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Last Cooked: Mon Feb 11 00:40:01 2019
2019-02-11
- About:
The Best Kitchen Scale for 2019: Reviews by Wirecutter | A New York Times Company
- When:
Mon Feb 11 00:38:21 2019
- Where:
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-kitchen-scale/
- What:
- _Mark_ • a few seconds ago After using the Escali Primo for about a month, I stumbled on an interface problem that almost ruined a recipe - it has 3 modes, not 2 - grams, lbs+oz, and oz. The digits are large but the g indicator is *tiny* - but since lbs+oz is obvious at a glance (because the lbs are way over on the left with a gap in between) you can see it and go "oh that's wrong *click* and then you're seeing a simple number and can easily assume that's grams when it's tenths-of-ounces and now you're off by a factor of 3." So if you ever formalize the "readability" part of your judgement, please consider including the mode indicators. (The Soehnle that this was an upgrade for did have smaller digits - but (a) didn't have the oz-only mode, just the visually distinct lb+oz mode (b) you had to flip it over and flip a switch to change units - so you were more likely to leave it in the same mode all the time, making this confusion less likely.) Thanks for all the details, I wish more reviewers would "show their work" like you do! • Edit • Reply • Share ›
2018-12-13
- About:
Bug #1780841 “ubuntu-release-upgrader should transition debs to ...” : Bugs : ubuntu-release-upgrader package : Ubuntu
- When:
Wed Dec 12 22:51:12 2018
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+bug/1780841?comments=all
- What:
- Mark Eichin (eichin-gmail) wrote a moment ago: #11 Not sure if this should get a new ticket, but if `snap debug connectivity` fails, the whole upgrade mysteriously aborts (user sees ```Reading state information... Done Restoring original system state Aborting ``` and `main.log` shows ```2018-12-12 21:24:20,067 DEBUG running Quirks.bionicPostInitialUpdate 2018-12-12 21:24:20,367 DEBUG abort called ``` with literally no other output anywhere. `strace` is what finds the `snap debug connectivity` call, and `service snapd status` shows `Active: failed (Result: start-limit-hit)` - `service snapd start` fixes that and `do-release-upgrade` goes through fine. (It's not just me, https://askubuntu.com/questions/1078692/cant-upgrade-ubuntu-16-04-to-18-04-lts/1100514 looks to be the same symptoms, but it wasn't until I'd figured out that `snap` was involved that I found this feature-ticket; I don't think it's widely known, I believe most users don't even know snap is *in* 16.04, and certainly won't notice `snapd` being broken without other hints...)
- About:
Can't upgrade ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04 LTS - Ask Ubuntu
- When:
Wed Dec 12 22:40:03 2018
- Where:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1078692/cant-upgrade-ubuntu-16-04-to-18-04-lts/1100514#1100514
- What:
- up vote 0 down vote Still researching but running it all under strace suggests that the last failure before the Abort is trying to run something snap related - /tmp/ubuntu-release-upgrader-9dqwuool/imported/snap debug connectivity which is dying with error: cannot communicate with server: Post http://localhost/v2/debug: dial unix /run/snapd.socket: connect: connection refused Ah, in fact, snap debug connectivity blows up when run directly, service snapd status says Active: failed (Result: start-limit-hit); running service snapd start results in a status of Active: active (running) and then snap debug connectivity says Connectivity status: * PASS... and then do-release-upgrade actually makes progress. Based on other search results, please note that this only applies if your main.log goes immediately from running Quirks.bionicPostInitialUpdate to abort called -- if there's anything else in there it's probably not this. It looks like this might relate to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+bug/1780841 (which seems to be what implements the feature that doesn't work here.) shareeditdeleteflag answered just now
2018-09-13
- About:
Monoprice Blackbird 4K 5x1 HDMI 2.0 Switch, HDR, HDCP 2.2, 4K@60Hz - Monoprice.com
- When:
Thu Sep 13 00:37:51 2018
- Where:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=101&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011002&p_id=15263&seq=1&format=2
- What:
- Doesn't work usefully at 4k, also mis-advertised The entire point was to switch between a laptop and a desktop at 4k@60; didn't even work at 4k@30, with normal cables or redmere ones. (The technical notes in the description aren't really useful, nothing talks about what color map they output, just resolution and frequency; 18Gbps is a good proxy for "should handle your 4k output" except (as everyone else has noted) the manual says 10.2Gbps. Reporting a couple of specialized corner case 4k modes is misleading at best, monoprice you're better than this...) September 13, 2018 Mark E Purchased 3 weeks ago
2018-09-11
- About:
Comment #8 : Bug #1635181 : Bugs : curtin
- When:
Tue Sep 11 13:05:38 2018
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/curtin/+bug/1635181/comments/8
- What:
- Comment 8 for bug 1635181 Mark Eichin (eichin-gmail) wrote 12 seconds ago: #8 I just spent 4+ hours trying to figure out why every bit of documentation (info, ask.ubunutu, etc) about booting multiple partitions wasn't working on a stock ubuntu-18.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso install. Only ended up finding it by putting a `set -x` in `/etc/grub.d/30_os-prober`, seeing it fail with `GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true`, and doing a `find|grep` on all of `/etc` to find the culprit. While you could fix the `maybe-ubiquity` bit by making it append, I'm not sure how you fix the os-prober part other than just not doing it in the first place? I'm guessing it simplifies things at install time, but is there a reason to silently (or at all) disable that feature once the initial install is done?
2018-08-22
- About:
Seagate 5TB External USB3 Teardown - iFixit Repair Guide
- When:
Wed Aug 22 17:00:16 2018
- Where:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Seagate+5TB+External+USB3+Teardown/64151
- What:
- Easier way to pop the clips: * start near the usb port with the thin metal spudger * once you have seperation, “dig down” - don’t try to “pry the top off”, try to pop the *sides* out. This releases the force on the clips, and you can just start lifting up the top with a pointy stick to keep them from going back in. Mark Eichin - 1 minute ago
2018-07-29
- About:
Ok at 4k/30hz, not 4k/60hz
- When:
Sat Jul 28 23:19:59 2018
- Where:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R3U6P7URVR5HTB/ref=cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
- What:
- Ok at 4k/30hz, not 4k/60hz By_Mark_on July 28, 2018 Color: HDMI 2.0 Switch|Verified Purchase Reliable, well labeled, good click on the switch... have used it for six months with an older monitor, no problems. However, I just hooked it up to a Dell U2718Q 27" 16:9 UltraSharp 4K IPS Monitor and my ThinkPad only sees it reporting 30hz (vs. 60/59.94/50 that show up on a direct connection) and my Intel NUC mini PC kit NUC7i7BNH Core i7 doesn't work through the switch to that monitor either. Only off one star because it was actually useful for what I'd been doing with it all along, it was a good deal for that...
2018-07-22
- About:
It will probably stab you. Throw it in the trash.
- When:
Sun Jul 22 19:11:22 2018
- Where:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R1EZ4FD1EGPM7A/ref=cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
- What:
- 1.0 out of 5 starsIt will probably stab you. Throw it in the trash. By_Mark_on July 21, 2018 Verified Purchase This is bad, do not buy it. I was using it to unscrew some PC screws and felt a sharp stabbing pain in my thumb - turns out the knurling on the side of the largest phillips driver had come off as a 1/8" inch metal splinter, and when I looked there was another piece larger piece that could be easily peeled back. After six months and being used 4 or 5 times in total (more time spent putting them all back in the plastic shell than actually *using* them) it went straight in the trash.
2018-07-07
- About:
Works with Blackberry Priv.
- When:
Fri Jul 6 21:35:09 2018
- Where:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R11H16JQH365PE/ref=cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 starsWorks with Blackberry Priv. By_Mark_on July 3, 2018 Verified Purchase Simply, this worked to connect a Blackberry Priv to a Vufine Wearable Display. Didn't need external power to operate (back in the day MHL adapters often needed the pass-through power to be plugged in to work at all, not just for charging; I guess SlimPort doesn't have that problem any more.)
2018-03-29
- About:
- When:
Thu Mar 29 00:20:23 2018
- Where:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R2OVEJWH2EDQCM/ref=cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
- What:
- Customer Review 5.0 out of 5 starsBig enough for the important things... By_Mark_on March 14, 2018 Verified Purchase For an office candy table: there's enough clearance between trays to put a full sized package of Oreos in each slot :-)
2017-11-07
- About:
Twin Pis for Remote Computer Management | Hackaday
- When:
Tue Nov 7 01:49:45 2017
- Where:
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/05/twin-pis-for-remote-computer-management/#comment-4187090
- What:
- eichin says: November 6, 2017 at 10:49 pm I’ve recently used both the “elgato cam link” and the “avermedia live gamer portable 2”, and they were “plug HDMI cable into target system, plug usb cable into my laptop, fire up guvcviewer, see the target system’s output”. Under ubuntu 16.04, there wasn’t even any configuration needed, they just showed up as /dev/video0. Part of this is probably that you’re not going to have a PC generating HDCP, as far as I know (certainly not the kind of machines I want a “modern crash-cart” for) so that’s not an issue…
2017-11-06
- About:
Twin Pis for Remote Computer Management | Hackaday
- When:
Mon Nov 6 03:52:59 2017
- Where:
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/05/twin-pis-for-remote-computer-management/#comment-4185085
- What:
- eichin says: November 6, 2017 at 12:52 am I *did* go with a teensy for the HID part of a similar project (couldn’t find *any* chipset that could be two USB *clients* at once, the “use the USB port as HID-client then use the console serial port to pass in the commands” trick is about the only option I could find using off-the-shelf boards – though it helped that I actually had some teensys on-hand from the original kickstarter.) Using a pi-zero for that bit does give you more options for “scripting” the typing side of things, for example you could probably do some clever password-vault tricks on the pi-zero, using standard keychain-tools…
- About:
Twin Pis for Remote Computer Management | Hackaday
- When:
Mon Nov 6 03:47:10 2017
- Where:
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/05/twin-pis-for-remote-computer-management/#comment-4185083
- What:
- eichin says: November 6, 2017 at 12:46 am I don’t think the firmware (or is it the USB chipset?) in the pi3 supports gadget mode, so you need a pi0 (or to be fair, a teensy or some other tiny hid-with-second port embedded board) to emulate the keyboard at all. And you can get a less convoluted video side – HDMI digitizers for gaming are great, and support higher resolutions – and cost $100-$250 instead of the $40 or so for this set of parts (much credit to Fmstrat for including a *shopping list* in the README :-)
- About:
Twin Pis for Remote Computer Management | Hackaday
- When:
Mon Nov 6 01:35:04 2017
- Where:
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/05/twin-pis-for-remote-computer-management/#comment-4184952
- What:
- Neat – I’m in the middle of a similar thing using a teensy for keyboard side and Elgato cam-link for the video, which is a bit pricier. After digging a little, though – why does this writeup repeatedly mention *mouse* support? Fmstrat’s page doesn’t mention it, or as far as I can tell, implement it – as far as I know, linux “gadget” support can do one device, not a hub, so figuring out how to do both mouse and keyboard with a single pi-zero would be *really* interesting. (Not faulting Fmstrat’s project, still very useful, but I *am* faulting your misleading writeup. Please try and be a little more careful about not inventing features…)
2017-10-05
- About:
Customer Review
- When:
Thu Oct 5 01:32:57 2017
- Where:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R1843KC6UOWWBN/ref=cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
- What:
- 5 starsDecent, cheap, no strap holes By_Mark_on October 4, 2017 Verified Purchase Decent cheap case, really does hold all the bits pictured. The holes shown are small ones only meant for locks - there's no place to clip a strap (not that it weighs much - it's just that if you're treating the Spark as *photo* gear you're probably carrying a couple of other bags over that should too :-) Edit Delete
2017-09-09
- About:
(87) EEVblog #1021 - Retro Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer - YouTube
- When:
Sat Sep 9 19:52:17 2017
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_Zdpf8p_o&lc=z23yc5vopszucjqpr04t1aokgazy2xp25uhzjuidhfzcrk0h00410
- What:
- Mark Eichin2 minutes agoHighlighted comment The screen looked a bit crisper than that on NTSC models back then, but usually that took tweaking of the various analog mystery knobs on the TV. PAL was supposed to be crisper (but get you fewer "accidental" colors) on contemporary hardware...
- About:
(87) EEVblog #1021 - Retro Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer - YouTube
- When:
Sat Sep 9 19:51:48 2017
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_Zdpf8p_o&lc=z23yc5vopszucjqpr04t1aokgke2eoklashxlvqwbzrmrk0h00410
- What:
- Mark Eichin Mark Eichin3 minutes agoHighlighted comment The shift-0 lower-case mode was useful because you could attach a printer that did lower case. (Don't underestimate the value of getting kids more interested in writing papers at school by having them do it on a computer, speaking as a kid at the time :-)
2017-08-23
- About:
Space Station Transiting 2017 ECLIPSE, My Brain Stopped Working - Smarter Every Day 175 - YouTube
- When:
Wed Aug 23 00:05:10 2017
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lepQoU4oek4&lc=z23yc5vopszucjqpr04t1aokgnyqpmeceuyvipqcwxnwrk0h00410
- What:
- Mark Eichin30 seconds agoHighlighted comment I was wondering why the popular photo on the news didn't credit you, and dug in a little and found that NASA took their own version of this picture from Banner, Wyoming, 200+ miles to the northeast. Now I'm wondering how many people were camped out on that line :-)
2017-08-21
- About:
biēm butter sprayer review
- When:
Sun Aug 20 22:28:53 2017
- Where:
https://the-gadgeteer.com/2017/08/14/biem-butter-sprayer-review/comment-page-1/#comment-5815002
- What:
- Mark Eichin August 20, 2017, 9:58 pm Your comment is awaiting moderation. Entertainingly, the amazon ad-bar under the article showed me the Presto Hot Topper Automatic – an electric butter sprayer from 25 years ago 🙂 (I had the non-electric one back in college – whole thing was plastic, you just popped it in the microwave before using it; dishwasher safe but maybe not all that effective, *great* for popcorn though.) Reply Link
2017-05-24
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Stainless Steel 304 Continuous Hinge with ...
- When:
Wed May 24 02:01:41 2017
- Where:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R1DN6O4OC5I9WK/ref=cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars As advertised - but stainless steel 304 is non magnetic, May 23, 2017 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Stainless Steel 304 Continuous Hinge with Hole, Bright Annealed Finish, 0.04" Leaf Thickness, 2" Open Width, 5/64" Pin Diameter, 1/2" Knuckle Length, 4' Long (Pack of 1) (Misc.) Hinge itself is fine - what I didn't think to check beforehand was that "Stainless Steel 304" is basically non-magnetic (in practice: "using those little pea-sized super magnets to hold the piece in place before drilling" doesn't work *at all*.) Nothing wrong with the product, just a bit of a surprise...
2017-03-14
- About:
Nvidia GTX 1050 ti on ubuntu 14.04 - Ask Ubuntu
- When:
Tue Mar 14 12:29:36 2017
- Where:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/844702/nvidia-gtx-1050-ti-on-ubuntu-14-04/892973#892973
- What:
- 0 down vote As of 14 March 2017, adding zesty to your apt sources: deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty main restricted deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty main restricted and apt-get install nvidia-375 appears to work and not drag in unrelated packages from zesty. Consider it experimental (zesty isn't due to release for another month) but perhaps less troublesome than the full purge-and-upstream approach that you'd have previously needed. shareeditdeleteflag answered just now eichin 1
2017-02-12
- About:
Top Reasons Electric Dryer Won't Start — Dryer Troubleshooting - YouTube
- When:
Sat Feb 11 22:52:05 2017
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU-bpYSc4Lw&lc=z13tvpebtsacyxgne23yc5vopszucjqpr04
- What:
- Mark Eichin Mark Eichin13 seconds agoHighlighted comment Youtube is full of videos that talk about the thermal fuse - this is the first one I've seen that points out the broken-belt safety cutoff. (Heavy wet load, old dryer, a "loud bang" when it stopped - oh, yeah, the belt is hanging free, maybe it's not the motor or fuse...) Thanks!
2017-01-13
- About:
How to replace a dryer heating element on a Kenmore Elite HE3 - YouTube
- When:
Thu Jan 12 23:47:53 2017
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NbYdKCbmY8&lc=z130g14aksaqu3lq004cjt0rimr3zd1yuqw0k
- What:
- Mark Eichin13 seconds agoHighlighted comment Just pulled apart my Kenmore 110.60992990 from 2000, looks completely different on the outside, but once you get past the kick plate, everything in your video is identical. (Gave me confidence to use a mallet to get my broken heating element out - it was wedged tight, but there really wasn't anything else holding it in, like you showed...)
2016-11-18
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Enegitech 21.6V 2.2Ah Battery for Dyson V6...
- When:
Thu Nov 17 22:46:20 2016
- Where:
https://smile.amazon.com/review/RISUBANI91SVB/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B01F8L62A2
- What:
- 4.0 out of 5 stars Works but doesn't fit the charging cradle, November 17, 2016 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Enegitech 21.6V 2.2Ah Battery for Dyson V6 Li-ion Battery 595 650 770 880 DC58 DC61 DC62 Animal DC72 Series Handheld Replacement Battery (Misc.) Swaps into the Dyson V6 Absolute Cord-free Vacuum with only two small screws. The charging connector is at the wrong angle, so it doesn't actually fit in the wall mount charger - the connector on the factory battery is parallel to the flat bottom of the battery - the connector on the Enegitech one is straight in from the *slanted* part of the handle. It will appear to fit, and not actually charge (no green light) but you can use the charging plug directly and it works fine.
2016-10-18
- About:
How I built a keyboard by hand | Hacker News
- When:
Tue Oct 18 13:50:18 2016
- Where:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12677169#12682815
- What:
- 1 point by eichin 0 minutes ago | edit | delete [-] For that "next step down" dig up Don Lancaster's "TV Typewriter Cookbook" for the 1976 version of this (and to understand "shift" and "control" at a more visceral level :-)
2016-10-17
- About:
Exploring CLI Best Practices | Hacker News
- When:
Mon Oct 17 15:49:44 2016
- Where:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687711#12689585
- What:
- * 1 point by eichin 0 minutes ago | edit | delete [-] Write a man page, but it's 2016, you don't have to write it in ROFF... It got a lot easier to get people to write or update man pages for a bunch of in-house CLI tools when I found ronn https://rtomayko.github.io/ronn/ which starts from markdown (you'll still get a lot of copy/paste formatting from your other man pages but at least it'll be readable.) reply
- About:
Exploring CLI Best Practices | Hacker News
- When:
Mon Oct 17 15:40:35 2016
- Where:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687711#12696601
- What:
- * 1 point by eichin 0 minutes ago | edit | delete [-] It's pretty common to `set -o noclobber` in beginner dotfiles; doing deferred-open-if-exists is an interesting idea that would probably get a lot of resistance :-)
2016-10-12
- About:
Tingbot - Raspberry Pi made even more fun! by Tingbot — Kickstarter
- When:
Wed Oct 12 01:01:30 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/744235676/tingbot-raspberry-pi-made-fun/posts/1685008
- What:
- Mark Eichin Superbacker just now Finally got time to assemble it - appreciate your chagrin over the balls :-) but I did find all of the bits, assembled fine around a raspi 3, all works! Two thoughts for the next gen: maybe label orientation on the microsd slot somehow, and actually make some kind of real connector for the display side of the rainbow?
2016-09-18
- About:
New Nomiku Sous Vide - WiFi-Connected and Made in the USA! by Lisa Q. Fetterman — Kickstarter
- When:
Sat Sep 17 21:06:36 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nomiku/new-nomiku-sous-vide-wifi-connected-and-made-in-th/posts/1677200
- What:
- Oh, the app is more of a joke than I thought - because eattender.com links to the *wrong one* (the com.herokuapp.bse one, instead of the com.nomiku.tender one, which still won't let me pair without yet another pointless web account but at least it *has* a "pair nomiku" menu option, which the other one doesn't.)
2016-09-08
- About:
Introducing the Artiphon INSTRUMENT 1 by Artiphon — Kickstarter
- When:
Thu Sep 8 02:59:45 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/artiphon/introducing-the-artiphon-instrument-1/posts/1674631
- What:
- Mark Eichin Superbacker just now Early bird #136 just arrived. Unlike the Jamstik which makes noise right out of the box, this just sits and blinks, and it'll take me a bit to figure out how to set it up without a recent-enough apple device. But it did arrive!
2016-08-21
- About:
Wearality Sky: Limitless Virtual Reality (VR) by Wearality — Kickstarter
- When:
Sat Aug 20 21:24:11 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wearality/wearality-sky-limitless-vr/comments
- What:
- Mark Eichin Superbacker just now Ah! if you reach a finger up and touch the phone screen, that counts as a click. (That's not going to work very well with the shroud - but really, if you use the shroud your phone will probably catch fire from GPU heating anyway :-) Turns out that since I've been through the tutorial once with cardboard, I can't actually restart it, but that's google's bug, not yours. The headstrap design fails on two counts: (1) it keeps the lenses far enough from your face that you see concentric circles of light, off angle backlighting I guess, which ruin any dark scene (google earth) but don't really show up in bright daylight scenes (versailles outside.) (2) even with the band snug, there's too much leverage, with any phone big enough you're going to get a lot of wobble, and that gets digitizer jitter, so head motions are not that great.
- About:
Wearality Sky: Limitless Virtual Reality (VR) by Wearality — Kickstarter
- When:
Sat Aug 20 21:10:57 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wearality/wearality-sky-limitless-vr/comments
- What:
- Mark Eichin Superbacker just now Mine arrived Saturday afternoon (USPS); good packaging job, polished looking but incomplete instructions - nothing about the headband (found in another comment, but not on the actual website), nothing about how to "click" in the cardboard app (nothing here either, is that just missing? kind of kills the basic demo! is there some way to fake it?) Also, it actually fits the BB Priv (one problem with phone apps on kickstarter, even if they *hit* their target, your odds of having moved on to the next phone generation are high - and if the miss the target by 10 months, that much higher - so the flexible design is a huge win.)
- About:
Wearality Sky: Limitless Virtual Reality (VR) by Wearality — Kickstarter
- When:
Sat Aug 20 21:03:41 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wearality/wearality-sky-limitless-vr/posts/1658960
- What:
- Mark Eichin Superbacker just now So walking through the cardboard viewer install, the very first thing you have to do is "press a button". With cardboard itself, there's a magnet-and-rubberband contraption. What do we do on Sky?
- About:
Wearality Sky: Limitless Virtual Reality (VR) by Wearality — Kickstarter
- When:
Sat Aug 20 21:00:38 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wearality/wearality-sky-limitless-vr/posts/1658966
- What:
- Mark Eichin Superbacker just now Great! Now please put that on youtube instead so I can slow it down, pause it, or otherwise not have to watch it 30 times (yes, literally) to get each step, particularly each time you flip it around.
2016-06-23
- About:
Switchmate Smart Light Switch review
- When:
Thu Jun 23 03:31:41 2016
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2016/06/17/switchmate-smart-light-switch-review/comment-page-1/#comment-5264569
- What:
- _Mark_ June 23, 2016, 3:31 am Pulling up in the car and turning the front yard lights on from the phone is definitely useful, and this approach is a lot simpler (there’s one wall switch *inside* the front door for the yard lights) than rewiring anything. (Then, since it’s already Bluetooth, some home server can do that part automatically in the future…)
2016-06-07
- About:
Flickr: The Help Forum: [Official Thread] Say hello (again!) to Notes!
- When:
Tue Jun 7 18:37:23 2016
- Where:
https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157668990488722/#reply72157669375905526
- What:
- view photos Mark Eichin PRO says: Woohoo! Finally my crops are back! I built a tool, years ago, that let me select a chunk of picture with a note and a tag, and it would upload the crop and link it to the original note. www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/16997811167/ is a typical example, or www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/6282684688/ . Really useful for my no-editing workflow... Posted 1 second ago. ( permalink | reply | edit )
2016-06-03
- About:
90 Bin Organizer with Tray and Casters. 36 small red bins, 30 medium blue bins, and 24 large yellow bins - - AmazonSmile
- When:
Fri Jun 3 00:57:14 2016
- Where:
http://smile.amazon.com/Organizer-Casters-small-medium-yellow/dp/B01BE28DCE?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01
- What:
- 4.0 out of 5 starsOk for small electronics; tedious build but not difficult. By _Mark_ on June 2, 2016 Verified Purchase One point off for having half a pound of nuts and bolts loose in a cardboard box, but I didn't end up missing anything important (standard M6 x 10mm screws for 90% of it, M6 x 30mm for the rest.) Don't try to hard to decipher the one page instruction sheet - it's only approximate, not really more useful than the pictures in the description here - just look at the parts and see how you'd build something that looks like this with them, it'll be pretty straightforward. Also, don't be tempted to hook the side clips together on the tiny red bins; it works great on the bigger ones, but on the little ones it tends to pop them off the rail. There's plenty of room to lay them out 2 sides by 3 rows by 6 bins, instead of the 7 bins across you get with the side clips. (Might not be so bad once they're full.) Also, standard nuts&bolts practice - don't tighten anything until everything connected to it is in place, then go back and tighten. (You can, for example, tighten the caster wheels immediately, but leave some slack on the side rails until you have the cross-rails in place, or it'll be hard to get the upper cross-rails installed at all.) Not sure I'd recommend this for a garage, but for small electronics it's pretty good - a Raspberry Pi 3 fits flat in the red bins, the blue and yellow would be good for tools and partially-completed projects.
- About:
The Best Cold-Brew Coffee Maker | The Sweethome
- When:
Fri Jun 3 00:55:49 2016
- Where:
http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-cold-brew-coffee-maker/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_camp
- What:
- Avatar _Mark_ Erin Price • a few seconds ago Same here, I came to see if any of the fancier equipment actually compared to the Hario (which got me into cold brewing in the first place.) At very least it wins on "no paper filters" and "small footprint while brewing" compared to your other test items, and stands up well to ice at least to my taste buds (so having it scored against your staff's taste would be educational.) Thanks!
2016-04-29
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of A5 memobottle - Reusable Slim Water Bottle...
- When:
Thu Apr 28 23:31:05 2016
- Where:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R32ZICR4MG7CER/ref=cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Flat, sturdy, ever so slightly stylish, April 26, 2016 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Memobottle - Reusable Slim Water Bottle - Made from Recycled BPA Free Plastic - 750ml/375ml Got this (the A5) for carrying cold-brewed ice tea to work in my laptop bag, so I wanted something *flat* and *sturdy* and with a cap that was *convincingly* securely closed; this provided all of those. It's got just enough "design" and style for coworkers to notice it, but primarily it's the right shape and feel safe enough. Just soft enough that it doesn't feel brittle while still feeling solid (especially when full.) Filling it straight from the fridge (or keeping it in the fridge overnight) hasn't caused any condensation problems, either.
2016-04-25
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Is anybody else scared that you'll break something?
- When:
Mon Apr 25 02:57:42 2016
- Where:
https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/4e6rtb/is_anybody_else_scared_that_youll_break_something/d2ga7b1
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point just now Look around you, are all your co-workers using Emacs...? Yes. Well, all of the software engineers, anyway (the mechanical engineers are in some CAD program that makes emacs look like a go-cart :-) Previous job was more of an emacs/vi/joe split, but emacs was still the one we actually shared tools for... permalinkembedsaveparenteditdisable inbox repliesdeletereply
2016-04-18
- About:
x11 - How do I activate Xorg record module on Raspbian? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
- When:
Sun Apr 17 21:04:52 2016
- Where:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/208761/how-do-i-activate-xorg-record-module-on-raspbian/277163#277163
- What:
- up vote 0 down vote You can test this without the rest of pymouse by firing up python and running from Xlib.display import Display display = Display() display.record_create_context which should print <bound method Display.create_context of <Xlib.display.Display instance at ...>> Looks like that corresponds to $ xdpyinfo | grep -i record RECORD (that's under number of extensions: in the full output.) If the latter doesn't show up, your X server doesn't support it, which is very unusual since it became part of the core server in July 2012 - which also explains why trying to load the module isn't working; there hasn't been a module to load since about four years ago. python-xlib itself got record support in version 0.14 in 2007, so that's even less likely to be out of date... shareeditdeleteflag answered just now eichin 111
2016-04-16
- About:
signals - SIGINFO on GNU Linux (Arch Linux) missing - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
- When:
Sat Apr 16 15:35:07 2016
- Where:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/179481/siginfo-on-gnu-linux-arch-linux-missing/276936#276936
- What:
- up vote 0 down vote There was talk (back in the linux 0.x-1.x days) of adding this (because it was useful on BSD systems) but if I recall correctly there were reasons it was harder to do right on Linux than BSD at the time. Note that what you're asking about is only a small part of the feature (namely, you're talking about an stty info entry for control-T causing the kernel to deliver SIGINFO to the tty's process group) - that part is "easy" - but having the kernel report information about the process status when it doesn't handle the signal (because at the time very few things had any support for that, the feature was mainly about "is this process spinning or hung" and "what process is it anyway") is harder - ISTR there even being security/trust issues about displaying that information accurately, and whether it should be associated with the Secure Attention Key path. That said, there might be some value in the "easy" version that only sends the signal... (From personal memory; a quick web search doesn't turn up anything obvious but I think one would have to dig into really old archives to find the discussion.) shareeditdeleteflag answered just now eichin
2016-04-06
- About:
_Mark_ comments on What's the weirdest thing you've done with Emacs?
- When:
Wed Apr 6 17:00:18 2016
- Where:
https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/4bk85r/whats_the_weirdest_thing_youve_done_with_emacs/d1snl5b
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point just now Tossup between implementing DES encryption (and the rest of the X9.9 pin-authentication system - was working on Kerberos integration in the mid 90s and the choice between eval'ing destest1 and yanking the values vs poking at a battery powered box and squinting at the LCD was pretty clear) and implementing the X11 wire protocol (not much beyond XOpenDisplay, and really it was more about demonstrating that the header parser in my xlib-in-perl could target other languages...) Funny thing about Xlib: emacs doesn't (well, didn't then) have a way to figure out the machine byte order (sensibly, since the "emacs" machine didn't have one) so I picked an arbitrary value... a couple of years later I found someone else's Xlib-in-elisp, and they'd run into the same problem, and chosen the opposite arbitrary value :-)
2016-03-15
- About:
Only one option allowed for given command · Issue #311 · docopt/docopt
- When:
Tue Mar 15 13:46:54 2016
- Where:
https://github.com/docopt/docopt/issues/311
- What:
- eichin commented 19 seconds ago I just ran into this myself (in my case, [options] includes --config but so do some of the other sub commands. Apparently it's part of the [options] does not include options from usage-pattern change, which appears to have been intended to prevent duplication within the same usage-example, but I can't find an indication that it was supposed to be broader than that (the options documentation doesn't seem to explain this case...)
2016-03-13
- About:
The Scribble Pen – the last pen you’ll ever need
- When:
Sun Mar 13 03:47:46 2016
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2016/03/12/the-scribble-pen-the-last-pen-youll-ever-need/comment-page-1/#comment-5060344
- What:
- _Mark_ March 13, 2016, 3:47 am You might want to start from http://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/scribble-and-the-failings-of-tech-journalism/ (and some of the links from the surprisingly civil comments) and see if you can dig up any evidence that they’ve actually even gotten a prototype together in the last year and a half (it includes links that point out just how… “processed” that video is.) I’d certainly *like* to find out they’ve gotten something working – the optical sampling is easy enough (after all, my *phone* can do it at the level they demonstrate) but the ink part is pretty clearly not-at-all-solved at this point.
- About:
_Mark_ comments on I still dig my Nokia 9110 Communicator
- When:
Sun Feb 21 23:38:58 2016
- Where:
https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/46eydn/i_still_dig_my_nokia_9110_communicator/d08y0mm
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point just now Last I saw one (2010 or 2011, in a Nokia US office :-) we couldn't get it to recognize any modern SIM cards... but I still had an original Omnipoint SIM (Omnipoint got bought by VoiceStream got bought by T-Mobile, and I hadn't actually needed to change SIM cards across any of those.) SMS and calling worked...
2016-02-17
- About:
Python 101: How to Find the Path of a Running Script ｫ The Mouse Vs. The Python
- When:
Wed Feb 17 12:36:09 2016
- Where:
http://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2013/10/29/python-101-how-to-find-the-path-of-a-running-script/#comment-2518720969
- What:
- _Mark_ Sean Ahern 窶｢ a few seconds ago Hold on, this is waiting to be approved by Mouse Vs. the Python. Ok, fine, the documentation: https://docs.python.org/2/libr... Search for `sys.path`, and: "As initialized upon program startup, the first item of this list, path[0], is *the directory containing the script* that was used to invoke the Python interpreter." (Your example is a special case described later in that paragraph, and not relevant to the case in the post.)
2016-01-31
- About:
PaPiRus - the ePaper Screen HAT for your Raspberry Pi by Pi Supply — Kickstarter
- When:
Sun Jan 31 14:20:27 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pisupply/papirus-the-epaper-screen-hat-for-your-raspberry-p/posts/1470013
- What:
- Mark Eichin just now I went ahead and guessed and it all went together fine. Had a bit of a scare when papirus-clock filled the screen with alternating black and white lines, but that was actually a software fix ("no really, run papirus-setup first if you have a screen bigger than 1.44 inches" :-) (Running it on an A+ under Jessie-Lite.) Frederick Vandenbosch's "Getting PaPiRus to work (and then break it …)" was the most useful article, especially for the little code tweaks. I vote you send him a replacement screen in exchange for him writing the official assembly guide :-)
- About:
AmazonSmile: _Mark_'s review of 7inova™ 300Mbps Wireless N USB Adapt...
- When:
Sun Jan 31 02:13:45 2016
- Where:
http://smile.amazon.com/review/R2PDOTBPPPDHV1/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00P9IYPF4
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Works fine with RasPi "Jessie-Lite", January 30, 2016 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: 7inova™ 300Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter with Hi-speed antennas, Fully Compatible for Raspberry Pi, Windows, Linux, Mac OS (Personal Computers) Worked out of the box with the Raspberry Pi "Jessie-Lite" distribution on a Pi Zero; linux geek details: lsusb showed "ID 148f:5372 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT5372 Wireless Adapter", it used the "rt2800usb" kernel module and 'rt2870.bin' firmware version 0.29. (No obvious identification on the device, the packaging sais "7[i]nova 7U300A".
- About:
PaPiRus - the ePaper Screen HAT for your Raspberry Pi by Pi Supply — Kickstarter
- When:
Sat Jan 30 19:08:22 2016
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pisupply/papirus-the-epaper-screen-hat-for-your-raspberry-p/posts/1470013
- What:
- Mark Eichin just now Mine arrived in the US (Massachusetts) on Thursday, yay. Looking forward to more mechanical assembly pictures - I can mostly derive things from final-result pictures, but that flex-cable looks frighteningly fragile (I doubt it *is*, it just looks that way) and I'd rather not guess...
2016-01-14
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Sense HAT and Jessie?
- When:
Wed Jan 13 23:56:17 2016
- Where:
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/3yg0rz/sense_hat_and_jessie/cyxl5e2
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point just now $ vcgencmd version Nov 18 2015 15:43:45 Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom version 0c9af7cde38e223c95c3404f468db8fc5004495c (clean) (release) apt-get install rpi-update then rpi-update told me *** If no errors appeared, your firmware was successfully updated to 0f1fc108501461427e5dfdf9f14e3f83a52beaf8 *** A reboot is needed to activate the new firmware and on reboot, the LEDs actually went out, and /usr/src/sense-hat/examples/python-sense-hat/text_scroll.py actually worked ("one small step for pi"). When I re-ran vcgencmd version, though, I got $ vcgencmd version Jan 13 2016 20:33:52 Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom version 17c0f609ee91eb69090c22a3e0e8dc907b696096 (clean) (release) which is an interesting inconsistency (or at least, not confidence-inspiring, especially when the URL printed by the tool includes comments like "Nobody should run that unless they have a specific need to get a new kernel and new firmware to solve a problem they're working on with the RPF developers.") Ah, looking at https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-firmware/commits/master the rev it thought it was installing was the latest, 7 hours old; what it actually did install was the "bump to 4.1.15" from December 15th. (Your 96fc00 is from a different repository, it appears, as is my 0c9af7, so identifying what change was actually related to the problem will take some more digging.) Thanks for the suggestion, I guess now I have to stop messing with packaging and build systems and actually construct something with this hardware :-) permalinkembedsaveparenteditdisable inbox repliesdeletereply
2016-01-13
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Sense HAT and Jessie?
- When:
Wed Jan 13 10:24:49 2016
- Where:
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/3yg0rz/sense_hat_and_jessie/cywo7ph
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point just now What firmware did that get you? My jessie-lite install has raspberrypi kernel: [ 0.650985] raspberrypi-firmware soc:firmware: Attached to firmware from 2015-11-18 15:43 in kern.log, I don't offhand know a more direct way to check...
2016-01-12
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Will SMA antenna work for PiFmRPi2 ?
- When:
Tue Jan 12 14:47:55 2016
- Where:
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/40n1kd/will_sma_antenna_work_for_pifmrpi2/cyvogta
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point just now Random wire that is 1/2 or 1/4 of the wavelength you're using, yes. ( http://www.dxing.com/frequenc.htm or really any hit for "ham radio" and "wavelength" will supply more context - but please also dig in a little to learn what power levels are even legal, http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/fm-transmitters-dirty-little-secret-fcc-violations points out that the FCC did come down on XM's little in-car transmitters...) permalinkembedsaveparenteditdisable inbox repliesdeletereply
2016-01-10
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Sense HAT and Jessie?
- When:
Sun Jan 10 16:54:09 2016
- Where:
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/3yg0rz/sense_hat_and_jessie/cyt8yoi
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 52 minutes ago I just got a Zero and a Sense Hat, installed Jessie-Lite, soldered on the 2x20 header and plugged them in. Apparently if the driver is talking to the LEDs, they're supposed to turn off again; modprobe -v rpisense-fb would do that if the auto-detect wasn't working, but that didn't help for me. When I first tried the drive tool, it didn't find anything: $ RTIMULibDrive11 Settings file not found. Using defaults and creating settings file Failed to open I2C bus 1 Failed to open SPI bus 0, select 0 Failed to open SPI bus 0, select 1 No IMU detected Using fusion algorithm RTQF Failed to open SPI bus 0, select 1 No pressure sensor detected Failed to open SPI bus 0, select 1 No humidity sensor detected No IMU found Then I went into raspi-config and turned on i2c and "always load the i2c module", and on reboot, I now get $ RTIMULibDrive11 Settings file RTIMULib.ini loaded Detected LSM9DS1 at standard/standard address Using fusion algorithm RTQF Detected LPS25H at standard address Detected HTS221 at standard address min/max compass calibration not in use Ellipsoid compass calibration not in use Accel calibration not in use LSM9DS1 init complete Sample rate 0: : roll:-3.902619, pitch:-16.681311, yaw:-53.188073 Pressure: 994.9, height above sea level: 153.5, temperature: 28.5, humidity: 29.4 Sample rate 0: : roll:-4.167301, pitch:-17.031444, yaw:-53.713632 and the numbers change if I manipulate the unit. However, I'm still not seeing the led panel... $ lsmod|grep sense rpisense_fb 4744 0 rpisense_core 3315 1 rpisense_fb syscopyarea 3113 1 rpisense_fb sysfillrect 3592 1 rpisense_fb sysimgblt 2286 1 rpisense_fb fb_sys_fops 1573 1 rpisense_fb $ python /usr/src/sense-hat/examples/python-sense-hat/text_scroll.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/src/sense-hat/examples/python-sense-hat/text_scroll.py", line 4, in <module> sense = SenseHat() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/sense_hat/sense_hat.py", line 36, in __init__ raise OSError('Cannot detect %s device' % self.SENSE_HAT_FB_NAME) OSError: Cannot detect RPi-Sense FB device If I run i2cdetect -y 1 I get entries at 1c, 46, 5c, 5f, and 6a. permalinkembedsaveeditdisable inbox repliesdeletereply
2015-12-14
- About:
ASTOUNDING: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... = -1/12 - YouTube
- When:
Mon Dec 14 02:41:24 2015
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww&lc=z13wuxdhmkndvn1vv23yc5vopszucjqpr04
- What:
- Mark Eichin 18 seconds ago · LINKED COMMENT This is a fine bit of mathematical trolling; go watch "Why -1/12 is a gold nugget" instead - it is an interview with Edward Frenkel which makes it clear that no, in fact, there is no sensible "value" for a divergent series, just as your intuition would suggest - but since there isn't, it's useful to come up with a consistent set of rules to use instead and that these can be powerful tools. Talking as if this is arithmetical equality only short-changes the reader - their intuition should be that "yeah, claiming things about infinity often leads to nonsense" and then you can add on "but we can do this other thing over here to discard the infinite part in a consistent way".
2015-10-15
- About:
About | 1265Main
- When:
Wed Oct 14 23:31:37 2015
- Where:
https://1265main.wordpress.com/about/#comment-43
- What:
- eichin Your comment is awaiting moderation. October 15, 2015 at 3:31 am Great urban construction detail; any more detail in Fall of 2015? Flank’s building is coming together, and there are signs on last remaining old Polaroid building for the new tenant there, would love to see more construction progress photography…
2015-08-30
- About:
Where do most people find their music for their youtube videos? : youtube
- When:
Sun Aug 30 19:20:42 2015
- Where:
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/3izk6y/where_do_most_people_find_their_music_for_their/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point just now First, it's not law, only the title 17 part is; the rest is a "sense of congress" thing and much weaker. Second, "technically use this law to your advantage" means "when you get to the point of appealing your use all the way to an actual court, you can make some interesting points" and isn't much more of a defense than that... Finally, these guildelines are talking about educational non commercial use. Basically unless you're doing this for restricted classroom use (they talk about "remote learning" as even more restricted, to the point of requiring PINs or passwords) none of the "guildelines" apply to what you're doing; certainly not to a public youtube channel...
2015-08-25
- About:
If you live in New England, you know where I am now.
- When:
Mon Aug 24 23:32:56 2015
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/+KeeHinckley/posts/3PVKo8kQCaW
- What:
- Mark Eichin Aug 22, 2015 + 1 2 1 Some of the outlets have giant boots too: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/9337906338/ (at Legacy Place in Dedham, MA) But the fact that you bothered to post about it suggested that it was the Freeport one :-)
2015-06-08
- About:
Goodreads | Mark Eichin's review of The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
- When:
Mon Jun 8 01:28:29 2015
- Where:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1301891746
- What:
- Mark Eichin's review Jun 07, 15 · edit 5 of 5 stars bookshelves: kindle Read in June, 2015 — I own a copy Those who know me will not be surprised that I consider this book pretty important (I've been flogging the "scripts to automate humans" approach to boring software tasks for over a decade, though I've kept it tanged up with "Lab Notebook" discipline.) What may surprise you is that it's an *interesting read*, with a mix of "real life" medical drama, aviation history and drama, and 21st century politics. It is unsurprising that Boeing, for example, has people who are experts in checklist design, what to leave out, what timings are worthwhile; what *is* surprising is the emphasis on how effective (even necessary!) checklists can be for getting people to perform together as teams. (Most of my focus has been on supporting individuals who *don't* have teams to keep an eye on them.) So, if you do something repetitive and yet difficult to completely automate, read this - even if you *are* already using these techniques, there are some interesting refinements - and it's an entertaining read.
2015-06-01
- About:
> How to Build an Overhead Camera Swing-Arm Mount for $9 - YouTube
- When:
Sun May 31 23:44:49 2015
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y1InOpoYuY
- What:
- Picked up a couple of these $9 lamps at Ikea, some 1/4-20 bolts and nuts, and a ball head adaptor on amazon - went together nicely, it's an easy build if you skip directly to the "remove the post and widen the holes" step :-) Supports a Canon S100 perfectly, I'm using it for a bunch of Lego photography (no remote shutter release on the S100 though.)
2015-05-22
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of MyDigitalSSD BP4 USB 3.0 mSATA SSD Enclosu...
- When:
Fri May 22 01:48:38 2015
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RCVUAJ5UAH7ZT
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Is that a terabyte in your pocket...?, May 20, 2015 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: MyDigitalSSD BP4 USB 3.0 mSATA SSD Enclosure Adapter with UASP Support- MDMS-BP4-USB3 (Electronics) I was looking for something else entirely when I found this - now I keep a 700G photography collection in my pocket, on a Samsung EVO borrowed from another project. Works fine with linux, I originally populated it at 700G/7hours which is a bit over 200Mbit/s; no idea what the actual bottleneck was, that's just the raw amount of time "rsync" took. (Takes under four seconds for rsync to scan the whole thing and copy over the a day's worth of updates, so I may have gotten something wrong in the initial setup, I'll update the review if I experiment further.) This basically destroys the entire "spinning rust" category of travel hard drives... With the EVO installed, weighs 34 grams on my kitchen scale; the short cable it comes with weighs 24. (The tiny little screwdriver they ship with it doesn't weigh enough to register accurately, and would go well in a dollhouse workshop once you've used it for the install :-)
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Hooked on Paint Hanging Magnets
- When:
Fri May 22 01:44:33 2015
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RSBZOIDM10536
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly strong, May 20, 2015 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Hooked on Paint Hanging Magnets (Kitchen) These are what 1" magnet squares *should* be like - I'd previously needed a set of 5 "normal" adhesive magnet squares to hold a magnetic CLEAN/DIRTY sign on to the (plastic) front of a dishwasher, and those only just barely held it in place; I was able to put *one* of these squares on and it solidly grabs the sign when I bring it near. Since I only needed one square to do the job, I was also able to put it in a more convenient location. I'm definitely planning to try hanging other things with them (I don't yet know how good the *adhesive* part is, but the magnet part is great.)
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Anker AH400 USB 3.0 4-Port Compact Hub wit...
- When:
Fri May 22 01:42:35 2015
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1UG1LRSNBQNJB
- What:
- 3.0 out of 5 stars Lasted a year..., May 20, 2015 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Anker AH400 USB 3.0 4-Port Compact Hub with a Built-in 1ft USB 3.0 Cable (Personal Computers) It lasted a year (on linux, with one port always plugged in and another used intermittently) before starting to randomly disconnect - at which point I noticed that wiggling the (hardwired) cable would cause it to reconnect and then drop out again. Since this was desktop use only, it wasn't getting a lot of abuse, but as another reviewer noted the sockets are quite stiff, so it takes more force to plug in and remove than other hubs I've used (I'll note that this was my first USB3 hub, though.) It worked great up until it failed, though, including moving 700G onto a pocket SSD in about 7 hours (only 200Mbit/s, but I don't think the hub was the limiting factor) with no problems.
2015-05-12
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of (2 Pack) Vivitar NB-6L/NB-6LH Ultra High C...
- When:
Mon May 11 23:24:10 2015
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R29SDRCDB6P9Y6/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00DWIAWQE
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Fine spares for the Canon SX710HS., May 7, 2015 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: (2 Pack) Vivitar NB-6L/NB-6LH Ultra High Capacity 1700mAH Li-ion Batteries for SX520 HS, SX510 HS, SX500 IS, SX700 HS, SX280 HS, SX260 HS, SX170 IS Black, SD1300 IS, SD1200 IS, SD980, SD770, SD1300, D30, D20, D10, IXUS 85 IS, IXUS 95 IS, IXUS 200 IS Cameras (Canon NB-6L/NB-6LH Replacement) (Electronics) They work fine in the Canon SX710HS, but while the battery it came with is held in place by the little orange spring-tab, the Vivitar ones pop out as soon as you open the battery compartment door. (They *work* fine, and there's just a little friction so they don't fall out, and I haven't noticed a *visible* difference in dimensions, but it is a little awkward putting them in and taking them out.) The also fit perfectly in the charger that comes with the camera. Don't have real lifetime comparisons, other than that they survive a day of outdoor shooting (a couple hundred shots with no flash and the screen at brightest, plus a few minutes of video) so I couldn't say if they are actually as much better as the numbers suggest they should be - but as far as "always having a spare battery so I don't have to plan my charging ahead of time", they're a great (cheap) deal (so they don't lose any stars for the fit issue above.)
2015-04-27
- About:
Canon 55-250, Rebel/XS, fails on *manual* focus? - Photography Stack Exchange
- When:
Sun Apr 26 23:43:52 2015
- Where:
http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/62168/canon-55-250-rebel-xs-fails-on-manual-focus
- What:
- Canon 55-250, Rebel/XS, fails on *manual* focus? up vote 0 down vote favorite I realize this is rather old hardware, at least as digital goes, but I'm hoping to hand it down to a friend as a starter kit. Every once in a while, my Digital Rebel XS will refuse to take a shot through the 55-250 - the switch on the lens is set to MF, the shot is clear, but all that happens is the right-most green light in the viewfinder starts blinking. Oddly, switching back to AF works - lets the shot be taken - then switching to MF it fails again. No on-screen message, just the blinking of what the user guide calls the "Focus Confirmation Light". In the past, taking the lens off and putting it back on has cleared the problem, but not today; this time the only thing that worked was trying it on a T2i (trying to test camera vs. lens) where both AF and MF worked fine, then putting it back on the Rebel (which I hope was coincidence...) Any ideas as to what the root cause might be? Cleaning the lens contacts didn't seem to make a difference (and as I mention above, AF mode worked fine.) canon manual-focus shareeditdeleteflag asked 10 mins ago eichin 1
2015-04-19
- About:
Flickr: The Help Forum: Is autorotate setting being ignored?
- When:
Sun Apr 19 00:00:54 2015
- Where:
https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157652039162641/#reply72157651628419069
- What:
- Mark Eichin says: ColleenM: No, these are just mundane shots ( www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/16570660904/ before I corrected it, for example.) jhead on the original source file says Orientation : rotate 270. Posted 1 second ago. ( permalink | reply | edit )
- About:
Flickr: The Help Forum: Is autorotate setting being ignored?
- When:
Sat Apr 18 23:03:28 2015
- Where:
https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157652039162641/
- What:
- Is autorotate setting being ignored? Mark Eichin says: I noticed that some of my pictures were showing up misrotated. My software didn't change, my setting on www.flickr.com/account/prefs/autorotate/ is still correct ("don't autorotate") but it looks like the pictures are getting rotated twice. I *also* notice that prefs/autorotate isn't linked from account/privacy anymore, or anywhere else in prefs... did this setting go away, partly? (autorotate is useful for most people, but in my workflow I want to upload pristine images and then set the rotation correctly; only about half of my cameras even detect orientation, and the ones that do are often wrong for "interesting" downwards or upwards shots...) Posted at 11:03PM, 18 April 2015 EDT ( permalink | reply | edit )
2015-04-10
- About:
Nobody Reads Your Blog - Why the command line is not usable
- When:
Thu Apr 9 22:43:07 2015
- Where:
http://gandre.ws/blog/blog/2015/04/07/why-the-command-line-is-not-usable/comment-page-1/#comment-143395
- What:
- _Mark_ wrote: Your comment is awaiting moderation. I think one thing that’s triggering the command-line “old hands” is that when you say the command-line “cognitively disables users” (paragraph 9 above) you’re *also* not qualifying your target user base, so it reads (perhaps unintentionally?) like you are asserting that claim about people like Karl or myself (and I certainly have people express surprise at how fast I do things from the command line – makes *teaching* command line things harder, for sure – and while that’s not rigorous either, *something* is going on there…) rather than restricting the scope of your users to whatever subset of “Mac users” you based your tahoe analysis on. To put it more succinctly, “you seem to have painted us with an awfully broad brush”… As for criteria in the computer interface space – how about Raskin? “The Humane Interface” actually lays out what appear to be a decent (and commercially tested, though I haven’t looked for further academic work myself) set of metrics for interfaces in terms of steps taken and mental effort; the novel part at the time was assigning a cost to *switching* between mouse and keyboard, but there was a lot more to it than that; that was just the part that explained where the “mice make it better” fallacy came from. Posted 09 Apr 2015 at 9:42 pm ¶
2015-04-04
- About:
'Furious 7' Cast Extended Interview | TODAY - YouTube
- When:
Fri Apr 3 23:56:28 2015
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWu1bv4dN2s
- What:
- Mark Eichin 25 seconds ago +Gregory mantonios that bit evoked the "missing man formation", just enough to really hit...
2015-03-24
- About:
Quiver vs quaver - Grammarist
- When:
Tue Mar 24 00:27:36 2015
- Where:
http://grammarist.com/spelling/quiver-vs-quaver/
- What:
- _Mark_ • a few seconds ago Perhaps "quiver in my voice" became the popular US phrasing due to Natalie Merchant's "Like The Weather" (1987, repeatedly rhymed with "shiver".)
2015-03-11
- About:
Ubuntu on the Winbook TW700
- When:
Wed Mar 11 04:47:35 2015
- Where:
http://infosoda.com/ubuntu-tw700-1/#comment-19
- What:
- _Mark_ March 11, 2015 at 2:47 am Reply Your comment is awaiting moderation. Last note for the night: *not changing anything* and just trying again and again to reboot, about 1 in 5 attempts actually make it all the way through to the ubuntu desktop, at which point it seems stable; I’ve got a 14.10 install running as I type this, with no swap, and it’s progressing so far. Just want to say thanks for doing the writeup in the first place, it’s what convinced me to pick one of these up at all.
- About:
Ubuntu on the Winbook TW700
- When:
Wed Mar 11 03:51:05 2015
- Where:
http://infosoda.com/ubuntu-tw700-1/#comment-18
- What:
- _Mark_ March 11, 2015 at 1:50 am Reply Your comment is awaiting moderation. 14.04.2 panicked in a slightly different place (got past populating /dev, got as far as “Starting Initialize or finalize resolvconf” and then got a segfault in apt-config and init, leading again to a panic.) Also, turns out that when using unetbootin, there’s no point in using GPT, the resulting stick isn’t recognized at all as bootable, so I suspect syslinux is missing something for non-FAT images; there is some interesting stuff in the archlinux wiki that I’ll have to try… Hmm, just repeating the boot failed differently – with segfaults in apt-config, init, find, and cat. So something is “blowing up” but not in a consistent way. On a positive note: one can edit the nomodeset line into boot/grub/grub.cfg on the memory stick and not have to tweak it on each boot, useful for this kind of repeated-trial experimenting.
- About:
Ubuntu on the Winbook TW700
- When:
Wed Mar 11 02:48:31 2015
- Where:
http://infosoda.com/ubuntu-tw700-1/#comment-17
- What:
- _Mark_ March 11, 2015 at 12:48 am Reply Your comment is awaiting moderation. Tried 14.10 Utopic Unicorn instead and it got as far as “Running /scripts/init-bottom” and segfaulted in init… at which point I reread your notes and realized I’d just used unetbootin on a straight vfat memory stick, not a GPT; how important is that choice? (if it does matter, I’m a little surprised it got as far as it did, namely through grub and booting a kernel and running things…) (Will retry with 14.04 next.)
2015-03-09
- About:
On Secretly Terrible Engineers | Hacker News
- When:
Mon Mar 9 03:26:58 2015
- Where:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9166501
- What:
- You're missing one key thing - by the time we see the candidate they've given us a resume that says that they can and have programmed some actual things in some actual langauges. How do you explain their inability to then do some trivial thing (more trivial than fizzbuzz even) in the language that they've already claimed skill in? I could be wrong, but these simple tasks seem to help distinguish "hung out on a team that did those things" or even "has been stuck in meetings 38 hours/week for the last 5 years and is startlingly good at powerpoint", when those are not what we're looking for.
2015-02-26
- About:
RSS that worked fine for years started showing up as all-unread every day, a week or two ago | NewsBlur Customer Community
- When:
Thu Feb 26 02:52:58 2015
- Where:
https://getsatisfaction.com/newsblur/topics/rss-that-worked-fine-for-years-started-showing-up-as-all-unread-every-day-a-week-or-two-ago?rfm=1&topic_submit=true
- What:
- RSS that worked fine for years started showing up as all-unread every day, a week or two ago Problem Updated 2 seconds ago http://www.thok.org/~burnbeforereading/index.rss hasn't changed in years, and it's been fine since I added it when I first signed up for newsblur in 2013... but now, I keep getting most or all of the entries showing up as new every day or so (new behaviour that started in the last week or two.) The likely-interesting bit is that the feed only has rss/channel/lastBuildDate, none of the items has (or has ever had) timestamps...
2015-02-25
- About:
Mark Eichin » Inbox — Kickstarter
- When:
Wed Feb 25 01:08:33 2015
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/messages/9434719?mailbox=sent
- What:
- Mark Eichin Mark Eichin Feb 25, 2015 Can you post a short clip of what this new display looks like through polarized shades at varying angles? The original got somewhat obscured but was usable, most Android Wear watches blank out entirely at some angles... I particularly care about the "glance at pebble with hand still on steering wheel" angle. Thanks.
2015-02-18
- About:
TRK - Young Coders: Why twelve and up?
- When:
Wed Feb 18 04:15:15 2015
- Where:
http://therealkatie.net/blog/2015/feb/17/young-coders-why-twelve-and/#c597
- What:
- 7 _Mark_ says... I will have to mention the typing bit to my Mom - when I was 12 (back in the TRS-80 era) she saw that computers had typewriter-like keyboards and badgered the local (public) high school into letting me take the summer school typing class; I was only doing 20wpm when I finished, but it was robust and not looking at the keys, so speed came with practice, and not having to unlearn bad habits. I think she will feel vindicated :-) For myself, I think it wasn't the speed (though that certainly helped by the time I got to college), but having it be practically at the reflex level - if I'm not thinking "where's the g key", but I'm thinking of a word and it is just appearing, it's something that isn't getting in between my head and the machine. (Speed is a good proxy for that, of course.) (To this day I recommend learning proper typing even to adult programmers - aggressive autocomplete in IDEs removes some of the benefits of speed, but the sense that the keyboard is not in your way, but is instead an extension of your will, makes the training worth the time.) Posted at 3:46 a.m. on February 18, 2015
2015-02-12
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Detailer's Choice 6608 Deluxe Squeegee
- When:
Thu Feb 12 00:51:10 2015
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2M1MSQ80TTMUA
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Actually flexible enough!, February 11, 2015 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Detailer's Choice 6608 Deluxe Squeegee (Automotive) Most gas-station-style squeegees turn out to have hard rubber blades that are *entirely unsuitable* for window cleaning (and yet not quite stiff enough to be decent ice scrapers.) This is an exception; I leave it in the car with a spray bottle of window washer fluid, and when the back window is a mess and I'm between gas station trips, this takes care of it.
2015-01-26
- About:
Language Log * Social change
- When:
Mon Jan 26 04:24:59 2015
- Where:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17144#comment-1489541
- What:
- _Mark_ said, January 26, 2015 @ 4:24 am > 8khz limitation I've started getting "HD Voice" calls which sound notably clearer (I don't know that they actually *are* better, psychoacoustics being what they are, but they use VoLTE as transport); I think it's only within T-mobile, but it's automatic if it's available. (I've also heard them described as "as good as Skype" but I have no idea.) So the market for dropping some of the "legacy" limitations is at least being tested
2015-01-25
- About:
Language Log » Moth onomastics: Chinese Character (Cilix glaucata)
- When:
Sun Jan 25 18:38:53 2015
- Where:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17306#comment-1489529
- What:
- _Mark_ said, January 25, 2015 @ 6:38 pm Note that these are the same people that think "comma" and "question mark" are usefully descriptive names for other butterfly species
2015-01-22
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of CWK® New Replacement Laptop Notebook B...
- When:
Thu Jan 22 10:56:48 2015
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3LJA0TBHQI7QS
- What:
- Fits the X60s properly (does not include spacer), January 18, 2015 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: CWK® New Replacement Laptop Notebook Battery for IBM ThinkPad X61S X60 X61 X60S 40Y7001 42T4505 92P1174 92P1227 92P1173 FRU 92P1173 92P1227 42T4505 X60 X61 X60s X61s IBM X60S/ThinkPad X60s FRU 42T4505 42T4506 92P1163 92P1165 40Y6999 40Y7001 40Y7003 (Electronics) Actually fit the X60s; doesn't include the "FRU" (the spacer with two screws that fills in the gap for the X60s in particular) but you can hopefully transfer that from your original battery. Even without the spacer, it fits and locks fine, there's just a half inch gap visible from the bottom.
2015-01-19
- About:
The Qwerkywriter - Typewriter Inspired Mechanical Keyboard by Qwerkytoys, INC — Kickstarter
- When:
Mon Jan 19 00:21:59 2015
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/954250822/the-qwerkywriter-typewriter-inspired-mechanical-ke/comments
- What:
- Mark Eichin 1 minute ago As someone who learned to type on manuals, and then later electrics - adjusting the platen was for when you *screwed up*. Hitting the carriage return bar was something you did *all the time* (often right after hearing the margin bell "ding".) I hope that clarifies how important it is as a "typewriter" design cue.
2015-01-17
- About:
“What happens when you type Google.com into your browser and press enter?” | Hacker News
- When:
Fri Jan 16 23:34:50 2015
- Where:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902105
- What:
- Also, if your resume says you're a web systems person or something like that, and you can't actually explain some details about DNS is doing, I have to wonder about the mismatch...
2015-01-15
- About:
Python Sqlite3: INSERT INTO table VALUE(dictionary goes here) - Stack Overflow
- When:
Wed Jan 14 20:55:02 2015
- Where:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14108162/python-sqlite3-insert-into-table-valuedictionary-goes-here/27955646#27955646
- What:
- You could use named parameters: cur.execute('INSERT INTO Media VALUES (NULL, :title, :type, :genre, :onchapter, :chapters, :status)', values) This still depends on the column order in the INSERT statement (those : are only used as keys in the values dict) but it at least gets away from having to order the values on the python side, plus you can have other things in values that are ignored here; if you're pulling what's in the dict apart to store it in multiple tables, that can be useful. If you still want to avoid duplicating the names, you could extract them from an sqlite3.Row result object, or from cur.description, after doing a dummy query; it may be saner to keep them around in python form near wherever you do your CREATE TABLE. share|edit|delete|flag answered just now
2015-01-07
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Celestron 44302 Deluxe Handheld Digital Mi...
- When:
Tue Jan 6 22:32:09 2015
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R37KWZY6JOTIAK
- What:
- Works with Linux, January 6, 2015 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Celestron 44302 Deluxe Handheld Digital Microscope 2MP (Electronics) Just worked, right out of the box, with current Debian Testing; both "guvcview" and "mplayer tv://" pulled it right up. Haven't tried to use the button or control the (quite bright, on as soon as I plugged it in) LED illuminator, but it hasn't interfered with taking closeups of high res cellphone screens so I'm not really concerned. Focus controls are stiff enough to be able to set them and leave them, then wave the scope around (for circuit board inspection or document examination.)
2014-12-23
- About:
209 Seconds That Will Make You Question Your Entire Existence - YouTube
- When:
Tue Dec 23 00:07:43 2014
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIbfYsQfNWs&google_comment_id=z12rzzlbnvjmz3uip04cjt0rimr3zd1yuqw0k
- What:
- Mark Eichin 39 seconds ago Linked comment You could have at least thrown in a credit mention of Powers of Ten https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 which did a better job, in 1977, of helping the viewer understand the scale instead of just throwing big numbers around...
- About:
Is Fastmail.fm serving JMAP yet? - Google Groups
- When:
Mon Dec 22 23:08:32 2014
- Where:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/jmap-discuss/w3SR5HRZu5o
- What:
- 11:08 PM (less than a minute ago) Does that apply to the reverse case as well? I'm more interested in experimental servers (for example, unified social/IM backend, it's been done with IMAP before but it's messy in ways jmap would help with) but the FastMail app is the only existing client and it doesn't appear to be configurable (yet?)
2014-12-20
- About:
The Kitchin Research Group
- When:
Sat Dec 20 17:49:36 2014
- Where:
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2014/12/20/A-new-mode-for-Python-documentation/
- What:
- _Mark_ • a few seconds ago While the final version is pretty sophisticated, you can get about the first half of your additions in a much simpler way, just by overriding manual-program... (defun pydoc3 nil (interactive) (require 'man) (let ((manual-program "pydoc3")) (call-interactively 'man))) (based on a popular "perldoc" that was circulating in the late 90s...)
2014-12-15
- About:
Plume 6.0 toolbar jump to top - YouTube
- When:
Sun Dec 14 23:26:36 2014
- Where:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45yg3lRVOgw
- What:
- Mark Eichin 1 second ago Ok, I've watched that three times and have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Note that this is the only "material design" app on my Galaxy Note 3, so explain like I'm five (or even better, like you're five, get out your crayons and draw some arrows over the video...)
2014-11-22
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Lindy 0.5m USB OTG Cable - Black, Type Mic...
- When:
Fri Nov 21 23:49:45 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2EVDEI84VHVKU
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Canon-to-Android..., November 21, 2014 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Lindy 0.5m USB OTG Cable - Black, Type Micro-B to Mini-B (31717) (Personal Computers) If you're looking for the cable to hook a Canon DSLR (Mini-B) to an Android phone (OTG Micro-B) to use the DSLR Controller app for live-view and general remote control, and want *one cable* instead of a pile of adapters - *this* is the cable you're looking for; I just used it with a T2i and a Galaxy Note 3 and it Just Worked.
- About:
Amazon.com: Use your Big Android screen as a Canon Viewfinder
- When:
Fri Nov 21 23:48:40 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/lm/R2Q2FHUV37M56F/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb=
- What:
- Use your Big Android screen as a Canon Viewfinder A Listmania! list by _Mark_ (Concord, MA United States) Share with friends The list author says: "There's a great Android app, "DSLR Controller", that turns your android phone, phablet, or tablet into a remote touchscreen for your Canon DSLR - but there are a couple of additional pieces you'll want to use to put it all together..." Lindy 0.5m USB OTG Cable - Black, Type Micro-B to Mini-B (31717) 1. Lindy 0.5m USB OTG Cable - Black, Type Micro-B to Mini-B (31717) by Lindy The list author says: "Direct cable from the Andoid OTG device (OTG Micro-B) to the Canon DSLR (Mini-B.) There are a couple of other "near miss" cables, in particular you don't want a male-to-female cable, you want male-to-male; likewise you don't want "Mini-A", which looks very similar on the outside but is different enough on the inside that it doesn't fit." $9.96 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews) Create your own Listmania! with this product Smallrig LCD Monitor Adapter 1/4" Camera Hot Shoe Mount w/ Additional 1/4" Screw for Cameras Such As Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Panasonnic, Fujifilm & Kodak. 2. Smallrig LCD Monitor Adapter 1/4" Camera Hot Shoe Mount w/ Additional 1/4" Screw for Cameras Such As Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Panasonnic, Fujifilm & Kodak. by SmallRig The list author says: "For mounting your device directly on the camera, start with this hotshoe mount - the bottom slides into the hotshoe/flash mount on top of your camera, secure it with the thumb-wheel, and then attach any tripod mount to the top to actually hold your camera. (Once set up, you can leave the two adapters clamped to each other permanently, just be sure to tighten them when you reconnect everything.)" $9.50 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews) Create your own Listmania! with this product Square Jellyfish Mini Tablet Tripod Mount (NEW UPDATED VERSION) (Mount Only) 3. Square Jellyfish Mini Tablet Tripod Mount (NEW UPDATED VERSION) (Mount Only) by Square Jellyfish The list author says: "For a 7" tablet such as the Nexus 7 (the one I've actually tried this with), you'll want to attach this mount to the hotshoe adapter; the clever bit is that the grippers fold flat when not in use, making it the most compact option for your travel kit." $17.95 Used & New from: $13.18 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (63 customer reviews) Create your own Listmania! with this product TP-LINK TL-MR3040 3G/4G Wireless N150 Portable Router, Battery Powered, AP/WISP/Router Mode, Compatible with Selected ATT/Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobile USB Modems 4. TP-LINK TL-MR3040 3G/4G Wireless N150 Portable Router, Battery Powered, AP/WISP/Router Mode, Compatible with Selected ATT/Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobile USB Modems by TP-LINK The list author says: "For the more flexible but more complicated path, the DSLR Controller author has replacement firmware for this router to use as a WiFi remote; you need a smaller tripod mount and a normal USB cable." $34.42 Used & New from: $21.05 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (250 customer reviews) Create your own Listmania! with this product Ziotek ZT1311556 HC1 7.5-Inch USB 2.0 A Male to Mini-Micro Dual End Cable 5. Ziotek ZT1311556 HC1 7.5-Inch USB 2.0 A Male to Mini-Micro Dual End Cable by Ziotek The list author says: "Any A-to-Mini-A cable should work with the TP-Link, but I like these T-cables because they're short and the T-end seems to take strain better than most straight cables. (I haven't actually used the longer ones that are in stock...)" Out of stock 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews) Create your own Listmania! with this product Davis & Sanford Quick Connect Tripod Connex 6. Davis & Sanford Quick Connect Tripod Connex by Davis & Sanford The list author says: "While the tripod itself is adorable, the reason it is on the list is that the cheap little "adjustable camera phone adapter" it comes with is actually a good size for the TP-Link, though it isn't nearly big enough for the Galaxy Note 3." $39.99 Used & New from: $25.37 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
2014-11-21
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Namatse Yoga Mat Hanger
- When:
Fri Nov 21 00:56:39 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R11VX4Y2MUXK39
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Command-strips actually work..., November 19, 2014 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Namatse Yoga Mat Hanger (Misc.) I was a little dubious, but the 3M Command Strip recommendation works perfectly (there are flat spots on the back specifically designed for them.) They've supported a long mat for an entire month.
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Lindy 0.5m USB OTG Cable - Transparent, Ty...
- When:
Fri Nov 21 00:56:15 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RIQBJOTA1ASY1
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Mini A is *not* the Canon Camera Mini, November 19, 2014 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Lindy 0.5m USB OTG Cable - Transparent, Type Mini A to Micro B (31805) (Personal Computers) Looks well made, but it turns out that "Mini A" is *not* the Canon mini connector - that's "Mini B" (31717). Micro end fits nicely in a Galaxy Note 3 though.
2014-11-17
- About:
Python 3 Adoption for Web Apps - New Relic blog : Python
- When:
Sun Nov 16 19:57:52 2014
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/2mhryi/python_3_adoption_for_web_apps_new_relic_blog/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point just now Sad to see people believing that the numbers after 3 months of python 3 support mean... well, anything at all. (Note the "It should be noted that we only started supporting Python 3 in September of 2013" and the "21 January 2014" dateline.) I would be fascinated to see their data after a year, but this isn't it.
2014-11-12
- About:
DSLR Controller (BETA) - Android Apps on Google Play
- When:
Wed Nov 12 00:49:38 2014
- Where:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontroller
- What:
- My review Works with Canon Rebel T2i; nice review mode Used it with the T2i, from a Galaxy Note 3, worked fine (will likely use this for some birding.) Surprisingly fast at scrolling through stored pictures on the camera, too. Tried it on a Canon SX50 (superzoom, not dslr) and review mode *did* work, but none of the viewfinder features did (it's not *expected* to, but it's a Canon so I thought I'd try it anyway :-)
2014-11-08
- About:
Big things to expect from Emacs 25 ｷ Endless Parentheses
- When:
Sat Nov 8 05:14:26 2014
- Where:
http://endlessparentheses.com/big-things-to-expect-from-emacs-25.html
- What:
- Avatar _Mark_ 窶｢ a few seconds ago GNUS has been the thing that desperately needs concurrency - for close to 2 decades now. (It was a source of great enthusiasm for Guile at one point...)
2014-11-01
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of Reference Guide to the International Space...
- When:
Sat Nov 1 02:57:18 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R48WGTOEIFN1R
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Good companion to the NASA ISS HDEV stream, October 29, 2014 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Reference Guide to the International Space Station (Hardcover) My office recently started leaving the ISS HDEV live stream up on the big screen in the lounge, so I picked this up to leave around for questions about the various bits of hardware that show up in some of the camera views. (You can get the PDF for free, but this is a nice glossy version with fold out pages for the descriptions of the entire station at once, much more convenient for leaving around near a TV.)
- About:
Amazon.com: _Mark_'s review of YCS Basics 6 inch USB Micro male to female...
- When:
Sat Nov 1 02:55:51 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2QFINXJZ7K53T
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Works fine with the Seek Thermal, October 29, 2014 By _Mark_ Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: YCS Basics 6 inch USB Micro male to female OTG extension cable (Wireless Phone Accessory) Works as expected - in particular, it let me "turn around" the Seek Thermal camera on a nexus device (the one I have points the right direction for the Samsung, but the industry still managed to screw up an otherwise straightforward standard...)
2014-10-11
- About:
Schlock Mercenary - The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll
- When:
Sat Oct 11 01:56:17 2014
- Where:
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/cuckoos-egg-book-review#disqus_thread
- What:
- _Mark_ • a few seconds ago That 1987 experience (and his impressive communication skills) is why he was one of the first people the TLAs got in touch with about the Morris Worm, the following year... and he tagged some MIT people... it was my first experience with helping someone update their slides on the plane on the way to an event :-)
- About:
AmazonSmile: Amazon Customer's review of UBatteries Laptop Battery Apple MacBook Pr...
- When:
Sun Sep 14 04:42:23 2014
- Where:
http://smile.amazon.com/review/RPJ0DWUKU1AWW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00CPS1YJG
- What:
- 2.0 out of 5 stars Worked... for the entire length of the warrantee, then died hard., September 14, 2014 By Amazon Customer This review is from: UBatteries Laptop Battery Apple MacBook Pro 17" A1189 A1212 A1261 A1212/A A1151 MB166*/A MB166B/A MB166J/A MB166LL/A MB166X/A - 6 Cell, 68Whr (Personal Computers) Well, it did last a year - ordered 2013-09-01, died 2014-09-14 (in such a way that the macbook powered off suddenly while starting up, which corrupted the disk, needing DiskWarrior...) Since I mostly leave it plugged in, and not cycled, I'm unimpressed with the failure mode, but it *did* last the warrantee period. Will definitely try a different replcement though.
2014-08-27
- About:
Python Sqlite3: INSERT INTO table VALUE(dictionary goes here) - Stack Overflow
- When:
Wed Aug 27 02:01:58 2014
- Where:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14108162/python-sqlite3-insert-into-table-valuedictionary-goes-here
- What:
- Don't know what the original author wanted, but I found the question because I'm generating the create table from the structure of an XML file, then when I go to insert the rows, I have the attrs and vals in a dict and I know the db will have them, but they're never static. – eichin just now edit
2014-08-20
- About:
AmazonSmile: Amazon Customer's review of Kenu Airframe+ Car Mount for Phablets
- When:
Tue Aug 19 23:19:36 2014
- Where:
http://smile.amazon.com/review/R2HCHMK7C5HFKR/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?ie=UTF8&asin=B00LU5LWQK&cdForum=Fx1L53GZ9W3AA1P&cdMsgID=Mx28FII3F5KNTQA&cdMsgNo=2&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx2IVXRJBWOFJ1S&store=gps#Mx28FII3F5KNTQA
- What:
- Nice video - for a model 5 years later (and with the steering wheel on the "wrong" side :-) In mine, I can sort of fit the clip in the way he does (with a lot of force on the top of the vent at the same time) but since the whole outer rim of the vent is set back from the rest of the dash a bit, so unless you insert the phone so that the clip is grabbing it at the very bottom, you can't actually get the phone into the grip in the first place - and if you do grab the phone at the bottom, the center knob of the vent ends up tilting it too far down to actually read. So that does suggest later models have more space (not really surprising, the Mini Coopers have... swelled, over the last couple of years), definitely check out the video if you are considering using this in one.
2014-08-09
- About:
AmazonSmile: Amazon Customer's review of Kenu Airframe+ Car Mount for Phablets
- When:
Sat Aug 9 02:20:42 2014
- Where:
http://smile.amazon.com/review/R2HCHMK7C5HFKR/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00LU5LWQK&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=2335752011&store=wireless
- What:
- 3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't work with small/round/recessed vents (but it really does fit the Galaxy Note 3), August 8, 2014 By Amazon Customer Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Kenu Airframe+ Car Mount for Phablets (Wireless Phone Accessory) Wide enough for a Galaxy Note 3, but the vent clip isn't quite as clever as they think it is; it doesn't fit *any* of the vents (either the round in-dash ones or the smaller flat-vaned ones on top of the dash) on my 2005 Mini Cooper. The main problem is that if the vent is recessed into the dash at all, the gripper fingers can't actually get past the vent vane; likewise you need a *lot* of force to get the gripper over the vane, which says good things about it supporting the phone - but if the vent itself actually pivots, you may not be able to get enough leverage to push it into place. (The amazon description says "any vent (horizontal, vertical, and angled)" and the box says "works with any vent type" showing pictures including a mini-style circular-vanes vent; the designer may have assumed it would fit on the crossbars, but on this model the crossbars are hidden behind the curved ones.) I'll grant that the Mini Cooper dash is an excessively compact design, and my current solution is a hybrid made with parts from one magnetic holder and one cd-slot mount - but it still gets points off for the overreaching claim.
- About:
AmazonSmile: Amazon Customer's review of Songbird Essentials Suet Saver Suet Bird F...
- When:
Sat Aug 9 02:19:38 2014
- Where:
http://smile.amazon.com/review/R3FFASP36XG2ZU/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00BF8UUQK&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=2972638011&store=lawn-garden
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Worked pretty well for me - woodpeckers love it, grackles are inconvenienced..., August 8, 2014 By Amazon Customer Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Songbird Essentials Suet Saver Suet Bird Feeder I was skeptical, but got it to try and deal with a grackle problem; the grackles did figure it out relatively quickly, but weren't nearly as effective at clearing it out (at one point one of them was hanging by the beak from the bottom rail, before letting go and flying off) while the woodpeckers were perfectly content with it (even continuing to feed while other birds flapped into the plastic part.) Eventually the grackles moved on, but even at the peak it reduced a 2 blocks/day feeding to a block lasting 2 or 3 days (peak summer in New England, woodpeckers and nuthatchs and sparrows, no starlings though.) I also haven't seen the squirrels swinging on it - they have other food sources, so I suspect it's less about them having trouble as finding it less "fun" to swing on... Even without those benefits, I find it a little easier to load than the classic cage, because a classic cage ends up greasy *everywhere*, while the plastic part of this one stays clean (there's a bit of a knack to opening it, where squeezing the plastic part helps.) My one complaint is that it's kind of ugly :-) Adding some decoration (flowers? leaves?) to the plastic part would help, if one were crafty or had a good set of stickers.
2014-07-31
- About:
Mark Eichin - Google+
- When:
Wed Jul 30 22:40:37 2014
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/+MarkEichin/posts/3DuMXeUJ4AK
- What:
- Since apparently youtube posts get here but none of the metadata does (come on G+, can't you even get google stuff right?) this is a juvenile osprey, feeding in a tree, at Sand Bar State Park in Milton, VT (the marshes just east of Lake Champlain.)
2014-07-20
- About:
Steve Kemp's Blog: So what can I do for Debian?
- When:
Sun Jul 20 15:06:48 2014
- Where:
http://blog.steve.org.uk/so_what_can_i_do_for_debian_.html
- What:
- _Mark_ Submitted at 01:12:17 on 20 July 2014 Welcome back! As an old DD who's gotten more active lately after being a bit of a slacker, I recommend taking a look at "dgit" as a low-friction way to make actual package changes.
2014-06-16
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of Keurig K75 Single-Cup Home-Brewing System ...
- When:
Sun Jun 15 22:24:51 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2DIHE7YDFUWUO
- What:
- 1.0 out of 5 stars Love it when it works, died in 9 months (water everywhere), June 15, 2014 By Mark Eichin Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Keurig K75 Single-Cup Home-Brewing System with Water Filter Kit, Platinum (Kitchen) I didn't have the usual failure of the air-pump motor rusting out - instead, one morning I hit brew and heard the usual buzzing of the water pump... and then shortly noticed water pouring out on to the counter, and the tank draining (didn't stop until I hit the power switch.) Turns out if the water isn't making it to the heater tank, it doesn't bother to turn off the pump, ever... The tubes from the pump go up the middle of the unit, through a pair of what look like backflow preventers; the tube from one of those (plastic and wire-ties) popped off, so water just flows right through it. (One of those great examples of when "redundancy" can really mean "multiple single points of failure".) Still working on how to reconnect the tubes... and debating which alternate brewer will replace it.
2014-06-02
- About:
Practical Flask Book Project by Robert Picard » An update on print copies — Kickstarter
- When:
Mon Jun 2 01:46:04 2014
- Where:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1223051718/practical-flask-book-project/posts/861783
- What:
- I'd have probably pledged *more* for a quality free book than for the paper version :-) You can certainly keep my $35. I'd recommend that there be an easy-to-download version (one-big-page, maybe zip file?) to allow convenient offline use, but that's only a suggestion. Thanks also for not dragging out the decision.
2014-05-10
- About:
Fitbit Help | My Cases
- When:
Sat May 10 01:41:52 2014
- Where:
https://help.fitbit.com/customer/en/portal/private/cases/1695211
- What:
- One Tracker [Android]: Other Case ID: 1695211 Created: May 09, 2014 10:11PM PT Mark Eichin May 09, 2014 10:11PM PT Reply General out of box experience: 1. Logging in with google plus still asks me to set an email address and password (which is entirely missing the point.) When I do that, I then can't log in with it ("User does not exist") anyway, so I gave up and created an account from scratch. 2. Various things suggest charging the One. *nothing actually says how to do it*. The retail box at least says it contains a charging cable and I can figure out from the picture which one it is... 3. Nothing actually explains the "sleep band". For example, there's masking tape protecting the plastic-velcro-like bit at the end; I made a lucky guess and peeled it apart without damaging anything, but *nothing* mentions that. A picture of how the One actually goes in the slot (face in? out? and then which way does the band go?) would be a good start - as would silk-screening the cryptic set of button presses to tell the fitbit that you're sleeping... 4. The android app prompts for a message/label for the device. However, with a stock Galaxy Note 3, it doesn't accept numbers or letters, just punctuation, and period is the only punctuation it actually *takes* ("<" says "you can't use that".) Fortunately I was able to fix this from the web site. I've got the device registered and charging; I haven't gotten as far as *using* it yet :-)
2014-04-15
- About:
Amazon.com: D & K Exclusives® 30-Pin iPhone 4/4S iPad Female to Micro USB 3.0 Male Dock Adapter for Samsung Galaxy S5 / SV and Galaxy Note 3 III N9000 (Black): Cell Phones & Accessories
- When:
Tue Apr 15 00:32:46 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I3RKPBG/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- What:
- Doesn't work in the cars I tried By Mark Eichin on April 14, 2014 Amazon Verified Purchase Didn't work in a 2006 MIni Cooper (famous for the original "iPod MIni" promotion - my "vintage" ipod works fine, as do newer ones) or a 2014 Nissan Rogue. *Did* work in the hotel alarm-clock-ipod-dock that the Westin uses in Montreal, so it's not broken; kind of scratchy sounding but I'm almost 100% sure that it was that the dock itself wasn't very good - it's not like this adapter really has much in it other than wires :-) Nothing to complain about as far as construction and packaging; connectors fit fine; it just isn't as compatible as it is suggested that it might be (if it didn't *say* "cars" in the description, it would deserve a higher rating - but it wouldn't get one, because I wouldn't have purchased it in the first place...)
2014-01-22
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of D-Link DCS-930L mydlink-Enabled Wireless-N...
- When:
Wed Jan 22 01:28:36 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2QWTNVZL0GRYP
- What:
- 4.0 out of 5 stars Good enough, but upgrade the firmware immediately..., January 21, 2014 By Mark Eichin Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: D-Link DCS-930L mydlink-Enabled Wireless-N Network Camera (Electronics) These have gotten cheap enough to set up as birdfeeder cams or fishtank cams - WPS makes them easy to set up (with an Asus RT-66u, just hit the WPS page, or hit the button on the back, then hit the button on the DCS-930L for a few seconds, and it's live.) Just be sure to UPGRADE THE FIRMWARE as soon as you get it online; it's easy to do, but the firmware as-shipped is ludicrously buggy, https basically doesn't work until you've done the upgrade.
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of SE Illuminated Pocket Microscope with Whit...
- When:
Wed Jan 22 01:21:35 2014
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2D5ZFR71G6ZJA
- What:
- 4.0 out of 5 stars Better than I expected, January 21, 2014 By Mark Eichin Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: SE Illuminated Pocket Microscope with White LED Light (Misc.) Got it for some quick looks at broken electronics; stood a 5mm screw on end and was able to move the focus point from the base to the tip - yes, that means the depth of field is short, but you're not limited to purely flat surfaces. (If you've ever noticed that Lego bricks have the word LEGO on top of the studs? at 60x, the "GO" fills the field of view.) Fun for exploring things. Flaws: the battery case barely fits the amazon AA rechargables I put in, not sure if I'll get them out without dismantling it; also, the tip (+ end) needs to go in first, that isn't labelled on the box or the device, and the LED flickers a bit when you first turn it on (but is steady once you're not touching the switch.) Other than that, it's OK.
2014-01-15
- About:
Wil Wheaton - Google+ - This is just fantastic. It's a local news report about the…
- When:
Wed Jan 15 15:57:29 2014
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/+WilWheaton/posts/ZNxNP7gSUjQ
- What:
- "Not Amish, Just Scruffy" - note that we'd just pulled a couple of all-nighters reverse-engineering the code. (Ok, so that doesn't explain the hat... or the glasses...)
2014-01-11
- About:
utf8 warnings are meaningless
- When:
Sat Jan 11 17:37:29 2014
- Where:
https://ikiwiki.info/bugs/utf8_warnings_are_meaningless/?updated
- What:
- ikiwiki/ bugs/ utf8 warnings are meaningless Edit RecentChanges History Preferences Branchable ?Discussion Hunting down what was generating utf8 "\xEB" does not map to Unicode at /usr/share/perl5/IkiWiki.pm line 873, <$in> chunk 1. lead me to a call to utf8::valid, which lead to http://perldoc.perl.org/utf8.html which says this is an "INTERNAL" function: Main reason for this routine is to allow Perl's testsuite to check that operations have left strings in a consistent state. You most probably want to use utf8::is_utf8() instead. Apparently the main point of the function is to emit the warning in unit tests - problem is, in the ikiwiki context, the only useful thing to warn about would be the name of the file you're trying to parse, not the name of the source code. Alternatively, since the code does continue on with the data, not whining about it might be an option :-) but an actionable message would be better.
- About:
Circuit Scribe: Draw Circuits Instantly by Electroninks Incorporated - Comments — Kickstarter
- When:
Sat Jan 11 13:49:02 2014
- Where:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/electroninks/circuit-scribe-draw-circuits-instantly/comments
- What:
- Please don't invent sketchy-looking survey pages with email campaign messages that look like phishing mail; an important part of the kickstarter experience is backer comfort, and for a trivial "gather addresses" survey, using the builtin one means that the address gets filled in automatically, reducing error and inconvenience. (At least you mentioned it here so there's some evidence that it's the real survey :-)
2013-12-16
- About:
For what it's worth, you can also write Vim extensions in Python. It's got acces... | Hacker News
- When:
Sun Dec 15 22:07:25 2013
- Where:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6910699
- What:
- For that matter, you can write emacs extensions in python, using Pymacs; given that it's marshalling objects to and from a subprocess over a pipe, it breaks when anything gets asynchronous, but lately when I've gone beyond "customization" to "actual code", pymacs has made it so much easier that after a few decades with emacs, I really want an open source editor with emacs' richness (and bindings) and python as a first-class extension language.
2013-12-15
- About:
Indeed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/7123623579/ is generated from that s... | Hacker News
- When:
Sun Dec 15 00:42:10 2013
- Where:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6908514
- What:
- Indeed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/7123623579/ is generated from that scanner (on a clean floor, you do surprisingly well with just assuming the bot moved where you commanded it, as far as doing naive mapping with one.) At the time I got a little bogged down in running it tethered, today I'd just slap a raspi and a USB battery pack on top...
2013-12-14
- About:
Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com | Hacker News
- When:
Fri Dec 13 23:12:11 2013
- Where:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6900625
- What:
- They're probably talking about the "hexbright" (usb-rechargable, arduino-programmable, so you can implement UI experiments like "shake it to make it brighter" - it's also a really bright light.) Will it impact the market for boring "dead-battery storage" D-cell lights? Of course not. But if you've ever wanted to say "even my flashlight is open source..."
2013-11-11
- About:
The state of distributed bug trackers
- When:
Mon Nov 11 00:07:45 2013
- Where:
http://stationary-traveller.eu/distributed-bug-trackers.html
- What:
- − I didn't realize this the first time around (I was fond of SD myself), but in retrospect part of the problem may be that the "obvious" model (tickets are files that fork and branch with the code) is just wrong; while code itself "flows" that way, a bug or ticket is a *discussion* and "merge" isn't really a reasonable operation on one. (There is versionable information about *work done* on a bug, but we usually call those ChangeLogs...) Another way to think about it might be that a bug is an attribute of a project, and so is a piece of code, but they're not the same kind of attribute. (Bugs that are specifically fixed *by code* can be said to have code-like properties, but I think they're only by reference; we can say that this change fixes/improves that bug, and things inheriting that bit of code *probably* inherit the fix as well - but that's only a narrow subset of actual bugs, and isn't a property of the discussion *about* the bug...)
2013-11-05
- About:
The Best Voice Recorder | The Wirecutter
- When:
Tue Nov 5 00:53:54 2013
- Where:
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-voice-recorder/#comment-1106731254
- What:
- − I just played StillAlive.mp3 on my AX412; the builtin speaker is about as poor as you'd expect (volume is fine but voice mixed with instruments gets muddy) but it's great through headphones. As for charging: google for the manual, read page 14. Apparently if you put AAA NiMH batteries in, they'll charge when plugged into USB; if the cheap alkalines it shipped with *ever* run down, I might look into it, but in three months of (admittedly light, but daily) use the battery indicator is still at 100%.
2013-11-04
- About:
Public libraries and recent computers
- When:
Sun Nov 3 23:48:06 2013
- Where:
http://scripting.com/2013/11/03/publicLibrariesAndRecentComputers
- What:
- − While it doesn't handle the problem of archaic physical media, the Internet Archive just announced their approach to this problem a week or so ago: http://blog.archive.org/2013/1... I don't see anything there about copyrights, but they may be in a position to not actually solve that problem :-)
2013-11-03
- About:
[Ask] I want start messing around with the NLTK, but I know very little about linguistics. How should I proceed? : Python
- When:
Sun Nov 3 01:52:56 2013
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/1pr9aj/ask_i_want_start_messing_around_with_the_nltk_but/
- What:
- Take one of the coursera.org NLP courses (last I looked they used nltk for the work) or one of the Udacity AI courses (which mostly do other things, but the background is good and when you get to NLP, that's when you pick up NLTK...)
- About:
Watch People in 1988 Freak Out Over The World's First Computer Worm
- When:
Sat Nov 2 17:50:07 2013
- Where:
http://gizmodo.com/watch-people-in-1988-freak-out-over-the-worlds-first-c-1457278566
- What:
- "Not Amish, just scruffy" :-) (and this was MIT in the 80's — I was one of the best-dressed *students* involved, the "pretty" people were mostly either MIT Administration, or reporters.) (Also, "unintentionally-created" is incorrect, as was shown by the evidence that came out in court. "Unintentionally *detectable*", sure, the load spikes that made it noticeable were due to bugs, and if that interests you (a) you're a geek too :-) (b) read "With Microscope and Tweezers", by Jon Rochlis and myself, which has *all* of the internal details.) Just now
- About:
Watch People in 1988 Freak Out Over The World's First Computer Worm
- When:
Sat Nov 2 17:33:46 2013
- Where:
http://gizmodo.com/watch-people-in-1988-freak-out-over-the-worlds-first-c-1457278566
- What:
- Mark Eichinsnark_attack I was an early engineer at Cygnus, so when they got bought by RedHat at the height of the bubble I did pretty well :-) (And yes, Professor Morris http://www.csail.mit.edu/user/972 has done well too...) Just now
- About:
Xlib: Maximum number of clients reached | Cords Virtual Home
- When:
Sat Nov 2 03:39:44 2013
- Where:
http://cord.de/blog/xlib-maximum-number-of-clients-reached.en#comment-77
- What:
- lsof? Hmm, I was going to suggest `lsof` but it seems to only show the X server side of the socket, even with -U; the client side is "unix 0x0000000000000000" but that's the same for dbus and other unix domain sockets too, which is strange. (It would at least let you see how many things really do have connections open; `/tmp/.X11-unix/X0` is `:0` in particular...
2013-11-01
- About:
How is app.net the future?
- When:
Thu Oct 31 23:20:09 2013
- Where:
http://scripting.com/2013/10/30/whyDoesAnyoneThinkAppnetHasAFuture
- What:
- − You might want a new analogy there... https://github.com/blog/966-im... (started out as an April Fools' joke, but over the last couple of years they've actually turned it into a real tool...)
2013-10-28
- About:
Bug #1245303 “gphoto2 fails to recognize current Canon S100 with...” : Bugs : “gphoto2” package : Ubuntu
- When:
Sun Oct 27 22:51:06 2013
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gphoto2/+bug/1245303
- What:
- Mark Eichin (eichin-gmail) wrote 13 seconds ago: #2 upstream-r14452-plus-S100-change Edit (2.6 KiB, text/plain) https://sourceforge.net/p/gphoto/bugs/965/ includes a patch for the S100 case. The attached patch built and worked under Saucy with my own S100 (and includes the S110 case from upstream as well, though I didn't test that.)
- About:
gPhoto / Bugs / #965 S100 needs same treatment as S110
- When:
Sun Oct 27 22:48:31 2013
- Where:
https://sourceforge.net/p/gphoto/bugs/965/
- What:
- #965 S100 needs same treatment as S110 Milestone: do_not_use_this_camlib/canon Status: open Owner: Marcus Meissner Labels: None Priority: 5 Updated: less than 1 minute ago Created: less than 1 minute ago Creator: Mark Eichin Private: No http://sourceforge.net/p/gphoto/bugs/958/ changed canon.c (r14452) to say "Canon:PowerShot S110 (2001)"; the S100 has the same problem, so saying "Canon:PowerShot S100 (2000)" would be useful. The attached trivial patch worked to do exactly that when I stuffed it into libgphoto2-6:amd64 2.5.2-0ubuntu5 (Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy") and tested against my own 04a9:3236 Canon, Inc. PowerShot S100.
- About:
Bug #1245303 “gphoto2 fails to recognize current Canon S100 with...” : Bugs : “gphoto2” package : Ubuntu
- When:
Sun Oct 27 22:20:56 2013
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gphoto2/+bug/1245303
- What:
- #1 (actually, sf/gphoto/958 only fixes the S110, based on looking at svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/gphoto/code/trunk/libgphoto2/camlibs/canon/canon.c r14452, but the same fix is needed for the S100 on line 128 as well (should say 2000 instead of 2001.)
- About:
Bug #1245303 “gphoto2 fails to recognize current Canon S100 with...” : Bugs : “gphoto2” package : Ubuntu
- When:
Sun Oct 27 21:55:43 2013
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gphoto2/+bug/1245303
- What:
- Bug Description x220t$ gphoto2 -l --debug finds the camera, and then: 0.090692 gphoto2-camera(2): Listing folders in '/'... 0.090698 gphoto2-camera(2): Initializing camera... 0.090721 context(0): An error occurred in the io-library ('Bad parameters'): No error description available Turns out this is fixed for 2.5.3 back in July (vs. the 2.5.2 that Saucy includes) though it appears that hasn't shipped yet. http://sourceforge.net/p/gphoto/bugs/958/ This is, oddly, a regression from raring (which I guess didn't have the listing? and worked fine with this camera by default...) I don't yet know of a workaround.
2013-10-01
- About:
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Review: Biggerer and Betterer
- When:
Tue Oct 1 15:21:38 2013
- Where:
http://gizmodo.com/undefined
- What:
- _Mark_Brent Rose The other thing the Note 3 borrows are the Moto X's Touchless Controls. You mean the ones that were in the original Galaxy Note, 2 years ago? (Burned battery, so everyone turned them off... but S-Voice and "hi galaxy" have been there all along...)
- About:
This Smart Desk Will Track the Calories You Burn By Simply Standing Up
- When:
Sat Sep 28 03:05:18 2013
- Where:
http://gizmodo.com/this-smart-desk-will-track-the-calories-you-burn-by-sim-1398114132
- What:
- eichinjordan kushins Gloriously stylish, but for $4k it very well *should* be! My standing-hours tracking at work is just a makey-makey attached to a couple of chains hanging off the back of a SteelCase Airtouch, and a little code to grab the keypress events that represent down (chains tangled) vs up (chains hanging free.) Less than $50 in hardware :-) Just now
2013-09-11
- About:
Scripting News: Looking for innovation in a smart phone?
- When:
Wed Sep 11 03:06:07 2013
- Where:
http://scripting.com/2013/09/10/lookingForInnovationInASmartPhone
- What:
- _Mark_ CRiddell • a few seconds ago That python version was what got me to buy a 6630 :-) You had a surprisingly broad range of APIs, you could do pixel graphics, trigger cameras, read the address book (fine grained access control? any access control at all? :-) I had a little first-generation app that logged my walking trail via a bluetooth GPS, and then drew a map (on the phone) with the thumbnails of all the pictures I took in the right places, that sort of thing. But it was never really *integrated* at all, it was just python as a Symbian app with a decent set of libraries; you couldn't do things with *other* apps, just phone services, and you couldn't react to things (low battery, new cell tower id/location) without polling them. On an android phone, *tasker* gets closer to the right level of integration, but it's all visual-flowchart control rather than scripting, and it's still "whatever you can get away with hooking into" (many apps provide no "intents" (on-phone exposed APIs) at all, you can't do more than launch them and stop them.) Actually having a scripting language as the *basis* of things would be a lot of fun...
- About:
Scripting News: Looking for innovation in a smart phone?
- When:
Wed Sep 11 02:57:58 2013
- Where:
http://scripting.com/2013/09/10/lookingForInnovationInASmartPhone
- What:
- − Actually I think scripting could add a whole new level to Tower Defense games, without introducing the "aimbot" problem. (also: WoW has been *officially* scriptable, in Lua, for years; there's sort of an arms race between scripters and the vendor, in that they want *interesting* scripting without playability-breaking things. Point is that if you had a phone that played WoW and no other games, I know people who'd buy it :-) This is also an interesting way to improve the "discoverability" of the phone interface - wouldn't it be nice if long-press (or something) popped up an IDE-style "this can take these methods" on anything visible? (That's getting closer to Scratch or Squeak than traditional text-oriented scripting, but it's still a big leap in the right direction.) Given the amount of time I spend making things on unix scriptable "against their will", I think I'd have to heartily disagree, and say yes, every app should be scriptable. (AppleScript came close, millions of years ago - not the coding language itself, but the method lookup model.) And if you do it with a novel platform, your app template can just start out with the "and here's the external API hook into your main loop" code from day 1, and get developers to think that way reflexively...
2013-09-02
- About:
enumeration in demo is wrong under Firefox · Issue #2 · isnowfy/pydown
- When:
Mon Sep 2 04:07:22 2013
- Where:
https://github.com/isnowfy/pydown/issues/2
- What:
- enumeration in demo is wrong under Firefox No milestone No one is assigned Slide 5/8, as rendered in Firefox 23.0, says 0. write your slides markdown file 0. python main.py md diretory (not sure why, the output is just an <ol>, and a quick glance at the css doesn't turn up anything all that odd...)
2013-08-31
- About:
Non greedy regex matching in sed? - Stack Overflow
- When:
Sat Aug 31 19:06:55 2013
- Where:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1103149/non-greedy-regex-matching-in-sed
- What:
- GNU sed's -r option only changes the escaping rules, according to Appendix A Extended regular expressions of the info file and some quick tests; it doesn't actually add a non-greedy qualifier (as of GNU sed version 4.2.1 at least.)
2013-08-30
- About:
The Best Standing Desks | The Wirecutter
- When:
Fri Aug 30 01:47:55 2013
- Where:
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-standing-desks/
- What:
- − I use a Geekdesk at home and an Airtouch at work - one unexpected win of the Airtouch is that you can adjust it *faster* than any of the motor-driven ones, so it is nicer to fidget with as the day progresses. It's worth finding one to play with for that alone. (As for the aesthetics of the Terra - while I endorse the "buy good stuff for long term" sentiment, after the first week of use I'm never going to *see* the desktop again so I'm really not concerned about what it looks like :-)
2013-08-24
- About:
careers - link to (or import from) google scholar - Meta Stack Overflow
- When:
Sat Aug 24 12:34:06 2013
- Where:
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/194560/careers-link-to-or-import-from-google-scholar
- What:
- careers - link to (or import from) google scholar up vote 0 down vote favorite Google Scholar is another "identity and information source", it'd be convenient to be able to point to an account there to pull in Publications in a structured way.
2013-08-18
- About:
Bug #782953 “Software Center doesn't detect changes in sources u...” : Bugs : “software-center” package : Ubuntu
- When:
Sun Aug 18 19:06:24 2013
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-center/+bug/782953
- What:
- Mark Eichin (eichin-gmail) wrote a moment ago: #14 If the index is updated from cron.daily, is it *ever* going to usefully trigger on a LiveCD (USB stick)?
- About:
The Best Voice Recorder | The Wirecutter
- When:
Sun Aug 18 17:18:46 2013
- Where:
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-voice-recorder/
- What:
- Avatar _Mark_ _Mark_ • a few seconds ago Found the DVT1500 manual - no, hold the slide switch for two seconds, then at some point mash the button... which also appears standard for the pile of Sony and Olympus ones at a nearby Staples...
- About:
The Kitchin Research Group
- When:
Mon Jul 8 01:21:16 2013
- Where:
http://jkitchin.github.io/blog/2013/07/07/The-and-or-trick-in-python/
- What:
- eichin • a few seconds ago The ugliness of the and/or construct was instrumental in getting conditional expressions http://docs.python.org/2/refer... added in python 2.5, so your value1 example becomes "value1" if a and b else "value2" (Your last example is an excuse to recommend watching Raymond Hettinger's pycon 2013 talk http://pyvideo.org/video/1780/... which leads to using d=defaultdict(int) and d[el] += 1 which doesn't use a (frankly spurious) conditional at all, and is *much* easier to read :-)
2013-07-06
- About:
Emacs + org-mode + python in reproducible research; SciPy 2013 Presentation - YouTube
- When:
Sat Jul 6 17:26:49 2013
- Where:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-dUkyn_fZA&feature=youtu.be
- What:
- Mark Eichin 1 second ago I've been looking for a more emacs-friendly way to do the things people do with iPython, this looks like it! Also looks useful for "release engineering with lab-notebook discipline", just have all of the steps and the evidence of their execution go into an org-mode document that gets archived...
2013-07-02
- About:
AmputeeOT: My Legoleg - amputee prosthetic leg made with legos - YouTube
- When:
Mon Jul 1 23:58:04 2013
- Where:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8fdXNN0irI&feature=player_embedded
- What:
- Mark Eichin Mark Eichin 1 second ago The fast sections (where it changes from "hmm, carefully picking out bricks" to "zoom! I'm building a leg!") brought Escher's "Drawing Hands" sharply to mind. (I also got a kick out of you looking through the "instruction booklet" at the beginning :-)
2013-06-27
- About:
Assar Westerlund - Google+ - I actually saw a tesla roadster (yellow orange) on the…
- When:
Thu Jun 27 02:48:11 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115214959292813730599/posts/1ci5xTak5Ka
- What:
- Mark Eichin Jun 21, 2013 Note that the visibly "sexy" part is basically the Lotus Elise, which is about a third the price (not electric) :-)
- About:
Chris Shabsin - Google+ - Glad to hear this strategy is still being pursued.
- When:
Thu Jun 27 02:46:44 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115552172695071755339/posts/R49L89x2na4
- What:
- Mark Eichin Jun 21, 2013 There were reports that Tesla was in talks with Better Place, but at the time they folded, it was reported that they hadn't gone anywhere. (Not really surprising, Better Place was a push for way-too-early standardization, Tesla is still innovating in battery pack design...)
- About:
Assar Westerlund - Google+ - This must be a tough problem if you feel the need to have a…
- When:
Thu Jun 27 02:44:43 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115214959292813730599/posts/PZripa44Wo3
- What:
- Mark Eichin Jun 24, 2013 There's a segway tour/rental place near my office, not hugely active but I sometimes see flocks of them heading over the Longfellow...
- About:
Eric Raymond - Google+ - I just ordered the special thin-walled 5/5mm nut driver…
- When:
Thu Jun 27 02:39:26 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/108967323530519754654/posts/GVCfLkH8jrV
- What:
- Mark Eichin Yesterday 11:24 AM My big question is: can a raspberry pi (and some cell phone batteries) fit in the case :-)
- About:
Eric Raymond - Google+ - Question for the community: What is your criterion for a…
- When:
Thu Jun 27 02:36:17 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/108967323530519754654/posts/Uv432df2Bhq
- What:
- Mark Eichin Yesterday 1:51 AM + 1 2 1 Ratpoison and conkeror keep me from needing a mouse, so I get very occasional use out of the track point; I turn the touchpad off entirely, it is purely a source of error. (So my two primary keyboards are pckeyboards new Ms with track point, though I wish they'd do the tenkeyless version...)
2013-06-25
- About:
Assar Westerlund - Google+ - Tûranor PlanetSolar (http://www.planetsolar.org/), the…
- When:
Mon Jun 24 23:21:44 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115214959292813730599/posts/3K4ptAUaCR6
- What:
- Mark Eichin Yesterday 11:22 PM Nice. Especially with the people standing up top, it's... kind of huge, isn't it...
- About:
Ian Lance Taylor - Google+ - I just saw my first Raspberry Pi in real life. Now I want…
- When:
Mon Jun 24 23:18:37 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/116100817882149647867/posts/26hePjQGpYF
- What:
- That's certainly in the "smart dust" space (but of course, trying to power anything with 6mm^2 of solar is just going out of your way to make your life difficult :-)
2013-06-22
- About:
UKNOF25 - Beating Bufferbloat with FQ_Codel - YouTube
- When:
Sat Jun 22 19:07:19 2013
- Where:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quAaZKBHvs8
- What:
- Looks like youtu.be/NuHYOu4aAqg?t=1m57s is the included "Bufferbloat demo" video.
2013-06-21
- About:
Best French Fries in the Boston Area? | Restaurant Questions and Answers
- When:
Thu Jun 20 22:42:54 2013
- Where:
http://hiddenboston.com/questions/french-fries.html
- What:
- _Mark_ wrote: Aceituna (Kendall Square-ish, Cambridge) has really good basic fries in their lunch combo... (Posted on 6/19/13)
2013-06-16
- About:
Servo Horn screws loose on body - ArcBotics Forum
- When:
Sat Jun 15 23:04:58 2013
- Where:
http://forum.arcbotics.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=369&p=2971#p2971
- What:
- Re: Servo Horn screws loose on body Postby eichin » Sat Jun 15, 2013 10:04 pm I like the wire suggestion; I got all of the main horns attached fine, but the ones for the sonar (step 27) didn't bite at all. (The other helpful bit overall was to notice that the little screwdriver was hex-shaped at the top, compatible with a 7mm socket; a small ratchet made installing them much less tedious, as did ignoring the instructions and mounting the horns on bare plastic, before doing any of the other steps - a lot easier to hold one plastic piece down on a desk when it's flat and doesn't have other bolts installed already...)
2013-06-13
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of REC 8gb Dictaphone USB Pen Drive Memory St...
- When:
Thu Jun 13 15:16:28 2013
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1HTH9VZWNGBE8?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00A2LZ9YE&cdMSG=addedToThread&cdPage=&channel=detail-glance&newContentID=Mx3GQ3UYREXILWP&newContentNum=1&nodeID=172282&ref_=cm_cr_dp_cmt&store=electronics#CustomerDiscussionsNRPB
- What:
- Your initial post: Jun 13, 2013 12:16:17 PM PDT Mark Eichin says: How to record: Flip the power switch (near the USB port) to "on" (away from the port.) The word "recorder" will light up blue - *wait*, until the "REC/PLAY" below it lights up blue instead (this takes a couple of seconds, but it *varies* so you can't just count...) Then flip the switch at the microphone end from "play/pause" to "rec" (towards the microphone) and *wait* again, for "REC/PLAY" to change from blue to red... then *wait* until it starts blinking. Now you can talk without worrying about getting cut off. When you're done, flip the second switch back to play/pause, wait for the rec/play light to turn blue, then you can turn off the on/off switch. (Other comments suggest you need to wait 60 seconds first, but as long as I've waited for the light to change I haven't experienced any corruption.) If you leave it on overnight, it will drain the battery all the way down; it seems you need to recharge it completely to get back to recording, if the battery is too low you get the 4 dots down at the usb port end to blink quickly when you flip the "rec" switch, and it doesn't record. Another discovery: all recordings have a timestamp of Dec 31 1999 so you don't get a record of when they were stored; the documentation has some gibberish about timing editing tools (maybe Settime.rar isn't malware after all? :-)
2013-06-09
- About:
John Regehr - Google+ - I had no idea that a harmless word as pajamas is dividing…
- When:
Sun Jun 9 11:45:22 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/105487075784331805819/posts/TU9pVUpmyv9
- What:
- Mark Eichin Yesterday 1:22 PM The Connecticut incursion matches my personal experience (though "grand canyon" was the example word at the time) growing up there with New Yorker parents...
- About:
Jered Floyd - So, we're getting close to when Google is... | Facebook
- When:
Sun Jun 9 11:44:25 2013
- Where:
https://www.facebook.com/jered.floyd/posts/10151391526602315
- What:
- Mark Eichin I never liked the google reader interface, but all the attention got me to grab the feed list from there and update it; I'm using newsblur because it's open source *and* has a business model the UI is "not bad for a web UI" but needs work, I may end up going back to something console based eventually.
2013-05-30
- About:
dzm: Star Trek: Into Darkness
- When:
Wed May 29 23:57:49 2013
- Where:
http://dzm.livejournal.com/171023.html#t301583
- What:
- eichin May 30 2013, 03:57:38 UTC Check link Collapse Delete Track Edit > machine room That's because they *did* spend billions of dollars building a (very sophisticated) machine room - a bunch of those settings were shot in the National Ignition Facility :-)
2013-05-21
- About:
Omri Schwarz - Google+ - Dear Internet: I have an Asus Android tablet, a Canon…
- When:
Mon May 20 22:26:21 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/109781653028616286602/posts/f5fjQqkf7Jf
- What:
- Mark Eichin 10:25 PM Edit (Why is ObjC even on that list? None of those devices are an iPhone :-) It also depends on what you really mean by "learn mobile app dev" (ie. Learn to do the kind of app dev that you can get hired for [in which case maybe put ObjC back on the list] vs. I have this idea which would make my personal day-to-day phone use a lot less annoying [in which case, also add http://kivy.org/ and maybe even http://appinventor.mit.edu/ ])...
- About:
Russell Nelson - Google+ - I wonder if anybody has made a Chumby version of the…
- When:
Mon May 20 22:19:43 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/102355438470080501971/posts/URfwkf6qAmN
- What:
- Mark Eichin 10:16 PM Edit It recently occurred to me that some of the chumby hacking on my long list of someday projects would be easier if I just pulled the motherboard and put a raspi in :-) I haven't looked at what the display interface is like, though.
- About:
Chris Shabsin - Google+ - Welcome to the future, Flickr. I hope you enjoy it here!
- When:
Mon May 20 22:18:50 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115552172695071755339/posts/fhFrjasBSno
- What:
- Mark Eichin 10:18 PM Edit what it's "worth" appears to be $25/year in ads :-) It does look like they improved m.flickr.com at the same time, which is surprising (and a good fallback for the "where the hell did the comments go" experience of the new UI :-)
2013-05-13
- About:
Support 2.6 · Issue #33 · Anomareh/mynt
- When:
Mon May 13 01:06:39 2013
- Where:
https://github.com/Anomareh/mynt/issues/33
- What:
- just now FWIW Debian "stable" is now wheezy, with python 2.7.3 and 3.2.3, which somewhat lowers the value of caring about older versions of python.
2013-05-11
- About:
No sound in Chrome while chroot running · Issue #140 · dnschneid/crouton
- When:
Sat May 11 17:04:39 2013
- Where:
https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/issues/140
- What:
- On the samsung, I don't have audio by default inside crouton, but if I run alsamixer, I see the "headphone" output is muted, and if I unmute that, I get output from the speakers. No idea at what level the confusion occurs (see the above "sanity" comments, linux sound is a pile of harmful abstractions) but obvious bits like that are worth a look too...
2013-05-08
- About:
descriptions in Usage, not just Options? · Issue #113 · docopt/docopt
- When:
Wed May 8 12:10:21 2013
- Where:
https://github.com/docopt/docopt/issues/113
- What:
- eichin opened this issue just now descriptions in Usage, not just Options? No milestone No one is assigned I'm hoping there's a syntax for this that I've missed, but I didn't see one in the naval_fate.py example. I tried this: """ Usage: pom_tweak find <path> <file>... prints an element (poms don't use attributes) pom_tweak replace <path> <newvalue> <file>... replace element text """ though that gets kind of wide, something like """ Usage: pom_tweak find <path> <file>... prints an element (poms don't use attributes) pom_tweak replace <path> <newvalue> <file>... replace entire element text, no check on old value """ leaves room for more description... neither of them worked, of course (and at a quick glance the only thing like a description is in class Option.) Or should this information go somewhere else?
2013-04-28
- About:
Matthew Gray - Google+ - Middlesex Fells hike, <a class="ot-hashtag" href="http...
- When:
Sun Apr 28 00:46:39 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/103850062796903816685/posts/64J4uzeZoXW?partnerid=gplp0
- What:
- Could be - my crabapple isn't blooming yet (though it has lots of leaves and buds) but that could just be differences in amount of light... I'd suggest http://www.whatthefeuille.com/ but you don't really have shots of leaves, there...
2013-04-12
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of Ziotek ZT1311556 HC1 7.5-Inch USB 2.0 A Ma...
- When:
Fri Apr 12 14:48:35 2013
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3W3SWGV6EWVNM/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004PBMRSS&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=228013&store=hi
- What:
- Great for Canon users, April 12, 2013 By Mark Eichin Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Ziotek ZT1311556 HC1 7.5-Inch USB 2.0 A Male to Mini-Micro Dual End Cable (Tools & Home Improvement) Short cables mean less pocket clutter; a couple of these in my travel pouch and I can talk to (or charge) everything else I carry. (Goes well with the little white Kindle USB chargers.) Thanks to the EU's forced standardization on microUSB for power, my Canon cameras are pretty much the only thing I need a "weird" cable for (since they don't charge over USB, sadly.) This way I don't need to pick through cables and make sure I have the right one. Also, the plastic molding around the T-connector ends up being a lot more robust than a lot of straight microUSB 6" cables, I've had several of those fail where these have lasted in the same use (in particular, battery-pack + short cable + phone in a pocket, puts a lot of strain on the cable.) So even if Canon sees the light, I'd probably still carry these...
2013-04-01
- About:
cjsmith: Grumpy
- When:
Sun Mar 31 22:56:44 2013
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/1014284.html#t10679052
- What:
- April 1 2013, 02:56:35 UTC Check link Collapse Delete Track Edit http://simplecv.org/ is the rope you're looking for on the tracking side. (See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgqfnKG_T4 "Militarizing Your Backyard with Python: Computer Vision and the Squirrel Hordes") And the 1.0 version can just observe the target error and log it with the weather station readings, you can feed that into a correction model in 2.0. If you're somewhere with hot summers, you can probably get neighbor kids to "crowdsource" some training data for you :-)
2013-03-25
- About:
Rich Carreiro - Google+ - Right now at home we have a desktop PC running Linux (U...
- When:
Mon Mar 25 11:04:01 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/109683083508097698930/posts/QRzie9c1z7A?partnerid=gplp0
- What:
- The raspi is cheap enough that yeah, you should probably just try it and see; it's not like there's anything those services need that a machine from 10 years ago couldn't handle. I haven't run one in continuous operation yet, though. My recent need for disk space led me past NAS boxes to the HP Proliant N40L, it's an 8x10x10in "cube" that's basically 4 drive bays and a motherboard. Makes a great OpenAFS server, which is not what you're looking for :-) (though it would run smbd and minidlna just fine too.)
2013-03-21
- About:
Issue 394 - s3ql - Feature request: bandwidth limiting/throttling - a full-featured file system for online data storage - Google Project Hosting
- When:
Thu Mar 21 16:59:15 2013
- Where:
http://code.google.com/p/s3ql/issues/detail?id=394&thanks=394&ts=1363910341
- What:
- Issue 394: Feature request: bandwidth limiting/throttling ‹ Prev 34 of 34 1 person starred this issue and may be notified of changes. Back to list Status: New Owner: ---- Priority-Medium Add a comment below Reported by eic...@gmail.com, Today (moments ago) It would be nice to specify a bandwidth limit (probably in mount.s3ql); in my case I'm using rsync to push an initial large pile of data to s3 over DSL, and (likely due to endemic bufferbloat) this causes other use of the line to suffer. With rsync over ssh I'd use --bwlimit, but the caching doesn't make that useful here. (I assume the feature would be useful to others both ways, but since DSL itself isn't symmetric, for my use case I only care about push - though also, there's less control there; if I stop my rsync, interactive performance doesn't recover until the buffer is fully flushed to amazon, whereas if I'm pulling, if I interrupt the pull, the connection recovers right away.) (If the answer is "just use traffic shaping in the OS", note that s3 makes that a little tricky, though if I figure out how to do it I'll drop something in the wiki...)
2013-03-07
- About:
Cr-48 Mouse won't work on chroot with xfce4 · Issue #25 · dnschneid/crouton
- When:
Wed Mar 6 23:14:38 2013
- Where:
https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/issues/25
- What:
- - building crouton from git and doing "crouton -t x11 -u" fixed this bit.
2013-03-06
- About:
Cr-48 Mouse won't work on chroot with xfce4 · Issue #25 · dnschneid/crouton
- When:
Wed Mar 6 13:33:55 2013
- Where:
https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/issues/25
- What:
- I'm also seeing this (fresh crouton install of 5 March 2013, immediately after dev-enabling my CR-48) using the raw "x11" target (I run ratpoison, so I didn't even notice right away that it wasn't working :-) I tried reading all 9 of the /dev/input/event* files from inside the chroot, and only the keyboard one produced any output (though I haven't poked at them with an actual library yet.) (I'm also seeing that switching out to chrome with ctl-alt-back and then back in with ctl-alt-refresh just gets me a black screen; ps shows everything still running, and I can force $XAUTHORITY and $DISPLAY and run things like ratpoison -c windows and xrefresh but they don't seem to trigger any redrawing - I'm assuming that's a symptom of a separate problem, I'm just mentioning it here in case it's a sign of a related issue.) Also, synclient does report status for the trackpad, so it seems to be talking to it at some level...
2013-03-01
- About:
FLOAT Documentary! by Ben Saks » Kit Surveys — Kickstarter
- When:
Thu Feb 28 19:12:51 2013
- Where:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bensaks/float-documentary/posts/414857
- What:
- Mark Eichin 2 days ago Haven't seen one either (they show up on kickstarter directly anyway, even if they get spamfiltered.) DVD-only level, but that is the "Feb 2013" target...
2013-02-27
- About:
Goodreads | Mark Eichin's review of License to Fail: The Business Mistakes of Bond Villians
- When:
Wed Feb 27 02:05:06 2013
- Where:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/547499185
- What:
- License to Fail: The Business Mistakes of Bond Villians by Kevin Patrick Leach 7884117 Mark Eichin's review Feb 26, 13 · edit 4 of 5 stars false bookshelves: kindle Read in February, 2013 — I own a copy An entertaining read for any Bond movie fan, "License to Fail" presents a different perspective - case studies of various "entrepreneurs" and how their actions led to a "government operative" performing "extra-judicial inquiries"... and how in many cases, their cover stories would have been plausible business plans, and how a competent Advisory Board would have had valuable and sensible contributions towards avoiding their ultimate (and unprofitable) downfall. In particular, the author points out many cases where the "operative" would have been entirely harmless, but for key betrayals (often caused by poor HR choices) or unnecessary shortcuts; Zorin (View to a Kill) is credited particularly for treating Bond as irrelevant to his plans, and having the most sound *actual business* - indeed, his act of villiany is shown as likely to be *less* successful than simply sticking to his cover business. You're likely to either laugh and nod, or want to argue - but either way it is engaging. (Goes all the way to QoS, doesn't include Skyfall.) Doesn't shy away from (admittedly obvious) comparisons with specific modern-day entrepreneurs - of course, these days, they've gone way beyond yachts, having your own private space program and robot army are now part of the territory for the billionaire set.
2013-02-19
- About:
I made a (better) clock that only displays the time in a QR code. Link to store in comments. : somethingimade
- When:
Tue Feb 19 02:37:49 2013
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/somethingimade/comments/18qn05/i_made_a_better_clock_that_only_displays_the_time/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 89 milliseconds ago I was actually giving some thought to making something like this for camera clock setting - instead of actually fidgeting with the UI, just take a picture of a qrcode of the time, and then when processing the pictures, decode the qrcode and the EXIF data and calculate the corrected timestamp for nearby pictures from that. As a first draft, $ qrcode $(date +%s) | display would do it, but having it animate would be nice, and I haven't actually done the decode/sync step...
2013-02-15
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Toro 1800 Power Curve Snow Blower
- When:
Fri Feb 15 11:57:27 2013
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5345448&pageindex=4&replycount=125#post5346025
- What:
- just now permalink eichin quality posts: 5 Private Messages eichin The one I got in Dec. 2010 ("I still haven't repaired the broken gas blower - oh look, I can Prime one of these before the snow gets here") dealt just fine with a driveway and a half of the latest New England snow. It's more like using a vacuum cleaner than a gas monstrosity - and I get to keep my hearing and my lower back :-) For the bigger drifts and berms, chopping down with a shovel just to carve off snow "boulders" avoids having to do risky lifting, and once they're broken off, the toro chews them up just fine. At this price, in for one just to have a spare... though the 2-year-old one isn't showing any particular signs of wear.
- About:
Pebble: E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android by Pebble Technology » Comments — Kickstarter
- When:
Fri Feb 15 01:45:36 2013
- Where:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android/comments
- What:
- Missing_small Mark Eichin just now My Hexbright arrived a couple of weeks ago, my pebble arrived today; 2013 is the year of patience rewarded :-) Much nicer out-of-box experience than the MetaWatch, very readable screen, nice (tiny) companion to the (enormous) galaxy note :-) SDK info would be great (even just the "web-dev notifications interface" mentioned on their blog would be a useful start.)
2013-02-13
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Asus 10.1" 32GB Tablet w/Keyboard Dock
- When:
Wed Feb 13 01:26:45 2013
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5343507&pageindex=1&replycount=8#post5343584
- What:
- eichin I got the 16G version from woot back in November ($20 cheaper, but other than the memory, looks like the same unit.) I carry it every day; I put a 64G microsd card in, and that's plenty of room for my recent photography. It's gotten several automatic software updates from Asus since it arrived. Having the extra battery in the keyboard is nice. I mostly treat it as "a laptop that you can rip the screen off of" rather than "a tablet with an external keyboard", and I leave the touchpad turned off (I'm keyboard-oriented so occasionally reaching up to touch the screen works better for me.) Although it shipped with Android ICS it upgraded to Jelly Bean right away, which meant that it actually supports directly working with Canon cameras (PTP, not USB Storage) so hooking up my camera, grabbing a handful of pictures, reviewing them on the hotel TV (via the microhdmi port and some generic adapter cables) and then pushing them to Flickr all Just Worked - it ended up being a better *laptop* than I expected, and cheap enough to not worry about so much when travelling.
2013-01-25
- About:
Chris Shabsin - Google+ - Yesterday in the elevator at work, I saw a headline about…
- When:
Fri Jan 25 01:32:55 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115552172695071755339/posts/YBETDybQGMi
- What:
- The one interesting twist is that the recording may be FOIA-able and free, though that seems like a distraction from the actual work of keeping a watchful eye on the bureaucracy...
2013-01-15
- About:
Chris Shabsin - Google+ - Free today!
- When:
Mon Jan 14 23:43:48 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115552172695071755339/posts/Z6E7UCEa7JY
- What:
- I saw her at the Lebanon (NH) Opera House a few years back; as far as I could tell, she still has every bit of the voice she did when recording the albums. Amazing.
- About:
Theodore Ts'o - Google+ - Hmm, MIT seems to be off the network at the moment. I'm…
- When:
Mon Jan 14 23:32:05 2013
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/gpe5rbuyhmS
- What:
- From what I saw on zephyr, the "MIT Website" that got defaced was actually some undermaintained departmental IIS Windows box.
2013-01-13
- About:
Python X Library / Bugs / #38 xrandr init spews to stdout on any Xlib.display.Display()
- When:
Sat Jan 12 23:59:58 2013
- Where:
https://sourceforge.net/p/python-xlib/bugs/38/
- What:
- #38 xrandr init spews to stdout on any Xlib.display.Display() Status: open Owner: nobody Labels: None Priority: 5 Updated: less than 1 minute ago Created: less than 1 minute ago Creator: Mark Eichin Private: No 0.15rc1 (from the tarball) still has this leftover debugging wart: python-xlib-0.15rc1/Xlib/ext/randr.py def init(disp, info): print info.__class__ This means that any app prints Xlib.protocol.request.QueryExtension on startup. Aside from being noisy, it prevents my xtoolwait clone from supporting -pid, because that needs to output only the pid, and not unrelated text. (Actually ran into this in Ubuntu Precise, python-xlib 0.14+20091101-1 but it's been around for ages, I just hadn't gotten around to complaining...)
2013-01-11
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of Cree 7W 300LM Mini LED Flashlight
- When:
Fri Jan 11 00:05:05 2013
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RWACKVL35C1X6
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Great for the price, January 10, 2013 By Mark Eichin Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Cree 7W 300LM Mini LED Flashlight (Misc.) Looking for a temporary replacement for a misplaced Fenix, I grabbed one of these; it works, feels solid, the focus mechanism is kind of silly (the whole front just slides forwards and back, no threads or twisting - you *can* twist it, but you have to slide it to actually get anywhere) and the tightest focus gives you a nice rectangular image of the LED itself... but it is just as bright as you'd expect, and it does have flashing modes (click the button for bright-on, "tap" it to get dim-on, tap it again to get bright strobe flashing.) Stands on either end; a little fatter and a little shorter than the Fenix 1xAA lights, but that's entirely style and not function. Makes a fine "extra" light that you won't be too upset about if it ends up in the lake...
- About:
Amazon.com: Preview Your Review
- When:
Thu Jan 10 23:48:37 2013
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews?ie=UTF8&action=preview
- What:
- This review is from: Cree 7W 300LM Mini LED Flashlight (Misc.) Looking for a temporary replacement for a misplaced Fenix, I grabbed one of these; it works, feels solid, the focus mechanism is kind of silly (the whole front just slides forwards and back, no threads or twisting - you *can* twist it, but you have to slide it to actually get anywhere) and the tightest focus gives you a nice rectangular image of the LED itself... but it is just as bright as you'd expect, and it does have flashing modes (click the button for bright-on, "tap" it to get dim-on, tap it again to get bright strobe flashing.) Stands on either end; a little fatter and a little shorter than the Fenix 1xAA lights, but that's entirely style and not function. Makes a fine "extra" light that you won't be too upset about if it ends up in the lake...
2013-01-01
- About:
Digital Underground Survey Instrument - SparkFun Electronics
- When:
Tue Jan 1 00:35:57 2013
- Where:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8939
- What:
- Best of all, this device is 100% open source. Check out Digital Survey Instruments web site. Website no longer exists (just a squatting page as of 2013-01-01.) Author mentioned in the user’s guide appears to be living on a sailboat and staying off the internet :–)
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Lenovo ThinkPad 12.5" Core i7 Tablet PC
- When:
Mon Dec 31 01:21:20 2012
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5298580&pageindex=1&replycount=9#post5298661
- What:
- Same here - I run linux on it, and have the battery sled/8G/big hard drive - that's something you may want to know, the hard drive bay is *small*, only spec'ed for 7mm drives (though I did get a WDC WD10JPVT in there, I don't think it's coming out again :-) Performance is great (running linux), screen is beautiful... but it's 1366x768, with a large asymmetric bezel (I just measured 4.5cm from the hinge to the lower edge of the screen) so I have grown to hate it :-) (it was an upgrade from a T60p, a glorious 1600x1200 IPS that nobody makes anymore...)
2012-12-30
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Llama just got a huge update! HOLO UI, NFC Support, and much more!
- When:
Sun Dec 30 02:36:27 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/15ladd/llama_just_got_a_huge_update_holo_ui_nfc_support/c7nolh2?context=3
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 3 points 1 day ago* This is basically why I gave up on Llama - when I took the subway to work, I was below ground until I was a block from the office; we moved to a new office and now I drive, and the "towers seen from the office" list got to be something like 50 entries long, and wasn't really distinctive. GPS wouldn't help (indoors); Wifi might, but the "experimental" wifi support doesn't work well (and the reason I started using Llama in the first place was to turn off wifi when I got to the office :-) (edit: see discussion below, Llama can act on all of these triggers too!) Tasker, on the other hand, can act on things like "plugged in to the car cradle (so I must be in the car)" and "between midnight and 6AM, charger plugged in, battery has reached full charge" (so I can use rsync-for-android to pull down my most recent 8G of pictures to have handy, but not if I'm just trying to charge, or if it's late and I don't have it plugged in, etc.) Note that I'm not saying tasker is better - the UI feels like it was written by someone who's never actually looked at an app, especially when used on a tablet - but the hooks it has are a better fit with what I'm trying to automate than Llama's are, which is as much a difference in lifestyle fit as anything.
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Llama just got a huge update! HOLO UI, NFC Support, and much more!
- When:
Sun Dec 30 02:35:13 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/15ladd/llama_just_got_a_huge_update_holo_ui_nfc_support/c7nolh2?context=3
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 90 milliseconds ago Hmm, I actually reinstalled it to check this... sure enough, it has Car Mode, under event conditions. I think I ended up forgetting about that page because of the focus on location; didn't occur to me that events don't have to be location based, maybe because all of the default ones are. Took me a while to find the rsync one; it's under the experimental "Locale Plugin" action, which http://android.kowalczuk.eu/rsync4android/ sort of hints at (I didn't know Locale was a program in this space too.) So it looks like Llama is equivalent to Tasker after all, so I stand corrected (Not enough to switch back to it, but I'll edit my comment to note it.)
2012-12-29
- About:
sk1d comments on Llama just got a huge update! HOLO UI, NFC Support, and much more!
- When:
Sat Dec 29 01:21:17 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/15ladd/llama_just_got_a_huge_update_holo_ui_nfc_support/c7nljnb
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 9 seconds ago This is basically why I gave up on Llama - when I took the subway to work, I was below ground until I was a block from the office; we moved to a new office and now I drive, and the "towers seen from the office" list got to be something like 50 entries long, and wasn't really distinctive. GPS wouldn't help (indoors); Wifi might, but the "experimental" wifi support doesn't work well (and the reason I started using Llama in the first place was to turn off wifi when I got to the office :-) Tasker, on the other hand, can act on things like "plugged in to the car cradle (so I must be in the car)" and "between midnight and 6AM, charger plugged in, battery has reached full charge" (so I can use rsync-for-android to pull down my most recent 8G of pictures to have handy, but not if I'm just trying to charge, or if it's late and I don't have it plugged in, etc.) Note that I'm not saying tasker is better - the UI feels like it was written by someone who's never actually looked at an app, especially when used on a tablet - but the hooks it has are a better fit with what I'm trying to automate than Llama's are, which is as much a difference in lifestyle fit as anything.
2012-12-27
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Is anyone else disappointed that Ubuntu for Android hasn't come to fruition?
- When:
Thu Dec 27 16:13:27 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/15ihmk/is_anyone_else_disappointed_that_ubuntu_for/c7mydt6
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 10 seconds ago You've spun a fine tech-tale, but haven't given any reasons this would be a good thing, that anyone would want that. (Almost every story with "NFC" in it has that property :-) When you get to work - your employer would both want more control of the device you're working on, and would want you to be more productive than you're going to be with an underpowered device, that is going to get stolen from you in a bar anyway, or accidentally dropped in a toilet... and what advantage is "interrupting all of your work and changing operating systems" when going to a meeting? Either you want to bring your current work and present it, or you don't need to bring the same device in the first place... Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in Ubuntu on phones (or more accurately, I'm interesting in anything that makes python a first-class language on my PDA :-) but this story doesn't actually describe any way that using it would make anyone's life better or easier, not even yours.
2012-12-25
- About:
> How is BTRFS these days?Works fine for me. I use it on every system and h... | Hacker News
- When:
Tue Dec 25 00:46:00 2012
- Where:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4964444
- What:
- `rsync-for-android` is actually pretty good if rsync is what you actually want; android-only of course, and FolderSync has a slightly nicer UI-wrapper (using sftp directly, rather than actually rsync'ing) and "experimental" auto-push-on-change, so between the two of them my phone and tablet now "play well" with my existing linux-based photo workflow. (I agree dropbox has many advantages, and a simplicity that comes from not having features... but with rsync, I can keep "just the last 30 days" of my full photo archive on my tablet, nothing else gets me that particular kind of control.)
2012-12-11
- About:
can't enter some characters · Issue #1 · zielmicha/emacs-android
- When:
Tue Dec 11 00:25:25 2012
- Where:
https://github.com/zielmicha/emacs-android/issues/1
- What:
- eichin commented just now Nice! I just tried "External Keyboard Helper Pro" on the Asus Transformer TF300T mentioned above, and the punctuation all works. I don't know if that leads to anything useful towards fixing it from within Emacs.app, but it means I can start using it and looking into more interesting problems :-)
2012-12-10
- About:
Why aren't there thicker heavier phones on the market for people who want more/better features? : Android
- When:
Mon Dec 10 10:23:48 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/14km0b/why_arent_there_thicker_heavier_phones_on_the/
- What:
- For starters, "glass not plastic" and "aperture larger than a pencil lead"... there are some exotic designs that aren't glass but noone's actually shipping those yet. (There's a reason I carry a Canon S100 even though I also wear a GNote and an 808.)
- About:
Why aren't there thicker heavier phones on the market for people who want more/better features? : Android
- When:
Mon Dec 10 10:14:26 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/14km0b/why_arent_there_thicker_heavier_phones_on_the/
- What:
- Seidio and a couple of others seem to come out with extended batteries once the phone has been out for a while, usually in the $50 range; I had a double-strength battery on my Nexus One, and another on my Galaxy Note; when I got the ICS upgrade I switched back so I could play with NFC (and because ICS fixed some of the battery-draining horror of the previous OS) (the NFC antenna is in the back cover panel, and the one that fits the extended battery doesn't include it) but it turns out that NFC is basically useless so I leave it turned off anyway (Android Beam doesn't work at all on Samsungs, there's some conflict with S/Beam...) and I'm still only getting to early evening on a full charge even with ICS...
- About:
ngtstkr comments on Why aren't there thicker heavier phones on the market for people who want more/better features?
- When:
Mon Dec 10 10:01:56 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/14km0b/why_arent_there_thicker_heavier_phones_on_the/c7e725v
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 50 milliseconds ago No, you can buy something no better than a conductive crayon. The Galaxy Note stylus is actually a wacom pen - you can actually use a other wacom pens with it - with a very high resolution digitizer embedded in the glass - plus it turns off touch sense when the pen is even near the screen, so you can write on the device like you would on paper. It really is an entirely different thing.
- About:
Automatically generate formatted document and create a PDF? : Python
- When:
Mon Dec 10 09:56:10 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/14l54b/automatically_generate_formatted_document_and/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 107 milliseconds ago You might be interested to know about python texlib (it's just TeX line-breaking, but that's the only algorithm anyone cares about) and on top of that bookbinding which combines texlib and reportlab (bookbinding was released at pycon.ca, and is still a little "early".)
- About:
Building a Keyboard: Part 2 - Massively Parallel Procrastination
- When:
Mon Dec 10 01:33:21 2012
- Where:
http://blog.fsck.com/2012/12/building-a-keyboard-part-2.html#tpe-action-posted-6a00d83456074b69e2017ee61aab36970d
- What:
- Eichin said... Good point about spilling something on it - you don't have thin deposits of copper on a board, you've got huge diode leads, chunks of glass (the diodes themselves, might be plastic), and insulated wire - anything that eats that probably eats the *case* too. If you spilled something on the teensy, it wouldn't just shrug it off... but you could just flash a new one and pop it in. Interesting side effect :-) Reply Edit Delete 12/10/2012 at 01:33 AM
2012-11-04
- About:
Introducing: HUGEpic - a web app for showing massive pictures - Peterbe.com
- When:
Sun Nov 4 16:45:34 2012
- Where:
http://www.peterbe.com/plog/introducing-hugepic.io
- What:
- _Mark_ - 04 November 2012 [«« Reply to this] Nice interface, pretty snappy over DSL with the samples... but umm, it's 2012, my *phone* takes 8Mb images http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/7619615982 ; have you checked out this code on anything that actually deserves the term "massive"? (I'd suggest grabbing stuff from http://gigapan.com/profiles/eichin but I'm not sure there's a way to download, there's custom software that cooks them up from hundreds or thousands of individual camera jpgs...)
- About:
100-2012-05-21-0005 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
- When:
Sun Nov 4 02:20:24 2012
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/7619615982/
- What:
- hugepic.io/f40809df1 is a nice new (experimental?) slippy-map style viewer that I've posted this on; looks like a nice choice for pureview images...
- About:
Introducing: HUGEpic - a web app for showing massive pictures - Peterbe.com
- When:
Sun Nov 4 02:13:17 2012
- Where:
http://www.peterbe.com/plog/introducing-hugepic.io
- What:
- _Mark_ - 04 November 2012 Note: This comment has not been approved yet Nice interface, pretty snappy over DSL with the samples... but umm, it's 2012, my *phone* takes 8Mb images http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/7619615982 ; have you checked out this code on anything that actually deserves the term "massive"? (I'd suggest grabbing stuff from http://gigapan.com/profiles/eichin but I'm not sure there's a way to download, there's custom software that cooks them up from hundreds or thousands of individual camera jpgs...)
2012-11-01
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Motorola Wireless Keyboard w/ Cover
- When:
Thu Nov 1 04:10:32 2012
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5210335&pageindex=3&replycount=104#post5226488
- What:
- eichin quality posts: 3 Private Messages eichin Shinespark wrote:There are no good touchpads. There are only nipple mice. The trackpoint on this thing is a godsend. Exactly. (My current laptop is a ThinkPad X220, which has a very nice surface for the touchpad - but it's still a touchpad, and I turned it off after about two days.) The keyboard arrived, I finally used it - it's *wonderful* with the Galaxy Note, all of the "Android Keys" work (under ICS), I just spent 90 minutes writing with it, and it Felt Entirely Normal. Exactly what I'd hoped for.
2012-10-28
- About:
rsync backup for Android - Android Apps on Google Play
- When:
Sat Oct 27 23:48:45 2012
- Where:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.kowalczuk.rsync4android&reviewId=11487534221511302273
- What:
- _Mark_ - October 28, 2012 - Samsung Galaxy Note with version 1.6.1 Works with ICS (*not* with gingerbread) Former 1-star review from it not ever connecting, on the Galaxy Note... as-shipped, under Gingerbread. I just upgraded to ICS (via Kies) and happened to try it - and it now Just Works (so there's probably something odd about how busybox is built.) Time to port half of my FolderSync jobs back - rsync is *much* faster than FolderSync, especially on large directories with few changes...
- About:
Ubuntu with LXDE on Nexus 7 - YouTube
- When:
Sat Oct 27 23:34:08 2012
- Where:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItkWCmkxBv0&feature=youtu.be
- What:
- Ok, for the digitizer: use "xinput --list --short" to get the "id" of the device, and then "xinput --list-props $xin_id" - if you see Evdev Axes Swap (255): 0 Evdev Axis Inversion (253): 0, 0 then you can just xinput --set-prop --type=int $xin_id "Evdev Axes Swap" 1 xinput --set-prop --type=int $xin_id "Evdev Axis Inversion" 0 1 to swap them around (YMMV on the actual values, depending on your rotation; there *should* be something to tie them to xrandr, but I haven't found it...) Mark Eichin in reply to 0xabad1dea (Show the comment) 1 second ago
- About:
Ubuntu with LXDE on Nexus 7 - YouTube
- When:
Sat Oct 27 23:30:25 2012
- Where:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItkWCmkxBv0&feature=youtu.be
- What:
- OTG isn't a brand, it's "on the go" which is the standard "reversible" USB feature. As for fixing digitizer rotation, that's xinput instead of xrandr, I can dig up options when I'm next on my x220t instead of my phone...
2012-10-25
- About:
I built an app in a hackathon but the investors don't like it : Android
- When:
Wed Oct 24 23:49:25 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/120t5n/i_built_an_app_in_a_hackathon_but_the_investors/
- What:
- Nicer UI than Habit Streak, looks a little more like AndHabits though if you start with those, you find a pile of similar habit/chain apps, most of which also show up if you search for Seinfeld Calendar (apparently the show popularized the don't-break-the-chain technique - so you might want to mention that in your description so you show up too...)
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Motorola Wireless Keyboard w/ Cover
- When:
Sun Oct 21 02:10:29 2012
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5210335&pageindex=1&replycount=17#post5210425
- What:
- Tablet? not at all, this is for the Galaxy Note - which goes in a pocket and get used as a PDA (and oh-so-occasionally as a phone) while not at a desk; the keyboard goes in the jacket (eVest) pocket, or is in a bag that is much thinner because it now has zero laptops and no giant power bricks either.
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Motorola Wireless Keyboard w/ Cover
- When:
Sun Oct 21 02:05:57 2012
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5210335&pageindex=1&replycount=16
- What:
- ermahgerd trackpoint! (As someone who *always* has to turn off the touchpad, I think trackpoints should be mandatory, but the industry doesn't agree with me. They're wrong about widescreen, too.) Why was I not informed (it looks like this has never shown up on engadget, nor has amazon noticed all the other weird keyboards I buy...) In for all of them.
2012-10-19
- About:
Chris Shabsin - Google+ - Meanwhile...
- When:
Fri Oct 19 00:32:07 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115552172695071755339/posts/GxtKG9zjpQX
- What:
- re anti-trust: try using an iphone without an apple account, an android without a google account (well, that one you can sort of make work) or a windows phone without a Live account. I don't think there's any basis at all, there. (There's also support for loading an alternate OS on the hardware... these aren't subsidized by locking you in, they're actually cheap, as far as I can tell.) [disclaimer: I have a cr-48] I haven't seen any new pixel qi stuff, but when I first saw it you could actually retrofit their screens into existing laptops pretty easily (the "effect" simply kicked in when you got the backlight brightness down to zero; Jesse had one but I can't find the pictures...) These days I think I want one of their screens in large-phone or small-tablet form factor, since I don't actually use a laptop outside, but I use a phone/pda/small computer outside in sunlight... pretty much every day we have sunlight :-) I'd also like to see them as camera viewfinder screens...
2012-10-16
- About:
Great use of NFC, Samsung : Android
- When:
Mon Oct 15 23:49:45 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/11iri6/great_use_of_nfc_samsung/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 83 milliseconds ago To the point you could write an app for your phone to do it. Or just download one from Play, searching just on NFC, 5 of the apps on the first page are writers. (Even the Symbian app store has a couple of different writers, including one that models tags as sticky-notes; that's not really surprising, Nokia shipped the first NFC-capable phone in 2006.)
2012-10-13
- About:
Russell Nelson - Google+ - And it still works!
- When:
Sat Oct 13 03:04:43 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/102355438470080501971/posts/W2wnAUGHMM5
- What:
- Matthew: I still have a homemade set of Napier's Bones around here somewhere, I think my Dad made them, and I knew how to use them at one point (never from actual class work of course.)
- About:
Russell Nelson - Google+ - And it still works!
- When:
Sat Oct 13 03:04:21 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/102355438470080501971/posts/W2wnAUGHMM5
- What:
- Russell Nelson Works at Clarkson University Attended Clarkson University Lived in Potsdam, NY View full profile Report this profile Russell Nelson Oct 6, 2012 - Mobile - Public And it still works! More photos from Russell Nelson +10 19 comments Noah FriedmanOct 6, 2012 I've still got one too! Noah FriedmanOct 6, 2012 +2 I also kept the sources to the last version of xcalc that supported the -analog option. http://splode.com/img/misc/xcalc-sliderule.jpg Peter da SilvaOct 6, 2012 +1 I've got mine in my office, but I haven't used it for anything real since the '90s. James KasperOct 6, 2012 I see one of those and feel really stupid that I don't know how to use one. Or an abacus... I was going to teach myself how in about 1995, but then I ended up buying a ti85 and never bothered. I should really get back to that someday. David SindelOct 6, 2012 +1 My dad recently found his old one. I've still got to learn how to use it. Matthew HanniganOct 6, 2012 +2 You'd think the battery would've run out by now. James KasperOct 6, 2012 +1 if you could use rulers and scratch paper on a test but not calculators... would that be cheating to "make" a "calculator"? define calculator ;) David McDonaldOct 7, 2012 +2 Dictionary.com starts with this: cal·cu·la·tor [kal-kyuh-ley-ter] Show IPA noun 1. a person who calculates or computes. You're no longer permitted to turn up for your exam. James KasperOct 7, 2012 ahaha excellent we all get As due to the curve. or Fs What if they throw away the lowest and highest score and we all got a 0, how do they choose the right test. Oh you got me. Faried NawazOct 7, 2012 +1 Yow, I had to go all the way back to X11R3's sources to find xcalc -analog. Paul Alan WheelerOct 7, 2012 +1 Where do you upgrade the RAM on that thing? Mark EichinOct 7, 2012Edit +1 Huh,I didn't realize there was a version that worked in X11 at all... The trick that the X10 one used wasn't possible, and X11 didn't get the Shape extension until much later.
2012-10-12
- About:
I'm surprised that the idea that anyone other than the backers are going to lose... | Hacker News
- When:
Fri Oct 12 01:40:30 2012
- Where:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4643943
- What:
- 1 point by eichin 0 minutes ago | link | parent | edit | delete I'm surprised that the idea that anyone other than the backers are going to lose money keeps coming up; it's always looked pretty clear to me (even though I've gotten rewards delivered from around 30 out of 45 projects, mostly hardware, and the remaining ones are still pretty visible and active - past success doesn't feel like a guarantee on anyone's part, it's just pretty cool.) It's helped that I'm pretty well-qualified to judge these projects, though the only ones that looked unlikely to actually deliver have been really obvious (the "projector" that was supposed to be something mini-maglite sized that plugged into an iPhone headphone jack comes to mind) so it's not like it's actually taken all that much effort :-) It also seems like the small-donation structure should make it difficult for any individual to have cause for action; I see some of KickStarter's recent changes as not wanting to even get into that fight, but that's because even winning would be expensive (and as has been suggested elsewhere in the thread, they're actually in it for the indie films.) Or do you mean just the popularity risk, if enough projects don't deliver?
2012-10-06
- About:
cjsmith: Ford Prefect gets the shock
- When:
Sat Oct 6 01:12:49 2012
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/1009756.html#t10642268
- What:
- I seem to recall you *wanting* to get some distance from that scene, so it sounds like that part worked :-) That said - Zephyr is still around, and the, hmm, "vintage" users aren't really going anywhere, though there are current undergrads using it too... Mary's is also still around... Dan Geer is at in-q-tel, though his bio at veracode is a familiar pile of security/tech buzzwords http://www.veracode.com/board-of-advisors/daniel-earl-geer-jr.-sc.d.html :-) (The two sources of this kind of jolt for me are (1) people reading X11 man pages and wondering why all those names at the bottom sound familiar (Hi Rob!) (2) There's a decent youtube video of collected Morris Worm news coverage from 1988, and every so often I get completely random messages asking "hey, is that you? with the hat? and the beard?" :-)
2012-10-03
- About:
Canon EOS M review: was Canon's first mirrorless ILC worth the four-year wait? -- Engadget
- When:
Wed Oct 3 16:11:11 2012
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/03/canon-eos-m-review/
- What:
- eichin 0 minutes ago > "The touch-to-focus (and expose/capture) option is nice" I used to think that, until I actually tried to *use* the feature... it's reminiscent of the Minority Report UI - *looks* shiny, but in practice is horrible (slow, makes it harder to actually *hold* the camera, generally not competitive with actually aiming the camera.) Also, why do these mirrorless reviews never mention the difference in camera noise? Are they just all silent, and we're assumed to know that? (I'd like a mirrorless that I could use for my nature photography, I've gotten a few too many shots where the first one was ok but the subsequent ones, the critter turned to look towards the mirror+shutter noise...)
2012-09-30
- About:
[Weekend Poll] How Much Total Storage Do You Need In A Phone?
- When:
Sun Sep 30 19:24:18 2012
- Where:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/30/weekend-poll-how-much-total-storage-do-you-need-in-a-phone/
- What:
- − I do - GNote - 12ish gig "internal", 64G microsd; US wireless coverage is congested in the cities and *absent* outside of them, so streaming isn't even vaguely interesting. Music and OSM map tiles are the big thing, plus occasional apps like Sibley's Birds that are most of a gig, they start adding up... That's what I *have* in hand right now. What I *want* is to browse all of my decade of photography on the phone instead of a laptop; there's easily room for a second microSD slot in something the size of the GNote (since we're never getting dual-SIM here, carriers have too much control) and 128G microSD is right around the corner - I could put two of those in, sure... (Someone across thread asked about USB dongles; no good, doesn't fit in the pocket, and I need that port free for the external keyboard, or the camera that I'm offloading from.)
- About:
25 cent Google Play Sale: Day 5 : Android
- When:
Sun Sep 30 16:32:43 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/10pxgl/25_cent_google_play_sale_day_5/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 91 milliseconds ago I thought it was odd that it wasn't showing up for me, and I already have it installed - but the play website says "Requires Android: 3.0 and up" (which explains why I haven't seen an update in a while, either.)
2012-09-29
- About:
Any non-location GPS tools? : Android
- When:
Sat Sep 29 01:15:37 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/10nhl2/any_nonlocation_gps_tools/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 11 seconds ago FlyoverGPS and MapDroyd both use OpenStreetMap data and let you pre-load it locally on your device. They're apps, not widgets (but Google's isn't a widget either, unless there's one hiding that I haven't found.)
- About:
Can any Galaxy Note users comment on the productivity and usefulness of the full screen and stylus? : Android
- When:
Sat Sep 29 01:09:28 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/10mavp/can_any_galaxy_note_users_comment_on_the/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 76 milliseconds ago Screen: unlike my previous android devices, it's nice enough to read (with the Kindle app) that I no longer carry a physical Kindle. Pen: Not only don't I carry a kindle anymore, I don't carry a moleskine either :-) There's just something about scribbling with a pen that feels faster, or at least like less of a mode-change, than using an on-screen keyboard... and almost all of the pens for capactive screens are terrible. (The Note screen is a real wacom surface - several of my other wacom pens work with it, though I've heard it's not completely universal.) Size: I find it does fit in a shirt pocket just fine, but I'm large (and interestingly it fits entirely in Lands End shirt pockets, but sticks out the top of Brooks Brothers pockets.) As another redditor mentioned, when it's in your hand, you will get questions/comments about the size :-)
- About:
Any non-location GPS tools? : Android
- When:
Sat Sep 29 00:29:00 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/10nhl2/any_nonlocation_gps_tools/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 71 milliseconds ago The only thing you can get from the GPS module is location and very precise time. (Not "location based data" - that usually means info about or around your current location, once you have it - but the location itself:latitude, longitude, and (less precisely) altitude.) It's not a general purpose radio by any means.
- About:
What app/software do you use to sync photos? : Android
- When:
Sat Sep 29 00:13:00 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/10n6k6/what_appsoftware_do_you_use_to_sync_photos/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_G1→N1→GNote + 808 1 point 54 milliseconds ago You don't say what you want to sync with; I use FolderSync (in SCP mode) for mine (for music too) though it supports a bunch of different services. (I'd like to use "rsync backup for Android", it would be a lot more efficient - but it has never actually worked - never makes a successful SSH connection, or even tries to as far as I can tell...)
2012-09-18
- About:
provide an option to rename files on sync – Customer Feedback for Tacit Dynamics
- When:
Tue Sep 18 02:33:38 2012
- Where:
http://tacit.uservoice.com/forums/166564-general/suggestions/2985236-provide-an-option-to-rename-files-on-sync
- What:
- Since there is a range of characters VFAT can't handle - from my use of FolderSync/SFTP, it looks like * ? " are the key culprits - another possibility would be to urlencode them (? becomes %3F, * becomes %2A, etc.) to have a well-known set of options, and some hope of handling UTF-8 filenames, such as when syncing from a Mac.
2012-09-17
- About:
After a couple of searches, it looks like the last thread on this topic was 4-5 years ago. So, I'm curious, what is the current state of Pygame and Pyglet? Which would you go with and why? : Python
- When:
Mon Sep 17 01:42:48 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/zzxu3/after_a_couple_of_searches_it_looks_like_the_last/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 107 milliseconds ago I tried to use pyglet for a simple graphics app (zoom/pan/crop an image relative to a fixed window, which is the dimensions of a physical page with bleed, and when "done" emit an imagemagick "convert" command that produces the same result) and got bogged down in how the tutorials and docs assume you already know OpenGL - and particularly, which things you should stop looking to pygame for and dig into openGL instead. (As far as I can tell, "draw a rectangle" is one you're supposed to use raw openGL for...) Did I miss some better tutorial/docs, or simply pick the wrong library?
2012-09-14
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Dear car makers, there are more androids than iphones being sold, please start catering to our needs as well.
- When:
Fri Sep 14 17:59:16 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/zpjjm/dear_car_makers_there_are_more_androids_than/c67g847
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 1 day ago* Until I read this, it didn't occur to me that such things would even exist. A quick web search found the iSkin Cerulean RX, discontinued but amazon-primable and cheap... Unfortunately, though it pairs fine with my Galaxy Note, and the bluetooth activity lite responds... the 1st-gen iPod support in the Harman Kardon just says "NO CARTRIDGE", as it would without the iPod plugged in. Got any other brand recommendations? (The ebay one elsewhere in this thread appears to be brand-free, and entirely devoid of information that might help me check compatibility...) I know the Mini interface is a little special (there was a big iPod-mini/mini-Cooper marketing thing when it came out) as the iPod itself actually displays "MINI" on the screen when it plugs in. I really like the idea of skipping tracks on the phone, just like already works with the iPod... (edit: typo)
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Guido, on how to write faster python
- When:
Fri Sep 14 17:57:08 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/zv8ex/guido_on_how_to_write_faster_python/c685sjp
- What:
- –]_Mark_ 3 points 4 hours ago The last time I looked at ruby,I was porting some string manipulation heavy code (to avoid needing to support another language in a large system.) Coincidentally, the naive port was twice a fast in python, and at the time, this surprised no one, because "common knowledge" was that ruby really was that slow. Supposedly modern ruby has gotten closer in string performance. Since it still looks like Perl, I'm not actually going to care :-)
2012-09-12
- About:
Keeping a Programming Journal in Markdown with Marginalia : programming
- When:
Wed Sep 12 17:40:27 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/zkpq1/keeping_a_programming_journal_in_markdown_with/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 3 days ago Yeah, I don't see anything in the post that suggests using a database actually improves the tool, let alone a remote DB... but I've kept "lab notebooks" mixed in with the source for years, the main trick is a single keystroke to drop in author + timestamp. Version control does the rest.
- About:
Mark Eichin - Google+ - 14 new pix <a href="http://flickr.com/eichin" class="ot...
- When:
Tue Sep 11 23:54:06 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/107164681719825828065/posts/9N9HpwAisKq
- What:
- Sure, consider this permission. When you've posted them, drop me a note on flickr with a link so I can reference them in my "used with permission" set. I think the easiest way is to go to the "share" dropdown above the picture, then select "Grab the HTML/BBcode", pick a size, and then just select the HTML from the text box and drop it in your posting.
2012-09-02
- About:
Just in case people haven't noticed, there's a sale on the Play Store right now : Android
- When:
Sun Sep 2 18:37:04 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/z89bn/just_in_case_people_havent_noticed_theres_a_sale/
- What:
- Hmm, this caused me to have to click through a new ToS... which has a number of reference to the "Android Market" (particularly under Carrier Billing.) After all the rebranding hassle, it's surprising to see the old name show up again...
- About:
Are there any python tutorials out there that teach you to program by working with an existing, widely-used open source application? : Python
- When:
Sat Sep 1 23:54:05 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/z70ra/are_there_any_python_tutorials_out_there_that/
- What:
- If you want that, look through the Pycon videos (particular the Raymond Hettinger ones to start with) from the last 6 years. But it's definitely something to aspire to, not a starting point on contributing. (Remember that the internals of python are in C, which really isn't going to help a python beginner; pypy will certainly help there someday, but not today.)
- About:
Snakes on a Phone! What's the coolest thing you've done with SL4A (Python for Android)? : Python
- When:
Sat Sep 1 23:43:07 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/z60rn/snakes_on_a_phone_whats_the_coolest_thing_youve/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 548 milliseconds ago Searching the Play Store for "kivy" turns up at least one app ("groundtruth") that isn't from the kivy devs, so "writing python programs that can be distributed to users" does appear to work. "native" look-and-feel, maybe not so much; kivy is certainly getting closer, but started out more as "common touchscreen interface across many platforms" and until recently (on master, not yet released?) didn't even have a native ListView, you had to fake it with buttons and layouts. Looks real to me; it's not the level of support I'd like, it's just the best available on a production device (nowhere near as good as the meego/maemo phones, of course, vastly better than iOS, slightly better than symbian :-)
- About:
_Mark_ comments on 100k Particle system using Python OpenGL [vid]
- When:
Sat Sep 1 23:13:39 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/z6e2s/100k_particle_system_using_python_opengl_vid/c61xbxv
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 4 points 11 hours ago https://sites.google.com/site/dlampetest/python/vectorized-particle-system-and-geometry-shaders was in the YouTube description. (once you skip past the workaround at the top for some missing opengl bindings, it is actually a pretty small chunk of demo code...)
- About:
What PyCon talks would you like to see? : Python
- When:
Fri Aug 24 01:20:41 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ymy1f/what_pycon_talks_would_you_like_to_see/
- What:
- mmm, I'd like to see the synapse-wireless guys come back :-) (little RF modules that run a bytecode that comes from python source, they basically did a live "wire up a kids toy to some python code" live demo that was a lot of fun, even if it was "product oriented")
- About:
What PyCon talks would you like to see? : Python
- When:
Fri Aug 24 01:00:01 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ymy1f/what_pycon_talks_would_you_like_to_see/
- What:
- Note that many project do "sprints" at (or just after) pycon, and while some of them are more "get the core team more facetime since they're already in the same place", it's also a popular place for projects to do "contributor uptake", exactly as you describe. You can get a lot more individual attention in that context than you would in a talk...
2012-08-18
- About:
Omri Schwarz - Google+ - On the Google car. I've been wondering for a while about…
- When:
Fri Aug 17 23:04:54 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/109781653028616286602/posts/W2EZut7t9Ui
- What:
- Don't forget to take self-parking to the next step - self-parking in a charging facility. Even without urban redesign, it could make electric cars practical...
2012-07-27
- About:
Issue #47: Kerberos support · kennethreitz/requests
- When:
Fri Jul 27 13:48:12 2012
- Where:
https://github.com/kennethreitz/requests/issues/47
- What:
- Release v0.13.4 includes this (just add auth=requests.auth.HTTPKerberosAuth() to the keyword args to requests.get()) so perhaps this can be closed now...
2012-07-23
- About:
iZen Bamboo Keyboard for iPad (or any device with bluetooth) by Robin Behrstock » Comments — Kickstarter
- When:
Mon Jul 23 17:42:02 2012
- Where:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/805904645/izen-bamboo-keyboard/comments
- What:
- Missing_small Mark Eichin just now Woohoo! my iZen arrived. Looks nice, though the keys on the rightmost edge (del, \, return, shift) are a little too close and stick; since it's bamboo against bamboo I suspect it'll smooth itself out pretty quickly, or I can take a little sandpaper to them. Smells nice too, which I've never said about a piece of electronics before :-)
2012-07-22
- About:
Ian Lance Taylor - Google+ - The most useful company schwag I ever got was a bike me...
- When:
Sun Jul 22 00:54:04 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/116100817882149647867/posts/aiXePDjNoWv
- What:
- Still have mine (mostly it stores the extra bike equipment that I don't need for the few little commuter hops I do on a bike, but the YELLOW makes it easy to find :-) I recall hearing a rumour that after the challenges of getting our colors right, they stopped the whole custom bag thing entirely...
2012-07-20
- About:
Reading Planet Python: Brandon Rhodes
- When:
Fri Jul 20 16:50:25 2012
- Where:
http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2012/reading-planet-python/
- What:
- − These days I hit r/python first, usually with an Android app, and then planet python if I still have time/am bored. Also, on r/python I will often see an "oh, that again" headline, and read the comments anyway, which sometimes turns up interesting arguments on otherwise well-worn topics. Another artifact I've seen - blogs that just point directly to reddit for comments. That seems a little odd (and it's not like disqus is hard to set up...)
2012-07-13
- About:
Theodore Ts'o - Google+ - I've really been fond of my new Lenovo X230 laptop, so ...
- When:
Thu Jul 12 23:01:21 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/XJdmfs1KPse
- What:
- Um, no, I'm not asking for more DPI, I want more DOTS. In particular, more lines of text. When I got the X220t, there were zero thinkpads with 1600x1200 screens, even T-series. (what I actually want is a portrait-mode laptop; I'm quite happy with my 24" "tall-screen" when I'm docked, but that's not the point of a laptop...)
- About:
Theodore Ts'o - Google+ - I've really been fond of my new Lenovo X230 laptop, so ...
- When:
Thu Jul 12 23:00:43 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/XJdmfs1KPse
- What:
- Yeah, when I finally needed things the T60p couldn't do (64 bit, virtualization, enough RAM to run chrome AND Firefox) I went to the X220t, and it ended up being really disappointing. (no USB 3, no eSATA, and that screen...) I blame HDTV, of course, for ruining laptop screen options. (and at this point, I have 1280 x 800 on my PHONE, you'd think I could get 2x that on a laptop, but no...)
- About:
George Keith - Google+ - The oddly heartwarming geeky story from the earliest days…
- When:
Thu Jul 12 22:59:25 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/113054687951751488044/posts/1BEh6tVKdJV
- What:
- It's also unlikely to be true, based on personal recollection (I haven't checked timestamps on my archives yet though.)
2012-07-12
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Is the Android Navigation app free? It's hard to believe there are not any additional fees associated with something that people pay hundreds of dollars for...
- When:
Wed Jul 11 22:45:13 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/w8ydp/is_the_android_navigation_app_free_its_hard_to/c5bg942
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 2 days ago Had the same problem specifically with an N1, but I've done longer trips with the Gnote and it didn't drain at all; better power adapter and newer code (probably better antennas too) seem to compensate for larger/brighter screen (though it could even be "there are more towers along I-84 now" :-)
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Can someone explain to me r/Android's excitement over an official VLC app. Seems to me the market is stocked with excellent media players. What's gonna make this one so much better?
- When:
Sun Jul 8 22:12:43 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/vx8qs/can_someone_explain_to_me_randroids_excitement/c58sauz
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 5 days ago You're just thinking consumer media. I installed MX because I shoot video with a dslr, and nothing else seemed to handle canon AVI files (transferred to the phone for review and upload.)
2012-06-29
- About:
David Maze - Google+ - Really, the message that state trooper was sending, cun...
- When:
Fri Jun 29 12:57:17 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/116907782388306681703/posts/SfvFviDTALj
- What:
- The big reason to keep your speed down on rt 2 (in Lincoln and concord, which seem to be the big conditions vs. signage mismatch) is wildlife, particularly deer, coming in from walden or sandy pond...
- About:
Kee Hinckley - Google+ - Relax for a moment from the pressure cooker of serious ...
- When:
Fri Jun 29 12:57:01 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117903011098040166012/posts/AaiRcKFL2o8
- What:
- Allaboutbirds.org (Cornell lab for ornithology) has been running a bunch of nest cams this year, starting with hawks on campus (all fledged now) and great blue herons a few miles away (still has five chicks in the nest). They added some others, the osprey may be the same one you posted though.
- About:
Theodore Ts'o - Google+ - Dear <span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="proflin...
- When:
Fri Jun 29 12:56:02 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/Jne2wuzuo5C
- What:
- I thought the WNDR3700 did dual band SSIDs, but it's a/b/g/n. (also, since I last looked there's now a "v3" of that which uses a broadcom chip anyway and isn't supported, so it's not a good choice to buy online anymore.)
2012-06-25
- About:
Mark Eichin - Google+ - Huh, trackforward doesn't work with plus, because…
- When:
Sun Jun 24 23:49:33 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/107164681719825828065/posts/1ruBxTTueFt
- What:
- Mark Eichin11:49 PMEdit Interesting, it turns out that if I'm careful to only select the body of the post, and not the name/date/edit line, the selection comes through just fine. For now I can at least test for that and pop up a get_recent_conkeror_window().alert() to warn me...
- About:
Mark Eichin - Google+ - Huh, trackforward doesn't work with plus, because…
- When:
Sun Jun 24 23:47:52 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/107164681719825828065/posts/1ruBxTTueFt
- What:
- So I have a "clipping" tool that's a lot like Evernote web clipper, where I highlight the post, hit a key, type a set of tags (separated by spaces) and hit return, and it pushes the text of the selection, the full html of page, the referrer, the title, and the actual url, into a file. (The javascript run by the keystroke uses xmlhttprequest to post it to a local daemon, and some other code rsync's the directory of files to a safe place.) stufflog itself is just something that watches the clippings for ones with the tag "trackforward" - in fact it just grabs all of them and generates the page fresh each time, but "moore's law" and it's just text anyway :-) If I were to try and make it useful for other people, I'd probably do it with evernote - except the existing bookmarklet only lets you pick "whole page" or "text selection", not both (so fixing that would be step 1.) An alternative would be a web proxy that you always use, that sniffs things that look like posts; this would be kind of an arms race, and probably doesn't work if ssl is involved. (And usually I want the "how it showed up" rather than the raw input.) Yet another alternative would be for disqus to win, and this just becomes a matter of scraping your existing disqus history... one of my TODO items for the project is to at least pull in comment feeds from the few things that do supply them (disqus + reddit, basically; google plus doesn't even seem to give me a feed of things I've +1'ed.)
- About:
Kee Hinckley - Google+ - ❝ But, Hurd adds, the trend is happening much faster among…
- When:
Sun Jun 24 23:47:02 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117903011098040166012/posts/X5kASj96haa
- What:
- No illusions that I'm mainstream, but I never got cable installed when I got the house (and got the previous owners take their mini-dish with them), dropped the landline years ago (DSL is on a line billed directly to the ISP, so I never need to deal with the telco whose customer service is as primitive as their hardware tech.) Of course, even on my cellphone I still care a lot more about data service than calling costs :-)
- About:
Moose Finklestein - Google+ - Via +kerry l. hagan -- Apparently if girls get interested…
- When:
Sun Jun 24 23:45:53 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/111813246023231760642/posts/hMNDWE5hEbT
- What:
- So I ran across this http://www.sciencecheerleader.com/faq/ (in connection with some kickstarter project) and it seemed... relevant.
2012-06-23
- About:
Ringbow hits Kickstarter, promises directional pad-assisted touch gaming -- Engadget
- When:
Sat Jun 23 18:33:39 2012
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/23/ringbow-on-kickstarter-touch-gaming-with-dpad/
- What:
- eichin 0 minutes ago in reply to Nix_Nightbird Did you get burned, or are you just paranoid? Reviewing my "backer history", I've got about a dozen projects where the hardware actually arrived, a handful of intangible-funding ones, a half dozen "didn't get funded", and about a dozen "not yet shipped but actively communicating about it" (for at least one of those, a friend who also funded it has gotten his reward already, so it's pretty convincing.) You do have to have some idea how technology *works* to judge them, of course; the "micro video projector that plugs into an iPhone headphone jack" was kind of ludicrous even *without* the images being badly photoshopped maglights stuck to iphones... but guess what, that one didn't make its funding target. (In the same vein, other than a couple of "webcomics I already read" I don't actually fund any "art" projects - but I'm glad to see that it works for them too, and there are enough people who care about them to support that space.) So maybe the projects I pick are all in the "2%" that you imply; certainly none of them have done a "take the money and run" that you predict...
2012-06-19
- About:
Falcon spotted in Boston this morning! : boston
- When:
Tue Jun 19 01:55:05 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/v88fp/falcon_spotted_in_boston_this_morning/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 139 milliseconds ago Seeing them that low (on top of the crossing signals) is unusual, but they're often higher up around there (I work half a block from there, but usually don't bring my long lens in to the office...) RedTail on top of Alewife T Cell antennas RedTail high up on a TV antenna in Central Square RedTail about 3 blocks from OP's pic RedTail about 3 blocks the other direction, in front of Four Burgers RedTail on Street Light near MIT And then there are the "famous" alewife hawks... hanging out at Whole Foods actual 185 Alewifebrook Parkway nest site Without practice, most people are terrible at looking up, and especially at noticing things that aren't moving... I'm still amused that while I was taking This (mislabeled) shot of a Turkey on top of a car someone walked between me (hanging out the window of an idling car with a camera) and the bird (about 10 feet away on another car) without looking up from her iPhone until I called out to her to look :-)
2012-06-17
- About:
IAM Sebastian Thrun, Stanford Professor, Google X founder (self driving cars, Google Glass, etc), and CEO of Udacity, an online university empowering students! : IAmA
- When:
Sun Jun 17 03:09:30 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v59z3/iam_sebastian_thrun_stanford_professor_google_x/?sort=new
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 801 milliseconds ago Go look at the DARPA Grand Challenge videos - there were an enormous range of competing vehicles, from motorcycle to HMMWV and beyond. As for fuel: hydrogen doesn't change a car in any interesting ways. The interesting case is electric -- imagine your self-driving electric car dropping you off at the door to your office, then driving off to a charging facility on the edge of town... then coming back to pick you up, freshly charged. Suddenly you've ameliorated charge-range limitations, and handled a huge in-city parking problem, even without considering the reduction in death... (It's worth taking the self-driving car class next time it's offered, it's gives one a lot to think about!)
2012-06-16
- About:
overview for _Mark_
- When:
Sat Jun 16 00:45:28 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/user/_Mark_/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 2 points 1 day ago Famously, indeed...and I suspect intentionally so, because they followed up with a policy that they wouldn't do that and have made it stick through a couple of more recent cases. (do you really think that 1984 of all things was the test case unironically? :-) That said, keeping your backups for personal use unencrypted is a good choice... permalink context full comments delete
- About:
_Mark_ comments on In Google Play, how many apps do you currently have installed?
- When:
Sat Jun 16 00:44:24 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/uvl4z/in_google_play_how_many_apps_do_you_currently/c4z0nlr
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 4 days ago 131 on my galaxy note but I've only had it a couple of weeks,I had closer to 250 on my nexus one (yay links2sd) though a few of the bigger ones wouldn't update unless I shuffled things around. Even the long tail of rarely used ones still got used some of the time... I'm not really used to trusting that they will still be available in the store when I actually want them, which leads me to being a bit of a packrat:-)
- About:
Ian Lance Taylor - Google+ - Posts for the mounts for the solar panels. The shingles go…
- When:
Sat Jun 16 00:29:22 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/116100817882149647867/posts/2mrKUWMjzJY
- What:
- Mark EichinJun 14, 2012Edit Yeah, even in California, sunlight isn't constant so you need some kind of storage, and batteries don't scale well. The two big wins are that you're most likely offsetting carbon based dynamic production, rather than "base" cleaner sources, and the whole awareness of consumption that comes from deploying a system and telling your friends about it:-) (BITD the other trick was dynamic pricing, where you sold power high during the day to meet consumer air conditioning demands, then bought it back low at night to charge your EV1; with plugin hybrids that might be viable again...)
- About:
Kee Hinckley - Google+ - Our 13 planets - what say you? Thanks Charles White!
- When:
Sat Jun 16 00:28:36 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117903011098040166012/posts/LGiaM8Xkym7
- What:
- As long as you treat the dwarf planet count as "at the moment" and expect it to grow rapidly, since most of the "problem" is that any category that contains Pluto is not very distinctive (or is uselessly bureaucratic...)
2012-06-10
- About:
Amazon.com: Preview Your Review
- When:
Sun Jun 10 18:22:44 2012
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews?ie=UTF8&action=preview
- What:
- 3.0 out of 5 stars Not for USB-OTG or MHL, June 10, 2012 By Mark Eichin (Concord, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME) Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Cyanics charger, cradle and docking station for AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note i9220, i717 (Color: Black - Cable Included) (Wireless Phone Accessory) The description is a little vague - you can connect it to a PC (and it will give a data connection - an earlier draft of this review was based on hooking it up to the wrong cable), but it doesn't work with usb-on-the-go or MHL, so if you want to hook up an adapter to plug in a keyboard or a screen, choose a different one. As a charging cradle, it's ok - grippy bottom surface that mostly makes up for the light weight, molded shape guides the phone in easily, but it is harder to take the phone *out* of the dock, instead you just lift the dock right off the table.
- About:
Amazon.com: Preview Your Review
- When:
Sun Jun 10 18:11:02 2012
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews?ie=UTF8&action=preview
- What:
- 3.0 out of 5 stars Charging only, June 10, 2012 By Mark Eichin (Concord, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME) Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Cyanics charger, cradle and docking station for AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note i9220, i717 (Color: Black - Cable Included) (Wireless Phone Accessory) The description is a little vague - you can connect it to a PC, sure, but only to *charge* the phone, not to copy files off of it. (It also doesn't work with usb-on-the-go or MHL, so if you want to hook up an adapter to plug in a keyboard or a screen, choose a different one.) As a charging cradle, it's ok - grippy bottom surface that mostly makes up for the light weight, molded shape guides the phone in easily, but it is harder to take the phone *out* of the dock, instead you just lift the dock right off the table.
- About:
overview for _Mark_
- When:
Sun Jun 10 16:50:25 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/user/_Mark_/
- What:
- A list of all console, arcade, and retro system emulators available on Android. by disastarin Android [–]_Mark_ 1 point 13 hours ago A cheap 64g class 6 card is working fine in my Gnote, after formatting it locally; haven't put much on it yet, but it's widely documented as working (that may not hold true beyond 64g, but noone is shipping those yet.)
- About:
overview for _Mark_
- When:
Sun Jun 10 14:04:04 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/user/_Mark_/
- What:
- Working Apps on Airplane. by projectfusionxain Android [–]_Mark_ 1 point 11 hours ago Fascinating, that leads me to a more detailed analysis which agrees that ads (and analytics) are probably the big motivation for the hole. Possibly related is that google sometimes sponsors the service outright, though the in house services that happen to use google are a sufficient explanation.)
- About:
overview for _Mark_
- When:
Sun Jun 10 14:03:57 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/user/_Mark_/
- What:
- Working Apps on Airplane. by projectfusionxain Android [–]_Mark_ 1 point 18 hours ago You've worded this a little strangely, so just to be entirely clear: the GMail app doesn't work around paying to be online, it just works offline with a local copy of your mail and folders, and resynchronizes when you get back to earth and turn on wireless again... most mail apps work this way, and you can configure how much they store. Google Drive will let you select specific files to be saved locally for offline use, though I don't think it has a setting for "save everything"... FlyoverGPS will let you store map tiles (a lot of map tiles, unlike Google Maps offline mode in labs...)
- About:
_Mark_ comments on A list of all console, arcade, and retro system emulators available on Android.
- When:
Sun Jun 10 14:03:31 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/utkck/a_list_of_all_console_arcade_and_retro_system/c4ym02l
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 10 hours ago A cheap 64g class 6 card is working fine in my Gnote, after formatting it locally; haven't put much on it yet, but it's widely documented as working (that may not hold true beyond 64g, but noone is shipping those yet.)
2012-06-08
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of iKross MHL micro-USB to VGA Display and St...
- When:
Thu Jun 7 23:31:13 2012
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2F9X6BCZRW6ZE
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Works great with Galaxy Note (SGH-i717), June 7, 2012 By Mark Eichin Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: iKross MHL micro-USB to VGA Display and Stereo Audio Adapter for HTC / Samsung Smartphone Connecting to TV & Monitor (Electronics) Tried it with a conference room projector (one of the last things left that still needs VGA) and it worked great; as with other MHL widgets, you need to plug in power to the widget before you plug it in to the Galaxy Note, or it won't see the external display (though it will charge.)
- About:
Amazon.com: Preview Your Review
- When:
Thu Jun 7 23:25:55 2012
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews?ie=UTF8&action=preview
- What:
- This review is from: iKross MHL micro-USB to VGA Display and Stereo Audio Adapter for HTC / Samsung Smartphone Connecting to TV & Monitor (Electronics) Tried it with a conference room projector (one of the last things left that still needs VGA) and it worked great; as with other MHL widgets, you need to plug in power to the widget before you plug it in to the Galaxy Note, or it won't see the external display (though it will charge.)
2012-06-07
- About:
College student here looking to build an app this summer, any ideas r/Android? : Android
- When:
Thu Jun 7 02:53:58 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/upf1k/college_student_here_looking_to_build_an_app_this/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 145 milliseconds ago The Stanford free online HCI class just started - take it. Or at least look at the lectures, the first bits on "needfinding" and "rapid prototyping" are pretty fundamental to actually identifying "utility for users", let alone achieving it.
- About:
Eval really is dangerous : Python
- When:
Thu Jun 7 02:36:50 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/uny12/eval_really_is_dangerous/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 275 milliseconds ago There was a similar (ok, less dramatic, without the live bot to work with) "event" on twitter, where Guido posted someone's attempt at reviving rexec and the community shredded it pretty quickly... I think it was mostly intended as a "please stop trying to do this" exercise :-)
- About:
6.5 Million LinkedIn password hashes leaked : netsec
- When:
Thu Jun 7 00:08:57 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/unt4p/65_million_linkedin_password_hashes_leaked/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 45 minutes ago* True, but hyperduc was talking about using cat on windows. edit: err, not on windows. But it was the "typing into cat" part that was the issue; it's not widely understood that $ cat | openssl sha1 qwerty ^D (stdin)= 3c8b9f4b983afa9f644d26e2b34fa3e03a2bef16 $ cat | openssl sha1 qwerty^D^D(stdin)= b1b3773a05c0ed0176787a4f1574ff0075f7521e
2012-06-05
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of Menotek Micro USB to HDMI MHL Adapter IMPR...
- When:
Tue Jun 5 00:45:19 2012
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2SJSD3YO8BR5G
- What:
- 1.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't appear to work with Galaxy Note after all, June 2, 2012 By Mark Eichin Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Menotek Micro USB to HDMI MHL Adapter IMPROVED WITH RCP (Remote Control Protocol) for Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Evo 3D, HTC Evo 4G Tablet, HTC Sensation 4G, Sprint Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy Nexus (Electronics) Tried it with a Galaxy Note (sgh-i717 version) and while charges off the pass-through power connection, it never recognizes the HDMI side (according to youtube videos, it should just start mirroring) either from a Dell U2410 monitor or a Philips 42PFL tv. Tried various plug-in orders, tried powercycling the phone while connected, nothing. Will try another device before returning this one, though...
2012-06-03
- About:
Amazon.com: Preview Your Review
- When:
Sun Jun 3 01:53:32 2012
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews?ie=UTF8&action=preview
- What:
- This review is from: Menotek Micro USB to HDMI MHL Adapter IMPROVED WITH RCP (Remote Control Protocol) for Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Evo 3D, HTC Evo 4G Tablet, HTC Sensation 4G, Sprint Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy Nexus (Electronics) Tried it with a Galaxy Note (sgh-i717 version) and while charges off the pass-through power connection, it never recognizes the HDMI side (according to youtube videos, it should just start mirroring) either from a Dell U2410 monitor or a Philips 42PFL tv. Tried various plug-in orders, tried powercycling the phone while connected, nothing. Will try another device before returning this one, though...
- About:
overview for _Mark_
- When:
Sun Jun 3 00:01:07 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/user/_Mark_/
- What:
- _Mark_ 4 points 7 hours ago If you look at Ada, they actually studied programmer errors, and indexed loops were an interesting source of them; they actually had statistics showing that the vast majority of those loops were whole array, upwards, with downwards being a distant second - introducing explicit for all iteration actually eliminated a class of programmer errors, which was one of the goals of the language.
- About:
overview for _Mark_
- When:
Sun Jun 3 00:00:56 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/user/_Mark_/
- What:
- _Mark_ 3 points 8 hours ago You can get pretty far with "asking for samples", or taking apart existing devices; depending on your goal, pulling a screen from a cheap tablet (like a $50 hard-to-want MIPS-based Cruz from woot), and putting a more real motherboard behind it, like a beagleboard or raspi, might be educational. (It won't be cheap, and you may want to start by reading all of ifixit to get an idea of just how much detail work goes into fitting things into small consumer-friendly packages, if you're thinking about actually carrying this tablet around.)
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Precise stylus
- When:
Sun Jun 3 00:00:42 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/ugb8t/precise_stylus/c4vek8c
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 9 hours ago Yeah, it's not the stylus that matters, it's the screen - the way you get tablet style precision is to actually use tablet tech (the galaxy note has a wacom digitizer in the screen, and I believe the thinkpad tablet does as well; drawing on a friend's Gnote is what got me to actually buy one.)
- About:
_Mark_ comments on What is the fastest method for restoring the application settings/folders on my SD card ?
- When:
Sun Jun 3 00:00:09 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/uha9t/what_is_the_fastest_method_for_restoring_the/c4ve4dw
- What:
- –]_Mark_ 1 point 10 hours ago When I've done this, I haven't bothered with file level copying... Just cloned the entire card (with dd) and then grew the partition to actually fill the card (with gparted). vaguely recall it being about half an hour each direction, via an old (USB 2) laptop...
- About:
_Mark_ comments on How can free apps make some money?
- When:
Sat Jun 2 23:59:31 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u9tgn/how_can_free_apps_make_some_money/c4tjwo6
- What:
- value added services beyond the basic app (actually charge for those) consulting on customizations kickstarter for new features (gets some validation that you have an audience that wants them at all) re-examine why you're leaving money on the table in the first place :-) google summer of code (alternately, use your free apps to get credibility as developers, and leverage that into paying jobs) If you want to be less vague about why you think anyone deserves no-cost apps, that might spur some interesting discussion too...
2012-06-01
- About:
google-blockly – A visual programming language « adafruit industries blog
- When:
Fri Jun 1 16:13:55 2012
- Where:
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/06/01/google-blockly-a-visual-programming-language/comment-page-1/#comment-34601
- What:
- The blocks look almost identical to the ones in Google (now MIT) Appinventor, but it looks like it only implements a *tiny* bit of actual language; the examples seem to be about using it to add user scripting to existing systems, rather than to write entire applications with (which sounds about right, actually, Appinventor is seductive at first and gets really frustrating about the time you actually fill the page…) Comment by _Mark_ — June 1, 2012 @ 4:15 pm
- About:
View Thread
- When:
Thu May 31 23:28:54 2012
- Where:
https://class.coursera.org/hci/forum/thread?thread_id=125
- What:
- I am an experienced programmer, and while the first week of lectures has been an interesting but almost entirely familiar overview, the assignments are dauntingly high level; after all, I don't need to invent problems to solve, I'm overrun with those - I'm more interested in tools and techniques for improving the human interaction side, and while watching people fail is enlightening about what parts are bad, and sometimes even why, they don't provide much insight into what would be good... and the initial assignments don't appear to be aiming in the direction of filling that gap. I'll wait and see - but things don't look any clearer from the programming side of the fence :-) Posted by Mark Eichin (Student) on Thu 31 May 2012 12:02:39 AM PDT
- About:
Sombreros for the (Android) World by Corbin Champion » Why in the World Have I Taken on this Project/Campaign? — Kickstarter
- When:
Thu May 31 23:01:38 2012
- Where:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/6438588/sombreros-for-the-android-world/posts/237988
- What:
- Mark Eichin just now I'm supporting this because I want to see how kickstarter works out as a low-friction funding approach for open source projects, and secondarily because I have friends who use Octave and gnuplot "for real" in academia and so it would be interesting to see how it works out when a researcher can meet another while travelling, exchange ideas about advanced problems, and try out refinements right there on their phones. (Of course it's not like they have the speculative funding to back something like this themselves, they're using Octave in the first place...) I expect there are still a lot of things to be learned about (1) marketing projects here (kickstarter has basically the worst search and recommendation engine I've seen since the days of altavista) and (2) setting up tiers of viable donation amounts and targets. (1/5/10 is too awkward a spread, I think, but it feels like there are enough kickstarters to start doing some statistics :-)
2012-05-28
- About:
Any apps that *sync* from Canon cameras? : Android
- When:
Mon May 28 16:45:31 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u86o5/any_apps_that_sync_from_canon_cameras/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_[S] 1 point 627 milliseconds ago Yeah, a photobooth setup seems like it would be ideal... you can upload them as you go - but on a nice day I go out and shoot 800+ pictures, away from the net, and then when I come back "online" I don't really want to wait :-)
- About:
Any apps that *sync* from Canon cameras? : Android
- When:
Mon May 28 14:12:20 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u86o5/any_apps_that_sync_from_canon_cameras/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_[S] 1 point 59 milliseconds ago Thanks to the details from /u/phillashcroft, I've narrowed it down to 3.1, and looking at http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.1-highlights.html I see Gallery The Gallery app now supports Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP), so that users can connect their cameras over USB and import their pictures to Gallery with a single touch. The app also copies the pictures to local storage and provides an indicator to let users see how much space is available. So that's where the "what do you mean it doesn't work" bit comes from; as for there not being apps, USB host API Android 3.1 provides built-in platform support for USB host mode and exposes an API that lets applications manage connected peripherals. On devices that support host mode, applications can use the API to identify and communicate with connected devices such as audio devices. input devices, communications devices, hubs, cameras, and more. So any apps that can do this, need to use APIs that were first introduced in 3.1 as well. "Yay fragmentation" :-)
- About:
Any apps that *sync* from Canon cameras? : Android
- When:
Mon May 28 14:01:57 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u86o5/any_apps_that_sync_from_canon_cameras/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_[S] 1 point 947 milliseconds ago Two main reasons: I used the first gen EyeFi which had severe overheating problems and lost both pictures and time to dealing with the problems (usual "early adopter effect", I'm sure they're much improved now but they haven't gotten their second chance yet) - and when they did work, they were really slow - fine for picking occasional shots to upload but not really OK for bulk upload - and trying to pick out specific shots to upload from the camera is a user interface nightmare (and none of the "eyefi aware" cameras fix any of that, as far as I know.) wires work :-) I spend a lot of time in places where wifi congestion is a problem, plus I'm not entirely convinced about the security aspects of the uploading protocol (needing to go out of the way to not talk to their servers is part of that.) I can see them working out well for some uses (and the "infinite storage" mode is something I think they should have pushed much earlier) but on top of the problems above, there are enough cameras they don't work with that it's not really a general answer...
- About:
Any apps that *sync* from Canon cameras? : Android
- When:
Mon May 28 13:44:44 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u86o5/any_apps_that_sync_from_canon_cameras/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_[S] 1 point 348 milliseconds ago Yeah, that's the first of those "wrong" answers I mentioned in the post - the ones that actually control the camera don't do anything about transferring files, as far as I can tell. Also, half of the results in that search are for wireless cam viewers (Canon makes some of those too) and most of the rest are ebooks or lens calculators. If I go through the first page (24 results) and look at the 7 that actually involve plugging the phone into the camera, we have: Remote Your Cam WIFI Lite which looks like it does let you pull pictures off, but only to another computer, not directly to the phone Canon DSLR Browser which requires a camera that already has WIFI built in via a WFT module DSLR Remote Controller not only is it only for control and no image download, it requires you build hardware around an Arduino to use it (which is cool in it's own right, but has nothing to do with the question) Remote Release also only does control, not images, but at least it's direct USB connect to the camera DSLR Remote does handle a wired connection - to the headphone jack and again, trigger only Remote Your Cam USB Pro Beta is also control and live-view only, no image download CamCap - DSLR Controller is the only one on that page that comes close: it says "Transfer images to the device (RAW + JPEG)" along with the remote control features. Unfortunately it's only got a short list of cameras it supports and it requires 3.1, and we may have figured out elsewhere in this thread that 3.1 actually just works without one of these apps...
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Any apps that *sync* from Canon cameras?
- When:
Mon May 28 01:36:11 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u86o5/any_apps_that_sync_from_canon_cameras/c4t64ll
- What:
- I mean "I just took 300 pictures of great blue herons, I want to get them all pulled from the camera to the phone [but I already have 75 pictures of redwing blackbird nests from yesterday on the phone that I haven't deleted from the camera yet]" so that then I can "scan through them and caption the top give and post them to flickr." The "only transfer the new pictures" is the "sync" part. And there are multiple (all Canon) cameras involved. The reason I mention gphotofs is that on my laptop, I just use rsync for this and it all works - and there is rsync for android already, but Canon cameras don't show up under /usbstorage... But as you can see from this explanation, I have a strong bias towards thinking about the problem in Unix terms (what with it actually working and all, and the Gnote is fundamentally a Unix box) but that may be why I'm not finding other solutions...
- About:
Any apps that *sync* from Canon cameras? : Android
- When:
Sun May 27 23:32:00 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u86o5/any_apps_that_sync_from_canon_cameras/
- What:
- a community for 3 years Submit a link to anything interesting: news article, blog entry, video, picture... message the moderators MODERATORS NippleNutzTMO US GalaxyS II, rooted loosidGalaxy Note, Touchwiz 2.3 andrewinmelbourneGalaxy Nexus, Xoom AOKP M5 deodrusGalaxy Note, ICS TheUnofficial, WindMobile lawlyerHTC Supersonic | Swag On LuckyBdx4 BigFriendlyRobotdev-flair bot AutoModeratorkarma-police bot RECENTLY VIEWED LINKS Best app for playing an x264 encoded .avi file on my Android phone? 10 points | 14 comments I'm seeing this happen more and more with Google Play.. 2 points | 5 comments Galaxy Note owners: could you point me a good ROM? 5 points | 9 comments What's Your Android Device History? 15 points | 172 comments Where can I find an external USB adapter for a Transformer? 2 points | 1 comment clear account activity 1 Any apps that *sync* from Canon cameras? (self.Android) submitted 969 milliseconds ago by _Mark_ Just got a Gnote, my first Android device with USB OTG, so the second thing I try (after hooking up a Real Keyboard) is to push a picture from a camera, to the phone, to flickr. Of course, Canon cameras don't have a usbstorage option, they just have their own Picture Transfer Protocol - which gphoto2/gphotofs support so there's Open Source code out there for it. Searching for this mostly finds one or two apps that remote-control Canon dSLRs suggestions to use EyeFi instead (wrong for a bunch of reasons) pages about uploading pics from the toy camera on the phone itself. Sometimes that means the answer is "noone's done that yet", sometimes it means "you're not phrasing the question well" - sometimes it means "some developer implemented that but isn't any good at actually marketing the answer" :-) Thus, I'm asking here... (ps. I did use a USB SD adapter to get the picture posted, but that's tedious compared to just plugging in...)
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Considering a move from VPS to Nexus One, distro suggestions?
- When:
Sun May 27 22:00:38 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u6pc1/considering_a_move_from_vps_to_nexus_one_distro/c4t3s74
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 7 seconds ago (as an aside, not that anyone doubted but I was posting from my phone and didn't have a chance to find the link... httpd for PalmOS from April 1998 with some updates in 2001; ISTR running it on a Palm 5000, which was 16mhz and 512k (yes k) of RAM... yay 10 years of treating Moore's Law as a marketing goal :-)
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Considering a move from VPS to Nexus One, distro suggestions?
- When:
Sun May 27 21:53:11 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/u6pc1/considering_a_move_from_vps_to_nexus_one_distro/c4suptm
- What:
- _Mark_ 4 points 18 hours ago Sure, the nexus one is over-powered compared to many web servers only a couple years back. BITD there were several web servers for the palm pilot (one of them even exported calendar entries as web pages.) As long as you can set the "access to internet"permissions correctly, the Ubuntu chroot approach should work fine, and let you use native Android power management and drivers...
- About:
_Mark_ comments on What if the Commodore-64 was a Lisp Machine?
- When:
Sun May 27 21:49:49 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/u64si/what_if_the_commodore64_was_a_lisp_machine/c4suwn8
- What:
- _Mark_ 2 points 18 hours ago I think everyone is forgetting how low power the machines of the 70s that ran lisp were. And where is this idea coming from that lisp (and especially scheme) is complicated to implement? There's far less to parse, the object model is regular... It's a common undergrad CS problem set (possibly trivializing the GC.) Of course FORTH is much simpler than either of them; there was a grammar checker for CP/M written in it, great for fitting a lot of complexity into 48k, but never even as popular as lisp:-)
2012-05-26
- About:
Matthew Gray - Google+ - Hangouts can now be started from Android (and better in...
- When:
Fri May 25 22:56:12 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/103850062796903816685/posts/3FLSztSS9Cy
- What:
- Mark Eichin12:38 PMEdit Hmm, so it might be worth reinstalling the Android app to play with hangouts, now that I finally have a phone with a front facing camera, even though the app is now useless for reading plus itself... Other than a common "phonebook", do hangouts really have anything to do with plus anyway? It's never really fit, to me...
- About:
Chris Shabsin - Google+ - Teach the controversy!
- When:
Fri May 25 22:55:24 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115552172695071755339/posts/VuHyjQXSwFF
- What:
- Mark Eichin10:54 PMEdit Yeah, the desktop app is the only place I actually see an imgur link to begin with. Have to admit it was worth the trouble, after all that :-)
- About:
Chris Shabsin - Google+ - Teach the controversy!
- When:
Fri May 25 22:55:15 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115552172695071755339/posts/VuHyjQXSwFF
- What:
- Mark Eichin4:16 PMEdit I'll try next time I'm on a desktop (both Android app and mobile g+ give a "photos from this post" page which is just the thumbnail.)
- About:
Chris Shabsin - Google+ - Teach the controversy!
- When:
Fri May 25 22:55:09 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/115552172695071755339/posts/VuHyjQXSwFF
- What:
- Mark Eichin12:26 PMEdit Is there a legible version of that somewhere? The mobile g+ site seems to only want to give me more versions of the thumbnail...
2012-05-23
- About:
Rich Carreiro - Google+ - What would you say is the shibboleth that separates peo...
- When:
Wed May 23 14:14:43 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/109683083508097698930/posts/BRN1hkYX4Hg
- What:
- Mark Eichin2:14 PMEdit Oh, I still make people write C code on a whiteboard; the "insufficiently cynical" part is not being willing to believe someone would say on a resume that they can code and still not be able to do fizzbuzz. Fortunately the more general screening of people before they get to me seems to also work to keep out the not-actual-coders most of the time - though part of that may simply be that we don't talk to people with java and nothing else :-)
- About:
Rich Carreiro - Google+ - What would you say is the shibboleth that separates peo...
- When:
Wed May 23 14:06:14 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/109683083508097698930/posts/BRN1hkYX4Hg
- What:
- Mark Eichin5:30 AMEdit Fizzbuzz is supposed to be surprisingly good as a filter; I'm not quite cynical enough to use it, but we do make you code if you claim to be able to...
- About:
newbie here - do people always run emacs in a window on Linux? `emacs` pops open a window. I'm using `emacs -nw` to stop it doing that. Do I lose anything running it as a terminal app? : emacs
- When:
Wed May 23 14:04:11 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/tx3qm/newbie_here_do_people_always_run_emacs_in_a/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 101 milliseconds ago Well, there were two tricks: being able to connect directly to the window named by $WINDOWID (so you'd have to copy the new value in every time... in fact, just copying WINDOWID and DISPLAY seems to work fine, I just tried it) and that w3m doesn't even try to be clever about updates - it just repaints on every keystroke - so changing screen-windows just means hitting a key to get the images drawn again. Reconnecting to a screen with a running w3m would take more work, and changes to repoint the app - or a proxy that rewrote the windowid - Oh, right, there's XPRA which already does that, so if you really want it you can probably make it work :-)
2012-05-22
- About:
Nmap 6 released! : netsec
- When:
Tue May 22 01:14:50 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/txwbq/nmap_6_released/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 40 milliseconds ago My first thought on all the auth-cracking stuff was "Heh, after the Matrix Reloaded cameo, they're trying to be hacker-tool-of-choice for more movies" :-) nping looks like a nice "I know the server is pinging, just tell me when sshd is actually up" tool. Does ncat have anything socat doesn't? (I realize it's a different evolutionary path, and it's a useful part of the nmap "suite" which matters if you don't have a packaging system - but socat already seems to have all of the strange and obscure corners included :-)
- About:
newbie here - do people always run emacs in a window on Linux? `emacs` pops open a window. I'm using `emacs -nw` to stop it doing that. Do I lose anything running it as a terminal app? : emacs
- When:
Mon May 21 20:33:32 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/tx3qm/newbie_here_do_people_always_run_emacs_in_a/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 868 milliseconds ago as an aside - does anyone actually invoke dired directly? It's always been "what c-x c-f does with a directory" to me... I tend to use xterm to run ssh, and keep one or two m-x shell buffers around, particular for tasks where I'm expecting to do a lot of cut&paste on the output.
- About:
newbie here - do people always run emacs in a window on Linux? `emacs` pops open a window. I'm using `emacs -nw` to stop it doing that. Do I lose anything running it as a terminal app? : emacs
- When:
Mon May 21 20:28:46 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/tx3qm/newbie_here_do_people_always_run_emacs_in_a/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 417 milliseconds ago Every so often someone threatens to do an emacs version of what w3m-img does, to solve that, but it's kind of tricky :)
2012-05-20
- About:
Kee Hinckley - Google+ - Current <span class="proflinkWrapper"><span class="prof...
- When:
Sun May 20 13:15:14 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117903011098040166012/posts/3cn1fFCjGwL
- What:
- Mark EichinYesterday 2:57 PMEdit With the DSL modem I use (on whatever Speakeasy is this year) I can SNMP query it, which is useful if there are line errors. The last failure I had actually turned out to be a failed modem (bulging capacitors, but it never outright died, just got slow and sometimes a reboot would fix it.) What I'm getting at is that you might be able to try swapping out a modem yourself, it's a retail item....
- About:
Kee Hinckley - Google+ - Interesting article on the scalability issues with diff...
- When:
Sun May 20 12:51:59 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117903011098040166012/posts/Q9G4WXdCJs9
- What:
- Mark Eichin12:19 PMEdit Mostly reduces to "vms aren't really machines" without actually saying outright "if you want performance you have to be able to measure it in detail"... sure, the jvm matters but it's only one part. (The article is mostly commiseration, really; it doesn't even talk about how far you can get if you actually do the simple tuning that's available with the stock jvm.) I was actually expecting the article to be a standard tech-rag article-as-ad for Azul, but they only get a brief mention at the end...
2012-05-17
- About:
Proposal for an embeddable Emacs : emacs
- When:
Wed May 16 23:10:10 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/tq0y0/proposal_for_an_embeddable_emacs/
- What:
- Except that it doesn't have an embedded lisp interpreter. (ratpoison.el just uses call-process to run ratpoison commands.) Flawed analogy aside, it's not like there aren't others - sawfish, stumpwm, and if you want to go really far back, GWM (popular back when having windows bounce off of each other with tunable elasticity was a thing :-) There's also xwem, though unlike the others I've never actually seen it used. (The "heinously programmable" windowmanager of choice these days seems to be xmonad which uses Haskell...)
2012-05-16
- About:
Kee Hinckley - Google+ - ❝ <i>Yahoo was so focused on winning search that it ess...
- When:
Wed May 16 12:32:26 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117903011098040166012/posts/ds6oLt1WAqp
- What:
- Mark EichinYesterday 10:44 PMEdit It's funny, I never really thought about Flickr as "social", but I have more conversations over there than over here :-) anyone else remember "chat with your pictures"?
- About:
Jered Floyd - Google+ - The new G+ iPhone app is truly beautiful. How do we get...
- When:
Wed May 16 12:28:52 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/103915300700369811053/posts/1aAKZb6o6fG
- What:
- Mark EichinYesterday 12:51 AMEdit Wow. Either this is a/b testing gone horribly awry, or the google iOS team is trying to get bought by facebook too :-) I finally fired it up on the iPad (and it is very much not an iPad app) and I see all of Kee's complaints vividly. A waterfall of damaged images is not a useful way to keep up with what people are doing. If this happens to the android app, it'll get replaced with a bookmark for the second time. Also, now I want to see the app Jered was using :-)
- About:
Jered Floyd - Google+ - The new G+ iPhone app is truly beautiful. How do we get...
- When:
Wed May 16 12:28:42 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/103915300700369811053/posts/1aAKZb6o6fG
- What:
- Mark EichinMay 14, 2012Edit +2 I'm amused at the contrast between your comments and Kee's; I'm going to have to find someone with an iPhone and actually look at this polarizing UI design...
- About:
I've spent the past week tracking down a bug in CPython. Now that I've emerged victorious, I must vent. : Python
- When:
Wed May 16 12:28:01 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/tpixc/ive_spent_the_past_week_tracking_down_a_bug_in/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 258 milliseconds ago Yeah - I spent a bunch of time on-and-off over a year or so chasing down a python crash involving corrupted lists (on and off because it showed up once in a test that had run every 10 hours for a couple of years, and it took a while to narrow it down to something that would trigger once a day on less than a terabyte of input.) In the end, I'd learned a huge amount about python's list internals, convinced myself that against all odds it was a libc bug, and then it went away - because debian shipped a lenny update with a fix to an obscure case when realloc failed to copy 8 bytes Mostly I was relieved that someone had fixed it :-) and it had never actually triggered for a customer. (The reason it was hard to trigger was that it depended both on allocation size and what "arena" the allocation ended up in, which depends on initial allocations and locking races, if I remember correctly...)
2012-05-13
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Neato XV-12 All Floor Robotic Vac
- When:
Sun May 13 01:22:20 2012
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/viewpost.aspx?PostID=4997019&PageIndex=1&ReplyCount=21#post4997097
- What:
- I know this will sound a little strange, but I actually got one in the last round (5 weeks back?) to use for robotics experiments - you can hook up the USB port and turn on diagnostic mode, then directly control the motors and read all the sensors, including the laser scanner, if you want to do your own custom house-mapping project... then when you're done, you can still use it as a vacuum :-)
2012-05-12
- About:
Bug #997056 “WiFi disconnects shortly after connection establish...” : Bugs : “network-manager” package : Ubuntu
- When:
Sat May 12 19:52:19 2012
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/997056
- What:
- Mark Eichin (eichin-gmail) wrote a moment ago: #3 I just fought through literally and hour and a half of "Activation (wlan0/wireless): association took too long.", made worse by keyring problems that cause each failure to produce a prompt for the key (not the subject of this bug, that's unrelated.) Adding [ipv6] method=ignore as suggested above to /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/Auto XXXX (ssid elided as I'm a guest here) and bouncing NetworkManager to make sure it reread the file (for about the 10th time) immediately stopped the spinloop... so this probably deserves more attention. (The local wifi is WEP with a hex key, on a WRT-54G running factory firmware, which worked fine when this laptop was running Oneiric.) (local system is an x220t)
2012-05-11
- About:
Darlene Ford - Google+ - The usual kudos for the first one to identify species.....
- When:
Fri May 11 00:04:04 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/116272690632475916207/posts/6kdNdgCuYtc
- What:
- Mark EichinMay 7, 2012Edit The second one looks like ladyslipper, though I'm not especially good with these (the wikipedia pics seem to confirm though)
- About:
Abbe Cohen Dvornik - Google+ - You know those chocolate crunchy crumbs that they put in…
- When:
Thu May 10 23:46:11 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/100564795479342295624/posts/deKoiv9Jvkd
- What:
- Mark EichinYesterday 10:27 PMEdit King Arthur Flour had what seemed like a convincing version of those, but I never got around to using them...
- About:
Ian Lance Taylor - Google+ - Bike To Work Day 2012. 57 miles, 4:50 hours. At least 1...
- When:
Thu May 10 23:43:48 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/116100817882149647867/posts/LyTL1tjdfnY
- What:
- Mark Eichin10:48 PMEdit I'm just amused that the g+ image fetcher grabbed the tiled-icons bitmap, or at least that's what I see from android...
2012-05-09
- About:
Fisker Karma reportedly sets house on fire, doesn't restore cosmic balance -- Engadget
- When:
Wed May 9 13:57:31 2012
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/08/fisker-karma-reportedly-sets-house-on-fire/
- What:
- Umm, google for car fire garage - it's common enough that you pay more for homeowners insurance if you have a built-in garage instead of a separate one. (And if as initially reported, the batteries were intact - remember that the Karma is a plug-in hybrid and *has* a gas engine, and if I'm reading the specs right, a larger gas tank than a Mini Cooper :-)
- About:
Learning to Program: Why Python? | Hacker News
- When:
Tue May 8 23:00:27 2012
- Where:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3945760
- What:
- And if you look at any of the udacity office-hours videos, when you see laptops, they're almost always Macs :-)
2012-05-06
- About:
Goodreads | Mark Eichin's review of Ready Player One
- When:
Sat May 5 23:38:44 2012
- Where:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/282500123
- What:
- Yes, this book was basically written for me. I still *have* an embarrassingly large amount of Halliday's hardware, I played that *specific* version of Zork, I could go on but Flannery's "nostalgia porn" phrasing pretty much covers it. It's no Snow Crash; it has about as much depth as Real Genius - but it was enormous fun for *me* and I'd recommend it to my old classmates, but maybe not much more broadly than that :-)
2012-05-05
- About:
So many awesome phones, so few microSD slots. : Android
- When:
Sat May 5 19:44:23 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/t8962/so_many_awesome_phones_so_few_microsd_slots/
- What:
- Right, the web interface is a secondary "we kind of have to have this, but warn you up front that it can't be good enough" thing - you use the sync apps for anything real. Their FAQ explains the normal authentication crypto in detail - without actually saying that everyone else is doing it wrong :-) (Disclaimer: I've been a customer since shortly after I met a bunch of their engineers at Pycon :-)
- About:
Has There Been Any Work to Use Emacs As a Full OS? : emacs
- When:
Sat May 5 01:26:56 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/t77xl/has_there_been_any_work_to_use_emacs_as_a_full_os/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 578 milliseconds ago Did that on a couple of MIT Athena machines, around 1986 (on microVAX and RT hardware.) Basically meant you log in, X starts emacs, and that's it (what else do you need? :-) After all, it's pre web-browser...) In practice, overriding shell-file-name so M-! didn't just start another emacs was kind of necessary, and then actually running a windowmanager from there helped a bit too. (These days this is a little harder, since you probably "need" NetworkManager and a tray...) permalink parent edit delete reply
2012-05-02
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Velocity Micro T301 7” Cruz Tablet
- When:
Wed May 2 01:15:32 2012
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/viewpost.aspx?PostID=4983724&PageIndex=1&ReplyCount=33#post4983803
- What:
- According to http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/18618-demand-for-a-custom-rom-for-the-velocity-micro-cruz-tablet-t301/page__st__200 and a few other references, it's a MIPS, not an ARM - which doesn't matter as much as you'd think, since android apps are mainly Dalvik java-ish bytecode, not native code...
2012-04-22
- About:
Just a reminder how friendly the Boston area really is : boston
- When:
Sun Apr 22 15:48:07 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/scdi9/just_a_reminder_how_friendly_the_boston_area/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 5 points 6 days ago I was going to point out that one place you see friendlier behavior is in nature preserves and hiking trails, which is a self-selected population... but it's also a place people only go when it's also nice weather, and that's a less pretentious explanation :-)
- About:
"Insufficient Storage Space" with 20MB Free : Android
- When:
Sun Apr 22 15:46:51 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/s8qso/insufficient_storage_space_with_20mb_free/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 8 days ago It is a percentage of total, and it's really a bug that texts are impacted at all. Apps2sd doesn't move enough of the app over; Link2sd is far more effective on my Nexus One (once I made the extra partition vfat, not ext) and I haven't come near the threshold since switching to it.
2012-04-11
- About:
Two weeks with Roomba | Sulka's Game
- When:
Wed Apr 11 17:52:02 2012
- Where:
http://sulka.net/2012/04/two-weeks-with-roomba/comment-page-1/#comment-813
- What:
- _Mark_ on April 11, 2012 at 23:53 said: Your comment is awaiting moderation. Remembering the flat’s layout: see the Neato Robotics XV-11 and XV-12 which do exactly that. (Same general list price range in the US, though woot had them cheap this weekend.) The plastic dock on my roomba stays in place fine up against a bureau – but that’s on carpet, not a hard floor. I like the personality idea – the 5xx and newer models do talk on error conditions (“please clean roomba’s brushes”, etc.) but not in normal operation as far as I know (I primarily run it when out of the house.)
2012-04-05
- About:
YouTube now converting all 1080p video uploads to 3D | The Verge
- When:
Thu Apr 5 11:36:17 2012
- Where:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/5/2927442/youtube-3d-conversion-1080p-uploads
- What:
- “not even a little bit”. Those settings are for cameras where you’ve got a splitter lens, like the Loreo, and the video is a “normal” 2d video but each frame is side-by-side left/right eye “portrait” aspect images. As far as I can tell from experiments, youtube doesn’t even notice that the W3 files are full-frame stereoscopic, and adding the various explicit keyboard just chews up the frames.
- About:
Instagram for Android Got More Than 1M Downloads in 24 Hours : Android
- When:
Thu Apr 5 10:20:21 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/rudvz/instagram_for_android_got_more_than_1m_downloads/
- What:
- I installed it to see what the workflow was like (after all, they made bad snapshots popular, there's something interesting there...) and now I have to find someone with an iphone to demo that version... because the android version is just tedious to use. Even knowing what filter you want, it's still a dozen clicks... I haven't formally "benchmarked" it but I can post a pic to twitter more easily than this using (old unmaintained) Seesmic.
2012-04-02
- About:
Is this a trick or something? The final in CS373 seems a bit of a joke : cs373
- When:
Mon Apr 2 12:15:01 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/cs373/comments/rp96c/is_this_a_trick_or_something_the_final_in_cs373/
- What:
- I'm very interested to see how this approach pans out - having the self-checks in the quizzes was great for making a distinction between "did you get the material" and "did you get the way we worded the question" (something the ai-class had trouble with.) It you could also calibrate how well you'd absorbed the material a lot more easily - basically, always respond first with the off-the-cuff answer, and if that was right, it validated your understanding, and if it wasn't, "woah, let me slow down here and work on this bit some more". Much better at steering you to put effort where you needed effort. I'd love to see some rigorous study of this (the student is perhaps not the best judge of the effectiveness) but I would point to the Salman Kahn tech talk, and his graphs of student learning rates... that instead of splitting up students by "trajectory", letting some students drill more when they're stuck lets everyone end up in the same place in a surprisingly consistent amount of time - and I think there are parallels here. (I haven't done the final yet, but I did have a similar "huh, I just write this math down as code? Oh look, it works, great, that was quick" experience with the last coding exercise in unit 6.)
- About:
Google Racing : cs373
- When:
Sun Apr 1 22:01:46 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/cs373/comments/rndpr/google_racing/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 3 seconds ago Why? Racing is about a combination of individual mastery, a bit of "I could totally do that", and a low but non-zero chance of explosions and carnage. Doing it with self-driving cars basically takes it out of all of these realms. (Well, ok, anyone in this reddit might count for the second category :-) I though it was a kind of odd april fools, in that it had a lot of straightforwardly technically-feasible detail, and the only "fool" part was "but noone would actually want this"... permalink parent edit delete reply
2012-03-27
- About:
Have any of you programmed statistical tests from scratch without using scipy or some other package. Where do I start? : Python
- When:
Tue Mar 27 18:14:36 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/rfpl9/have_any_of_you_programmed_statistical_tests_from/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 898 milliseconds ago After the Stanford /r/aiclass I ended up putting some time into going the other way and rewriting stuff I'd done in raw python using NLTK instead; you might find the "before" cases there useful - I also recall the NLTK implementation itself being pretty clearly commented and readable, so you might look at their python code for ideas: nltk.metrics.association NgramAssocMeasures.student_t might be a little too dense, but see if you can unwind it from there...)
2012-03-25
- About:
Best Solar Charger review ever! : Android
- When:
Sun Mar 25 16:09:21 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/rcpdv/best_solar_charger_review_ever/
- What:
- Actually it is expensive - the "big belly" solar compactors are $3k+ each - it's just that driving massive garbage trucks around is even more expensive. (The entire point of the solar compactors is that they don't need to be visited by trucks nearly as often, and the fuel savings alone is supposed to cover the expense.)
2012-03-24
- About:
Theodore Ts'o - Google+ - I took these photographs a little after sunset to test ...
- When:
Sat Mar 24 16:54:21 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/KuHpZ99zbxr
- What:
- I've been looking to upgrade the Rebel XS to something with better low-light capability and video for a while now (actually, an EF/S mount on the S100 would probably get what I wanted :-) but apparently the XS was kind of a sweet spot for size - the 5d3 weighs twice what it does http://snapsort.com/compare/Canon-EOS-5D-Mark-III-vs-Canon_EOS_Digital_Rebel_XS and I suspect that would matter, especially as it's just a starting point, I always have the 55-250 on and would likely also want to upgrade that...
- About:
You Used Python for WHAT?! : Python
- When:
Sat Mar 24 00:26:11 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/raihd/you_used_python_for_what/
- What:
- Good title, but didn't actually think the examples were all that much of a stretch for python :-) And the Apple II work is totally outclassed by http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2011/03/superboard-takes-pycon.html from Pycon2011...
2012-03-22
- About:
Omri Schwarz - Google+ - Wow. When it comes to getting proprietary code in Java ...
- When:
Thu Mar 22 02:07:09 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/109781653028616286602/posts/BhNCwjb4uN1
- What:
- Mark Eichin's profile photo Mark Eichin - If you want an example of the same tech in a very open environment: http://pyvideo.org/video/640/ipython-python-at-your-fingertips(and note the bit towards the end about how they ended up getting support in Visual Studio simply by explaining the interface to someone...) (I don't miss CORBA, I keep getting reminded of it - at least we're starting to improvements, instead of repeats of the 90's mistakes...) [sorry for all the edits, G+ lacks preview or any documentation of format, and kept turning smiley's into overstrikes]
- About:
Ruth Jedlinsky - Google+ - Anybody have a 3D printer I can use? Maybe SIPB should ...
- When:
Thu Mar 22 01:57:28 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117428048145067812617/posts/Af7ESAvnt1W
- What:
- Mark Eichin's profile photo Mark Eichin - http://www.dabblersconcord.com/ has a MakerBot, and does classes for making stuff with it. I got in on the PrintrBot kickstarter but that's on a not-actually-bounded production schedule :-) Depending on how many units you want, shapeways or something might be a better choice anyway (especially if you want anything other than ABS - also, I think some of the adapters really need more resolution than the makerbot class of hardware can actually do?)
2012-03-19
- About:
Lytro Support : Open requests
- When:
Sun Mar 18 23:14:46 2012
- Where:
http://support.lytro.com/requests
- What:
- #7415 nitpick: license typo The 1.0 mac desktop software has the mistaken word "fort" in the license, as displayed by the installer. I don't have a copy in front of me to quote, but it's in the first dozen paragraphs or so.
- About:
Lytro Support : Open requests
- When:
Sun Mar 18 23:09:47 2012
- Where:
http://support.lytro.com/requests
- What:
- #7413 Feature request: flickr Didn't see it on the list, please add my vote to having "send this specific-focus to flickr" on the right click menu. (sending a focus-in-and-out mini-video would be cool too, but I'm not actually sure I'd use it :-) (see also #7412 and put the relevent menu *on the picture*, not the thumbnail)
- About:
Lytro Support : Open requests
- When:
Sun Mar 18 23:06:30 2012
- Where:
http://support.lytro.com/requests
- What:
- #7412 no export menu *on the picture* I tried the obvious thing, right-click on the picture, to get a snapshot... and there's no right click menu. I found the support item about having right click on the *thumbnail*... but have you actually *tried* that? The workflow for exporting more than one focus of one picture is: * click on the picture * click on the focus point * go to the upper left and click on "all pictures" (or star-pictures) * move *back* to the picture that is helpfully highlighted in blue * right-click to select export jpg, give the name * ignore the in progress bar, double-click on the same picture * refocus, repeat. There isn't anything polite I can say about that as an interface - so please add the one line of code to put the *same menu* on the *actual picture* so that I can refocus/export/refocus/export without chasing buttons around the screen. Thanks.
- About:
Lazy coding practice takes down Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. Someone just incremented the year to a leap year date and didn't check if that new date was good. : programming
- When:
Tue Mar 13 22:50:31 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/qu1u2/lazy_coding_practice_takes_down_microsofts_azure/
- What:
- Indeed, the extent to which the architecture prevented the certificate-expiration-date failure from taking down everything, and instead triggered a "Human Investigate (HI)" state, was pretty cool; the redeployment failure that actually took down the cloud was actually tested but only in a "single node" - after all, what do calendar dates have to do with clustering? :-) ultimately unrelated to calendar dates. A good reminder that when you're in a hurry, there is something worse that can happen :-) edit: typo
- About:
Lazy coding practice takes down Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. Someone just incremented the year to a leap year date and didn't check if that new date was good. : programming
- When:
Tue Mar 13 22:49:50 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/qu1u2/lazy_coding_practice_takes_down_microsofts_azure/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 8 seconds ago Indeed, the extent to which the architecture prevented the certificate-expiration-date failure from taking down everything, and instead triggering a "Human Investigate (HI)" state, was pretty cool; the redeployment failure that actually took down the cloud was actually tested but only in a "single node" - after all, what do calendar dates have to do with clustering? :-) ultimately unrelated to calendar dates. A good reminder that when you're in a hurry, there is something worse that can happen :-)
- About:
Boston is burning : boston
- When:
Tue Mar 13 22:04:56 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/qva2c/boston_is_burning/
- What:
- When they actually cut the power, all the wifi access points in the building went out... and then people started bringing up cell-phone-tether ones. (And then the security guards started telling people to actually leave, that the elevators were not coming back soon...)
- About:
raising exception: Create your own or re-use the built-ins? : Python
- When:
Tue Mar 13 21:48:13 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/qvh6f/raising_exception_create_your_own_or_reuse_the/
- What:
- Best of both worlds: if EnvironmentError is a good match, derive from it, possibly adding more info. That way callers that expect usefully to catch EnvironmentError can, but you otherwise still get a clear indication that it's your error, in the traceback...
2012-03-12
- About:
Display hw3-6 (particle filter) in a GUI - CS373
- When:
Mon Mar 12 03:39:48 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/15720/display-hw3-6-particle-filter-in-a-gui?page=2&focusedAnswerId=18297#18297
- What:
- 0 That's really sophisticated... to convince myself of the ring-sampling example in one of the quiz questions, I was able to use a quick and dirty "one-liner": import pylab pylab.scatter([r.x for r in p], [r.x for r in p], s=[p.count(r) for r in p]) pylab.show() pylab is a wrapper around matplotlib, which is often found alongside numpy so you might have it already. (The first two args of scatter() are the x and y coordinate lists; s is a scaling factor, basically in the non-noisy case with the resampling just producing lots of duplicate points, the duplicate count shows more visibly which points are actually clusters. With gaussian noise it should just be obvious from looking at the scatterplot.) Since pylab.show() waits for you to dismiss the window, this might be a little easier to drop into other code as a "visual debugging" step...
2012-03-10
- About:
California Proposes Rules For Autonomous Cars | Hacker News
- When:
Sat Mar 10 15:05:34 2012
- Where:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3688267
- What:
- Just look at the participant list for the DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge competitions; http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/teamlist.asp though you also need to look past some of the university affiliations to see the partner companies (VW for the Stanford team, for example.)
- About:
Has anyone made apps from their Android yet using AIDE? : Android
- When:
Sat Mar 10 13:55:56 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/qqdhs/has_anyone_made_apps_from_their_android_yet_using/
- What:
- A friend of mine recently demoed "not carrying a laptop" by combining a Google Nexus, hdmi-cable to a Dell pico-projector, and an apple bluetooth keyboard+trackpad, into an almost pocketable laptop alternative; mostly he ended up using connectbot to ssh somewhere real, but it's an interesting starting point. For on-tablet or on-phone dev, you probably want to start with something like [kivy][http://kivy.org] or maybe pyside rather than Java in any case. Though /r/GoogleAppInventor has a UI that's kind of painful with a mouse but would work nicely with a multitouch screen...
- About:
CloudFTP.freeforums.org • View topic - A bunch of CloudFTPs as offsite backups
- When:
Sat Mar 10 13:11:39 2012
- Where:
http://cloudftp.freeforums.org/post182.html#p182
- What:
- Not sure I see a reason to use the CloudFTP for this - if you were putting the cloudftp boxes at the client sites, that would almost make sense, except that it isn't competitive with a real AP with hard drive attached - designed for continuous operation, better wireless range etc. If you're talking about a box at the "upstream" office for offsite backup, the cloudftp makes even less sense; you want robustness and cheap-at-scale, and you don't need wireless at all... For that matter, why dedicate a machine per client? (For that matter, why even *have* a machine at all, just have the clients push to an ftp-to-amazon-s3 gateway...)
- About:
CloudFTP.freeforums.org • View topic - Cloud FTP name ? already trademarked
- When:
Sat Mar 10 02:12:13 2012
- Where:
http://cloudftp.freeforums.org/post163.html#p163
- What:
- Note that I haven't done an actual PTO search - I just based that on trying to google for information about the cloudftp (I forget the actual query) and none of the first five hits were about the hardware, and one of them specifically said CloudFTPTM. Mostly I was annoyed that it wasn't a unique enough name to actually find what I was looking for :-) (I hope google finds these forums quickly, they're accumulating a lot of useful documentation...)
- About:
CloudFTP.freeforums.org • View topic - Cannot access CloudFTP settings on Android
- When:
Sat Mar 10 01:58:58 2012
- Where:
http://cloudftp.freeforums.org/post162.html#p162
- What:
- Same problem with CM7.1 on a Nexus One - pressing the settings gear responds like a button, but nothing actually happens on screen.
- About:
CloudFTP.freeforums.org • View topic - Micro sized USB Flash Drives
- When:
Sat Mar 10 01:55:40 2012
- Where:
http://cloudftp.freeforums.org/post161.html#p161
- What:
- If you want *small*, http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-microSDH ... B0028R3NCU is what I use for the card from my phone - but it's actually *too* small, I end up keeping it in an SD-card case so I can find it in my pocket :-)
- About:
CloudFTP.freeforums.org • View topic - Working/Not Working USB Devices
- When:
Sat Mar 10 01:47:53 2012
- Where:
http://cloudftp.freeforums.org/post159.html#p159
- What:
- The web suggests that the 7D is, like other Canons, *not actually USB-mass-storage* - my Rebel XS likewise is only canon-proprietary, which is (I assumed) why the cloudftp didn't actually mount it. (One of the Olympus superzooms I used previously gave you a menu when you plugged in, you could pick if you wanted mass-storage mode or proprietary mode, and the latter could do things like remote-shooting and setting the clock, but you could still pick the former for compatibility. I wish Canon would do that too...)
- About:
CloudFTP.freeforums.org • View topic - Wishlist
- When:
Sat Mar 10 01:39:23 2012
- Where:
http://cloudftp.freeforums.org/post158.html#p158
- What:
- I understand making SMB a priority; consider this another vote for AFS though (I use iYFS on an iPad too) - if this really is a linux based box, you can probably get some enthusiastic help with the effort (AFS is a little strange in that it's not *broadly* popular, but the people who like it *really* like it.)
- About:
CloudFTP.freeforums.org • View topic - Wishlist
- When:
Sat Mar 10 01:34:42 2012
- Where:
http://cloudftp.freeforums.org/post157.html#p157
- What:
- Re: Wishlist Postby eichin » Sat Mar 10, 2012 1:34 am 1. a web ui that actually works with an Android browser (it *should* be the stock browser, but mobile firefox would be fine too, neither works currently); I'd be happy to test, though as-shipped it's not merely inconvenient - you really can't get at pictures at all, or the settings box, you get mostly a white page... 2. Canon camera support (if there's *enough* linux on there, it could be enough to just install gphotofs and peeking in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/product for "Canon".) Pulling the SD card and using an adaptor works fine, and (barring #1 above) I'm doing that, it would just be nice to do even less :-) 3. a page with details on cooking new custom firmware (it's linux-based, right? I haven't found the license acknowledgement page either, but given #1 I haven't browsed the box itelf much, that might exist already and I just haven't seen it...)
- About:
Battle of the 80's - advertisement for the Z80 from May 1976 : programming
- When:
Fri Mar 9 13:01:48 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/qowi0/battle_of_the_80s_advertisement_for_the_z80_from/
- What:
- The part they don't brag about is that the Z80 was a lot more annoying hardware - they fit more registers because they were dynamic, not static, so it had a minimum clock speed - you couldn't single step by actually stepping the clock, you had to assert some line in response to next-instruction-fetch, and keep the clock spinning...
- About:
Battle of the 80's - advertisement for the Z80 from May 1976 : programming
- When:
Fri Mar 9 12:59:00 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/qowi0/battle_of_the_80s_advertisement_for_the_z80_from/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 147 milliseconds ago For example, the 8080A didn't have relative branches at all (8085 did, I think?), so yeah, that was something worth crowing about. The single (2-byte) instruction block move (LDIR) was nice too, especially when you were usually byte-counting and cycle-counting. (Why do I remember this? First paying job was on an IMSAI with a Z80 upgrade, though the TRS-80 at home probably had more to do with it :-)
2012-03-07
- About:
Apple introduces iPhoto for iPad, updates Garage Band, iMovie and iWork -- Engadget
- When:
Wed Mar 7 16:45:03 2012
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/07/apple-introduces-iphoto-for-ipad-alongside-updated-garage-band/
- What:
- eichin 0 minutes ago in reply to Jeremy M Except it doesn't; if you're in "creative mode", you actually do get 38mp images off the sensor. (And you'll *really* want to process them, since you're skipping the normal processing down to 8mp or 5mp...)
- About:
Kevin Simmons - Google+ - Thought my MIT friends would get a kick out of this. S...
- When:
Wed Mar 7 14:09:23 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107348030890626450060/posts/VRQAiJ2cEuD
- What:
- Mark Eichin - Probably when the MPAA started making them pay for the clips :-} (So where did it turn up this time? There's an about-annual spike in attention, but it was a lot larger this year...)
- About:
Rich Carreiro - Google+ - Hilarious 1988 TV news piece on the Morris worm. Featur...
- When:
Wed Mar 7 14:03:49 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/109683083508097698930/posts/gMoKCGgKovj
- What:
- Mark Eichin - At Harvard, sure - but he launched this as a 1st year grad student at Cornell who was skipping a lot of classes (including, according to one of the sysadmins who was checking login records, the orientation session on university ethics :-)
- About:
Rich Carreiro - Google+ - Hilarious 1988 TV news piece on the Morris worm. Featur...
- When:
Wed Mar 7 14:02:26 2012
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/109683083508097698930/posts/gMoKCGgKovj
- What:
- Mark Eichin's profile photo Mark Eichin - It turns up about once a year in the geekosphere; the latest round got a 300 comment thread in reddit/r/videos. Itworld.com might get some credit for the larger spike this time. (Usually I just follow up with "scruffy, not Amish" though the Reddit thread got some actual questions this time around...)
- About:
And so, the IT headache begins. I've already had 3 calls this morning from people saying "my Market got replaced with a game" or "I think my Android got a virus!". : Android
- When:
Wed Mar 7 13:59:26 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/qlrg6/and_so_the_it_headache_begins_ive_already_had_3/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 262 milliseconds ago Oddly, I got "google play books" (did you really say that outloud first?) last night... but it wasn't until this morning that starting the market gave a panel with "google play", "learn more", "continue"; hitting continue got a "new terms, accept/continue, please-spam-me checkbox", so I think there's something a little inconsistent about how the multiple pieces actually rolled out... in other words, though I've certainly seen the "what dialog box, I didn't see a dialog box" bit (yes, ssl is ruined forever) plenty of times, in this case there were several paths that you might get that would show you the Google Play name without having first seen any hint about it. (So don't harsh on your users too much; join them in blaming google, that way they'll be on your side :-)
2012-03-06
- About:
CloudFTP. Wirelessly share ANY USB storage with iPad, iPhone by Daniel Chin » Comments — Kickstarter
- When:
Tue Mar 6 13:52:18 2012
- Where:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/125911486/cloudftp-wirelessly-share-any-usb-storage-with-ipa/comments
- What:
- Mark Eichin just now Android "ES File Explorer" looks like it would be a good substitute for the broken web UI - but how do I configure a username/password for it to use? For that matter - I've found the "quickstart" doc, which is clear but says very little - is there a *real* manual somewhere? Also, there's mention of firmware updates - how are those performed? I get the feeling there's some info out there that I can't find - you basically can't google for CloudFTP, since it's the name of a handful of other much-more-well-known products, at least one of which is even trademarked :-}
- About:
It arrived at MIT in the middle of the night... 1988 computer virus : netsec
- When:
Tue Mar 6 11:36:58 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/qjsqx/it_arrived_at_mit_in_the_middle_of_the_night_1988/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 296 milliseconds ago Hmm, well, With Microscope and Tweezers got reprinted in both IEEE and ACM journals, more because it was timely than because it was good - but it does try to cover the both the experience and the engineering sides of it. I don't know if it makes the engineering accessible enough, though, but it's a good place to start, though the last third or so of Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg" also tells the story pretty well.
- About:
It arrived at MIT in the middle of the night... 1988 computer virus : netsec
- When:
Tue Mar 6 10:49:36 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/qjsqx/it_arrived_at_mit_in_the_middle_of_the_night_1988/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 2 points 32 minutes ago The hat and beard (and glasses) have already had a 300 post thread over on r/videos just last week. Since this is netsec, can we talk about buffer overruns or how this was both the first and last significant unix worm? :-)
- About:
CloudFTP. Wirelessly share ANY USB storage with iPad, iPhone by Daniel Chin » Comments — Kickstarter
- When:
Tue Mar 6 01:41:18 2012
- Where:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/125911486/cloudftp-wirelessly-share-any-usb-storage-with-ipa/comments
- What:
- Mine just arrived, nicely made - cute and pocketable too - the web ui is marginal on the android browser (not so bad on android firefox) but looks fine on iPad Safari. However, when hooked up to a Canon S100, I just get a single folder labelled "X" with nothing in it. A look in the quick-start pdf doesn't explain this... but it *does* make passing mention of "usb storage", which Canon cameras are *not* - they have their own protocol. (When looking more closely, the only mention of Canon cameras in connection with this device was in one article on icrontic.com *hoping* to use a Canon camera with it. So, consider this a feature request :-) (Pulling the 16G SDHC card and putting it in an adapter works fine, I get the same empty X drive and a C drive which has the contents of the card. Again, works great on the iPad; the normal android browser on a Nexus One gets just the left-hand blank white column, and a 3mm wide strip on the right which is the edges of the thumbnails, and it doesn't scroll so I can't just bring them over. Basically, your mobile web design needs a lot of work :-)
- About:
Rolling Up My Sleeves | Hacker News
- When:
Mon Mar 5 23:47:19 2012
- Where:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3667574
- What:
- * 1 point by eichin 0 minutes ago | link | edit | delete In Cambridge, MA alone we have Nokia Research Center (NRC), Microsoft NERD (no really, New England Research and Development Center, but they've dropped the C in the last year or two :-) Disney Research... up until a couple of years back we had Orange/France Telecom, too. (BITD there was a "$foo Cambridge Research Labs" for most computer/tech values of $foo; these days all the new buildings, and a lot of the old, are biotech instead.) reply
2012-03-05
- About:
TRK - PyGame: Fog of War and Organization
- When:
Mon Mar 5 10:13:47 2012
- Where:
http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/5/pygame-fog-war-and-organization/#c125
- What:
- 4 _Mark_ says... sys.path[0] is an alternative to __file__ and you can use it directly instead of having to dirname it, so it's a little prettier (only a little, though.) Also, what's the Map class? (There's a lisp-like map() function builtin, which can cause the same kind of confusion str can...) Posted at 3:12 p.m. on March 5, 2012
- About:
PyCon 2012!! Who's going? : Python
- When:
Mon Mar 5 09:59:56 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/qh9ch/pycon_2012_whos_going/
- What:
- Let's see, advice from 4 pycons (and a bunch of europython before that) although I didn't register in time this year: Mainly, actually talk to people :-) Like any conference, the "hallway track" is where the most interesting things happen. If you're looking to get involved in an open source project, or even if you just use one and want advice, this is your best shot at connecting with the people behind it. Find the BOF-board early, and check it often. Sit up front. Go to at least one of Raymond Hettinger's sessions, he knows things :-) Don't even try to use your laptop in sessions; you'll only get frustrated, noone really knows how to make 802.11 work at this density.
2012-03-04
- About:
I just can't justify the price of Android Tablets (or IPAD), Reddit... why do you have own a tablet? or am I the only one that thinks this way. : Android
- When:
Sun Mar 4 14:06:20 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/qh4op/i_just_cant_justify_the_price_of_android_tablets/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 139 milliseconds ago When the iPad (1) first came out, I got one for my mom, not for me - because the touch UI looked like a nice choice for someone with severe arthritis who was starting to find using a keyboard for email painful. Since I was going to be Family Tech Support for it, I had it delivered to me first to get familiar with... and after two weeks of messing around with it I ended up concluding it was a really cool media-toy and I wanted one too :-) That said, I like the test discussed here - "if it broke, would you replace it?" and my answer is "Mom's, absolutely, mine, probably not." I might consider the lenovo tablet as a laptop-replacement that can work as a tablet, but only because it has a ThinkPad keyboard dock with pointing stick - and last I looked it's unrootable, so it's unbuyable :-) (Note that there was also a period of time when the iPad was the best kindle. That's no longer true, the k3-with-keyboard is half the weight and fits better in a jacket pocket, so the iPad fell out of that niche and android tablets never got a chance at it.)
2012-03-03
- About:
Lytro Camera Deep Dive: Import, Interact and Share - YouTube
- When:
Sat Mar 3 15:35:59 2012
- Where:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SCf6kE0Ylo&feature=endscreen
- What:
- @MrChelove so many people will not buy this camera that they're backordered into May :-) Note that it's only the "live focus" version of the picture that is difficult to work with - having live pictures be a Thing is far away. But using them to make it easier to get that one shot, and later get the focus you wanted, and then post, or edit, the picture that you wanted to have taken, that workflow is just fine, and you can share the picture everywhere. (Yes, I preordered one :-)
- About:
What is a good solution to the low internal storage on Desires and other similar phones? Already rooted, cleared caches and moved all possible apps. : Android
- When:
Sat Mar 3 02:25:10 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/np3ae/what_is_a_good_solution_to_the_low_internal/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 147 milliseconds ago Thanks for all of this detail - I finally stopped whining and got Links2SD working on my Nexus One/CM7.1 (using a second VFAT partition on the microSD, when the documentation notes that this might work better, on some systems that means "might work at all" :-) "Manage Applications" now says "108MB used/88MB free"; Titanium Backup says 95 user apps... but now I have room to start using appinventor again :-) (S2E left me needing to roll back to the upstream release and reinstall cyanogenmod, because I'd neglected to make a rommanager backup first - possibly also due to it being a system where the ext modules aren't loaded soon enough. I'd bet S2E is a lot more convenient when it works, but links2sd has much better handled failure modes, including logging to a file in /data...)
2012-03-01
- About:
AccuDial - Conference Call - Apps on Android Market
- When:
Thu Mar 1 17:38:34 2012
- Where:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.accuconference.accudial&feature=search_result
- What:
- Mark on moments ago works, but strange UI Works great with my corporate voice conferencing, but why does it have access to contacts when it doesn't have a way to get my concall number from them? It doesn't even handle cut&pasting the number into that field...
- About:
A 1988 TV report on a computer virus - a delicious wave of unintentional retro hilarity : videos
- When:
Thu Mar 1 00:23:39 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/q9vwo/a_1988_tv_report_on_a_computer_virus_a_delicious/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 134 milliseconds ago I think the wikipedia picture of a floppy at the Boston Museum of Science may have confused people - that floppy may certainly be one that someone saved a copy of the source code for the "grappling hook" on, but RTM kept his files in his Cornell student account, encrypting them when he wasn't working on them; at least one version of them got caught up in the automatic backups while it was in the clear :-) The transmission mechanism was entirely network based; see M&T "Attack Routines", it tried rexec/rsh, sendmail with DEBUG turned on, and a buffer overrun on fingerd. So the actual spread was a mix of password-guessing (the rexec/rsh probes were done with passwords it had figured out on the local system, since they were likely to be the same, even then :-) and more "virus-like" exploitation of bugs in network-facing programs.
- About:
Pexpect haters. : Python
- When:
Thu Mar 1 00:08:16 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/qastj/pexpect_haters/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 110 milliseconds ago I suspect a lot of the "hating" comes from misuse of expect/pexpect - there are a bunch of tasks for which pexpect is really your only choice, and it's great to have for them - but they're all fuzzy/messy/sloppy interactions, and "last resort" ways of accomplishing something. To give an extreme example, using pexpect to run ls versus calling os.listdir() will make people twitch... using pexpect to script an installer running over a serial port, on the other hand, will probably get you sympathy :-)
2012-02-29
- About:
A 1988 TV report on a computer virus - a delicious wave of unintentional retro hilarity : videos
- When:
Wed Feb 29 11:21:23 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/q9vwo/a_1988_tv_report_on_a_computer_virus_a_delicious/
- What:
- One of the reporters wanted to see some "code" so we gave them something printed out on the fancy new LPS-40 (microvax-based postscript printer, nice bit of office-grade hardware)... when they printed it in the newspaper, someone drew tractor-feed holes around the edges, so it looked computer-y :-) permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
A 1988 TV report on a computer virus - a delicious wave of unintentional retro hilarity : videos
- When:
Wed Feb 29 00:58:50 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/q9vwo/a_1988_tv_report_on_a_computer_virus_a_delicious/?sort=new
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 77 milliseconds ago umm, it was 1988, they were Sun 3's and VAXen - if you're still running one of them, you're either a operating it as a museum piece or are going for your merit badge in generating waste heat :-) Note that the victims were running what was basically research code - they really were pretty easy to clean up, instructions and patches were sent around, upgrades got done. (Even a Sun 3 typically had a sysadmin of some sort.)
- About:
A 1988 TV report on a computer virus - a delicious wave of unintentional retro hilarity : videos
- When:
Wed Feb 29 00:35:06 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/q9vwo/a_1988_tv_report_on_a_computer_virus_a_delicious/
- What:
- That didn't come across too well in the video, we explained it a bit more in the paper but an interesting detail that came out in the decompilation and reverse engineering was that there was actually significant effort put in to make it stealthy, and only run once-per machine... but there was also code to defend against someone "spoofing" it as an easy lock out. Some percentage of the time, it allowed it to run more than once per machine (one intentional path, one bug - the more copies running, the more likely the bug would occur.) So, through simple exponential growth, it was inevitable that it would get noticed... In other words - that wasn't advice, that was reporting what it was written to do - but virus code is still code, and is made of bugs :-)
- About:
A 1988 TV report on a computer virus - a delicious wave of unintentional retro hilarity : videos
- When:
Wed Feb 29 00:25:47 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/q9vwo/a_1988_tv_report_on_a_computer_virus_a_delicious/
- What:
- It helped that the media didn't even have wrong ideas about what was going on, and were actually trying to quote sources (ah journalism); most of the video was from a formal press event set up to try to explain things to the public. There's actually a lot more video, Professor Bruce (the only one dressed like a grown-up - MIT Vice President for Information Systems, back when that meant something) got people to send him whatever they'd taped off the air and the news clippings they'd found, and had a service put together a professional overview of the event; it was a nice memento.
- About:
A 1988 TV report on a computer virus - a delicious wave of unintentional retro hilarity : videos
- When:
Tue Feb 28 23:58:55 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/q9vwo/a_1988_tv_report_on_a_computer_virus_a_delicious/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 118 milliseconds ago Ah, that's where all the sudden attention came from. (This was surfacing rarely... then every two years... now it's less than a year since the last burst :-) "Not Amish, just scruffy" - consider that that media appearance was right after a couple of consecutive all-nighters (not just me, there was a team of people who were handy and got roped into it as well.) Ok, fine, I guess that doesn't explain the enormous glasses, does it :-}
2012-02-28
- About:
My question is - is anyone gaming it. For example, were I to suggest that I was... | Hacker News
- When:
Tue Feb 28 00:54:19 2012
- Where:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3642074
- What:
- My question is - is anyone gaming it. For example, were I to suggest that I was working on "InstaPaper for PDFs... with kindle sync and an ipad app" how quickly would I hear about other "copycat" versions with crowdsourced recommendations or lulu tie-ins or some other variation? (I'm not actually working on one. Really. _looks at watch_)
2012-02-27
- About:
Why Python? - CS373
- When:
Mon Feb 27 12:33:20 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/5479/why-python
- What:
- "Like French, use French" :-) At least in the early stages of the class, the language choice has nothing to do with interoperability or even software engineering; it's about having a conversation about algorithms in a reasonable pseudocode that happens to actually execute. Maybe for later projects it will make more sense, but at this stage of the game, I think language choice would be actively harmful...
- About:
¿How much it cost? - CS373
- When:
Mon Feb 27 04:07:35 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/186/how-much-it-cost?page=1#5200
- What:
- I recently stumbled across the TORC Robotics "by-wire XGV" which appears to be a Ford Escape Hybrid remade into a robot platform - just add computer and sensors, it even includes a wireless panic-button and integrated clean power supply. There's video of them demoing it at the Blind Driver Challenge last year... some quick searches don't turn up pricing info, but a paper from Berkeley DriveLab refers to it as "cost effective" (though it being a hybrid was also an advantage.) Looks like the vehicle they start with is only $30k, so even with a nice build job it probably still brings the platform price down pretty far...
- About:
Potential danger problem of Self-driving car - CS373
- When:
Mon Feb 27 03:32:00 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/5103/potential-danger-problem-of-self-driving-car
- What:
- In the soccer-ball situation, the vehicle is moving too fast for the conditions of stopping distance, driver reaction time, and viewing range. Current robotic cars have vastly more sensors and faster reaction times (and "constant" attentiveness); one could imagine production ones being much more demanding about "this road is not safe to drive on at any speed, rerouting" (possibly automatically filing a complaint that gets routed to the local urban planners :-)
- About:
A standard sensor data format? - CS373
- When:
Sun Feb 26 02:38:01 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/4091/a-standard-sensor-data-format?page=1#4107
- What:
- 0 I'm not sure the Kinect is fast enough (or bright enough) either; I recall reading that the laser scanners on Stanley have about 25m range (vs about 2m for the kinect) and generate about a million points per second - thus the dynamic modelling trick where the live video feed is calibrated against close-in laser data, then this live-updated model is used to determine the kind of terrain the camera is "seeing" farther away (up to 200m out.) What I'm wondering is if the cheap laser rangefinder design used in the Neato Robotics robot vacuums (which, unlike the Roomba, actually do SLAM) can be made to operate in a regime useful for robot driving, even if it means mounting a handful of them with individual narrow fields of view...
- About:
forum bug: badge banner links to wrong profile address - CS373
- When:
Sun Feb 26 02:09:58 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/4088/forum-bug-badge-banner-links-to-wrong-profile-address
- What:
- forum bug: badge banner links to wrong profile address 0 The "you have achieved student" popdown banner at the top of the page links to an "I'm sorry dave I can't do that" page, but the name field works. I finally looked more carefully, the banner links to http://www.udacity-forums.com/users/1156/mark_eichin/ which fails, but the username link goes to http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/users/1156/mark_eichin/ which has the course tag before the users tag. Probably just a template tweak...
- About:
Why are you taking this class? - CS373
- When:
Sun Feb 26 02:05:32 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/3989/why-are-you-taking-this-class?page=1#4086
- What:
- 0 I took the first ai-class, mostly for fun, partly due to Thrun's robot car reputation, partly because I've worked as systems and release engineer for a geographic search engine team for some years now, and what they do is all AI (NLP, ML, scary statistical modelling) and it seemed like it would be cool to have a better grasp on what they talk about over the lunch table :-) Thrun's enthusiasm is highly contagious, and he's right that getting humans out from behind the wheel is going to save a lot of lives - it's not like the bar is even that high, humans are really bad at driving but unless we have a fuel apocalypse, we're not going to stop doing it... so it would be really worthwhile to actually be able to work on this kind of thing, and the first step to that is TO MOUNT LASER SCANNERS ON MY CAR... err, I mean... to get educated in the state of the art and the direction the research is taking.
- About:
Why are you taking this class? - CS373
- When:
Sun Feb 26 02:03:29 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/3989/why-are-you-taking-this-class?page=1#4086
- What:
- I took the first ai-class, mostly for fun, partly due to Thrun's robot car reputation, partly because I've worked as systems and release engineer for a geographic search engine team, and what they do is all AI (NLP, ML, scary statistical modelling) and it seemed like it would be cool to have a better grasp on what they talk about over the lunch table :-) Thrun's enthusiasm is highly contagious, and he's right that getting humans out from behind the wheel is going to save a lot of lives - it's not like the bar is even that high, humans are really bad at driving but unless we have a fuel apocalypse, we're not going to stop doing it... so it would be really worthwhile to actually be able to work on this kind of thing, and the first step to that is TO MOUNT LASER SCANNERS ON MY CAR... err, I mean... to get educated in the state of the art and the direction the research is taking.
- About:
Misc Questions on first unit. : cs373
- When:
Sun Feb 26 01:51:52 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/cs373/comments/q68zv/misc_questions_on_first_unit/
- What:
- re 4: if you're on http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs373 and select "Class FAQ", scroll down to "How do I get help?" it says "we encourage you to post your question to the forum" which points to http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/ which is a kind of flaky StackOverflow instance (I get a lot of "Sorry Dave, I don't know how to do that" pages.) So that's probably what they meant, in terms of being the "most official" forum, though a bunch of Udacity people post here too, udacity-forums.com has a lot more volume.
- About:
different fonts for "interface" and document : emacs
- When:
Sun Feb 26 00:59:33 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/po4pu/different_fonts_for_interface_and_document/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 112 milliseconds ago Actually, if the terminal is xterm, you can use an escape sequence (or just run xtermcontrol --fontfontname) to change the font for the whole window. (Not what the OP asked for, of course.) Looks like you still need to specify from the menu whether to interpret the name as truetype or old-school, rather than having that controlled remotely, though.
- About:
Looking for Mode: multiple files, transparently in one buffer : emacs
- When:
Sat Feb 25 23:32:33 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/q6c3e/looking_for_mode_multiple_files_transparently_in/
- What:
- Looking for Mode: multiple files, transparently in one buffer (self.emacs) submitted 1 second ago by _Mark_ I'm looking for a mode (to copy code/technique from) that presents a collection of files in a single buffer, such that isearch and the like work smoothly across the view of the entire set changing something and saving updates the particular individual file the change was in They can all be the same mode (or rather, the view only needs one buffer-wide mode.) It's sort of an inside-out version of what tar-mode and ar-mode or arc-mode do. (WAYRTTD: I have some ad-hoc note-taking tools that I currently use as one-file-per-project, with datestamp markers stuffed into them, plus some blog-generating tools that parse them. Every other file-based blog tool ever works with an entry-per-file, and collects them up. I'd like to use some existing tools, but rather than changing my habits, I want to get emacs to present my Obviously Superior (kidding) view of the world unchanged...)
- About:
keyzen - my touch typing trainer geared towards programmers : programming
- When:
Sat Feb 25 20:18:19 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/q5tzk/keyzen_my_touch_typing_trainer_geared_towards/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 44 milliseconds ago I think the idea is that you're trying to develop a reflex, not a mental skill, and it needs to be dull enough that you can't think about what you're doing :-) When I learned (on electric typewriters (the school didn't have computers yet)) there was an added component of pacing, done with records (so they could speed up the same drills later in the course) - that appears to be missing from this tool, but the idea was that you didn't go for speed, you went for accuracy first at a fixed pace, and built speed later. (I don't know if there's still pedagogic support for this - apparently modern Morse Code teaching goes for speed first, these days? but it worked for me :-) Another way to put it is that you're not learning to type "fjkkfjj", you're learning to not think about typing those letters, just to see f and hit the right key immediately, not think about fingers or characters. (Ever ask someone how to do something in emacs or vi, and have them twitch their hands before being able to explain it? That's what I'm talking about :-) That's a gateway to being able to type Hello, without typing "H e l l o"...
2012-02-24
- About:
feature suggestion: add a plain text-form option to the code editor - CS373
- When:
Thu Feb 23 21:55:54 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/2229/feature-suggestion-add-a-plain-text-form-option-to-the-code-editor
- What:
- feature suggestion: add a plain text-form option to the code editor 0 If there was a button to turn the fancy code-edit box into a textarea, I could then use It's-all-text to pop the code over to emacs instead of fighting with editor keybindings. Might also be a workaround for some of the trouble people have been having in IE...
- About:
eichin: Slowly moving on...
- When:
Thu Feb 23 01:04:19 2012
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/77125.html#t116037
- What:
- February 23 2012, 06:04:04 UTC Check link Collapse Delete Freeze Screen Track Edit Looks like the "medium" battery is just *barely* the Boston to New York run, given optimal (ie. unrealistic) conditions, but the "large" would handle driving down for a weekend, charging overnight, and driving back. I'd have to get the retractable-glass-roof version, since it would mean replacing the Mini as well, and I'm not giving up driving a convertible :-) Something to ponder, anyway.
2012-02-22
- About:
eichin: Slowly moving on...
- When:
Wed Feb 22 01:11:26 2012
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/77125.html#t115525
- What:
- 2012-02-22 06:11 am UTC link Collapse Delete Freeze Screen Track Edit The S and the X look interesting, but the range isn't there yet, and they're a bit too fancy for commute-only vehicles. (Also the excessively clever use of remote monitoring on the Roadster bothers me, though the footnotes there suggest it can be disabled.) Actually the new Tesla-powered 2012 Toyota Rav4-EV looks a lot more useful, if they ever escape California, or maybe the electric drive SmartCar. (In the next decade, probably the only practical things in this space are going to be plug-in hybrids, though.) Still at Nokia (which has a lot more to do with the team than the company, which isn't really a surprise :-)
2012-02-21
- About:
Having trouble understanding robot motion vis-a-vis the posterior PDF. : cs373
- When:
Tue Feb 21 13:47:18 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/cs373/comments/pz2k8/having_trouble_understanding_robot_motion_visavis/
- What:
- Say you're standing before a table, with a red box, a green box, and a blue box, 2 ft away from each other in a line from left to right. You're standing in front of the green (middle) box, you can see it. You close your eyes, step sideways to the right, what do you expect will be in front of you when you open your eyes? The blue box, right? that's what this step is.
- About:
Having trouble understanding robot motion vis-a-vis the posterior PDF. : cs373
- When:
Tue Feb 21 11:00:26 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/cs373/comments/pz2k8/having_trouble_understanding_robot_motion_visavis/
- What:
- It represents updating our belief based on what we expect the actuators to do. There's a continuum of ways to do this, at one extreme is the case given where we believe (pretend) the actuators to be perfect, in which case the probability of being at any given point before moving is offset exactly by the amount we moved; at the other extreme, we have no idea what the actuators will do and we learn nothing from using them, and our probabilities are unchanged. Reality is somewhere in the middle :-) which is why in the first sketch the "movement" update is "fuzzy" or "smeared" - if you can model the actuator as "a commanded motion of one unit to the left is accurate to +/- 25%" you can apply that to the entire PDF and spread the peaks (and the rest of it) out by that amount. (If you dig up the ai-class lectures on particle filters, that's covering the same material; I've also only gotten as far as the "exact motion" lecture so I'm not sure if just plowing through to the end of this session clarifies this...)
- About:
Welcoming Email : cs373
- When:
Tue Feb 21 02:33:35 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/cs373/comments/pv8j7/welcoming_email/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 66 milliseconds ago I didn't either - but when I saw the twitter mention, I logged in and checked under "settings" I had an email address listed with "resend verification message" or something like that - I suspect I (and probably a bunch of other ai-class enthusiasts) signed up "too early", before they had email address validation up and running. Fortunately, there were other ways to find out... permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
Python Shortcut - CS373
- When:
Tue Feb 21 01:51:12 2012
- Where:
http://www.udacity-forums.com/cs373/questions/108/python-shortcut?page=1#135
- What:
- It's also a new enough python to have the ternary operator - if you're comfortable with iterator expressions, [prob * (pHit if z == color else pMiss) for ...] is compact, if not necessarily more readable (depends on how natural you find iterator expressions, and this isn't a Python course, after all.)
2012-02-20
- About:
Why I Still Use Emacs : programming
- When:
Mon Feb 20 12:58:55 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/pxadd/why_i_still_use_emacs/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 144 milliseconds ago I've had people tell me that as well - though there's a part of it that is outright typing speed (from learning properly, on electric typewriters, long enough ago that that was a thing) - elsewhere in this thread there's discussion of "lines of code per day" that is just making the standard bandwidth/latency mistake. A high enough typing speed doesn't just means lots of output - it means code in your head becomes code in the machine with far less distraction due to awareness of the keyboard. (This is hard to understand from both sides of the line; I didn't realize the magnitude of the difference until I tried doing 750words from a cellphone :-)
- About:
Why I Still Use Emacs : programming
- When:
Mon Feb 20 00:49:44 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/pxadd/why_i_still_use_emacs/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 5 seconds ago Even in that case, a local emacs and tramp mode (I don't remember if that automatically ssh'es m-x compile but it's easy enough to drop the ssh prefix in, and tramp will take care of saving the changed files...)
- About:
Why I Still Use Emacs : programming
- When:
Mon Feb 20 00:44:46 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/pxadd/why_i_still_use_emacs/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 129 milliseconds ago Other than the wrist thing, it's not about speed - it's about the interruption of finding the mouse. Mouse-based UIs can be powerful (though I think multi-touch UIs now trump them entierly) but mixed-mode UIs get in the way. (Read Raskin (of course) for how to quantify that...) Also, a keyboard gives you more options for search (and filtering), so you can read code faster and more effectively too; I find it's faster to "find the code I'm thinking of/looking at" with isearch than with a mouse, but I've been using emacs since 1985 or so :-) (The other thing to take away from Raskin, or more recently Nielsen, is that you can't at all judge speed for a task you're performing yourself, you need to measure it externally...) permalink parent edit delete reply
2012-02-17
- About:
Don't Fall in Love With Your Technology : programming
- When:
Fri Feb 17 15:41:09 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ptxal/dont_fall_in_love_with_your_technology/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 71 milliseconds ago While I was impressed by the binary search example, I'm not convinced that scales to harder problems (or even working with higher level data than integers) but it would be interesting to see it tried. Inspirational, in any case. Also worth noting is that, engaging and shiny as that interface is, it didn't help him avoid one of the classic binary search errors which suggests that there's a lot of improvement needed on the right-hand side of that panel for it to actually improve programming... permalink parent edit delete reply
2012-02-16
- About:
Moving to python from perl, any advice? : Python
- When:
Thu Feb 16 13:27:47 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/projc/moving_to_python_from_perl_any_advice/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 323 milliseconds ago private cpan mirror like functionality Do you mean chishop? There are a couple of PyPI clones, I forget if that's the one we're using. (But we mostly take the approach that languages should stop failing at deployment :-) and we build rpms and debs instead... some of which contain jars as well as python code.)
- About:
Moving to python from perl, any advice? : Python
- When:
Thu Feb 16 13:17:55 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/projc/moving_to_python_from_perl_any_advice/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 364 milliseconds ago A lot of common use of subprocess will be uglier than one might expect, because check_output is "New in 2.7" and so the more experienced python programmers often haven't seen it, or are delivering code on RHEL or CentOS and don't have it yet :-| Also, if you have to do two-way communication with the child process, it's ugly in either language :-) I also find that many of the "ugly" shell interactions I find myself doing turn out to be nicer coded in-line; obviously ls -la is simple example to make a point about subprocess (though in the simple case I'd have suggested commands.getoutput instead anyway) os.walk and os.listdir are more idiomatic python. permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
Moving to python from perl, any advice? : Python
- When:
Wed Feb 15 22:05:18 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/projc/moving_to_python_from_perl_any_advice/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 75 milliseconds ago To emphasize the regexp thing: every time you reach for regexp, stop and look at the string methods first, just to see. One of the biggest habits to break for us was that if $foo ~= /.jpg$/ did not translate to if re.match(r".jpg$", foo) but instead, more simply and idiomatically, to if foo.endswith(".jpg"). Also, semicolons at the end of the line - harmless, but everyone will see them and say "you were a perl programmer, weren't you" :-) (pylint will remind you of this with [W] Unnecessary semicolon.) One unexpected thing: when stuff fails, you'll (typically) get an exception, instead of undef. After we got past basic syntax, that was the Best Thing Ever from the perspective of porting a large perl+shell codebase...
2012-02-15
- About:
First Steps Into Kivy : Python
- When:
Tue Feb 14 23:15:21 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/poxct/first_steps_into_kivy/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 412 milliseconds ago "view source" makes it more readable :-) For me, it renders as a postcard in the upper left of the window, with scrollbars inside of it. (Also, I'm not sure what font I'm ending up with, but "wi" should not touch, for starters...)
- About:
What do you say to an alien? | Hacker News
- When:
Mon Feb 13 01:45:43 2012
- Where:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3584013
- What:
- 1 point by eichin 0 minutes ago | link | edit | delete Because if we meet them, it's because they got here thus they're a lot more technologically advanced than we are? (Though there's a fun short story from way back that ends with aliens who have FTL travel wanting to buy our high-reliability computing/robotics tech, because they've never developed any for themselves :-) reply
- About:
The 17x17 problem solved | Hacker News
- When:
Sun Feb 12 19:27:14 2012
- Where:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3582881
- What:
- * 1 point by eichin 0 minutes ago | link | edit | delete Took about 20 minutes to write some python code to search; takes about 1/3 of a second to try all 3x17x17 mutations and find at least one rectangle produced by each. So yeah, every single-point change "destroys" the solution.
2012-02-12
- About:
Installation - launchpadd - How to build and use the code. - Linux drivers for the novation launchpad - Google Project Hosting
- When:
Sat Feb 11 22:17:38 2012
- Where:
http://code.google.com/p/launchpadd/wiki/Installation
- What:
- Comment by eic...@gmail.com, Today (moments ago) as of r13 and Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric) it's libasound2-dev, and it builds ./launchpadd (not ./launchpadmidi as mentioned here.) It prints "Launchpad acquired from a kernel driver." and does cause aconnect -i to list client 129: 'Novation Launchpad' [type=user] 0 'Novation Launchpad' and aconnect -o to list client 128: 'Novation Launchpad' [type=user] 0 'Novation Launchpad' but the buttons do not light up when pressed, or otherwise. Diagnostic suggestions?
2012-02-11
- About:
Sarge, a library wrapping the subprocess module, has been released. : Python
- When:
Sat Feb 11 16:55:05 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/pl25z/sarge_a_library_wrapping_the_subprocess_module/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 3 seconds ago don't "we" generally know by now that having the default be un-armored is as error-prone as not having armoring at all? One of the things I like about direct use of subprocess with arrays is that it's entirely unambiguous what's going on, and if you want globbing or substitution you have to make an effort to get it... permalink edit delete reply
- About:
Dear app programmers: "Bugs fixed" is not a changelog; please tell us WHICH bugs were fixed in What's New : Android
- When:
Sat Feb 11 11:13:30 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/pjy8d/dear_app_programmers_bugs_fixed_is_not_a/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 55 milliseconds ago If it really never manifests to the user, why are you even doing the release? (Or perhaps deleting the code instead of fixing it :-) For the examples, maybe it's "fix potential but never observed/reported crash" or "remove internal limits to prepare for future expansion". In both cases it gets across that you care about cleanliness and stability you're not just putting out a release with a more obnoxious ad-engine Of course what would really help is for the market to have two chunks of info, one for new users and one for updating users - have both available, but if I'm already running the app, just show me the updates, or at least show them first, since I already know what it does...
- About:
Dear app programmers: "Bugs fixed" is not a changelog; please tell us WHICH bugs were fixed in What's New : Android
- When:
Sat Feb 11 11:01:57 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/pjy8d/dear_app_programmers_bugs_fixed_is_not_a/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 71 milliseconds ago I was surprised the first time I saw that on an app. It would seem that half the point (only half) of having an easy commenting path is for developer feedback (the other half is for informing other customers, or at least expressing credibly that someone else has using it at all.) Is google making any effort to fix that problem?
2012-02-10
- About:
Optimizing Firefox startup time on linux: a very interesting post on very little known (but important) parts of the system : programming
- When:
Fri Feb 10 00:15:03 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/phnqv/optimizing_firefox_startup_time_on_linux_a_very/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 1 second ago I've got a 1T spinning disk and an 80G "mSATA" SSD in my ThinkPad X220 Tablet. Currently running with an external journal on the SSD, and frankly didn't notice any real user-visible improvement (after all, I've also got 8G of RAM.) Note that I haven't benchmarked it (since perceived day-to-day speed is what I actually care about) and boot speed is irrelevant (since my average uptime is well over a month.) Browser startup speed likewise. Making kphotoalbum faster, that would interest me...
2012-02-09
- About:
Am I the only one that knows lots of people with Android, yet only a small percentage of them use Google Talk? : Android
- When:
Thu Feb 9 01:12:44 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/pgape/am_i_the_only_one_that_knows_lots_of_people_with/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 922 milliseconds ago I just picked up MightyText from another r/android thread, which lets chrome talk to your phone and send "real" texts. (As for saving them - I still use smsbackup from my G1 days...) The interesting thing about Google Voice is the voicemail transcription. (Unfortunately, it's merely interesting, as opposed to actually good enough to use...) permalink parent edit delete reply
2012-02-07
- About:
Andrei Alexandrescu's call to arms at GoingNative: Call Your Headhunter! Do you have your own horror stories? : programming
- When:
Tue Feb 7 00:06:57 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/pdhhg/andrei_alexandrescus_call_to_arms_at_goingnative/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 141 milliseconds ago I'd go beyond ideally: "If you don't have coverage, you're not refactoring, you're just changing shit." See also Michael Feathers' efforts to define "legacy code" as code that doesn't have enough test coverage to change with confidence...
2012-02-05
- About:
Build your own self-driving car - Hack a Day
- When:
Sun Feb 5 15:40:02 2012
- Where:
http://hackaday.com/2012/02/05/build-your-own-self-driving-car/?replytocom=576007#comment-576074
- What:
- _Mark_ says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. February 5, 2012 at 1:39 pm Umm, did you miss the entire DARPA Grand Challenge? While a lot of them were of course funded research programs (like Thrun/Stanford and Red/CMU) there were a bunch of hobbyists as well. Granted, the first time around that mostly made for a good blooper reel, but that was 2004; in 2005 there were five finishers, three of which were entirely successful. The Urban Challenge (drive in traffic) a couple years later went even better, and included a UT-Austin *undergrad* team. Given that you can already buy mainstream cars that parallel park themselves, it’s only a question of how *soon* fully self-driving cars get to market. After all, it’s not like *humans* are any good at driving :-) One of the interesting things Thrun brought up in last term’s Free AI Class was that algorithms like particle filters are actually really cheap computationally; the Stanford car ran on a 4-core PC, including processing video and laser-scanner input. Final thought: if you’ve ever taken a class from someone who *really loved the material* and was enthusiastic and excited about it – and you wished more classes were like that – take the Self-Driving Car class :-) Or just go watch the ai-class videos again (they’re on youtube) – Norvig is an excellent lecturer, but Thrun really pours his soul into it. Reply
2012-02-04
- About:
Google App Inventor : Android
- When:
Sat Feb 4 03:39:26 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/p9y62/google_app_inventor/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 40 milliseconds ago MIT is running a test version, and expects to have a free public one up later in the year; they also have jars you can download to run it yourself, for example if you're running a class, from here http://appinventoredu.mit.edu/ and it looks like the sources are finally available from http://code.google.com/p/app-inventor-releases/ (that's just over a week old :-) I wrote a couple of apps under the google version - it got frustrating fairly quickly, but I'm a programmer :-) There are clearly bits of it that would work great on a multitouch screen and are wretched with a mouse. It's also not interestingly visual - you get about as much help as you'd get from an aggressively auto-completing IDE, in the sense that you can't have syntax errors - the interfaces are expressed visually as puzzle-piece edges, but the pieces stretch and morph to fit. It doesn't have anything like Raskin's infinite-depth canvas - you can write functions/procedures, and then use them elsewhere on the canvas (they appear on a menu once created), but there's no real connection between them. Not to say that this isn't helpful to non-programmers - if anything, it's probably a better stepping stone to conventional programming because it isn't trying too hard to be visually/spatially sophisticated. (What I really want to do is to take the visual part out and turn it into a python-like syntax, then use that AST to drive the code generator; the set of "primitives" is decent enough, and it would get rid of the ludicrous levels of verbosity that simple java programs have. And I've already got three appinventor apps to start from :-) permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
Anyone know of any opportunities to get a PyCon 2012 ticket? : Python
- When:
Fri Feb 3 22:52:37 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/p9uxl/anyone_know_of_any_opportunities_to_get_a_pycon/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 71 milliseconds ago They are reservations, not tickets - no fungability implied. (I'd been waffling about going, missed the early-bird deadline, and was startled that the headcount limit was hit at all, let alone hit so quickly - last year had a 1500 limit as well, but it wasn't actually hit. Is Santa Clara just that much more exciting than Atlanta, or is it an indication that the economy is improving?) permalink edit delete reply
2012-01-29
- About:
What is everyone's preferred editor? : Python
- When:
Sat Jan 28 19:21:24 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/p07zu/what_is_everyones_preferred_editor/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 50 milliseconds ago You mean the sample bias that even most glorious app ever, if it's MacOS only, just isn't going to be that popular overall? :-) Alternatively, any editor thread is mostly going to bring out emacs and vi people, with occasional singleton responses from other users - because it's kind of distinctive among the vi and emacs communities that an editor actually is something you should be opinionated about - for everyone else it's Just A Thing...
- About:
What is everyone's preferred editor? : Python
- When:
Sat Jan 28 19:13:31 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/p07zu/what_is_everyones_preferred_editor/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 340 milliseconds ago Having pylint on F1 in python-mode is nice (though I keep meaning to sit down and try pyflakes + flymake for "no click" syntax checking...) The other win of emacs is that you not only can you have have a python-subprocess buffer to dynamically throw code at... you can use PyMacs to write emacs extensions in Python instead of elisp. (After all, you can only use elisp code in emacs, you can use python code everywhere, so you'll eventually be better at python than elisp - or you started out that way :-)
2012-01-28
- About:
Prof. Thrun gave up his tenure at Stanford and started Udacity : aiclass
- When:
Fri Jan 27 22:24:47 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/oszv0/prof_thrun_gave_up_his_tenure_at_stanford_and/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 66 milliseconds ago also, go to http://www.wonderwhy-er.com/ai-class and hit "expand all" and search on "particle" - you can probably just dive right in to unit 11, though skipping forward to part 24 will get you to the specifics. (wonderwhy-er links straight to youtube.) permalink parent edit delete reply
2012-01-27
- About:
Sebastian Thrun discussing ai-class, Udacityat DLD : aiclass
- When:
Fri Jan 27 17:12:42 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/otwdx/sebastian_thrun_discussing_aiclass_udacityat_dld/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 4 seconds ago You can look elsewhere on this reddit for more detailed breakdowns of the numbers, but "completion" meant "finish all homeworks, midterm and final" if you were on the "graded" track, and I think "take all the lecture-quizzes" (showing that you'd actually made it through the lectures) for the non-graded track. As for the homework assignments themselves, the early ones had a lot of pointless difficulty (places where you could lose all points due to a +1/-1 fencepost condition that could have been made unambiguous with one reference example... they actually did end up posting clarifications [and extensions] often enough that starting late was a good idea even if you had a higher risk of hitting a server outage :-) Later homework was a lot better about being honestly challenging, in a "can you apply the material" sort of way. (I spent 4 to 8 hours/week on them either way - I just got more frustrated by the early ones :-) I think some of this is what Thrun means when he talks about "teaching it like a weeder class" in the DLD video...
- About:
Help me come up with interesting ways to introduce embedded C developers to Python : Python
- When:
Fri Jan 27 16:21:31 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/oysa9/help_me_come_up_with_interesting_ways_to/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 1 second ago Don't underestimate the value of simply showing off strings. (The best description I've heard of string handling in C is "trying to do surface mount soldering with a forklift" :-) Also, pyusb and pyserial are nice if you want to show off "poking at real hardware" without going too deep...
2012-01-25
- About:
cjsmith: I only wish it were this "bad"!
- When:
Wed Jan 25 01:32:15 2012
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/1001490.html#t10568210
- What:
- 2012-01-25 06:32 am UTC Check link Collapse Delete Track Edit sounds sort of like Unified... "but goopier" :-)
2012-01-24
- About:
cjsmith: I only wish it were this "bad"!
- When:
Tue Jan 24 10:30:02 2012
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/1001490.html#t10566162
- What:
- 2012-01-24 03:29 pm UTC Check link Collapse Delete Track Edit Is it a new curriculum, or new faculty, or something like that? If it was also this broken last term and nothing changed... (Being (effectively) a beta tester for the first Stanford on-line AI class was fun, but it was (1) *free* (2) pretty easy except for the statistics part; doing it for your actual *career* sounds like Not Any Fun At All.)
- About:
Hi r/python. I'm trying to write a script that will hyperlink files of to a spreadsheet cell automatically. Can somebody point me in the right direction? : Python
- When:
Tue Jan 24 00:34:39 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/otuor/hi_rpython_im_trying_to_write_a_script_that_will/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 790 milliseconds ago xlrd to read the info, xlwt to write out a new combined one; example shows "Adding a Hyperlink to a Cell" about halfway down the page... (it's been a couple of years since I've used them myself, but at the time they were very useful...) permalink edit delete reply
- About:
Are there are videos/lectures explaining the linguistic theory behind Python's NLTK? : Python
- When:
Sun Jan 22 23:27:46 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ooa47/are_there_are_videoslectures_explaining_the/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 1 second ago There have been a couple of pycon talks (single 1 hour lectures) on NLTK, you should find them hosted on blip.tv, like this one: http://blip.tv/pycon-us-videos-2009-2010-2011/pycon-2010-the-python-and-the-elephant-large-scale-natural-language-processing-with-nltk-and-dumbo-120-3279057
2012-01-13
- About:
Who says Android users don't buy apps? We did a quick look into our (Read It Later) holiday downloads and found that myth doesn't hold up : Android
- When:
Thu Jan 12 23:29:40 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/oefdv/who_says_android_users_dont_buy_apps_we_did_a/
- What:
- point 128 milliseconds ago Instafetch, actually (I still use the lite version, mostly because the pro one didn't add anything interesting when I first got it - though now that I look again, the EverNote integration might be worth the trouble.) Instafetch, actually (I still use the lite version, mostly because the pro one didn't add anything interesting when I first got it - though now that I look again, the EverNote integration might be worth the trouble.) formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" ~~strikethrough~~ strikethrough super^script superscript * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2012-01-11
- About:
The one thing that would get everyone on the self driving car bandwagon. : aiclass
- When:
Tue Jan 10 19:40:07 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/ob22q/the_one_thing_that_would_get_everyone_on_the_self/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 756 milliseconds ago I'm all for "killing fewer people" as the main goal - they don't even have to be very good self-driving cars to achieve that :-) But let's also add "making electric cars practical" - when your car can drop you at the office, drive to a charging lot (possibly a denser one, since it doesn't need room for people to get in and out) and swing back and get you on the way home... Sure, public transit is a "better" answer, but I'm talking about America... "making cities more practical" (that might be a negative, to some :-) by allowing your parking to be slightly out of town, or somewhere otherwise inconvenient...
2012-01-09
- About:
Using NLTK to analyze US Politicians Twitter Feeds : Python
- When:
Mon Jan 9 00:56:36 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/o83pg/using_nltk_to_analyze_us_politicians_twitter_feeds/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 121 milliseconds ago I brought a related point up on r/aiclass and yes, you can blast out some python code that works - but if you can take the time to learn to use NLTK for these standard things, you can take advantage of the other tools that NLTK gives you (like FreqDist.plot or deciding that LaplaceProbDist fits the problem better), plus you get the added benefit that someone else looking at your code can tell more quickly (and convincingly) what's going on - "Oh, that's Lidstone smoothing" vs. "Hmm, the comments say that's a well known smoothing technique, I wonder if it really is..."
2012-01-08
- About:
Reportlab: Converting Hundreds of Images Into PDFs : Python
- When:
Sun Jan 8 01:23:17 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/o7ehf/reportlab_converting_hundreds_of_images_into_pdfs/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 93 milliseconds ago My first thought was that this looks like a lot of work compared to the old standby, ImageMagick: convert *.jpg comic.pdf and even with the "treat filenames as fields" issue, it's still "merely" convert jia_??.jpg jia_???.jpg comic.pdf But I'm in the middle of a project to produce a little image-heavy partly auto-generated magazinelet, where OpenOffice was just wrong, wkhtmltopdf failed on background images, Scribus UI made me consider scissors and tape as an alternative, TeX wasn't (sanely) programmable enough, and I'd finally started coding something up using the Cairo python bindings and cairo.PDFSurface and actually got a first full draft produced, though it takes seconds per page... and I see this post, and vaguely recall seeing a reportlab based conference-program generator at EuroPython years and years ago... the end result: the reportlab API matches very closely the one I'd wrapped around Cairo, so it was a quick conversion the reportlab version of the tool is around fifty times faster than the Cairo version (that may yet turn out to be my fault, but wow does that make a difference to my iteration cycle.) So, thanks for posting about it! permalink edit delete reply
2012-01-06
- About:
I made a module which checks for new published webcomics and loads them if u haven't read them. : Python
- When:
Thu Jan 5 23:40:07 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/o2guf/i_made_a_module_which_checks_for_new_published/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 89 milliseconds ago When I last poked at this problem I had around 60 "general" cases (variants on /comics, /strips, and /archive, for starters) with a few helpers (for some sites, the comic is the image with the alt text that matches a regexp); actual per-comic regexps were a last resort. Handled about 250 comics at the peak (which worked better than you might think, since I just had a browser bookmark pointing at the queue output by the checker, so I "always" had another comic to read, and it would just cycle around if I fell behind.) You might also find that there are comic hosting sites like keenspace where all of the comics match a common regexp; giving that regexp a name, in your module, would be a good convenience for your users. These days I just use piperka which mostly has the value of making it someone else's problem :-) What I really wanted to do was something that learned when a page updated; either through training (and hints from a human) or just lots of scripting... and would also find patterns like "this comic updates at midnight every day, don't bother checking it more than that"... permalink edit delete reply
- About:
About that torrent of all the class videos... : aiclass
- When:
Thu Jan 5 23:23:12 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/o41ss/about_that_torrent_of_all_the_class_videos/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 429 milliseconds ago I've been at completion for a day or so, but have been getting a lot of errors like "[ :211] Tracker: [Unable to connect to UDP tracker.]" which sometimes reduce the amount of traffic - anything better than rtorrent for further seeding, now that I have the whole thing? (or is bittorrent just more sensitive to the trackers than I would expect for a useful peer-to-peer protocol?)
2012-01-01
- About:
If I wanted to pose a question and needed to post training images or saved SVM models or pickled neural nets for reference, where would be a good place to post it? : Python
- When:
Sun Jan 1 17:45:57 2012
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/nvmkk/if_i_wanted_to_pose_a_question_and_needed_to_post/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 65 milliseconds ago Pickles are not just strings (they're effectively code, not data) and they're also binary data (in modes 1 and 2) so less likely to survive in text-posting environments. (Also, unless it's merely a python-performance question, it sounds like a question for which r/python might be too narrow of an audience; r/aiclass, for example, might be more useful and/or interested. But since you haven't actually asked the question...) permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
I guess this is a bad time to try appinvetor : Android
- When:
Sat Dec 31 23:16:49 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/ny2t0/i_guess_this_is_a_bad_time_to_try_appinvetor/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 33 milliseconds ago I was surprised at how far you could get with this particular version of visual programming - the dynamic creation of "jigsaw puzzle pieces" to match the objects you're trying to manipulate it is nice - but once you're about three days of experimentation in, you hit a wall where 2D just isn't useful, even with a "procedure" object. That said, the "visual language" has a pretty obvious mapping to text, it's not actually fundamentally visual; this representation isn't the saved XML from appinventor - and it certainly isn't Java :-) That representation would be an interesting rapid application development language for android apps, and once there's actually an open source version of the system, it would be interesting to try to put it together. permalink edit delete reply
2011-12-31
- About:
If I wanted to pose a question and needed to post training images or saved SVM models or pickled neural nets for reference, where would be a good place to post it? : Python
- When:
Sat Dec 31 17:05:02 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/nvmkk/if_i_wanted_to_pose_a_question_and_needed_to_post/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 491 milliseconds ago Pickles are not for sharing - if nothing else, they're python-specific; just use json instead, it's portable enough. But how much data are you talking about? json is a text format, you might just use google docs for that... but if it's not enormous, gist.github.com even has a JSON display option (though I don't see an explicit size limit on gist... in fact, I don't see any documentation at all :-)
2011-12-29
- About:
Here's my List of 7 Lesser Known Applications. What's your list /r/Android? : Android
- When:
Wed Dec 28 20:09:48 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/ntqlf/heres_my_list_of_7_lesser_known_applications/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 76 milliseconds ago For non-rooted users - I recommend rooting, even if Titanium Backup is the only thing you do it for. As far as I can tell there's a bunch of stuff Titanium Backup gets right that you can't do without elevated privileges (this is true of backups on most operating systems, actually.) permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-12-27
- About:
A Torrent of all the class videos : aiclass
- When:
Tue Dec 27 02:20:39 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/nlmn2/a_torrent_of_all_the_class_videos/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 594 milliseconds ago Just based on checking in on rtorrent every so often, it seems like the real problem is that it keeps dropping to zero trackers... I'm in the US, but usually have good connectivity to Sweden... permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-12-25
- About:
subrprocess questions : Python
- When:
Sun Dec 25 16:46:02 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/noajz/subrprocess_questions/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 58 milliseconds ago Note that this is fundamentally a Unix question, not a python one; that's much of the reason the subprocess documentation is insufficient. The first question to ask yourself is whether you want to look at that data on the fly, or only look at it once the child has completed. If you can wait for completion, and especially if you only care about it if the child ran successfully, then you can just subprocess.check_call([cmd...], stdout=file(outputname)) which will throw an exception if cmd fails, and if it doesn't, you can open outputname again and chew on it as desired. If you want to do something else while it's running (check_call and call don't return until the child does), but the above is still otherwise true - then use Popen, and check every so often with .poll() to see if it is done; you can enhance that with a signal.SIGCHLD handler, depending on how complicated the rest of your code is, to notice immediately when the child is done and then poll/wait on it. (You need to "collect" the exit status, or the kernel will keep the process-remnant around as a "Zombie" until you do, or you exit...) If you want to process the data while it's coming in, then you can go in a couple of different directions. If all you want to do is chew on it as it goes by, and do nothing else until it's done - then stdout=subprocess.PIPE and a for loop over .stdout as described by Da_blitz below works just fine. If you have other things to do as well, you need to learn about select and/or poll, and have an event loop that wakes up when any of the things you want to do actually happens... permalink edit delete reply
- About:
subrprocess questions : Python
- When:
Sun Dec 25 16:29:27 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/noajz/subrprocess_questions/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 95 milliseconds ago "don't think it flushes" -- betrays a bit of confusion... you don't control that at all from your code; it's entirely up to the process performing the output (find in this case) to flush or not. Unix convention is to flush lines when output is a tty, and to buffer large blocks when it is not, for efficiency (though see the stdbuf command for ways to subvert that.) As for getting emptied: any buffering find is doing will get flushed [or discarded] when find exits; then the kernel's buffer for the pipe itself will also get flushed, so your code as the reader will get that content and then and end-of-file (if you're using file.read that'll be an empty string, if you're using the iterator it'll be a StopIteration...) permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
python-tail; Unix tail follow implementation in Python : Python
- When:
Sun Dec 25 15:56:25 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/nq84d/pythontail_unix_tail_follow_implementation_in/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 265 milliseconds ago (3) don't want to use file I run across this all the time with file and string... the best trick I've found is to think about what you'd call it if you had two of them :-) So I wouldn't use file_name (especially since it's the object, not the name) but something like following or lines... it'll communicate more. (and then I'd use file() instead of open() once it wasn't a near-collision...) 1) All new classes should inherit from object isn't that implicit in Python 3? permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-12-24
- About:
What is the cutoff for 10%? And other people's experience of the class certificate? : aiclass
- When:
Sat Dec 24 18:34:26 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/nmcid/what_is_the_cutoff_for_10_and_other_peoples/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 84 milliseconds ago I recall the Calculus II Achievement tests (SAT-related tests for particular areas) used for college admissions scoring were like this - everyone taking it had done AP Calculus as well, so even a perfect score only put you in the 10th or 15th percentile :-) permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
What is the cutoff for 10%? And other people's experience of the class certificate? : aiclass
- When:
Sat Dec 24 18:24:00 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/nmcid/what_is_the_cutoff_for_10_and_other_peoples/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 77 milliseconds ago Keep the PDF file, yes. Looks like you should be able to verify the signature by grabbing JSignPDF and unpacking the zip file, then running java -jar jsignpdf-1.2.5/Verifier.jar ./letter*_signed.pdf that, however, will just give you a bunch of raw output including Cannot be verified against the KeyStore or the certificate chain so perhaps someone else can chime in on how to actually get the ai class cert installed somewhere that the program will use it... permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
AI / ML: What's Next - Startups... : aiclass
- When:
Sat Dec 24 17:09:52 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/nntqd/ai_ml_whats_next_startups/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 79 milliseconds ago All of that... plus, "use a technology" isn't actually a useful basis for anything, except maybe a "lifestyle business" where the goal is "keep a couple of people busy in this space because we like it" (there are some examples of this in AI, but the first skill there is "understands how to get DARPA funding for more experiments in this space", actually doing the AI work comes second :-) A given technology can be a great tool, but a startup is fundamentally a business - it's not enough to want to do something, you need to have a customer in mind. Otherwise it's a hobby... permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
What about employment in Europe? Other countries? : aiclass
- When:
Sat Dec 24 15:26:27 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/nnvrz/what_about_employment_in_europe_other_countries/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 89 milliseconds ago The probability-based methods apply to anyone doing search - or, for that matter, advertising - my (ex-MetaCarta) group at Nokia does geographic search, and while the main NLP team is in Boston, part of it is in Berlin as well. (Personally, I work in release engineering and tools, not AI - but about halfway through the course I'd already had several "Oh that's what they were talking about" moments :-) The big difference between the US and Europe as far as AI jobs is probably the difference in jobs in general - in the US, you can practically start a company by accident, I understand it's much more complex in Europe. So over here it's much more easy to turn a new idea into a company (and product) - so we end up with things like http://www.netflixprize.com/ where a video rental company turns out to have a need for significant probabilistic AI... It's certainly the case that an invitation like this feels very flattering - and it wouldn't surprise me if "this was a student of mine this term" counts for something among the people you'd actually interview with. But simply finishing the class shows a level of skill (and perhaps more distinctively attention span) that should be of interest to a broad range of high-tech employers. You should be able to work backwards from products to the employers who are interested in this sort of thing (Festo is a notable German robotics company, for example) though a simple google search mostly finds academic positions and Kraftwerk songs :-) permalink edit delete reply
2011-12-21
- About:
Results of the final are out! How did everyone do? : aiclass
- When:
Wed Dec 21 16:10:36 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/nj4pz/results_of_the_final_are_out_how_did_everyone_do/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 33 seconds ago Found the references I was looking for. Turns out that Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 of AIMA cover key things like the difference between P(A) and P(A) which makes a lot of the lectures make more sense (not that they ever write it bold, but it makes it clear that there really is "this other thing that looks like P()" and it's not handwaving.) (Also, Pearl 1985 is surprisingly readable...) Found the references I was looking for. Turns out that Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 of AIMA cover key things like the difference between P(A) and __P__(A) which makes a lot of the lectures make more sense (not that they ever *write* it bold, but it makes it clear that there really is "this other thing that looks like P()" and it's not handwaving.) (Also, [Pearl 1985](http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/tech-report/198_-reports/850017.pdf) is surprisingly readable...) formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" ~~strikethrough~~ strikethrough super^script superscript * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Unfortunate Python - A bunch of things to avoid now that there are better alternatives : Python
- When:
Wed Dec 21 15:47:30 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/nj00d/unfortunate_python_a_bunch_of_things_to_avoid_now/
- What:
- * [+]_Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 606 milliseconds ago (0 children) [–]_Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 606 milliseconds ago The subtle implications are there anyway; most of the perl (and sh) code I've ported to python didn't actually handle them any better, the code was just wrong, and the explicitness exposed existing bugs. There is overhead (though check_call and such help) and there's certainly room for a wrapper on top of subprocess - but I find it very helpful that subprocess (by taking an array) makes it much easier to get quoting right, vs. the "easy" os.popen case that usually gets it entirely wrong... The subtle implications are there anyway; most of the perl (and sh) code I've ported to python didn't actually handle them any better, the code was just wrong, and the explicitness exposed existing bugs. There is overhead (though check_call and such help) and there's certainly room for a wrapper on top of subprocess - but I find it very helpful that subprocess (by taking an array) makes it much easier to get quoting right, vs. the "easy" os.popen case that usually gets it entirely wrong... formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" ~~strikethrough~~ strikethrough super^script superscript * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2011-12-20
- About:
22. Natural Language Processing : aiclass
- When:
Tue Dec 20 09:23:00 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/njrbe/22_natural_language_processing/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 84 milliseconds ago For a look at some hands on NLP, http://blip.tv/pycon-us-videos-2009-2010-2011/pycon-2011-how-to-kill-a-patent-with-python-4897800 is Van Lindberg's talk on using nltk on the patent database, to do citation and prior art analysis... at very least it's a good source of inspiration, in terms of identifying a really ambitious problem that can be attacked with these techniques. permalink edit delete reply
- About:
How do I experiment with robotics? : aiclass
- When:
Mon Dec 19 23:32:37 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/njfaf/how_do_i_experiment_with_robotics/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 242 milliseconds ago For simple rover-with-camera, http://www.roboteducation.org/ is Georgia Tech's teaching bot hardware, with curriculum in python; hardware and textbook on amazon, or were when I picked up a set after seeing them at PyCon two years back... http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/12/20/ultra-low-cost-laser-rangefinders-actualized-neato-robotics has description and links to papers on a $30 laser rangefinder you can build; the design is used in the Neato robot-vacuum (which has a dev kit itself, too) There's also the iRobot Create (serial-controlled mobile platform with bumpers, a couple of IR proximity sensors, and wheel-rotation counters - nothing vision based, but a big empty bay you can mount stuff in; for that matter, any of the later model Roombas take serial over a mini-DIN connector that you can use to drive them around :-) For arduino, you might particularly want the http://www.ladyada.net/make/mshield/ "Motor Shield" to interface to motors... One thing I want to try is to take a couple of those cheap pager-motor RC cars, hook the transmitters (probably via an arduino) to a real PC, and then point a webcam at the cars... and use OpenCV to watch them and "learn" how to navigate them. If you already have a webcam and some of the toy cars, you could get started pretty cheaply... permalink edit delete reply
- About:
messages: unread
- When:
Mon Dec 19 23:05:57 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/message/unread/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 66 milliseconds ago Oh, yes - but I spent an hour or two beating on the code until it gave the right answer too. (Probably learned more about maze-finding from that mistake than any of the homework, come to think of it :-) permalink parent edit delete reply
- About:
Results of the final are out! How did everyone do? : aiclass
- When:
Mon Dec 19 22:53:59 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/nj4pz/results_of_the_final_are_out_how_did_everyone_do/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 60 milliseconds ago I think I did pretty well given that it was the first exam I've taken in over two decades :-) (It's also the first exam I've ever heard of where the first problem starts with "If this is unfamilar, just google it" :-) Q2, bayes network - my first and second tries were both wrong - I've had trouble with those through the whole course, because they've been visual and "intuitive"; anyone have a reference with some rigor? (Should I just go to the source - Judea Pearl 1985 - or is there something more widely used?) Q6 - worked it out just fine, normalized properly, used probabilities-sum-to-one correctly... and never double checked my reading of the question, so I did all the arithmetic both times with P(White-measured|White)=0.8 instead of 0.6 :-( embarassing, but I'll count it as a good exam-taking lesson for the spring courses (PGM at least, if there isn't more AI or robotics :-)
- About:
TIL I can't count. : aiclass
- When:
Mon Dec 19 22:36:09 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/nj920/til_i_cant_count/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 55 milliseconds ago I actually coded it up when I was going back and checking my answers the second day - and while I'd gotten the 19 path by hand, my program refused to :-) (basically, you can't prune on "I've already hit that square with a better score" when your paths can cross. Including orientation in the score-history fixes it...) permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-12-13
- About:
Bug #554984 in xserver-xorg-input-evdev (Ubuntu): “[lucid] enable trackpoint scroll emulation by default”
- When:
Tue Dec 13 11:50:20 2011
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-evdev/+bug/554984
- What:
- Mark Eichin (eichin-gmail) wrote a moment ago: #16 Argh, I finally found and identified this. "The control-middle-button menu in xterm doesn't work anymore" should find this bug; I wasted a bit of time assuming it was xterm-specific (xterm has had active development, much to my surprise.) Is there a proper way to turn this override off other than editing/deleting /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/11-evdev-trackpoint.conf itself? (Alternatively, a matching "how to get the xterm menu back" bug would probably be useful...)
2011-12-12
- About:
I could spend hours just watching Sebastian's self driving car : aiclass
- When:
Sun Dec 11 21:50:17 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/n8hof/i_could_spend_hours_just_watching_sebastians_self/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 269 milliseconds ago http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8594517128412883394 for a detailed talk on the challenge; http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zS3st_7og3A for the path-planning examples for various real cars...
- About:
Planning and Car Racing Games : aiclass
- When:
Sun Dec 11 21:19:33 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/n8vwa/planning_and_car_racing_games/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 158 milliseconds ago I vaguely recall an article on game AI (which is certainly a field in and of itself) that suggested that planning algorithms weren't the problem - efficiently "sensing" the environment was - just because you have it all doesn't mean you can do everything you might want efficiently (especially when keeping frame-rate up has higher priority.) Line-of-sight calculations are actually expensive, collision modelling with actually shapes (volumes) is a lot more expensive than just points-on-the-ground, that sort of thing.
- About:
HP to launch another Touchpad fire sale this weekend, because it's cold outside (updated) -- Engadget
- When:
Sun Dec 11 19:34:27 2011
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/08/hp-to-launch-another-touchpad-fire-sale-this-weekend-because-it/#disqus_thread
- What:
- Mark Eichin 0 minutes ago in reply to Mark Eichin Took a half an hour to get payments.ebay to actually respond, insist on a phone number for my shipping address, and then fail anyway with " errorAn item in your cart is not available You missed out this time, but there are still more great deals out there". "HP: Try amazon next time" :-) Report Edit Reply
- About:
Wherever I wander, wherever I roam, LTE probably won't work -- Engadget
- When:
Sun Dec 11 19:13:12 2011
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/11/wherever-i-wander-wherever-i-roam-lte-probably-wont-work/
- What:
- Report + 8 Reply Mark Eichin 0 minutes ago in reply to stevos Remember token ring? or chaosnet? there *were* proprietary versions of those technologies, but network effects meant that winning was possible. Those forces are... broken, or at least somewhat distorted, by the fact that there's underlying "telephone level" connectivity, so a "strange" phone won't actually *lose*, because you can still call everyone...
- About:
HP to launch another Touchpad fire sale this weekend, because it's cold outside (updated) -- Engadget
- When:
Sun Dec 11 19:07:45 2011
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/08/hp-to-launch-another-touchpad-fire-sale-this-weekend-because-it/
- What:
- Mark Eichin 0 minutes ago "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable" - it's 2011, I didn't think a flash-sale like this *could* take out a modern web service, especially one with at the scale of eBay. (Looks like payments.ebay is the actual bottleneck...)
2011-12-08
- About:
What about the 'human touch'? : aiclass
- When:
Thu Dec 8 03:33:21 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/n3p4w/what_about_the_human_touch/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 61 milliseconds ago Also, consider fatigue and attention span; a self-driving vehicle isn't using organic parts to observe, so it's going to have consistent response. (Also consider that the human mind can't keep up with what it sees - and doesn't try; it fakes it, by editing observations into the recollection - there are some great demonstrations of this - and it's why personal accounts of accidents are often nonsensical, hearing and seeing aren't strictly ordered...) One of the reasons robot cars are practically inevitable is that humans are so bad at the job of driving (based both on physiology and on the road fatality statistics) that it won't take all that much more work for robots to outperform us anyway :-)
- About:
Amateur Robotics : aiclass
- When:
Thu Dec 8 03:20:52 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/n32r8/amateur_robotics/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 93 milliseconds ago Computer vision: look at OpenCV, the examples include some basic object finding, and it should talk to your eeepc camera without trying. (You may want to put debian on it to get modern packages though, rather than trying to work with the weird xandros-based thing asus shipped.) Also look at http://www.ros.org/ for an enormous collection of robot code. If you just want motors-on-usb, an arduino with a Motor Shield http://www.ladyada.net/make/mshield/ is straightforward, especially if you're scavenging the motors. Another alternative is to keep the computer parts "offboard" - you can get a bluetooth frob that drives the serial control port on a roomba or irobot-create, leave the computer on a nearby desk and let it watch the roomba and give commands to it. OpenCV should be able to do most of the work for tracking, and if the bot crashes, you don't risk the computer... Another version of that approach is the Georgia Tech kit from http://www.roboteducation.org/ - actually their MyRO library talks to a bunch of different kit robots, and their text book will take you through practical sensor and motion exercises...
- About:
How to Verify Steam Game Cache Integrity | Windows 7 Themes
- When:
Thu Dec 8 00:49:40 2011
- Where:
http://windows7themes.net/how-to-verify-steam-game-cache-integrity.html#comment-221095
- What:
- _Mark_ said: Your comment is awaiting moderation. December 8, 2011 at 7:49 am Thanks for pointing this out – Portal 2 was crashing, reliably (a dozen times at least), every time I let go of a “discouragement redirection cube” – windows 7 sp1, 64 bit – and “Verify Integrity” found one bad item which it said it would “reacquire”. The game worked perfectly after that. I didn’t expect a game platform to include an fsck tool :-)
2011-11-30
- About:
The Things I Hate About IDLE That I Wish Someone Would Fix : Python
- When:
Wed Nov 30 00:06:43 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/mtnbr/the_things_i_hate_about_idle_that_i_wish_someone/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 118 milliseconds ago Using flymake with pylint is popular; there's also pymacs, basically a foreign-function-interface between emacs-lisp and a child python interpreter - so you can extend emacs directly in python - not something that specifically helps for python development, but something that makes emacs more attractive for python developers... permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-11-28
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Spy Net Recording Night Vision Goggles
- When:
Mon Nov 28 01:24:28 2011
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/viewpost.aspx?PostID=4732172&PageIndex=3&ReplyCount=80#post4732352
- What:
- I've got an older pair of EyeClops goggles, which I'd been meaning to dismantle and mount a camera in... so these arrive just in time :-) Don't forget that these are particularly useful for diagnosing infrared remotes and motion sensors and the like - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RqT0X5eYPE shows a Roomba, through an EyeClops, you can see the various range sensors (so you can tell if one of the wall-following sensors needs replacement, if it's dim or absent.) The trick is to cover the emitters on the EyeClops itself, so they don't wash out the light emitted from the gadget you're looking at. (In for two.)
2011-11-27
- About:
Templar, Arizona » Archive » Chapter 5: Lit, page 129.
- When:
Sat Nov 26 23:46:03 2011
- Where:
http://templaraz.com/2011/11/18/chapter-5-lit-page-129/comment-page-1/#comment-22681
- What:
- _Mark_ Your comment is awaiting moderation. November 26, 2011 at 11:46 pm > I kinda like the new storyline: Random Arizona Death Match. Misread that as “Death March” *imagines Ben finishing with EJ, taking a deep breath, and then proceeding to just up and slaughter the rest of the town* Final scene, Ben on phone to shrink, “I think I should come home now”
2011-11-25
- About:
Journalist looking to interview AI class students from all over the world : aiclass
- When:
Thu Nov 24 20:37:40 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/mnpgs/journalist_looking_to_interview_ai_class_students/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 128 milliseconds ago But a normal college midterm isn't "you have 72 hours and convenient access to recordings of all of the lectures"... and this particular midterm didn't really have difficult extrapolations from the material - just "can you apply the material". There's certainly a lot of it, and the after-the-last-minute clarifications certainly didn't help, but a normal college midterm isn't really a good point of comparison... permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-11-18
- About:
My Implementations of Homework 5 with Source Code, Interactivity and Explanations : aiclass
- When:
Fri Nov 18 02:23:07 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/mftlp/my_implementations_of_homework_5_with_source_code/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 82 milliseconds ago only been considering the usefulness for the states provided That's not necessary - simply finding more usefulness in a single state is enough to show "more" usefulness - you're not trying to find ideal or complete or absolute usefulness. Adding lots of states for which both are equally bad doesn't make it not superior.
- About:
Simple clustering solution? : Python
- When:
Thu Nov 17 22:33:04 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/mgcx8/simple_clustering_solution/
- What:
- As for the livecd, you might be thinking of the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud installer; https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/server-maverick-uec-liveusb has some breadcrumbs, I haven't followed it in a while (that link predates the switch to OpenStack, for example.) (For 3 machines, I'd suggest just copying subsets of your data around first, then looking for more clever approaches while it's running :-)
2011-11-11
- About:
Terry Jones » Blog Archive » The eighty six non-trivial powers ≤ 2^20
- When:
Thu Nov 10 23:00:51 2011
- Where:
http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/terry/2011/03/30/the-eighty-six-non-trivial-powers-220/#disqus_thread
- What:
- Mark Eichin 0 minutes ago I've used the term "Computational Numerology" for this kind of analysis; I once solved a locking problem by noticing (via strace) a call to sleep(4294967) and recognizing what it had to be. (I'll follow up with the result later...)
- About:
Terry Jones » Blog Archive » Emacs buffer mode histogram
- When:
Thu Nov 10 22:35:59 2011
- Where:
http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/terry/2011/11/10/emacs-buffer-mode-histogram/
- What:
- Mark Eichin 0 minutes ago Neat idea, saw it on python planet; reminded me that while I've hacked in elisp almost-literally forever, python is my language of choice (and greatest ease), and I'd recently decided to start making more use of pymacs, since I always have it around (at least on Debian and Ubuntu boxes), to overcome the friction I find in elisp... cribbing from some older pymacs code of mine and just looking at your output, it took me less time to come up with a pymacs version than it did to write this comment. (Not trying to brag :-) just noting that it really is that frictionless compared to elisp.) To load it, if you have pymacs, just M-: (pymacs-load "mode-stats") and the m-x mode-stats-mode-stats RET to actually run it. Assuming disqus doesn't mangle this, I'm curious if you find it more readable; the lisp "module" basically gives you everything elisp side, and there's some complexity regarding data being python-side or emacs-side, plus there can be issues regarding shovelling large objects back and forth. But for things where elisp is weirdly limiting, I find it a nice approach... 11 Fundamental *********** 2 Python ** 2 Man ** 1 Shell * 1 Lisp Interaction * 1 Help * 1 Zephyr * 1 Completion List * 1 Dired by name * 1 Apropos * #!/usr/bin/python # (pymacs-load (expand-file-name "~/elisp/mode-stats")) from Pymacs import lisp from collections import defaultdict def mode_stats(): stats = defaultdict(int) for buf in lisp.buffer_list(): stats[lisp.buffer_local_value(lisp.intern("mode-name"), buf)] += 1 outbuf = lisp.get_buffer_create("*mode-stats*") lisp.set_buffer(outbuf) lisp.erase_buffer() for bufname in sorted(stats, key=lambda x: stats[x], reverse=True): lisp.insert("%3d %-15s %s\n" % (stats[bufname], bufname, "*" * stats[bufname])) lisp.goto_char(0) lisp.switch_to_buffer(outbuf) interactions = {mode_stats: ""} Flag
- About:
Panasonic announces Lumix DMC-3D1: dual lenses, 12 megapixel sensors -- Engadget
- When:
Mon Nov 7 00:28:27 2011
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/07/panasonic-announces-lumix-dmc-3d1-dual-lenses-12-megapixel-sen/
- What:
- Interesting that it uses the same style of wide lens-cover slider that the Fuji W3 does... but sticks the lenses uselessly close together. (On the Fuji it makes sense because the lenses are on the far left and right sides of the camera - it takes some effort to find a grip that works without getting a finger in one of the lenses, which "destroys" an image far more than it does in the 2D case.) It actually sounds like the mixed-focal length modes are hedging against having 3d basically not be useful at all :-)
2011-11-06
- About:
Python 3.x Programming on my Android. Is it possible? : Python
- When:
Sun Nov 6 01:06:22 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/m21vp/python_3x_programming_on_my_android_is_it_possible/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 86 milliseconds ago http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ gets you "Python, Perl, JRuby, Lua, BeanShell, JavaScript, Tcl, and shell"; I've used it for python in particular. http://code.google.com/p/python-for-android/issues/detail?id=10 looks like it covers python 3 support...
- About:
I'm considering using pyjamas to adapt a 'C' curses desktop app to run a browser. Any suggestions? : Python
- When:
Sat Nov 5 23:29:52 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/m21jl/im_considering_using_pyjamas_to_adapt_a_c_curses/
- What:
- http://www.clifford.at/stfl/ might be a good source of hints - it's a curses toolkit, with support for lots of languages, that also has "expose this as a WEB UI"; doesn't help exactly, since you're starting from legacy c-curses code, but might have some useful components...
- About:
Tricks to download the Homework videos? : aiclass
- When:
Sat Nov 5 20:45:11 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/m1x5a/tricks_to_download_the_homework_videos/
- What:
- Tricks to download the Homework videos? (self.aiclass) submitted 33 seconds ago by _Mark_ I use youtube-dl -c --write-description --write-info-json -tA --match-title "^Unit 4" 'http://www.youtube.com/user/knowitvideos#p/u' (for example) to download the relevant subset of videos for the given unit, so I can watch them offline, and post the quiz answers later. This doesn't work for the homework, until after it's due, because the davidknowlabs user that uploads the ones pointed to from the site isn't listable. Before I sit down and use twill to pick out the homework videos (time better spent doing the homework!) has anyone found an easier way to get youtube to cough up the homework videos all-at-once? (Usually I have plenty of bandwidth available to watch from the site directly, but the last three weeks I've been traveling right now I can't get to ai-class.com to get at the homework I realized that being mostly-offline, I was rather less distracted by the net, and able to focus on the content more, and that I should continue to work this way :-) Ideas? (Perhaps I should just ask davidknowlabs to change some setting on his account?) comment edit share save hide delete nsfw
- About:
Wrote a private package index (i.e. private cheeseshop). Still early "beta". Tell me what you think. : Python
- When:
Sat Nov 5 20:08:02 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/m06fd/wrote_a_private_package_index_ie_private/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 74 milliseconds ago Hmm, while I agree that a public pypi probably shouldn't allow deletion, an actively used private one is probably getting packages pushed to it by the continuous builder, and should have an expiration mechanism, though the actual mechanism is a policy choice (I could see something like "keep all incrementals until two named/numbered releases have gone out" being a good start...) Thanks for the comparison, and for the effort you've put in on documentation. permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-10-31
- About:
Hey, r/Python, how marketable is knowing Python? : Python
- When:
Mon Oct 31 00:51:22 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/lun42/hey_rpython_how_marketable_is_knowing_python/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 782 milliseconds ago No idea, but mine certainly isn't :-) Lots of unix toolsmithing for release engineering (and svn-wrangling in particular.) The closest to "web" python I get is code that automates configuring Jenkins jobs, or updates twiki pages and jira tickets with things like "this build succeeded and these revisions closed those tickets". More often it's things like "now that we've branched, fix all of the scm pointers in these maven pom.xml files" (maven has a lot of stupid in it, but three different version control pointers per directory? Really?) And that ignores the "product" side where we used to have a lot of "C++ for speed, python on top for flexibility", though these days there's more "Java because we're inside lucene/solr", jython hasn't really caught on for that. permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-10-30
- About:
TRK - In a month!?
- When:
Sun Oct 30 11:01:36 2011
- Where:
http://therealkatie.net/blog/2011/oct/25/month/
- What:
- 5 Mark Eichin says... Back in 2004 I set up nanowrimo-inspired codemonth.org (pointed it at codemonth.livejournal.com out of laziness in getting a forum up.) Trying to be the inspiration/motivator for a community turns out not to be my thing, and I haven't tried to push it since 2008. If you'd like to "hijack" the livejournal community or would like me to point the domain somewhere, I'd be happy to; I'd enjoy doing this again, though most of my spare time is being absorbed by that Stanford free AI class... Posted at 6 p.m. on October 30, 2011
2011-10-18
- About:
Homework 1, Question 7, A* Search ANSWER - YouTube
- When:
Mon Oct 17 23:26:40 2011
- Where:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=E_cgCgNaJ9Q
- What:
- @captquazar Unit 2, video 23, "A* Search" - Norvig states, in the first fifteen seconds, f = g + h and then goes on to explain g and h... markeichin 11 seconds ago
- About:
How'd your homework go? : aiclass
- When:
Mon Oct 17 23:13:55 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/lfq1g/howd_your_homework_go/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 194 milliseconds ago It's funny, after all of the clarifications and reclarifications, I concluded that it actually mattered that the AI formulation involves expanding the frontier and then sorting and visiting (which it does, if you want to understand later more sophisticated searches) and then in the review he goes and does simple CS-style direct node walk-and-count anyway. (of course, the subtleties don't matter when you miss the easy part - "count both the start node and the end node" - so all of my counts were off by one :-} here's a vote for having the questions written down like real homework :-)
- About:
Python Math - a Python for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch : Python
- When:
Mon Oct 17 22:45:41 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/lf074/python_math_a_python_for_iphoneipadipod_touch/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 999 milliseconds ago If you actually read the link - it says DropBox, so you could presumably use one of the code-aware highlighting editors (textastic for example) on the ipad, roundtrip through dropbox, and run what you wrote with this. Crude, and not something you'd mistake for a real dev platform, but probably not too bad for just poking at things (or maybe doing LPTHW exercises? :-)
2011-10-12
- About:
Anyone up for implementing the algorithms in actual code? : aiclass
- When:
Wed Oct 12 04:01:44 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/l8c89/anyone_up_for_implementing_the_algorithms_in/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 3 seconds ago It is sometimes said that "Using C (or C++) is premature optimization". Python (and related languages) lets you explore and play with algorithm choices much more quickly... then once you've figured out where things are slow, push those parts in to something faster. ("fast (but brittle) C++ core wrapped in python for flexibility" is something I've used a bunch.)
- About:
Videos don't appear at all : aiclass
- When:
Wed Oct 12 01:42:16 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/l90pw/videos_dont_appear_at_all/
- What:
- I had a similar problem that turned out to be that I wasn't actually logged in - check the upper right corner of the browser, if it says "Welcome (first name)" you are signed in. (If you're not signed in, a lot of things "just don't work" when clicked on, though it was inconsistent which ones when I had the problem - they do appear to be fixing things as they go...) permalink edit delete reply
2011-10-10
- About:
Is financial trading adversarial? : aiclass
- When:
Mon Oct 10 15:52:37 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/l6sii/is_financial_trading_adversarial/
- What:
- Around Boston, signaling a lane change is a good way to get someone to speed up and close the gap you were trying to get into. That doesn't need subgoals at all, that's purely "it's not enough to win, others must lose" Macchiavellian adversarial behavior :-)
- About:
Is financial trading adversarial? : aiclass
- When:
Mon Oct 10 02:49:56 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/aiclass/comments/l6sii/is_financial_trading_adversarial/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ 1 point 81 milliseconds ago I was a little surprised that the only real distinction made was that finding optimal actions in the presence of an adversary was "harder". (Then again, I was also surprised that Thrun didn't consider driving adversarial, but he does live in California, not Boston or New York :-) permalink parent edit delete reply
2011-09-14
- About:
cjsmith: Amazon has confirmed my new status
- When:
Wed Sep 14 10:49:27 2011
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/997039.html?view=10511791#t10511791
- What:
- non-creepy AI [info]eichin 2011-09-14 02:48 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Around here, the theory is that the logical conclusion of Amazon Prime (especially now that they'll do *same day* delivery of some things) is that at some point amazon will just start sending stuff - with a friendly and easy return mechanism - *and it will be the stuff that you wanted/needed* and just hadn't gotten around to shopping for :-)
2011-09-05
- About:
[Python] SHIFT key support for heatmap-keyboard - Pastebin.com
- When:
Mon Sep 5 17:11:45 2011
- Where:
http://pastebin.com/akWhRYW5
- What:
- # adding "shift" support to http://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/ # crude first cut: left shift only, shifted *letters* only diff --git a/coordinates.js b/coordinates.js index a5dfb1a..f6c5437 100644 --- a/coordinates.js +++ b/coordinates.js @@ -67,7 +67,8 @@ app.COORDINATES = { ">": [590, 275], "/": [644, 275], "?": [644, 275], - " ": [500, 300] + " ": [500, 300], + "LSHIFT": [104 ,275], }, app.EXCLUDES = [" "], app.SAMPLE_TEXT = [ diff --git a/index.html b/index.html index 7f77f8e..125f6ef 100644 --- a/index.html +++ b/index.html @@ -131,6 +131,13 @@ var key = text.charAt(i); if(/^[A-Za-z]$/.test(key)){ + if (/[A-Z]/.test(key)) { + var joined = app.COORDINATES["LSHIFT"].join(";"); + if(!temp[joined]) + temp[joined] = 0; + + temp[joined] += 1; + } key = key.toUpperCase(); } if(app.config.exclude && app.EXCLUDES.indexOf(key) == -1){ create new paste | create new version of this paste RAW Paste Data
2011-07-22
- About:
Google
- When:
Thu Jul 21 21:48:36 2011
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/89xgTY49Rvk
- What:
- Mark Eichin - As somone who spent the 90's performing various atrocities with autoconf and imake (sometimes at the same time) I'm actually kind of nostalgic for it - because these days most of the other-people's-code I wrangle uses maven. Imagine all the complexity, all of the cargo-cult cut&paste that you see from inexperienced [or uninterested] autoconf users - combined with XML, "magic" fetching of dependencies from the internet... and no actual portability aid because the code is in java to start with and works equally poorly everywhere without the help of tools :-} I think one of the big problems with autoconf (other than letting it stagnate at some key early points instead of bringing in community hacks as real features, ah hindsight) is that the input language and the output code generator are the same thing. Sure, the unix simply-joined-tools approach is great, as long as your joins are lines of text and you don't get any serious parsing involved... when you have arcane quoting techniques were being almost correct gets you subtle and unrelated failures maybe, you encourage magical thinking, and the end user can easily build a model that leads them into the woods. (Of course, the pan-unix portability in the early days mattered, and there wasn't really incentive to build a robust tool - after all, once you got your thing building, you had "real work" to do, and weren't going to touch the build system anymore if you could possibly avoid it. Also, things like config.site helped get around a lot of the problems, except that they didn't really catch on...) 9:48 PM - Edit
2011-07-21
- About:
Post by Bruce Lewis
- When:
Thu Jul 21 11:36:42 2011
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/118173160071859284230/posts/6bC94EZDiQR
- What:
- Mark Eichin - There were prebuilt facebook-ish default circles when I signed up - I deleted them all after the first day or so, because they don't fit my model of online people. (Might have been an attempt to guide how people think about the service, it just didn't work on me :-)
- About:
Post by Kee Hinckley from Mobile
- When:
Wed Jul 20 23:53:52 2011
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/117903011098040166012/posts/FRpSR9AdV2q
- What:
- Mark Eichin - Consider that the roomba is much dumber than even many cynical users think it is. mvi_1587.mov little short range IR lights - and a good thing, because it has nowhere near enough CPU to handle a camera. Take a look at the Neato XV-11 for something that at least has memory, and a laser scanner (still only working with "detected obstacle at this distance along this angle", but actually building a model - very good at getting directly back to the charging dock from 3 rooms away without new observations.) Still no camera, but also no distractions; vision isn't actually very useful for navigation... Finally, take a look at the Kinect (and some of the labs that have mounted them off a quadcopter and used them for full scale navigation.) Uses a scatter (not grid) of IR dots; with a desktop-class computer attached, it can do things like "figure out where the floor is" visually... 11:53 PM - Edit
- About:
Google
- When:
Wed Jul 20 23:36:30 2011
- Where:
https://plus.google.com/116340731699206014240/posts/3X3S4NyGKQk
- What:
- Mark Eichin - If you use a strap at all, consider the luma loop; I've found it useful for keeping my hands free and still being able to bring the camera up to my eye in an instant. (For the kind of wildlife shooting I do, time from noticing motion to taking shot is the reason a dSLR is worth having at all.) Also nice when getting into the car - just unclip the quickrelease to put the camera on the seat or the floor [or handing it to someone else], continue wearing the loop, rather than taking it off over the hat... Lens caps: the Sima Capkeeper, little elastic that goes around the lens and a tether that sticks to the cap - same deal, lets you knock the lens cap off and shoot without worrying about it :-) (If you're shooting people or landscapes, probably less of a concern.) I carry an extra battery - but I've almost never needed it, since I don't use flash so I usually go multiple weeks on a charge. More comforting than anything :-) Amazon has a couple of better-than-stock ones for the rebel, haven't looked for other cameras. 11:35 PM
2011-07-19
- About:
Gadmei P83 PMP does glasses-free 3D for $179 -- Engadget
- When:
Tue Jul 19 13:57:42 2011
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/gadmei-p83-pmp-does-glasses-free-3d-for-179/#disqus_thread
- What:
- _Mark_ 0 minutes ago Mine just arrived; first complaint is that it doesn't handle MPOs at all - it takes stereo-pair images, and projects the halves. So it's not a useful field-viewer for the Fuji W3, for example; you have to process the images first. Screen not as bright as I'd like, particularly with videos, and the UI is kind of insane (left/right on the dpad while looking at a picture adjusts *volume*? really?) but it is pretty cool for the price point... Edit
- About:
cjsmith: Really? Does it smell bad?
- When:
Mon Jul 18 22:21:22 2011
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/988274.html?view=10431346#t10431346
- What:
- [info]eichin 2011-07-19 02:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Having professional movers, 11 years ago, was great - but it meant that *everything* came along to the house. I have one box in the basement
2011-07-08
- About:
Chocolate printer makes 3D molds of your edible visions -- Engadget
- When:
Fri Jul 8 01:15:22 2011
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/06/chocolate-printer-makes-3d-molds-of-your-edible-visions/
- What:
- Mark Eichin 0 minutes ago in reply to Justin Mitchell Important difference - the one on instructables didn't actually work, completely failed on the "making solid chocolate instead of drool" part of 3d printing. The *interesting* part of the paper is that Hao's group actually solved that part of the problem for the first time. Edit
- About:
Google Docs Product Ideas - Google Moderator
- When:
Thu Jun 2 22:13:44 2011
- Where:
https://www.google.com/moderator/#8/e=87e7f
- What:
- "An option for emacs-like key-bindings." _Mark_, - Google Docs Product Ideas View responses (0) Share ▼
- About:
Google Docs Product Ideas - Google Moderator
- When:
Thu Jun 2 22:12:08 2011
- Where:
https://www.google.com/moderator/#8/e=87e7f&q=87e7f.400617&v=4
- What:
- watch video close video "Better integration with google code (for documentation, at least, but also for code)" _Mark_, - Google Docs Product Ideas Share ▼
2011-06-02
- About:
So, I guess everyone here got that email too... : CR48
- When:
Wed Jun 1 22:29:25 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/CR48/comments/hpc1l/so_i_guess_everyone_here_got_that_email_too/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 446 milliseconds ago (that said, these prices aren't news - this is the $500 samsung they had at the Google I/O keynote, right? the $350 Acer is due in two weeks anyhow...) (and yes, checking engadget for those price references: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/01/samsung-chromebook-goes-on-sale-early-at-gilt/ confirms that Gilt is already sold out :-) (that said, these prices aren't news - this is the $500 samsung they had at the Google I/O keynote, right? the $350 Acer is due in two weeks anyhow...) (and yes, checking engadget for those price references: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/01/samsung-chromebook-goes-on-sale-early-at-gilt/ confirms that Gilt is already sold out :-) formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" ~~strikethrough~~ strikethrough super^script superscript * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
So, I guess everyone here got that email too... : CR48
- When:
Wed Jun 1 22:26:27 2011
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/CR48/comments/hpc1l/so_i_guess_everyone_here_got_that_email_too/
- What:
- [–]_Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 475 milliseconds ago I've got a chromebook, I don't really need two - the interesting bit is convincing other people to buy them, and $500 doesn't really do that. (I do have a use for a locked-to-a-desk chromebook - and chromeos on an old EEEpc with an external screen and keyboard would work great for that, and still be less including the desk :-) I've got a chromebook, I don't really need *two* - the interesting bit is convincing other people to buy them, and $500 doesn't really do that. (I do have a use for a locked-to-a-desk chromebook - and chromeos on an old EEEpc with an external screen and keyboard would work great for that, and still be less including the desk :-) formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" ~~strikethrough~~ strikethrough super^script superscript * permalink * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2011-05-20
- About:
Key pattern analysis software times your typing for improved password protection -- Engadget
- When:
Fri May 20 00:59:47 2011
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/20/key-pattern-analysis-software-times-your-typing-for-improved-pas/
- What:
- Given that the PSN info wasn't stolen from end-users, but from the network itself, this couldn't have possibly helped. Also, when the MIT Media Lab worked on this in the late 1980's... they found it really easy to mimic someone's typing cadence, sometimes accidentally, if the precision was kept loose enough that people would actually be able to use it themselves. Somehow it keeps getting reinvented, though - maybe because it seems easier than actual security... Edit
2011-02-19
- About:
cjsmith: Tufts Admission Decision
- When:
Sat Feb 19 09:33:46 2011
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/975211.html?view=10249067#t10249067
- What:
- nice! [info]eichin 2011-02-19 02:32 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This congratulations! (of course, if you actually go here I suspect I'll ending up seeing you *less* often, you'll be so busy :-)
2011-02-10
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: Memorex Wi-Fi Connected Blu-ray Player
- When:
Thu Feb 10 01:29:14 2011
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/viewpost.aspx?PostID=4342229&PageIndex=1&ReplyCount=22#post4342325
- What:
- Tempting - but while the User Manual http://www.memorex.com/Global/MVBD2535_UserGuide_All-Lang.pdf talks about streaming, it appears that that's only Netflix, Pandora, and Blockbuster - no mention of DLNA (or anything aside from those "Applications".)
2011-02-02
- About:
Wunder Blog : Weather Underground
- When:
Wed Feb 2 01:16:18 2011
- Where:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/WunderPress/comment.html?entrynum=12#commenttop
- What:
- 344. eichin 1:11 AM EST on February 02, 2011 Just reloaded and saw the "classic" link. Ahhhhhhh, much better. (Also useful for doing A/B comparisons without having to rely on memory :-) I've updated my bookmarks. Action: Quote | Modify Comment Member Since: November 20, 2004 Posts: 0 Comments: 1
- About:
Wunder Blog : Weather Underground
- When:
Wed Feb 2 00:29:41 2011
- Where:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/WunderPress/comment.html?entrynum=12#commenttop
- What:
- 268. eichin 12:27 AM EST on February 02, 2011 Bug: the "news" links at the top look like they're supposed to be dismissable notices of some sort, but they don't go away, even when I've followed them. Wastes almost as much space as the header. Bug: 5-day (wasn't it 7-day before?) forecast for a specific city is below the fold *on a 1600x1200 screen*. I almost didn't find it at all. Bug: the main page gives me some random city (in this case, Providence, RI - an hour's drive south of here on the coast, with entirely different weather. I'm logged in (paying subscriber) - either pick my most recent favorite, or my most popular one, don't give me something random - unless you have an *accurate* "Current Location" (from a device GPS or location service, for example), don't guess from my address, it's worse than useless. Bug: The timezone setting dropdown is *really* unfriendly, at least put the one for the city I'm looking at at the top of the list, since that's probably right. Bug: setting units to "both" changed nothing, just left me with Fahrenheit. This is more important than you may realize: when I'm checking up on friends in Europe, I want to see the numbers they'll use, but I'm an American, so I also want to see the ones that I actually understand... Neutral: at least you didn't break Animated Radar, and it wasn't even too hard to find. Positive: The sparklines are kind of cute, but you may want to reconsider Tufte's notes about using color with them... and maybe a *hint* about timescale somewhere... Count me in on wanting the old site back; read Jef Raskin's "Humane Interface" book if you want ideas on how to quantify the specific *measurable* ways in which the new site is harder to use. I'd seriously consider using the "lite" site instead, but it's showing me ads and doesn't have a login (and doesn't have the configurable radar widget.) (Note that I haven't gotten into the things I just don't *like* that might be gut reactions to change - these are things that really are *wrong* and need fixing even if you don't reconsider. But I'll admit that I don't really like the new look either :-) Action: Quote | Modify Comment Member Since: November 20, 2004 Posts: 0 Comments: 0
2011-01-08
- About:
xlib - What method rotates screen in Xserver - Stack Overflow
- When:
Fri Jan 7 23:16:40 2011
- Where:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3940055/what-method-rotates-screen-in-xserver/4632299#4632299
- What:
- up vote 0 down vote One of the functions in /usr/include/X11/extensions/Xrandr.h - probably XRRSetScreenConfig - uses the RANDR extension to ask the server to configure a pile of things including the rotation. That's what the xrandr commandline tool would be using. If you're asking what actually does the work, that's a harder question - the X server, assuming it supports the RANDR extension, may be using generic code, though more likely it is using very chipset-specific code, to do the actual work when rendering the frame...
- About:
python - Get keysym for key char - Stack Overflow
- When:
Fri Jan 7 23:06:02 2011
- Where:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4537092/get-keysym-for-key-char/4632273#4632273
- What:
- up vote 0 down vote VK_* are windows-specific - the model under X is a little different You might look at Global Hotkey with X11/Xlib to see what the pieces are called under Xlib; you need to build a mask from the modifiers, not treat them as keys, to actually do an XGrabKey.
2011-01-07
- About:
version control - is there a class history visualization tool for SVN - Stack Overflow
- When:
Thu Jan 6 21:53:55 2011
- Where:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3779035/is-there-a-class-history-visualization-tool-for-svn/4622114#4622114
- What:
- 0 down vote It isn't animation, but if you want to see a single file's history "all at once" Ned Batchelder's svn blameall is a useful tool, and probably gets the same sort of thing across in a static presentation. (It would probably be a good starting point, if you have any idea what you'd want the animation to look like - blameall takes care of the svn mechanics well enough, and is written in Python.)
2011-01-06
- About:
Bug #509425 in svn-load (Ubuntu): “svn-load can't connect to my repository”
- When:
Thu Jan 6 17:44:35 2011
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/svn-load/+bug/509425
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 1 second ago: #3 A quick look at the source shows that this is due to client.callback_get_login = get_login def get_login(realm, username, may_save): nocallback() ## pysvn supports a number of callbacks for scenarios I've yet to ## encounter. For now, just emit a warning to hopefully clue the user ## in about what went wrong - maybe they'll send a patch! :) def nocallback(): sys.stderr.write("Warning: Unimplemented callback: %s\n" % (sys._getframe(1).f_code.co_name)) callback_get_login itself is documented here: http://pysvn.tigris.org/docs/pysvn_prog_ref.html#pysvn_client_callback_get_login so, a somewhat crude approach is to just install def get_login(realm, username, may_save): print "Called get_login with", repr(username), repr(may_save) return (True, username, raw_input("Password for %s (svn): " % username), True) (The second "True" tells svn to "save" the password and not reprompt - which causes the svn.simple entry to switch from gnome-keyring to "passtype=simple" and keeps the password in plaintext in that file... just so you know...)
- About:
Bug #509425 in svn-load (Ubuntu): “svn-load can't connect to my repository”
- When:
Thu Jan 6 17:26:30 2011
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/svn-load/+bug/509425
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 2 seconds ago: #2 With svn-load 1.2-1 in maverick, I'm still seeing this: Warning: Unimplemented callback: get_login TypeError: PyCXX: Error creating object of type N2Py5TupleE from None Error connecting or no such repository: https://*** It looks like my normal svn use is using gnome-keyring to get the password, based on looking at $HOME/.subversion/auth/svn.simple...
2011-01-03
- About:
python - How to count all elements in a nested dictionary? - Stack Overflow
- When:
Sun Jan 2 21:33:14 2011
- Where:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4581646/how-to-count-all-elements-in-a-nested-dictionary/4581718#4581718
- What:
- 0 down vote The subelements are distinct objects, there's no other relationship to use that will be fundamentally faster than iterating over them - though there are lots of ways to do that (using map, or .values(), for example) that will vary in performance, enough that you'll probably want to use timeit to compare them. If counting them is important to your application, consider doing some things to make that easier: * count them as you build the data structure * instead of nested dicts, consider an in-memory sqlite table, using connect(":memory:") (this might slow down other operations, or make them more complex, but the trade-off is worth considering.) link|edit|delete|flag answered 0 secs ago eichin 11
2011-01-02
- About:
evaluating buffer in emacs python-mode on remote host - Stack Overflow
- When:
Sat Jan 1 22:55:46 2011
- Where:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4465615/evaluating-buffer-in-emacs-python-mode-on-remote-host/4577034#4577034
- What:
- 0 down vote Short answer: not without writing some missing elisp code. Long version: In python.el, run-python adds data-directory (which on my Ubuntu 10.10 box is /usr/share/emacs/23.1/etc/ ) to $PYTHONPATH, specifically so that it can find emacs.py (as supplied by the local emacs distribution.) Then it does a (python-send-string "import emacs") and expects it to work... It looks like the defadvice wrappers that tramp uses don't actually pass PYTHONPATH, so this doesn't work even if you have the matching emacs version on the remote system. If you M-x customize-variable RET tramp-remote-process-environment RET then hit one of the INS buttons and add PYTHONPATH=/usr/share/emacs/23.1/etc then hit STATE and set it to "current session" (just to test it, or "save for future sessions" if it works for you) it almost works - the complaint goes away, in any case, because the remote python can now find the remote emacs.py. If you now go back to the original question, doing python-send-buffer, you just run into a different error: No such file or directory: '/tmp/py24574XdA' because python-mode just stuffs the content into a temporary file and tells the python subprocess to load that. You'd have to change python-send-region (the other functions call it) and particularly the way it uses make-temp-file to be tramp-aware - there's even a tramp-make-tramp-temp-file you could probably build upon. (Be sure to post it if you do...)
2010-12-12
- About:
Bug #585853 in xdm (Ubuntu): “Not possible to use xdm/wdm, only can use gdm (Lucid, Maverick)”
- When:
Sun Dec 12 18:47:13 2010
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xdm/+bug/585853
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 1 second ago: #17 FTR I'm seeing this on maverick, with radeon.modeset=1 (and options radeon modeset=1) on a Thinkpad T60p, lspci says "ATI Technologies Inc M56GL [Mobility FireGL V5200]", with the fglrx drivers --purged (because they dropped support for this chipset a while back - with the useless proprietary drivers installed, X starts fine but all GL code (glxinfo, glxgears) dies with a near-immediate coredump.) With the "start gdm, kill gdm, start xdm" workaround, I get working glxinfo and glxgears. (I haven't tried turning off modeset with fglrx purged, yet.)
2010-12-09
- About:
Another home hackable device? « adafruit industries blog
- When:
Wed Dec 8 23:36:50 2010
- Where:
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/12/08/another-home-hackable-device/comment-page-1/#comment-17214
- What:
- From the documentation (PDF at homedepot.com) if the batteries run out, it will fail in whatever heating/cooling/off mode it was in, which seems poor – I’d always assumed you’d want a traditional mechanical thermostat fallback in the design, but I guess at $100 that’s a shortcut to be taken :-} (All I want is to be able to have my logout script, when I leave work, set the heat back up before I get home. These days the "computer" part is easy (some little arduino and a zigbee or wifi-serial frob) but actually doing the control sanely is Real Work…) Comment by _Mark_ — December 8, 2010 @ 11:36 pm
2010-12-07
- About:
Comment #76 : Bug #587186 : Bugs : “binutils” package : Ubuntu
- When:
Tue Dec 7 00:55:02 2010
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/binutils/+bug/587186/comments/76
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 12 seconds ago: #76 Apparently this: ~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : CentaurHauls cpu family : 6 model : 7 model name : VIA Samuel 2 stepping : 3 cpu MHz : 399.000 cache size : 64 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu de tsc msr cx8 mtrr pge mmx 3dnow up bogomips : 799.92 clflush size : 32 cache_alignment : 32 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual power management: also somehow fits the description "i586 and lower processors, as well as i686 processors without cmov support"? Because I just tried to do-release-upgrade -d and got the subprocess new post-removal script killed by signal (Illegal instruction) Exception during pm.DoInstall(): E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) failure. (The machine is a 2003-era "Martian Netdrive" which originally shipped as a Debian box, and makes a fine wireless printer+scanner server under Ubuntu, or did until just now...
2010-12-02
- About:
Issue 184 - android-scripting - Allow running scripts as root on rooted phones - Project Hosting on Google Code
- When:
Thu Dec 2 03:47:37 2010
- Where:
http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/issues/detail?id=184#c15
- What:
- Comment 15 by eichin, Today (moments ago) Given $ cat /sdcard/sl4a/scripts/my_uid.py import os print "UID=", os.getuid() $ cat /sdcard/sl4a/scripts/execsu.py import os import sys pythonexe = os.path.join(sys.prefix, "bin/python") print "before", os.getuid() os.system("%s -c 'import os; print os.getuid()'" % pythonexe) os.execv("/system/xbin/su", ["su", "-c", "%s /sdcard/sl4a/scripts/my_uid.py" % pythonexe]) Runnning execsu.py from SL4A displays before 10105 10105 UID= 0 under rooted CyanogenMod 6 (you get a prompt from the su-manager before the UID=0.) I used os.execv directly because "import subprocess" fails to import select, and I suppose using os.execvp would have simplified it a little as well - to use this, all you need is one "invoke su" wrapper, which strips down to import os, sys pythonexe = os.path.join(sys.prefix, "bin/python") os.execv("/system/xbin/su", ["su", "-c", "%s /sdcard/sl4a/scripts/my_program.py" % pythonexe]) and then my_program.py itself is whatever you want to run as root. (I dug into this because I actually want a helper to turn device_provisioned back on in settings.db...)
2010-10-18
- About:
Verify your review
- When:
Mon Oct 18 01:23:59 2010
- Where:
http://verify.powerreviews.com/CR.do;jsessionid=624C4308BB6C4204ACDC7077350293F6.smokyservices?co=dr
- What:
- Submitted at:Brookstone Exciting and High-Tech by_Mark_fromBoston, MAon10/17/ 2010 The AR.Drone quadricopter is a really sophisticated device - enough auto-pilot support to get you started, resilient enough to bounce off some trees or furniture while you get the hang of it - and an exciting ride once you develop your skills. (This is my first helicopter, and it took a couple of batteries-worth of flying to get some real control.) On top of that, it's built on an open architecture, and there's a development kit on the vendor website, so even though it is professionally built I still have the option of tinkering with the internals later. 4-stars because it could use more flight-time on a charge, but now that spare batteries aren't backordered that's less of an issue.
2010-10-13
- About:
SparkFun Electronics - Comment Successfully Added
- When:
Wed Oct 13 14:21:04 2010
- Where:
https://www.sparkfun.com/commerce//comment.php?id=19446&added=1&callback=news.php%3Fid%3D460
- What:
- by THOK THOK's rank: +2.9 | Oct 13, 2010 at 12:20pm Comment rating: 0 If you're actually interested in *hacking* it, the AR.Drone has a devkit and API guide - it's mostly AT commands underneath :-) I haven't tried adding additional sensors to it yet, but I think it's worth a look.
2010-10-08
- About:
Comment #36 : Bug #641259 : Bugs : Ubuntu release notes
- When:
Thu Oct 7 23:19:05 2010
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-release-notes/+bug/641259/comments/36
- What:
- Comment 36 for bug 641259 Mark Eichin wrote 10 seconds ago: #36 I can confirm that grub2 1.98+20100804-5ubuntu3 fixes the original problem on the Sony Vaio P as well (and I got it directly via "aptitude safe-upgrade", if you needed evidence that it's percolated through to the release repos.) Terrific, thanks!
2010-10-03
- About:
Amazon.com: Christopher D. Hardtke's review of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Gourmet Sin...
- When:
Sun Oct 3 19:53:16 2010
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R26E6L65W8S37G?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B002VASD24&cdPage=&nodeID=16310101&ref_=cm_cr_dp_cmt&tag=&linkCode=&newContentNum=1&cdMSG=addedToThread&newContentID=Mx35N0KY56RUN9S#CustomerDiscussions
- What:
- Your initial post: Oct. 3, 2010 4:53 PM PDT Mark Eichin says: I was surprised to read this, since I usually check these things - so I looked at the box again, the last ingredient is indeed sucralose - the *first* ingredient, though, is actually sugar. The second ingredient, "creamer", also has "glucose syrup" in the breakdown. Given that, it's startling that they felt the need to add even more sweetener (the artificial sweeteners generally contribute a huge sweetness hit.) I'm disappointed - I found the taste to match the Oregon Chai I was fond of back when it first came out in the 90's, but I'm not particular sensitive to artificial sweetener aftertaste (I avoid them for other reasons.) Edit your post: Insert a product link To insert a product link use the format: [[ASIN:ASIN product-title]] (What's this?) I was surprised to read this, since I usually check these things - so I looked at the box again, the last ingredient is indeed sucralose - the *first* ingredient, though, is actually sugar. The second ingredient, "creamer", also has "glucose syrup" in the breakdown. Given that, it's startling that they felt the need to add even more sweetener (the artificial sweeteners generally contribute a huge sweetness hit.) I'm disappointed - I found the taste to match the Oregon Chai I was fond of back when it first came out in the 90's, but I'm not particular sensitive to artificial sweetener aftertaste (I avoid them for other reasons.) [Cancel] [Delete post] Guidelines
2010-09-30
- About:
Bug #641259 in grub2 (Ubuntu Maverick): “grub does not appear to load after maverick post-beta install”
- When:
Wed Sep 29 23:42:08 2010
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/maverick/+source/grub2/+bug/641259
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 2 seconds ago: #27 @cjwatson the "workaround" was the one @fader suggested at #8 -- install 10.04.1 on another partition, let *it* install grub (the Lucid grub, in this case) and autodetect the other partitions (including the Maverick one) - that grub boots just fine, and you can manually select the 10.10 install instead of the 10.04.1 one, and it comes up just fine. That's probably why people are calling it a clear regression - because the Lucid one still works fine with everything else Maverick (the bug *could* be more subtle than that, of course.)
2010-09-21
- About:
Bug #641259 in grub2 (Ubuntu Maverick): “grub does not appear to load after maverick post-beta install”
- When:
Mon Sep 20 23:02:12 2010
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/maverick/+source/grub2/+bug/641259
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 7 hours ago: Re: [Bug 641259] Re: grub does not appear to load after maverick post-beta install #23 It breaks on the Vaio P (1st gen) if that helps... if someone in the Boston area is working on it, I can make some arrangement. (The workaround works for me, and if there are useful grub diags or alternative versions, I can try...)
2010-09-15
- About:
"Elementary" Python [panela.blog-city.com]
- When:
Tue Sep 14 22:22:57 2010
- Where:
http://panela.blog-city.com/elementary_python.htm
- What:
- 20. _Mark_ left... 2010.09.14 Tue 7:22 pm :: http://www.thok.org/bloggery Zed Shaw asked this same question recently, as part of http://learnpythonthehardway.org/ and it looks like he went with gedit (the book has windows/mac/linux setup instructions in the first couple of pages to compare, he probably had more specific constraints than you did, but it's worth a look...)
2010-09-12
- About:
What tips should every new Python programmer know? : Python
- When:
Sat Sep 11 22:54:30 2010
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/dcjeg/what_tips_should_every_new_python_programmer_know/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 330 milliseconds ago[-] Yeah, one of the biggest embarassments looking back at my own early python code was that it was mostly rewrites of perl code - so there was lots of if re.search("\.jpg", path) that should have been if path.endswith(".jpg"). "Idioms matter"... Yeah, one of the biggest embarassments looking back at my own early python code was that it was mostly rewrites of perl code - so there was lots of `if re.search("\.jpg", path)` that should have been `if path.endswith(".jpg")`. "Idioms matter"... formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2010-06-30
- About:
cjsmith: Jackie: bad day
- When:
Tue Jun 29 23:52:43 2010
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/960788.html?view=10005268#t10005268
- What:
- [info]eichin 2010-06-30 03:52 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Oh, until I got this far I was worried it was surgery prep or something. (My mom has scottish folds, and one of them gets very matted - so occasionally it gets a body shave - head and legs still fully furred, so it sort of looks like a lion with boots on :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)
2010-06-13
- About:
Hungry Much? | ZanyPickle.com
- When:
Sun Jun 13 19:39:27 2010
- Where:
http://zanypickle.com/2010/05/hungry-much-7/comment-page-1/#comment-2936
- What:
- _Mark_ Says: June 13th, 2010 at 6:39 pm @Imeno well, I just took a similar shot with a 250mm lens and a 1/250s shutter speed; the trick is that when the young get to this age (around 4 weeks I guess?) this scene replays itself every couple of minutes, so you just have to find a nest box and camp out :-) http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/4697463237/ isn’t as good as the original for this one, but it gets it across pretty well…
2010-06-08
- About:
Sony's second-gen VAIO P now available for pre-order -- Engadget
- When:
Tue Jun 8 17:29:16 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/08/sonys-second-gen-vaio-p-now-available-for-pre-order/1#c28504327
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Jun 8th 2010 5:27PM Neutral The one problem with the "classic" Vaio P was that it used the GMA500/Poulsbo chipset, which had badly broken linux support (mired in ownership disputes that have kept anyone from making it work with a modern release.) Any idea if the new one avoids that?
2010-05-22
- About:
Trouble in Alewife Red-tail Paradise?? | Cambridge Community Television
- When:
Fri May 21 21:39:55 2010
- Where:
http://www.cctvcambridge.org/node/46452#comment-3895
- What:
- Ahh, I was wondering where the camera came from! I've been taking pictures since a friend of mine first pointed it out this January: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/tags/185alewifebrookparkway/ When I've got time I pull in and park in front of Circle Furniture; there are usually people across the street with *large* lenses too. A lot of passers-by will stop and ask about them, it'll be nice to tell people that they have names :-) May 21st, 2010 by _Mark_
2010-05-17
- About:
A Timeless Way of Building or Why do all these houses suck? @ Hyperextended Metaphor
- When:
Mon May 17 18:13:35 2010
- Where:
http://innocuous.org/articles/2010/05/16/a-timeless-way-of-building-or-why-do-all-these-houses-suck/comment-page-1/#comment-246
- What:
- _Mark_ says: May 17, 2010 at 6:13 pm I thought the Somerville triple-decker (at least the latest incarnation of it) had nothing to do with living and everything to do with zoning regulations – in the 80’s and 90’s at least you could build a 2 decker, not a 3, but you could then add a cupola, and then you could expand that, and eventually “upgrade” all the way to a full three-decker, which you couldn’t have just built in the first place. (At least that was how my landlord at the time explained his continuing expansion efforts over the collection of houses he owned…)
2010-05-10
- About:
Mitsubishi and Tokyo Institute of Tech pair up to stop wasteful late-night windmills -- Engadget
- When:
Mon May 10 15:46:40 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/10/mitsubishi-and-tokyo-institute-of-tech-pair-up-to-stop-wasteful/1#c27790874
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted May 10th 2010 3:46PM Neutral Remember the T-zero from acpropulsion? (It was a tech-demo electric sports car that led the way for the tesla...) acpropulsion's "real work" was V2G "Vehicle-2-Grid" architecture work - ie. using idle electric cars to load-level the solar/wind-fed grid. They were doing this around 10 years ago - so it's sad to see that it's *still* "a few years away"...
2010-05-05
- About:
Facebook
- When:
Wed May 5 01:59:51 2010
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/
- What:
- Mark Eichin I saw a convoy of 4 Ospreys heading in to Hanscom Friday morning - http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/4572607111/ and following. They look very distinctive, even at long range... 36 seconds ago
2010-04-29
- About:
Sony taken to court over PS3 'Other OS' removal -- Engadget
- When:
Thu Apr 29 16:38:52 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/29/sony-taken-to-court-over-ps3-other-os-removal/1#c27518053
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Apr 29th 2010 4:38PM Neutral @enzospartan exactly - I got one specifically because it was the cheapest linux box I could get with HDMI out. So, for now, I won't take the firmware upgrade (per Sony's only advice when I filed a support request) but I'll certainly join the class on this if it happens; if that falls through, it'll be time to see about selling it and starting again, there are probably more options now...
2010-04-28
- About:
Facebook
- When:
Wed Apr 28 02:04:35 2010
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/home.php?sk=h
- What:
- Mark Eichin The apple-made iPad case is quite light - but the iPad alone weighs more than the Kindle DX, let alone the "normal" kindle. 3 minutes ago ·
2010-04-25
- About:
iPad Camera Kit ships with USB headset and keyboard support -- Engadget
- When:
Sun Apr 25 14:46:57 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/25/ipad-camera-kit-ships-with-usb-headset-and-keyboard-support/1#comments
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Apr 25th 2010 2:44PM Neutral @Gobelet Indeed, one of the things I'm waiting for (having used one for two weeks) is a photo app that isn't *entirely useless*. All I need is caption, tag, direct push to flickr - maybe crop, I *don't* want filters or photoshoppy stuff, just competent workflow - and this could become my "weekend computer"...
2010-04-23
- About:
Tutorial: consuming Twitter's real-time stream API in Python : Python
- When:
Fri Apr 23 14:12:28 2010
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/bukb0/tutorial_consuming_twitters_realtime_stream_api/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 441 milliseconds ago[-] Mostly because it isn't - it's a thin wrapper over the C API. This means that the C docs are useful, and that it is easy to keep in sync with updates to the C version. It also means you really want to wrap it in a task-specific wrapper, rather than spreading pycurl calls throughout your code - but really, you wanted to do that anyway. Mostly because it isn't - it's a thin wrapper over the C API. This means that the C *docs* are useful, and that it is easy to keep in sync with updates to the C version. It also means you really want to wrap it in a task-specific wrapper, rather than spreading pycurl calls throughout your code - but really, you wanted to do that anyway. formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Facebook | Robert French is debating getting an iPad. What do you think?
- When:
Fri Apr 23 02:48:07 2010
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/rfrench?v=wall&story_fbid=111331285570166
- What:
- Mark Eichin I like the Kindle DX for pdfs, but it's too big to just carry randomly (I take it on trips, and bring it to work on interview days so I can use it for resumes and interview questions.) After using the iPad, though, it feels both big and *slow*. I got my mom an iPad, and had a chance to play with it for 2 weeks first - it doesn't need to be remote-sysadminned (so it beats a netbook for this use) and it's just *comfortable* to use as long as your use cases overlap with what the apps do - non-threaded email, photo *browsing*, reading. iPDF was entirely acceptable for reading complex manuals (like the Rovio user guide - probably not as rich as a flight map, but lots of vector art.) Given how nice the (IPS) screen is, it's crying out for decent photo management apps (tagging, captioning, uploading, maybe cropping); the Apple photo app, however, is an abject failure, and is high on my personal list of reasons to not get an iPad... and I didn't find any others that were even that good. One can only hope that when they ship the camera-adaptors (allegedly this month) that they also ship some not-quite-so-useless software with them.... See More I found the keyboard to be far better than I expected, as a qwerty touch-typist - I could get surprising speeds one-handed in landscape mode (which is faster and easier, just like Fitts' law says it should be :-) but I couldn't do anything at all two-handed (a natural "resting" posture produces spurious keystrokes, and you end up looking at the "keys" anyway, it's not nearly the bad habit it is on a real keyboard.) I recommend taking the time to fondle one, if only to appreciate the technology and design. It definitely benefits from being a locked-down platform that at least tries for stylistic consistency; it sounds odd, but with many apps the device "goes away" in the sense that you feel more immersed, like you are "doing a thing" rather than "using a computer", in a way I almost never feel outside of emacs. 5 minutes ago ·
2010-04-20
- About:
Facebook
- When:
Tue Apr 20 01:17:28 2010
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?
- What:
- Mark Eichin In Concord, we celebrate it with reenactments where the rebels outnumber the british :-) 3 minutes ago
2010-04-15
- About:
Apple looking to hire camera expert, iPad Camera Kit to support USB audio? -- Engadget
- When:
Thu Apr 15 18:22:24 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/15/apple-looking-to-hire-camera-expert-ipad-camera-kit-to-support/2#comments
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Apr 15th 2010 6:21PM Neutral @hutch2509 A few reasons the slate fails, for me, relative to the iPad: (1) less than half the battery life (2) it's a "real" windows box - so I'd have to sysadmin it (3) wide, non-IPS, screen. So it might be an interesting product in its own right, it's not actually comparable to the iPad...
- About:
Apple looking to hire camera expert, iPad Camera Kit to support USB audio? -- Engadget
- When:
Thu Apr 15 15:26:27 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/15/apple-looking-to-hire-camera-expert-ipad-camera-kit-to-support/2#c27166628
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Apr 15th 2010 3:25PM Neutral I'm looking forward to being able to use an iPad to pull pictures off of my camera, tag them, caption them, and push them to flickr (something I use a netbook for now; the iPad would be an improvement screenwise, at least...) but as far as I can tell, there *aren't* any apps for this kind of thing now? Lots of browsers/viewers, Photo.app itself can't do any more than email a picture (and it doesn't even have full-res pictures)... or have I missed something? I'm not asking for Lightroom (or Aperture) (well, OK, I *am* but what I actually need is a lot less than that) but there doesn't even seem anything that syncs useful changes with iPhoto, let alone directly manage an online gallery...
2010-04-13
- About:
Apple - Support - Discussions - Anyone able to get the older white ...
- When:
Mon Apr 12 23:02:53 2010
- Where:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11368657#11368657
- What:
- _Mark_ Posts: 1 Registered: Apr 12, 2010 Re: Anyone able to get the older white bluetooth keyboard working? Posted: Apr 12, 2010 8:02 PM in response to: darshie76 Click to edit this message... Click to reply to this topic Reply email Email I just had the same problem - my A1016 (M9270LL/A) white 1st-gen bluetooth keyboard works just fine with OS/X, but fails on the iPad (so it's an outright bug on the iPad side.) Fresh batteries didn't help (just to get that out of the way.) Same "hit enter, the ipad pops up a long passcode and then an immediate failure-to-pair" behaviour. Suggestions on actual reporting paths for apple? (Not interested in the "aluminum" keyboard, the white one actually has keys :-) What I really want is a way to use an IBM Model M with the iPad...) M9270LL/A
- About:
Apple - Support - Discussions - Re: Anyone able to get the older white ...
- When:
Mon Apr 12 23:02:36 2010
- Where:
http://discussions.apple.com/messageview.jspa?messageID=11368657&stqc=true
- What:
- _Mark_ Posts: 1 Registered: Apr 12, 2010 New! Re: Anyone able to get the older white bluetooth keyboard working? Posted: Apr 12, 2010 8:02 PM in response to: darshie76 Click to edit this message... Click to reply to this topic Reply email Email I just had the same problem - my A1016 (M9270LL/A) white 1st-gen bluetooth keyboard works just fine with OS/X, but fails on the iPad (so it's an outright bug on the iPad side.) Fresh batteries didn't help (just to get that out of the way.) Same "hit enter, the ipad pops up a long passcode and then an immediate failure-to-pair" behaviour. Suggestions on actual reporting paths for apple? (Not interested in the "aluminum" keyboard, the white one actually has keys :-) What I really want is a way to use an IBM Model M with the iPad...) M9270LL/A
2010-04-02
- About:
Facebook
- When:
Fri Apr 2 14:19:41 2010
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?
- What:
- Mark Eichin last time I asked, I was pointed at Insteon, but I haven't tried any of it (and I may end up wiring my own zigbee stuff anyway, to tie in with the robots) about a minute ago ·
2010-04-01
- About:
Getting Photo Metadata (EXIF) Using Python : Python
- When:
Wed Mar 31 21:53:47 2010
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/bjrx2/getting_photo_metadata_exif_using_python/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 134 milliseconds ago[-] ooh, indeed, from http://tilloy.net/dev/pyexiv2/api.html classmethod from_buffer(buffer) Instantiate an image container from an image buffer. (0.1.3 is the latest I'd found in debian/ubuntu.) Thanks for the pointer. ooh, indeed, from http://tilloy.net/dev/pyexiv2/api.html classmethod from_buffer(buffer) Instantiate an image container from an image buffer. (0.1.3 is the latest I'd found in debian/ubuntu.) Thanks for the pointer. formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2010-03-31
- About:
Amazon patents packaging surveillance, says it's for our own good -- Engadget
- When:
Wed Mar 31 10:13:47 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/31/amazon-patents-packaging-surveillance-says-its-for-our-own-goo/1#c26722439
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Mar 31st 2010 10:13AM Neutral I hope this doesn't interfere with tazachocolate, who have been doing something different but close - you can enter the batch number from your chocolate bar and see how it was made. (Really this sounds more like it should be in an industry "best practices" collection, but patents are what we have instead...)
- About:
Getting Photo Metadata (EXIF) Using Python : Python
- When:
Wed Mar 31 00:18:05 2010
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/bjrx2/getting_photo_metadata_exif_using_python/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 176 milliseconds ago[-] pyexiv2 wraps the C++ exiv2 library, and has good coverage; the one flaw I've found is that the C++ lib can handle in-memory images, and the python wrapper only has a simpler file-based path. pyexiv2 wraps the C++ exiv2 library, and has good coverage; the one flaw I've found is that the C++ lib can handle in-memory images, and the python wrapper only has a simpler file-based path. formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2010-03-09
- About:
Talk:Comparison of embedded computer systems on board the Mars rovers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- When:
Tue Mar 9 00:54:09 2010
- Where:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Comparison_of_embedded_computer_systems_on_board_the_Mars_rovers
- What:
- Jump to: navigation, search Perhaps it's not entirely clear from the Wind River press release, but while the Pathfinder *lander* ran vxWorks (on an RS6000, a port done for this mission) the Sojourner ran a much smaller system - I don't believe there's ever been an 8-bit vxWorks port in any case, but several references describe it as "simple single-threaded" or "serial", and http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds4-3/rover.html specifically says "Sojourner has no on-board operating system".
2010-03-04
- About:
Facebook
- When:
Thu Mar 4 00:06:53 2010
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/
- What:
- Mark Eichin But were they SB-only? I thought the only physics path out of VIII-sb was physics grad school, *then* you could do actual work :-) (The one case I'm thinking of from my house is a Prof at rutgers and works on one of the Fermilab instruments...) 11 seconds ago ·
2010-03-03
- About:
Buzz by Matthew Gray from Buzz
- When:
Tue Mar 2 23:21:53 2010
- Where:
http://www.google.com/buzz/matthewgray/b8AhFcdNdrY/Oooh-how-cool-is-this
- What:
- Mark Eichin - gigapan is integrated with google earth, though - you should be able to drop in to the chicago shoreline and see some of my skyscraper-panorama pictures (not sure if you need to turn on a gigapan layer, or what.)Edit11:21 pm
2010-03-01
- About:
PyCon 2010 and Volunteering « The Mouse Vs. The Python
- When:
Mon Mar 1 12:45:19 2010
- Where:
http://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2010/02/28/pycon-2010-and-volunteering/comment-page-1/#comment-19422
- What:
- March 1, 2010 at 11:44 am Explaining the power strips in one of the keynotes made a big difference – I only saw one talk have a problem (before the talk started, while people were sitting down) and everyone just propagated the question towards the back until it hit someone who had power, and then forward to someone who looked guilty :-) Took less than a minute to resolve. (ps. Thanks for volunteering!)
- About:
Facebook | Photos of You
- When:
Fri Feb 26 21:44:43 2010
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=22795&op=1&view=all&subj=100000062693789&id=100000765936525
- What:
- Mark Eichin Mmm, cassette-tape-cable networking, ~300 bits/second. (I still have some of these particular machines - my Mom snagged some when NMHS was throwing them out :-) Pretty advanced for a public school in the early 1980s (and quite an upgrade from the PDP/8e and teletypes) though these days they'd embarass a wristwatch... 2 seconds ago ·
2010-02-11
- About:
Facebook | Jon Luning's Photos - Old Computers
- When:
Thu Feb 11 17:01:49 2010
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2472802&id=6209001
- What:
- Mark Eichin I still have my Model I (and some of the High School's leftover III and IVs, the IV-portable, some CoCos...) which I should power up again some day... but my cellphone runs circles around them, heck there are single-chip accessory boxes that run linux on 32-bit arm now :-) I have pondered what a trs-80-like box that booted into a Python ... See MoreInterpreter instead of an MSBASIC one would be like, especially as a teaching tool. (Scarily, the "easy" path to trying it is probably a livecd linux install on a netbook, and would cost a factor of ten less than a TRS-80 ever did.) 2 seconds ago ·
2010-01-18
- About:
Urgent call for experienced Python programmers for assistance in coding a disaster management framework for the Earthquake in Haiti. : Python
- When:
Sun Jan 17 21:38:28 2010
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/aqsb8/urgent_call_for_experienced_python_programmers/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 295 milliseconds ago[-] Pretty much - I don't know if it was there when you posted, but they have a specific FAQ entry about that... Pretty much - I don't know if it was there when you posted, but they have [a specific FAQ entry](http://sahanapy.org/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestionsPython) about that... formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
2010-01-15
- About:
Blog | taza chocolate
- When:
Fri Jan 15 17:36:09 2010
- Where:
http://www.tazachocolate.com/Blog/P/144
- What:
- Order #1302 from Mark. We'll donate $30.25 for a total of $154.50 so far.
- About:
cjsmith: Flattery causes temporary insanity
- When:
Thu Jan 14 23:48:15 2010
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/946271.html?view=9834847#t9834847
- What:
- [info]eichin 2010-01-15 04:48 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Right, the question isn't "can I do this", it's "can I do this in the remaining 45 seconds I have free in my weekly schedule" :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)
2010-01-08
- About:
iType keyboard brings a physical keyboard to the iPhone, but there's a catch -- Engadget
- When:
Fri Jan 8 15:38:29 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/itype-keyboard-brings-a-physical-keyboard-to-the-iphone-but-the/2#c24546192
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Jan 8th 2010 3:38PM Neutral @Chefgon A standalone word processor (1) will be much bigger than this [note that it appears to be almost as thin as the iphone itself] (2) would *still* need a connection to the phone to upload things anywhere real (3) wouldn't be running a mainstream OS and a broad set of applications... What I really want is a Lexmark Model M with a cradle (and extra battery) built in, but that would fit even *less* well in a briefcase :-)
- About:
iType keyboard brings a physical keyboard to the iPhone, but there's a catch -- Engadget
- When:
Fri Jan 8 14:56:12 2010
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/itype-keyboard-brings-a-physical-keyboard-to-the-iphone-but-the/1#c24544675
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Jan 8th 2010 2:55PM Neutral I would buy an android-usb version of this, but only if it worked in all apps; this cut&paste nonsense is not even vaguely acceptable... but I actually liked the Tandy 1xx and Cambridge Z88 back in the day - the 3x-5x advantage in typing speed is worth it for many of us...
2009-12-31
- About:
Coming soon: A Twitter camera. (Scripting News)
- When:
Wed Dec 30 21:29:25 2009
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/12/27/comingSoonATwitterCamera.html
- What:
- _Mark_ [Moderator] 24 minutes ago Samsung announced one of these earlier this year, and looking at engadget another one just hit the FCC; "the Instant Upload feature enables users to upload their shots to Facebook, Flickr, Photobox or Picasa, and for those who prefer to capture motion clips, it'll also shoot your videos to YouTube when a hotspot is found" http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/14/samsung-st55... and earlier http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/samsung-cram... It's an open question if that'll be more usable than the EyeFi. (The Smart Face recognition where it keeps track of up to twenty different *people* is interesting too, though...)
2009-12-30
- About:
When ctypes comes to the rescue : Python
- When:
Wed Dec 30 16:00:47 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ajt2k/when_ctypes_comes_to_the_rescue/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 673 milliseconds ago[-] Right, it's the next bit of added code that will make the advantages of python of C more clear... "leaving the last 10 pics on the camera" or "watching a motion sensor and then triggering the camera" (although chdk might be more useful for that part, I'm still going to try this code, since I just got ahold of the same camera :-) Right, it's the _next_ bit of added code that will make the advantages of python of C more clear... "leaving the last 10 pics on the camera" or "watching a motion sensor and then triggering the camera" (although chdk might be more useful for that part, I'm still going to try this code, since I just got ahold of the same camera :-) formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Ten gadgets that defined the decade -- Engadget
- When:
Wed Dec 30 13:17:15 2009
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/30/ten-gadgets-that-defined-the-decade/3#c24319502
- What:
- eichin Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:16PM Neutral > Though multitouch itself wasn't exposed to > the public at large until January 2007 when > Apple unveiled the original iPhone Sort of a weaselly way to ignore the fact that they *bought* that technology from FingerWorks, whose TouchStream "keyboards" had multitouch gestures as well as typing, and were on the market all the way back in 2004... *using* that in a phone was brilliant, sure, and Apple gets plenty of credit for exploiting/delivering the technology - but don't make it sound like they were even first-to-market with it.
- About:
#28 (Mailbox names with escaped chars them aren't returned correctly) – IMAPClient
- When:
Tue Dec 29 22:12:58 2009
- Where:
http://imapclient.freshfoo.com/ticket/28
- What:
- * in reply to: ↑ 2 Changed 3 days ago by eichin ¶ Replying to menno: Possible workaround (with debugging still in)...
2009-12-28
- About:
Apple Tablet – Will you buy one? — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Mon Dec 28 17:17:40 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/12/24/apple-tablet-will-you-buy-one/comment-page-1/#comment-52124
- What:
- _Mark_ December 25, 2009 at 12:47 am Yeah, OSX comes with Inkwell – too bad it’s useless to the point of embarassment (not just on standalone wacom tablets, but on a real Modbook.) Axiotron finally shipped QuickScript for the modbook, so using handwriting on the Actual Tablet Mac that Already Ships is finally plausible, no thanks to Apple… The modbook makes it pretty clear that a “tablet mac” is a non-starter (except for certain specialized niches, like CAD and drawing, where it’s dreamy – but basically as a “portable Cintiq” and if you haven’t heard of the Cintiq, the modbook isn’t for you either.) What *might* be plausible is a 7″ iPhone, given a few not-yet-revealed innovations (or maybe some not-yet-invented ones, which might suggest why it didn’t come out the last N times this particular fantasy has been revived…)
- About:
Kindle most gifted item in Amazon's history, e-books outsell physical tomes on Christmas Day -- Engadget
- When:
Mon Dec 28 17:16:02 2009
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/27/kindle-most-gifted-item-in-amazons-history-e-books-outsell-phy/2#c24278118
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Dec 28th 2009 5:15PM Neutral @spin cycle Indeed, the lack of "buy this kindle-book as a gift" or even "add this kindle-book to my wishlist" really messed with my christmas shopping this year (yeah, yeah, #firstworldproblems, but isn't it odd that a company that delivers so well on the rest of christmas shopping, fails so completely at it with their flagship product?)
2009-12-20
- About:
Thinkpad Turtle: You can drive the little turtle by turning your laptop : Python
- When:
Sat Dec 19 21:42:14 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/affmc/thinkpad_turtle_you_can_drive_the_little_turtle/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 175 milliseconds ago[-] Here's the rest of it; needed an axis-reversal too... #!/usr/bin/python # linux version of http://code.activestate.com/recipes/576985/ # (via reddit) but drop the windll stuff import time import turtle import sys hdaps_file = "/sys/devices/platform/hdaps/position" def current_pos(): """Get current position from the file""" pos = file(hdaps_file).read().strip().strip("()") return map(int, pos.split(",")) def getXY(): raw_x, raw_y = current_pos() return raw_x / 10.0, raw_y / 10.0 def done(_x, _y): print "done!" turtle.bye() sys.exit() def main(): centerx, centery = getXY() turtle.pensize(3) turtle.onscreenclick(done) while 1: x, y = getXY() turtle.left(centerx-x) turtle.forward(centery-y) time.sleep(0.01) if __name__ == '__main__': main() Here's the rest of it; needed an axis-reversal too... #!/usr/bin/python # linux version of http://code.activestate.com/recipes/576985/ # (via reddit) but drop the windll stuff import time import turtle import sys hdaps_file = "/sys/devices/platform/hdaps/position" def current_pos(): """Get current position from the file""" pos = file(hdaps_file).read().strip().strip("()") return map(int, pos.split(",")) def getXY(): raw_x, raw_y = current_pos() return raw_x / 10.0, raw_y / 10.0 def done(_x, _y): print "done!" turtle.bye() sys.exit() def main(): centerx, centery = getXY() turtle.pensize(3) turtle.onscreenclick(done) while 1: x, y = getXY() turtle.left(centerx-x) turtle.forward(centery-y) time.sleep(0.01) if __name__ == '__main__': main() formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-12-18
- About:
Menno's Musings : /IMAPClient-0.5.1
- When:
Fri Dec 18 13:14:50 2009
- Where:
http://freshfoo.com/blog/IMAPClient-0.5.1
- What:
- _Mark_ [Moderator] 0 minutes ago in reply to Menno Smits Argh, I was misreading the traceback; once I back out my tweaks, the folders with just spaces (even leading one spaces) work just fine - the ones that get me failures now aren't `select_folder` problems at all, but `list_folders`. There are two tags that show up in `list_folders` output as `'\\'` - ie. a single backslash character. The real folder names were `"Living in town" plan` and `"Make" Magazine (ORA)`... and I see that's Ticket#28 exactly. (My mistake was an off-by-one error, associating the second failure-to-open "\" as a failure on the previous name with spaces in it.) Thanks for looking into it, sorry about the misleading report.
- About:
Thinkpad Turtle: You can drive the little turtle by turning your laptop : Python
- When:
Fri Dec 18 01:14:36 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/affmc/thinkpad_turtle_you_can_drive_the_little_turtle/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 31 seconds ago[-] On ubuntu karmic: sudo m-a a-i tp-smapi sudo modprobe hdaps cat /sys/devices/platform/hdaps/position (-419,-498) (so, replace getXY with something that opens and parses that...) On ubuntu karmic: sudo m-a a-i tp-smapi sudo modprobe hdaps cat /sys/devices/platform/hdaps/position (-419,-498) (so, replace getXY with something that opens and parses that...) formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Menno's Musings : /IMAPClient-0.5.1
- When:
Fri Dec 18 01:02:18 2009
- Where:
http://freshfoo.com/blog/IMAPClient-0.5.1
- What:
- * Expand ⇗ * Guest * blogblog _Mark_ [Moderator] 0 minutes ago Nicely pythonic interface. Still has the problem that most other imap packages have when dealing with gmail - fails to quote folder names with spaces in them. However, if I take the output of list_folders and apply if " " in folder: folder = '"%s"' % folder (ie. add double-quotes around them) it mostly works (and what would make sense to do if they had quotes?) (sorry for commenting here, but I timed out on digging up a way to file an issue in your generic trac install...)
2009-12-08
- About:
Google Goggles - Google Labs
- When:
Tue Dec 8 16:50:55 2009
- Where:
http://www.googlelabs.com/show_details?app_key=agtnbGFiczIwLXd3d3IUCxIMTGFic0FwcE1vZGVsGPqXLQw
- What:
- Loading... No comments _Mark_ 1 minute agoMark as spam I love the "recognize and do something useful" model. androlib qrcodes are recognized, but the "market://..." url doesn't actually fire up the market like it does with zxing. Also, given the book-face-recognition, any chance of a button to add the book to google-books-my-library, or even librarything?
2009-12-05
- About:
How would you change Gigapan's Epic camera robot? -- Engadget
- When:
Sat Dec 5 02:33:52 2009
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/04/how-would-you-change-gigapans-epic-camera-robot/#comments
- What:
- eichin eichin Posted Dec 5th 2009 12:50AM Neutral @Deckmaster yeah, the biggest hassle in the beta was the shutter button - the canon point&shoots don't have remote trigger, and the olympus superzoom doesn't fit in the frame... chdk might help there, especially with HDR bracketing and positive acknowledgement that the shot got taken.
2009-11-18
- About:
Perl has ack, Ruby has rak, and now Python has grin (a grep replacement for programmers) : Python
- When:
Wed Nov 18 16:09:38 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/a4y6z/perl_has_ack_ruby_has_rak_and_now_python_has_grin/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 577 milliseconds ago[-] I recommend commandlinefu.com for versions of that which actually work; find -print0 and xargs -0 are keys there, and if you really don't want context, grep && echo is just grep -l... I recommend commandlinefu.com for versions of that which actually *work*; `find -print0` and `xargs -0` are keys there, and if you *really* don't want context, `grep && echo` is just `grep -l`... formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
cjsmith: Non-academic subjects
- When:
Tue Nov 17 22:04:17 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/938460.html?view=9773276#t9773276
- What:
- Not quite what you asked... [info]eichin 2009-11-18 03:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully ... but my mom's second (younger) cat taught her older one how to play with toys... the older one had been supposedly been raised as a show cat and was well behaved and generally relaxed, but didn't really know what to do with toys until a few months after the second one arrived. (Reply to this)
- About:
Flickr: Discussing writing on business cards? in MOO (MiniCards, Business Cards & More, Printed by MOO)
- When:
Tue Nov 17 19:19:39 2009
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/moo/discuss/72157622826069626/
- What:
- writing on business cards? view profile Mark Eichin Pro User says: I got some of the "free" (ad-supported) cards, left the print side blank so I could scribble on them... I'm pleased with how the pictures came out, but ballpoint pen ink (even gels like the Pilot G-2) smears! So, two questions: Do the "green" cards use the same laminate and/or have the same problem? Have people found other kinds of pens that work better for this surface? Posted at 7:19PM, 17 November 2009 EST ( permalink | edit )
2009-11-10
- About:
cjsmith: Falling apart
- When:
Tue Nov 10 00:03:36 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/937659.html?view=9764283#t9764283
- What:
- Re: You better bring it. [info]eichin 2009-11-10 05:03 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Since you asked... that you were offering to buy socks *from* (or *off*) rather than *for*. It brought to mind the whole japanese underwear thing... at which point I tried to read "and get your oil changed for you" as a euphemism and failed badly :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Falling apart
- When:
Mon Nov 9 23:52:00 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/937659.html?view=9764027#t9764027
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-11-10 04:51 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Err, yeah, that (I did say that I didn't stick to it :-) Confused it with 37signals.com and a bit of failure-to-add (31 days + 12 months) and most of what I actually use is in hiveminder.com's "task review" which oversimplifies it a bit further. (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Falling apart
- When:
Mon Nov 9 21:36:29 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/937659.html?view=9762235#t9762235
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-11-10 02:29 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > I'd buy your socks I read that the Wrong Way(tm) the first time through :-) > I will not keep a zillion little pieces of paper One of the things I like about GTD/38folders is that it's about having a well-defined place to put things for later, so that you can trust that they're not lost, which lets you "let go of them" until they reappear. (full disclosure, I don't actually *stick* to a system like that myself as a lifestyle, but I do use pieces of it for work - being able to trust that I haven't "lost" something, I will get to it *then* instead of *now* still seems to work with casual use...) (Reply to this) (Parent)
2009-10-22
- About:
Organize your cables with Dotz — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Thu Oct 22 14:51:16 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/10/22/organize-your-cables-with-dotz/comment-page-1/#comment-46875
- What:
- _Mark_ October 22, 2009 at 2:51 pm I’m currently using p-touch labels – hit print twice, that leaves a big gap in the middle to wrap around the cable itself. The dotz are cute, if you only have one thing per category, but usually I want to know *which* computer or *which* external drive the cord is for…
2009-10-21
- About:
projman #18771: comments by Mark Eichin (Logilab.org)
- When:
Wed Oct 21 13:14:25 2009
- Where:
http://www.logilab.org/ticket/18771
- What:
- load left description Sort comments sent by Mark Eichin and create tickets when needed: 1. http://www.logilab.org/card/LogilabDebianRepository suggests adding to /etc/apt/sources.list; as far back as hardy, it was a lot cleaner to instead put your additions in the .d, perhaps in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/logilab.list 2. http://ftp.logilab.org/pub/projman/projman-0.14.0.tar.gz doesn't exist, though http://www.logilab.org/project/projman points there; looks like it only has up to the 0.13.x releases. 3. both projman and projman-gui start up with: /var/lib/python-support/python2.6/projman/lib/project.py:28: DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead import md5 4. firing up projman-gui without a file and clicking on the Tasks tab gets: new (<gtk.ImageMenuItem object at 0x8daa0a4 (GtkImageMenuItem at 0x8dfd078)>,) Traceback (most recent call last): File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.6/projman/projmanedit/main.py", line 124, in on_notebook1_switch_page self.taskeditor.update_on_switch_page() File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.6/projman/projmanedit/gui/taskedit.py", line 291, in update_on_switch_page self.current_task = self.app.project.root_task AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'root_task' 5. /usr/share/doc/projman/README.Debian says: the documention for projman is in /usr/share/doc/projman-common/user-manual.pdf In fact, there is no projman-common package; /usr/share/doc/projman /user_manual.xml appears to have the raw docbook source, though... 6. Don't put a closed mailing list in /usr/share/doc/projman/README for a debian package as a contact address...
2009-10-19
- About:
Is it possible to write a Python app with a device file api? : Python
- When:
Mon Oct 19 16:53:32 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/9ufl7/is_it_possible_to_write_a_python_app_with_a/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 682 milliseconds ago[-] Fuse is the wrong layer (device-opens don't go through it.) fusd is the right layer, but hasn't been touched since 2003, apparently... Fuse is the wrong layer (device-opens don't go through it.) [fusd](http://www.circlemud.org/~jelson/software/fusd/) **is** the right layer, but hasn't been touched since 2003, apparently... formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-10-15
- About:
Video on the Web - Dive Into HTML5 : programming
- When:
Thu Oct 15 01:12:00 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9u7cr/video_on_the_web_dive_into_html5/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 341 milliseconds ago[-] The mention of matroska seems to come out of nowhere... love the fonts, except that I'm not sure how to tell which ones I'm actually getting, even after reading the style tag... The mention of matroska seems to come out of nowhere... _love_ the fonts, except that I'm not sure how to tell which ones I'm actually getting, even after reading the style tag... formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-10-13
- About:
Q&A: Ask the Google Mobile Team! - Google Product Ideas
- When:
Tue Oct 13 18:29:56 2009
- Where:
http://productideas.appspot.com/#15/e=276d9&t=276da&f=27624&v=24
- What:
- "The G1 internal memory isn't getting any bigger, but apps are; when will pushing apps out to microSD be a real OS feature, instead of a root-only hack?" _Mark_, Cambridge, MA View responses
2009-10-06
- About:
I want to divorce my iPhone (Scripting News)
- When:
Tue Oct 6 18:27:01 2009
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/09/23/iWantToDivorceMyIphone.html
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 week ago Also I'm pretty sure you don't get #3, bluetooth tethering, with Android (even with the "alternate" firmware.) The first two work fine on my G1, though - there are a variety of phonecam->webservice apps, with geotagging.
2009-10-03
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Oct 2 23:11:12 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2082&p=7653#p7653
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala PostPosted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:10 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 15 If the upgrade works, that's interesting, but 9.10 is supposed to go final in the next couple of weeks, and if it doesn't install that's going to be a problem (though I guess Ubuntu install media for old releases doesn't really go away :-)
2009-10-02
- About:
What is the perfect computer for Grandma? — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Fri Oct 2 14:04:44 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/10/02/what-is-the-perfect-computer-for-grandma/comment-page-1/#comment-45497
- What:
- _Mark_ October 2, 2009 at 1:48 pm I’ll note that these devices keep being a little too niche to survive (though it is interesting that the Peek email-only not-a-pda has lasted for two years.) I’d suggest a Mac instead (a mac mini and decent sized flat screen, if cost is an issue) – features like “magnify screen on hotkey” and screen-reading/voice activation turn out to be quite helpful to many seniors (that’s one of the big wins of the Kindle, too – not having to buy rare “large print” editions, just setting it to large text, is a boon to both eyestrain and dignity.)
- About:
Bug #434398 in Terminator: “traceback: Expected `string' got `bool' for key /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/cursor_blink_mode”
- When:
Thu Oct 1 23:56:25 2009
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/terminator/+bug/434398
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 3 seconds ago: #5 Unsurprisingly, selecting "unset key" changes it to "system" and removes the line from the file, and terminator stops complaining. Probably not worth digging too much more, if it really is an unusual value - others can find this ticket and make the same change... (odd, though, having set it to "system", it doesn't blink in terminator, but it *does* blink in a freshly started gnome-terminal. that's a bug for another day, though :-)
2009-09-25
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Sep 25 16:05:03 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2599&p=7559#p7559
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Karmic Alternate installer works again! PostPosted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 4:04 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 14 I thought I was, actually, up until it prompted me for a subject :-} Then I noticed there were about five other threads talking about the same issue, and figured it was easier to just leave it than to go chasing all of them down...
- About:
A logic gate simulator, inspired by Logicly. I plan to use this with my students later this term. Feedback welcome. : programming
- When:
Fri Sep 25 01:30:49 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9nu5z/a_logic_gate_simulator_inspired_by_logicly_i_plan/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 274 milliseconds ago[-] Have you considered adding race detection? Something I did for a thesis project decades ago - if you have a minimum and maximum propagation delay for a gate, you can take your usual HI/LOW/UNDRIVEN and add EARLYHI/EARLYLOW - then any EARLY that doesn't make it to the actual state represents a race or "glitch" condition. Not sure if that's too high level for the course, but if you get as far as actually building circuits... Have you considered adding [race detection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Race_condition.svg)? Something I did for a thesis project decades ago - if you have a minimum and maximum propagation delay for a gate, you can take your usual HI/LOW/UNDRIVEN and add EARLY_HI/EARLY_LOW - then any EARLY that doesn't make it to the actual state represents a race or "glitch" condition. Not sure if that's too high level for the course, but if you get as far as actually building circuits... formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Thu Sep 24 22:09:21 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2082&p=7550#p7550
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala PostPosted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:09 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 13 eichin wrote: Same friend points out that today's 9.10 doesn't work for him either. Sounds like my next step is [list=] [*]install 9.04 [*]set up a kernel build tree [*]try git-bisect on it... [/list] Or even better... wait! The 20090923 Karmic installer finds the drive just fine, on the same machine I've had the earlier problems on...
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Thu Sep 24 22:06:42 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2599
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Karmic Alternate installer works again! PostPosted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:06 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 12 Woohoo! I just tried the latest karmic: Code: 725649408 Sep 23 03:49 karmic-alternate-powerpc+ps3.iso f032048bc370521b802ddcfe2c34595d karmic-alternate-powerpc+ps3.iso on fresh 700M CDR media - and it finds the ps3 optical drive just fine, and talks to the wireless. I haven't done a fresh install from it (haven't copied off stuff from the 9.04 install.) So (1) somebody fixed something (no idea who, but thanks :-) (2) If you've had trouble, now's a good time to try again!
2009-09-23
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Wed Sep 23 12:58:22 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2547&p=7542#p7542
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: No common cd rom drive detected...:( PostPosted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:58 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 11 anton95 wrote: Something wrong with the model of cd-drive? Does 9.04 work for you? If so, then obviously not (since it's the code that changed, not the hardware...)
2009-09-22
- About:
cjsmith: Can I call it, or what?
- When:
Tue Sep 22 15:28:35 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/929508.html?view=9652452#t9652452
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-09-22 07:28 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully (oh yeah - and be sure you have pictures of Duchess for the cover, or at least the dedication page :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Can I call it, or what?
- When:
Tue Sep 22 15:25:51 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/929508.html?view=9652196#t9652196
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-09-22 07:23 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > I wish I knew enough to write a book. Ah well -- maybe someday I will know more! Ah, but what you know *now* is "the things that you would like to have already known". Write them down somewhere (or just tag this post "book fodder") and it'll help sort through the answers you pick up in the next couple of years, when it comes time to write... (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
Bug #434398 in Terminator: “traceback: Expected `string' got `bool' for key /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/cursor_blink_mode”
- When:
Mon Sep 21 22:36:37 2009
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/terminator/+bug/434398
- What:
- Bug #434398: This report is public edit traceback: Expected `string' got `bool' for key /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/cursor_blink_mode
2009-09-21
- About:
Facebook | Home
- When:
Mon Sep 21 16:23:17 2009
- Where:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home
- What:
- Mark Eichin You mean these? http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/2539174993/ They have an "extra" or two off to the side, maybe you could borrow one :-) 2 seconds ago · Delete
2009-09-15
- About:
Open Source Is Really About Documentation – Twisted vs. Tornado : Python
- When:
Tue Sep 15 16:00:31 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/9kmi9/open_source_is_really_about_documentation_twisted/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 17 seconds ago[-] True, but twisted.web is (or at least should be) a "gateway" app - HTTP is about the least subtle protocol out there, so you should be able to look at twisted.web and learn about just the twisted part, since you already "get" the HTTP part (and then apply what you've learned to something more interesting like twisted.words.) On top of that, 90% of everything is HTTP anyway... True, but twisted.web is (or at least should be) a "gateway" app - HTTP is about the least subtle protocol out there, so you should be able to look at twisted.web and learn about just the twisted part, since you already "get" the HTTP part (and then apply what you've learned to something more interesting like twisted.words.) On top of that, [90% of everything is HTTP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law) anyway... formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Tue Sep 15 13:43:26 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2563&p=7485#p7485
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Installation problems with Jaunty and 8.10 PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 1:42 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 10 amitabhishek wrote: Then mine too has those sparkly little stars. So I guess mine is an updated firmware. I think in my case the problem lies with the media (CD) I am planning to burn a new CD using a different software on a different computer. But in the meanwhile can you please write the steps that you took to install. Looking around the forum, a *lot* of people have had trouble with bad media, so that's definitely worth a shot (verifying the media by reading it back in another drive probably wouldn't hurt either... As for actual install steps: * (once back at the beginning) repartition the disk (from the ps3 menu), picking "10g for other os" and "fast". I assume this destroys stuff saved on the ps3, but I don't have anything there... * burn a disk of ubuntu 9.04 "alternate". I used a DVD-R, rather than a CD - faster, and I had a stack of them handy * stick it in the ps2, find "other os" under system tools, install it (apparently there are compatibility issues with different versions, so doing this each time is probably worth it even if it doesn't look necessary) * select boot other OS, and boot now (with the CD still in the drive.) * notice two penguins and a bunch of text, and a kboot prompt; just hit enter here... and in my case, keep hitting enter at most/all prompts until it installed...
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Mon Sep 14 23:43:49 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2563&p=7467#p7467
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Installation problems with Jaunty and 8.10 PostPosted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 11:43 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 9 After flailing around with the daily build of karmic (9.10) (which doesn't currently see the blueray drive) I installed Jaunty (9.04, ie the current actual release) on an 80G-"fat" and it worked fine. I did do this after doing an update of the ps3 itself ("3.0" with the sparkly desktop instead of just the wave) which might matter (at least some of the instructions say "do the update first") but the failures I've had have all had error messages, I haven't seen hangs...
2009-09-12
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Sat Sep 12 00:05:11 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2082&p=7442#p7442
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala PostPosted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:04 am Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 8 Same friend points out that today's 9.10 doesn't work for him either. Sounds like my next step is [list=] [*]install 9.04 [*]set up a kernel build tree [*]try git-bisect on it... [/list]
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Sep 11 23:49:44 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2082&p=7441#p7441
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 11:49 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 7 And I just took the base ps3 firmware rev (3.0 "OMG SPARKLY") and now mine also says 304R 5055, so that pretty much eliminates drive firmware rev as the issue.
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Sep 11 22:30:17 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2082&p=7440#p7440
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 10:29 pm Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:05 am Posts: 6 A friend of mine just checked his 80G that he installed 9.04 on: Code: Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00 Vendor: SONY Model: PS-SYSTEM 304R Rev: 5055 Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 00 (Slightly higher drive-firmware rev, and it worked just fine with the 9.04 installer; he's going to try karmic too, just to check.)
2009-09-11
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Sep 11 04:27:16 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2419&p=7430#p7430
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Cant install ubuntu 9.10 or 8.10 PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:27 am Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:05 am Posts: 5 9.10 is currently flagged as "doesn't fit on an actual CD" but the 714M version I grabbed a few days ago burns to a dvd fine, and boots off of it... once it boots it can't finish the install, but it does get far enough to try, and let me poke around (so it might work on different/older hardware, YMMV.) Report this post Delete post Top Edit post Reply with quote
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Sep 11 04:23:52 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2488&p=7428#p7428
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Can't reboot to XMB after failed install PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:23 am Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:05 am Posts: 4 Who do we contact to usefully suggest mentioning that in Code: kboot.msg ? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kboot-installer/+bug/277839 started with a request to put it there, and ended up as text in the release notes, it might be worth pushing on it again (since petitboot, the suggested "right" answer, isn't integrated yet...)
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Sep 11 04:14:12 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2547&p=7427#p7427
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: No common cd rom drive detected...:( PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:13 am Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:05 am Posts: 3 I commented on this over in the karmic thread, but about an 80G machine; it might be useful to know: if you go to a shell (hit alt-left arrow until you see a "hit enter to open a shell", or just select the start-a-shell option from the installer menu) and you run Code: cat /proc/scsi/scsi what drive version shows up? For example, I have Code: CD-ROM SONY PS-SYSTEM 304R 5044 but most google hits say 302R and either 4109 or 4084... which makes me wonder if this is "newer drives that don't work yet"...
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Sep 11 03:25:41 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2082&p=7425#p7425
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:25 am Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:05 am Posts: 2 (oddly enough, "eject /dev/sg0" works, though dmesg shows ioctl errors, so I suspect that's just eject having raw-scsi low-level support. At least confirms that it's talking to the hardware, but...)
- About:
PSUbuntu Forums
- When:
Fri Sep 11 03:16:39 2009
- Where:
http://psubuntu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2082&p=7424#p7424
- What:
- eichin Online Post subject: Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:16 am Send private message Profile Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:05 am Posts: 1 Has anyone actually had a karmic install work with a "304R" drive (brand-new 80G, just pre-slim), instead of the 302R that shows up in google? I dug into the "couldn't detect cdrom" a bit, and found this: Code: ps3_system_bus_match:362: dev=7.0(sb_01), drv=7.0(ps3rom): match scsi1 : ps3rom scsi 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM SONY PS-SYSTEM 304R 5044 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 scsi 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5 and in fact it created /dev/sg0 which is the generic scsi low-level interface (ie. "well, it's a scsi device but we don't know what to do with it") but no /dev/sr0... that was with daily/current/karmic-alternate-powerpc+ps3.iso from 9/9/2009... Also there's no sr_mod in /lib/modules, but I don't see one on my desktop post 2.6.27 either...
2009-09-04
- About:
Woot: The Community: Woots: iRobot Roomba 530 Robotic Vacuum with Virtual Wall
- When:
Fri Sep 4 00:13:27 2009
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=3400363&PageIndex=14&ReplyCount=531#post3414305
- What:
- eichin send message silversalute wrote:Well, that didn't take long. It pretty much comes ready to go. ... My dogs took it in stride. Actually pretty quiet. Very cool technology. Very cool price! Nice pictures; mine looked exactly like that - different than the previous woot roomba 535, which came in more "new" packaging, but still well-enough protected in transit. Dropped it on the charger last night, ran it for 20m this morning, then ran it until it gave up this evening - I'll need to move some extension cords, and move one ikea table to a guest room or something, but otherwise it picked up a *lot* of detritus from a "clean" hardwood floor. (ps. The 500-series is *very different* from the 400, I'd given up on using an earlier one on the hardwood floor because all it did was kick stuff around; the 530 is much more effective as a vacuum, doesn't hit things as hard, and seems to "get out of trouble" more effectively, plus it's significantly easier to clean the brushes.)
2009-08-22
- About:
Blógünder Schlock » Blog Archive » G.I. Joekemon: Gotta Catch ‘em All
- When:
Sat Aug 22 17:03:42 2009
- Where:
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/2009/08/11/gi-joekemon-gotta-catch-em-all/
- What:
- # # eichin Says: August 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm > I can buy into a submarine that looks like a fighter jet, because technology maybe could do that. Umm, has done? The “Deep Flight Super Falcon”, one of the accessory craft to Tom Perkins “Maltese Falcon” yacht… There’s a related TED talk too, they’ve shipped a couple. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/06/eod.luxury.submarines/index.html
2009-08-16
- About:
The mystery of immortal, migrating sockets and Python's getstatusoutput. : Python
- When:
Sun Aug 16 19:22:49 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/99709/the_mystery_of_immortal_migrating_sockets_and/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 235 milliseconds ago[-] I think that's just the list of related functions; it affects the file descriptor itself. execve(2) talks about actually performing the close. The only trick with using it in python is that usually you have a file() or socket.socket object, and you want .fileno() to pass to fcntl.fcntl. I think that's just the list of related functions; it affects the file descriptor itself. execve(2) talks about actually performing the close. The only trick with using it in python is that usually you have a `file()` or `socket.socket` object, and you want `.fileno()` to pass to `fcntl.fcntl`. formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
find process associated with a port | commandlinefu.com
- When:
Wed Aug 12 19:05:35 2009
- Where:
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/144/find-process-associated-with-a-port
- What:
- lsof -i tcp:25 gives a little more info; *both* fuser and lsof need root privileges to report processes other than the ones they run as, though (whereas netstat -ap will at least show you the port is open, though it won't find the pid without privileges... Comment by eichin 1 second ago
- About:
The mystery of immortal, migrating sockets and Python's getstatusoutput. : Python
- When:
Wed Aug 12 18:31:29 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/99709/the_mystery_of_immortal_migrating_sockets_and/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 503 milliseconds ago[-] I suspect they'd have found it a lot faster using lsof -i, that's my first choice went hunting this (relatively common) problem... on the prevention side, fcntl.FD_CLOEXEC is useful... I suspect they'd have found it a lot faster using `lsof -i`, that's my first choice went hunting this (relatively common) problem... on the prevention side, `fcntl.FD_CLOEXEC` is useful... formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-08-06
- About:
Woot: The Community: The Community: Woots: Philips 42” Full HD 1080p with Pixel Plus HD
- When:
Thu Aug 6 16:04:07 2009
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=3302432&PageIndex=10&ReplyCount=380#post3371576
- What:
- * Aug 6, 2009 4:03 PM * permalink eichin send message eichin wrote:The fedex tracking number finally showed up on my receipt page (which is a little odd, with most places the numbers show up before the box is even packed) and it was indeed shipped within the promised 5 days... and apparently got a "shipment exception" "Damaged, handling per shipper instructions" 2 days after that. (I'm glad it got caught in-system so *I* don't have to deal with it :-) Took a little nagging (would be nice if the My Account page actually had updates on exception handling) but mine finally arrived about an hour ago, yay :-) The shipping box was a little chewed on but the screen was perfect; the remote actually worked, so the setup screen was no problem. Now to find adaptors and cables for everything else :-)
2009-08-03
- About:
Batch image resize | commandlinefu.com
- When:
Sun Aug 2 23:26:28 2009
- Where:
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/2846/batch-image-resize
- What:
- `ls` is bug-prone, just use * if you care about case, use *.[jJ][pP][gG] or more sanely, find . -maxdepth 1 -iname '*.jpg' | while read a; do convert ...; done Comment by eichin 3 seconds ago
- About:
jessenoller.com - Interested in a Boston Python Conference?
- When:
Sun Aug 2 14:57:09 2009
- Where:
http://jessenoller.com/2009/08/01/interested-in-a-boston-python-conference/?dsq=13801703#comment-13801703
- What:
- * Expand ⇗ * Guest * blogblog _Mark_ 12 hours ago Also Boston weather is wretched in the summer (though this year it's shaping up to be *differently* wretched than past years...) Ned Batchelder is another noted local pythonista, if you're looking for experienced speakers (his Whirlwind C Extensions talk at pycon 2009 was very accessible.) (I'd certainly attend, and might try to come up with a talk. If you want students, you probably want a T-accessible location, even if it isn't downtown...)
- About:
Make: Online : Make: Science Room - Choosing a microscope
- When:
Sun Aug 2 01:59:17 2009
- Where:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/08/choosing_a_microscope_by_robert_bru.html
- What:
- Posted by: _Mark_ on August 1, 2009 at 10:58 PM I found this line tantalizing: > I planned to do a lot of photography through the microscope. Have you done that successfully with the 161? What kind of adapters are needed (the makershed page also makes only brief mention of the use of the secondary eyepiece for imaging...) Perhaps that would make a good follow-on article, especially with a lot of sample pictures :-) (I had a "toy" microscope as a kid, which did have one significant value - it made the fantastic photomicrographs that showed up on NOVA and other science TV a little more believable :-) Reply to this comment
2009-08-01
- About:
Woot: The Community: The Community: Woots: Sunpak Platinum Plus Tripod
- When:
Sat Aug 1 01:25:58 2009
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=3330346&PageIndex=6&ReplyCount=220#post3364185
- What:
- * Aug 1, 2009 1:20 AM * permalink eichin send message My 3 arrived - one ends up in my office (for occasional out-the-window shots), one is stashed (open) near a good bird-watching window, the other will probably live in the car; they're surprisingly light, but just fine for setting up a small camera pre-aimed and pre-focussed on a birdfeeder...
2009-07-31
- About:
Wearable camcorder – uCorder — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Fri Jul 31 01:47:08 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/07/30/wearable-camcorder-ucorder/comment-page-1/#comment-39817
- What:
- _Mark_ July 31, 2009 at 1:46 am Oh, the stuntcam isn’t quite the model I have after all – mine is still only 352 x 288, for some reason I thought it was higher, and http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Smallest-Camcorder-Built-Memory/dp/B001KK5ZHW/ claims 640×240 (which is admittedly an unusual size, but closer.) But it’s far *more* wearable – you just clip it into a shirt pocket, or on to a shoulder strap for something else – the lens is above the top of the clip, so it just peeks over the top of your pocket. It’s much *smaller* than the ucorder – these are pack-of-gum form factor, an inch shorter and noticeably narrower (not as wide as a whiteboard marker, say…) though from the looks of the ucorder (in particular the 3-LED interface and some other oddities) I’d guess they had a common chipset or even main board… I’ve actually handed it to tech-savvy people and had them not realize it was a camera at all, which makes it an interesting backup camera for hiking trips and such; at 4G the storage outlasts the battery, and they have the same slot (but not the “mini LED flashlight” of the ucorder.) These first got a lot of attention in early 2009 when the nytimes published an article about people using them to sniff PINs at subverted ATMs :-)
2009-07-30
- About:
Come on baby light my Wi-Fire — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Thu Jul 30 17:25:31 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/07/28/come-on-baby-light-my-wi-fire/comment-page-1/#comment-39799
- What:
- _Mark_ July 30, 2009 at 5:25 pm The confusion comes from the fact that an access point *doesn’t* broadcast within a “radius” – signal drops off over distance, and is eventually overwhelmed by other noise sources, but any distance metric is a function of the antennas on *both* ends. (Of course, try explaining that on a product box in a store…) The radius given is at best a “typical” value based on “average” laptop antennas. With a better antenna at either end (or both), you can get more range; in the extreme case, you run the risk of violating FCC restrictions on the frequency band :-) (Ooh, and it works with the linux zd1211rw driver; that alone may make it a good choice for hooking up a DVR at the far end of the house from the access point…)
- About:
Wearable camcorder – uCorder — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Thu Jul 30 17:07:59 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/07/30/wearable-camcorder-ucorder/comment-page-1/#comment-39793
- What:
- Wearable camcorder – uCorder by Julie on July 30, 2009 · 1 comment in Audio / Video Gear, Digital Cameras, Spotlight Gadgets ucorderThe uCorder claims to be the world’s first wearable camcorder. It’s available in two versions. One with 1GB of internal memory and one with 2GB. Both include a microSD slot. The resolution isn’t very impressive at only 64o x 480, and there isn’t a a built-in LCD viewfinder. But I suppose the portability is supposed to make up for these deficiencies. They are priced at $79.99 – $99.99 +$15 Shipping. Tagged as: Camcorder If you don't want to miss new postings, please consider subscribing to our RSS feed. { 1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 _Mark_ July 30, 2009 at 5:07 pm Seems unlikely to be “first” given that I’ve had one of these for months – has more memory, same resolution, and costs half as much… http://www.amazon.com/Stunt-Cam-Stick-four-camera/dp/B0017HYHCM
- About:
Extra Cheese
- When:
Fri Jul 24 04:41:56 2009
- Where:
http://blog.extracheese.org/2009/07/a-brief-history-of-bitbacker-a-startup
- What:
- Posted by Mark Eichin at Fri Jul 24 03:41:32 2009 Interesting story; good for you for knowing when to kill it off (I'm sort of surprised you went that long without paying customers, even if not for the revenue, for the external validation...) Have you seen SpiderOak? They also chose multi-platform pure-python backup, but went the Strong Crypto Done Right path instead of S3; I met them at pycon, and it looks like they started even more recently but pulled together a bigger team. Makes an interesting contrast...
- About:
cjsmith: Virginia people: bald eagles
- When:
Fri Jul 24 04:29:47 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/918061.html?view=9507117#t9507117
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-24 08:29 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully ooh, eagles! It's interesting to note that these were apparently "natural" injuries (ie. not directly human-inflicted, though you can't discount habitat loss.) Also that the pictures show the clear value of having someone who can *hang on* to the bird for treatment without ending up more damaged than it is :-) (Reply to this)
- About:
The Thing About Git
- When:
Fri Jul 24 02:53:24 2009
- Where:
http://tomayko.com/writings/the-thing-about-git#comment-217105
- What:
- Another thank you! A coworker pointed me at this, turns out that “git add —patch” works fine with git-svn, too, and it really does give you more freedom to fix bugs right when you notice them (I'd been doing git-stash/fix/git-stash-pop but this is much smoother.) Best of both worlds… — _Mark_ on Friday, July 24, 2009 at 06:55 AM #
- About:
Belated happy first birthday, BFG « Chatterbox, Reloaded
- When:
Fri Jul 24 02:48:39 2009
- Where:
http://pauleveritt.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/belated-happy-first-birthday-bfg/#comment-62
- What:
- 1. _Mark_ Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. July 24, 2009 at 6:48 am | Reply mmm, so is there a tutorial that actually walks the “only what you need” path? I started with http://docs.repoze.org/bfg/current/narr/install.html which has the common but mistaken idea that I want to know anything about paster or setup.py – did I just find the wrong starting point?
2009-07-23
- About:
cjsmith: Moon landing generational divide
- When:
Wed Jul 22 22:18:35 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/917012.html?view=9505812#t9505812
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-23 02:18 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully I remember watching some of the later Apollo mission news live; I ended up taking the space program *and* the cold war a lot more personally than most of my peers. That said, it's somewhat comforting that I can get high-res detail of the moon's surface (you know, landing is a lot more likely to work when you don't need the Hottest Pilot Ever to handle discovering boulders in your way when you have 20 seconds of fuel left?) on my laptop, in 3d, with data from *Japan's* space program, for free - ie. data shared in scientific interest instead of competitive nationalism... (Reply to this)
2009-07-22
- About:
Read just the IP address of a device | commandlinefu.com
- When:
Wed Jul 22 12:54:39 2009
- Where:
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/2723/read-just-the-ip-address-of-a-device
- What:
- All of these assume you have one interface which is basically never true these days :-) it's worth installing "moreutils" to get ifdata -pa wlan0 which gives just the dotted-quad, no further parsing needed (unlike the "ip" example) Comment by eichin 1 second ago
2009-07-20
- About:
whois surfing my web ? | commandlinefu.com
- When:
Mon Jul 20 16:50:00 2009
- Where:
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/2690/whois-surfing-my-web-
- What:
- on a big machine, this can be expensive (we used to joke about having an "lsof processor" on a multi-core machine...) ss or netstat will be much more efficient... ss -t 'sport = :http' Comment by eichin 1 second ago
2009-07-16
- About:
Least astonishment in python: the mutable default argument : Python
- When:
Thu Jul 16 13:27:49 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/91kzt/least_astonishment_in_python_the_mutable_default/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 216 milliseconds ago[-] Indeed, and it surprises me that the other references only talk about the confusion; we teach it to people early because it's useful to have a near-equivalent of C's function-local "static" variables (though a memoizing decorator is better, it doesn't always fit the problem.) Also several of the comments talk about the argument being global - that's simply not true, it's not in the global namespace at all: def foo(bar=[]): bar.append(len(bar)) return bar print bar NameError: name 'bar' is not defined Indeed, and it surprises me that the other references only talk about the confusion; we teach it to people early because it's *useful* to have a near-equivalent of C's function-local "static" variables (though a memoizing decorator is better, it doesn't always fit the problem.) Also several of the comments talk about the argument being global - that's simply not true, it's not in the global namespace at all: def foo(bar=[]): bar.append(len(bar)) return bar print bar NameError: name 'bar' is not defined formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
count how many times a string appears in a (source code) tree | commandlinefu.com
- When:
Thu Jul 16 00:38:16 2009
- Where:
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/2665/count-how-many-times-a-string-appears-in-a-source-code-tree
- What:
- Strictly speaking this is how many *lines* upon which the string appears: echo foo foo |grep -c foo 1 You can use sed to add newlines after your input string to put each on a line by itself, to count them accurately: grep -r foo app/ | sed -e 's/foo/&\n/g' |grep -c foo Comment by eichin in 0 seconds
- About:
I hate `echo X | Y` | commandlinefu.com
- When:
Thu Jul 16 00:17:40 2009
- Where:
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/1749/i-hate-echo-x-y
- What:
- Doesn't work in bash-invoked-as-sh, so it's something you need to remember doesn't work in #!/bin/sh scripts... doesn't work in dash either (basically, "not in POSIX at all") Comment by eichin 1 second ago
- About:
cjsmith: I heartily recommend the Bike Doctor!
- When:
Thu Jul 16 00:12:06 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/916401.html?view=9494193#t9494193
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-16 04:11 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully A blinking light draws the eye wonderfully (disproportional to its actual brightness), but doesn't really help you see anything else... also, white LEDs are relatively recent, really powerful ones are less than 5 years old and are still being actively developed. But yeah, California, summer time, and your schedule has sounded pretty dayshifted...
2009-07-15
- About:
Woot: The Community: The Community: Woots: Philips 42” Full HD 1080p with Pixel Plus HD
- When:
Wed Jul 15 11:34:59 2009
- Where:
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=3302432&PageIndex=9&ReplyCount=339#post3323908
- What:
- The fedex tracking number finally showed up on my receipt page (which is a little odd, with most places the numbers show up before the box is even packed) and it was indeed shipped within the promised 5 days... and apparently got a "shipment exception" "Damaged, handling per shipper instructions" 2 days after that. (I'm glad it got caught in-system so *I* don't have to deal with it :-)
2009-07-14
- About:
Design your own Kindle (and win it) with Engadget, Amazon, and Adafruit Industries!
- When:
Tue Jul 14 13:47:54 2009
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/14/design-your-own-kindle-2-and-win-it-with-engadget-amazon-and/1#comments
- What:
- _Mark_ @ Jul 14th 2009 1:47PM Exactly - I saw the headline and was very disappointed when I saw the article. It's more "draw your own bookcover". (And since I wouldn't carry the DX without the protective case, the etching is kind of pointless... custom kindle-is-turned-off images will get seen more often :-)
2009-07-10
- About:
cjsmith: Frustration
- When:
Fri Jul 10 19:14:17 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/914330.html?view=9481882#t9481882
- What:
- trike geekery [info]eichin 2009-07-10 11:13 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Two-in-front is called a "tadpole" trike, two-in-back is called a "delta"; tadpoles are more complicated (in particular the wheels need to steer different amounts, like in a car, though there's a clever symmetric linkage that does that) but a lot more stable (usually seated with a lower center of mass, as well, but it's the geometry alone that makes them safer when braking, deltas are more likely to tip.) That said, a common "delta" design actually has a rear shelf between the back wheels for serious cargo capacity - if you're not going to go at speed or down hills *anyway*, it's simpler and cheaper to build for hauling. (On the other hand I saw one california-built tadpole that had a big enough platform over the single rear wheel that the builder could go out biking with his large dog riding in back :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Feep, feep, feep -- baby birds are hungry!
- When:
Fri Jul 10 19:01:50 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/914693.html?view=9481477#t9481477
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-10 11:01 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > They're all on timers Of course my first image was of you picking up each bird, turning the knob (on the bird), putting it back, moving along to the next... (Reply to this)
- About:
cjsmith: Partial success
- When:
Fri Jul 10 15:15:25 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/914447.html?view=9480719#t9480719
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-10 07:15 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully hmm, did I show you my flashlight when I was out there? That has a 1W LED (luxeon, I think?) that replaces the halogen bulb, getting the same brightness (though more blue, less yellow) and 2x the battery life. That's usually the kind of LED used in headlights, lots of battery draw but very good for seeing at night... (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Frustration
- When:
Fri Jul 10 15:01:02 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/914330.html?view=9480602#t9480602
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-10 07:00 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Mine is pretty close to this one: http://www.terratrike.com/tour.php There is a custom pouch for back of the top of the seat that is bigger than you'd expect (two or three fanny-packs in volume, maybe?) which is enough for bike tools and such, water bottles go various places on the frame, and panniers mount on either side of the rear wheel (the proportions are a little different from normal bikes, but I think I used a set from my old mountain bike...) (Reply to this) (Parent)
2009-07-09
- About:
A key that’s a keyring — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Thu Jul 9 13:08:18 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/07/09/a-key-thats-a-keyring/comment-page-1/#comment-38745
- What:
- _Mark_ July 9, 2009 at 1:08 pm I’ve always wanted keys that flipped out of a swiss-army-style knife - fairly compact and the other end would have useful tools too. (Probably a bad idea in the face of modern airport security, and more than half of the “keys” I carry today are electronic anyhow…)
2009-07-08
- About:
What is wrong with ruby? : programming
- When:
Wed Jul 8 00:56:58 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8z2dj/what_is_wrong_with_ruby/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 173 milliseconds ago[-] I found python (via QMtest) after years of guru level perl work (incl. pure-perl crypto, and writing for TPJ) and now the only reason I even look at perl is to translate it; while I've fixed bugs in ruby programs, it looks ("smells") far too much like perl for me to want to actually get deeper. (Also, the documentation bit mentioned here; I've actually used the Poignant Guide to convince people to look elsewhere...) I found python (via QMtest) after years of guru level perl work (incl. pure-perl crypto, and writing for TPJ) and now the only reason I even look at perl is to translate it; while I've fixed bugs in ruby programs, it looks ("smells") far too much like perl for me to want to actually get deeper. (Also, the documentation bit mentioned here; I've actually used the Poignant Guide to convince people to look elsewhere...) formatting help hide help save cancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * edit * delete are you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-07-07
- About:
Strap your gear to your leg with the Grab-it Pack — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Tue Jul 7 16:56:50 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/07/07/strap-your-gear-to-your-leg-with-the-grab-it-pack/comment-page-1/#comment-38620
- What:
- _Mark_ July 7, 2009 at 4:56 pm If a water bottle fits in one of those pockets, I could see upgrading the spontaneous-hike pack I keep in the trunk to one of these; right now I have a butt-pack with some energy bars, water bottle, bug spray, small first aid kit, and polarizing filters - this might be less cumbersome, especially when also wearing a jacket…
- About:
cjsmith: Frustration
- When:
Tue Jul 7 13:18:42 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/914330.html?view=9466522#t9466522
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-07 05:18 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Yeah, recumbent trikes are great as far as riding experience goes (you can just stop, you're not hunched over, you can *see the sky* while biking, your arms and shoulders are entirely relaxed) and though prices have come way down since I got mine, they're still probably the most expensive bike category (I saw a recent used model on consignment locally for $800) and they can be mechanically complicated (I still need to get the shifter on mine properly adjusted. Also it needs to stop raining :-) Recumbent bikes are priced closer to traditional bikes these days, and most of the geometries I've seen do seem to let you set your feet down flat without stretching, when stopping... (Reply to this) (Parent)
2009-07-05
- About:
My programming quotes file was well received when I posted it to reddit three years ago, here is a much updated and expanded version. : programming
- When:
Sun Jul 5 00:50:16 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8y348/my_programming_quotes_file_was_well_received_when/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 327 milliseconds ago[-] Chris Maden - probably http://crism.maden.org/ -- according to my quotes file, dated 2005 (TFA only has a vague attribution) Chris Maden - probably http://crism.maden.org/ -- according to *my* quotes file, dated 2005 (TFA only has a vague attribution) formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Start your Python project with optparse and logging : Python
- When:
Sun Jul 5 00:06:56 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/8xf4n/start_your_python_project_with_optparse_and/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 638 milliseconds ago[-] But it's a C-specific artifact; since statements are not expressions in python, all it does is confuse the reader, as the interpreter will raise SyntaxError if you try to use assignment where you meant equals... But it's a *C-specific* artifact; since statements are not expressions in python, all it does is confuse the reader, as the interpreter will raise `SyntaxError` if you try to use assignment where you meant equals... formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!" * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-07-04
- About:
cjsmith: The cost of a social life
- When:
Sat Jul 4 19:32:36 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/912658.html?view=9460242#t9460242
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-04 11:32 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully sorry about that :-} I didn't think that one through beyond leaving the choice of restaurant to you... with last-minute plane tickets and hotel, food was "in the noise" even more than usual. (That said, it was a *wonderful* visit and dessert at il Postale was inspired :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Surgery (this post is not graphic)
- When:
Sat Jul 4 19:26:29 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/913664.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-07-04 11:16 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Congrats - this is definitely a level beyond needles :-) (Reply to this)
- About:
cjsmith: Wildlife Center
- When:
Sat Jul 4 19:25:18 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/913360.html?view=9460176#t9460176
- What:
- Critters! [info]eichin 2009-07-04 11:25 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully One of my nieces volunteered at a similar center in Long Island, throughout her highschool years; she had a particularly memorable story of rescuing an injured Cormorant from traffic (though even with her training, managing a flailing cormorant in the back seat of an SUV is still quite a challenge :-) (Reply to this)
2009-06-24
- About:
Deciphering Glyph: A Chicken in Every Pot and a Python on Every Port
- When:
Tue Jun 23 20:48:13 2009
- Where:
http://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2009/06/chicken-in-every-pot-and-python-on.html?showComment=1245804385560#c554996642256243721
- What:
- _Mark_ said... I'd have to agree: first step is documentation, perhaps with particular focus on how to get from existing code to twisted (it's easy enough to start from scratch in twisted, but not as easy as throwing together some battery-based python code without it and *then* realizing you need more...) Part of that should be making clear how incomplete (or not) some of the modules are (last I looked twisted.words didn't support any actual security - so either you have a feature gap or a marketing/documentation gap :-) I also have gone through several twisted books, but there's still a lot of mental friction to switch gears into the twisted mindset (even for someone with unix kernel internals experience...) June 23, 2009 5:46 PM
- About:
Blogger: Deciphering Glyph - Post a Comment
- When:
Tue Jun 23 20:46:42 2009
- Where:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8729083&postID=87106454220329610&page=1
- What:
- Blogger _Mark_ said... I'd have to agree: first step is documentation, perhaps with particular focus on how to get from existing code to twisted (it's easy enough to start from scratch in twisted, but not as easy as throwing together some battery-based python code without it and *then* realizing you need more...) Part of that should be making clear how incomplete (or not) some of the modules are (last I looked twisted.words didn't support any actual security - so either you have a feature gap or a marketing/documentation gap :-) I also have gone through several twisted books, but there's still a lot of mental friction to switch gears into the twisted mindset (even for someone with unix kernel internals experience...) June 23, 2009 5:46 PM Delete
2009-06-22
- About:
Trust No One - To be a good problem solver you have to be untrusting : programming
- When:
Mon Jun 22 16:20:25 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8uje6/trust_no_one_to_be_a_good_problem_solver_you_have/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 143 milliseconds ago[-] There are still positive things one can do, rather than merely seething, though; BITD (of expensive dot matrix printers) I was taught that you did not ask the user "is the power light on" - they'd answer yes. Instead you asked "what color is the light on the front" - they were less likely to read "what-did-you-screw-up" judgement into the question, and were thus less likely to try and give you the "right" answer, and would actually give you useful information... There are still positive things one can do, rather than merely seething, though; BITD (of expensive dot matrix printers) I was taught that you did *not* ask the user "is the power light on" - they'd answer yes. Instead you asked "what color is the light on the front" - they were less likely to read "what-did-you-screw-up" judgement into the question, and were thus less likely to try and give you the "right" answer, and would actually give you useful information... formatting helphide help savecancel you type: you see: *italics* italics **bold** bold [reddit!](http://reddit.com) reddit! * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 > quoted text quoted text Here is some code: def foo(): print "hello, world!" Here is come code: def foo(): print "hello, world!" * permalink * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-06-18
- About:
Bug #346577 in dpkg (Ubuntu): “dpkg-source failed to rename file across filesystems”
- When:
Thu Jun 18 17:45:32 2009
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dpkg/+bug/346577
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 12 minutes ago: (permalink) Looks like debian fixed this for lenny in debbugs#507217 (dpkg-dev 1.14.24)
2009-06-12
- About:
The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection : programming
- When:
Fri Jun 12 00:13:51 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8rcbd/the_first_few_milliseconds_of_an_https_connection/
- What:
- _Mark_ -1 points0 points1 point 470 milliseconds ago[-] Isn't that what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication is for? Isn%27t+that+what+http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FServer_Name_Indication+is+for%3F * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-05-14
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Thu May 14 11:22:00 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/145/?page=1#snap_post742
- What:
- quote • edit post • report abuse eichin just now : You've perhaps been fooled by ... You've perhaps been fooled by the autodetection they do; if you're running your browser on a "geek bleeding-edge" linux distro, you get the possibilities list (since the browser string isn't enough to tell); on Mac OS and Windows you get a direct "download now" link for the version that matches the OS you're actually running.
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Thu May 14 11:15:52 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/147/
- What:
- Troubleshooting: Traceback in logs - bad character set re-encoding on linux quote • edit post • report abuse eichin just now : While digging for the missing-... While digging for the missing-Xact problem, I stumbled on this: 2009-05-14 01:13:27,797 DEBUG spider Monitor: examining /home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21 with 6 files 2009-05-14 01:13:27,798 WARNING spider _hmac_whole_dir ignoring nonexisten path '/home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21/20070221-013355.google evil maps.speakingfreely.wordpress_.We_canât_âfind_ourselvesâ_-_the_marketâ.clip' 2009-05-14 01:13:27,804 ERROR spider _observe_file failed: quarantining file /home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21/20070221-013355.google evil maps.speakingfreely.wordpress_.We_canât_âfind_ourselvesâ_-_the_marketâ.clip Traceback (most recent call last): File "Pandora/Monitor.py", line 413, in _observe_dir File "Pandora/Monitor.py", line 166, in _observe_file File "Pandora/Util.py", line 137, in journal_info_for_fs_obj OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21/20070221-013355.google evil maps.speakingfreely.wordpress_.We_can\xc3\xa2\xc2\x80\xc2\x99t_\xc3\xa2\xc2\x80\xc2\x9cfind_ourselves\xc3\xa2\xc2\x80\xc2\x9d_-_the_market\xc3\xa2.clip' 2009-05-14 01:13:27,804 ERROR spider _observe_dir filed: quarantining directory /home/eichin/stufflog/2007-02/2007-02-21 Traceback (most recent call last): File "Pandora/Monitor.py", line 548, in _poll_filesystem_for_changes File "Pandora/Monitor.py", line 426, in _observe_dir UnboundLocalError: local variable 'seen' referenced before assignment Looks like the UnboundLocalError means that some clever exception handling is failing and obscuring the real exception handling. However, the more worrisome thing is the failure to open the file (which does exist)... stat displays the filename as File: `20070221-013355.google evil maps.speakingfreely.wordpress_.We_can\342\200\231t_\342\200\234find_ourselves\342\200\235_-_the_market\342.clip' if you want to try and reproduce it. Note that this is on linux (ubuntu 8.10 intrepid, ext3) and although MacOS treats filenames as having a character set, last I checked linux treated them as byte strings, so you may have some up-and-down conversion inconsistencies there... (If you're doing issue tracking, you probably want a separate issue for "why did I only see that a file was not getting backed up by trawling the logs" - that should be very visible to the user, though it might need some sort of filtering out of noise from "obvious" transient files...)
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Thu May 14 11:07:13 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/146/#snap_post740
- What:
- • watch Troubleshooting: No such Xact? quote • edit post • report abuse eichin just now : Uploads from my largest (in te... Uploads from my largest (in terms of backed up space) machine have stalled, and I see this recurring error in the logs: 2009-05-14 10:56:03,171 DEBUG spider netstorage: ping 2009-05-14 10:56:03,308 DEBUG spider Net: xact_id:4 (18305-1-7506) providing slice block/18305-1-282923 0-262144 2009-05-14 10:56:03,309 ERROR spider No such Xact: 4 18305-1-7506 The --repair option itself fails with the same error, and also a traceback (though it looks like it just fails to clean up after itself) 2009-05-14 02:21:01,790 DEBUG spider netstorage: pong 2009-05-14 02:21:37,206 DEBUG spider Net: xact_id:4 (18305-1-7506) providing slice block/18305-1-282923 0-262144 2009-05-14 02:21:37,207 ERROR spider No such Xact: 4 18305-1-7506 2009-05-14 02:21:49,669 DEBUG twisted Stopping factory 2009-05-14 02:21:49,670 INFO spider netstorage: connection lost 2009-05-14 02:21:49,671 ERROR twisted Unhandled Error Traceback (most recent call last): File "spider/cmdline/handlers/util.py", line 10, in _require_local_device File "spider/cmdline/handlers/repair.py", line 87, in repair File "twisted/internet/posixbase.py", line 220, in run File "twisted/internet/posixbase.py", line 228, in mainLoop --- --- File "twisted/internet/base.py", line 561, in runUntilCurrent File "spider/cmdline/handlers/repair.py", line 47, in connectionLost File "twisted/internet/base.py", line 342, in stop exceptions.RuntimeError: can't stop reactor that isn't running 2009-05-14 02:21:49,672 DEBUG twisted Main loop terminated. 2009-05-14 02:21:49,672 ERROR repair Could not complete server-assisted repair of local data files. « previous This message has been revised
2009-05-12
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:11:00 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/134/
- What:
- quote • edit post • report abuse eichin 5 minutes ago : Ah, thanks. (I don't normally... Ah, thanks. (I don't normally have a systray, but if I fire up "trayer" it does acquire a spideroak icon, which works.) « previous This message has been revised
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:09:40 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/134/
- What:
- eichin 2 days and 8 hours ago : I've never noticed a forum lin... I've never noticed a forum link on the linux client (I'm posting this from macos.) I notice that on the mac client the forum isn't in the main window, it's in a titlebar menu, which I don't have; I happen to use ratpoison as my windowmanger, if that matters, but I didn't think that was typically a WM feature on linux... is there a secure workaround? (I didn't see a CLI option for it either...) All revisions of this post are stored and publicly viewable. I've never noticed a forum link on the linux client (I'm posting this from macos.) I notice that on the mac client the forum isn't in the main window, it's in a titlebar menu, which I don't have; I happen to use ratpoison as my windowmanger, if that matters, but I didn't think that was typically a WM feature on linux... is there a secure workaround? (I didn't see a CLI option for it either...)
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:09:04 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/56/
- What:
- eichin 2 days and 8 hours ago : Simply separating out the abil... Simply separating out the ability to fetch block-hashes and actual blocks might be sufficient; it still becomes "mere access control" rather than having an independent cryptographic guarantee, but it should still be client-hacking-proof, even if you only do "no restores at all without this other password". (It also enables a "cheap backups/pay extra for restores" alternate business model, if the economics support the asymmetry, though realistically you want to encourage people to do test-restores to sustain their faith in the backups and it doesn't quite support that.) All revisions of this post are stored and publicly viewable. Simply separating out the ability to fetch block-hashes and actual blocks might be sufficient; it still becomes "mere access control" rather than having an independent cryptographic guarantee, but it should still be client-hacking-proof, even if you only do "no restores at all without this *other* password". (It also enables a "cheap backups/pay extra for restores" alternate business model, if the economics support the asymmetry, though realistically you want to encourage people to do test-restores to sustain their faith in the backups and it doesn't quite support that.)
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:08:44 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/133/
- What:
- eichin 2 days and 9 hours ago : On my 1024x800 eeepc screen (n... On my 1024x800 eeepc screen (not sure if this matters) the progress bar now displays "00.812 G"; debian lenny, spideroak v7111 (presumably it should display 100.812G, since the bar is also at about half of 200G :-) All revisions of this post are stored and publicly viewable. On my 1024x800 eeepc screen (not sure if this matters) the progress bar now displays "00.812 G"; debian lenny, spideroak v7111 (presumably it should display 100.812G, since the bar is also at about half of 200G :-)
- About:
The SpiderOak Forum
- When:
Tue May 12 00:08:27 2009
- Where:
https://spideroak.com/forum/threads/id/93/
- What:
- eichin 2 days and 10 hours ago : More useful than charting woul... More useful than charting would be a clear indication (maybe in View) of what files have never been backed up (I'm also trying to get to 150G or so and it's clearly going to get there eventually, but it's month-scale even when I'm running from my office. Also now that I've got over 100G successfully moved, adding a new machine takes 8 hours or more, "receiving transaction NNN from device 1" increments once every second to several seconds, for what I know will be about 20,000 transactions, and that's before it even tries to back anything up...
2009-05-06
- About:
PyCon 2009 Videos : Python
- When:
Wed May 6 18:20:36 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/8hjsm/pycon_2009_videos/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 237 milliseconds ago[-] Got it up to 93%, one of the files seems missing from blip.tv, so we've got close to full coverage even without any seeds... Got+it+up+to+93%25%2C+one+of+the+files+seems+missing+from+blip.tv%2C+so+we%27ve+got+close+to+full+coverage+even+without+any+seeds... * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-05-04
- About:
PyCon 2009 Videos : Python
- When:
Mon May 4 16:04:34 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/8hjsm/pycon_2009_videos/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 74 milliseconds ago[-] Oh hey, that worked (yay having the content hashes in the .torrent file...) I added two of them, now it's your turn (because the whole point of using the torrent is that I'm lazy and don't want to hammer on blip.tv myself) - stop your client, pick one of the zero-length entries at random, wget http://blip.tv/file/get/... the file (those names are the blip.tv download names...) and when that's done, restart the client, which should reverify and include your new content.) Oh+hey%2C+that+worked+%28yay+having+the+content+hashes+in+the+.torrent+file...%29%0A%0AI+added+two+of+them%2C+now+it%27s+your+turn+%28because+the+whole+point+of+using+the+torrent+is+that+I%27m+lazy+and+don%27t+want+to+hammer+on+blip.tv+myself%29+-+stop+your+client%2C+pick+one+of+the+zero-length+entries+at+random%2C+wget+http%3A%2F%2Fblip.tv%2Ffile%2Fget%2F...++the+file+%28those+names+are+the+blip.tv+download+names...%29+and+when+that%27s+done%2C+restart+the+client%2C+which+should+reverify+and+include+your+new+content.%29 * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
PyCon 2009 Videos : Python
- When:
Mon May 4 15:16:55 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/8hjsm/pycon_2009_videos/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 169 milliseconds ago[-] I only see 729M of content among the current peers. If these are the blip.tv flvs, I wonder if downloading them from there and stuffing them in would work... I+only+see+729M+of+content+among+the+current+peers.++If+these+are+the+blip.tv+flvs%2C+I+wonder+if+downloading+them+from+there+and+stuffing+them+in+would+work... * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-05-01
- About:
cjsmith: Swine flu
- When:
Fri May 1 01:05:24 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/905915.html?view=9341883#t9341883
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-05-01 05:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully I've seen a lot of it via "social media" - but that's mostly because I'm on twitter ("office water cooler gossip... 2.0") and recently started following (for semi-work-related reasons) twitter.com/BreakingNews, which has had pretty much every detection and death announcement (plus some fact-checking on Reuters' releases.) It's been quite the event as far as geographically interesting news goes... As for panic (or at least "possible overreaction") - Egypt apparently culled most/all of their pig population, followed by the UN saying "um, WTF?"... some countries and cruise lines have curtailed traffic to Mexico; some places have shut down schools... and the President got on the air to tell people to wash their hands and cover their mouths when they cough, earning him the title "kindergarten-teacher-in-chief" :-) (Reply to this)
- About:
cjsmith: Swine flu
- When:
Fri May 1 00:54:21 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/905915.html?view=9341371#t9341371
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-05-01 04:53 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This search for "Deep Vein Thrombosis"; if some of the articles are accurate, air-travel-related DVT kills dozens of people a year (which seems unlikely but I haven't dug in to any of the articles... just recalled the term from when they started adding the "take your shoes off and stretch" bits to in-flight video :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)
- About:
The Next Killer App is to Twitter as 1-2-3 was to Visicalc (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Apr 25 23:29:29 2009
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/04/24/theNextKillerAppIsToTwitte.html
- What:
- _Mark_ 2 hours ago There's a blind-men-and-elephant problem here - you start by talking about an "exact" twitter clone, and then when people start asking about details, some of them turn out not to matter to you... part of my confusion, at least, is in this emphasis on looks - I rarely go to my own twitter page, I have API-based clients in three other contexts that I actually use twitter with, the web is just a fallback for not having a "real" client handy - and I even more rarely go to *other people's* pages other than for a first glance to see if they're interesting to follow (and whether or not they are, I still don't go *back*, I read in my client or maybe my page.) It's very much like actually using RSS, except without the pesky "full content feed" issue, since 140 chars is inherently full content :-) That leads to two-ish questions: * is my experience of twitter really that dramatically different from yours (and is either one common?) * a big reason people stick to twitter at all (given the clones) is network effect, and the ease of discovering new people from the people you already know - do you see any way that a "personal" twitter would still provide that? (I guess the real question there is "is that on your list or not" and if it is, do you see it as having an engineering solution, or do you see a way around it?)
2009-04-17
- About:
What's burning in Allston or Cambridge? | Universal Hub
- When:
Fri Apr 17 16:20:14 2009
- Where:
http://www.universalhub.com/node/24614#comment-81171
- What:
- closeups By _Mark_ (not verified) | Fri, 04/17/2009 - 3:21pm That's not a closeup, it isn't even from the same side of the river :-) http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/3450170645/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/3450986928/ Also looks like the Boston Globe got some aerial shots... http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/_robert_ackerma.html * reply
2009-04-15
- About:
Android 1.5 will, among other things, support upload from phone to Youtube : programming
- When:
Tue Apr 14 21:43:56 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8ceok/android_15_will_among_other_things_support_upload/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 262 milliseconds ago[-] I used JetCet PDF on the G1 (during the free beta) - a little slow on zoom, and the UI is different from the standard Android UI in ways that make it look "wrong" - but it rendered some notably nasty pages (high-detail vector maps in particular) successfully. (I'll probably buy the real version next time I actually want to read a pdf on a tiny screen, but the G1 is too short on memory to casually leave large apps around (one of the few standard complaints you didn't include :-)
2009-04-07
- About:
Olympus SP-590UZ (and its 26x zoomer) gets reviewed
- When:
Tue Apr 7 00:26:52 2009
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/olympus-sp-590uz-and-its-26x-zoomer-gets-reviewed/1#c18126455
- What:
- _Mark_ @ Apr 7th 2009 12:26AM I used the SP-550UZ and the SP-570UZ extensively, and switched to the Canon SX-10IS when it finally came out (mostly because the Canon has a saner UI, better autofocus, and is less fragile - Olympus has awesome service turnaround, the problem is that you end up *needing* it.) The stabilization is *great* for long range shots (I do a lot of nature photography, birds in trees or in flight.) Find my flickr gallery for examples. It's almost a reasonable binocular replacement - almost, because I'd see a lot more with binocs in-person, where as I often find myself discovering extra details when looking at my pictures on a real screen later (facial expressions, feather patterns, *entire animals* that I didn't notice because they weren't the prime subject...) Agree with @Michael that full *digital* zoom is artifact soup on any of them - the main reason to use digital zoom at all on these is to make sure autofocus has tracked correctly (though I also use it for framing and composition, since I basically never edit.) (Having used both - 26x is certainly tempting, but at this point I'll happily wait for *Canon* to advance in that direction.)
2009-04-06
- About:
Daily Life in an Ivory Basement : /apr-09/pursuing-simplicity.html
- When:
Mon Apr 6 02:03:29 2009
- Where:
http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/apr-09/pursuing-simplicity.html
- What:
- Posted by Mark at Sun Apr 5 20:34:42 2009: I went to the windmill openspaces session, at least partly to make sure I got over the initial install hurdles - after a couple of failures with easy_install, someone suggested virtualenv + PIP, and it "just worked". That said, I always look for a debian package first :-) (that path also gets you nose, and twill, but not selenium or windmill...)
2009-04-04
- About:
Dremel Driver Cordless Screwdriver — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Sat Apr 4 01:35:19 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/03/30/dremel-driver-cordless-screwdriver/comment-page-1/#comment-32928
- What:
- Dremel Driver Cordless Screwdriver by Julie on March 30, 2009 · 2 comments in Spotlight Gadgets dremel-driver The Dremel Driver is Dremel’s new variable-speed 7.2V compact cordless screwdriver. It looks like a handy tool to have around for smaller projects and crafts. If you don't want to miss new postings, please consider subscribing to our RSS feed. { 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 ferris209 03.31.09 at 2:40 am Own it, love it! 2 _Mark_ 04.03.09 at 11:35 pm I got it from Home Depot (in the pair kit, screwdriver *and* cordless dremel drill, that share the same “holster” charger) a while ago. Having a dremel without a cord is *great*, I used mine with side-cutting bits for some sheetrock repair, it lasted a while and I not dealing with the cord was a win… I don’t use the driver that often but it is nice that it holds a charge for a long time, unlike older designs which were either drawing power all the time or were flat when I wanted to use them…
- About:
AlphaGrip iGrip Ergonomic Keyboard & Trackball — The Gadgeteer
- When:
Sat Apr 4 00:28:38 2009
- Where:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/04/03/alphagrip-igrip-ergonomic-keyboard-trackball/
- What:
- _Mark_ 04.03.09 at 3:27 pm I got one of those last year some time… It was one of the things that convinced me that I just wasn’t interested in anything that wasn’t actual qwerty - I’ve just been typing too long :-) It seemed reasonable comfortable and solidly built but you’d really need to commit to learning it, and carrying it around as your primary keyboard (fortunately USB “won” so this is practical.) Also, I’m an emacs user, and while it was *possible* with this, it wasn’t at all intuitive and I didn’t really put the time in to make heavy modifier-key use go smoothly. If you’ve got a serious reviewer in the Boston area I might be convinced to loan out mine…
2009-04-02
- About:
elephantangelchild: Stage fright
- When:
Thu Apr 2 16:18:39 2009
- Where:
http://elephantangelchild.blogspot.com/2009/04/stage-fright.html?showComment=1238697600000#c5719820474380623551
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Yeah, at a quick glance, you probably haven't run into the quoting issue (milestones and status values are unlikely to have ' in them) but someone using the the interface without reading all the code might get caught by it, especially if they feed it untrustable user input. I personally find that properly bound statements are more readable than language-level string mucking anyway - for example, getMilestoneOverview could say cur.execute("select id from ticket where milestone = ? and status = ?", [milestone, status[0]]) (not tested, just extrapolated from some of my own sqlite code.) April 2, 2009 11:40 AM
- About:
Ned Batchelder: Pycon 2009 notes
- When:
Wed Apr 1 23:56:11 2009
- Where:
http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200903/pycon_2009_notes.html
- What:
- _Mark_ 10:53 AM on 1 Apr 2009 Twitter was a good way to keep up with news from the sprints on the way home - I read about GvR's final decision (to go with hg) while waiting for my flight at ORD on Monday morning :-)
2009-03-23
- About:
Daily Life in an Ivory Basement : /mar-09/on-kwargs.html
- When:
Mon Mar 23 16:40:31 2009
- Where:
http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/mar-09/on-kwargs.html
- What:
- Posted by Mark at Mon Mar 23 12:44:55 2009: Since calling it "kwargs", though idiomatic, is redundant with the "**" itself, perhaps saying "**extra_args_from_derived_classes" (or something more elegant) that self-documents why you're asking for them?
2009-03-15
- About:
What programming projects am I working on? - Steve Hanov's Technology Blog
- When:
Sun Mar 15 02:00:17 2009
- Where:
http://gandolf.homelinux.org/blog/index.php
- What:
- _Mark_ 2009-03-15 02:00:13 Hiveminder? (task.hm, or hiveminder.com) it has 1, 2 is I think close enough to what you describe, 3... well, there are priorities, and 4 - there are tags and groups, plenty of dimension there...
2009-03-13
- About:
cjsmith: Facebook
- When:
Fri Mar 13 00:49:04 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/897557.html?view=9212693#t9212693
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-03-13 04:48 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Out of curiousity, what inspired this? (I'm taking the Audrey Hepburn/"Regina Lampert"[1] approach, although I am on linkedin - that's about existing professional connections, though.) I ask because it's entirely your fault that I'm on livejournal :-) [1] Charade, 1963 - "I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else."
2009-03-03
- About:
Tweet-a-watt crowned winner of Greener Gadgets 2009 design competition
- When:
Tue Mar 3 04:28:29 2009
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/tweet-a-watt-crowned-winner-of-greener-gadgets-2009-design-compe/1#c17431896
- What:
- _Mark_ @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:28AM Hah, for years there's been promise (never delivered) of a kill-a-watt with serial output - nice to see someone get the data out with just a handful of SparkFun parts and some code :-) And it looks like you still have use of the display and averaging features of the original units. (Using this on A/C and heaters, and graphing the data alongside a temperature logger would be Interesting... hook the receiver to a SheevaPlug and you'd have a *very* low-profile whole-house EKG...)
2009-02-23
- About:
Asktav » A Challenge To Break Python Security
- When:
Mon Feb 23 18:12:24 2009
- Where:
http://tav.espians.com/a-challenge-to-break-python-security.html?disqus_reply=6533606#comment-6533606
- What:
- _Mark_ 0 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment. Oh, looking at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/200... seems I was trying to hard; simply definining an __eq__ that returns True (and having the value always be "w") is enough. Still only lets you create the file, looks like that still doesn't get a way to put contents in it... reply edit
- About:
Asktav » A Challenge To Break Python Security
- When:
Mon Feb 23 17:54:54 2009
- Where:
http://tav.espians.com/a-challenge-to-break-python-security.html?disqus_reply=6533287#comment-6533287
- What:
- Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator. Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment. * o ^ o v o Permalink o Admin o + + + Report Spam + Remove Post + Block email + Block IP address _Mark_ 0 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment. This *doesn't* break it but I don't quiet understand why - basically subvert mode with a subclass of str that returns alternating values; the first one definitely gets past the comparison, but it doesn't end up re-evaluating... does LOAD_FAST cache values or something? Or am I missing something (since Guido just tweeted that it worked with __eq__?) from safelite import FileReader class LoopStr(str): def __init__(self, val): self._vals = val.split(",") def __str__(self): ret = self._vals.pop(0) self._vals.append(ret) return ret def __repr__(self): ret = self._vals.pop(0) self._vals.append(ret) return ret def __eq__(self, other): return str.__eq__(self.__str__(), other) def __ne__(self, other): return str.__ne__(self.__str__(), other) foo = FileReader("/tmp/gotcha", mode = LoopStr("r,w")) reply edit
2009-02-22
- About:
455man comments on How to undelete any open, deleted file in linux.
- When:
Sun Feb 22 16:49:57 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7yx6f/how_to_undelete_any_open_deleted_file_in_linux/c07st42?context=3
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 113 milliseconds ago[-] Throw in an int status; and status = linkat(odir, ofile, ndir, nfile, AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW); if (status) { perror("linkat failed"); } And: $ lsof -p 30878 | tail -1 tail 30878 eichin 3r REG 8,5 10 178919 /tmp/testfile1 (deleted) $ linkat /proc/30878/fd/3 /tmp/net_file2 linkat failed: No such file or directory and /tmp/net_file2 is in fact not created. As I mentioned, I'm on intrepid with a 2.6.27 kernel -- what are you running? Throw+in+an%0A++++int+status%3B%0Aand%0A%0A++++status+%3D+linkat%28odir%2C+ofile%2C+ndir%2C+nfile%2C+AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW%29%3B%0A++++if+%28status%29+%7B%0A++++++perror%28%22linkat+failed%22%29%3B%0A++++%7D%0A%0AAnd%3A%0A++++%24+lsof+-p+30878+%7C+tail+-1%0A++++tail++++30878+eichin++++3r+++REG++++8%2C5++++++10++178919+%2Ftmp%2Ftestfile1+%28deleted%29%0A++++%24+linkat+%2Fproc%2F30878%2Ffd%2F3+%2Ftmp%2Fnet_file2%0A++++linkat+failed%3A+No+such+file+or+directory%0Aand+%60%2Ftmp%2Fnet_file2%60+is+in+fact+not+created.++As+I+mentioned%2C+I%27m+on+intrepid+with+a+2.6.27+kernel+--+what+are+%2Ayou%2A+running%3F * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Why does gets() exist? : programming
- When:
Sun Feb 22 16:43:07 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7zdg2/why_does_gets_exist/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 306 milliseconds ago[-] And it wasn't until the Morris Worm (1988) that a lot of programmers found out the hard way that it didn't stop at BUFSIZ either... And+it+wasn%27t+until+the+Morris+Worm+%281988%29+that+a+lot+of+programmers+found+out+the+hard+way+that+it+didn%27t+stop+at+BUFSIZ+either... * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
Ponderings -
- When:
Sun Feb 22 14:51:09 2009
- Where:
http://hartmans.livejournal.com/69224.html?view=140392#t140392
- What:
- NancyTyping I used that as an interview question one time - with someone who turned out to have worked at the place that found it :-) What's distressing is that it got fixed... and then *reverted* due to being consistent with the underlying libc (which is, I think, wrong but in a way that subtle to articulate...) Posted on Feb. 22nd, 2009 07:50 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply | Delete | Track This
2009-02-20
- About:
How to undelete any open, deleted file in linux. : programming
- When:
Fri Feb 20 18:06:56 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7yx6f/how_to_undelete_any_open_deleted_file_in_linux/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 226 milliseconds ago[-] Really? I tried it (ubuntu intrepid, so 2.6.27) and just get ENOENT if the fd is on a deleted file. (Works perfectly if the file isn't yet deleted, but so does ln $(readlink /proc/$pid/fd/3) /tmp/newfile...) Really%3F+I+tried+it+%28ubuntu+intrepid%2C+so+2.6.27%29+and+just+get+%60ENOENT%60+if+the+fd+is+on+a+deleted+file.++%28Works+perfectly+if+the+file+isn%27t+yet+deleted%2C+but+so+does+%60ln+%24%28readlink+%2Fproc%2F%24pid%2Ffd%2F3%29+%2Ftmp%2Fnewfile%60...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-02-19
- About:
WhiteyFlipsSomeBits: Paid App Comming
- When:
Thu Feb 19 18:45:00 2009
- Where:
http://whiteyflipssomebits.blogspot.com/2009/02/paid-app-comming.html?showComment=1235087040000#c5317176231439159901
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Are you going to have a roadmap/suggest features/vote for features list? (I'm holding off on further scanning until I can do some simple tagging, like "office" vs. "living room" vs. "basement" - really all that needs is a user-defined string and a multi-select, plus a sticky default so I can scan a bunch of stuff and have it all get the same value/values...) it's pretty generic, my two use cases are "where did I leave that" and "does my mom already have that or should I get her a copy" but *everybody* "gets" tagging these days :-) February 19, 2009 3:44 PM
- About:
PicPush • View topic - Expectation Failed
- When:
Wed Feb 18 19:45:30 2009
- Where:
http://forum.picpush.mobi/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11&p=43&sid=6f2c6ac76a6135a685189eade159628e#p43
- What:
- * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Expectation Failed Postby eichin on Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:45 am I happened to run in to Expectation Failed with flickr uploads with my desktop flickr client - turns out I was getting Code: Select all HTTP/1.0 417 Expectation failed from the SQUID cache on the wireless network I was using. Turns out that pycurl (http library) sends Code: Select all Expect: 100-continue by default, and Squid can't handle that, so it (correctly) sends the 417; the *right* thing for my client to do was to retry the request *without* the Expect: 100-continue, now that I've been told it won't work. (The *easy* thing for my client to do was to drop the Expect header entirely, since I basically never see early cancellations (and if I do I don't mind having wasted a little bandwidth with the rest of the post.) You might want to be more correct, depending on what you're using for an HTTP library... eichin
2009-02-16
- About:
PicPush • View topic - two copies from store?
- When:
Mon Feb 16 16:56:20 2009
- Where:
http://forum.picpush.mobi/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20&sid=50b828f8ea6e92dbf4bc49554c2ad50a
- What:
- * Report this post * Reply with quote two copies from store? Postby eichin on Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:56 pm I had (and still have) PicPush 1.0.9 installed, noticed the new release announcements, and went to the store... hit install on the new one... now I have *both* 1.01.12 and 1.0.9 installed, and only 1.0.9 knows about my flickr account. Any idea what's up with that? (I assume I can delete the old one and reconfigure the new one - not a big deal, but I thought the Android Market was supposed to avoid this sort of thing happening...)
- About:
PicPush • View topic - Where do we go from here?
- When:
Mon Feb 16 16:46:41 2009
- Where:
http://forum.picpush.mobi/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3&p=36&sid=50b828f8ea6e92dbf4bc49554c2ad50a#p36
- What:
- * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Where do we go from here? Postby eichin on Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:46 pm Since I only use it for flickr: * keywords would be nice * default the title to the on-phone image filename * allow at least explicitly-posted pictures to default to public instead of private like they do now
2009-02-13
- About:
p100-6150056 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
- When:
Fri Feb 13 14:24:44 2009
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/2582547091/?addedcomment=1#comment72157613750451291
- What:
- view profile Mark Eichin Pro User says: Heh, this is the first time my callsign-stalking has actually turned up the pilot :-) But you've got more of a net presence than most pilots, so I guess that's not too surprising. Posted 1 second ago. ( permalink | delete | edit )
2009-02-08
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of Ultra-Quiet and Light 15-Inch Electric Sno...
- When:
Sat Feb 7 23:14:44 2009
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1FKTKRKTNFC96/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Quiet, effective, not a monster, February 7, 2009 By Mark Eichin After an errant doormat destroyed the gearbox (a $200 part!) on my gas-powered 2-stage snowblower, in January with more snow on the way, I looked on amazon to see what electric blowers would arrive in a hurry. After seeing the negative reviews of the larger Toro (in particular the ones talking about low build quality and early belt failure), I took a chance on this less-known model. The main thing to understand about this snow thrower is that it is a *different tool* than your typical monster gas-powered snowblower. 15" is smaller than most lawnmowers - in use, it's actually more like a large upright vacuum cleaner, just not as loud. It's light enough that pushing and pulling it back and forth is no big deal - unlike some of the smaller "power shovels" you're not supporting it at all, you're rolling it. It is a little noisy when it hits heavy slush, but on actual snow, I could hear some of the louder songbirds nearby, even while actually throwing snow. The output is fine, so if the wind shifts on you you're likely to get covered in powder (unlike a 2-stage machine where the output is typically dense and wet.) It's small enough that if you notice the change and pull back, output stops very quickly. If you push it into something too heavy for it to handle, it'll just stall; I found that pulling it back, and maybe bouncing it a little, cleared most of those (though I learned fairly rapidly to recognize the limits - and often, hitting dense berms slowly or edge-on worked when a full-speed frontal assault didn't.) Obviously it takes longer than a wider snowblower; it's relatively tedious to use on a large area - but it isn't *tiring* to use; even though it took longer, I found myself far less tired than I was when running the big gas blower. It's certainly faster than shoveling, and doesn't involve any lifting at all; since you don't need hearing protection for it, you can listen to your mp3 player while operating it - after all, it's not a large dangerous machine! I've used mine after two snowstorms now, to clear two hundred-foot sections of driveway (I live on a corner - one path to the front door and one to the garage.) Aiming the output forward and using a herringbone pattern works great when there's no wind; when there's a steady breeze, it's also pretty easy to do a bit of straight path and then blow sideways paths off of it, with the wind at your back. I was concerned that having it clear 4" of snow and then fail to get through the corresponding 12" snowplow slush/ice berm would make it sort of useless - in practice, it turns out that if you take it slow it can handle more heavy stuff, and if you take a regular shovel and break up the berm (still no lifting! just carve off chunks) it'll eat the broken off remnants just fine. All-in-all I'm much happier with this than with the big gas blower, it's handled January in New England quite nicely.
2009-02-05
- About:
cjsmith: Stereo astro
- When:
Thu Feb 5 00:01:00 2009
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/889003.html?view=9132715#t9132715
- What:
- [info]eichin 2009-02-05 04:59 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully I learned off of some NASA publication when I was in grade school (one of the moon landers had a stereo camera.) These are visually stunning - but note that they're "art made from astronomy", rather than long-baseline stereo images. (Not intended as a criticism, merely a categorization...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2009-02-03
- About:
Parsing C++ : programming
- When:
Tue Feb 3 11:19:59 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7uhw7/parsing_c/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 2 seconds ago[-] Ah, that's from 2001... that's why he doesn't mention GCC-XML which is designed pretty much exactly for this use case - leverage the "real" GCC C++ parser, and spit out XML to play with using "modern" tools. That said, the Roskind grammar isn't hard to work with, I added exceptions to it as a junior developer at HP/Apollo back in 1992 or so (as part of a C++-with-exceptions to C++-with-setjmp/longjmp translator, eww :-) Ah%2C+that%27s+from+2001...+that%27s+why+he+doesn%27t+mention+%5BGCC-XML%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gccxml.org%2FHTML%2FIndex.html%29+which+is+designed+pretty+much+exactly+for+this+use+case+-+leverage+the+%22real%22+GCC+C%2B%2B+parser%2C+and+spit+out+XML+to+play+with+using+%22modern%22+tools.%0A%0AThat+said%2C+the+Roskind+grammar+isn%27t+hard+to+work+with%2C+I+added+exceptions+to+it+as+a+junior+developer+at+HP%2FApollo+back+in+1992+or+so+%28as+part+of+a+C%2B%2B-with-exceptions+to+C%2B%2B-with-setjmp%2Flongjmp+translator%2C+eww+%3A-%29+ * permalink * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-01-29
- About:
Blogger: Entity Crisis - Post a Comment
- When:
Wed Jan 28 20:07:38 2009
- Where:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8935780327334775165&postID=885571936897620190
- What:
- Blogger _Mark_ said... Nice. Do you do any simulator-based (or mock object, even) pre-testing, or are you always working on the "live" hardware? (I'd also ask if you were looking for more python developers, but wrong country :-) ps. I like the use of single-color filtering to make the device stand out... Thursday, January 29, 2009
2009-01-28
- About:
[Dive Into Python 3] Please critique this code that I'm considering using for chapters 2-4 : Python
- When:
Wed Jan 28 01:11:07 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/7syw8/dive_into_python_3_please_critique_this_code_that/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 28 minutes ago* [-] As far as the code itself (rather than its teaching value) it discards excess argument without either processing them or complaining about their presence; also, no file-wide docstring (adding usage=__doc__ to the OptionParser constructor call would add named args and "magic" variables to the list too - again, perhaps too much for this stage, but I'd do it if it were "real" code...) edited to add backticks for code-quoting As+far+as+the+code+itself+%28rather+than+its+teaching+value%29+it+discards+excess+argument+without+either+processing+them+or+complaining+about+their+presence%3B+also%2C+no+file-wide+docstring+%28adding+%60usage%3D__doc__%60+to+the+%60OptionParser%60+constructor+call+would+add+named+args+and+%22magic%22+variables+to+the+list+too+-+again%2C+perhaps+too+much+for+this+stage%2C+but+I%27d+do+it+if+it+were+%22real%22+code...%29%0A%2Aedited+to+add+backticks+for+code-quoting%2A * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
- About:
[Dive Into Python 3] Please critique this code that I'm considering using for chapters 2-4 : Python
- When:
Wed Jan 28 00:42:15 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/7syw8/dive_into_python_3_please_critique_this_code_that/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 793 milliseconds ago[-] As far as the code itself (rather than its teaching value) it discards excess argument without either processing them or complaining about their presence; also, no file-wide docstring (adding usage=doc to the OptionParser constructor call would add named args and "magic" variables to the list too - again, perhaps too much for this stage, but I'd do it if it were "real" code...) As+far+as+the+code+itself+%28rather+than+its+teaching+value%29+it+discards+excess+argument+without+either+processing+them+or+complaining+about+their+presence%3B+also%2C+no+file-wide+docstring+%28adding+usage%3D__doc__+to+the+OptionParser+constructor+call+would+add+named+args+and+%22magic%22+variables+to+the+list+too+-+again%2C+perhaps+too+much+for+this+stage%2C+but+I%27d+do+it+if+it+were+%22real%22+code...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * deleteare you sure? yes / no * reply
2009-01-26
- About:
Motivating Minds (The Economist on why TDD makes you work harder) : programming
- When:
Sun Jan 25 21:45:10 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7s9ul/motivating_minds_the_economist_on_why_tdd_makes/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 207 milliseconds ago[-] Think of edge cases and exceptional conditions, then think of how to test for them A complementary benefit of doing even casual TDD is that it can help you discover that there are cases you don't have to handle; I've had a few overwhelming-looking projects "collapse" when I started writing tests (which also serve as worked examples) and discovered that actual problem was much simpler than I'd imagined it. The tests really are a different perspective on the problem... %3E+Think+of+edge+cases+and+exceptional+conditions%2C+then+think+of+how+to+test+for+them%0A%0AA+complementary+benefit+of+doing+even+casual+TDD+is+that+it+can+help+you+discover+that+there+are+cases+you+%2Adon%27t%2A+have+to+handle%3B+I%27ve+had+a+few+overwhelming-looking+projects+%22collapse%22+when+I+started+writing+tests+%28which+also+serve+as+worked+examples%29+and+discovered+that+actual+problem+was+much+simpler+than+I%27d+imagined+it.+The+tests+really+are+a+different+perspective+on+the+problem... * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2009-01-25
- About:
One of the coolest Unix tools I've discovered in some time: Expect : programming
- When:
Sun Jan 25 17:39:49 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7sc8n/one_of_the_coolest_unix_tools_ive_discovered_in/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 379 milliseconds ago[-] Start doing more testing :-) (Not "this code does what I wrote" unit testing, but higher level "this application does something useful"...) (Though as suggested above, pexpect is nicer for that...) Start+doing+more+testing+%3A-%29++%28Not+%22this+code+does+what+I+wrote%22+unit+testing%2C+but+higher+level+%22this+application+does+something+useful%22...%29+%28Though+as+suggested+above%2C+pexpect+is+nicer+for+that...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2009-01-19
- About:
Python Coder Test « Where there is a Will
- When:
Mon Jan 19 14:48:38 2009
- Where:
http://www.willmcgugan.com/2009/01/17/python-coder-test/comment-page-1/#comment-91202
- What:
- _Mark_ says: January 19, 2009 at 8:48 pm Just for completeness: ido, thank you for reposting that regexp - it is simple, and matches the most-naive interpretation of the request; it’s just that *any* simple regexp will get the wrong answer in the face of html comments or cdata sections (which I won’t try to enter here, since there’s no preview to see if it eats them.) regexps have their place - my point is just that it isn’t as broad a place as people seem to think :-)
2009-01-18
- About:
WhiteyFlipsSomeBits: My Collection - 1.3.* Progress
- When:
Sun Jan 18 16:01:08 2009
- Where:
http://whiteyflipssomebits.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-collection-13-progress.html?showComment=1232312400000#c2461615194579000689
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Ooh, and I was just hunting down this blog to ask for user categories. (and for a way to personally turn off "games" and "blu-ray" tabs, since they're empty...) Additional thoughts: * barcode scanner should be able to automatically select the "book" category if the barcode is in 978 - that's the "bookland" ean country code after all. * ISBN as a book lookup type? (so when the upc turns out to be old-style, and fails, I don't have to hand-checksum a 978 code out of it...) * This may not fit what you're trying to build, but: how about a way to specify *where* a book is? (living room, bedroom, at work...) Slightly different semantics than "loan", maybe. (Yes, I worked on some homebrew library/loan code ages ago; didn't get very far on the UI side, though...) January 18, 2009 1:00 PM
- About:
Python Coder Test « Where there is a Will
- When:
Sun Jan 18 15:09:01 2009
- Where:
http://www.willmcgugan.com/2009/01/17/python-coder-test/comment-page-1/#comment-90938
- What:
- _Mark_ says: January 18, 2009 at 9:08 pm I’ll also note that for all that a regexp solution is supposed to be “simpler”, we’ve seen only one (that apparently misunderstood the question) and from the comments, none of the suggestions that a regexp would be simpler considered things like html comments, cdata, or whether nbsp is whitespace… I’ve found it quite common that when you’ve got a simple regexp for something - you’ve missed some part of the problem :-) (Also, like lambdas, regexps don’t have docstrings…)
2009-01-17
- About:
Python Coder Test « Where there is a Will
- When:
Sat Jan 17 18:55:50 2009
- Where:
http://www.willmcgugan.com/2009/01/17/python-coder-test/comment-page-1/#comment-90728
- What:
- # # _Mark_ says: January 18, 2009 at 12:55 am For #2, I’d expect a regexp from a general developer, or one with perl experience - but I’d push harder on someone claiming python experience :-) I’ve moved a number of perl programmers over to python and one sign of being “early” in the transition is using regexps for things with more robust and readable functions available - str.endswith, os.path.basename, and for this particular example, BeautifulSoup: from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup soup = BeautifulSoup(”…”) for paratag in soup.findAll(name=”p”): if not paratag.string or not paratag.string.strip(): paratag.extract() #end if #end for print soup
2009-01-12
- About:
Writing Blazing Fast, Infinitely Scalable, Pure-WSGI Utilities - Die in a Fire - Eric Florenzano’s Blog
- When:
Mon Jan 12 18:04:03 2009
- Where:
http://www.eflorenzano.com/blog/post/writing-blazing-fast-infinitely-scalable-pure-wsgi/
- What:
- _Mark_ at 5:03 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2009 While it's interesting to see where the bottlenecks are with this approach - why use that much of a stack at all, instead of xmlrpclib (also an included battery) or even strings over sockets? Reply To This Comment
2009-01-05
- About:
The Year 2038 Problem : programming
- When:
Mon Jan 5 17:02:58 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7nki6/the_year_2038_problem/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 228 milliseconds ago[-] Didn't the BSDs switch to 64 bit time_t years ago (even on 32-bit systems?) Solaris likewise? Didn%27t+the+BSDs+switch+to+64+bit+time_t+years+ago+%28even+on+32-bit+systems%3F%29++Solaris+likewise%3F * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2009-01-04
- About:
Entity Crisis: The Embedded GUI, continued...
- When:
Sun Jan 4 18:23:56 2009
- Where:
http://entitycrisis.blogspot.com/2009/01/embedded-gui-continued.html
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Sometimes the overhead of learning the higher level system doesn't seem to justify the cost (especially when you're not trying to share code with people specifically familiar with it); I've gotten a lot more work done with raw WSGI than with django, turbogears, or pylons :-) Monday, January 05, 2009
- About:
Blogger: Entity Crisis - Post a Comment
- When:
Sun Jan 4 18:23:39 2009
- Where:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8935780327334775165&postID=9031412417078772364&page=1
- What:
- Blogger _Mark_ said... Sometimes the overhead of learning the higher level system doesn't seem to justify the cost (especially when you're not trying to share code with people specifically familiar with it); I've gotten a lot more work done with raw WSGI than with django, turbogears, or pylons :-) Monday, January 05, 2009
- About:
Ask Reddit: What do you use to orchestrate building a large C/C++ project? If the answer is autotools, what's a good tutorial? : programming
- When:
Sat Jan 3 19:27:32 2009
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7n24k/ask_reddit_what_do_you_use_to_orchestrate/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 229 milliseconds ago[-] If you use make, take a look at the Recursive Make Consider Harmful approach, where you store information locally around the tree but build globally. (Of course, my current large project goes in an entirely different direction - all modules are debian packages, and there's a higher level Jam-based package-set builder... but you probably don't want that :-) If+you+use+make%2C+take+a+look+at+the+%5BRecursive+Make+Consider+Harmful%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fmiller.emu.id.au%2Fpmiller%2Fbooks%2Frmch%2F%29+approach%2C+where+you+store+information+locally+around+the+tree+but+build+globally.++%28Of+course%2C+my+current+large+project+goes+in+an+entirely+different+direction+-+all+modules+are+debian+packages%2C+and+there%27s+a+higher+level+Jam-based+package-set+builder...+but+you+probably+don%27t+want+that+%3A-%29 * permalink * edit * delete * reply
2009-01-01
- About:
The cause of the Zune leap year bug has been isolated to a Freescale date routine. : programming
- When:
Wed Dec 31 22:42:09 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7mq6k/the_cause_of_the_zune_leap_year_bug_has_been/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 100 milliseconds ago[-] That's "Ariane" and it wasn't a comma, it was out of range data in an untested code path from reusing control software from the earlier model that didn't move as fast... rather more subtle, actually... Wikipedia article on Ariane 5 That%27s+%22Ariane%22+and+it+wasn%27t+a+comma%2C+it+was+out+of+range+data+in+an+untested+code+path+from+reusing+control+software+from+the+earlier+model+that+didn%27t+move+as+fast...+rather+more+subtle%2C+actually...%0A%0A%5BWikipedia+article+on+Ariane+5%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAriane_5_Flight_501%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-28
- About:
Python on Android : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 28 01:34:16 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7ltz7/python_on_android/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 338 milliseconds ago[-] Note that the G1 isn't a device with 8G storage - application storage, sadly, isn't on the microSD card at all - partly because the card is unmounted when it is hooked up to USB (so it can be exported as USB storage - any background app threads would have to be killed off at that point, which is a hassle, though not an insurmountable one), probably partly because it would be easy to exploit if it were :-) (As for speed - when your app spends most of its time waiting for network responses, you don't really care how fast the interpreter itself is. I have a bunch of apps in mind for which python/jython would be perfectly suitable and end-users wouldn't notice any speed improvement if they were ported to java/dalvik - but based on the apps I have written, java is way too tedious and verbose to bother writing them in...) Note+that+the+G1+%2Aisn%27t%2A+a+device+with+8G+storage+-+application+storage%2C+sadly%2C+isn%27t+on+the+microSD+card+at+all+-+partly+because+the+card+is+unmounted+when+it+is+hooked+up+to+USB+%28so+it+can+be+exported+as+USB+storage+-+any+background+app+threads+would+have+to+be+killed+off+at+that+point%2C+which+is+a+hassle%2C+though+not+an+insurmountable+one%29%2C+probably+partly+because+it+would+be+easy+to+exploit+if+it+were+%3A-%29%0A%0A%28As+for+speed+-+when+your+app+spends+most+of+its+time+waiting+for+network+responses%2C+you+don%27t+really+%2Acare%2A+how+fast+the+interpreter+itself+is.++I+have+a+bunch+of+apps+in+mind+for+which+python%2Fjython+would+be+perfectly+suitable+and+end-users+wouldn%27t+notice+any+speed+improvement+if+they+were+ported+to+java%2Fdalvik+-+but+based+on+the+apps+I+have+written%2C+java+is+way+too+tedious+and+verbose+to+bother+writing+them+in...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
- About:
Python on Android : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 28 01:25:27 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7ltz7/python_on_android/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 248 milliseconds ago[-] No one python port could work on "any ARM device" - the ARM part is trivial (as long as it's a gcc-supported ARM), it's the OS hooks that are a challenge. After all, Python was already ported ( years ago ) to ARM/WinCE, but very little of that helps at all here... No+one+python+port+could+work+on+%22any+ARM+device%22+-+the+ARM+part+is+trivial+%28as+long+as+it%27s+a+gcc-supported+ARM%29%2C+it%27s+the+OS+hooks+that+are+a+challenge.++After+all%2C+Python+was+already+ported+%28+%2Ayears%2A+ago+%29+to+ARM%2FWinCE%2C+but+very+little+of+that+helps+at+all+here... * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
- About:
Python on Android : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 28 01:21:53 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7ltz7/python_on_android/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 688 milliseconds ago[-] See http://code.google.com/p/jythonroid/ which actually runs (sort of, very much still under development) for a jython port as a real android app - which, unlike the posted article, actually runs on a G1 - last time I tried it crashed pretty quickly, but the pieces are there, feel free to help out... See+http%3A%2F%2Fcode.google.com%2Fp%2Fjythonroid%2F+which+actually+runs+%28sort+of%2C+very+much+still+under+development%29+for+a+jython+port+as+a+real+android+app+-+which%2C+unlike+the+posted+article%2C+actually+runs+on+a+G1+-+last+time+I+tried+it+crashed+pretty+quickly%2C+but+the+pieces+are+there%2C+feel+free+to+help+out... * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-22
- About:
Send secret messages with DNS : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 21 19:43:10 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7kycn/send_secret_messages_with_dns/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 175 milliseconds ago[-] The use of a wildcard domain for this looks novel. The use of cached/not-cached in DNS as a covert channel was published back in 1987 or 1988 (in the context of Multics at MIT, so probably by Saltzer, though I haven't found an online reference.) At the time, covert channel analysis was a big thing... The+use+of+a+wildcard+domain+for+this+looks+novel.++The+use+of+cached%2Fnot-cached+in+DNS+as+a+covert+channel+was+published+back+in+1987+or+1988+%28in+the+context+of+Multics+at+MIT%2C+so+probably+by+Saltzer%2C+though+I+haven%27t+found+an+online+reference.%29++At+the+time%2C+covert+channel+analysis+was+a+big+thing... * permalink * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-13
- About:
TortoiseGit 0.1.0.0 (preview) is out : programming
- When:
Sat Dec 13 18:39:19 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7jazz/tortoisegit_0100_preview_is_out/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 1 second ago[-] Yeah, svn copy-tags don't fit that. Properties (or revprops) might work... but there isn't a gui that does the rest. (Frankly, cvs works for you, use it :-) I still use it for some web deployment stuff http://webrcs.sf.net where it makes more sense than svn...) Yeah%2C+svn+copy-tags+don%27t+fit+that.++Properties+%28or+revprops%29+might+work...+but+there+isn%27t+a+gui+that+does+the+rest.++%28Frankly%2C+cvs+works+for+you%2C+use+it+%3A-%29+I+still+use+it+for+some+web+deployment+stuff+http%3A%2F%2Fwebrcs.sf.net+where+it+makes+more+sense+than+svn...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-11
- About:
The Mother of All Demos: 150 Years Ahead of Its Time : programming
- When:
Thu Dec 11 16:42:17 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7iuuq/the_mother_of_all_demos_150_years_ahead_of_its/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 752 milliseconds ago[-] "I have no particular conviction that the hand-controlled mouse will be the best screen-select control means that will emerge; and I applaud any pursuit of better means." (Doug Englebert quote from elsewhere.) Another area where we're still kind of stuck... %22I+have+no+particular+conviction+that+the+hand-controlled+mouse+will+be+the+best+screen-select+control+means+that+will+emerge%3B+and+I+applaud+any+pursuit+of+better+means.%22+%28Doug+Englebert+quote+from+elsewhere.%29+Another+area+where+we%27re+still+kind+of+stuck... * permalink * edit * delete * reply
- About:
cjsmith: Waiting
- When:
Thu Dec 11 14:25:20 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/876834.html?view=9028386#t9028386
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-12-11 07:25 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Hah, small world - codesourcery wrote QMTest, which is what led to me (and my company) switching whole-heartedly over to python :-) (thanks!) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-12-09
- About:
Ask Proggit: Bug Blame : programming
- When:
Mon Dec 8 22:59:55 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7i8ak/ask_proggit_bug_blame/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 223 milliseconds ago[-] Consider that the cost of you finding it is much less than the cost of you not finding it... Consider that there are many legendary stories of significantly worse bugs by significantly more senior programmers (one of my favorites ends with "it's just as well that it deleted its own source code too" and another involves having to fix a linker bug so the Shuttle could launch...) If anything, read up on automated testing and propose putting time into helping prevent this kind of problem in the future (not in terms of "fighting the last war" but in terms of having tests based on the business goals, not the design and internals...) It can be quite interesting work (especially if you're looking for a broader understanding of the product, which you'll need for any higher level work on it, assuming that is your ambition...) Consider+that+the+cost+of+you+finding+it+is+much+less+than+the+cost+of+you+%2Anot%2A+finding+it...%0A%0AConsider+that+there+are+many+legendary+stories+of+significantly+worse+bugs+by+significantly+more+senior+programmers+%28one+of+my+favorites+ends+with+%22it%27s+just+as+well+that+it+deleted+its+own+source+code+too%22+and+another+involves+having+to+fix+a+linker+bug+so+the+Shuttle+could+launch...%29%0A%0AIf+anything%2C+read+up+on+automated+testing+and+propose+putting+time+into+helping+prevent+this+kind+of+problem+in+the+future+%28not+in+terms+of+%22fighting+the+last+war%22+but+in+terms+of+having+tests+based+on+the+business+goals%2C+not+the+design+and+internals...%29+It+can+be+quite+interesting+work+%28especially+if+you%27re+looking+for+a+broader+understanding+of+the+product%2C+which+you%27ll+need+for+any+higher+level+work+on+it%2C+assuming+that+is+your+ambition...%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-12-07
- About:
Google starts selling unlocked Android Dev Phone 1 to developers! : programming
- When:
Sun Dec 7 02:55:36 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7hr5i/google_starts_selling_unlocked_android_dev_phone/
- What:
- * _Mark_ 1 point 217 milliseconds ago[+] (0 children) _Mark_ 1 point 217 milliseconds ago[-] When the Openmoko NEO1973 shipped, they had the exact same problem (and just as many complaints) - apparently the issue is having a shipper handle insurance and VAT and customs for one-off purchases, when you don't have a business presence or reseller in the target country. When+the+Openmoko+NEO1973+shipped%2C+they+had+the+exact+same+problem+%28and+just+as+many+complaints%29+-+apparently+the+issue+is+having+a+shipper+handle+insurance+and+VAT+and+customs+for+one-off+purchases%2C+when+you+don%27t+have+a+business+presence+or+reseller+in+the+target+country. * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
- About:
url shortening gets "*" wrong
- When:
Sun Dec 7 00:33:22 2008
- Where:
http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/url_shortening_gets_wrong
- What:
- url shortening gets "*" wrong url-shortening in the web-ui gets "*" wrong; try http://www.svtea.com/foundations/stor... (the tinyurl link http://tinyurl.com/56a99x only goes up to the T0115, and the *81 ends up in the tweet after it... which appears to work, by accident of how svtea is implemented, but it isn't right...) sad I’m mildly frustrated
2008-12-05
- About:
Perl 5 Programmers Are Dying : programming
- When:
Fri Dec 5 01:58:31 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7hcl0/perl_5_programmers_are_dying/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 1 second ago[-] We've done that! In particular, considered perl skill and willingness to learn fast equivalent to python skill (both of which are secondary to general debugging skill, but we build pretty much everything in python or C++ these days) Once they get past the stage of "hit with a rolled up newspaper for using a regexp instead of a readable builtin" they turn out pretty well :-) We%27ve+done+that%21+In+particular%2C+considered+perl+skill+and+willingness+to+learn+fast+equivalent+to+python+skill+%28both+of+which+are+secondary+to+general+debugging+skill%2C+but+we+build+pretty+much+everything+in+python+or+C%2B%2B+these+days%29+Once+they+get+past+the+stage+of+%22hit+with+a+rolled+up+newspaper+for+using+a+regexp+instead+of+a+readable+builtin%22+they+turn+out+pretty+well+%3A-%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
- About:
cjsmith: Oh, another thing
- When:
Fri Dec 5 01:24:55 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/875504.html?view=9007344#t9007344
- What:
- DROOL *zap* [info]eichin 2008-12-05 06:24 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully :-) I'm waiting until they open the New York sales/maintenance office (flatbedding it 200 miles for major repairs is plausible, 3000 miles is not) but by that point, the Aptera might be plausible (though the Mini-E probably won't be...) The new transmissions are supposed to be shipping "now" so it could have one - the "easy" way to tell is if you can get to 120mph from 0 without shifting or only 60 :-) (Reply to this)
2008-12-01
- About:
Ned Batchelder: Things I don't like about doctest
- When:
Mon Dec 1 00:51:13 2008
- Where:
http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200811/things_i_dont_like_about_doctest.html#commentform
- What:
- _Mark_ 11:51 PM on 30 Nov 2008 At a lunch chat at pycon2008, someone mentioned that they were very pleased with the "write an executable API doc first" model of using doctest - in particular, it gets a lot of the plain usability issues of the API out of the way before you even have code. His suggestion was that as far as narrative flow goes, the more obscure cases go in an Appendix - since the user may actually want to consult them (if they're not as obscure as you thought they were) and will have high confidence in their accuracy, even if they don't need to read them most of the time. It seemed like a plausible way to avoid too much "clutter" that inline doctests seem to cause...
2008-11-30
- About:
codemonth: Day 30 - Final Wrapup
- When:
Sun Nov 30 17:31:06 2008
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/codemonth/12718.html?view=13998#t13998
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-11-30 10:30 pm UTC (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully I didn't get any further improvements in to MMMRavs, though I did poke at jythonroid, and learned enough about git remote operation that I'm probably going back to CVS :-) I also set up a build environment stashed on the phone itself, to free up some space on the laptop (I don't use java for anything else, and 200M makes a difference on the EEEpc...) That said, I have a design and detailed plan for the future of MMMRavs... but I'm not going to put up with the tediousness of java for it, even if it means writing some bytecode translators of my own. (Reply to this)
2008-11-19
- About:
MINI E 'unboxed' in LA to the delight of car nerds, your mom - Engadget
- When:
Wed Nov 19 18:30:56 2008
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/19/mini-e-unboxed-in-la-to-the-delight-of-car-nerds-your-mom/1#c15690300
- What:
- _Mark_ _Mark_ @ Nov 19th 2008 6:30PM @SteveJ: "Other electric cars" like... The Tesla? (oops, no backseat) The WrightSpeed X1? (oops, no front passenger seat either) The EV1? (oops, a much larger car, now buried in the desert) Energy density is the major limiting factor in electric cars (and will probably remain so for decades), it's nowhere *near* gasoline, so if you want gasoline-car-equivalent range, you need more of it - and it has to fit *somewhere*...
2008-11-17
- About:
simonkagstrom: Frodo on a SE k810i
- When:
Sun Nov 16 23:14:32 2008
- Where:
http://simonkagstrom.livejournal.com/29219.html?view=20259#t20259
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-11-17 04:14 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully On a whim, I fed it to a J2ME MIDP runner for Android but the converted app crashed immediately. (From the logcat output, it looks like it's a problem on the netmite side, but just thought you'd be interested to know...) (Reply to this)
2008-11-12
- About:
codemonth: Day 13
- When:
Wed Nov 12 00:58:17 2008
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/codemonth/12016.html?view=13040#t13040
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-11-12 05:58 am UTC (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully I ended up putting more time into learning git... and beta-testing someone else's android app (TouchTip, a tip calculator that has a UI that takes into account some key bits of Fitts's Law.) (Reply to this)
- About:
cjsmith: Bits and pieces
- When:
Wed Nov 12 00:42:43 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/872882.html?view=8966834#t8966834
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-11-12 05:42 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > that I now have the job of editing it "The reward for a job well done... is another, harder job" :-) (Reply to this)
2008-11-10
- About:
mjg59: Android
- When:
Mon Nov 10 18:08:15 2008
- Where:
http://mjg59.livejournal.com/100221.html?view=1138301#t1138301
- What:
- Re: Great. [info]eichin 2008-11-10 11:08 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > Maybe someone will bring Android up on an OpenMoko http://benno.id.au/blog/2008/11/02/android-on-neo1973 (Note that one of the things that doomed the Neo was that they couldn't talk to the GPS from open code, and they couldn't use the 850mhz radio at all.) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-11-03
- About:
websequencediagrams.com :: View topic - Suggestions
- When:
Mon Nov 3 17:26:40 2008
- Where:
http://www.websequencediagrams.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=239#239
- What:
- _Mark_ Guest PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:26 pm Post subject: rotation? Reply with quote Another suggestion - for some of the shorter diagrams, running left-to-right instead of top to bottom would be nicer (especially when pasting it somewhere with more descriptive text below.) Might not be strictly correct in any of the given styles, but it's more about transcribing whiteboard brainstorms, for me...
- About:
codemonth: Day "one"
- When:
Mon Nov 3 00:03:21 2008
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/codemonth/11217.html?view=12241#t12241
- What:
- Something Android... [info]eichin 2008-11-03 05:03 am UTC (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully My original choice was going to be "Port MMMRavs from palmos to Android" but I spent about 10 hours on that last week (instead of, say, preparing codemonth postings :-} ) and a first cut is actually done, so that's clearly not a month long project... for the first week, at least, I'll focus on improving it, but then I'll have to find something for the rest of the month.
2008-11-01
- About:
1988 TV News report on the Morris Worm : programming
- When:
Sat Nov 1 06:24:07 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7alvf/1988_tv_news_report_on_the_morris_worm/
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 331 milliseconds ago[-] As we explained in Microscope and Tweezers the initial "grappling hook" got into a lot of systems via sendmail - even at least one Cray - because it was a chunk of C code that got compiled on the victim machine. Once that part was in, it tried to launch a VAX or 68K (Sun) payload; these were the binary chunks that we pulled the all-nighter decompiling, and those worked on far fewer machines (but enough to be interesting :-) As+we+explained+in+%5BMicroscope+and+Tweezers%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mit.edu%2F%7Eeichin%2Fvirus%2Fmain.html%29+the+initial+%22grappling+hook%22+got+into+a+lot+of+systems+via+sendmail+-+even+at+least+one+Cray+-+because+it+was+a+chunk+of+C+code+that+got+compiled+on+the+victim+machine.+Once+that+part+was+in%2C+it+tried+to+launch+a+VAX+or+68K+%28Sun%29+payload%3B+these+were+the+binary+chunks+that+we+pulled+the+all-nighter+decompiling%2C+and+those+worked+on+far+fewer+machines+%28but+enough+to+be+interesting+%3A-%29 * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-10-29
- About:
websequencediagrams.com :: View topic - SVG?
- When:
Wed Oct 29 13:37:22 2008
- Where:
http://www.websequencediagrams.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=229#229
- What:
- _Mark_ Guest PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: SVG? Reply with quote Great tool (ran across it on planetpython) - there are a couple of whiteboard diagrams that I've never had the time to learn a more complex tool for, now coworkers don't have to put up with my handwriting anymore Smile Any chance of an SVG output format? (The browsers I care about support it, and it's easy to stuff into some other tool afterwards.) Thanks again...
- About:
Axiotron Modservice takes your sad, disused Macbook, converts it into swanky new tablet - Engadget
- When:
Tue Oct 28 23:26:51 2008
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/28/axiotron-modservice-takes-your-sad-disused-macbook-converts-it/1#c15172542
- What:
- _Mark_ _Mark_ @ Oct 28th 2008 11:26PM Touch may be overrated, but that's irrelevant - the ModBook is a tablet screen, not a touch screen, and it only responds to a stylus. (And yeah, OSX handwriting support is... unfortunate at best, but for anything visual, the modbook is quite nice.)
2008-10-23
- About:
_Mark_ comments on Debian's Vim maintainer switches to Emacs
- When:
Thu Oct 23 14:08:49 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/78ww0/debians_vim_maintainer_switches_to_emacs/c05zrz9
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 2 minutes ago[-] Note that he specifically mentions living in Gnome/GTK+ so yeah, we can be pretty sure he's already using X... Note+that+he+%2Aspecifically%2A+mentions+living+in+Gnome%2FGTK%2B+so+yeah%2C+we+can+be+pretty+sure+he%27s+already+using+X... * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-10-22
- About:
inopia comments on Android is now Open Source
- When:
Tue Oct 21 23:18:23 2008
- Where:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/78gb7/android_is_now_open_source/c05yo90
- What:
- _Mark_ 1 point 225 milliseconds ago[-] This one's on known issues too - look for "FIXED: webkit". This+one%27s+on+%5Bknown+issues%5D%28http%3A%2F%2Fsource.android.com%2Fknown-issues%29+too+-+look+for+%2A%2A%22FIXED%3A+webkit%22%2A%2A. * permalink * parent * edit * delete * reply
2008-10-16
- About:
Why I purchased the Sony PRS-505 Reader | Thoughts by Ted
- When:
Thu Oct 16 10:35:09 2008
- Where:
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2008/01/19/why-i-purchased-the-sony-prs-505-reader/#comment-966
- What:
- # 24 _Mark_ Says: October 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am If you’re still soliciting ideas, you’re a year away or more; the ebook space is only just reaching the point where design improvements on the technology already available make a difference - there are already-demoed technology improvements that would disrupt existing products entirely regardless of how well designed they are, if they ever get to production (easy example: flexible screens), so investing in incremental (design-only) improvements to the current tech would seem like a bad investment… another way to put it: we’re not seeing 1.5’s, we’re seeing a stream of new 1.0’s…
2008-10-15
- About:
Eli Bendersky’s website » Blog Archive » On parsing the C standard library headers
- When:
Tue Oct 14 22:54:48 2008
- Where:
http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/10/10/on-parsing-the-c-standard-library-headers/#comment-134161
- What:
- # # _Mark_No Gravatar Says: October 15th, 2008 at 5:54 am “I see no reason to use the #line directive unless a file was included, and why would a file be included in the middle of a struct spec.” That’s why I suggested the yacc output example; the #line directives in the generated C code lead to debugging information and error messages that point to lines in the higher level source, which don’t line up neatly with C data structures. include directives are just one special case of that…
2008-10-14
- About:
Set Operations in the Unix Shell - good coders code, great reuse
- When:
Mon Oct 13 20:57:36 2008
- Where:
http://www.catonmat.net/blog/set-operations-in-unix-shell/#comment-5931
- What:
- _Mark_ says: October 14th, 2008 at 2:30 am Aww, I was disappointed by the power set example. You see, back in the mid 1990’s, when we were implementing gcc multilib support (this is the idea that if the user gives gcc flags that lead to incompatible ABIs, you need to supply corresponding libgcc and possibly libc/libm that match…) at Cygnus (mostly for embedded work) I had to implement power set in sh (after all, the user could combine the incompatible options) - and not even full POSIX sh, but a subset that pre-autoconf configure scripts were allowed to use (so that they actually worked on things like LynxOS.) I mostly remember it being unpleasant, and hoped I’d find something more modern and elegant here :-) (Eventually Ian Taylor rewrote all that, and I don’t know what the current gcc-multilib packaging does - avoiding the problem and specifying the desired combinations explicitly would not have been wrong…)
2008-10-10
- About:
Eli Bendersky’s website » Blog Archive » On parsing the C standard library headers
- When:
Fri Oct 10 17:52:52 2008
- Where:
http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/10/10/on-parsing-the-c-standard-library-headers/#comment-133512
- What:
- _Mark_No Gravatar Says: October 11th, 2008 at 12:52 am Why do you think there’s anything unusuabl about that #line directive? if you have any interesting macro expansions, or any C generated by other language tools (look at yacc output, for example.) newlib is a good “easy” choice, since it’s based on an old BSD libc so it started out fairly cross-platform and not especially gcc-centric like linux headers tend to be. Depending on what you plan to do with this parser (programmatic augmentation of C code with additional checks? automatic conversion of headers to pyrex or ctypes declarations?) you might consider treating that as merely a starting point and trying GNU libc as your next challenge…
2008-10-08
- About:
jessenoller.com » Blog Archive » Threads can’t be serialized?!
- When:
Wed Oct 8 16:14:06 2008
- Where:
http://jessenoller.com/2008/10/08/threads-cant-be-serialized/?disqus_reply=2945868#comment-2945868
- What:
- * Permalink * Admin * o o o Remove Post o Block email o Block IP address _Mark_ 0 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment. That's one of the cool things about Stackless Python, no? you can pickle microthreads, and ISTR move them between machines... reply
2008-09-29
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - brand new defective imager
- When:
Mon Sep 29 19:18:16 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=253&p=1342#p1342
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: brand new defective imager Postby eichin on Mon Sep 29, 2008 6:17 pm Alkalines have a mostly-linear discharge curve, which is a problem for electronics, which just don't work at some given voltage, even though there's charge remaining; rechargables are typically flat and then fall off a cliff. The button-pusher problem has a lot of myth around it - while low batteries apparently *can* cause it, it can also happen on entirely fresh batteries; it's really a design flaw in the stepper motor control circuitry, it can't always correctly start in the right direction... eichin Posts: 39 Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 4:50 pm * Website
2008-09-17
- About:
cjsmith: Bland bean soup
- When:
Wed Sep 17 12:32:39 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/862714.html?view=8844282#t8844282
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-17 04:32 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Did you just dump the salt pork in, or fry it up first? (The one thing I've ever used salt pork for was pierogi - when frying them, a little in with the onions in the pan. Thus I think it's really more "something to have maillard reactions happen to" than a basic flavor :-) (Reply to this)
2008-09-15
- About:
cjsmith: Thank you, everybody!
- When:
Mon Sep 15 14:41:57 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/861495.html?view=8827959#t8827959
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-15 06:41 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > I am forever grateful to Margaret for telling me earnestly that I don't look like that any more. I realized later that we should have taken snapshots of those pictures so you could make LJ Icons out of them :-) (Reply to this)
2008-09-13
- About:
cjsmith: I'm back!
- When:
Sat Sep 13 14:43:32 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/858635.html?view=8823563#t8823563
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-13 06:43 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully It's a long drive (there's *nothing* near it, other than, well, cows) but yes, it's an awe inspiring site: p100-5210073 The visitors center is "nova episode"-grade, and there's a short film; you can actually walk right up into the shadow of one of the antennas, which is more interesting. They're upgrading the whole thing this fall (all new antennas and data paths and data crunching hardware - right now, the antennas are all connected to *waveguides*, they're going to fiber) and I'd hope the visitor center gets some attention as part of that - but none of that will change the amazement of driving over a ridge (that area doesn't have *hills* really, just plains, ridges, and mountains) and seeing a whole bunch of antennas *very* far away...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-09-12
- About:
eichin: My Next Car
- When:
Fri Sep 12 17:39:33 2008
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/71829.html?view=107413#t107413
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-12 09:39 pm UTC (from 208.80.143.4) (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully Just for the record - they're back to the one-forward-gear transmission after a bit of design rework; the press release has a lot of real numbers, for a press release. (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Of course I buy wine based on the label
- When:
Fri Sep 12 17:20:46 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/860466.html?view=8808498#t8808498
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-12 09:20 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully My brother found this p100-5050115 for his last visit :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-09-11
- About:
lonely_squirrel: Mojibake
- When:
Thu Sep 11 11:27:03 2008
- Where:
http://lonely-squirrel.livejournal.com/39105.html?view=85185#t85185
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-09-11 03:26 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully (here via reddit/programming, hi) actually, len on a utf8 string is well defined - it's just defined in terms of bytes, not characters. It might help to realize that an encoded string doesn't actually carry the encoding with it, so len couldn't possibly know how to make characters out of it... Where you may be seeing ambiguity is the difference between a unicode string and a utf-8 string. There was a good talk on this entire issue at pycon2008; the "sane" way to think about it appears to be to * work in unicode (*not* utf-8, unicode) everywhere * the OS hands you bytes; convert to characters (unicode) as soon as you can * the OS wants bytes; convert back from characters (unicode) as late as you can (And of course, "if you find library bugs in this regard, report them" :-) To help with this model, python 2.6/3k introduce an explicit bytes type, which (aside from other features) helps the developer keep track. (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-09-06
- About:
Ned Batchelder: Caches aplenty
- When:
Sat Sep 6 13:34:17 2008
- Where:
http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200809/caches_aplenty.html#commentform
- What:
- _Mark_ 12:33 PM on 6 Sep 2008 Not to excessively critique an admittedly personal-use "cobbled together" script (it does *work* after all :-) but "writing C code in Python" is a pattern I've seen among coworkers too. The script would be a bit more readable (and probably more writable) if you'd used os.path.getsize and os.path.isdir, instead of the more brutal C "stat" equivalents... you might also consider os.walk for the iteration. (In fact I just noticed, at least in python2.5, that "pydoc os.walk" includes a fairly elegant version of the above script...)
2008-08-28
- About:
JJinuxLand: Python: sort | uniq -c via the subprocess module
- When:
Wed Aug 27 23:27:10 2008
- Where:
http://jjinux.blogspot.com/2008/08/python-sort-uniq-c-via-subprocess.html?showComment=1219893960000#c2837095559491477523
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Thanks for the pointer (I hadn't noticed pipes.py before) but it gets two big things wrong: * it takes strings, not lists, so it's doomed to quoting horror * unlike pretty much the entire rest of python, it ignores errors (it doesn't even look *possible* to get the exit statuses out.) (Sadly both of those are based on the interface, not the implementation, so it's not just a matter of fixing bugs.) 8:26 PM
2008-08-13
- About:
cjsmith: On doing what you love
- When:
Wed Aug 13 17:20:30 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/849282.html?thread=8670082#t8670082
- What:
- somewhat aside from the real point... [info]eichin 2008-08-13 09:14 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This What with modern automation and safety equipment, you can actually rent a number of the east coast lighthouses, since they don't have (or need) permanent lighthousekeepers anymore... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-08-10
- About:
cjsmith: It's real now, whether I believe it or not
- When:
Sat Aug 9 21:54:21 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/847481.html?view=8642681#t8642681
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-08-10 01:54 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Ok, that LJ icon there? *that's* enthusiastic enough :-) yayyyy! congratulations... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-08-06
- About:
JJinuxLand: Python: sort | uniq -c via the subprocess module
- When:
Wed Aug 6 17:18:47 2008
- Where:
http://jjinux.blogspot.com/2008/08/python-sort-uniq-c-via-subprocess.html
- What:
- _Mark_ said... Confusion like this is why python needs a "pipeline" class on top of subprocess... as benjamin points out, if sort weren't special, neither of your approaches would work. Unix pipes get you a page (4k) of buffer. You instead want to use select (or poll) to write when you can, and to read when you can, and to notice EOFs (and then you want to look at *all* of the exit statuses.) 2:18 PM
2008-07-22
- About:
cjsmith: Names
- When:
Tue Jul 22 01:00:25 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/836440.html?view=8471640#t8471640
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-07-22 05:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Actually, MIT eventually figured out that the sane thing to do was to put arriving frosh with matching names in the same temporary rooms - the theory being something like "this is going to give you trouble for four years - get started figuring it out now" :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-07-14
- About:
cjsmith: Are you my spammer?
- When:
Sun Jul 13 23:00:01 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/831319.html?view=8402775#t8402775
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-07-14 02:59 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully I've found http://whocalled.us/ useful for confirming those (useful enough that I sometimes enter new instances...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-07-08
- About:
cjsmith: Different color of sawdust bars
- When:
Mon Jul 7 23:49:43 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/829516.html?view=8358220#t8358220
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-07-08 03:49 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > darker so, oak sawdust, instead of pine? :-) I agree that the protein powder is probably a primary source of unfortunate results; likewise if you're using more cocoa powder, using more fats too (chocolate chips count) should help. I'd probably whip one or two of the egg whites (or even one whole egg) just to see what it does (do most of the mashing first, maybe, then mix it in right before baking?) If you're adding cinnamon, try some vietnamese cinnamon, it's distinctly different (a little more bite, maybe?) For that matter, through some pepper in... (Reply to this)
2008-07-06
- About:
Coding Horror: Investing in a Quality Programming Chair
- When:
Sat Jul 5 23:10:11 2008
- Where:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001146.html?r=26484#endcomments
- What:
- I found the Aeron great for sitting at a desk for 8 or even 10 hours... *with good posture*. Slouch, and the Aeron will punish you for it. The Humanscale Freedom was the first chair that I found was good for sitting in with my feet on the desk, keyboard in my lap. (The headrest support didn't last, though, it keeps sliding down...) However, both of these are have been retired to home desk-work chairs. My professional seating is a low, poofy, leather armchair - large (not "merely" wide) screen thinkpad, no desk at all, just a nearby filing cabinet. Wonderful setup, the matching sofa works well for drop-in collaboration, and it's lasted several years. (As for RSI: stop using the mouse :-) _Mark_ on July 5, 2008 08:09 PM
2008-06-29
- About:
cjsmith: Almond bars
- When:
Sat Jun 28 22:05:57 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/823718.html?view=8253606#t8253606
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-29 02:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully hmm, the mention of almonds reminds me that I should dig up the Alice Medrich brownie recipe - all I remember was that it used ground almonds instead of flour, but I don't now what other tricks it pulled to get away with that. (I don't remember them being enormously sweet, either...) (Reply to this)
2008-06-28
- About:
cjsmith: I know I'm not answering the question
- When:
Sat Jun 28 03:06:58 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/822849.html?view=8250433#t8250433
- What:
- Cane Sugar Soda [info]eichin 2008-06-28 07:05 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully And most (all?) of "Jones Soda" (which I think has only been on the market for a year or two) which is made with Cane Sugar or Cane Juice, no HFCS (and they have some *bizarre* flavors, which is why I've tried some of them - though I find HFCS icky, it's taste/texture, not survival - though more and more allergies/rashes/minor conditions have been getting diagnosed as corn allergy/sensitivity...) (Ah, the intertubes say they switched all flavors over to Cane Sugar last April.) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-06-27
- About:
cjsmith: Some days are like that
- When:
Fri Jun 27 00:45:04 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/822577.html?view=8232753#t8232753
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-27 04:42 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully As we've gotten larger and actually keep a list of whose turn it is to get lunch for office lunch days, we've just asked people to add restrictions to the page - not that the whole thing needs to meet all of the restrictions, just that you include something reasonable for all of the options. Off the top of my head, the list has included: no shrimp, vegetarian, "vegan but don't even try, I'll bring my own", no beans, no raw fish... so when someone gets boloco wraps, there are veggie ones, and there are rice-and-meat-only ones (or even better, we're big enough to get the qdoba hot-bar, where they show up with build-it-yourself tacos for N); when there's sushi, there's katsu as well. Sometimes people screw up (well, not with the shrimp one, that's actually a fatal allergy, not a "mere" preference) but most of the time it works, and everyone makes an effort. Simply communicating about it does seem to have made a difference, socially (I'm sure it's partly because we're big enough that as long as *some* people are being receptive and encouraging, the others will take the hint.) Works for us, anyway, though we're starting to get big enough that it's getting more complicated (last time I needed several people to help me carry food the two blocks back from Mary's :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-06-25
- About:
eichin: Summertime
- When:
Wed Jun 25 15:03:47 2008
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/76248.html?view=105688#t105688
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-25 07:03 pm UTC (from 208.80.143.4) (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select Comment Posted Successfully Current guess is that it hit somewhere near Tufts (which also happens to be one of the few things with any altitude in that direction) - I haven't scraped flash-to-boom times out of the video yet... but it's a bearing of 14 degrees west of north, from university park. (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
Range Finder Tool on a Map
- When:
Tue Jun 24 20:09:06 2008
- Where:
http://www.freemaptools.com/range-finder.htm
- What:
- Even without being able to click on an endpoint, it's sufficient to try a few numbers and refine a guess at a bearing. (This was the first thing I found when attempting to figure out from a photo where a lightning strike might have been...) Thanks! By _Mark_ on 24/06/2008
2008-06-24
- About:
cjsmith: Drum roll please
- When:
Tue Jun 24 00:02:06 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/821345.html?view=8218209#t8218209
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-24 04:01 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > Brilliant, but terrifying. Quite literally brilliant at least with a little help :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-06-17
- About:
General upload failure (3) - Desktop Flickr Organizer | Google Groups
- When:
Tue Jun 17 03:42:32 2008
- Where:
http://groups.google.com/group/dfo-users/browse_thread/thread/50e04abad374aca5/b96913003c8ff952#b96913003c8ff952
- What:
- Jun 17, 3:40 am From: "eic...@gmail.com" <eic...@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:40:59 -0700 (PDT) Local: Tues, Jun 17 2008 3:40 am Subject: Re: General upload failure (3) Reply | Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Remove | Report this message | Find messages by this author Good catch - I just started playing with dfo, and filed debian bug 486304 on what is basically the same thing in PersistentInformation.InsertPool; presumably all of those RunQuery's need to be sanitized (or replaced with something that does real SQL argument passing instead of String.Format? Some googling suggests constructing an SqliteParameter object for this case... (I'd pass on more detail but this is the first time I've even *read* c-sharp code, so I don't want to mangle anything in translation :-)
2008-06-16
- About:
Programming Limits - Plumbling Life's Depths
- When:
Mon Jun 16 02:29:54 2008
- Where:
http://blog.vrplumber.com/index.php?/archives/240-Programming-Limits.html#c1080
- What:
- You don't even need a large-but-generic subsystem to see this effect - optparse is enough. "Oh, I'll just grab things out of sys.argv" "Oh, we want a --help, ok fine I'll just filter that out first"... it's just a lot easier to slap that down and demand optparse. I think the examples are key - putting some simple "no really, just cut&paste this even if you're doing no argument parsing" templates on our (internal, corporate, developer) wiki made a huge difference. I also think "batteries included" makes a huge difference as far as treating existing modules as part of the toolset that you're obliged to understand and not get all NIH about... (ps. you can probably guess that I picked this up from PlanetPython, even though you've tried to be more generic in your arguments :-) #1 Mark Eichin (Homepage) on 2008-06-16 02:29 (Reply)
2008-06-10
- About:
Who owns your comments? (Scripting News)
- When:
Tue Jun 10 18:31:39 2008
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/06/09/whoOwnsYourComments.html#comment-633125
- What:
- * Parent * Permalink Mark Eichin 18 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Same here, scripting.com is the *only* site I comment on that uses disqus (which is why I haven't bothered with verification - no leverage, for me, in doing so.) I've also always, mmm, "clarified" that my comments were mine by publishing them in parallel on what I call a "trackforward" page (punning on trackback, of course.) Unfortunately that involves some non-portable custom tools - google Notebook has most of the required mechanisms, though... reply
- About:
So, are you gonna get an iPhone 3G? - Engadget
- When:
Tue Jun 10 11:57:46 2008
- Where:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/so-are-you-gonna-get-an-iphone-3g/9#c12577353
- What:
- Mark Eichin Mark Eichin @ Jun 10th 2008 11:57AM 3G/HSPDA data looks sweet - too bad I can't use it for anything "real" like uploading pictures from a real camera (thus "keep trying" :-) Fortunately there are real HSPDA phones like the E66 coming soon too...
2008-06-08
- About:
cjsmith: Well isn't that special?
- When:
Sat Jun 7 23:01:12 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/814634.html?view=8085290#t8085290
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-08 03:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully google finds only one reference on the entire net to that quote - giving the same context - and the highly relevant variation: "I could eat printouts and *shit* better code than that!" (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-06-02
- About:
cjsmith: Eggs
- When:
Mon Jun 2 01:22:32 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/812947.html?view=8067219#t8067219
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-06-02 05:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully The web seems to think that if you're a "supertaster" you won't like stevia either, though it's more in the licorice direction than just bitterness... Don't forget that you can use chocolate in other things... a couple of ounces of very dark chocolate, plus cinnamon and chili powder went quite well in lasagne at the last chocolate party. Not sure what it would do with eggs, though :-) but if you're adding chili pepper anyway (just got back from NM so "of course" red chili is what you put on scrambled eggs...) it's something to consider... or if you're just bored enough with the eggs to try something :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-05-31
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Birdwatching: Red Tailed Hawk
- When:
Sat May 31 19:33:15 2008
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/138828.html?view=709196#t709196
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: May 31st, 2008 11:33 pm (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) Oh, hah, didn't even think to check that it was a plain image. Thanks! (Reply) (Parent) (Thread)
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Birdwatching: Red Tailed Hawk
- When:
Sat May 31 19:17:56 2008
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/138828.html?view=708428#t708428
- What:
- eichin From: [info]eichin Date: May 31st, 2008 11:17 pm (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) According to the MIT-hawk-cam page (a few years back), pigeons are "junkfood" for hawks, very fatty (and since pigeons scavenge, full of other nasty stuff too.) So maybe it's just as well that the pigeon escaped :-) (btw. just noticed the knitting-works-in-progress sidebar - how do you set that up? or is the knitting community powerful enough that it's a basic livejournal feature now? :-)
- About:
Amazon.com: Mark Eichin's review of Birds of New Mexico Field Guide
- When:
Sat May 31 18:37:34 2008
- Where:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1CPYVVZU8ZJJ5/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
- What:
- 5.0 out of 5 stars Best tourist/casual bird book ever., May 31, 2008 By Mark Eichin I'm a "photographer who happens to think birds are neat", not a "real" birder; I picked this up on a vacation to Albuquerque, and it was great for figuring out what all of these unfamiliar-but-probably-common brightly colored birds are. I don't want to become an ecosystem-expert on the southwest -- but "hey, that's a cool looking red-and-orange bird *click* *click* ok, now what was it? *flip to `birds that have prominent yellow'* *flip through a handful of pictures* Oh look, Western Tanager, I'd never even heard of those before..." If that's you too, this is the book you want. (Of course, you can also show your snapshots on-camera to the nature center volunteers, they're nice that way... but other tourists won't know either :-) It's not Sibley's. It compares favorably with the Smithsonian Handbooks for good at-a-glance presentation of useful information, though, and it's small enough to actually bring with you. Permalink
2008-05-29
- About:
cjsmith: Ah Biaxin, how do I love thee
- When:
Thu May 29 13:50:57 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/812362.html?view=8050762#t8050762
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-05-29 05:50 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully re food tastes changing - I wonder if something like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?_r=1&oref=slogin would have useful compensating-for-treatment benefits (it's a berry that screws up the response to "sour" as far as I can tell from the description...) (Reply to this)
2008-05-07
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Feature Request: Move to selected grid position during pause
- When:
Wed May 7 15:37:26 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=159&p=883#p883
- What:
- * * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Feature Request: Move to selected grid position during pause Postby eichin on Wed May 07, 2008 2:37 pm Another possibility, if you have another camera handy, is to just take the desired overlay picture with that camera - then later feed the completed panorama and the new picture to autopano, I've seen it handle that kind of thing usefully (by accident - I took some wide-scale context shots and pasted them in with more detailed ones and it successfully merged them...) eichin
2008-05-05
- About:
cjsmith: Foot-related medical stuff
- When:
Mon May 5 17:19:38 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/802871.html?view=7903543#t7903543
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-05-05 09:19 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > and stayed that way for about twenty minutes before I gave up On a longer baseline, staring at a needle for twenty minutes without passing out, all by itself, is progress for you, isn't it? :-)
2008-04-22
- About:
Bug #144621 - Comment #83
- When:
Tue Apr 22 17:26:48 2008
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.22/+bug/144621/comments/83
- What:
- milestone gutsy-updates Bug #144621: iwl4965 drops out from time to time (Santa Rosa) Mark Eichin wrote 31 seconds ago: (permalink) FYI I'm running pre-hardy, updated as of 20080422, on a Lenovo Thinkpad T60p: 26d10014b09439dc5a8573c2a6f85b0a /lib/firmware/2.6.24-16-generic/iwlwifi-3945-1.ucode 26d10014b09439dc5a8573c2a6f85b0a /lib/firmware/2.6.24-16-generic/iwlwifi-3945.ucode which match iwlwifi-3945-ucode-2.14.1.5.tgz from http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/iwlwifi/downloads, and I'm still seeing [ 2218.395642] wlan0: No ProbeResp from current AP 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx - assume out of range [ 2219.196315] wlan0: No STA entry for own AP 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx [ 2222.988446] wlan0: No STA entry for own AP 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx which persist until I unload and reload the module. (I also have the problem that occasionally the reload entirely hangs the laptop, leaving just a blinking caps-lock light as an indication...) I do run across suspend and restore cycles, and move among a number of wireless domains (I always just force-reload the module after restoring from suspend; it sometimes doesn't need it, but the force reload is always faster :-) Only seems to happen with WPA; when I'm using WPA I'm also using 802.11a; lspci output: 03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02) Subsystem: Intel Corporation Unknown device 1010 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 217 Region 0: Memory at edf00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
2008-04-12
- About:
From Hello World to Guestbook (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Apr 12 14:59:20 2008
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/04/11/fromHelloWorldToGuestbook.html?disqus_reply=329071#comment-329071
- What:
- _Mark_ 15 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. Taking a quick look at xmlrpclib in python2.5, Transport.make_connection just uses httplib.HTTP - so worst case you could subclass Transport and replace make_connection with something that calls Fetch instead. (Or you could just try it, since you actually got in :-) and they might have already taken care of that...)
2008-04-07
- About:
whocalled.us
- When:
Mon Apr 7 15:46:18 2008
- Where:
http://whocalled.us/lookup/4077223532
- What:
- _Mark_ got this today, and about a week ago; stayed at a doubletree a month ago (which turns out to be a hilton property) which would definitely explain it
- About:
cjsmith: Yogurt
- When:
Mon Apr 7 15:39:40 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/796552.html?view=7744136#t7744136
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-04-07 07:38 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully A couple of the chains here started carrying Fage http://www.fageusa.com/ greek yogurt, and I like their "real" one (product name "Total") - at least in part because it's a very different texture - but it's also not pretending to be a diet food :-) Nothing added, it's sold with a "sidecar" of honey or strawberry jam. (Not that I think it's a *healthy* food per se, just that it isn't sweetened...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2008-04-05
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Canon Hacker's Development Kit
- When:
Sat Apr 5 17:47:18 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=135&p=770#p770
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Canon Hacker's Development Kit Postby eichin on Sat Apr 05, 2008 4:47 pm A recent discussion of camera internals pointed out that PTP http://www.gphoto.org/doc/remote/ actually provided a lot of real control in standard ways (along with vendor extensions) and that it might be possible to use it to * record X,Y position in panorama in an EXIF comment * shoot and know reliably when the shot is complete * do bracketing shots, allowing giga-HDR, on cameras that don't have automatic exposure bracketing already * alternate between manual and auto focus (or exposure) to get alternate views of a given frame, for later manual selection This needs a reasonable USB stack, so it's the kind of thing you'd prototype with a gumstix or eeepc attached to the gigapan (but a gumstix would certainly fit inside the current case :-) ) eichin
2008-04-04
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - FIRMWARE WISHLIST
- When:
Fri Apr 4 19:38:15 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=56&p=763#p763
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: FIRMWARE WISHLIST Postby eichin on Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:38 pm Hah, yeah, a timeout would be the easy way to do that - my thought for that case was an IR remote or something like that, but that adds a lot of complexity (though it could let you remote-point the camera too... at which point you also want the laser pointer collinear with the lens :-) eichin
2008-04-03
- About:
cjsmith: Motorola's new phone
- When:
Thu Apr 3 02:33:49 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/795941.html?view=7728165#t7728165
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-04-03 06:32 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully So they're still 10 years behind? :-) (Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997, James Bond's taser-phone [that also remote-controls his BMW and has a lock-pick in the antenna] is an Ericsson.) (Reply to this
2008-04-02
- About:
_opus_: And if your curiosity's satisfied...
- When:
Wed Apr 2 14:06:35 2008
- Where:
http://users.livejournal.com/_opus_/14040.html?view=80344#t80344
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-04-02 06:06 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > Dr. Sears, not Sears and Roebuck. naw, the kid clearly needs Baby's First Power Tools :-)
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Annotation / Tour / Gallery
- When:
Wed Apr 2 00:15:09 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=129&p=735#p735
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Annotation / Tour / Gallery Postby eichin on Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:14 pm Some thoughts: * portals - some way of tagging a location in a gigapan so you can fly through one into another * common locations - be able to browse one, then switch to the "same" location in another (for example, to show seasonal change) * (much simpler) sequences of snapshots - with adjustable timing and large (slide-presentation-like) captions to "talk" about each snapshot (or audio clips, but I'd never use that :-) ) I'm mostly thinking about the kind of things I sometimes do with normal photographs - we don't yet have a way to take large gigapans quickly enough to capture "action" on a personal scale, but http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=4087 is an example of one I expect to reproduce at least roughly-similarly (I can reproduce the camera position to within a couple of inches http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/2376482430/ , the left edge to less than a degree (there's a visible flagpole I used as a reference), and the top edge to within about five degrees, and can then just "count out" the same dimensions) at least once a month this year - maybe more often, but it took * half an hour to shoot (33m44s on the camera including one brief backtrack, not counting setup but that's ok) * several hours (some of "overnight") to cook, on a modbook * several hours (a good chunk of the "day" while I was at work) to upload from home DSL * some fairly lucky weather conditions to even be able to try :-) Being able to transition through the year would be pretty cool. eichin
2008-04-01
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Mac stitcher wishlist
- When:
Tue Apr 1 15:24:29 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=128&p=733#p733
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Mac stitcher wishlist Postby eichin on Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:24 pm randy wrote:- right button drag up and down for computers which have it I thought I'd tried this and it failed - turns out that right button isn't reliable on my wacom stylus if I press it too hard, so the interface wasn't working because the modbook wasn't seeing the right button at all. Not knowing it was *supposed* to do anything I didn't pursue it further - so consider this a request for some in-viewer documentation (maybe some text in the wasted space in the bottom margin of the viewer.) One big usability advantage the gigapan.org interface has is that it has affordances - you actually get a visible cue that there's an interface you can manipulate... Also, once I got this, it exposed an actual bug: if you open a gigapan, view it, open another smaller gigapan, view it (in the same window, which is just a basic "mac apps don't do that" bug) and zoom out... you see a black border, and then leftover frames from the previous gigapan. Harmless but a little strange :-) (It would be nice if Open Recent worked, too...) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Mac stitcher wishlist
- When:
Mon Mar 31 23:52:25 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=128#p731
- What:
- Top * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: Mac stitcher wishlist Postby eichin on Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:47 pm I couldn't find a way to make it zoom, only pan-on-sphere, so it wasn't particularly useful. eichin
2008-03-31
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - website feature wish-list
- When:
Mon Mar 31 01:52:26 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=95&p=729#p729
- What:
- * Edit post * Delete post * Report this post * Reply with quote Re: website feature wish-list Postby eichin on Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:52 am Just a minor one, for the previewer flash app itself: an option to move the navigation controls over to the right? (I'm probably the only one having this problem, but I'm using a modbook - I'd expect TabletPC users to have the same issue - I'm right handed, so my hand basically blocks the entire image while I'm manipulating the controls :-) (of course, google maps etc. don't support this either - still, if noone knows about it it can't get fixed :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Mac stitcher wishlist
- When:
Mon Mar 31 01:41:55 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=128
- What:
- Mac stitcher wishlist Postby eichin on Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:41 am Just some things to make it more mac-app-like that I've run across in the last couple of weeks of use.. I haven't checked these against the experimental version of the stitcher yet, though. * Use Keychain to store the login info, instead of having to retype it all the time (Yes, I'm one of the few to actually use a modbook, which ends up making me more sensitive than I'd otherwise be to having to type things once, let alone twice... but really, everything else uses keychain, so it's probably just a matter of grabbing some sample code) * Actually make the "now open gigapan.org/..." url at least selectable though actually clickable (or even just open it?) would be good too (Dropping a weblink with the same name as the gigapan itself would also make it obvious which gigapans had actually been uploaded...) * Export a TIFF alongside the other data automatically, or at least fill in the name by default so it matches (I realize that some are too big for tiff, "do the right thing" there :-) A button to directly open it would be nice too, since I need to look at it every time to decide about uploading it, and tiff->preview is the only choice * (not actually mac-specific) Have a native browser! Or at least a fake local web server to run the gigapan.org flash viewer locally, but there's a lot more potential for smoothness and speed in something that uses the modern mac APIs * Get an icon :-) if for no other reason than to distinguish the stitcher from the standalone uploader... or are you saving that for 1.0? :D * A pre-upload info page with size in gigapixels (I seem to recall a request to upload panoramas of primarily 0.5 gigapixel or larger, though I just checked my copy of the beta "promises" page and it doesn't actually ask for that, just 2 per week?) and other info - especially if there's merge-quality output from the stitcher that might be useful in deciding not to post a given image... (I'm sure there's a long list of things actually being worked on, too; this is just feedback on the *visible* issues - algorithmic work on the stitcher is probably more important than any of these...) eichin
2008-03-30
- About:
Are you using Firefox 3? (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Mar 29 20:24:10 2008
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/03/28/areYouUsingFirefox3.html
- What:
- * Permalink _Mark_ 20 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. I'm using it because (1) a lot of developers at PyCon2008 mentioned their use of it (2) 3.0b4 is the default browser in the current Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) beta (more for pyxpcom than web browsing, though it seems to handle that fine.) reply
2008-03-29
- About:
A digital camera designed for bloggers? (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Mar 29 19:28:27 2008
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/03/29/aDigitalCameraDesignedForB.html
- What:
- * o ^ o v o Permalink _Mark_ 17 minutes ago 1 point Please login to rate. The eye.fi doesn't actually help, unless you take all your pictures near the same access point. (It's amazing that the little 16-bit RISC memory controller chip even has enough CPU to do that :-) Concord (a polaroid brand, I think?) made a bluetooth camera in their EyeQ line a few years back, but I don't know if they ever got past 3mp and no optical zoom (ie. "no better than a phonecam".) Doesn't look like they still make them, either. reply
2008-03-25
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - auto focus or multiple takes w/ 2 different focus distances
- When:
Tue Mar 25 02:22:11 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=119&p=685#p685
- What:
- Re: auto focus or multiple takes w/ 2 different focus distances Postby eichin on Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:21 am I'm using the Canon SX100IS and the autofocus is fast enough that I leave it on by default (also, manual exposure and manual aperture are a lot easier to set and adjust on that camera.) The Buckingham Fountain is probably the one picture of mine where it really *matters* (the closest point is a plaque "at my feet", and the farthest is some trees that are at least 200ft away) but all of the ones I've posted have been taken that way. eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Tue Mar 25 02:07:21 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=643#p643
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:10 pm Another day of shooting; another set of servo failures. First try, no problems; 30-picture panorama on the back porch, straight out of the house (ie. unit warm, batteries idle.) Carried it outside for a while (in 45F-50F weather) then set it up for another run - and it ran backwards again. Did the power off/move the arm/power on/shoot again cycle 3 times, and then it was running forward again; took two 60-image panoramas with no misfires. At the end, battery status was "7.3V Good". The failures were consistently rotating the white bit into the frame, instead of into the lever arm. The "back up and re-try" feature is very useful for this; also the fact that I can power-cycle it mid-panorama and have it continue where it left off. eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Replacement button pusher?
- When:
Tue Mar 25 02:06:40 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=115&p=642#p642
- What:
- Re: Replacement button pusher? Postby eichin on Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:39 pm I found mine (but having some extras will be useful.) After wrangling with it a bit to get it in, I'm not actually sure how it ever came out :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Tue Mar 25 02:01:59 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=665#p665
- What:
- As I think I mentioned in another thread - the gigapan is solidly built, perhaps even overbuilt (but then, if it really was designed for children to use (it's succeeded there, I just don't know if that was a specific design point) then it really isn't *possible* to overbuild :-) ) and I certainly don't coddle mine. The first shot wasn't even on a tripod; the transport was in the PyCon2008 carrybag, entirely unpadded, just to provide it with handles; it sat on the seat of a car for most of the transport. The batch of failures came after mounting it on a tripod, where it sat while I power-cycled it until I was able to take this http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=3871 shot once it started working at all. I'm assuming that the primary value in reporting these problems is to say "back to the drawing board, guys" and come up with a better trigger design in a later revision. (Or recognize that the only cameras worth using on this version are Canons anyway and go with electronic triggering :-)
2008-03-21
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Replacement button pusher?
- When:
Fri Mar 21 15:39:52 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=115
- What:
- Replacement button pusher? Postby eichin on Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:01 am After a fair amount of travel and showing off the gigapan, the button that pushes shutter release has come unscrewed and disappeared. l can rig something easily enough, but do people here have suggestions for things that work particularly well? eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - "alignment aborted" and screen lock?
- When:
Fri Mar 21 15:39:14 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=113&p=626#p626
- What:
- Re: "alignment aborted" and screen lock? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:50 pm Thanks. That panorama did eventually align and merge correctly and I am uploading it now. eichin
2008-03-20
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Photo batching using time hints?
- When:
Thu Mar 20 18:25:44 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=114
- What:
- Photo batching using time hints? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:25 pm The scenario: I go out with the gigapan, mounted camera, 4G of flash... and take a number of panoramas. Later, I dismantle the setup to get at the card and load it into a computer to run the stitcher. The problem: I need to manually select from a thousand or so pictures to break them up into batches. (Setting the column size in the viewer is very helpful for this... but it's still a fair bit of work...) The possible solution: (this could be a standalone tool, or part of the viewer stage) Machine-shot panorama pictures are by default 1.7 seconds apart. Even some of the unusually experimental ones are maybe 10 seconds per shot, and this is trying to help the normal case. Just look at the image timestamps, and "cluster" images that are taken with gaps of less than 15 seconds between them, and make them pickable; with that, I could pretty easily just "add images" the full card, delete the batches that aren't the one I'm trying to handle, leaving just the current set to pick and choose from individually. I may try to prototype this with some standalone code to put "apparent sets" of images into directories from the shell, but it seems like a visual sort of thing in the end... eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Stitcher input bug with Ink(inkwell)
- When:
Thu Mar 20 18:18:11 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=112&p=621#p621
- What:
- Re: Stitcher input bug with Ink(inkwell) Postby eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:17 pm I failed to find one last time I looked (under 10.3) but I'll ask around. http://developer.apple.com/documentatio ... ion_3.html suggests that it really does just send keyDown events when it falls back for apps that don't know about ink (which is presumably most of them :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - "alignment aborted" and screen lock?
- When:
Thu Mar 20 17:14:59 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=113
- What:
- "alignment aborted" and screen lock? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:14 pm I was running a 200+ image stitch, 0.3.1541, locked the screen and let it run (the fan noise made it clear it was still running :-) I unlocked the screen and got an "alignment aborted" popup (with no further detail, just an OK.) Going back to select images, hitting Done, and letting it run a bit (10% maybe, enough to get the fan going again) and locking/unlocking worked fine, though. Any ideas what "alignment aborted" can actually be? (Say, a focus problem that led me to hitting return and having the cancel button trigger? if that's possible, consider this a request for an "are you sure" dialog (with the traditional default focus on "no, keep going") on the cancel button... eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Stitcher input bug with Ink(inkwell)
- When:
Thu Mar 20 17:07:02 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=112
- What:
- Stitcher input bug with Ink(inkwell) Postby 30eichin on Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:06 pm 10.5 (9A3115a, not 10.5.2 yet), stitcher 0.3.1541 - filling in the entry fields using Ink (ie. a wacom tablet, with osx native handwriting recognition turned on) all of the characters get turned into lower case "a". (This is not a recognition failure, it actually recognizes printing just fine in other apps, I'm assuming it's some sort of input bug...) 31eichin
2008-03-14
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Handle!
- When:
Fri Mar 14 19:41:29 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=107
- What:
- Handle! Postby eichin on Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:41 pm I've seen the thread on (quite nice, actually) backpacks with foam linings to coddle the gigapan. I just spent an afternoon dragging it around the Chicago Lakeshore, and Museum Campus, and I think what it needs is a *handle* :-) Or at least some places to attach shoulder straps. It's not actually fragile, nor is the consumer camera attached to it (especially when both are turned off.) (Shorter term, maybe some grip foam on the corners where I find myself holding it, but really it needs a handle :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Shooting without a tripod
- When:
Fri Mar 14 00:23:28 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=106
- What:
- Shooting without a tripod Postby eichin on Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:22 pm I use a quickrelease head to mount the gigapan on my Cullman Magic 2 collapsible tripod. The quickrelease "foot" is a 1.25 inch square block of plastic. Turns out that this is plenty to keep the gigapan stable when set directly down onto a concrete bridge railing, without scratching up the markings on the servo base [though I guess those markings are just duplicates of the ones for aligning the camera, and don't actually matter?] Given the other locations I shot today, I wouldn't take the gigapan out without a tripod in general (and it weighs less than the gigapan does anyhow :-), but it saves a step some of the time. eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Fri Mar 14 00:09:49 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=563#p563
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:09 pm (and just to make it completely clear, I was *really* happy with the performance once it got unwedged; even got to tell a couple of passersby about it, while it was shooting the 292-image one, it just kept ticking along, and as far as I can tell it didn't miss a shot. It'll be next week some time before I can actually try stitching it, I only brought the EEEpc with me :-) eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Thu Mar 13 20:06:02 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=560#p560
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:05 pm I've had another button pusher servo failure; turning off the unit, prying the white bar away from the wall (which is *hard*) and powering back up let me go on and shoot a 292 picture panorama (chicago skyline) and a 200 picture one (close look at buckingham fountain, in millenium park on the lakeshore), plus a few little ones, all on NiMH batteries that said "7.9V GOOD". So that's more evidence that the servo can misbehave without batteries being the problem... eichin
2008-03-13
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Alternative upload paths?
- When:
Wed Mar 12 20:14:06 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=91&p=553#p553
- What:
- Re: Alternative upload paths? Postby eichin on Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:13 pm That looks very nice, thanks! I'll poke at it while I'm off at Pycon. eichin
2008-03-12
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Tue Mar 11 22:56:05 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=542#p542
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:55 pm eichin wrote: however, I'll try swapping out the brand new fresh alkalines for brand new freshly charged NiMH batteries and see if they make a difference. I did *two* things at the same time (bad diagnostician!) namely I pushed the white arm until it started out actually touching the linkage, instead of the frame, and I swapped in the NiMH batteries (reading: "7.9V GOOD".) This time I ran through a 3x5 and it actually pressed the trigger for every one! Thanks all, for the suggestions and additional information. So when we have sunlight again, I'll give it a try; looks like I'll get to take it to Chicago after all :-) eichin
2008-03-11
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Tue Mar 11 15:32:27 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=536#p536
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby 105eichin on Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:31 pm illah wrote:So the issue you describe of the pusher servo appears to spin backward happens on our gigapans too, and happens specifically when the batteries are low (and only at that time). That's the only problem I've see with 50+ gigapan units. Why this is how it fails I don't know for sure (charmed labs would have to guess). but I can guess! I bet that when voltages are low,the voltage sensing that decides when it's pushing hard on the cameras button has threshold that misbehave- that a "floor" is being violated and that the servo is sent on a negative mission. That's just a guess, mind you. We haven't seen any cause for this other than batteries heading for death (i.e. low voltage). As such, I do not have a good workaround apart from the obvious one you nailed right on, which is, fresh batteries! That's an interesting theory, but doesn't really explain it never working to begin with... however, I'll try swapping out the brand new fresh alkalines for brand new freshly charged NiMH betteries and see if they make a difference. (Given that it only works with a range of fairly small cameras anyway, I'm sort of surprised at the choice of design, something that pulls down on a lever could have a spring tensioner (and even a winder) and get free leverage, plus allow the use of cheaper/simpler servos (or even solenoids). But it looks from the other thread like there's sufficient info about the signalling to allow experiments, so maybe I'll try that later :-) 106eichin
2008-03-10
- About:
cjsmith: Lasagna
- When:
Mon Mar 10 14:41:36 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/792112.html?view=7657776#t7657776
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-03-10 06:41 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Note that in this case it was still savory - the chocolate served more like it does in a Mole' sauce. Also, "without meat or cheese ..." gives it away, linguistically: it's still a lasagne because it's defined in terms of those ingredients, if only by their absence - otherwise it's a "very wide fettucini alfredo" :-) I'm including, for example, ziti casserole in the same class of substitutions. (Had something last night called "Dessert Ravioli" - fried pastry pockets with molten chocolate and caramel inside. Served with ice cream because it would have been too sweet (!) without it. Mmmm.) Mostly what I'm getting at is that this really is a fundamental "element" of dinner-food-cooking, which is very amenable to changing any and all parameters - it's a "safe" space to explore :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
cjsmith: Lasagna
- When:
Mon Mar 10 02:06:01 2008
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/792112.html?view=7651888#t7651888
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-03-10 06:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully > It's going to look like pizza. You say that as if it were a *bad* thing :-) The thing with lasagne, is that it's a particular instance of a general class of "yummy things with pasta + sauce + cheese + meat". It's all refinements from there; sauces, different pastas, cheeses... for the last chocolate party, we made a fairly generic lasagne (a bunch of ground beef, ricotta, parmesan) with a normal red sauce... to which we added, mmm, 2 or 3 oz melted dark chocolate to 32 oz of red sauce, and a bunch of vietnamese cinnamon added to the chocolate. It was devoured :-) (and it was suggested that we add *more* spices next time.) (Reply to this)
2008-03-09
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Sun Mar 9 19:02:52 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=502#p502
- What:
- Re: button pusher servo running backwards? Postby 71eichin on Sun Mar 09, 2008 6:02 pm Yeah, saw those posts - fresh alkalines, battery status "good" 8.5V. (Also, to clarify, the arm does move, but in what appears to be the wrong direction (the long bit clunks up against the frame, instead of on the linkage) and does so 6 or 7 times (failing to trigger a shot each time) before giving the error. I suppose I should upload some video of it doing it :-) 72eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Sun Mar 9 18:29:16 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99&p=500#p500
- What:
- button pusher servo running backwards? Postby 30eichin on Sun Mar 09, 2008 1:47 pm Finally had some sunshine, went out to try to shoot a gigapan... it looks like the servo arm (the white bit directly connected to the motor) moves the wrong direction, it fails to move the trigger arm, and after a half dozen or so shots (panning and tilting quite successfully) I get "Button Pusher disconnected! Panorama paused"... Any obvious wire-swapping I should try? I'm hoping to take this with me on a trip this thursday, so I'd rather not round-trip it to Texas (I'm near Boston/MIT.) 31eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - button pusher servo running backwards?
- When:
Sun Mar 9 14:48:07 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99
- What:
- button pusher servo running backwards? Postby eichin on Sun Mar 09, 2008 1:47 pm Finally had some sunshine, went out to try to shoot a gigapan... it looks like the servo arm (the white bit directly connected to the motor) moves the wrong direction, it fails to move the trigger arm, and after a half dozen or so shots (panning and tilting quite successfully) I get "Button Pusher disconnected! Panorama paused"... Any obvious wire-swapping I should try? I'm hoping to take this with me on a trip this thursday, so I'd rather not round-trip it to Texas (I'm near Boston/MIT.) eichin
2008-03-08
- About:
Flickr: Discussing How do you use getWithGeoData with dates? in Flickr API
- When:
Sat Mar 8 18:52:12 2008
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157604068126762/#comment72157604076232781
- What:
- Mark Eichin Pro User says: I've also found the date filters to not work (working from my own Python api code.) I've also found the page-by-page support to not work, once you try to scale. However, I've yet to see any comments on these long-standing problems here from anyone actually working for flickr - the yahoo group gets more attention, you might try again there. Posted a moment ago. ( 106permalink | 107edit | 108delete )
2008-03-07
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Camera choice: Canon SX100 IS vs. Panasonic Lumix TZ3?
- When:
Fri Mar 7 12:03:34 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=92&p=489#p489
- What:
- Re: Camera choice: Canon SX100 IS vs. Panasonic Lumix TZ3? Postby eichin on Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:03 pm (based on some other comments, went with the SX100, though I'll try and borrow the TZ3 for comparison shots later on.) eichin
2008-03-06
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Linux Sticher?
- When:
Thu Mar 6 01:16:41 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=75&p=483#p483
- What:
- Re: Linux Sticher? Postby 91eichin on Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:16 am Amazon S3/EC2 is another possibility (both for hosted linux crunch and hosted big panorama data, and it would let you use bittorrent to distribute the panoramas themselves if I recall correctly.) What does the code look like now? (Have you figured out a particular license for it yet?) in particular, I haven't seen anything (in the user guide or here in the forums) that explains why it's different from hugin/autopano - does having mechanically well-aligned pictures let you avoid using SIFT, or something like that? 92eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Printing Gigapans
- When:
Thu Mar 6 01:06:24 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=88&p=482#p482
- What:
- Re: Printing Gigapans Postby 56eichin on Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:05 am A couple of online places used to do that - I did a panorama of my brother's wedding reception, by pivoting a Canon S200 on the top of a wine bottle at the head table (which was on a raised dais, and gave a nice view of the dance floor and surrounding tables) and then gave them a 6" x 60" print for the following Christmas. Only 0.009 gigapixel, this was 2001 after all, but it still printed quite nicely... 57eichin
2008-03-05
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Printing Gigapans
- When:
Tue Mar 4 19:19:49 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=88&p=465#p465
- What:
- Re: Printing Gigapans Postby 39eichin on Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:19 pm nice - is that their "indoor banner" option? (also, that's the dimensions of a large whiteboard - out of curiosity, where do you plan to hang it?) 40eichin
2008-03-04
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - E clip for mounting screw needed
- When:
Tue Mar 4 18:31:07 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=30&p=463#p463
- What:
- Re: E clip for mounting screw needed Postby 84eichin on Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:30 pm piconut wrote: in general it's not good to have magnets around electronics Magnets almost never have any effect on electronics - drives, sure, and in this case the *motors* might be impacted by a strong enough magnet in the wrong place. But a magnet on the side of the case, or the battery door, is probably not near enough to the motors to be a problem. 85eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Alternative upload paths?
- When:
Tue Mar 4 16:38:28 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=91
- What:
- Alternative upload paths? Postby 30eichin on Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:37 pm While it makes sense to have uploading integrated into the stitcher - does the uploader actually do anything special? Or is there just an underlying http-post with ranges or something, for continuation? (The main reason I ask - I originally figured I'd have my modbook before I got my gigapan (ha ha yeah right) so the only proprietary-OS box I have is a PPC powerbook, and the stitcher/uploader apparently requires intel - not an unreasonable choice given mac support at all, of course, but that doesn't help me at all :-) but if the protocol is simple, I could just whip up a commandline tool...) 31eichin
- About:
GigaPan • View topic - Olympus SP550UZ (doesn't fit)
- When:
Tue Mar 4 16:11:59 2008
- Where:
http://forum.gigapan.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=90
- What:
- Olympus SP550UZ (doesn't fit) Postby 30eichin on Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:11 pm I tried hooking up my SP-550UZ (my daily-use camera, 18x zoom means "if I can see it, I can shoot it" :-) ) and I can't seem to make it fit. It wasn't on the latest survey, though it was on some of the earlier email - I assume that predated actually trying it? (I'll probably eventually try to come up with an adaptor, though the sane thing to do there is probably to replace the main brace and change the button-pusher to press the remote-shutter cable instead of trying to push the button on the camera, and I'll ask about alternate camera choices elsewhere - this is just to see if anyone else had tried the 550.) 31eichin
2008-02-23
- About:
recordersmith: Listening list
- When:
Sat Feb 23 03:56:41 2008
- Where:
http://recordersmith.livejournal.com/7250.html?view=35410#t35410
- What:
- CD recommendations [info]eichin 2008-02-23 08:55 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Wicked (broadway soundtrack, not particularly sophisticated but fun). (hmm, my other recent cds were a birdsong recognition disk, and Eve6, and I suspect you wouldn't be interested in either :-) (Reply to this)
2008-01-30
- About:
Bluetooth not working AT ALL on Thinkpad T61 - Page 2 - Ubuntu Forums
- When:
Tue Jan 29 23:21:52 2008
- Where:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4233829#post4233829
- What:
- eichin eichin is online now First Cup of Ubuntu Join Date: Jan 2008 Beans: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Re: Found something Quote: Originally Posted by MeanderingCode View Post run this with root privileges: Code: echo "enable"> /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth I couldn't do this simply by prefixing with sudo. I got a "permission denied" error. So i used su to become root on the command line, and it worked! I'm not sure why. If anyone knows, i'd be delighted to hear it. A common annoyance: when you run that with sudo, *your* shell tries to do the redirection, and then call sudo with that file open as standard output. This doesn't work (so it doesn't even try to run sudo, the "permission denied" is from your shell. An easy-to-remember workaround I picked up somewhere is to use "tee": Code: echo enable | sudo tee /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth (which worked for me just now - I came looking for this because I just noticed it not working, even though I don't think I needed it in Dapper - well, at least this default saves some battery life
2008-01-21
- About:
530nm330hz: Now this is tempting
- When:
Sun Jan 20 23:54:18 2008
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/169396.html?view=444596#t444596
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-01-21 04:53 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I adore mine - it fills the niche of "laptop for me, not for work" and I take it on photography road trips every weekend, among other use (I'm posting this from it, and most of my recent flickr uploads were captioned and posted from it.) Unlike the OLPC, the keyboard is *just* big enough for me to use comfortably... (Reply to this)
- About:
Why I purchased the Sony PRS-505 Reader » Thoughts by Ted
- When:
Sun Jan 20 21:30:51 2008
- Where:
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2008/01/19/why-i-purchased-the-sony-prs-505-reader/#comment-280
- What:
- _Mark_ Says: January 20th, 2008 at 9:16 pm I have one of the earlier sony’s (Librie’) but at the time, it was crash-prone, and the open source converter code was very 0.1. I should give that another try now that there are newer tools… the screen was very nice…
2008-01-12
- About:
recordersmith: Candlemaking
- When:
Fri Jan 11 23:21:47 2008
- Where:
http://recordersmith.livejournal.com/2067.html?view=16403#t16403
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-01-12 04:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This At the CIA, I saw a demo of a simple-to-build innoculation-tempering device, which consisted of a big metal salad bowl, a big pot, a large incandescent bulb, and a dimmer. Calibration was done by doing runs and marking the set points with a sharpie. Handled 5+ pounds of chocolate at a time, IIRC... I think they didn't end up using water at all (since you really don't want to have water around chocolate) but it seems like a similar problem, so maybe a home depot run would help :-) (Reply to this)
2008-01-03
- About:
530nm330hz: OK, so I'm a geek
- When:
Thu Jan 3 01:45:29 2008
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/164014.html?thread=431278#t431278
- What:
- [info]eichin 2008-01-03 06:44 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Someone on zephyr was complaining the NBC was 8 seconds behind. I just ran watch -n 0.2 date in an xterm, after making sure the laptop had good ntp sync :-) [*] credit to nelhage for suggesting "watch"; I *had* been running while true; do date; sleep 0.1; done instead :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-12-31
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images -
- When:
Sun Dec 30 19:37:32 2007
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/835181.html?view=6155885#t6155885
- What:
- 31st-Dec-2007 12:35 am (UTC) [info]eichin Huh, interesting. Humans need better debugging interfaces :-) * reply * parent * thread * link * delete * Track This
2007-12-30
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Weird Feature
- When:
Sat Dec 29 20:57:15 2007
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/124688.html?view=620560#t620560
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: December 30th, 2007 01:52 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) As I understand it, it's a microsoft-driven "sidekick" screen; they convinced/coerced some vendors into adding them, then failed to deliver on any particular *reason* to have them. (There's supposed to be some PDA-like apps for them, so you could see your schedule from outlook directly - which noone seems to want as an alternative to an *actual PDA*...) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images -
- When:
Sat Dec 29 20:37:53 2007
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/835181.html?view=6152813#t6152813
- What:
- 30th-Dec-2007 01:35 am (UTC) [info]eichin I want a ranged blood-sugar-level reader. Pocketable wand form. point, push the button, "Hey, dude, Science Says go eat something!" it would be helpful with so many of my friends. :-) * reply * thread * link * delete * Track This
2007-12-22
- About:
Macs are even more expensive than I thought (Scripting News)
- When:
Sat Dec 22 13:27:55 2007
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/12/22/macsAreEvenMoreExpensiveTh.html
- What:
- Mark Eichin —13 minutes ago with 1 point Please login to rate. Apple "care" and especially how they handle drives (namely, "any hint of other problems with the machine and it's your fault and the applecare doesn't apply") is why I didn't consider Apple when upgrading my 12" powerbook. Sad to see they haven't gotten better about it. _Mark_ reply
2007-12-18
- About:
530nm330hz: And half our children are scoring below the median on the SAT!
- When:
Tue Dec 18 02:37:58 2007
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/158096.html?view=415376#t415376
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-12-18 07:36 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This The question itself only samples behaviour... I put my name in to *every* new search engine :-) for someone like me, it's a test of the search engine as much as anything. (Intriguingly, a recent check of amazon book search not only found the expected references - but one example where the book included a screen shot of a web page which happenned to mention my name, "proving" that they're doing OCR for at least some books, rather than getting underlying text from the publisher...) (Reply to this)
- About:
jered: I won a Chumby!
- When:
Sun Dec 16 03:41:10 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/45440.html?thread=235904#t235904
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-12-16 08:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This It might be worth looking at gnash first, in order to find open source flash ecosystem bits - the version of gnash in debian etch actually runs as much flash as the chumby does (no relation, just that Flash Lite is only flash 6, and gnash didn't get past 6 until later.) So far my only chumby hacks have involved setting up cron jobs, though (unlike, for example, the FIC1973) I've found the out-of-the-box functionality quite useful. (Reply to this)
2007-12-11
- About:
Break That Warranty Sticker: ASUS Says It’s OK! < EeeUser.com
- When:
Tue Dec 11 02:31:23 2007
- Where:
http://www.eeeuser.com/2007/12/09/break-that-warranty-sticker-asus-says-its-ok/#comment-17380
- What:
- # _Mark_ wrote: So, anyone got a handy part number/description for the appropriate 1G upgrade? (preferably a newegg link :-) I can only run one of kphotoalbum, firefox, or akregator at a time with 512M, now that I have “real” data loaded up instead of just tests, so it’s time… Monday, December 10, 2007 at 2:47 am #
2007-12-03
- About:
Jesse - eichin, on the acquisition of LJ by SUP
- When:
Mon Dec 3 03:01:06 2007
- Where:
http://obra.livejournal.com/91443.html
- What:
- I think this makes a wonderful privacy-cautionary-tale example. 'Suppose your diary...was *bought* by the KGB?' --[info]eichin
2007-12-02
- About:
cjsmith: Kindle
- When:
Sat Dec 1 19:29:18 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/766317.html?view=7217773#t7217773
- What:
- [info]119eichin 2007-12-02 12:27 am UTC (120link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully actually the reason the older sony eink readers had keyboards *was* for highlighting, or at least bookmark-notes. (They also had "print to eink" - the reader couldn't handle anything particularly advanced, but there was a print driver that would cook anything you could print down to ebook format. windows-only, which was funny because the box itself was a somewhat-hackable linux box...) (The kindle, on the other hand, has a keyboard so that you can shop for more books over the built-in amazon-funded EVDO connection... really, market-wise it's a direct port of the iPod model, to books, except for the "rip your existing collection" part :-) As for free stuff, as I understand it Amazon does have a free service to convert a document, send you back the converted form, and let you upload it via USB. They also have a for-pay service where you send them a document and they convert it and send it over-the-air to your kindle directly; similarly you can get some online sources that way (probably how the NYTimes got on there.) There are also people already selling converted Gutenberg books for $1 or so, because there's always a market... Early adopter type that I am, the kindle doesn't interest me, not so much because of the DRM, but because I can't sanely feed it my existing library :-) However, I'm likely to get one for my mom, simply because she reads a lot the sort of pop/mass market books that amazon will *have* for this... and because she doesn't have to buy (rarely available) "large print" editions, she can just crank up the font size. (It also looks like they don't have any cookbooks for it yet :-) (123Reply to this)(124Parent)
2007-11-30
- About:
rfrench: Okay, this is kind of...
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:36:08 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/166519.html?view=986743#t986743
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-30 06:08 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My understanding is they do bulk not-so-good software recognition and then cheap-human cleanup (plus you can go in and tweak recognition yourself, but that requires having the "replay message from website" bit actually work, which I never managed.) ISTR it came up because people questioned the privacy issues and the response was that they used similar standards to those used for medical transcription... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: Spam finally killed me
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:34:28 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/765495.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-30 04:38 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I'll second that - mail at thok had gotten useless so I outsourced it to fastmail.fm, and it's useful again. (I also use gmail, but only for things like public mailing lists where the ads they come up with are actively interesting... but wow have they done a good job with spam, mostly by harnessing their own users :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
rfrench: Okay, this is kind of...
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:32:45 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/166519.html?view=985719#t985719
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-30 04:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I used it from my cellphone for a couple of weeks, and concluded that it "wasn't really there yet" as far as voice recognition goes, even with their apparently-human-assisted transcription. (I suppose without real-time readback from text, *nothing* is ever going to really cut it...) (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
rfrench: Roooomba
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:31:25 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/165384.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-30 04:27 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Get a Kill-a-watt (cheap but reasonably built plug-in ammeter/cumulative watt-meter) if you're starting to care about detail-level power use; things like the idle power consumption of that TV might be more of an issue, but if you don't have to guess... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)
- About:
Wifi at BDL
- When:
Fri Nov 30 01:25:24 2007
- Where:
http://norman.walsh.name/2004/11/08/bdlWifi
- What:
- I was at BDL picking up a friend last night... there was solid coverage in terminal A, little signs, and the web page mentions it. What they didn't have was *routing*. I found a couple of access points with login pages, but they didn't seem to have proxies set up or anything (and if I can't ssh out, "it's not net"...) I do like BDL and MHT, they're big enough to be real but small enough to not feel industrial, and they seem to have *much* more polite security people than Boston ever does. It just would have been nice if the wifi had actually worked. It was late enough that there wasn't really anyone around to complain to, though that also meant there weren't really any other potential users either... Posted by Mark Eichin on 24 Nov 2007 @ 11:57p UTC [link]
2007-11-22
- About:
james_nicoll: Please explain
- When:
Thu Nov 22 02:01:26 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1071748.html?page=2#comments
- What:
- Not for Us, but... [info]eichin 2007-11-22 07:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Someone who buys a lot of pop fiction, and likes the idea of (1) saving shelf space (2) not having to buy "large print" editions, and buys most material from amazon anyway, would find it quite attractive. (I have at least one specific person in mind.) It's very much not a universal product, and also has some anti-appeal to the usual early-adopter types, but perhaps they will get away with skipping that audience... (A friend points out that there are no cookbooks available for it yet either.) (Reply to this)
2007-11-20
- About:
530nm330hz: Image resizing
- When:
Tue Nov 20 01:17:45 2007
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/146592.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-20 06:15 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This There's already a GIMP plugin (Adobe hired the guy who came up with it away from Mitsubishi labs, too, so everyone's expecting it to show up in photoshop...) (Reply to this)
2007-11-19
- About:
cjsmith: Twelve lunches
- When:
Sun Nov 18 23:06:01 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/759270.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-19 04:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully And that (people being human to each other) doesn't make the news. Sad really. (Reply to this)(Parent
- About:
Bug #21993 in gnome-cups-manager (Ubuntu): “When Print-server not found on network, cups-manager crashes”
- When:
Sun Nov 18 19:35:08 2007
- Where:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-cups-manager/+bug/21993
- What:
- Mark Eichin wrote 4 seconds ago: (permalink) I see the problem in a new install of 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon as well - ServerName points to a printserver at work, I'm at home, I try to print, and it hangs (completely, no X updates at all) for a long time (more than 5 minutes) but then comes up with a print dialog that only lists postscript/default [which is fine, it's the delay that's the problem...] lsof shows the IPP connection in SYN_SENT (ie. it's not getting connection refused, it's getting nothing at all, as in a down machine or firewall. A misconfigured client.conf could probably do that too...) After printing to file it appears that it is trying to contact the server again, leading to a similar hang.
2007-11-16
- About:
james_nicoll: The very best of British security
- When:
Fri Nov 16 00:41:27 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1066010.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-16 05:40 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Or a bic pen. (the empty plastic cylinder, and something to bang with.) Granted, this only become *common* knowledge in the last couple of years - it's really just a reminder that mechanical security "falls" over time just like computer security does... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-11-12
- About:
Flickr: Discussing "Filesize was zero" problem in Flickr API
- When:
Mon Nov 12 02:25:41 2007
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157603065250905/#comment72157603102868514
- What:
- view photos Mark Eichin Pro User says: When I did my python uploader, I noticed that flickr's mime parser was a lot pickier than the rfcs might lead you to expect. In particular, I needed to explicitly give a content-type in each section (and it needed to be correct for photo, ie. image/jpeg, though text/plain was fine for the others.) (A bigger problem was that it *had* to have a filename= entry, but you've *got* that...) Of course, this doesn't explain it having worked before and not now. Also, I POST to www.flickr.com, not api.flickr.com, don't know if that matters... www.flickr.com/services/api/upload.example.html has some raw output of an example that I found useful at the time. (Also: would love to get ahold of your elisp code; my python code is at www.thok.org/intranet/python/exif/index.html and the flickr_post.py there in particular.) Posted a moment ago. ( permalink | edit | delete )
- About:
cjsmith: Happy twenty years
- When:
Mon Nov 12 01:27:15 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/753729.html?view=7083073#t7083073
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-12 06:26 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Comment Posted Successfully Congratulations, and Happy Anniversary! (from someone else in that backrub chain :-) (Reply to this)
- About:
Something broke in FlickrLand? (Scripting News)
- When:
Mon Nov 12 01:18:15 2007
- Where:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/11/09/somethingBrokeInFlickrland.html
- What:
- _Mark_ —1 hour ago with 1 point Please login to rate. I happenned to see this in the flickr group about the API - apparently the old API leaked "original" pictures, and the change was the way they fixed that; you get an additional token if you have permission to see the original pictures. reply
2007-11-05
- About:
so glad to finally be failing - a new photo project
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:50:30 2007
- Where:
http://crs.livejournal.com/429095.html?view=1135143#t1135143
- What:
- [info]eichin wrote: Nov. 2nd, 2007 02:05 am (UTC) instead of a bulky monopod that you're stuck with for the rest of the day, consider * one of those accordian-fold rulers * a chunk of string with a weight ("a rock to wind a string around" :-) to just hang from the camera, much easier to pocket... Link | Reply | Delete | Track This
- About:
yakshaver: my little (mail-filtering) pony...
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:49:35 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/85537.html?view=191265#t191265
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-02 07:47 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This sounds like you could just use python's imaplib... there's a hack (in the top level of my athena homedir, I think) to get imaplib to run imtest underneath so you can trivially do the authentication needed for MIT's mailstore specifically... (Reply to this)
- About:
cjsmith: That interests thingy
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:48:39 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/751411.html?view=7027251#t7027251
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-11-02 07:38 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Pretty sure John Pitrelli successfully reverse engineered it; I haven't been in touch at all in ages, but he's on linkedin at least... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
studiofoglio: Yes, yes, as you may well have noticed,
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:47:51 2007
- Where:
http://studiofoglio.livejournal.com/11016.html?view=83464#t83464
- What:
- Buck... in color?! [info]eichin 2007-11-03 06:32 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I was excited when the Gallimaufry came out again, a few years ago, so I could finally get my own set (having merely read friends copies the first time around.) I was really excited when the story finished... I thought it was really cool when Buck Godot started running on the web site, so I could (1) add it to my daily online reading (2) point friends at it... And then the Gallimaufry started up. Color covers, sure... but I figured it would go back to black and white. And it *didn't*. As someone who once considered going as far as to get a second full set just to color them, even badly... wow! and yay! I take it this means that a color print edition is on the way? How soon? Or is the color web-only? (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
Flickr: Discussing Machine tags in Flickr API
- When:
Sun Nov 4 22:46:45 2007
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157594497877875/#comment72157602889612704
- What:
- Mark Eichin Pro User says: (stale, but since it's still open) The key is disambiguation - humans are good at it, machines aren't. In your example, "dlh" by itself, is pretty likely to be an airport, but the one near me is BED - if I'm looking for pictures of hanscom field (BEDford, MA) I will *never* find them with a search for bed. aero:airport=bed, though, is pretty clear. Not everything is susceptible to that kind of clarification - but baby steps, going after the things that *are*, is still worthwhile :-) Posted 3 days ago. ( permalink | edit | delete )
2007-10-22
- About:
yakshaver: Day of stuff sucking
- When:
Sun Oct 21 22:59:19 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/84333.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-22 02:31 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This if the point&shoot is an olympus, I learned first-hand that they've got decent out-of-warrantee service via their facility in New Jersey; worth getting a quote, though there's bound to be a newer model of whatever it is by now :-) The old canon's are kind of fragile that way but there are a couple of repairable bits there too... (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
jered: I know this is tragic but...
- When:
Sun Oct 21 22:24:38 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/44435.html
- What:
- [info]190eichin 2007-10-22 02:24 am UTC (191link) DeleteTrack This Insert conspiracy theory here (for example, monkeys are notably easy to *train*, right?) (194Reply to this)
2007-10-14
- About:
james_nicoll: Will [Name of Probe] cause [Name of Gas Giant] to Turn into a Star!!!!!????
- When:
Sat Oct 13 23:41:03 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1019176.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-14 03:32 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I was going to ask "if SL-9 didn't do it, why would people think some spindly pile of electronics could" but I forgot about the magic word... (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
yakshaver: Blogging by candlelight
- When:
Sat Oct 13 22:32:42 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/82352.html?view=177584#t177584
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-14 02:24 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This It appeared (from watching the power outages and work during the construction of the condos in the old plastic-picture-frame-factory building near Davis) that Somerville had layers of power distribution, based on how different areas got denser over time and needed more power brought in. I suspect that explains the distribution of outage, at least somewhat. Also: I picked up "utility drawer in the kitchen" as concept, and a place for candles, from my mom too :-) Though mostly I have LED flashlights around, there's a big fat slow-burning candle in there (from a hardware store)... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-10-10
- About:
cjsmith: Human oddities
- When:
Wed Oct 10 00:16:47 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/744088.html?view=6938008#t6938008
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-10 03:46 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Oh god, aqua net was such amazingly wretched stuff. Just thinking about it is making my eyes water, and it's been at least twenty years... the web thinks it is still on the market, I'd assumed it went away with a lot of the other toxic aerosols in the early 90s. (It brings back childhood memories, too. But not *good* ones.) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-10-05
- About:
jered: OLPC
- When:
Fri Oct 5 16:48:00 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43539.html?view=230419#t230419
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-05 08:47 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > So you've used it? What do you think of it, in general? I think the 2.0 will be interesting :-) I think the overall effort is a good inspiration to get people thinking about how little hardware you actually need to do something useful and not bloated. I also think it needs rather more software work to not feel underpowered - moore's law has made software, and most programmers, fat-and-lazy, and now there's a reason not to be - but that work is still underway. (Think of how much "waste" there is in something like google maps, on the client side - because making it easy is hugely valuable, and there's vast amounts of excess computing power available to the end user. Now think about how you'd do an app like that to actually perform on an XO...) It's a solid chunk of hardware; it brings to mind the eMate. The mesh networking is also interesting in a subversive (rather than practical) sort of way. As for charging, there are solar charging stations at some schools, but no builtin human powered chargers; they appear to not actually be aiming that low (any more) in terms of target environment... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
jered: OLPC
- When:
Fri Oct 5 16:26:23 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43539.html?view=230163#t230163
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-05 08:25 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This bitfrost is novel, sure - but I didn't think it actually worked yet :-) ALT-F3 gets me a login prompt and a root shell where I can wander around a completely normal linux box, in the last developer rev I saw, though I don't know how much of that gets locked down in what they're actually shipping. (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Two Points of Betrayal
- When:
Fri Oct 5 01:26:00 2007
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/118064.html
- What:
- Thread started by _Mark_ eichin From: [info]eichin Date: October 5th, 2007 05:25 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) Also DD's iced tea "plain" seems to have meant "only sugar syrup and lemon" often enough that I have learned to be very clear about *unsweetened*, and watch them make it. (Worse, though, is discovering on a just-before-closing wendy's drivethrough run that through a remote microphone, "ice tea" and "Hi-C" are confusable...) (Reply to this) (Thread)
- About:
jered: OLPC
- When:
Fri Oct 5 00:59:48 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43539.html?view=228371#t228371
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-05 04:59 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Except for the not actually having a handcrank part. squidlabs did a pullcord-charger but that hasn't made it past prototype stage yet. Also, if you have average sized adult hands, and can comfortably use a normal PC keyboard... this is probably not what you're looking for - see http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=olpc&w=35034350551%40N01 and especially http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/1157269845/ for an idea of just how *tiny* that keyboard is... yes, that's a normal US dollar bill... That said it is solid, and an interesting thing to have designed... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
jered: OLPC
- When:
Fri Oct 5 00:59:40 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43539.html?view=228371#t228371
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-05 04:53 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This umm, linux isn't that weird :-) Sugar is a UI layer, and you can install it on a normal machine easily enough... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-10-03
- About:
jered: Feedback on your candidate
- When:
Tue Oct 2 22:35:00 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/43280.html?view=226576#t226576
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-10-03 02:30 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This It's sometimes useful to get a copy of the resume from the candidate themselves, if they get that far, just to see how it compares to what the recruiter sent you :-) That said, we get names up front, and we spend time with the recruiter up front making sure they "get" what we're looking for (but we only work with one to three engineering recruiters at a time...) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-10-02
- About:
brad's life - Seam Carving
- When:
Tue Oct 2 01:04:33 2007
- Where:
http://brad.livejournal.com/2342446.html?view=14110510#t14110510
- What:
- [User Picture] From: [info]eichin 2007-10-02 05:03 am (UTC) and there's already a GIMP plugin... Delete Track This (Link) http://liquidrescale.wikidot.com/ (haven't tried it myself.) (Reply to this)
2007-09-25
- About:
cjsmith: Driving
- When:
Tue Sep 25 00:23:16 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/739384.html?view=6838840#t6838840
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-09-25 04:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My take on it is that Rules are mainly helpful for making traffic flow efficiently, but if you're in enough congestion for that to matter, you'd better be in Look mode. Maybe that's just from driving in Boston; the Rules seem to mostly be a staring point relative to which people cheat. But it goes the other way too; some pointlessly friendly driver yielded to me at the BU bridge rotary a few weeks back... from the inner orbit of a two lane rotary, when I was coming in from Mem Drive, and there wasn't anything I could do but hope the driver figured it out before being overtaken by other traffic :-} (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-09-10
- About:
530nm330hz: NYT confirms: Boston is the Hub of the Universe
- When:
Sun Sep 9 23:12:57 2007
- Where:
http://530nm330hz.livejournal.com/120930.html?view=330338#t330338
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-09-10 01:03 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This unless they did an *entirely* different cover, the "making the cover" article on that page makes it pretty clear that this design was all the (MIT Media Lab) designer had time for... (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-08-25
- About:
Qualified Perceptions - Moral, er, Aesthetic Dilemma
- When:
Sat Aug 25 00:38:09 2007
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/115520.html
- What:
- eichin From: [info]eichin Date: August 25th, 2007 04:37 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) Delicious Library is *very* pretty, though it wasn't until I stopped Mac'ing that I found out how to use it to keep track of *where* books were (I don't remember, I just have some notes somewhere, sorry...) but in the end it pleased me that it was easy to move everything into LibraryThing.com (where "everything" is still woefully incomplete, I should finish collecting...) (Reply to this)
2007-08-22
- About:
Ted Tso - Thoughts about the Palm Foleo
- When:
Wed Aug 22 01:19:49 2007
- Where:
http://tytso.livejournal.com/30229.html?view=107029#t107029
- What:
- _Mark_[info]eichin on August 22nd, 2007 05:19 am (UTC) There seems to be a niche for the Foleo among people who have an IT-managed Treo now, and want something more, but still have restricted enough use cases (and limited enough computer skills) that IT doesn't want them to have a windows laptop that they'll need deloused once a month, and can be replaced with no effort. That could easily be a successful niche, but it's inherently not a blogger/early-adopter space :-) I just don't see the market among people who actually find laptops useful in the first place... this could change if it actually pushed the envelope far enough in some direction; for example, if it had 9 hours battery life, it could open up the niche of "charge it overnight with my phone; don't carry anything else during the day" - this is of course very non-linear, and 5 hours is a lot less than half way there. (Likewise it's not really 2.5lbs vs. 2.7lbs; it's 2.5lbs + brick + cord vs. 2.7lbs + brick + cord :-) I do have one potential personal use for one of these, but would probably have to write all the software from scratch - "flickr console" :-) I've tried to implement this with an old Archos and a foldable keyboard and made *some* progress - the concept is simple: the only time I don't want a laptop around is when I *don't want to do actual work* and that's every weekend when I'm off somewhere with my camera. After half a day of shooting, I have a gig of pictures and want to back them up (classic image tank... *or* foleo with cheap ($100) 8G CF card or two) and upload the best 10 at the next coffeeshop (needs a "real" screen for preview [archos, pda, imagetank all fail at this] and a "real" keyboard for captioning [archos and foleo only real options for this].) (Does *not* need photoshop; my personal version of this hobby involves taking pictures, not manipulating bits.) 5hr battery *might* suffice for this but it doesn't *sound* convincing which is more important than it should be) but maybe electrovaya will have an aesthetically well-matched battery slab someday... and still, it's an application mostly of interested to portability-obsessed dilettante nature photographers; the "more serious" will stick with the laptop, the "less serious" will wait until they get home :-) (Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Link)
2007-08-18
- About:
james_nicoll: Memory jog
- When:
Sat Aug 18 00:47:22 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/948125.html?view=13476253#t13476253
- What:
- stranger versions [info]eichin 2007-08-18 04:47 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Perhaps you'd find the Puppini Sisters version more accessible? Still somewhat high voices, but not screechy... (Reply to this)
2007-08-17
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Fri Aug 17 18:55:31 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?thread=3544675#t3544675
- What:
- Fri, Aug. 17th, 2007 10:53 pm (UTC) [info]eichin Another one (the big names are chiming in today...) http://bradfitz.com/social-graph-problem/ Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-08-16
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Thu Aug 16 03:11:43 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?thread=3543907#t3543907
- What:
- Thu, Aug. 16th, 2007 07:09 am (UTC) [info]eichin (this is not as edited as it should be, and probably has more aggressive a tone than the material deserves, and I apologize for that, but only weakly because I'm posting it anyway :-) > There was no business reason to write a Unixoid OS and give it away for free Sure there was. BSD came from academic funding, linux came from scandinavian socialism, gcc came from religious fervor but really *launched* when there was money behind it; X11 came more from cleverly *subverting* the moneyed interests while still getting them to drive it... for a more modern example, django came out of a real (but enlightened) newspaper that freed it later... Just because it *looks* like there was no business reason, doesn't mean they weren't there - it's just that the "initial spark" story usually plays better than the growth-and-maintenance one. Also, note that the "business case" comments aren't predicting - we're observing. Social networking apps are easier to get off the ground as singleton efforts now simply because there's such a huge pile of free software and cheap infrastructure to build them on - but you rarely get *two* people to work on something like this without common incentive - and really, "hey, he's figured out how to make money off of this" is a surprisingly effective lure from the "I'll just do my own, that's more fun anyway" side of the fence to the "I'll pitch in on that one over there" side... and this is something that needs a broad enough range of skills to pull off that a single person version is likely to just fail. (After all, the basic technical parts have been available for what, two years now, including LJ actually supporting openid?) The fact that the conditions have been ripe, and that the idea has been much talked about, and it hasn't happened yet, makes the business case example at least something to look at seriously - or to propose an alternative to :-) "programmers wanting such things" hasn't worked *yet* for this particular one, right? Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
- About:
brad's life - Python
- When:
Thu Aug 16 00:36:44 2007
- Where:
http://brad.livejournal.com/2337185.html?view=14002593#t14002593
- What:
- [User Picture] From: [info]eichin 2007-08-16 04:36 am (UTC) Text Processing in Python Delete Track This (Link) Back when I first ported myself from perl to python, Text Processing in Python seemed to help get my head out of regexp-space, in particular (I'd still start with diveintopython, and still use that on new employees, because it's aimed at people who are already programmers, just not of python.) A quick glance makes me think it's not particularly outdated, at least in that area. (Reply to this)
2007-08-15
- About:
xkcd » Blog Archive » Mirrorboard: A one-handed keyboard layout for the lazy
- When:
Wed Aug 15 01:37:02 2007
- Where:
http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/08/14/mirrorboard-a-one-handed-keyboard-layout-for-the-lazy/#comment-8152
- What:
- _Mark_ Says: August 15th, 2007 at 1:36 am A few people have questioned the problem of moving between keyboard and mouse. It turns out that not only is that motion a *major* efficiency hit, in one of the few large scale analyses of workplace injury among keyboard users, the one factor that related best to injury was mixed mouse-and-keyboard use (as opposed to just keyboard use by itself.) I don’t have the citation handy, but it’s in Raskin’s “The Humane Interface” and I did find it upstream at the time (it was done using an office worker’s union as a dataset, as I recall.) So yes, fixing the problem of *switching* from mouse to keyboard and back is worth a lot of hassle. (The Mattias keyboard had a great introductory manual, it got you started with some left-only words, then some right only ones, then alternating words, then alternating letters - it felt like a *very* efficient way to get your reflexes to kick in. The main problem I had is that while “my hands know where the letters are”, they’re not nearly so good about punctuation, and even though I’ve mostly gotten perl out of my life there’s still a lot of punctuation in code :-)
- About:
jered: SMS divert when unreachable?
- When:
Wed Aug 15 01:17:51 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/41942.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-08-15 05:13 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This you could contact spinvox and see if they want to treat it as an experiment :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-08-11
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Sat Aug 11 18:11:03 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?view=3527267#t3527267
- What:
- Sat, Aug. 11th, 2007 10:10 pm (UTC) [info]eichin As he points out at the end of the post - it's hard to monetize :-) It's user-interface heavy *and* pure-open-source which is a difficult corner to be in, unless there's enough motivation/pressure (LJ existing and being "good enough" has certainly kept my attention off the problem) it's going to be hard to get anywhere on it. Still, there's enough talk about it in enough places that actually doing something could get enough attention... Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Sat Aug 11 13:17:51 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?view=3526243#t3526243
- What:
- Sat, Aug. 11th, 2007 05:17 pm (UTC) [info]eichin Other people are talking about Decentralized Social Networking now too... Link Parent - Thread - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-08-09
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Thu Aug 9 00:31:26 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?view=3519587#t3519587
- What:
- Thu, Aug. 9th, 2007 04:15 am (UTC) [info]eichin There's a bunch of history for that kind of thing; most of it degenerated into fights about the power the ping-multiplexers got (especially when they got expensive to run and looked for funding and such...) It's been suggested that this is something Jabber/XMPP is suited for, but you still need servers for that (on the other hand, LJ includes a jabber server, so LJdist could too, and might actually be the right way to express that.) Thinking through the overhead involved... doing GET-based pings probably ends up cheaper :-) Also, it turns out that with proper use of ETAG/If-Modified-Since, rss-polling isn't *that* expensive (though it will be more expensive than what singleton-LJ does now which is purely internal.) Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-08-08
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Wed Aug 8 01:56:43 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html?view=3515747#t3515747
- What:
- Wed, Aug. 8th, 2007 05:56 am (UTC) [info]eichin I think the main reason LJ *has* a network effect (people come here because their friends already are) is the identity part, being able to get comments from "real people" instead of "the scum of the net". Being cheap-and-easy helps too - but I wouldn't be an LJ user at all if a friend of mine hadn't gone "friends-only" before the OpenID support existed. I've already got a half dozen other blogs, most of which had more features to start with. Once I was here, actually posting was as much laziness as anything :-) If that's not a unique point of view, it suggests that you can separate out "port my journal content elsewhere" from "identify myself to LJ to comment here", and from "having LJ people identify themselves to my site." The friends-page itself is just a featureless feed-aggregator from that perspective. If you can separate the concerns like that, you can more likely find resources to work on the piecewise - the overlap of people who "get" authentication with the people who actually like "users" has always been small and if you start out needing a volunteer who is comfortable in both camps you're in trouble :-) Link Thread - Delete - Track This - Reply
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech, lj] Distributing LJ
- When:
Wed Aug 8 01:39:38 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/504163.html
- What:
- Wed, Aug. 8th, 2007 05:38 am (UTC) [info]eichin re openid and kerberos: not really. OpenID only *carries* authentication from one site to another; Kerberos actually performs it. (Given that IE and Firefox (and maybe safari?) can do kerberized (GSSAPI) HTTP against mod_auth_krb, now, you could use kerberos to authenticate to your OpenID "provider", if you had your own...) Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-08-02
- About:
cjsmith: Becoming a veterinarian?
- When:
Thu Aug 2 00:01:01 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/732603.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-08-02 03:58 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I haven't seen her chime in here yet, but have you talked to ambar? she was taking lots of bio and what I thought were pre-vet courses, and I thought it was for more than just understanding what makes the horses tick :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-07-30
- About:
cjsmith: Boise
- When:
Mon Jul 30 02:22:39 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/731351.html?view=6678999#t6678999
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-30 06:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This A couple of my MIT friends have ended up in ABQ via differing paths, you may at least find it interesting. Unexpected downside: no outdoor housecats, due to predators... Is Lawrence KS on your list? Apparently one of the larger pagan communities in the midwest, plus it's "locally high-tech" - they had cable internet about the same time *Cambridge* did - ljworld.com is one of the newspapers, if you want to poke around a bit... (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: Notes to Self
- When:
Sun Jul 29 20:25:24 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/731099.html?view=6672347#t6672347
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-30 12:25 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This typically the drain from the washer goes out through the disposal - so if there's stuff in there, it's more likely to reduce the outflow and back up into the sink itself, and if any of the stuff floats, "ick". Running the disposal at least chops everything up so it'll go out the drain with the water... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-07-29
- About:
Scripting News for 7/28/07 « Scripting News Annex
- When:
Sat Jul 28 21:39:03 2007
- Where:
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2007/07/28/scripting-news-for-72807/#comment-94713
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: July 28th, 2007 at 5:38 pm re: names: I originally found Scripting News because I was looking for info about AppleScript… didn’t find any, but stuck around because RSS looked kind of interesting :-)
2007-07-25
- About:
365 Main datacenter power outage - Six Apart Technorati Craigslist
- When:
Wed Jul 25 01:03:59 2007
- Where:
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/07/365_main_datace.html
- What:
- Mark Eichin [07.24.07 10:01 PM] re openid: I would have been impacted by it, but I only use it for doxory.com which is of even lower importance than livejournal :-) and I'd already seen Jesse V. complain that it was out (it's working fine as of this posting.)
2007-07-22
- About:
Kill-A-Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor Review Comments - The Gadgeteer Bulletin Board
- When:
Sun Jul 22 00:01:10 2007
- Where:
http://forums.the-gadgeteer.com/vbbs/showthread.php?p=20145&posted=1#post20145
- What:
- Old 07-22-2007 eichin eichin is offline Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Concord, MA Posts: 38 Re: Kill-A-Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor Review Comments I've had an earlier model for a while... for the non-electrically-savvy user, I would suggest that the other thing worth understanding is the Amps reading - that's the "unit" that fuses and circuit breakers are in, so if you watch the refrigerator during a compression cycle, and the microwave on 100%, and add up the values, you can see why they might blow a 15A circuit breaker if they both come on at the same time :-) It's also useful for detecting devices that have "instant on" circuits, like some televisions, where they still draw a lot of power when "turned off" but still plugged in. (Hmm, they were supposed to come out with a serial-port version so you could record and graph usage, but I don't see it on the P3 site.) __________________ _Mark_
2007-07-21
- About:
jered: Hacker Barbie says, "Battery charging is hard..."
- When:
Sat Jul 21 18:40:12 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/41207.html?view=217847#t217847
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-21 10:39 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This See also the pre-cooked RooTooth if you want to move the brain to the far side of the bluetooth connection. (What's mostly keeping me stalled on doing more with these is needing to come up with an arm and a vision system :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
jered: Hacker Barbie says, "Battery charging is hard..."
- When:
Sat Jul 21 18:40:00 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/41207.html?view=217847#t217847
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-21 10:35 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I'm not 100% sure, but I thought the "ignore the wheel count sensors because they're dusty" feature was only in the osmo firmware. Then again, if they haven't failed (the "dances backwards" mode) you don't *need* them, and if you're doing most of the work with the NSLU2 already, likewise you've already got enough support... (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
jered: Hacker Barbie says, "Battery charging is hard..."
- When:
Fri Jul 20 23:37:08 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/41207.html?view=215799#t215799
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-21 03:36 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This You don't really need the iCreate for that - the other thing the osmo updater enables is the "control the roomba by the serial port" feature, so you can pop an old pda or wrt54 or something on the top to be the Real Brain... the Create has a "real processor and sensors" pack which is great for building stuff onto a mobility platform, but it really does have *no* features beyond "bump into things" as-is (and I'm not sure there's enough CPU to do camera stuff, it's a low end Atmel.) (the firmware update also fixes some of the sensor failure modes of the roomba by making it less picky about some of the weaker sensors, like wheel count.) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-07-19
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images - two webcomics, and a gratuitous video
- When:
Thu Jul 19 02:59:37 2007
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/762951.html
- What:
- 19th-Jul-2007 06:26 am (UTC) - wuthering heights [info]eichin You've seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1cHfzmi5Ic Puppini Sisters version (via [info]ambar) for an additional layer of surrealism? * reply * thread * link * delete * Track This
2007-07-17
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [domesticity] Where can I find...
- When:
Tue Jul 17 01:55:22 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/498958.html
- What:
- Tue, Jul. 17th, 2007 05:32 am (UTC) [info]eichin I'd stop by The Container Store (locally there's one in Framingham and one closer in on rt 9) - they have a pretty wide range of, well, containers :-) I've found them useful, if a little pricy (not excessively so, though.) There are probably craft supply places closer in (like Pearl) that are worth checking first. But Container Store pretty much has nigh-all of the "generic plastic boxes" as well as a bunch of more clever stuff... Link Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-07-15
- About:
mi Jam Guitar and Mini Mixer Review Comments - The Gadgeteer Bulletin Board
- When:
Sat Jul 14 23:32:44 2007
- Where:
http://forums.the-gadgeteer.com/vbbs/showthread.php?p=19997&posted=1#post19997
- What:
- 07-14-2007 eichin eichin is offline Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Concord, MA Posts: 38 Re: mi Jam Guitar and Mini Mixer Review Comments The "guitar" sounds like something classic Devo would play (and I mean that in a good way :-) __________________ _Mark_
- About:
james_nicoll: Thinking out loud: cheap space flight
- When:
Sat Jul 14 20:34:44 2007
- Where:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/906594.html?view=12740962#t12740962
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-15 12:34 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I don't know about bigger single comsats (one of the reasons the Carter administration didn't kill the shuttle was that it was supposed to be the only thing big enough to launch nuclear disarmament treaty verification satellites, but the prohibition on using the shuttle for commercial satellites didn't seem to be a problem for that industry) but isn't it difficult to use a single large launcher to put multiple comsats into appropriately distinct orbits? (Then again, it looks like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEREO were launched on a single rocket...) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-07-14
- About:
cjsmith: You know you're too busy when
- When:
Fri Jul 13 22:15:44 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/728563.html?view=6642931#t6642931
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-07-14 02:15 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I didn't do much for mine, but my mom hunted down my office address and sent shiny balloons and some very chocolatey brownie-cakes, so the people around me didn't miss out just because I wasn't bothering :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-07-11
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Tue Jul 10 23:20:42 2007
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=15658#lastmsg
- What:
- Jul 10, 2007, 11:19pm (top)Message 115: eichin Show Affinity Beautiful Code (a collection of essays on things that many notable programmers are themselves impressed by.) One of the few *positive* works in the field - usually programmers look at other people's code because it's broken, which gives one a (not necessarily inaccurate) dismal view of the field from inside. Plus I can read an essay or three at a time and not get completely sucked in to it :-)
2007-07-03
- About:
jered: Indispensible Technology
- When:
Tue Jul 3 15:29:04 2007
- Where:
http://jered.livejournal.com/39935.html?view=210431#t210431
- What:
- jott? [info]eichin 2007-07-03 07:28 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This jott.com seems to be in a similar-but-not-quite-the-same space; they do a free "leave yourself voice notes that get converted" service that I've been playing with, I think it's not trying to handle arbitrary voicemail as such... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-06-03
- About:
rfrench: Blast from the past
- When:
Sun Jun 3 18:24:11 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/147266.html?view=875074#t875074
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-06-03 10:22 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I appear to have two Model 4's that survived the Grand Purge and are mostly for parts, they're leftovers from my high school (the 4 *portable* has sentimental value, though, as does the Model I :-) I'm not sure there's a sane way to get one across country, though. Debian/Ubuntu have shipped xtrs for years, but I've never gotten around to trying it. (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-06-01
- About:
electroweak: Color Me Amazed. Or Perhaps Color Me Burnt Umber.
- When:
Fri Jun 1 17:53:41 2007
- Where:
http://electroweak.livejournal.com/18759.html?view=77127#t77127
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-06-01 09:53 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Mine arrived this morning, entirely fine; lulu's packaging isn't quite up to amazon's, but they're making a reasonable effort. (Wonderfully vibrant color, it really did carry over well to paper!) (Reply to this)(Parent)
- About:
Flickr: Discussing Newbie to digital IR how do you do it? in Infrared
- When:
Thu May 31 23:39:46 2007
- Where:
http://flickr.com/groups/infrared/discuss/72157600091315083/#comment72157600294888592
- What:
- view photos Mark Eichin Pro User says: quick test to see if you get IR at all (not good, just at all): point a TV remote at the camera and push a button, if you see a purple glow, things aren't completely blocked (that's probably 915nm - "red" is around 680nm, purple around 410nm; the popular Hoya R72 filter blocks 720nm and down.) Note that this can still mean 1/2 second exposures in daylight... Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink | edit | delete )
2007-05-30
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images -
- When:
Wed May 30 18:22:38 2007
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/744688.html?view=5111536#t5111536
- What:
- 30th-May-2007 10:20 pm (UTC) [info]eichin It's actually been interesting to see how far the meme hasn't gotten (especially given that it usually rides on the back of Cute Kitten Pictures and is thus more viral than it would be in it's own right.) (Also, good job removing the excess houses from the original :-) * reply * parent * link * delete * Track This
2007-05-28
- About:
cjsmith: Two cool tidbits
- When:
Mon May 28 01:24:16 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/718374.html?view=6514726#t6514726
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-05-28 05:23 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This That looks more compact than the Concept2 erg I have (which is air-turbulance based, but still a very thorough workout - and data reporting in plenty of units - and since rowing backwards holds no interest to me, I don't actually care how realistic it is relative to a real crew shell :-) Also has lousy footrests, come to think of it.) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-05-20
- About:
eichin: Birds and Snakes and Airplanes...
- When:
Sun May 20 16:09:32 2007
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/74360.html?view=98936#t98936
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-05-20 07:51 pm UTC (from 66.92.86.139) (link) DeleteFreezeScreenTrack This Select I chose the olympus over the Canon S5-IS... because the S5-IS doesn't ship until late July, and Costco had a good price on the olympus (which I'd looked at before but hadn't jumped on.) It helped that I was actually able to play with one in the store - which turned 18x from an abstract concept to immediate drooling :-) As for the controls, the olympus has a very good auto mode - and I'm only just starting to play with the "real" modes. There seem to be pretty short paths to most of the features you want to use in any context. The real test for me has been that I've actually been getting shots that I couldn't before, and basically never have to consult the manual (it even has an on-screen-help button.) xD is evil, though - panorama-framing mode is greyed out in the menu right now because I have a full-spec card that just happens to be Fuji branded instead of Olympus branded (there's some data in a card-information block outside the filesystem that labels it.) I haven't run into other lockouts (there are some legitimate "needs fast card" features, but a $20 1G fuji card handles those fine.) Also, by not being SD, they fail to have options like the combo-cards (SD cards that have USB pins sticking out the back, so you can just plug them in to sync) but since this camera is enough bigger that I need a larger bag anyway, carrying the direct camera cable isn't as big a deal as it is for the smaller camera. (Note of course that xD isn't nearly as evil as Sony's Memory Stick formats, and I am putting up with this, I'm just whining :-) The frog was in the water by the side of the trail, probably 15 ft away when I noticed him (and froze so as not to scare him off.) That's one of several shots I got (turned out he wasn't going anywhere even after I walked by :-) The camera does seem a little noisy - probably not actually any louder than a Canon S200, though; I just noticed it some during a walk through a damp quiet forest yesterday. One odd feature is that it doesn't record audio with video unless you turn off stabilization (that was something I did have to check the manual for.) Oh, and the ultimate comparison site is http://www.dpreview.com - they're downright obsessive. The forums are even occasionally useful (which is itself way above average.) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-05-18
- About:
The Confusion
- When:
Fri May 18 02:52:52 2007
- Where:
http://www.crummy.com/2007/05/10/2
- What:
- Posted by Mark Eichin at Fri May 18 2007 02:57 Just for completeness: it arrived Thursday, May 17.
2007-05-16
- About:
The Confusion
- When:
Wed May 16 03:05:20 2007
- Where:
http://www.crummy.com/2007/05/10/2
- What:
- Posted by Mark Eichin at Wed May 16 2007 03:09 I also got the "not until July" message... but just got mail saying that it will be arriving before the end of the week after all, including tracking number. woohoo!
2007-05-10
- About:
yakshaver: Photography books?
- When:
Wed May 9 23:50:31 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/71848.html?view=164264#t164264
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-05-10 03:49 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Since I posted this, I've taken another 1400 pictures, at least partly due to "discovering" Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge as a good source of scenery and wildlife, though the Lafayette Square construction has also picked up the pace. About 10% went on flickr, though that was as much "help me identify this" as "I think this is good enough to share". As you can see, it's an established pattern. Have you started shooting? (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-05-09
- About:
Technical Ramblings » Blog Archive » Asking Smart Questions
- When:
Wed May 9 15:48:33 2007
- Where:
http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/212/asking-smart-questions/
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: May 9th, 2007 at 12:58 am Question bounties: probably because the concept doesn’t actually work :-) More effective is to cultivate enough earlier-stage users who can take up the slack of helping out with the complete hopeless ones.
2007-05-04
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech] SPF puzzlement
- When:
Fri May 4 17:49:04 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/476186.html?view=3344666#t3344666
- What:
- Fri, May. 4th, 2007 09:47 pm (UTC) [info]eichin I think the reason you're not finding anything about spf for isp.com isn't just noise - you're seeing the noise because there isn't any data: google(spf site:isp.com) has no hits, nor does a quick look in their web based support pages, so it's entirely possible that they're not providing the record you need to do this; I would open a ticket asking for it... An example I found looking for the hotmail case in particular is: $ host -t txt customer-spf.mxes.net customer-spf.mxes.net descriptive text "v=spf1 ip4:216.86.168.0/24 ip4:205.237.194.32/28 ip4:216.86.160.224/27" ie. mxes.net explicitly publishes the thing you'd need to include, if you were their customer, as distinct from the values that would be right if you were actually them. It looks like isp.com has a wild card match for txt records: $ host -t txt freud-can-bite-me.isp.com freud-can-bite-me.isp.com is an alias for isp.com. isp.com descriptive text "v=spf1 ip4:216.127.133.0/26 ip4:216.127.146.0/27 ip4:209.107.130.9/32 ip4:65.212.160.0/25 ip4:65.212.160.128/27 ip4:216.127.148.0/24 ip4:216.127.154.128/25 ip4:204.8.0.0/22 a:psmtp.com a:postini.com -all" So it may be the case that their outgoing servers *are* the same as yours and that *is* the right inclusion to use - but I'd want them to say that explicitly in some documentation. As for "have you just granted them permission...", effectively, yes. Of course, if other customers of your ISP are spammers, the whole server will get IP-address blocked/blacklisted anyway, so you're probably not much worse off than you'd have been the other way... it is different in type, bu t not in result, as far as I can tell. > Is it just me, or is this all incredibly stupid? "Signs point to yes" http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/smtp-spf-is-harmful.html has a (potentially out of date) list of even *more* reasons that it's even worse than it appears. As for your root problem, it isn't clear that SPF actually helps you get through to hotmail anyway, or at least there are anecdotes about it causing problems of its own... (I've been doing some DNS rearrangement and had been wondering whether SPF was worth the trouble. Since I don't actually care about any particular hotmail users, and I also send mail from my wildly-roving laptop, it appears that it would be a net loss for me...) Link Thread - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-04-26
- About:
cjsmith: Wow
- When:
Wed Apr 25 23:03:21 2007
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/715067.html?view=6458683#t6458683
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-04-26 03:02 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This What's holding it up is "leverage" :-) There's some enormous amount of counterweight, pretty far in from the edge, plus very deep anchors... There are some construction photos out there, I need to go see it just as an example of Glorious Engineering... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-04-23
- About:
Photography Club Exhibit Opening and Reception in Concord - TalkingTree.com
- When:
Mon Apr 23 00:09:41 2007
- Where:
http://www.talkingtree.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/4/20/Photography-Club-Exhibit-Opening-and-Reception-in-Concord
- What:
- The show was interesting, though I was suprised how much photoshopping is considered to still be part of "photography" rather than an art of its own that happens to start with photographs as source material :-) A couple of questions I neglected to ask when I was there - does the club have a web site of its own (which would answer my other questions :-) - what does the club do other than exhibitions like this - and is the club connected with the church, or just renting the space there? comment by Mark Eichin, posted at 4/23/07 12:09 AM
2007-04-18
- About:
Mint circles - Weird Fortune Cookie Collection
- When:
Tue Apr 17 21:33:14 2007
- Where:
http://weirdfortunecookies.com/2006/02/03/mint-circles/#comment-248
- What:
- Mark Eichin | April 17, 2007 at 8:33 pm | link I just got this one at Royal East, in Cambridge MA (and it is what led me to your site :-) What *particularly* bothers me is that mine has exactly the same Lucky Numbers. (The response from my companions was “… This Means Something…” but there weren’t any mashed potatoes around…)
2007-04-17
- About:
whocalled.us
- When:
Tue Apr 17 16:04:46 2007
- Where:
http://whocalled.us/lookup/6059479988
- What:
- 2007-04-17_Mark_ got it on my cellphone; ignored it, they didn't leave voicemail.
- About:
ksleet: Amusing subject line that alludes to the topic of this entry.
- When:
Tue Apr 17 00:35:56 2007
- Where:
http://ksleet.livejournal.com/91173.html?view=570917#t570917
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-04-17 04:35 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I'm told the Swedish system is simpler: they send you paperwork, you SMS back "yeah, that looked right" (or if not, you do something more complicated.) They're a lot smaller, though... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-04-15
- About:
Scripting News for 4/14/2007 « Scripting News Annex
- When:
Sat Apr 14 22:06:24 2007
- Where:
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/scripting-news-for-4142007/#comment-51555
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: April 14th, 2007 at 6:01 pm A friend mentioned this a few weeks back: http://www.dopplr.com/main/about but it looks more to be about “what are my travelling colleagues doing” rather than common conferences in particular.
2007-04-14
- About:
yakshaver: Graphic arts clue - followup
- When:
Sat Apr 14 01:13:39 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/76016.html?view=162288#t162288
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-04-14 05:12 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Also, http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/transform/index.html#fx shows that convert featurebox2_bg.gif \( +clone -channel R -fx B \) +swap -channel B -fx v.R featurebox2_blue.gif does the whole thing directly, though it is somewhat cryptic - basically it produces a image with only the red channel being the original blue, then sets the blue channel of that one to the red channel of the other, leaving the result. (I would have gone with the column swapping approach, after finding that - I suspect it's a bug that convert featurebox2_bg.gif -fx 'rgb(b,g,r)' featurebox2_blue.gif doesn't actually work :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2007-02-27
- About:
Scripting News for 2/26/2007 « Scripting News Annex
- When:
Tue Feb 27 03:01:37 2007
- Where:
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2007/02/26/scripting-news-for-2262007/#comment-43311
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: February 26th, 2007 at 10:42 pm In that case, anyone taking up a collection for a transcript? I also wouldn’t listen to it on the radio (or lecturing in general - if it’s not a conversation, write it down and *edit it* into coherence!) but I’m interested in the ideas…
2007-02-26
- About:
rfrench: I have a telescope
- When:
Sun Feb 25 21:52:50 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/135445.html?view=800533#t800533
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-26 02:52 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This have you seen this article on two recent and visible supernovae? That looks like something interesting to take pictures of, if it stops being cloudy there before Spring :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-02-17
- About:
rfrench: OK, I'm scaring myself
- When:
Sat Feb 17 01:50:48 2007
- Where:
http://rfrench.livejournal.com/133415.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-17 05:30 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This umm, *wooden* tripod? (The mount itself looks impressive, but my recollection is that wood makes sense for lightweight low-end tripods because you don't care that they're "springy"... and at the high end, you're using metal on concrete... but I really don't know what's in the middle, at least above photo tripods...) (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
ken_r: soggy Valentine's day
- When:
Sat Feb 17 01:50:07 2007
- Where:
http://ken-r.livejournal.com/2154.html
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: February 17th, 2007 05:53 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) If the car is relatively old, there might just be wiring that needs replacing (cracked insulation and the like), though the more common symptom for that is failing to start until dry or warm, rather than stalling out later... it's a little bit "looking under the lamppost because that's where the light is brightest" but it's easy to check for cracked insulation on spark plug wires, at least... (Reply) (Thread)
- About:
yakshaver: Photography books?
- When:
Sat Feb 17 01:49:52 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/71848.html
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-17 06:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My question would be "why would someone *start* with a DSLR"... I did photography and darkroom as a hobby back in highschool and a little bit in college, and gave it up mostly because "learning by making mistakes" was way too costly. I didn't pick it up again until cheap (and I do mean cheap) digicams started to appear... and then took a key piece of advice from a photographer friend: "the way to get 10 amazing pictures... is to take 1000 pictures." Once you're taking lots of pictures, looking at them and thinking about "why do I like this one more than that one", at which point you have some hard examples to tie into basic vocabulary about framing and light, and you've got a good starting feedback path; you're also more likely to have shots that have subject matter that interests other people who can then be easily convinced to critique the shot itself (as long as you have a thick skin and/or good filters :-) The reason I see a DSLR as a problem, in this case, is that with a cheap digicam (and by that I mean "$300 or less" which these days means "5MP, 3x zoom, 2G SD, fits in a pocket" and oh look, that's inexpensive but not actually *cheap* anymore) you can *always* have it on you (and by that I mean every single day... you grab your wallet and your camera when you get dressed; anything that doesn't meet that constraint is either too big or too pricy) and you can take 20 to 100 pictures a day without any further investment. Of course there are lots of contexts where you can take *better* pictures with a DSLR, and there are certainly lenses I covet... but if you're trying to put effort into learning new things about photography (rather than SLR gadgetry in particular), I heartily recommend the "take pictures all the time" path. (Checking my logs, I took about 1000 pictures in the first half of 2006, damaged my (3-year old) camera in an accident, and then took another 4500 pictures with the replacement. I've only taken about 500 pictures with it this year, so I'm slacking some :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-02-10
- About:
yakshaver: Resume hair-tearing
- When:
Sat Feb 10 00:07:36 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/70815.html?view=149407#t149407
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-10 05:06 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Certainly one issue we have is that the recruiters find us people based on matching the job description to the recruiter-tuned resume, but then a fair amount of the time we have to ask the candidate "can we please have your *real* resume" because the "what you want to hear" one just doesn't make any sense... (Reply to this)(Parent)
2007-02-08
- About:
whit537 on technology: One directory, 500,000 files
- When:
Thu Feb 8 02:18:13 2007
- Where:
http://tech.whit537.org/2007/02/one-directory-500000-files.html
- What:
- Mark Eichin said... If you measure it as you go, you'll see interesting curves and inflection points, depending on what filesystem and what OS you're running. (With linux, for example, 2.6 is much better than 2.4 on this, though ext3 is pretty good.) It's useful to look at slabinfo output, not just clock time, too. 2:17 AM
- About:
Blogger: whit537 on technology - Post a Comment
- When:
Thu Feb 8 02:17:37 2007
- Where:
https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=36199926&postID=4095062634515508655
- What:
- Mark Eichin said... If you measure it as you go, you'll see interesting curves and inflection points, depending on what filesystem and what OS you're running. (With linux, for example, 2.6 is much better than 2.4 on this, though ext3 is pretty good.) It's useful to look at slabinfo output, not just clock time, too. 2:17 AM
2007-02-04
- About:
Technical Ramblings » Blog Archive » optparse module
- When:
Sat Feb 3 21:47:49 2007
- Where:
http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/185/optparse-module/#comment-10881
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: February 3rd, 2007 at 6:58 pm Next you’ll want to dig up optcomplete; builds bash completion tables automatically for optparse-based programs :-)
- About:
yakshaver: two-marbles puzzle followup
- When:
Sat Feb 3 19:30:04 2007
- Where:
http://yakshaver.livejournal.com/69985.html?view=147041#t147041
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-02-04 12:29 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Another unspecified bit about it: it assumes that a dropped but unbroken marble is still as resilient as the original undropped marble... a distinction which I think has an impact on the kinds of trials you want :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2007-01-08
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech] CueCat, LibraryThing and I
- When:
Mon Jan 8 00:37:36 2007
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/434471.html
- What:
- Mon, Jan. 8th, 2007 05:35 am (UTC) [info]eichin I actually use an extended version of the eblong/zarfscan technique to get the "long upc" codes into isbns (it's just a upc-publisher to isbn-publisher mapping, but you need the full code because the second half is just a price tag, you need the third half to identify the book...) But yeah, while it works well with "modern" things, I'm certainly accumulating piles of things that need manual entry. (Detail: the 978 codes are Bookland *EAN* not UPC.) I mostly use the social side of LT to browse and say "oh yeah, I have that too, somewhere". I occasionally pull the spreadsheet version of the data for use with my own code. The main point of the Porter Square Books integration is that if you're using this to *shop* based on social similarity, they'll show up as "in stock" along with amazon and the rest, in the sidebar - a use which probably doesn't interest you. I have noticed that people use LT for "anything with an (amazon) ASIN", not just books, which implies that you could bend it to work with your other materials - but it's probably not worth bending, given that you probably want to start from someplace very different for academic material. Link Parent - Delete - Track This - Reply
2007-01-05
- About:
jcgbigler: calling all geeks
- When:
Thu Jan 4 23:18:40 2007
- Where:
http://jcgbigler.livejournal.com/45483.html?view=212395#t212395
- What:
- [info]eichin 2007-01-05 04:17 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I don't check specially on New Year's Eve - the ntp and radio synched clocks take care of themselves, everything else needs checking weekly, not yearly. I did set dscn101-4308this on New Year's Day, though...
2007-01-04
- About:
Blended Technologies » Blog Archive » Finding Time Bombs with Google Code Search
- When:
Thu Jan 4 18:14:43 2007
- Where:
http://www.blendedtechnologies.com/finding-time-bombs-with-google-code-search/114
- What:
- # Mark Eichin Says: January 4th, 2007 at 7:11 pm For that matter, the popularity of keyword-highlighting editors helps a great deal. google for google codesearch security hole and you’ll find the burst of postings from back when it came out, and how many logic errors (like memset with a 0 count instead of a 0 fill value) you *can* easily find with regexp searches…
2006-12-31
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Sat Dec 30 23:30:15 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=5655#lastmsg
- What:
- test Dec 30, 2006, 11:29pm (top)Message 43: eichin Show Affinity Just started (and finished) The Wilding - not really a sequel, but in the same universe as In Conquest Born and with solid power dynamics but more (and correspondingly less developed) individual characters. Also read scattered bits of My Tank Is Fight which is fun pseudo-history of possible (but not completed) WWII engines of war - not really a sit-down book but fun nonetheless.
2006-12-28
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Thu Dec 28 00:31:51 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=3733#lastmsg
- What:
- test Dec 28, 2006, 12:31am (top)Message 45: eichin Show Affinity I try to stick to the "one-hand rule" - don't leave the store with more books than I can hold in one hand :-) This favors collections (most recently, the Hostile Takeover trilogy in paperback.) Guilt about the size of my new-books-not-yet-read pile will sometimes keep me from going in to the store in the first place, though. (For bleeding-edge technical books, though, amazon Prime will be my undoing :-)
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Thu Dec 28 00:17:56 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=849#lastmsg
- What:
- test Dec 28, 2006, 12:16am (top)Message 331: eichin Show Affinity Catcher in the Rye - read it in high school, made me want to slap both the character and the author... though that did cause me to find the way it was used in the movie Conspiracy Theory particularly amusing. Had the "unfortunate opportunity" to cover Tale of Two Cities twice in high school English classes... the second time yielded a paper deriding the brutal and unsubtle use of foreshadowing (it was, after all, written for serial publication specifically to make money) that made it even worse to read a second time :-) The teacher deserves a fair amount of credit for judging the paper on it's merits and setting aside the fact that it was her favorite Dickens work. (Given those two points I suppose it's not surprising that the non-technical part of my library is mostly devoid of "literature" and instead consists of spy/military novels and science/speculative fiction...)
2006-12-20
- About:
sauergeek: How to improve Amtrak
- When:
Wed Dec 20 00:37:33 2006
- Where:
http://sauergeek.livejournal.com/34879.html?view=179775#t179775
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-12-20 05:37 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Two thoughts: (1) I can get wifi on a bus from Boston to New York, with a cheaper one-way fare (limoliner); the lack on amtrak mostly means that they're not even trying. (2) If I fly to a city, I can get a rental car [ie, "ability to go where I really wanted to" which is never the airport/transit terminal itself] without leaving the building, usually. If I go by train, I might be connected with an existing transit system which also doesn't go where I need to :-) (One "straightforward" (handwave handwave) fix to that is to actually have drive-on/drive-off service for more than just the train to disneyland... I'd use that within New England, even - after all, if I don't have to meet another form of transit, I don't care so much that amtrak won't ever be there on time :-) (Let's see, Jeff already covered the theft of public land; people have mentioned Europe - trains in Europe are nice, but they also don't have much in the way of suburbs :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: If it's not one thing it's another
- When:
Wed Dec 20 00:08:34 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/691772.html?view=6213180#t6213180
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-12-20 05:07 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Hmm, I can't remember the name of the Cygnus engineering manager (before Sam Druker), nor am I sure if she overlapped with you... and I suppose it's telling that I have to reach back that far. (By "key" I'm assuming something involving doing engineering but still with a leadership or management component - I know plenty of women who are engineers...) I've worked for women several other times (waves to Nancy :-) but they were always doing more team leadership than engineering leadership, if that makes any sense. Oh, and of course there's Margaret Wasserman, but you might not actually know her either. Total slam dunk for "key engineering role" :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-12-18
- About:
cjsmith: Things that went well / badly
- When:
Sun Dec 17 19:47:28 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/691368.html?view=6201512#t6201512
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-12-18 12:47 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This So now that you've pulled it off, consider having another party "soon"... maybe a "fight the winter doldrums" party in a month, or something. Now that you know how much to scale back, it'll be that much easier. (The chocolate parties ended up taking less preparation over time, as they grew in scale :-) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-12-16
- About:
Cambridge Blog » Blog Archive » Porter Square Books merger - Town Online
- When:
Sat Dec 16 14:53:52 2006
- Where:
http://blogs.townonline.com/cambridge/?p=372#comment-551
- What:
- 1. Mark Eichin on December 16th, 2006 2:53 pm http://www.librarything.com/blog/2006/12/porter-square-books.php While they’re *integrated* and working together, “merger” is rather overstating the case :-)
2006-12-15
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Fri Dec 15 16:52:11 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=5212#lastmsg
- What:
- Dec 15, 2006, 4:51pm (top)Message 1: eichin Show Affinity Is there a programmatic way to add a tag to an isbn that I've already got in the system, or should I just scrape the web interface? (I thought bulk-import with new tag might do it, but it (sensibly) doesn't.) (use case: some of my tags represent where the book "resides", and/or who is borrowing it - clearly both of these are things that could reasonably become actual features, but tags are an easy way to do it until then...)
- About:
cjsmith: Timing
- When:
Fri Dec 15 11:54:09 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/690774.html?view=6191958#t6191958
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-12-15 04:53 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This mechanical stalking shouldn't be necessary - don't you have internal email/newsgroups? Posting questions or status reports to people in the morning can help this kind of thing - people at least notice that they've already got a pile of email when they get in, even if they don't necessarily check datestamps. (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-12-14
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Thu Dec 14 01:37:40 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=5139#lastmsg
- What:
- Dec 14, 2006, 1:37am (top)Message 1: eichin Show Affinity I saw that Univeral Import handled Delicious Library, so I grabbed Library/Application Support/Delicious Library/Library Media Data.xml from an old mac backup and uploaded it. It wasn't until I saw the strange collection of books that were showing up that I realized what had happened... At least in the version I'm using, the XML file includes not just library.items.book, but library.items.book.recommendations.book which has the Amazon recommendations for that book... the attributes are pretty much the same, even having purchaseDates... if Universal Import is just "sniffing" for asins and isbns, it probably just got fooled :-) I've posted the short python program that directly extracts the "right" asins (at least from the file I have) at http://www.thok.org/intranet/python/book... though I would suggest that if there's a specific "save as xml" in Delicious Library that I should have used, a hint on the import page would be worthwhile. (Fortunately I found, indirectly, Power Edit mode, and was able to wipe them all and try again.)
- About:
Talk | LibraryThing
- When:
Thu Dec 14 00:36:13 2006
- Where:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=3736#lastmsg
- What:
- test Dec 14, 2006, 12:35am (top)Message 3: eichin Show Affinity The grabba doesn't look too practical for personal use - but don't forget that Delicious Library has had a deal on the Flic bluetooth laser scanner since the beginning - which can scan-and-store and then download later, or live-scan (and coding for it is trivial, bluetooth serial and a documented protocol.) The device is small, light, and you can leave the computer across the room (one reason, I think, that delicious library will "speak" new titles :-) Back In The Day (tm) I had code that worked with the symbol scanner on the handspring visor, and on the symbol 1700 integrated palm/scanner (that's *really* not practical for home use, but the visor was) and it would just save every bar code and an optional note and shelf number; then after hotsync, a script would sync the barcodes with another (long dead) library project. Anyway, my use case for a pda client is primarily "do I have this already" with a secondary "yeah I can loan you that" feature. Third might be wishlisting :-)
2006-12-05
- About:
ksleet: MoS update.
- When:
Mon Dec 4 23:06:04 2006
- Where:
http://ksleet.livejournal.com/78678.html?view=457302#t457302
- What:
- Re: Déjà vu [info]eichin 2006-12-05 04:05 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This because "Drop. Your. Nuclear power cell thingy" just doesn't have the same dramatic impact, even in a nice large font, and with the lab coat swirling dramatically in the... breeze? :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-11-29
- About:
cjsmith: Stove Repair... or not
- When:
Wed Nov 29 00:50:02 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/688193.html?view=6144065#t6144065
- What:
- Thanksgiving masacree! [info]eichin 2006-11-29 05:49 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I don't know if I've told you about the time Laura made thanksgiving dinner at my place. To keep this short, the relevant part was that after we noticed the oven not going over 200F, we noticed that when we turned the thermostat below that, one of the streetlights went out... at which point we called the Fire Department :-) Turns out that the oven was (correctly) wired across two phases, and that one phase was gone (out at the pole.) Engaging the thermostat completed a circuit through the oven to power the streetlight (which was on the "dead" phase.) (I know a similar, earlier story of a laundry dryer having similar effect - house lights came on dimly when the dryer was heating, off otherwise... in that case, a neighbor had apparently backed into the power junction box coming into the house and cracked one of the feeds...) So, I don't know if this *helps* you at all, but yes, losing a phase is entirely possible. It occurs to me that the circuit breakers I've seen for this are usually a ganged pair (so when one trips it mechanically throws the other one); so you *could* conceivable have lost "half" a breaker - I'd probably try flipping it off and then on again and checking the line with a meter, though I'd then leave it *off* because * you don't know what caused it to fail the first time, especially if it was a short * if it is a broken breaker, you've only fixed it temporarily and the next step needs to be replacing the breaker anyhow. The risky scenario is that if the breaker blew because a squirrel ate through one line and shorted it... it may still be shorted and if the (possibly damaged) breaker doesn't reopen fast enough, it could catch fire. That's the reason you probably want to leave it to a (licensed but more importantly insured) electrician... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-11-22
- About:
Oakwinter.com :: Code » Lessons from Net::Google
- When:
Wed Nov 22 00:44:26 2006
- Where:
http://oakwinter.com/code/?p=59
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: November 22nd, 2006 at 05:20 re returning undef: umm, this *is* perl, not python; return $self->{’_starts_at’}; returns undef if self doesn’t have an _starts_at member initialized, which is probably the error they’re talking about - you only get ‘Use of uninitialized value’ with -w, where in python you’d get an AttributeError or KeyError (depending on how you translated this code.)
2006-11-01
- About:
Ambar - M-x sTUdLiVIfY-OPeRatOR
- When:
Tue Oct 31 21:46:19 2006
- Where:
http://ambar.livejournal.com/146560.html?view=598912#t598912
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: November 1st, 2006 02:45 am (UTC) Delete Track This Re: Hair cut contemplation? (Link) pictures! :-) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)
2006-10-28
- About:
Bug #68953 in foomatic-gui (Ubuntu): “printconf in edgy misconfigures USB printers”
- When:
Sat Oct 28 19:14:01 2006
- Where:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/foomatic-gui/+bug/68953
- What:
- (undecided) Bug #68953, first reported on 2006-10-28 by Mark Eichin printconf in edgy misconfigures USB printers Affects Status Importance Assigned to foomatic-gui (Ubuntu) New Undecided — [edit] You are not the bug assignee nor the maintainer of foomatic-gui (Ubuntu), and therefore cannot edit this bug's status. Affecting: foomatic-gui (Ubuntu) Filed here by: Mark Eichin When: 2006-10-28 Package (Choose…) Status Importance Undecided Assigned to Nobody Me (Choose…) Comment on most recent change (none) Comment on this change (optional) E-mail me about changes to this bug report Also affects: + Project… + Distribution/Package… Bug description [edit] Binary package hint: printconf printconf probed and found my lexmark E210, no problems there. (This is on a fresh upgrade from 6.06 to 6.10, but none of foomatic/cups were installed under 6.06 - I used magicfilter and lpr there.) However, printing didn't work, and ps showed gs and a tree of processes hanging. Some investigation turned up this changelog: * The USB backend no longer supports the usb:/dev/foo format on systems that support device ID queries since 1.2.1-1. Because Linux supports device ID queries, you have to replace your printer configuration uses usb:/dev/foo style with device ID style. usb backend will show device IDs of active USB printers. Sure enough, DeviceURI (in /etc/cups/printers.conf) was set to usb:/dev/usblp0. Manually changing it to DeviceURI usb://Lexmark/E210 after running the back end explicitly: # /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb direct usb://Lexmark/E210 "Lexmark E210" "Lexmark E210 USB #1" "MFG:Lexmark;CMD:GDI;MDL:E210;CLS:PRINTE" and restarting cups cause it to work just fine.
- About:
Daily Life in an Ivory Basement : /oct-06/email-notification-via-jabber
- When:
Fri Oct 27 20:43:26 2006
- Where:
http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/oct-06/email-notification-via-jabber#comment_anchor
- What:
- Posted by Mark Eichin at Fri Oct 27 17:05:51 2006: Once we added a simple shell "send jabber message to user|group" commandline tool (using python-xmpp which isn't quite this elegant, though it does work with gssapi/kerberos) people started dropping notifications into lots of things. (just like we learned with zwrite/Zephyr at MIT in the early 90's :-) "New release candidate available" or even "pre-installed testing machine ready to ssh into" messages are great for letting people not wait for resources to be available, since they can have the resource interrupt them. Good for productivity though sometimes a little surprising when you get a message from yourself saying something is ready :-)
2006-10-18
- About:
from __future__ import * » svnsync: mirror your svn repository
- When:
Tue Oct 17 23:08:52 2006
- Where:
http://bob.pythonmac.org/archives/2006/09/14/svnsync-mirror-your-svn-repository/
- What:
- (re 1) for that, you probably want svk (bestpractical.com) though you still explicitly pull/push/sync “through” a local repository in that case, it looks about right for mobile-oriented use… Comment by Mark Eichin — 2006-10-17 @ 7:08 pm
- About:
cjsmith: Can I be a "y"uppie at age 39?
- When:
Tue Oct 17 23:04:45 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/677131.html?view=6025995#t6025995
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-10-18 03:04 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > of course, you realize that now you're obligated to tell us ALL about the wines you get. :) Since joining a wine club is after all merely a thinly veiled attempt to come up with more things to write about! (or more nanowrimo character material?) :-) ps. http://xkcd.net/c150.html (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-10-07
- About:
Best Practical: todo.pl (or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the command line)
- When:
Sat Oct 7 08:38:56 2006
- Where:
http://bestpractical.typepad.com/worst_impractical/2006/09/todopl_or_how_i.html#comment-23527309
- What:
- I've got add/del/tag implemented in todo.py (and I've split the config file and protocol handling into their own objects - the perl version being global-heavy makes it hard to reuse from code :-) Anyway, I'll continue fleshing out verbs, but what I'd actually like to have next is and-then and but-first protocol messages... they can just take a pair of task_ids... (eventually I'd like DownloadTasks to include the next task so I can walk the graph, but that's less important in practice then being able to push things around.) Posted by: 65Mark Eichin | 66October 07, 2006 at 08:38 AM
- About:
lj_biz: Sponsored Content
- When:
Wed Oct 4 23:58:51 2006
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/237534.html?thread=8229086#t8229086
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-10-05 03:58 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Interestingly (not that anyone will come back and see this in the middle of 70 pages of comments) it looks like they *are* promising that they are "willing to eat the costs of" doing exactly what I suggest - paid users see the features and *don't* see the promotion/ads with them. http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/239446.html That makes a lot more sense than what they said originally - which still makes them sound confused, but at least not actually wrong :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)
2006-10-01
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [lj] Corporate-Sponsored LJ Communities
- When:
Sun Oct 1 02:44:58 2006
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/396513.html?view=2642145#t2642145
- What:
- Sun, Oct. 1st, 2006 06:44 am (UTC) [info]eichin: brad responds http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/237699.html doesn't address the potential for sponsorship damage, but does address the concrete issues of the visibility of said sponsorship. Link Delete - Track This - Reply
2006-09-30
- About:
lj_biz: Sponsored Content
- When:
Sat Sep 30 16:00:47 2006
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/237534.html?view=8229086#t8229086
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-09-30 08:00 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > We don't consider it to be advertising but you can be absolutely sure that the vendors signing up for it do! (Thought experiment: consider an implementation where I-paid-for-no-ads users (that's what "paid" is short for, right? :-) don't see the sponsorship labels either, and the features look just like any other new feature, by default. Would sponsors be ok with that? If you think so - do it. It won't cut the objections based on having money as an influence, but it should impact the ones based on personal exposure, which are actually more concrete... and it'll make "advertising or not" much more clear.) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-09-19
- About:
cjsmith: Advice to Self
- When:
Mon Sep 18 21:55:18 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/671007.html?view=5925919#t5925919
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-09-19 01:54 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My problem with the question is that it goes back before 9/11/01. If I ignore that, it would probably be * move even faster on selling RHAT * beat Ken into doing the same :-) * make some amount of boring excercise into a habit and maybe * don't buy a house when you get a chance, buy a small condo in cambridge and some warehouse space :-) For the future: * get started on those big "someday" things already * be less place-bound * projects don't count if you don't get far enough along to share them with others - go for completion rather than small partial progress, but *go* (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-09-17
- About:
Technical Ramblings » Travel Report
- When:
Sun Sep 17 03:03:41 2006
- Where:
http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/173/travel-report/
- What:
- Mark Eichin Says: September 12th, 2006 at 12:07 am T-mobile US customers don’t have international roaming unless they ask for it (as a theft-reduction measure, I believe.) All you have to do is ask, which may be trickier now that you’re out of the country. Google does find http://www.t-mobile.com/International/RoamingOverview.aspx?tp=Inl_Tab_RoamWorldwide currently. (I activated it ages ago, and have used tmo in germany, and various random carriers in sweden and iceland, from the same phone… including [very expensively] data service, which is not unlimited, without any configuration changes.)
- About:
mild thematic elements and scary images -
- When:
Sun Sep 17 00:19:56 2006
- Where:
http://coraline.livejournal.com/664389.html?view=4198213#t4198213
- What:
- 17th-Sep-2006 04:19 am (UTC) [info]eichin I just get a kick out of seeing - practice "devil went down to georgia." - practice dvorak and tchaikovsky. on the same todo list :-) * reply * parent * link * delete * Track This
2006-09-16
- About:
mistergrumpy: I'm gonna send a little rain to pour down on you
- When:
Sat Sep 16 13:42:09 2006
- Where:
http://mistergrumpy.livejournal.com/112627.html?view=224755#t224755
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: September 16th, 2006 05:41 pm (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) Same here. Though there is a question of how flimsy the justification can be :-) (I'm actually pickier about electronics and computers than, for example, kitchen toys...) (Reply to this) (Parent)
2006-09-07
- About:
cjsmith: Brief impressions of cars
- When:
Thu Sep 7 16:03:05 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/667698.html?view=5869618#t5869618
- What:
- Re: cupholders [info]eichin 2006-09-07 08:01 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Well, the window was a "stress fracture" (the crack was top center above the mirror, from the edge - not an impact, but an assembly defect - so it isn't expected to happen again.) The fuel pump is a little more odd, I'll have to see how that one does. As far as overall construction, it doesn't rattle; it creaks a little bit when I have it in sunroof mode (but not full-closed or full-open.) BMW's are notable for being high maintenance (and expensive maintenance) though. Not sure I have any real basis for prediction; I've had an odd mix of cars and haven't really driven anything full-time for more than five years at a time... The fact that it's small is how I found it -- when I originally looked it was because someone had pointed out the database, and I realized that I could use "sort by wheelbase" as a substitute for "sort by how easy it is to park in cambridge" :-) I think it does well by being small*est* (while still being comfortable.) It also gets talked about as the "anti-Hummer", another marketing win... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: Brief impressions of cars
- When:
Wed Sep 6 22:30:20 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/667698.html?view=5864242#t5864242
- What:
- Re: cupholders [info]eichin 2006-09-07 02:29 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This The modern "Mini" actually covers a broad range - I got my Cooper Convertible, CVT automatic, with winter package and fancy interior for just under $30k - the Cooper/S "sport" has a bigger engine and costs more, the manual costs less, the non-convertible costs less, and the options can be dropped. "winter" doesn't actually include the fancy DSC traction-control package, either (ABS is standard of course.) Pretty sure you could run anywhere from $25k to $35k just on configuration of a new car :-) (I do really enjoy the car, as evidenced by all of my road trip stories - and warranty service has been good, but I'll note that it's also been *necessary* - new front windshield and new fuel pump in the first 20k miles. I love the fact that I could arrange everything (service appointments, the test drive, random questions) by email, though that's dealership-specific and probably getting a *lot* more common.) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-08-23
- About:
bramcohen: Ergonomic Keyboards
- When:
Wed Aug 23 00:31:40 2006
- Where:
http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/33086.html?view=476222#t476222
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-08-23 04:31 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This It's sad to see that fingerworks went under... but as a long-time typist (learned on typewriters and teletypes, prefer the type-M today but thinkpads aren't too bad) I found the touchstreams useless as keyboards, specifically because of the total lack of feedback about where you were. (The gesture features are great though.) The self-correcting features (the keyboard apparently tries to figure out where your fingers have drifted to, and compensates) didn't help. Strictly speaking this conflates travel and positional feedback... a thin overlay with holes for keys might have helped, though would have sacrificed the gesture features. Another existing example of the no-travel extreme is that laser keyboard that was getting so much press last year - they're supposed to have shipped a working model, I haven't seen it yet. I suspect it has the same problems. (Reply to this)(Parent)
2006-08-21
- About:
Truths - Stairways... on a plane!
- When:
Mon Aug 21 01:07:49 2006
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/89165.html?view=392013#t392013
- What:
- From: [info]eichin Date: August 21st, 2006 05:07 am (UTC) Delete Track This (Link) I don't know of any domestic US flights on 747's... a few years back I arranged for a BA flight to be 747 bos->lhr and 777 on the way back, and got upper deck seating. Current passenger 747's have a pretty cramped stairway... but back in the day, there was a *piano lounge* on the upper deck, instead of "another 30 seats". (The 777 was nicer overall, both of them are "a *lot* bigger than they look"...) (Reply to this)
2006-08-10
- About:
cjsmith: No more UK flights for CJ
- When:
Thu Aug 10 15:57:44 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/661297.html?view=5715249#t5715249
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-08-10 07:57 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Now if only someone will use this as an excuse to start running high speed transatlantic hydrofoil service... something like the CatFerry but larger. Probably still take about 2 days, but that beats the 6-10 day range now... (Reply to this)(Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: No more UK flights for CJ
- When:
Thu Aug 10 15:12:57 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/661297.html?view=5714737#t5714737
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-08-10 07:12 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This First guess: AA and BA lose approximately all of the us/europe business traffic to airlines that go directly to other cities (lufthansa, icelandair, delta) - given the reaction to the last big UK ATC failure that I almost ended up in, many of these people rebooked *today's* flights on those other airlines... (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-07-30
- About:
Mousebender » Blog Archive » Hackers & Painters
- When:
Sun Jul 30 00:49:08 2006
- Where:
http://mousebender.wordpress.com/2006/07/28/hackers-painters/
- What:
- 30 07 2006 313Mark Eichin (04:48:31) : You might find the perspective of an actual painter interesting… 314http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
2006-07-13
- About:
cjsmith: Bad luck or good luck?
- When:
Wed Jul 12 22:17:05 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/652219.html?view=5555643#t5555643
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-07-13 02:15 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This product exists (uses an MMC card for the video, as I recall.) Still a couple hundred dollars and only points in one direction, but the price will come down (probably not enough to get real insurance discounts, the lojack thing was legislative hacking, not rationality :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-07-08
- About:
lj_dev: LiveJournal-integrated Jabber
- When:
Sat Jul 8 18:04:09 2006
- Where:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_dev/716451.html?view=8177827#t8177827
- What:
- works with xmpp.py [info]eichin 2006-07-08 10:03 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This import xmpp cl = xmpp.Client("livejournal.com", debug=[]) # it uses the SRV record... cl.connect() cl.auth(user,pw,"jabber_cmdline") cl.sendInitPresence() cl.Process(1) (use RegisterHandler and send methods to do actual work. My commandline client based on this behaves exactly as expected (yay large suite of djabberd test cases); xmpp.py is from xmpppy.sf.net.) (Reply to this)
2006-06-29
- About:
cjsmith: I think I like my job
- When:
Wed Jun 28 23:22:19 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/645577.html?view=5415369#t5415369
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-06-29 03:21 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This we do in-office lunch tuesdays and thursdays (rotating who picks and orders, company always pays); another nearby startup has ice cream friday afternoon. I think this kind of thing (eating together) falls under "startup best practices", because of the bonding aspects :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-06-28
- About:
cjsmith: Whoa. This is downright eerie.
- When:
Wed Jun 28 03:00:26 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/645042.html?view=5413554#t5413554
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-06-28 07:00 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This see, that's how it's *supposed* to work. Now you just need to get in the habit of expecting it, and watch out for signs of it going away and call people on it (probably not a big risk until you double in size, maybe twice, but it is a growth risk...) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-06-14
- About:
cjsmith: It's a Whiffle World
- When:
Wed Jun 14 14:02:28 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/641748.html?view=5328852#t5328852
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-06-14 06:02 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This My pop-phrasing of that from a few years back was "back off or I'll get your religion listed in DSM-IV where it belongs" :-> (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-06-07
- About:
Napoleon's March on Moscow on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
- When:
Wed Jun 7 15:17:52 2006
- Where:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mac/156652901/in/set-72157594150131392?#comment72157594158852000
- What:
- view profile Mark Eichin Pro User says: Tufte points out in his current talks something that is often missed: Napoleon is never mentioned in the chart - there's actually a "war protest" subtext, if you dig into the history of the author... Posted 17 months ago. ( permalink | delete | edit )
2006-05-21
- About:
cjsmith: What job do I want? Part 2: what's out there
- When:
Sun May 21 13:17:20 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/634802.html?view=5238450#t5238450
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-05-21 05:17 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This We've talked about applying our research team to the spam problem - ultimately, it's either a strong authentication and identity problem, or an AI problem, in particular Natural Language Processing (but while there's lots of broad annoyance with spam, there's a lot more money in geography :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
- About:
cjsmith: What job do I want? Part 2: what's out there
- When:
Sun May 21 02:21:31 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/634802.html?view=5235378#t5235378
- What:
- Re: I can type, really [info]eichin 2006-05-21 06:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This One warning about PHP: find out what XSS or "Cross-Site Scripting" means. This will put you above 80% of the PHP developers out there - and save you from the embarassment of implementing "yet another security hole". For a quick dive into AJAX stuff, you might take a look at openlayers.org (open source project run by a coworker, to produce a common toolkit for ajax mapping apps - if nothing else, it's a fair place to see what all of the issues are.) You definitely need javascript and CSS to be able to do useful stuff with AJAX, but there's not much depth to either of them, just icky special cases - and, well, you handled Motif and traversal, these should be *easy* :-) oh yeah - 37signals just put up a ruby-on-rails job board - no idea how it's going, but if you want to look in that space as part of picking up a new language (rails has some helper tools that make writing ajax apps easier - or rather, makes writing certain kinds trivial so everyone just writes those :-) it might be worth a glance. (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-05-20
- About:
cjsmith: We never see ourselves the way others see us
- When:
Sat May 20 00:57:43 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/633100.html?view=5217292#t5217292
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-05-20 04:58 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This it occurs to me that VMWare is recruiting (around MIT at least), and they (almost inherently) probably have challenges at that layer of the stack while still being pan-OS... (they're kind of large, and already owned by EMC, but I don't recall if that matters to you.) Just a thought. iRobot was also hiring last I knew, but I think they're MA-only at this point (but obviously also have embedded challenges...) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-05-17
- About:
cjsmith: Relief!
- When:
Wed May 17 00:21:56 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/632813.html?thread=5202157#t5202669
- What:
- Re: and what are you seeking? [info]eichin 2006-05-17 04:22 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This Yeah - on the other side, I've actually gotten useful responses to a couple of my "we're hiring" posts here too, from people I didn't realize read my journal :-) (and congratulations - even if it's the "obviously sane" choice to start on the Next Thing, it still takes bravery to actually *do it* :-) (Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
2006-05-16
- About:
If I loved the Kyocera SL300RT, what should I get this year?: Q&A Forum: Digital Photography Review
- When:
Tue May 16 02:41:52 2006
- Where:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1002&message=18455663
- What:
- Forum Beginners Questions Subject If I loved the Kyocera SL300RT, what should I get this year? Posted by eichin [CLICK FOR PROFILE] Date/Time 7:42:34 AM, Tuesday, May 16, 2006 (GMT) Looking to replace a Kyocera Contax SL300RT* - which has served me extremely well for the last 3 years, until the LCD broke. The line has been discontinued, noone seems to have actual inventory (even the sponsor link here turns out to be out of stock, and that's on the SL400 model.) Given that I particularly liked * the size (very pocketable) * the speed (good time to first shot, as well as burst-shooting) * the ability to attach lenses and filters (8x spotting scope in a belt pouch, I can go from "What *is* that" to 24x glass zoom in under 10 seconds) * the ability to point the lens and viewscreen separately (particularly good for video of meetings/lectures, just give the camera a quarter-twist and point up from the desk at the speaker, or with the lens on, hold lens steady and aimed separately from seeing the framing - especially good when holding the camera braced at waist level and looking down at it, also for sky work) are there *any* modern cameras that you'd recommend? (Alternatively, sources for replacements or repairs for the original? ebay only has batteries...) (ps. I've read most of the new camera reviews - *nothing* I've seen has the twist-viewfinder aspect and is still pocketable; the Canon S80 is pretty close on features, but the lens mount is clunky, and it's two and a half times thicker with the lens *retracted*, so I'm mostly hoping for pointers to less common cameras, or suggestions of modern cameras I'd like anyway :-) -- _Mark_
2006-05-15
- About:
cjsmith: Oh Great LJ Brain Trust...
- When:
Sun May 14 23:53:01 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/632170.html?view=5184362#t5184362
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-05-15 03:53 am UTC (link) DeleteTrack This I've been using a T41 for a few weeks now, and one failure I've seen it have is sort of like that - unplug it and it dies hard. Turns out that the reason was that it "forgot" for some reason that it could charge the battery (the battery was completely flat at that point.) Problem went away after that (and if you're seeing it boot at all on that same battery you've got evidence that it's not the same problem.) It certainly *can* be a software problem (esp if you're running windows) - it goes into SMI mode on that transition. That wouldn't explain it starting to work again, though, unless bringing windows back up in safe mode caused it to fix something. (And I *entirely* understand the "not trusting it" problem. It's not about it being flaky, it's about it betraying you...) (Reply to this)(Thread)
2006-05-09
- About:
cjsmith: Well, it's an excellent distraction.
- When:
Tue May 9 14:08:39 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/630087.html?view=5170247#t5170247
- What:
- [info]eichin 2006-05-09 06:09 pm UTC (link) DeleteTrack This > NOT A HURRICANE EVACUATION ROUTE This one even appears to be from galveston, via google images: http://miscellaneousheathen.com/life/050920bachelor.html You know, you could put those up all over the country. Kind of like our plan to put "Bridge Freezes Before Road" signs on the bridges on the coastal roads in Kauai, HI :-)
2006-04-16
- About:
eichin: Yay spring!
- When:
Sun Apr 16 01:48:28 2006
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/68399.html?view=88367#t88367
- What:
- eichin 2006-04-16 05:46 am UTC (from 68.191.50.5) (47link) DeleteFreezeScreen 10 Select Comment Posted Successfully yeah. helps that the kyocera folds back on itself. also was at a stoplight...
2006-03-17
- About:
mistergrumpy: Well I Know You Don't Need The Confusion And I Know You Just Ain't The Type.
- When:
Thu Mar 16 23:05:54 2006
- Where:
http://mistergrumpy.livejournal.com/99535.html?view=187599#t187599
- What:
- [info]42eichin 2006-03-17 04:05 am UTC (43link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully so what we need is a social-whereami service, Too bad stalkr.com is already taken :-) (45Reply to this)(46Parent)
2006-03-14
- About:
sauergeek: Vacation, day 2
- When:
Tue Mar 14 00:38:03 2006
- Where:
http://sauergeek.livejournal.com/28943.html?view=125455#t125455
- What:
- [info]53eichin 2006-03-14 05:36 am UTC (54link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully I first picked up the Maglite test from an ex-wolfram homebrewer, back in the early 90's... more recently, I've seen an *iced tea* that passed the test. Not Good, they tried again :-)
2006-03-13
- About:
mistergrumpy: Well I Know You Don't Need The Confusion And I Know You Just Ain't The Type.
- When:
Sun Mar 12 22:41:31 2006
- Where:
http://mistergrumpy.livejournal.com/99535.html?view=185295#t185295
- What:
- 30eichin 2006-03-13 03:40 am UTC (31link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully so, other than the APRS stuff, is there a fan-club/tracking page? (I suppose I could just geoparse the your livejournal and map that, I was thinking more of something accessible to... DJs, etc...)
2006-03-11
- About:
cjsmith: My next car?
- When:
Sat Mar 11 01:02:37 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/604890.html?view=4951770#t4951770
- What:
- [info]36eichin 2006-03-11 06:01 am UTC (37link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully It's hard to sell that sort of thing over here because it's hard to get it to pass US emissions standards, so you can't even bring it to market. (For a while you couldn't even get the VW TDI.) On a one-by-one basis, you can fake it with Maryland "Dealer" Plates (also a popular trick for getting the Lotus 7 on the road.) I actually saw a SmartCar in motion a couple of nights ago, crossing RT 2 heading into Lincoln (instead of parked, 39like most of the ones I have pictures of.) The odd shape made it stand out, it was certainly moving quickly enough :-) (As for diesel fuel - california might be excessively special, but semis run on diesel, you're not going to ever fail entirely to find it - you'll just have to look harder. This is inconvenient when travelling in strange cities, but not a problem along highways at all, from what I could tell over the last 5 years... and when most of your driving is in familiar areas, it's really not a problem.)
- About:
cjsmith: My next car?
- When:
Sat Mar 11 00:45:07 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/604890.html?view=4951514#t4951514
- What:
- [info]54eichin 2006-03-11 05:43 am UTC (55link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully The "classic" not-made-in-20-years mini, yeah, that's tiny. The *current* bmw-owned mini is a lot more roomy inside than you'd expect - I've been driving the convertible since last summer and have successfully packed tall swedes in as passengers :-) 4 or 5 bags of groceries in the "luggage compartment", no problem, without folding down the back seats. And 25mpg is the *worst* mileage I've gotten, 30 is more typical. Very fun to drive, easy to park, terribly cute :-)
2006-03-05
- About:
cfox: Crocus
- When:
Sun Mar 5 00:58:09 2006
- Where:
http://cfox.livejournal.com/79120.html?view=78352#t78352
- What:
- [info]48eichin 2006-03-05 05:57 am UTC (49link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully Something looks wrong with that picture. OH, I know... there's no *snow* in it. Crocuses are supposed to be pushing their way out of snow :-)
2006-02-28
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech] National Engineers' Week! (USA)
- When:
Tue Feb 28 02:45:33 2006
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/317951.html?view=1905151#t1905151
- What:
- Tue, Feb. 28th, 2006, 07:45 am [info]30eichin google found 31eweek.org which looks likely. If you missed it (like I did) apparently *Canadian* national engineers' week is 2/25-3/5 instead :-)
2006-02-27
- About:
SourceForge.net: wwwsearch-general
- When:
Mon Feb 27 02:53:16 2006
- Where:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=9812810&forum_id=38923
- What:
- From: Mark Eichin <eichin@me...>tacarta.com> mechanize and basic auth 2006-02-25 15:33 Finally sat down and installed mechanize-0.0.11a to do some user-simulation testing -- it's *wonderful*, some tests I'd wanted to write years ago turned out to be surprisingly little code. Went to see how to turn on basic auth, for a more complex test, and noticed that it was still a todo item, and didn't find examples... It turned out to be quite simple, in the end, but took some digging to find it; perhaps I just wasn't searching for the right things. All it took was doing a UserAgent.set_credentials after the Browser.open (here, mech is the Browser() and self is my test wrapper class): if self.user and self.password: creds = urllib2.HTTPPasswordMgrWithDefaultRealm() creds.add_password(None, mech.geturl(), self.user, self.password) mech.set_credentials(creds) Perhaps google will find this now :-) (The test wrapper is pretty simple -- it's just a class to initialize the mechanize.Browser, a method for each "interface function", like this: @chance(0.01) def zoom_in(self): self.mech.follow_link(text="Zoom In") The decorator just sets fn__chance__, and there's a next_click method that does a weighted selection from the methods. Mostly works because it's a "one page with lots of options" interface, so the class doesn't have to keep any state, but it could... and since it's for testing, next_click does a assert self.mech.viewing_html(), "Viewing HTML" after each method call, which could also be augmented. The only problem we've had is that self.mech.back() breaks the connection, and I haven't checked to see if that's fixed in CVS...) _Mark_ <eichin@metacarta.com>
2006-02-23
- About:
30 Boxes Forums
- When:
Thu Feb 23 16:19:54 2006
- Where:
http://30boxes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2247#2247
- What:
- Mark Joined: 23 Feb 2006 Posts: 2 PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:16 pm Post subject: xfer money tomorrow Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post "xfer money tomorrow" (and "tomorrow: xfer money") gets entered today. I want "xfer money" to be entered tomorrow. (Yes, I could say Friday - but if I could remember tomorrow was friday, I wouldn't need a calendar app :-)
- About:
30 Boxes Forums
- When:
Thu Feb 23 16:16:22 2006
- Where:
http://30boxes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=802
- What:
- Mark Joined: 23 Feb 2006 Posts: 1 PostPosted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:13 pm Post subject: visit mom this weekend Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post "visit mom this weekend" gets entered today. I want it to get entered as two "visit mom" items, on saturday and sunday.
2006-02-20
- About:
Sibylla Bostoniensis - [tech] The Poetics of Programming
- When:
Mon Feb 20 01:32:53 2006
- Where:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/315855.html?view=1875663#t1875663
- What:
- Mon, Feb. 20th, 2006, 06:32 am [info]55eichin: code reuse I recently realized that there's a software development aphorism lurking in 56Judith Martin's "Three possible parts of a date" but have only slowly chiseled away at it, and not published it elsewhere, so this isn't the place to start. A vague memory combined with google did turn up57The Tao of Programming which is likewise a mimicry, and not especially enlightening, but might still suit your purpose... I think you've hit on something in the contrast with systems administration - the coding *is* the creative outlet. In that vein, you might fire up your nearest Python interpreter and type "import this"... 58Link 59Delete - 60Reply
2006-02-06
- About:
cjsmith: Least Necessary File Drawer Contents
- When:
Mon Feb 6 00:39:39 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/590260.html?view=4843956#t4843956
- What:
- eichin 2006-02-06 05:38 am UTC (58link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully Heh, was that "car destroyed in 1988 or so" the big green chevy malibu? (... that I borrowed to drive to a job interview, and after I got it back, never ran again?) (60Reply to this)
2006-02-05
- About:
eichin: Cruising
- When:
Sun Feb 5 02:45:31 2006
- Where:
http://eichin.livejournal.com/64875.html?view=86635#t86635
- What:
- ) "shadow set" [info]75eichin 2006-02-05 07:44 am UTC (from 4.36.43.106) (76link) DeleteFreezeScreen 13 Select Comment Posted Successfully Not that anyone will see this, but it turns out that this looks a lot like something called "shadow set" (as in, the earth's shadow) and 80Astronomy Picture Of The Day just had a really good picture of it (and corresponding explanation.) The pinkish part is the 81"antitwilight arch", or "belt of venus", and is due to "backscattering of reddened light." So I guess this is more strictly speaking "shadow rise"... and having guessed that, sure enough, there's 82another APOD picture and rather similar explanation, also a link to 83some experiments and explanations about scattering. (84Reply to this)(85Parent
2006-01-30
- About:
cjsmith: Budget Categories
- When:
Mon Jan 30 10:49:19 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/587457.html?view=4804033#t4804033
- What:
- [info]109eichin 2006-01-30 03:47 pm UTC (110link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully I'm imagining an explanation that starts with Miss Manners' bit about how dating involves entertainment, affection, and food, and where on those three axes the expense occurs :-)
2006-01-29
- About:
OQO Model 01+ Ultra Personal Computer Review Comments - Page 2 - The Gadgeteer Bulletin Board
- When:
Sun Jan 29 17:14:30 2006
- Where:
http://forums.the-gadgeteer.com/vbbs/showthread.php?p=14930#post14930
- What:
- 53eichin eichin is online now Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Concord, MA Posts: 35 Re: OQO Model 01+ Ultra Personal Computer Review Comments Yes, it is penguin-friendly :-) I picked up an 01+ immediately when they were announced (my first-run 12"PB died a second time, so it was time for an upgrade... and the 01 *really* had too little memory...) I've never run XP on it at all: plugged in a USB cdrom drive and a Ubuntu (debian-based linux but with a lot more end-user polish) CD, and it booted right up. There is some amount of tweaking (wacom driver, accellerated video driver (though VESA does work), patches to the atmel driver) but really surprisingly little, as linux laptops go. There's an "unsupported linux stuff" page on oqo.com with plenty of info from one of their engineers (who you'll find on the handtops.com forums too.) I've been wearing it on my belt the whole time. The armored case is a win; heat hasn't been a problem mostly because of the linux tools for using the Crusoe "thermal management" support and cranking it way down. The screen protector is a must. I haven't had calibration problems -- I'm no artist, but I sketch out designs with TuxPaint with great skill (I can't draw with a *mouse* at all, this convinced me that whatever follows it *has* to have a tablet screen - none of my PDAs have ever had large enough screens to convince me.) One note about the keyboard - it's rather like the old Clie NX keyboard, with one important difference - the modifiers work right. If you hit shift, it stays on for just the next key. if you hit shift twice, it locks. If you press shift and another key and release them both - you get the shifted key, and shift is released. That latter bit is the key thing that the Clie got wrong. I do hook up a real keyboard when I'm at a desk... actually, I've built a cradle that attaches it to an IBM Clicky keyboard, which looks kind of insane (pictures on flickr) but works pretty well. Being able to pull it out and get work done anywhere, without having a gear bag at all, has been a real win for me. Unfortunately, it just went back to oqo for repair; their support process has been pretty good so far, though. __________________ _Mark_
2006-01-28
- About:
Truths - Phooey
- When:
Sat Jan 28 02:43:25 2006
- Where:
http://firstfrost.livejournal.com/74635.html?view=288907#t288907
- What:
- eichin Date: January 28th, 2006 - 07:40 am Delete (29Link) assuming bin/friendtracker is the script you're talking about... I don't think your problem is cookies. If you go to login.bml and "view source", you should see two things: (1) a bunch of %lt;input type='hidden'> fields -- you need to include those in your form post; (2) some javascript to md5sum the challenge and password together and send that instead - and *not* send your real password in the clear, even without https. Presumably the second part is optional (because they support browsers without javascript, I assume) but it's easy enough to do in perl that it might be worth doing anyway. The big thing is that you have to GET the login page first, parse the hidden challenge out of it, and post that back... I spent 20 minutes playing with this in python (mostly because it had some similarity to a blogs.mit.edu comment-killer I wrote last week, and because it sounded like an interesting approach -- though I think I really want an rss feed of the comments, that's a lot more work), see /mit/eichin/ljcomments.py -- if the above explanation wasn't enough, hopefully I've commented it well enough to give you some more hints. Unfortunately, the cookie handling needs python 2.4, and I only see 2.3 on the dialups...
2006-01-20
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cjsmith: Thank you
- When:
Fri Jan 20 15:18:08 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/583320.html?view=4743320#t4743320
- What:
- eichin 2006-01-20 08:13 pm UTC (161link) Delete one way to think about it the "only a year" part - they probably have good resale value, and if you don't need it in a year you'll be *so* happy to sell it off... and in the meantime you have the mobility *now*...
2006-01-19
- About:
cjsmith: Gimp social life
- When:
Thu Jan 19 13:16:25 2006
- Where:
http://cjsmith.livejournal.com/582905.html?view=4727289#t4727289
- What:
- eichin 2006-01-19 06:08 pm UTC (251link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully one possibility to consider is resurrecting the tradition of "holding court" and lead more social events that are of the form "people come here and hang out" rather than "we all go somewhere else which may or may not be accessible enough"...
2006-01-07
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cjsmith: Productivity Illusion
- When:
Sat Jan 7 17:38:04 2006
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cjsmith/578329.html?view=4679705#t4679705
- What:
- eichin 2006-01-07 10:36 pm UTC (60link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully and the factor-of-three version is the conservative don't-scare-people-too-much version. I've seen it convincingly quoted as high as a factor of ten - and given some of the programmer interviews I've done, I could probably come up with data for it :-) Then again, there's another bit of wisdom about measuring productivity, which is that measuring it increases it - because it shows that someone cares. Much more true for "mundane" work, programmers almost always end up treating it as a game... (62Reply to this)(63Parent)
2006-01-01
- About:
Ted Tso - Small configuration file parser
- When:
Sun Jan 1 16:16:24 2006
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/tytso/27157.html?view=77333#t77333
- What:
- eichin on January 1st, 2006 - 09:14 pm did you at least make it parse a saner format, namely one where #-sign comments work the way everyone expects them to? (That was the most annoying problem in krb5.conf, though the quoting horrors were probably more harmful...) Most of the config parsing I do these days is with about 3 lines of python... ConfigParser is actually too much like krb5.conf :-) (83Reply) (84Link)
2005-12-27
- About:
Second p0st: Comments on post 200512191
- When:
Tue Dec 27 18:05:38 2005
- Where:
http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/comments?u=2&p=200512191
- What:
- That page only has references to 0.18... some url surgery does find http://www.myelin.co.nz/bzero/bzero-0.19-py2.4.tar.gz but you might want to update the download page... posted by 10Mark Eichin at 2005-12-27 18:00:41
2005-12-24
- About:
sierra_nevada: Lighting Designers and super bright LEDs
- When:
Sat Dec 24 14:59:11 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sierra_nevada/85810.html?view=163122#t163122
- What:
- ) [info]42eichin 2005-12-24 08:00 pm UTC (43link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully They're still overly expensive (halogen flashlight bulb: $20; equiv brightness LED: $120) so they haven't fanned out that far. There are drop-in LED floodlamps (see cyberguys among others) and of course you've seen taillights and traffic lights. Also the colors are still "too pure" for human/household applications... (45Reply to this
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Handtops.com- OQO Linux Installation & Configurati
- When:
Fri Dec 23 23:49:59 2005
- Where:
http://www.handtops.com/forum/752/3/15807#15807
- What:
- 10:44pm online 55eichin Further experimentation did get me 1280x1024 external under linux... but only if I booted with the monitor plugged in, there was no way that I found to switch screens without rebooting. (also needed the siliconmotion driver to get that resulotion, couldn't get VESA to do better than 1024x768.) Still looking... + 56EDIT | 57PM | 58QUOTE | PERMALINK | 59REPORT
- About:
Handtops.com- OQO Linux Installation & Configurati
- When:
Fri Dec 23 23:48:57 2005
- Where:
http://www.handtops.com/forum/752/3/15760#15760
- What:
- 12/21/05 online 50eichin I've got my 01+ running fine (upgraded to ubuntu "breezy" without too much trouble, although they did botch parts of the X upgrade.) Tablet works fine, I couldn't find any advice on bluetooth, but then noticed that this was because it all just works out of the box so there wasn't anything special to do for the oqo :-) The one thing I'm missing is how to enable the external VGA port on the docking cable. Just doesn't show up. Hitting FN-L from linux just gives me atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x66 on isa0060/serio0). atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes 66 <keycode>' to make it known. which I suppose I could trap and use to tell X something... but what? Any ideas? + 51EDIT | 52PM | 53QUOTE | PERMALINK | 54REPORT
2005-12-17
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Re: Other Editors?
- When:
Sat Dec 17 03:32:32 2005
- Where:
http://blog.ianbicking.org/other-editors-comment-34.html?
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- Re: Other Editors? Changes saved How about Leo? It's "more different" than most editors, but it seems to fit your requirements... Comment on 19Other Editors? by 20Mark Eichin
2005-12-07
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rfrench: House prices
- When:
Wed Dec 7 00:06:05 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfrench/66656.html?view=404064#t404064
- What:
- [info]91eichin 2005-12-07 05:03 am UTC (92link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully yeah, it's all location... one of the Cygnus guys chose 5 acres and a 4br house in oregon, plus a flight to palo alto once every six weeks, over a 4br/0.5acre within 45 minutes of palo alto... because even with the (mid nineties) airfare, the oregon package was cheaper. Albequerque has a good rep for geek friendliness combined with under-$100k family houses. (Apparently there's some large percentage of america where I could trade in my truck for a decent house :-)
2005-11-08
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xiphmont: A successful party^H^H^H^H^Hwedding
- When:
Mon Nov 7 22:46:36 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/xiphmont/3988.html?view=8596#t8596
- What:
- punctuality [info]79eichin 2005-11-08 03:46 am UTC (80link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully Nah, it's not like you're going to get surprise married *again*... (82Reply to this
2005-10-28
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cjsmith: What an awful smell!
- When:
Fri Oct 28 18:26:56 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cjsmith/552610.html?view=4384162#t4384162
- What:
- [info]46eichin 2005-10-28 10:26 pm UTC (47link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully Years back I talked about doing an IAP course on "Olfactory Diagnosis"... basically, crisp different components and have people smell them, to learn the distinctions between capacitors, semiconductors, plastic casings, etc. Never figured out a way to keep the safety office from objecting :-) and didn't get around to hosting it somewhere else instead. Still, it's a "useful" skill...
2005-10-27
- About:
cjsmith: Echo As Couples Echo In Tandem Quarter Right
- When:
Wed Oct 26 21:57:44 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cjsmith/551589.html?view=4380325#t4380325
- What:
- [info]74eichin 2005-10-26 08:57 pm UTC (75link) Delete Alternatively, you could eliminate the "calling" step and just go for direct vestibular stimulation: 77 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051026/ap_on_hi_te/remote_control_for_humans
2005-10-26
- About:
geek.opml.org
- When:
Wed Oct 26 15:25:00 2005
- Where:
http://geeks.opml.org/comments?link=http%3A%2F%2Fgeeks.opml.org%2F2005%2F10%2F26%23a287&p=287&u=geeks
- What:
- I second the "try it in a store" recommendation. Also, based on my use of the OPML app on a 1st-gen 867mhz 12" powerbook: is typing slow in OPML only, or in things like Safari text boxes as well? The first version of the mac port of OPML is "just not particularly good" as mac apps go, it was using outdated (even retro) UI components, and had responsiveness issues unique to the app. Perhaps the thing to do is to get yourself the spiffy dual g5 -- and then make your mac developer use the iBook until it improves :-)\nMark Eichin \u2022 10/26/05; 3:03:13 PM
2005-10-20
- About:
jtidwell: Quack!
- When:
Thu Oct 20 17:00:23 2005
- Where:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jtidwell/14195.html?view=39283#t39283
- What:
- [info]eichin 2005-10-20 08:55 pm UTC (link) Delete Comment Posted Successfully As the fortune cookie says, "Good Things Are Coming Your Way" (on the back) "Duck" :-) Congratulations, and I see that amazon has it for preorder already...