another hike, another pile of perceptible art

A hike through neighborhood streets, later than previous weeks, so odd stares from citizens going about their duties like shopping, yard work and play. One gent started air-hosing his walk and then sheepishly spotted me walking toward the puff of air. Not that it would have hurt.



I pick up the strangest stuff.


None of the aluminum I scavenged went into this photo stream. It's all lost objects, things that once had a use to someone but are now trash.


Except that the trash did not make it to the waste stream, it was hidden in plain sight.

dark hour plus

Chronology of house power down.

See: Enlightened Citizens of the World 'in the dark' for Earth Hour

3:55 filmed power meter "before"

3:59 shutdown unix server, vonage dongle, voip wireless phone base. Skipped downstairs hub-dongle buried.

4:02 microwave, coffee machine-skipped stove, fridge and wired phone base. Dongle for kitchen stereo. Unplugged DeWalt cordless radio charger and B&D FireStorm charger.

4:07 Unplugged tv, dvds and laptop charger.

4:27 filmed power meter "after". Hot water heater is on. Dishes? Later.

Before - 8 seconds of power meter - note the radial sweep

[Removed QT video rendered into something unintelligible as it cause RSS faults, as well as Firefox on NetBSD to die suddenly]

After:

About 15 seconds - imperceptible rotation.


[Removed QT video rendered into something unintelligible as it cause RSS faults, as well as Firefox on NetBSD to die suddenly]


And, quiet time with the pets:





Dinner was a can of soup with extras, prepared using my solid fuel powered backpack stove.


I brought the lights back up around 9:30, switched on the heat and the background hum of electronic devices.

To see the videos, try my SDN blog titled "When the music's over ... turn out the lights,"

fone review write

Warning: geeky road ahead!

I copied a bunch of files from my camera to my NetBSD workstation:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 983257 Mar 26 14:30 DSCN2540.JPG
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1017349 Mar 26 14:39 DSCN2541.JPG
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1011146 Mar 26 14:39 DSCN2542.JPG
[...]
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1019327 Mar 27 14:37 DSCN2549.JPG
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1012489 Mar 27 14:38 DSCN2551.JPG
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 977289 Mar 27 14:39 DSCN2552.JPG

And they are transformed:
-rw-r--r-- 1 jim wheel 14 Mar 28 05:07 phone-20.pam
-rw-r--r-- 1 jim wheel 11614481 Mar 28 05:11 phone.pnm
-rw-r--r-- 1 jim wheel 2903632 Mar 28 05:18 phone-2.pam
-rw-r--r-- 1 jim wheel 725919 Mar 28 05:19 phone-4.pam
-rw-r--r-- 1 jim wheel 115785 Mar 28 05:19 phone-10.pam
-rw-r--r-- 1 jim wheel 464457 Mar 28 05:20 phone-5.pam
-rw-r--r-- 1 jim wheel 31872 Mar 28 05:21 phone-4.jpeg


Display preview locally:
bash-3.2$ xli phone-4.jpeg
phone-4.jpeg is a 568x426 JPEG image, color space YCbCr, 3 comps., Huffman coding
Building XImage...done

Notes to self on how I hooked the camera USB cable to the NetBSD PC:
bash-3.2$ cat camer.a
Mar 27 16:51:32 stinky ntpd[1071]: kernel time sync status change 2001
Mar 27 18:32:57 stinky /netbsd: umass1 at uhub2 port 1 configuration 1 interface 0
Mar 27 18:32:57 stinky /netbsd:
Mar 27 18:32:57 stinky /netbsd: umass1: NIKON NIKON DSC COOLPIX L4, rev 1.10/0.00, addr 3
Mar 27 18:32:57 stinky /netbsd: umass1: using ATAPI over Bulk-Only
Mar 27 18:32:57 stinky /netbsd: atapibus1 at umass1: 2 targets
Mar 27 18:32:57 stinky /netbsd: sd4 at atapibus1 drive 0: disk removable
Mar 27 18:32:57 stinky /netbsd: sd4: fabricating a geometry
Mar 27 18:32:57 stinky /netbsd: sd4: 489 MB, 489 cyl, 64 head, 32 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 1002496 sectors
Mar 27 18:33:19 stinky /netbsd: sd4: fabricating a geometry

A fake drive appears:
bash-3.2# less messages
bash-3.2# disklabel sd4
# /dev/rsd4d:
type: ATAPI
disk: DSC COOLPIX L4
label: fictitious
flags: removable
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 32
tracks/cylinder: 64
sectors/cylinder: 2048
cylinders: 489
total sectors: 1002496
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0 # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds
drivedata: 0

5 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
d: 1002496 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 489*)
e: 1002263 233 MSDOS # (Cyl. 0*- 489*)
disklabel: boot block size 0
disklabel: super block size 0

Connect it up (preview earlier)
bash-3.2# mount -tmsdos -r /dev/sd4e /usb

Copy and demo:
bash-3.2# cp -p /usb/DCIM/110NIKON/DSCN254* .
bash-3.2# file DSCN2552.JPG
DSCN2552.JPG: JPEG image data, EXIF standard
bash-3.2# xli DSCN2552.JPG
DSCN2552.JPG is a 2272x1704 JPEG image, color space YCbCr, 3 comps., Huffman coding
Building XImage...done

Done with drive - save energy:
bash-3.2# umount /usb

Transform:
bash-3.2$ jpegtopnm phone.pnm
bash-3.2$ pnmscale -reduce 4 phone.pnm >phone-4.pam
bash-3.2$ ppmtojpeg phone-4.pam >phone-4.jpeg

Check sizes:
bash-3.2$ xli -ident DSCN2552.JPG
DSCN2552.JPG is a 2272x1704 JPEG image, color space YCbCr, 3 comps., Huffman coding
bash-3.2$ xli -ident phone-4.pam
phone-4.pam is a 568x426 Raw PPM image with 256 levels
bash-3.2$ xli -ident phone-4.jpeg
phone-4.jpeg is a 568x426 JPEG image, color space YCbCr, 3 comps., Huffman coding


I had tried pamscale but it faulted. The pnmscale worked.

All this, to get a camera shot of the new phone working. I thought about going to a room with parallel mirrors, but others might not get it.

With the post earlier today as a snurl, I got this compliment from Al - @folknology:

@jspath55 dam your more geek than I am!!

"Nice!"

27mar08 [aka fone]

I can't quite see how this will fit. Typing on a little keyboard to post to a blog. While it is qwerty. a number of keys are missing, like tilde, escape and equals sign.

= = = =
The above was all I managed to type on my new Samsung smart phone before I gave up. It will take some getting use to before I could consider myself productive. So many bells and whistles, literally.


The screen shot is from my first experiment with downloaded program - pocketputty. It's running Lynx in an xterm windows over an SSH connection to one my my NetBSD boxes. The program works fine, I guess. I'm still getting familiar with the keys, or lack of, and the pop virtual keys. I learned to work a handspring, so I can get this.

It connects to the internet with ease, in fact, without being asked. I needed to force it to use my home wireless instead of the toll call.

The extended battery lasted most of the work day yesterday, which is a bad sign long term. It doesn't charge while on the USB, and the AC charger uses the same port.

Tethering (using the phone as a modem) worked once, after 40 minutes with work and Verizon support, but after that the USB cable turned into a boat anchor line. Another marathon with the help desk is in the cards today.

No escape key, no tilde, no this that or the other.

But nice colors.

Global warming articles in Scientific American

I'm keeping my subscription to SciAm. Every month there is more news and scientifically supported theories and opinions that scares the willies out of me. Here are a couple online links related to actions I'm trying to take to cut down my energy overeating.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=green-buildings-may-be-cheapest-way-to-slow-global-warming

"... 'green building[s]' ... represents only 2 percent of the commercial edifices in the U.S. and 0.3 percent of new homes."

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=combating-climate-change-building-better-wasting-less

"... New York City emits roughly the same amount of GHGs as the entire country of Ireland and contributes 1 percent of total U.S. emissions ..."

from Scientific American Online

The hard copy has an article called "Digital Diet" concerning the information industry and the huge increases in heating and cooling requirements to slake our data thirst. I googled "Google Energy Conservation" just now and got 8 hits. Sad but true.

shed renovation wrap up

Saturday I traipsed back to Home Depot, waited patiently for 15 minutes to get a quart of custom mixed outdoor acrylic paint. $15. Sigh.

Back home, start painting with my favorite 3 inch brush. Just makes it into the quart paint can. The color doesn't match as well as I wanted--Kathy picked a darker shade than I did--but too late to change that. I managed to cover the new plywood and then head back up the top side older faded color before the can ran dry. Next time I'll need to get a gallon mixed, which will probably set me back $40 or so.


Double checked the age of tools listed in the prior blog. Found 2 google hits for my inherited circular saw (Craftsman model 336.27963). One on BobVila.com - the poster needed a new cord, same as I did when I brought my unit from my parent's house. Except I took mine to Hodge's Hardware, 850 Middle River Road, and they connected a new cable, same as they did for the big drill press.

The other hit I got was an Ebay auction - starting price was $10. Probably needs a new cord, and a blade to boot. Mine has a nice new DeWalt blade, and while the saw is heavy, it has good torque - 8 amps. Theirs was stamped 3/59; mine is 6-58. They also had a chipped knob, although I'd avoid the duct tape route.

shed renovation

Wind, weather, water caused my work shed to have serious damage, not to mention ants, squirrels and the occasional mouse family. I had piled firewood next to it, which trapped moisture and attracted termites. After a new roof jazzed up the top last year, I needed to fix up the side with the most damage.

Home Depot carried the right 8-inch fake panel plywood, and was able to rip the 4x8 foot sheet into 4 2x4 sheets, easy for carrying and pretty close to the size of the damaged area. Their paint mixing computer had crashed overnight, so after an hour of patient waiting, browsing and strolling, I skipped the final required material for now.

Supplies:

• Plywood $25
• Outer corner (oak) $16
• Adhesive $3
• Gloves $8
• Galvanized 6 penny common nails $4

I took photos along the way. The most challenging part was that the shed is not level or plumb, and joining a series of 4 foot seams was tricky. Taking out the old plywood went fairly easily, and at first I thought the cuts were pretty straight. I knew I would have gaps, which was why I got construction adhesive rather than plan caulk. The older upper layer is a little warped outward , so it looks like there won't be a shelf for rain to be directed inside.

To get the thumbnail index shot above, I used the NetPBM graphics package. The manual said there is a pamundice utility, but all that the latest NetBSD package built was pamdice. So I settled for pnmindex. With 12 shots at 1MB each, that's a lot of bandwidth. After chopping out the text with Xpaint, the thumbnail graphic is under 30 KB. Shows a lot for so few bytes.

Tools:

• Black & Decker jig saw (ca. 2000)
• Black & Decker 7 1/4 in. circular saw (ca. 1973)
• Craftsman 6 1/2 in circular saw (ca. 1958)
• Stanley 20 oz claw hammer (ca 1980)
• Ace Hardware 4 foot level (?)
• Black & Decker Workmate (ca 1980)

Still need to paint it before spring rains!