
This $200 device will Rickroll anyone who comes within six feet of it - iProject
http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2013/01/05/this-200-device-will-rickroll-anyone-who-comes-within-six-feet-of-it/?fromcat=all
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mitchi
I like that the song doesn't restart at the beginning but resumes! What a nice
project.

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jack-r-abbit
While a funny joke to play on people, I don't think this is what a "Rickroll"
is. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling>

All you are doing is playing this Rick Astley song when someone comes near.
Which is not the "bait & switch" aspect of a true Rickroll.

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michaelmior
Anyone else click on the second link and take a few seconds to realize what
just happened?

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IheartApplesDix
costs about $150 more than it needs to, that is inevitable when you
"Componentize" small electronics. Learn about the stuff you're using, or get
another hobby.

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meric
Will you elaborate?

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jrockway
He's mad that an Arduino + Motion sensor + MP3 player costs $100 when the
parts used to make those three things cost significantly less, and the
expensive parts are unnecessary to solve the same problem. (The
microcontroller on an Arduino is like $1 in quantity. The special terminals,
though, are about $5. This is, incidentally, why cheap dev boards like the
STM32F4DISCOVERY have more features and are half the cost of an Arduino: they
cut out the expensive parts.)

What he doesn't understand is that the economics are different when you are
making one unit versus 100,000 units. (But if you are thinking 5 or 10 units,
then it starts to become financially advantageous to start avoiding the
hobbyist stuff and make your own boards.)

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IheartApplesDix
I think the "sonar sensor" is the most egregious, such a thing it $1 in parts
but is retailed at $25. That is just ridiculous. The obvious solution was to
use a Raspberry Pi instead, it might even be able to emulate the sonar ranging
algorithm on the CPU.

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catch23
I think you can get one of those sonar sensors for $6 on amazon. They're
cheap. I don't think the obvious solution is to use a general purpose
computing machine...

