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Make is currently holding voting on the PSoC (Programmable System-on-Chip) maker challenge.
Each of the projects entered in the contest had to use the new PSoC 4 BLE Pioneer Kit, a new IoT-focused developer kit manufactured by Cypress. There aren’t a lot of entries in this contest, but they are all really high caliber. And you will decide the final few projects that our judges will weigh in on. There’s one week to cast votes for your favorite project/s. You can cast one vote per project per day for as many projects as you wish through April 15.
The entries include a 'portable ECG monitoring system over BLE,' a 'smart board game', and an 'electric bicycle data collection and logging service for battery health and lifecycle monitoring'.
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PSoC Maker Contest Looking for Votes
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Life is to you a dashing and bold adventure.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:24PM
Isn't permission to manage your own affairs. Exactly what is restricted in such circumstances? And your ability to carry them out may be compromised by medicine, fatigue, distraction, ability to communicate etc.
But this makes me wonder if they really have permission to grab someone because they think someone is about to do something to them selves?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:28PM
Two specific cases, I needed to get on the internet to do some money transfers. The staff asserted that I did not have the right to get on the Internet. I threatened them with lawsuits, was presented with mobile devices that enabled me to do my transfers.
When in a mental hospital, one has a legal right to do stuff like buy and sell property, get married, speculate on the stock market and so on.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:55PM
Why would they have the obligation to provide internet?
And doing business from an institution would likely be hard without an laptop.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:12AM
And yes the hospital staff protested that I don't have a right to Internet. The argument went back and forth between my pointing out that I have a right to "manage my own financial affairs" - as is what the law actually says - and then my pointing out that I require Internet to actually do so.
We go round and round on this until some more-senior staff member gets wind of the argument, who is already aware that I really do have the right to manage my own financial affairs.
Ironically, the rights of the patients are just about always posted on a wall somewhere, but the staff doesn't read the poster. They're not patients, see.
There are plenty of hospitals that do provide Internet. While they don't permit power cords to the patients, the staff are happy to keep my power adapters at the nurse's desk, then to charge my MacBook Pro and my iPhone behind the desk. At Stanford Medical Center they have a utility closet with a whole bunch of power sockets, as so many of the patients there bring their technology with them when they check in.
When I point this out to the hospitals that don't believe me when I tell them I have a right to do my online banking, they regard me as delusional. That is, they don't believe me when I tell them that Stanford actually encourages patients to use their smartphones. Many hospitals confiscate all mobile phones - not just phones with cameras. At Stanford their only concern is with power cords, so they are completely cool with camera phones.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:33AM
I thought you meant Internet access when you were a free person so to say. But if one is involuntarily confined in any way. The organization that does so is also obliged to various things regardless of what they say.
Otherwise it's like confining people to prison inside a concrete building and tell them that it's their own problem to grow food..
I think Reno might want to ensure they have money to pay in compensation.. ;)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:37PM
My understanding is that it's rather like that in Mexico. I've been told that inmates are only able to eat, if their friends or family bring them food.
The US legal tradition is based on British Common Law, but Mexico was once a French possession, thus it uses the Napoleonic Code, in which one is presumed guilty until proven innocent.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:31PM
... is much the same as that behind medical treatment of the unconscious.
Suppose you had been shot, or knocked in the head or something. You are unable to give permission for medical treatment, as would be legally required were you not incapacitated. The legal theory holds that, were you in a position to provide informed consent, you would, as your injury is serious.
Similarly for the mentally ill. There are times that would have been the case for me but not always. Specifically the camping in the desert bit; I am contemplating a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Reno over that one.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 08 2015, @11:09PM
What I find peculiar is that their speculation as to what "camping in the dessert" meant gave them the right to involuntarily commit someone that is conscious able to make decisions about their own person. The lack of actual verbal threats makes it really peculiar. Perhaps it was looks or body language? or someone needed to make use of their budget.
That people that are seriously injured and unconscious are presumed to give consent is something else.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:01PM
My mother files a Missing or Endangered Persons report, with the eventual result that I wrote my website URL down for a Reno PD officer so he could read Living with Schizoaffective Disorder [warplife.com].
I always specifically say "Read this the next time you go on the Internet", and most cops really are happy to read it, but this Fine Public Servant was all pissed off at me for wasting his valuable time.
However while I was having a Coke in a roadside diner, he decided to call in my name, yielding Mom's report.
The result was that the entire law enforcement community of Washoe County Nevada got an APB for me. A sheriff squawked his siren at me as I was walking towards The Strip from that diner.
He was only a few feet behind me. He scared the living crap out of me I was concerned it would shoot me. So very gently bent down, dropped the stuff I was carrying on the ground, stood back up then held my arms up, then showed him both sides on my hand.
He realized how frightened I was then reassured me that he wasn't going to hurt me.
In no time at all, a total of eighteen Reno PD officers and Washoe County Deputies turned up. Officer - IIRC - Montgomery had a really embarrassed grin on his face - he was the one who called me in.
I protested that "I'm not missing or endangered. I'm not missing because I know right where I am - on the main drag about a mile south of downtown Reno. I'm not endangered, because no one is attacking me."
The Law was completely cool with that, but it seems that when a Missing Persons Report is filed on someone, there is no real way to get rid of it.
Eventually I agreed to talk to a mental health worker. It turns out that she was the only shrink I've ever met, who had already read Living with Schizoaffective Disorder before I met them in person. Lots of shrinks read it - hundreds of thousands of - but this lady was the very first that I ever met IRL after she did so, without my specifically asking her to do so.
Again: "I'm not missing, no one is attacking me" didn't solve her problem either.
One of the deputies - politely now - requested to handcuff me so he could stash me in his patrol car while all nineteen of them discussed what to do with me.
After a little while:
"Pardon Sir? Deputy?"
"Could you step over here for a brief word? It'll only take a sec."
He stepped over to the car I was in, looked down at me through the window with a puzzled expression, then struggled desperately to suppress that he was pissing himself laughing.
"Do you know who Harry Houdini was?"
"Please don't tell anyone. I'd get in trouble." Then he turned and walked away.
Eventually we arrived at the compromise that I would agree to be evaluated by a psychiatrist at a mental hospital. When I arrived I was asked to empty my pockets and unlace my shoes so they could be stashed in a locker. It's not so much that I might use them to hurt myself, as that someone else could steal me then hurt themselves, or even attack someone else with them.
However the nurse said nothing about my heavy leather belt. I have a bit of an attitude about people who slack on their jobs, so I scolded her mercilessly for it.
The chat with the psychiatrist was brief and cordial, very simple conversation, not what I expected. But then:
"What do you plan to do after you leave here?"
"Reno is very, very disturbing to me," I said. Perhaps I should have been more clear, what I found disturbing was all the gambling addiction, as well as that the casinos were openly enabling it. "I need to get my peace of mind back. I'm going to go camping in the desert for a few days, then hitchhike to Berkely."
He left the room shortly after that, then a few minutes later that first mental health worker - either a Licensed Clinical Social Worker or perhaps a Case Manager - called for me from the other room.
There were two or three cops with her. I remember Officer Nox specifically. Officer Nox is a great guy.
"What's up?"
"That psychiatrist just put you on a ten-day hold."
"WTF?"
"You said you were going to go camping in the desert. Around here, that means you plan to commit suicide."
"But I went camping in the desert just last night!"
There were more arguments and explanations, but much like the missing persons report - once you are put on a hold, there isn't a whole lot you can do to get out of that hold.
The laws are different from state to state. In California and Washington, one has the right to a hearing before a court judge on the morning after 72 hours have elapsed. In California that is a very informal, very brief hearing but one has a right to a more formal procedure in a courthouse a few days later. Washington only has one hearing but it is far more formal, with a court reporter, county assistant prosecuting attorney, one has the right to present witnesses, evidence, to cross-examine as well as to be represented by council.
I'm not commpletely clear as to what the law actually says in Nevada, but what actually happened to me was that I got no hearing at all. I was ordered onto a second ten-day hold, with my hearing to be on the first day of that second hold (ie. my eleventh day).
But that morning, instead of the hearing I was discharged. I don't recall any explanation.
I expect that it may have been because, rather than watching TV the whole time as did all the other patients, or of meekly submitting to the violation of my most-fundamental rights, I protested to the Drug Addiction Counselor that the "Bath Salts" in pocket was actually desert topsoil that got in there WHEN I WAS CAMPING IN THE DESERT, that as I said I asserted my right to manage my own financial affairs, I was screaming bloody murder about my right to wear my own clothing when they tried to get me into a hospital gown and - for the most part...
... I spent most of my time sitting in a chair, staring out the window...
... At The Desert.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 10 2015, @01:12AM
If a lawsuit of your will stick so it pays. I think you should sue Reno to make an example of them. Sure they made a mistake, but then they also let it get a lot worse. Perhaps some news outlet is interested just to salt their wounds.
(Score: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:50AM
I hope you're feeling better, after what sounds like a difficult time.
Try to remember, the medication will help you, and you shouldn't stop taking it because you feel better. Your doctor will be a better judge of that.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 10 2015, @01:16AM
There's a lot of over medication so it pays to be skeptic about those things.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday April 10 2015, @01:58AM
While I have no doubt that's true, in this case we're talking about someone who has a serious mental illness. Some people in his position decide that they're cured, or that they don't like the side effects or whatever, and stop taking their meds.
That tends to end badly.