A quick overview of how to turn an old NES cartridge into a functional retro gaming console using RetroPie, 3D printing, and a Pi Zero. No glue or soldering required! Required parts: -Raspberry pi Zero W -http://amzn.to/2oPEamp -NES cartridge - http://amzn.to/2oPfNp8 -Micro USB hub - http://amzn.to/2p0C5o7 -HDMI cable - http://amzn.to/2o9p5NR -Security bit 3/8" - http://amzn.to/2pXbt4N (only needed if using an original NES cartridge) -Controller(s) NES controller - http://amzn.to/2pWXxb4 SNES contoller - http://amzn.to/2p0C2sN -microSD card - http://amzn.to/2o9fVRH -microusb power supply - http://amzn.to/2o98nOF 3D parts if using the USB hub above: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2251839 Original 3D design:http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2205100 RetroPie download: https://retropie.org.uk/download/ RetroPie Installation: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-... 3D printed with a Maker Select 3D v2.1 (http://amzn.to/2o99kGD) Time-lapse recorded using OctoPi and an LD400 camera (http://amzn.to/2pIACUl).

Jelly Bean on a Nook Tablet

Because so many people ask and are confused on how to boot a Nook Tablet (NT) using an SD card....Oh and a similar process works for the Nook HD+.

Make the NT rock and install Jelly Bean boot via microSD in 10 easy steps:

1) Format a good SD card of at least 4GB in size (A good SD card should have a formatted Crystal disk 4k QD32 write of 1 or greater.) Sandisk class 4 cards have been shown to be consistently good. I found the 16gb G.Skill class 10 cards from newegg were great - QD32 1.4.

2) Download the rather stable cm10-121208_acclaim_sd_hd_img.rar and extract the image file using 7-zip. Additional roms are available: CM 10.1 Jelly Bean  and CM10.2 Jelly Bean (shown)

3) Write the extracted image to the SD card using win32diskimager. Make sure you are writing to the SD card and not to some other portable drive or SSD on your PC!

4) Open MiniTool Partition Wizard  and you should see your PC's partition(s) (leave these alone) and 5 partitions including the unused partition on the microSD card.

5) Delete Partition 4 (Fat 32 SDCARd) and hit Apply

6) Delete the Other partition ~600mb and hit Apply (Neither of those two partitions had any files in them. DO NOT delete the 1st or second partitions which both have the necessary files already inside.)

7) Create a new partition called DATA and select Primary and Ext 4. Make the size 1-4GB (or more) depending on app usage. This is where apps will install. It you are an app hog, them go with 4GB. I went with 2.5GB. Hit Apply.

8) Create a new partition called SDCARD and select Primary and FAT32. The size should be the remaining card space by default - leave it this way. Hit Apply.

9) Close the Partition Wizard, remove the microSD card and place it in the NT that is currently turned off (it needs to be off and not in the sleep state).

10) Turn the NT on and welcome to Jelly Bean. (If you reboot it will go back to stock NT. If you turn it off and then on it will boot Jelly Bean.) Enjoy!

Thanks go to:

http://iamafanof.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/cm10-0-jellybean-sdcard-img-for-nook-tablet/

http://iamafanof.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/how-to-guide-bootable-cm7cm9cm10-sdcard-for-nook-tablet/

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1789407

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2037368

New Publications

Here is an update of recent publications and things I have been up to. 

Vitamin A and Zebrafish 
H.T. Lee, J.E. Dowling, D.J. Cameron, Early Retinoic acid deprivation in zebrafish results in microphthalmia, Visual Neuroscience. 2012; 29(4-5):219-28. PMID: 23013828

Amyloidβ and the Zebrafish brain
D.J. Cameron, C. Galvin, T. Alkam, H. Sidhu, J Ellison, D.W. Ethell, Alzheimer’s Related Peptide Amyloid-β Serves a Conserved Role in Angiogenesis, PlosONE 2012;7(7):e39598. Epub 2012 Jul 9. PMID: 22792182

Amyloidβ and the Zebrafish retina
K. Cunvong, D. Huffmire, D.W. Ethell, D.J. Cameron, Amyloid-β increases capillary bed density in a zebrafish model of macular degeneration, Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2013; 54(2):1516-21 PMID: 23404118

My new gig

Perpetual 4-Stroke Motion and the Snake Illusion

4 Stroke Motion: http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/George_Mather/Motion/Harley.HTML

Rotosnake Illusion: http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/rotsnake.gif

Perspective...Two Presidents...The Same Image

Obama should be seen up close and a few steps back you should see Bush.

Change you can believe.

The mouth and eyes truly make or break a face

What's happening? Well, I flipped the eyes and mouth on the horizontal axis. The face looks much better upside down than it does right-side up.

Me as a cartoon

Religious Freedom - LDS Newsroom

Religious Freedom - LDS Newsroom

Shared via AddThis

Sad but True

Need I say more.......
(From: phdcomics )

H survives baseball paternity test

I have put H through his paces that last couple of days and he has come out strong. We played a simple game of wiffle ball - you know the game that's like baseball only you use a plastic bat and a plastic ball riddled with holes. For me this was a true test of my paternity. I spent 11 years of my life playing baseball from little league to high school and would have kept with the sport had I not damaged my rotary cuff as a senior. Nonetheless I had to see if H had my baseball genes.

Farm League Fields Hedgesville, WV (Photo: Bonnie Cameron)


Josh at High School Field with Little league field in the background Hedgesville, WV (Photo: Bonnie Cameron) The grass infield was not there when I played - it was dirt!


Our backyard is more of a paved turnaround/parking area than a nice grassy yard. Welcome to SW Medford which is more like Somerville or Cambridge. The homes are triple deckers and occupied by as many families/tenants. I started out tossing a ball to H to hit from about 6 feet away. I found this to be dangerously too close to a 4 year old holding a bat. I moved about 12 feet away and he managed to hit it a few times. Not bad. We then switched it up - H tossed and I hit. We need to work on throwing a bit. This was more like a game of cricket than wiffle ball.

So on day two we again started out about 12 feet apart and H hitting. He immediately began hitting balls around. After a few minutes he asked me to move back, so I went to other side of our yard a good 20-25 feet away. To my surprise he hit better from this distance. I decided to put H through his paces, the competetive father that I am. I threw the ball harder and he handled it just the same. I then threw a few curve balls - granted wiffle balls don't seem to curve as much as a baseball, but he hit those too. He wasn't perfect but hitting about .250 is respectable even for the majors.

I think the time for getting rid of the big red bat has come and H needs to move on to a more streamlined model. A glove may be in the works too. I think we have found something we both enjoy. We'll work our way through pitching and catching as the time comes. For now, I am happy to throw and watch MY son hit balls around our yard.

Happy Mother's Day

What a better way to wish my wife and mother of my 2 children a happy mother's day than to show off a bit of what makes her so special. Lets begin with her creativity in sewing. For those who don't know, she sews alot. Below are 5 representatives of her great ability to take ordinary materials and make them extraordinary.

Ellie's Blessing Dress.

Ellie's Blue Dress
Ellie's Green Spring Dress - this one was recently made famous here.
Ellie's Red Dress.
A work in progress: Ellie's soon to be completed purple summer dress. I stole this away one morning to sneak in this shot.
I should mention that this is just a sampling of what she has done since I've known her. Besides little girl dresses, she has sewn bridesmaid dresses, prom dresses,fashion/designer shirts, quilts, curtains, herbal aroma therapy pillows, baby blankets, and the list goes on.

Sewing is not her only forte. She is also an amazing cook. You don't hear me complaining about food in my house. Since I have known her she has had a love for baking and decorating. I am always impressed with the detail and meticulous nature of her creations. This is expected in her sewing, but it also extends to her edible creations as well. The most recent cakes for the kids birthdays are exhibits 1 and 2. They tasted as good as they looked.

I should also mention that she is not limited to cakes. Her apple pie is amazing and looks the part as well.

I would seriously be amiss if I did not let your all in on her greatest creations. They by far the cutest, irreplaceable, and arguably difficult to contain creations. You can get your fill of her two greatest creations on her blog. I'll give you a bit of a taste below - no it is not Hershey's chocolate.

We love you sweetheart! You are the greatest wife and mother. I apologize if any of this has embarrassed you. Thank you for putting up with all of my goods and bads and loving me in the end. Thank you for loving our children and their own creations (aka messes, rips, art, etc). We are forever grateful for such a wonderful woman in out lives. You are a blessing to us all!

Let me make one final thank you to our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Your heritage lives on. We love you.

Josh, Harrison and Ellie.

Glass Blowing: Making an Ornament 101

Me making a glass ornament at Thames Glass on February 20, 2009. Thanks Kristen for taking the photos. A 2500 degree furnace was a welcome feeling in sub freezing cold.

Picking the colors gold, red and green

Melting the colors together

Blowing the molten glass through the pipePinching

Refining the top of the ball

The finished glass ball tapped from the blow pipe

Adding the top hook to the ball - red hot ironThe finished product - ready to be cooled

Perspectives on Marriage

Here was the conversation between Harrison, Elizabeth, Bonnie and I during lunch today:

Elizabeth: I want to get married like mommy

Harrison: I want to be a fireman and marry Ellie.

Josh: You can't marry your sister.

Harrison: Why not?

Elizabeth: I want to be like mommy and marry Harrison.

Bonnie: I wouldn't marry your daddy. We don't marry our brothers and sisters.

Harrison: Why not? I am going to marry Ellie.

Josh: Harrison, you can't marry your sister. It is against the law and just not appropriate.

Harrison: Why is that dad?

I think going into the genetic ramifications would have been a little too much. But, what do you say to a 2 and 4 year old? The question "why?" is a tough one to answer.

Journal Launch Finally

I am the editor-in-chief of a new journal entitled Ophthalmology and Eye Diseases (OED). The journal was made public last week and new articles will be published in the near future. I am excited to see this go forward after months in the making. I am grateful to the excellent group of editors who have joined me in this new venture. The introductory editorial should be available soon. Feel free to read my interview with the managing editor, Tom Hill. I have also added a link to the OED on here and a RSS feeder for new article releases. You can see that I am not very busy as there are no new articles. I should probably mention I am doing this as a service, so no, I have not come into my millions.......yet.

Only fancy cakes will do

I have two great kids with fanciful birthday wishes. Thank goodness for a wife who can make them come true.

Exhibit A (Hello Kitty)

Exhibit B (Curious George)

They tasted just as good as they looked.

Come fly the friendly skies.....or perhaps the one piloted by an apostle

President Uchtdorf, 2nd Councilor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and former commercial pilot and executive, taught, received instruction , then took to the skies.


Reported here and here

Fall in New England

New England Trees.

Famous apple pie baked by Kristen. (The apples were from our day laborer apple harvest.

Our first family Jack-O-Lantern.

T-mobile G1 with Android

I thought I would be a tech geek today and speak about the T-mobile G1. I am not going to go into all of the finer specs you can easily read from a more techy website or T-mobile. I am going to go into a few tidbits that thought were cool and share a few experiences.

First, my dad bought the phone in Costco on Saturday. He was told that he had to get the data plan to access the Internet and use the phone. "Really?!" I thought. So we tested it out. My dad bought the data service with the phone and found he could use it like he should, after all this is what the rep said. We then removed his sim card and replaced it with my pay-as-you-go sim card. Would the phone work? You bet!! We made phone calls and even successfully browsed the Internet using wifi. My suggesting now is to play with the data for the 30 day trial period, then cancel and go back to the original plan.

So what does this mean? Well, you can have your friend who has a T-mobile data plan put their sim card into your new G1, activate the phone, then replace your sim card and you should be good to go..assuming you have some other T-mobile service.

Second, one would think with such a cool gadget you could do cool things like read a pdf or word file. Well, not so fast. In order to read a word or excel file you have to view them through google documents. We tried viewing a pdf that way and had no luck. Using an online pdf viewer was hit or miss since flash enabled apps (like http://www.pdfmenot.com/) don't work either. We were able to view a pdf using http://view.samurajdata.se/. A little app called MultiReader 1.0 for the Android system may work; we just never got around to it.

Wifi was great. Opening files was another thing altogether.

Third, The camera is nothing short of abysmal. Sure it is 3mp, but has limited functionality. It does autofocus, but does not zoom, record video, have color correction, etc...

Finally, the battery is not long lasting especially while using wifi. I guess this is no surprise. Its a good thing Android is quite peppy so that time is not wasted. Although the folder arrangement could use some work. All in all, this could become one awesome machine once apps are made to utilize all of its cool features (camera, gps, wifi, integration with google, phone, keyboard, etc). I am definitely for this amazing machine despite its minor flaws.

How will you vote? 'Cause I am lost in this election

I discovered a nifty website thank to PCmagazine. It is http://glassbooth.org. You first select the issues that matter the most to you. Be careful, because you only get 20 points with which to work. The following screen is a quiz that asks you questions related to the topics you are most concerned with. Once you have completed the quiz, you are shown which candidate shares your views the most. You can then view why you match so well within each category where you can read statements from the candidate and see how the candidate would answer the question you answered. You can also see how you fared with all of the other candidates.

My dilemma, as it has been this whole election was not improved by this website. I am a registered republican, but am very divided in my conservative and liberal approaches to government. I'd probably classify myself as an independent, but I have a hard time being the lone man outside the two big parties. Besides, I like to vote in primary elections and would rather not have to be limited by the state I live to decide to do so.

So, how did I fare on http://glassbooth.org? My scores are below.

Barack Obama shares a 73% similarity with your beliefs

Taxes and Budget 63% Find out why
Science 75% Find out why
Civil Liberties and Domestic Security 75% Find out why
Iraq and Foreign Policy 75% Find out why
Trade and Economics 75% Find out why
Environment and Energy 100% Find out why
Immigration 58% Find out why
Health Care 63% Find out why
Education 100% Find out why
Gay Rights 100% Find out why
Abortion and Birth Control 50% Find out why

However, John McCain shares a 68% similarity with your beliefs.

A 5% difference.

Taxes and Budget 50% Find out why
Science 75% Find out why
Civil Liberties and Domestic Security 88% Find out why
Iraq and Foreign Policy 67% Find out why
Trade and Economics 25% Find out why
Environment and Energy 100% Find out why
Immigration 42% Find out why
Health Care 88% Find out why
Education 75% Find out why
Gay Rights 100% Find out why
Abortion and Birth Control 50% Find out why

So how will I vote? I'll see on Nov 4.


Just a note, I did the test again, this time switching my category priorities a bit, but answered the same questions the same and the new ones as I thought I should. Now John McCain shares a 70% similarity and Barack Obama shares a 60% similarity. Perhaps I should just flip a coin?!