add old posts

blog/first_post.md

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+author: Akbar Rahman
+date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 19:52:52 +0100
+title: first post
+tags: []
+uuid: fd338dc9-ae5f-48f4-9fc6-e02e88ab4ce5
+---
+
+# first post
+
+this is my first post

blog/g27_pedals.md

@@ -0,0 +1,182 @@
+---
+author: Akbar Rahman
+date: Tue, 04 Aug 2020 15:20:13 +0100
+title: Repurposing Racing Wheel Pedals
+tags: [ g27, sim_racing ]
+uuid: 0f09200e-fd50-451b-aae1-1117a8a704db
+---
+
+<h1>Repurposing Racing Wheel Pedals</h1>
+<p>I have a Logitech G27 I don't use much. I wondered if I could use it for anything else. I could. </p>
+
+<h2> The Pinout of the Connector </h2>
+
+<p>The first thing I had to do was figure out what each pin did on the DE-9 connector, and which
+ones I should care about.
+This was done easily after I took off the top plastic casing thing by poking the three 100k Ohm
+potentiometers and the connector in the right places at the right times:
+</p>
+
+<style> #pinout_table tr td:first-child { text-align: right } </style>
+<img src="/res/repurposing-racing-wheel-pedals-g27-pinout.svg" class="centered" style="width: 10em;">
+<table id="pinout_table">
+	<tr> <th>pin</th> <th>function</th></tr>
+	<tr> <td>1,4</td> <td>ground</td></tr>
+	<tr> <td>6</td> <td>clutch pedal</td></tr>
+	<tr> <td>7</td> <td>brake pedal</td></tr>
+	<tr> <td>8</td> <td>accelerator pedal</td></tr>
+	<tr> <td>9</td> <td>voltage in</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<h2> Reading the Values of the Pots </h2>
+
+I'm using an Arduino to read the pots and then do something with the values.
+I very dirtily wired pin 4 on the pedals to GND on a Arduino Uno, pin 9 to 5V, and
+pins 6,7,8 to A0, A1, and A2.
+I used a basic sketch to check that everything is good:
+
+<details>
+	<summary> Show/hide test_sketch.ino </summary>
+<pre><code> void setup() {
+	Serial.begin(9600);
+}
+
+void loop() {
+	Serial.println(analogRead(A2));
+	delay(20);
+}
+</code></pre>
+</details>
+
+I noticed that the minimum and maximum values read by the Uno were quite far off 0 and 1024, like
+they should be, and voltage was being lost on the way to and from the potentiometers.
+Since the pedals have to be calibrated every time you plug them in, I assume this is normal and
+spat out this code: 
+
+<details>
+	<summary> Show/hide sketch_aug02a.ino </summary>
+<pre><code>// sensor pins
+int sa = A0;
+int sb = A1;
+int sc = A2;
+
+// minimum values detected by the sensors
+int mina = 1025;
+int minb = 1025;
+int minc = 1025;
+
+// maximum values detected by the sensors
+int maxa = 512;
+int maxb = 512;
+int maxc = 512;
+
+// raw values of the sensors
+int rva, rvb, rvc;
+
+// calculated values of the sensors (between 0 and 1, this is the value sent to computer)
+float cva, cvb, cvc;
+
+void setup() {
+	Serial.begin(9600);
+}
+
+void loop() {
+	rva = analogRead(sa);
+	rvb = analogRead(sb);
+	rvc = analogRead(sc);
+
+	if (rva &lt; mina) mina = rva;
+	if (rvb &lt; minb) minb = rvb;
+	if (rvc &lt; minc) minc = rvc;
+
+	if (rva &gt; maxa) maxa = rva;
+	if (rvb &gt; maxb) maxb = rvb;
+	if (rvc &gt; maxc) maxc = rvc;
+
+	cva = (float)(rva-mina)/(float)(maxa-mina);
+	cvb = (float)(rvb-minb)/(float)(maxb-minb);
+	cvc = (float)(rvc-minc)/(float)(maxc-minc);
+
+	Serial.print('[');
+	Serial.print(cva); Serial.print(',');
+	Serial.print(cvb); Serial.print(',');
+	Serial.print(cvc);
+	Serial.print(']');
+	Serial.println();
+	delay(20); 
+}
+</code></pre>
+</details>
+
+<h2> Actually Making the Numbers Do Something </h2>
+
+This is where you can make the pedals do fun things.
+I reworked another piece of code I wrote to do a similar thing to quickly create a script that
+reads the values sent by the Arduino, and then simulate pressing a key combination.
+The only thing I've done with this is set push-to-talk to ctrl-shift-alt-1.
+I don't know what else I could use this for, maybe temporarily muting particular things, like music.
+
+<details>
+	<summary> Show/hide pedalboard.py </summary>
+<pre><code> #!/usr/bin/env python3
+
+import sys
+import json
+import time
+from enum import Enum
+
+import keyboard
+import serial
+
+class KeyState(Enum):
+    UP = 0
+    DOWN = 1
+
+STATES = [KeyState.UP] * 3
+THRESHOLD = 0.8
+MACROS = ['ctrl+shift+alt+1', 'ctrl+shift+alt+2', 'ctrl+shift+alt+3']
+
+def get_args():
+    """ Get command line arguments """
+
+    import argparse
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    parser.add_argument('device')
+    return parser.parse_args()
+
+
+def main(args):
+    """ Entry point for script """
+    while True:
+        try:
+            kb = serial.Serial(port=args.device, baudrate=9600)
+            while True:
+                handle(json.loads(kb.readline()))
+        except serial.serialutil.SerialException as e:
+            print(e)
+            print("Failed to connect to device... trying again")
+            time.sleep(1)
+        except Exception as e:
+            print(e)
+    return 0
+
+def handle(data):
+    global STATES
+
+    states = [KeyState.DOWN if value &gt; THRESHOLD else KeyState.UP for value in data]
+    r = [handle_state_change(i, states[i]) if states[i] != STATES[i] else None for i in range(len(STATES))]
+    STATES = states
+    return r
+
+def handle_state_change(key, newstate):
+    print(f"{key} {newstate}")
+    return keyboard.press(MACROS[key]) if newstate == KeyState.DOWN else keyboard.release(MACROS[key])
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    try:
+        sys.exit(main(get_args()))
+    except KeyboardInterrupt:
+        sys.exit(0)
+</code></pre>
+</details>

blog/lastfm_bookmarklets.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 author: Akbar Rahman
-pub_date: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 20:00:31 +0100
+pub_date: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 16:25:48 +0100
 title: last.fm bookmarklets
 tags: [ last.fm, scripts ]
 uuid: e54ebf58-4033-4dae-81db-91db344f1311