How to find out the partitions and drives on your linux system

I'm no expert, so I can only say this works on Ubuntu linux, I don't know if this tip applies to everything else. Give it a try..

I often run into commands trying to do things with linux..

Such as trying to use Shred

The question is, what is the name of my disk, and what form does this command want it in?

This may help:

Get to a Command Line and type in:

sudo parted

You should get
[sudo] password for makerspace: 
GNU Parted 2.3
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.

Then Type:

(parted) print devices                                                    

You should get something like:

/dev/sda (80.0GB)
/dev/sdb (15.6GB)
/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root (75.7GB)
/dev/mapper/mint--vg-swap_1 (4081MB)

Numato Opsis: FPGA-based open video platform

This board seemed mighty expensive to me ($349) until I started looking at their comparisons, and realized I'm not in the target market (though if you are I would be happy to help install such a thing).

This board uses an FPGA to process and transcode newer digital signals (HDMI and Displayport) to other types of signals such as outputting to USB or multiple outputs.

Its an interesting (and long overdue if you ask me) setup.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/numato-lab/opsis

Low Buck Internet Radio

Makezine posted a video showing how to mate a USB sound card with a cheap WIFI router, a little open source software and this combination becomes a cheap and easy internet radio. No computer required (for the audio output).

Heck add a LCD and a few buttons and there would be no need for a computer anywhere in this setup. But I guess that would make it more like the cost of the radios he shows at the start of the video...

Anyone wanna donate the supplies so I can try this (to get my Christianrock.net fix in the kitchen or outside for example)

CNC Camera Scanner

Tormach has developed hardware/software to scan a part with high accuracy with your CNC milling machine..

Tormach is a company that makes on of the most prominent CAM software packages around, Mach3.

CAM stands for Computer Aided Manufacturing. The CAM software is what sends the commands to a CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine.

Tormach has built a milling machine attachment and a software package. At the end of the attachment is a microscope USB camera.

The CNC machine (commanded by the CAM software (Mach3)) moves the camera around over a part that you want scanned. While commanding the camera to take a series of pictures which are then stitched together and entered into another plugin that helps you to draw that part in your CAD software with a large amount of accuracy. Build Log claims accuracy down to a few thousands.

This is reverse engineering and copying to the N-th level.