How To Lace Cables Like It’s 1962

May 20, 2024 by Donald Papp 34 Comments

Cable harnesses made wire management a much more reliable and consistent affair in electronic equipment, and while things like printed circuit boards have done away with many wires, cable harnessing still has its place today. Here is a short how-to on how to lace cables from a 1962 document, thoughtfully made available on the web by [Gary Allsebrook] and [Jeff Dairiki].

It’s a short resource that is to the point in all the ways we love to see. The diagrams are very clear and the descriptions are concise, and everything is done for a reason. The knots are self-locking, ensuring that things stay put without being overly tight or constrictive.

According to the document, the ideal material for lacing cables is a ribbon-like nylon cord (which reduces the possibility of biting into wire insulation compared to a cord with a round profile) but the knots and techniques apply to whatever material one may wish to use.

Cable lacing can be done ad-hoc, but back in the day cable assemblies were made separately and electrically tested on jigs prior to installation. In a way, such assemblies served a similar purpose to traces on a circuit board today.

Neatly wrapping cables really has its place, and while doing so by hand can be satisfying, we’ve also seen custom-made tools for neatly wrapping cables with PTFE tape.

Try Image Classification Running In Your Browser, Thanks To WebGPU

May 20, 2024 by Donald Papp 3 Comments

When something does zero-shot image classification, that means it’s able to make judgments about the contents of an image without the user needing to train the system beforehand on what to look for. Watch it in action with this online demo, which uses WebGPU to implement CLIP (Contrastive Language–Image Pre-training) running in one’s browser, using the input from an attached camera.

By giving the program some natural language visual concept labels (such as ‘person’ or ‘cat’) that fit a hypothetical template for the image content, the system will output — in real-time — its judgement on the appropriateness of such labels to what the camera sees. Again, all of this runs locally.

It’s maybe a little bit unintuitive, but what’s happening in the demo is that the system is deciding which of the user-provided labels (“a photo of a cat” vs “a photo of a bald man”, for example) is most appropriate to what the camera sees. The more a particular label is judged a good fit for the image, the higher the number beside it.

This kind of process benefits greatly from shoveling the hard parts of the computation onto compatible graphics cards, which is exactly what WebGPU provides by allowing the browser access to a local GPU. WebGPU is relatively recent, but we’ve already seen it used to run LLMs (Large Language Models) directly in the browser.

Wondering what makes GPUs so very useful for AI-type applications? It’s all about their ability to work with enormous amounts of data very quickly.

DIY Eye And Face Tracking For The Valve Index VR Headset

May 19, 2024 by Donald Papp 11 Comments

The Valve Index VR headset has been around for a few years now. It doesn’t come with eye or face tracking, but that didn’t stop inspired folks like [Physics-Dude] from adding DIY solutions in elegant and effective ways using a combination of hardware, open software, and 3D printable parts.

The whole assembly integrates tightly, thanks in part to the “frunk” designed into the Index for exactly this kind of thing.

This project leverages the EyeTrackVR project (and optionally, Project Babble for mouth tracking) which both have great applications particularly in social VR spaces.

These are open-source, self-contained and modular solutions intended for a variety of hardware platforms. Of course, every millimeter and gram tends to count when it’s something that gets worn on one’s head, so [Physics-Dude] tailored a solution specifically for the Valve Index. His project makes great use of the platform’s hacker-friendly hardware design.

[Physics-Dude] also makes excellent use of a certain widely-available “gumstick” style USB hub as an important part of his build. Combined with with the front-mounted USB port on the Index, it results in an extremely compact and tightly integrated solution that looks great. While it can be risky to rely on a particular off-the-shelf item in a build, doing so absolutely has its place here.

The documentation is fantastic, including welcome guidance on cable routing and step-by-step instructions. If you’ve been interested in adding eye tracking to a project, be sure to give it a look. Already have eye tracking in a project of your own? Tell us all about it!

Adaptive Chef’s Knife Provides Better Leverage

May 16, 2024 by Donald Papp 26 Comments

[Colleen] struggled with using a chef’s knife to cut a variety of foods while suffering from arthritis in her wrist and hand. There are knives aimed at people with special needs, but nothing suitable for serious work like [Colleen]’s professional duties in a commercial kitchen.

As a result, the IATP (Illinois Assistive Technology Program) created the Adaptive Chef’s Knife. Unlike existing offerings, it has a high-quality blade and is ergonomically designed so that the user can leverage their forearm while maintaining control.

The handle is durable, stands up to commercial kitchen use, and is molded to the same standards as off-the-shelf knife handles. That means it’s cast from FDA-approved materials and has a clean, non-porous surface. The pattern visible in the handle is a 3D printed “skeleton” over which resin is molded.

Interested? The IATP Maker Program makes assistive devices available to Illinois residents free of charge (though donations in suggested amounts are encouraged for those who can pay) but the plans and directions are freely available to anyone who wishes to roll their own.

Assistive technology doesn’t need to be over-engineered or frankly even maximally efficient in how it addresses a problem. Small changes can be all that’s needed to give people meaningful control over the things in their lives in a healthy way. Some great examples are are this magnetic spoon holder, or simple printed additions to IKEA furnishings.

Think Again: Tips On Finding And Flexing Your Creativity

May 15, 2024 by Donald Papp 19 Comments

Technical work — including problem-solving — is creative work. In addition, creativity is more than a vague and nebulous attribute that either is or isn’t present when it’s needed. A short article by [Anthony D. Fredericks] gives some practical and useful tips on energizing and exercising one’s creativity.

Why would creative thinking be meaningful to a technical person? The author shares an anonymous observation that as children we’re taught to stay inside the lines, while as adults we are often expected to think outside the box. Certainly when it comes to technical tasks, our focus is more on logical thinking. But problem solving benefits as much from creative thinking as it does from more logical approaches.

How can one cultivate creative thinking? The main idea is that creativity is best flexed and exercised by actively looking for connections and similarities between highly dissimilar elements, rather than focusing on their differences. Some thought exercises are provided to help with this process. Like with any exercise, the more one does it, the better one becomes.

Practicing more creative thinking can help jolt new ideas and approaches to a tough problem, so give it a shot. It’s also worth keeping in mind that we all need a feeling of progress, especially during extended times of applying effort to something, so do yourself a favor and give yourself an occasional win.

How AI Large Language Models Work, Explained Without Math

May 15, 2024 by Donald Papp 24 Comments

Large Language Models (LLMs ) are everywhere, but how exactly do they work under the hood? [Miguel Grinberg] provides a great explanation of the inner workings of LLMs in simple (but not simplistic) terms that eschews the low-level mathematics of how they work in favor of laying bare what it is they do.

At their heart, LLMs are prediction machines that work on tokens (small groups of letters and punctuation) and are as a result capable of great feats of human-seeming communication. Most technical-minded people understand that LLMs have no idea what they are saying, and this peek at their inner workings will make that abundantly clear.

Be sure to also review an illustrated guide to how image-generating AIs work. And if a peek under the hood of LLMs left you hungry for more low-level details, check out our coverage of training a GPT-2 LLM using pure C code.

Raspberry Pi Narrates (And Tattles On) Your Cat, Nature Documentary Style

May 9, 2024 by Donald Papp 10 Comments

Detecting a cat with a raspberry pi and camera is one thing, but [Yoko Li]’s AI Raspberry Pi Cat Detection brings things entirely to another level by narrating your feline’s activities, nature documentary style.

The project is ostensibly aimed at tattling on the housecats by detecting forbidden behavior such as trespassing on the kitchen counter. But we daresay that’s overshadowed by the verbose image analysis, which describes the scene in its best David Attenborough impression.

This feline exemplifies both the beauty and the peaceful nature of its kind. No email will be sent as the cat is not on the kitchen counter.

Hard to believe that just a few years ago this cat detector tool was the bee’s knees in cat detection technology. Things have certainly come a long way. Interested? The GitHub repository has everything needed to roll your own and we highly recommend watching it in action in the video, embedded below.

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