Taylor, Derek, and a brief visitor (I think) of whom I wasn’t fully aware.

Me: Everyone forgot about Paul accept for Ty. Don’t worry bud, I know you were there. Thanks for hanging out with us! Also, Ore, an CitS instructor stopped to show support which was super cool.

What were all the games we played?

Ty: I don’t remember all. Call of duty, I am bread, Portal 2, Uncharted4 and two others. I forgot the scary one.

Me: I think was the scary one was Outlast.

Eliot Jr: I am bread, Dark Souls 3, Call of Duty (whatever version, I can’t keep up with that game), Uncharted 4, and Jason played portal 2. Derek also played that old street fighter game. After we left, they played Outlast. Was it black ops 3? IDK what version.

Jason: I can’t remember what that one was called where Josh tricked Derek into playing with driftwood for armor. And then I think there was a Call of Duty (Zombie mode) one?

Me: Derek played Dark Souls 3. I believe we played Call of Duty Black Ops 3.

Me: Jason played Portal 2, but I’m not sure if we streamed it. I also played Black Ops 3, but I will give you a recap later. Trust me, it’s really juicy!

Were there any games that you saw that you wanted to play and why?

Ty: Probably some type of Pokemon game. They are really hot right now. Maybe would have gotten more viewers and younger crowd, but you only had the ps4 I think and xbox. I would have liked to see Sonic as well. But Josh forgot to download it.

Eliot Jr: I saw Uncharted 4, personally never played it, but again it seems interesting as it has a great story plot and immersive gameplay.

Jason: Uncharted 4. Because the Uncharted games are fun. I Am Bread. Because it looked fun. I wanted to play Portal 2 (co-op) but there were technical reasons why we couldn’t get that going. I’ve played it before (co-op) but it’s been forever.

Would you go to a Game-a-thon in the future?

Ty: Yes I would.

Eliot Jr: Yes.

Jason: Yeah, it’s likely I would go to a Game-a-thon in the future.

What game should we have played at the Game-a-thon that we didn’t?

Eliot Jr: They are entertaining and are usually for a good cause in which I support, and hold up, this is for the question. We should have played Don’t starve, the game was already downloaded, but we didn’t play it. It is a very fun game that can take some creative thinking to really ensure survival.

Jason: That’s not easy for me to answer… I’ve been out of the games circle for quite some time now.

Me: No biggie. Let’s see if you have a pick for the next Game-a-thon.

Why is gaming important to you?

Ty: Gaming relieves stress and improves brain function.

Eliot Jr: It is something that is not only entertainment, but it can build upon your social and problem solving skills. Also, with cooperative games, it helps build teamwork, good sportsmanship, and friendship.

Jason: It helps to relieve stress.

You do know i’m going to create a blog post for this and post it on the Internet? How can people follow you online?

Ty: People can follow through social media and Twitch.

Eliot Jr: Instagram, tumblr, twitter, and pinterest.

Jason: I have create one. Stay tuned…

Summary

I’m going to have to wrap up this post. I know I promised to talk about Derek horrible journey to the land of Dark Souls 2. I will do this, but just in another post. We all had a lot of fun at the Game-a-thon. Are you going to attend one? If so or not, leave the reason in the description! I would love to get your perspective.

What I’ve been up to in March 2016

2016-03-11T09:36:19-05:00

Niche Sites

I’ve been exploring SEO, link building, and referral traffic for niche topics. Take a look at some of my work. I’m really proud of this. Mainly because my family is doing it with me. Here are some of our work.

http://renewable-solar-information.weebly.com

I’m a bit bullish on solar. I love anything that discusses solar and how to make it renewable and sustainable.

http://neverwinter-astral-diamonds.weebly.com

I play Neverwinter from time to time. Here I’ve capture a few tips to make accumulating in game currency easier. Time is money right?

http://disgaea-5.weebly.com

This is another game I play. It’s a strategy role playing game for the the PS4. I have a few thoughts on how to power level. You can invest a lot of time in the game. Hopefully, this site make the experience better.

http://resale-tips-and-tricks.blogspot.com

My family resells a lot of items on Ebay and Amazon. We are capturing lessons we learn along the way. It’s been fun taking our experience and sharing what we do.

http://simplepassiveincomeideas.wordpress.com

If you really want to get away from a day job, you need to build passive income streams. I mainly capture what I learned from my experiences.

http://perlerbeadpost.wordpress.com

The youngest of the tribe is leading this one. He’s very creative a found this craft. We’ve been doing reviews as a team. It’s been really fun. I have enjoyed this one the most.

SEO

I’m really digging SEO research. All of the sites list above received traffic because of SEO research. It’s really not hard to do. If you would like to know more, please reach out. I would love to help.

Link Building

I’ve official decided to avoid this activity. I really don’t like it. To me it’s not organic. I will still build links but It’s really not fun for me.

Key Takeaways

All of the niche sites listed above are getting small amounts of traffic. I created them to learn and see if I could gain referral traffic through search engines and other sites. I’ve learned a lot and willing to answer questions if you have any.

Web Scraping in Python

2015-12-27T19:31:00-05:00

I’m writing the post as a recap of what I uncovered while learning to scraping web pages for content on the Internet. I did a lot of research and it all started here. Priceconomics sells data crawling as a service (DCAS). Not sure if DCAS is a thing yet, but I’m pretty sure some people will start calling this service that. I looked at what Priceconomics was doing and thought it shouldn’t be hard to gain a basic understanding of web scraping.

My options

There are many open source libraries and tools available. You can be easily overwhelmed just examining the landscape. My programming language of choice was python and the library I choose to use was lxml.

Why did I choose Python?

I believe in learning from others. I figured a good place to start was Hacker News. Hacker News is a place where many innovative ideas and solutions are shared. A quick search for web scraping yielded some great results.

Here’s the result from my search on Hacker News. The highlights in yellow match for the term ‘web scraping’ and the red underlines match for ‘Python’. The search results are really good and many of them are based on Python. This was my reasoning.

Why did I choose to use LXML?

I came across a posted titled Scraping with Urllib2 & LXML. A search on Google turned this up. This post was very similar to what I wanted to accomplish. It felt like an easy win and I decided to give it a try. LXML is used by many other libraries and software packages. You can check some of the uses in the LXML FAQ page.

lxml is the most feature-rich and easy-to-use library for processing XML and HTML in the Python language.

The problem I wanted to solve

I wanted to scrape Amazon search results. If I wanted to compare prices, I would have to visual do this or copy and paste results into some other place to do analysis. That’s not very appealing to me.

Looking at the search results for ‘lego 21115’, you would see the following web page. I needed to find div for each item; luckily Chrome developers tools made that easy. I just inspected the first item. I had to walk up the tree, but I found the node. For me, it was a div tag with a class of a-fixed-left-grid-col a-col-right.

My code

from lxml import html
import requests

url = "http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lego+21115"

page = requests.get(url)
tree = html.fromstring(page.content)

items = tree.xpath('//*[@class="a-fixed-left-grid-col a-col-right"]')

titles = []

for item in items:
  for title in item.getiterator("a"):
    if title.get("title") is not None:
      titles.append(title.get("title"))

prices = []

for item in items:
  found = False
  for price in item.getiterator("span"):
     b = price.get('class')
     if(b == 'a-size-base a-color-price a-text-bold'):
       prices.append(price.text)
       found = True
  if found == False:
    prices.append("no price")

print titles

print prices

Results - Titles

['LEGO Minecraft 21115 The First Night', 'LEGO Minecraft 21114 The Farm', 'LEGO Minecraft 21116 Crafting Box', 'LEGO Minecraft 21121 the Desert Outpost Building Kit', 'LEGO Minecraft 21120 the Snow Hideout Building Kit', 'LEGO Minecraft 21117 The Ender Dragon', 'LEGO Minecraft 21118 The Mine', 'LEGO Minecraft Creative Adventures 21115 The First Night', '21115 Lego 408Pcs Minecraft The First Night Kids Building Playset', 'Lego Minecraft Toys Premium Educational Sets Creationary Game With Minifigures For 8 Year olds Childrens Farm Box', 'Minecraft The Farm Includes a Steve Minifigure with an Accessory, plus a Skeleton, Cow and a Sheep', 'LEGO Minecraft - The Creeper Minifigure from set 21115', 'Lego Minecraft Ultimate Collection (Cave 21113 ,Farm 21114, First Night 21115, Crafing Box 21116, Dragon 21117, Mine 21118 )', 'Bundle: LEGO Minecraft 21116 Crafting Box & LEGO Minecraft 21115 The First Night & LEGO Minecraft The Cave 21113 Playset', 'LEGO Minecraft The Cave 21113 Playset & LEGO Minecraft 21115 The First Night & LEGO Minecraft 21114 The Farm', u'Lego\xae Minecraft Terrain Ore Bundle "(1) Diamond" "(1) Emerald" "(1) Silver" "(1) Amethyst" "(1) Gold" "(1) Lapis" "(1) Redstone"']

Results - Prices

['$34.99', '$25.99', '$21.31', '$40.99', '$35.66', '$49.00', '$34.76', '$73.36', '$118.50', '$46.91', '$61.38', '$47.55', 'no price', '$5.40', '$568.99', 'no price', '$185.99', 'no price']

Results - Overall

Within a few hours of reading and coding, I was able to accomplish my original goal. I now have a base to grow from to do more complex scraping.

Disclaimer

Be careful not to abuse scraping. Most companies like Amazon have API for you to use. This will allow to use to bypass design and style changes made to the site. Yes, my scrape will break when Amazon changes their page. It’s not a question of if, but when they will do this. Using an API puts you right next to the data. Always use an API.

This example is simple and pulls one page from Amazon’s site. Amazon would probably not block my IP. If my script started to crawl Amazon’s site, that’s another story.

Learning the craft

Here are some additional resources that gave me insight into web scraping.

XPath and XSLT with lxml - This contained a great example of using XPath

Elements and Element Trees - While traversing the tree, you will receive elements. Here’s a good overview and examples.

Requests python library - Retrieving web pages shouldn’t be a task. The Requests library makes it super easy. There’s a great example if you need to send a multi-part post request in the post.

HTML Scraping — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python - A good place to start if you want to get coding immediately and skip the stuff above.

The Shure M267 Mixer

2014-07-08T06:15:24-04:00

I remember this mixer. This mixer is a bit magical to me. As a kid I would watch the analog needle dance as people talked and sang into a microphone connected to the unit. I have an uncle who is a bass player and this was one of the mixers he used. Here’s a little background on the mixer from Amazon:

SHURE M267 The Shure Model M267 is a microphone mixer-remote amplifier specifically designed for professional applications. The excellent performance, versatility and features of this complete, compact console make it an ideal choice for studio, remote, or sound reinforcement use, and as an add-on mixer for expanding existing facilities.

It is also ideally suited for use with audio and video tape recorders to provide multiple microphone inputs. Wide, flat frequency response and extremely low distortion up to +18 dBm output Extremely low noise and RF susceptibility Four switchable microphone- or line-level balanced-line inputs with individual gain controls and low-frequency rolloff switches.

MUMETAL shielding on input transformers Feedback-type input gain controls for maximum clipping levels and dynamic range Output switchable for line or microphone level Built-in switchable peak limiter cuts output overload distortion, adapts to power supply voltage LED indicator shows limiter operation or overload with limiter defeated Externally adjustable limiter threshold (-4 to +18 dBm) VU meter calibrated for +4 and +8 dBm with range switch.

Illuminated with ac operation Ac or built-in battery operation. Noiseless automatic switchover to battery in case of ac line failure. Battery test without program interruption Front-panel headphone level control and monitor jack drives almost any stereo or mono headphones; output can be additional unbalanced line feed to drive a tape recorder or power amplifier Direct mix bus for stacking units Automatic muting prevents speaker damage during turn-on and -off Low distortion, high-stability tone oscillator for line test and level checks.

It was super cool when I picked up a working one. Sadly, I’m not an audio engineer, but if you are, you can have it at a reasonable price. Here’s a link to an auction I have running on eBay for it.

Tools for Monetizing Mobile Apps

2014-06-20T06:10:13-04:00

There are many options. Here’s some of the best I had experience with. Watch the video to learn more.

Why is gaming so cool?

2014-06-03T02:59:22-04:00

I’ve loved gaming since I was a kid. This was before it was socially acceptable. Gaming is considered cool, but some still see it as a big waste of time. Here’s a video where I discuss this topic.

Why is cool not to admit you’re a gamer?

Cracked had a great article that covered this. It’s definitely worth checking out. I will not spoil any of the items for you. However, there’s still a negative stigma the hover over gamers. Do you have idea on how to fix that? I would love to any ideas.

Why Do People Hate Java?

2013-10-21T12:46:09-04:00

Java is like a large company. Some people are fans and some are not. Like a large company, as an engineer sooner or later you will have some interaction with it. Good or bad this is my take on why people hate Java with a passion.

Posted to Quora

I found this great question on Quora. Here is the top rated answer from Adam Smith who is the CTO of Xobni.

Because it’s way way way way way way way way, very way way way way, super way way way way way way toooooooooooooo verbose.

(I would have ended that last sentence with an exclamation mark, but my language doesn’t allow me to use them. Hm. To achieve the same effect, I’ll just repeat: it’s way way way way way way way way, very way way way way, super way way way way way way toooooooooooooo verbose.)

My First Answer

I totally agree with Adam that Java is extremely verbose. My first video digs into this.

My Follow Up

In Java everything starts looking like a nail and Java is the hammer.

Summary

Java is a great language. Many people use Java by choice and some not by choice. It’s a great language. There a many uses good and bad of the language. So I ask you, do you hate it?

Why do some people like programming?

2013-07-08T12:33:15-04:00

I found this question on Quora. I really like questions like this. People aren’t just thinking about programming as a day job. This thread explores the possibility. I couldn’t ask for anything else as an engineer. My video response to the question is below.

[iframe_loader width=”640” height=”360” frameborder=”0” longdesc=”Why do some people like programming?” name=”youtube-1” scrolling=”no” src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/topkYXyV8ZI”]

Others Thoughts From Quora

Here’s the questions and the answers on Quora. There were really great responses there. I liked on by Marcus Geduld. Below is a section from his response.

I like creating something out of nothing. That’s not literally what you do when you’re programming, because there’s existing hardware and software that serves as a foundation for your work, but it sure feels that way. Someone has an idea and you build it from the ground up. When you begin, there’s just an empty text editor. When you’re done, there’s a (hopefully) working program.

nonrandomly

Perovskite Facts

Moving Content Alert

What is Perovskites?

Perovskites are easy to make

Perovskites and Silicon made for a more efficient solar cell when paired

Tandem Solar Cell (Silicon - Perovskite)

Perovskite benefits from multi-light absorption

Wait, did you say lead?

Why Do People Hate Java?

A little background

Abbreviated Transcript From Video

Still Reading?

Code in the Schools Game-a-thon #1 Recap

Team Pearson

Team Redding

Team CitS

Questions

What’s a Game-a-thon?

Why did Code in the Schools have a Game-a-thon?

How long was the Game-a-thon?

What was your favorite game that we played during the game-a-thon?

Why was this your favorite game?

What was something you learned at the event?

Other than team Pearson and Redding, who else was at the Game-a-thon?

What were all the games we played?

Were there any games that you saw that you wanted to play and why?

Would you go to a Game-a-thon in the future?

What game should we have played at the Game-a-thon that we didn’t?

Why is gaming important to you?

You do know i’m going to create a blog post for this and post it on the Internet? How can people follow you online?

Summary

What I’ve been up to in March 2016

Niche Sites

SEO

Link Building

Key Takeaways

Web Scraping in Python

My options

Why did I choose Python?

Why did I choose to use LXML?

The problem I wanted to solve

My code

Results - Titles

Results - Overall

Disclaimer

Learning the craft

The Shure M267 Mixer

Tools for Monetizing Mobile Apps

Why is gaming so cool?

Why is cool not to admit you’re a gamer?

Why Do People Hate Java?

Posted to Quora

My First Answer

My Follow Up

Summary

Why do some people like programming?

Others Thoughts From Quora

Other Resources