5, 4, 3, 2, 1 things about Darryl Smith

Make Magazine has a series of interview questions called ‘5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Things About’, which asks a number of questions, and aims to give some insight into the interviewee. Since they have not yet asked me to be interviewed, I thought it might be worthwhile to do the interview anyway. Here are the results.

One project you’re particularly proud of.

This one is really easy – it is The Plane. Notice that the words are all in upper case. That should give you an idea of how big this project was. It took a friend and me about five years to get it flying, and it has been flying for about four years now. It has been from Sydney to Perth twice, and many other places.

Two past mistakes you’ve learned most from.

Both mistakes I have learned the most from are related. They are

1. Never power a piece of equipment up until you put the case back together

2. Never put a case back together until the equipment has been powered up

Notice that both of these are contradictory. And not following both of these rules have caused me problems in the past, and cost money. Normally putting a device back together before testing it only costs me time, whereas powering up equipment before putting the case back together causes the destruction when things go wrong.

The other thing is that it is normally somewhat safer to put the case back together with mains equipment before testing, and this is generally what I do these days.

Three ideas that have excited you most lately.

1. The Internet Of Things

I have always been interested in a connected world, and I think this might be the reason I got into Ham Radio. You see, with Ham Radio, I started playing with digital data, rather than voice.

2. Location Intelligence and Indoor Tracking

I tried to set up a business to do Indoor Tracking, but found that I really did not have the resources to do this properly. It takes a lot of effort, and this cannot be done on a shoestring budget. But the idea of taking existing infrastructure, processing it and getting useful information out at the end is rather impressive. Various organizations are investigating Indoor Tracking for all sorts of purposes.

3. Digitization of Knowledge

The availability of information is a major change that has occurred to society in the last twenty years. I can remember sometime in the 1990’s looking up the Lat and Lon of the capital of Kenya so that someone could determine if they held an Australian record for communications on the 6M Ham Band. Data books for IC’s were always sold in this country, and were never free, at least as far as I was concerned as a student. With the World Wide Web and the PDF format, that changed.

These days there are projects to digitize just about everything. There is even a project to digitize the archives of the BYTE magazine, albeit without the permission of the current owners. This digitization of knowledge is making large amounts of information actually available to the general populous.

Four tools you can’t live without.

1. My iPad. I really could not live without the iPad. I have had an iPad for about two years now, and it has changed my life. I had a WiFi model for about a year, and then upgraded to the 3G model. I use it as a research tool, a Web Browser, for Email, Skype, and just about anything you can imagine. It goes flying with me whenever I go flying in a light aircraft. For me, it is a universal tool.

2. Google. I would be lost without Google. These days, when I am programming, if I am looking for some details on the syntax, I will use Google. I guess this pre-supposes Internet access, but it is more than that.

3. My Glasses. This is a strange one to add here, but they are a tool. During the past few months I have had some eye problems, and I am now realizing how important my glasses are to me. They are my ultimate tool!

4. The Internet. I first got onto the Internet in 1990 in my first year at Uni. Back then, the student handbook stated that anyone who you wanted to receive email from needed to be listed in a file in your mainframe account for some reason. The uni had a 56k connection to the Internet, and 300 bps dialup modems! The Internet link was so bad that the Ham Radio society was contemplating a microwave link to a nearby uni.

Five people/things that have inspired your work.

1. Steven Levy’s Hackers. If you have not read the book, I would encourage you to do so immediately. I saw this book referenced in a newspaper article in the 1980’s and immediately arranged a copy. I got it when I was off school sick in bed, and the contents of the book had a profound impact on me. Since then I have re-read the book a few times and continue to get more from it each time I read it.

2. Steve Ciarcia. Steve used to write for the BYTE magazine, and then started Circuit Cellar Magazine. He was into open source before really there was such a thing, particularly with regard to hardware. This list would not exist without him.

3. Camden Business Referral Group. Every two weeks I have a breakfast meeting with local business owners at a cafe near my home. I find that the people who come to the meeting are a great inspiration for the problems that I am trying to solve. Over the last few years, I have come to know them, and worked out their strengths and weaknesses, and from that shown me where I need to put more effort into my business.

4. Old Hardware. Sounds strange, but I find that old stuff is a great inspiration for developing new stuff. In my hallway at home I have a museum of mostly old circuit boards mounted in dust proof picture frames. I have a 16 kbyte Core Memory board, or more correctly three boards. I have two radio modems from the 1980’s. I have a 1990 era GPS receiver. And I have four generations of a GPS/GPRS tracker that I developed. Walking past these I can see the art in the design, just not the technology.

5. Ham Radio personality Phil Karn, KA9Q: He was the first person ever to implement TCP/IP on an 8 bit computer, and did so on a dare when someone told him it could not be done. Since then Phil has gone in to do some amazing work at Qualcomm on mobile telephony.