MPJ

The micro:bit is an open source hardware ( ARM -based embedded system) designed by the BBC for use in computer education of software developing and hardware learning for kids and adults of all ages. The concept was so perfect that it quickly outgrew UK and to date over two million BBC micro:bits distributed globally in over 50 countries. Not to mention that within previous year it was proud addition to my and Viktor's shelf of educational toys and of course cause and effect for several of our YouTube contributions and several more in production. In the latest video we used micro:bit powered by Elecfreaks' IoT kit with IoT:bit wifi board and assembled a weather station to measure temperature, pressure, humidity and pollution with BME280 and dust particles sensors. Micro:bit was successfully acquiring the weather data every 60 seconds and sent all of them from our test to ThingSpeak website for analysis and chart presentation. YouTube video link: Internet of Things with Mic

It is definitely not easy to answer this simple question with a word or sentence. Perhaps the best and only answer I could think of is that "it would make perfect sense" for the imminent future of humanity in 21st century and beyond. However within current world order we are living in today, it is far from being applicable for one 'teeny-tiny' reason - it would require canceling of what is well rooted today. The political system of Nation-State governmental polity that in one form or another exist almost everywhere on the planet. To cease that from existence is one of those Sisyphean tasks that is almost unimaginable to achieve. In simple words, in order to make City-State the only governmental polity we would have to nullify countries and to erase borders from the maps. Not only that, it also means the politics and politicians would have to reduce its influence and their numbers significantly which is also a task comparable to the impossible efforts from the mythical

Most of the popular digital and DSLR cameras are perfectly equipped for macro photos. Taking a great photo by zooming to the scene not farther than 20-30 centimeters is a little effort and requires only clicking the shutter button and leaving all the technicalities to the camera's automated software. Even the cheap lenses can do that without a problem. While ago I collected some of those photos and wrote a little about macro photography and how to record all the close objects not very distant from our nose. But, can we do closer than that? Can we take a photo of an object like top of the pencil, as close as couple of millimeters away from the lens, for example, like the one in this photo: Dot-sized larvae of cricket or grasshopper invading our balcony flowerpot Well, not with a consumer camera, not without specialized optics. However, "augmenting" our smartphones to do the magic is just a little effort. And yes, I took above photo with only my smartphone, addi

Do you gamble? I don't. Not because it is not fun nor because it is one of famous five sins. It is simple for me. I never win. I tried couple of times with lottery tickets and I never won a dime. Not to mention that I am terrible at predicting sport results or to win any kind of gambling event. I remember once I watched Euro-song contest and had strong feeling that Austrian band will win big time. Their performance was great and the song was pretty good.. I even typed one of those SMS messages to support them. And yet, they scored exactly zero points! Were they bad? No. Check the video within YouTube refs below. They were pretty good. Only sometimes, the luck doesn't come with quality.. It chooses by some strange criteria, as it seems, I will never understand. When I was in high school I thought I was smart enough to build some system by analyzing previous results in national lottery and to win at least the second prize which would be enough for me to buy super home compu

My first encounter with Intelligence Quotient, aka IQ, was 25 years ago during my preliminary exam for the mandatory military service. In those years Serbia was part of a former socialist federation of Yugoslavia along with couple of more countries and avoiding army service was impossible. Everybody had to go to serve the "time" for one whole year and they used those preliminary tests to better fit you into suitable unit and doing a form of an IQ test was part of it. They didn't give us the result, but I probably did it pretty well since they put me to be main operator of a ground-to-ground missile unit. At least my little bit higher intelligence than average "soldier" spared me from the mud, dirt, long marches, carrying heavy weaponry and other meaningless activities of the service. So I spent most of the time in a classroom surrounded with state of the art simulators, playing video games made specially for practicing real time guidance of the missile in simula

Have you ever thought about first ever practiced team sport on a grand scale? Perhaps, like mine, your first thought could be some competition within ancient Olympic games, right? Well, no, old Greeks didn't like team sports at all - instead their first athletes competed within what we consider today as individual sports or disciplines. Boxing, racing, running, jumping, wrestling, throwing and similar individual competitions or fighting. However, on the other end of the world and perhaps in the more or less the same time, ancient Chinese practiced sport competition just the same and during the Han Dynasty around 3rd century BC it was documented a game that resembles very much to modern football or soccer if you will. It was called Tsu'Chu with kicking the ball in the field in the team effort and with the goal of putting the ball in the net. But perhaps millennium before Tsu'Chu, on the third ancient continent, the origin of another modern sport was invented first and it was

I had once a parrot pet called Cheda. He was incredible - long ago during my university days Cheda was my only friend throughout countless sleepless nights when I was preparing for exams. He came very young and we spent lots of quality time together in my room. I never closed the cage gate so he was as free as possible and used entire flat to spread his wings. He belonged to a Australian cockatiel parrot breed or nymphicus hollandicus, how was his real scientific name. Nymphs are very popular for their ability to mimic human speech and of course for their talent to sing beautifully. Alex the African Grey Parrot* Cheda was no different and over time he learned a decent amount of words but what he performed the best was a tune from the movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai" . It was not a simple melody for a parrot and you had to see his frustration in all those moments when he missed the note - on a numerous occasions I had to pet him and telling him to take it easy - bu

In almost all Cyberpunk masterpieces in literature, comics, movies, games or whatever media exposure we think of when it comes to this genre, the settings is familiar. Dark atmosphere in both social and technological aspect of the story with dystopian surroundings and thin distinguished line between all characters within, no matter whether they are good or bad. I can't tell exactly why, but despite all the prosaic backgrounds and used stereotypes, I actually like this literary movement, perhaps because of the fact that people can't be really divided into good and bad per se. We all are combination of all possible adjectives out there and their summary is what makes us what we are. Actually, this is more accurate and closer to the truth compared to the "normal" or "usual" fiction with its ordinary hero-villain relations and idealized characters. Of course, like in any other genre, there are many poor and unmentionable works but also couple of those masterpiec

It was different when I was 5th grader in many ways. Learning how to code was not in the realm of elementary schools back then. Computers were simply too large and expensive for kids to play with and having a good teacher who knew programming languages was rarity. So I was in a bit of a blur when I pressed "P" key on, my first, just unboxed, brand new and state of the art, Sinclair ZX Spectrum  keyboard with amazing 16KB of RAM memory. It reacted immediately and at the bottom of the large home TV, it said "PRINT" followed with blinking black square cursor. "2+2" I added and hit "ENTER". It was like magic seeing "4" printed on the screen next instant. The magic of course was not in the correct number. It was rather in the unworldly feeling I got that exact moment of what would come next. What I could command it to do. It was like I found the door of the amazing new world and the door started to open wide! Soon later I learned more, esp

There is a debate whether or not Holocene, the latest geological epoch is already finished with ultimate human impact on Earth's ecosystems, which started along with industrial and technological maturity in recent past. Many of us believe that new era, suitably named Anthropocene is what we are living in already. With technology rise, it looks like humans already changed fundamentally to the point of incompatibility with our distant ancestors. Perhaps we are indeed heading toward rapid evolutionary change, like in the latest Dan Brown's novel " Origin ", but this premise is way more suitable for another science fiction I have just watched (for the second time). I am sure that for all of you who like intelligent movies , a long anticipated sequel for "The Man from Earth" finally came and it, without a doubt, opened the Holocene-Anthropocene transition for John Oldman, a 14000 years old man, who also, like entire humanity, seemed to be going through the change