End of 2018 Summer vacations
Written by cafealpha
6 comments
Classified in : Saturn, Programming, Mylife
... One month ago, I wanted to announce that I wouldn't be available for several weeks, but I was suddenly taken in a storm of bringing/taking kids to/from schoolchildren care, washing bento boxes, going to work and the usual dish-wash/throw trash/laundry/whatever daily routines 
Personally, I only had two rest days at the middle of August generously offered by employer as summer holidays ... two days !! That's one day, and ... one another day 
Moreover both are consecutive And that's ... so long I fear I would forget everything about work after such a long rest 
Moreover both are consecutive And that's ... so long I fear I would forget everything about work after such a long rest Well, more seriously I took some day-off here and there during August too, and theses were a good occasion to refresh from everyday life 
As a consequence, I completely neglected my email box during this period of time. Sorry to all concerned people !
I will try to tidy-up my mail box this week, but can't guarantee that everything will be done on planned time since day work went a bit crazy recently 
So here comes some lines about my summer holidays ... hey, that's my homepage which I pay for hosting and where I installed and filled this blog, so I write whatever I want on it 
So if you're not interested in me talking about my life, please skip until next horizontal separator 
Summer 2018 activity #1 : going to the beach
As every summer, I celebrated the lapse of one year by going to the beach : four years ago, I spent nearly two months at hospital without any occasion to go outside, so that I like to take a revenge every year 
At that time, I had around 50-60% of chances to be still here today. It's good to be alive
Well, there were a bit more medusa than usual, so I didn't swam so much, but that's better than not being able to go to beach at all anyway
This is an illustration photo : the girls are just
to boost my blog audience.
And I own TI-89 calculator rather than TI-83+
The kids wanted to make a sand castle, which
ended in some kind of free-style art 
Title: Japanese style toilet, by cafe-alpha kids, 2018 
I like that they didn't spent half a day to do a instagram-compliant thing that would then be destroyed by the sea but had fun anyway 
Summer 2018 activity #2 : watching typhoons
I don't know if that's limited to the region I live, but there were a lot of typhoons this year ! There wasn't any kind of major damage nearby, but not everybody in Japan could be that fortunate ...
Personally, it was the occasion to do some cleanup on the balcony : I trashed several things that accumulated over past year, and Mr Typhoon helped to clean up dust after that
I wish typhoon and other similar kind of natural disasters could evolve into intelligent entities to clean up earth from climate-skeptical trolls 
Rare footage from the birth of a French citizen 
(That's not super related with typhoons, but this is my blog,
and I write whatever I want on it )
)Summer 2018 activity #3 : going to several kinds of museums
The kids like museums, especially to watch insects, machines or similar stuff. But museums close early, unfortunately.
Close at 4PM ?!
That's not a museum, but an hideout for civil workers
Always should read the little letters : "open until 4:30 PM ... but can't enter after 4PM" 
The rear door was still open, so we could sneak inside anyway ... that's funny to hack museum rules 
Went to aquarium too. That's a Hammerhead Shark.
And it's also a multi-purpose drawing :
tilt your screen and E.T. will appear 
Summer 2018 activity #4 : watering plants
Kid bring back okra from school. One of summer vacations homework was to take care of that thing, but from the limited range I could see, only me was doing such boring duty
Kid bring back okra from school. One of summer vacations homework was to take care of that thing, but from the limited range I could see, only me was doing such boring duty
Mr Okra in all its glory.
I put it near the space for hanging
laundry so that I don't forget to water it
Summer 2018 activity #5 : watching Saturn for real !
Local astronomy group prepared an "Watch Jupiter, Saturn, and also a bunch of other stars I forgot their name" event ... so I was super interested in it
土星, during small explanations about how to locate things in the sky.
Saturn was so bright it's hard to miss it in the night sky
But Mars was even brighter this summer !
This was also an occasion to assemble a small telescope by oneself. That's a cheap "30 bucks" model, but with lens good enough to see Jupiter moons oO
Summer 2018 activity #6 : adventuring in Tokyo
In order to renew a identification paper, I had to go to embassy located Tokyo : this was basically one day spent in transports, except 15 minutes at the embassy itself to sign a couple of papers, have my fingerprints taken, and pay 12198 yens 
That's a long time I didn't get lost in Tokyo Everything was more or less smooth in changing from plane → train/subway → bus, but in the last steps walking to the embassy, the battery of my phone decided take a little rest for the remaining of the day 
Everything was more or less smooth in changing from plane → train/subway → bus, but in the last steps walking to the embassy, the battery of my phone decided take a little rest for the remaining of the day I was aware that battery wouldn't last long, so I printed nearly all directions, but last "use your own foots" steps weren't detailed a lot 
Fortunately the "ask random people around" solution could guide me to the embassy 
Fortunately the "ask random people around" solution could guide me to the embassy The return back to home without help from phone was more or less OK, and when back to home I finally could unlock my phone
Why unlock ? Because my phone's power switch is broken At a moment, I asked for an estimation to my phone carrier to get this fixed, and price was around 80 buck-ish, so I decided it would be better to live with this broken switch rather than paying that 
At a moment, I asked for an estimation to my phone carrier to get this fixed, and price was around 80 buck-ish, so I decided it would be better to live with this broken switch rather than paying that Now, I'm used enough to my phone power in sequence that I no longer consider it as a problem, but instead as child lock feature : if kid try to play game on it while it is running on battery, it turns off after around 5 minutes
My secret method to turn the phone on is to tweak the debounce circuit with a small wire. Electronics components there are super small (which is probably why the power switch broke ...), why requires the usage of tweezers or a small pliers hence can't be done outside since I don't always bring my electronics toolbox with me when I go on travel
My phone, and its broken power switch.
Summer 2018 activity #7 : going to hospital
This was "just" a routine appointment for periodic screening, and everything was OK This time was the occasion to celebrate the fourth year still alive after surgery 
This time was the occasion to celebrate the fourth year still alive after surgery 
This is an archive picture : all the "no pokemon go in hopital"
warnings were removed. Instead there was a notice that
North side parking is not available, but I didn't took a
picture of it since I doubt the average reader of this
blog is concerned by such news
End of the personal and boring news August was also a time do PCB design to celebrate the 10th birthday of my favorite PCB house
August was also a time do PCB design to celebrate the 10th birthday of my favorite PCB house (More pragmatically, I rushed to finish PCB design until August 31st because they were offering discount coupons until that date to celebrate this event )
)Among PCBs ordered, there was minor change for Gamer's Cartridge, and a small board to flash MAX3000A CPLDs used in Gamer's Cartridge.
Gamer's Cartridge PCB rev 3.3 (c)
There's nothing changed nor deleted : I just added footprints for alternate voltage regulator : I'm using this alternate regulator in another project, so I would like to unify electronic components used in order to reduce stock management/space/etc to store theses two components.
Additionally, this alternate voltage regulator is a bit easier to solder, so at the end I would like to stick with this one
Additionally, this alternate voltage regulator is a bit easier to solder, so at the end I would like to stick with this one
CPLD flash board
That's a really simple board to interface between CPLD and programming hardware : so far I was flashing Gamer's Cartridge CPLD one by one after soldering each cartridges, but thanks to this board it may be possible to flash a batch of CPLDs in a row hence save some bits of time on my side
