Yes, productivity goes up when working remotely

April 5th, 2018

I’m not going to write a long post about the debate on whether people working from home are more productive. I’ll let this article about a 2-year Stanford controlled study do it: https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/a-2-year-stanford-study-shows-astonishing-productivity-boost-of-working-from-home.html In short: 500 employees were divided into two groups One group working at the office, the other at home Telecommuters worked the equivalent of an extra full day of work, attrition decreased by 50 percent, they took shorter breaks, had fewer sick days, and took less time off. […]

Denial Phase of Crypto

March 15th, 2018

I heard about Bitcoin and started accepting donations for some of my projects sometimes around 2011. The page about PokerMuck still reports the 0.53 BTC that were raised to support it (a little less than $30 dollars at the time). I mined about another 0.5 BTC during that time, which I all lost in the Mt.Gox hack. In hindsight it’s been amazing to witness the life of cryptocurrencies. I wasn’t old enough to remember the craze of the dotcom era, but […]

Running ROS on Arch Linux (The Easy Way with Docker)

February 24th, 2018

Installing ROS on Arch is a pain in the rear. The fact that Arch is a rolling release distro makes it difficult to compile most of ROS dependencies. Even if you eventually manage to compile everything, you will find yourself running into all sorts of trouble compiling third party libraries, fixing problems between Python 3 and Python 2 and don’t even ask what happens when you do a system update. Save yourself the trouble and use docker. You will be up […]

Two Technologies To Try in 2018

November 28th, 2017

I try to keep up with technology (emphasis on the try). Here are two that I personally think are worth exploring: 1. ARKit and ARCore Apple’s ARKit is what Project Tango should have been from day one. I’m genuinely impressed at Apple’s implementation of AR and the fluidity of the user experience. ARCore will likely catch up in the next year or two and I expect AR to open new opportunities in the interaction of 3D worlds and objects. Keep an […]

A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships are built

September 2nd, 2017

Just a good thought.

Story of His Life

July 30th, 2017

This is a brief story about John, a young man from Cleveland, Ohio: John was only 17. He never thought much about what life was going to be a few years from then. His main preoccupation was to finish high school and get into a decent college. He sometimes dreamed of becoming a successful entrepreneur, but those thoughts were quickly dismissed for the future. Education comes first, he was often reminded. Four years later he was standing at the graduate […]

Unbrick the Eachine Lizard 95 – How To Reach The Boot Pin

June 29th, 2017

Today I bricked this little drone by flashing the wrong firmware (whoops)! Turns out that the correct board to choose when flashing a new firmware is “OMNIBUS“. Oh well, good opportunity to learn how to take this thing apart. Unplug the camera plug from the side by gently pulling the cable out. Optionally also remove the props (I didn’t) to have more maneuvering space later on. 2. Set the drone on its back, and remove the 8 screws circled below […]

How to Write a CGAL Polyhedron to PLY (or any other format)

April 18th, 2017

I ended up having to read the CGAL source code to figure this one out. There you go. You’re welcome.

How To Be Happier: Start Noticing

December 21st, 2016

It’s been a while since I last wrote. Life has been busy. I think I reached an important inner discovery a few weeks ago and wanted to share it. It’s kind of silly to think that the things that I’m about to write have been discovered over and over again, generation over generation, and that while time advances forward, human nature changes very little. We rediscover the same old truths about ourselves. I left the nomadic way in search of greater happiness. […]

How To Mount a GoPro on a Syma X5C

March 21st, 2016

It is indeed possible to mount a GoPro on a Syma X5C. It is however, not ideal, since the Syma X5C is a toy and its payload capacity is limited. But if you’re like me and you like to push the limits of your hardware, this is not going to stop you from trying, is it? 🙂 I used a GoPro Hero3+, but the process should be similar for other models. 1. Reduce the Weight The Syma can’t pull much weight. […]

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