Bengies Top 10 for 2023, Barely

O, 2023, what happened?

Besides getting older and slower, the Bengies drive-in movie theatre had bad weather (fog, in December?) and a slew of R-rated flicks we skipped and a few kiddie flicks also given the slip. Still, the Scout Camp-In continues despite the usual suspect challenges (high staff turnover, slow tech progress).

Here are my annual "10 Best Movies I Watched At The Bengies" where "watched" is at least part of the film, if not the whole thing. 

Yes, let's start at 

Number One,

a Ten in Ten of Ten, including the crowd on a weeknight. For fun, we printed our pre-paid ticket order on pink paper. Plenty of folks dressed up, and the happy crowd made for more fun. The snickering jokes about Ken 

Hocus Pocus, in the rain, a second time on the big screen, is Number Two.

Number Three

Guardians 3

https://chaos.social/@jspath55/110392830400706164

The sequel to the sequel, which seemed almost like the same plot, with ennui for the raccoon that doesn't know it is a raccoon. Self -denial runs deep.

Four, and Counting

Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny

Phoned in...

Whatever "The Boogeyman" was. we skipped it. PG-13 or no.

And 5 Through 10

The Flash and the Spider Verse

https://chaos.social/@jspath55/110589657062948842

First time I recall a double feature with DC and Marvel! The Flash didn't bring back sixth-grade memories of science lab as I expected. (5,6)

Wonderful Life / Elf

Of these two, let's say I split the difference arriving late and leaving early. Elf was not as much of a wince as I recalled, though minimal dosing helped. And because I had other plans, did not stay through It's A Wonderful Life once the alternate reality began. Seemed a bit like now, sadly. (7,8)

Rebel Without A Cause / Forbidden Planet

https://chaos.social/@jspath55/110498676821941834

To round out the 10, two movies from the 1950s, around the time the Bengies opened, shown on their Drive-In Anniversary special--"FORBIDDEN PLANET" stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen AND Robby the Robot.

The Under 11

TMN Turtles, unshelled. All right, the Scouts liked it I guess.

Last, and Twelfth, like Iscariot:

Gran Turismo. I definitely asked for Barbie to play, but instead of a somewhat socially conscious show, we got another salute to burning petroleum and continuing our carbon dioxide emissions.

2022 (last year's write up, and links to past Top Tens)

jspath55.blogspot.com/2022/12/bengies-top-10-2022.html

NetBSD 10 RC1 Review

 

Upgrades from earlier 10.0 beta images went easily except for the Raspberry Pi systems with the kernel in a different place. 

 WIFI

• amd – external
• i386 - none
• pi4 – no wifi, hard-wire ok
• pi3 – no wifi; hard-wire ok
• pi02w – wifi yes; hard-wire added
• pi0w – wifi yes

 Automated Test Framework

I kicked off periodic user test suite cases, noting the minimum and maximum errors per platform. The Pi4 worked best, and the 0W the worst as I never completed a full run, trying various scratch write media to avoid stall-outs on basic shell command runs.

 When the platform would allow full tests runs more than one a day I set up cron jobs; the fastest tested had 60 or so when I stopped the cron.

    3 failed test cases.

    4 failed test cases.

    3 failed test cases.

    3 failed test cases.

    6 failed test cases.

    4 failed test cases.

    4 failed test cases.

    3 failed test cases.

• amd – (2/7)
• i386 - (0/3)
• pi4 – (1/4)
• pi3 – none yet
• pi02w – November 26 last run (16 / 20)
• pi0w – 30 (one good run)

The variation in failures from phase to phase I've called Heisenbergars, elsewhere.

X11

I had 2 minor regressive behaviors after RC1 tests compared to earlier betas, where the AMD machine had flaky screen text. I need to recheck the cables since it went onto a floor mount instead of desk level. The other slowness was on a new Pi4 install, where I struggled through getting the latest UEFI version on an SD card, and ending up with a working install, and 8GB (don't forget to set that last in the UEFI menus). Comparing the CPU temperature to other Pi 4s, it may work better with a running fan. More tests later; the last straw was launching QGIS (except with a Postgre 14 client for package sanity).

WIFI

I guess the fix for using wifi, at least on the Pi 4, is external dongles. The Pi3 worked for me at one point, but the dmesg tempts with "almost, almost":

[     3.368964] bwfm0: Found Firmware file: brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin

[     3.388965] bwfm0: NVRAM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt

[     3.388965] bwfm0: NVRAM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.raspberrypi,3-model-b-plus.txt

[     3.388965] bwfm0: Found NVRAM file: brcmfmac43455-sdio.raspberrypi,3-model-b-plus.txt

[     3.388965] bwfm0: CLM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob

[     3.388965] bwfm0: CLM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.raspberrypi,3-model-b-plus.clm_blob

[     4.999119] bwfm0: CHIPACTIVE

[     5.099132] bwfm0: address ..:..:..:..:..

[     5.099132] bwfm0: wl0: Mar  1 2015 07:29:38 version 7.45.18 (r538002) FWID 01-6a2c8ad4

The ifconfig shows recognition of the wifi circuit but wpa supplicant stumbles.

bwfm0: flags=0x8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

pi4:

Also, almost

[     2.447895] bwfm0: NVRAM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt

[     2.447895] bwfm0: NVRAM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.txt

[     2.447895] bwfm0: autoconfiguration error: NVRAM file not available

[     2.447895] bwfm0: CLM file default:    brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob

[     2.447895] bwfm0: CLM file model-spec: brcmfmac43455-sdio.Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.clm_blob

Avenza on the Trail

I got to use the Avenza-hosted Reservation map for the first time onsite in early December 2023 while winter camping with a Scout troop. They needed basic map and compass tutoring, and adding the digital version in sequence reinforces the concepts.

This story is generally chronological for my one-day observations, by site.

Conowingo / Pine Grove

I camped in the field near the "X" shown on this screenshot.  I did a polygon line drawing around the cabin, trying to figure out about the projected skewness. This is my own geoPDF, with a scale of 1:250 and has 150 dpi.

The screenshot was from Friday evening, where I had 95% battery to start.

Flagpole and former memorial sign.

A control point of sorts; someone knows which sign was here, presumably now at RHQ.

Flint Ridge

Latrine surveying. I walked around the pad, taking measurements and images with camera and the Avenza app. In the morning, the power level was at 86% and here shows 81%

Chimney was photographed and geo-tagged. I was definitely *not* inside. Not 9AM yet and 77% power level.

The Dam and the Yellow Trail

Turning on tracking and measuring a few hundred feet left battery at 72%.

I did a track with Avenza, then viewed it later with Google Earth. Interesting.

Frontier

This site has only an official entrance across a bridged stream.

The blue line is a "get there from here" option. Straight line, probably helpful but not guaranteed a safe route! I was not on the bridge here.

Red trail 

Camp entrance

I only posted two screen shots above, from between 10 am and 1PM; the battery level dropped from 70 to under 60%. When I returned to my tent I plugged in an external battery, and by 5PM the phone was back to 100%.

Et cetera

I experimented with a 1:8000 scale, 600 dpi geoPDF with both the official camp map and the unofficial OSM layer.

.

I needed to allow "all the time" location access to Avenza to have the "show a route" function work. Other operations usually work with allowing access "just the once," though often Avenza will claim "not on map" and I needed to stop/start the app. Maybe a bug.

The blue dot can dance around, showing where the app thinks you are, and shows a shrinking diameter as more satellite signals are locked in. My testing was partly the squiggles of the original transformed map image, the delay and aberrations of the Android device (iPhone testers needed too), and the time needed to get a "good enough" spot for a place on the earth.