The Blog of Ian Mercer.
Related Stories
Time Series Data Compression
This new technique to compress the time series data collected by my home automation system seems to be working really well.
Ian Mercer
Digital Twins are never identical
Digital Twin are an online representation of a real world object, a copy of its properties in the digital world and a way to send updated and commands to it. In effect I've been making them for years but now they have a trendy name.
Ian Mercer
Why smarthomes are hard
Why automated learning is hard for a smart home. The perils of over-fitting, under-fitting and how the general unpredictable nature of life makes it hard to build a system that learns your behavior.
Ian Mercer
Collinearity test for sensor data compression
One way to reduce the volume of sensor data is to remove redundant points. In a system with timestamped data recorded on an irregular interval we can achieve this by removing co-linear points.
Ian Mercer
Event blocks
Home automation systems need to respond to events in the real world. Sometimes it's an analog value, sometimes it's binary, rarely is it clean and not susceptible to problems. Let's discuss some of the ways to convert these inputs into actions.
Ian Mercer
Logistic function - convert values to probabilities
Another super useful function for handling sensor data and converting to probabilities is the logistic function 1/(1+e^-x). Using this you can easily map values onto a 0.0-1.0 probability range.
Ian Mercer
ATAN curve for probabilities
In a home automation system we often want to convert a measurement into a probability. The ATAN curve is one of my favorite curves for this as it's easy to map overything onto a 0.0-1.0 range.
Ian Mercer
Home Construction Advice
Several years ago we did a major remodel. I did all of the finish electrical myself and supervised all of the rough-in electrical. I also put in all of the electrical system and water in our barn. I have opinions ...
Ian Mercer
T-Mobile home internet
I'm testing a T-Mobile Home Internet device as a backup to XFinity and a way to offload half our monthly traffic to avoid the XFinity 1.2TB cap
Ian Mercer
iBeacon meetup in Seattle - January 2015
My notes on the iBeacon meetup in Seattle held in January 2015
Ian Mercer
Finally got the 1U Atom Server racked up
Ian Mercer
Timelapse video using the GoPro HD Hero
Ian Mercer
I should have created Four Square ...
Ian Mercer
Asian Gadgets
Ian Mercer
Interesting Twitter Posts March 15th-
Ian Mercer
Facebook, social gaming and points
Ian Mercer
Useful Twitter links Feb 8-Feb 15 2010
Ian Mercer
Future proof your home with a new conduit system?
Running conduit can be expensive but maybe you don't need one to every room
Ian Mercer
Balloon Boy was much ado about nothing - Twitter
Some of the more witty comments on Twitter about the Balloon Boy hoax
Ian Mercer
Shortened URLs should be treated like a Codec ...
Expanding URLs would help users decide whether or not to click a link
Ian Mercer
WMPnetwk.exe started using 50% of my CPU
Uninstalling Windows Media Player - the end of an era
Ian Mercer
Introducing Jigsaw menus
A novel UI for menus that combines a breadcrumb and a menu in one visual metaphor
Ian Mercer
Amazon Instance vs Dedicated Server comparison
Some benchmark performance for Amazon vs a dedicated server
Ian Mercer
Agile Software Development is Like Sailing
You cannot tack too often when sailing or you get nowhere. Agile is a bit like that.
Ian Mercer
AntiVirus Software is the Worst Software!
When your anti-virus software starts stealing your personal data, it's time to remove it!
Ian Mercer
It's all about disk speed
Why disk speed is the most critical aspect for most modern PCs and servers
Ian Mercer
Dell upgrades - a pricey way to go
Ian Mercer
Preparing for death
A friend died last year, it wasn't unexpected. He left a lot for his friends to cleanup. Maybe these notes can help someone else prepare better.
Ian Mercer