Daily notes

Interesting NASCAR overtaking technique: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v3hBPzmre2s

Today I've been looking at Mastodon and Stable Diffusion an AI picture creator similar to Dream.AI

https://stability.ai/ has a bunch of community ai builders in various media

Robot With Humans

On Twit's Tech News there was discussion about sharing work with robots, how working together the whole job is better done. Examples such as DeepBlue and the human player combining would always beat DeepBlue on its own.

Also chances to combine Roomba and a human to complete the hoovering job much quicker, each taking the parts of the work best suited to each.

It reminds me of when I worked with companies first introducing CNC machines and robot arms, there was no question of the machines working on their own, but working to extend the abilities of the worker.

So the ultimate goal of automation should be to work along with us, not replace us.

Gmail Browser Display Images Settings

I inadvertently double-clicked in GMail and selected "always display images from sender@domain.tld" This wasn't what I wanted but Googling  "gmail browser list of senders you've allowed to display images" returned info on how to display images or not globally in the Settings menu, but not how to turn it off where the link within an email has been clicked.

I have found the way. Select the 'details' down-arrow to the right of the 'receiver email address' shown in the header. This will have an entry at the bottom of the dropdown to allow images to not be displayed.

I am noting this here in case it is helpful to others.

Raspberry Pi Hints and Tips

A collection of links to useful places for RaspberryPi enthusiasts:

• http://frederickvandenbosch.be/?p=2385 Thanks to FrederickVandenbosch‏ @f_vdbosch who says: I made a dedicated post on setting up the @Raspberry_Pi headlessly, to avoid repetition in every project post. (added 18Mar20017)

It has been a few months since my last posting. I have lots of projects of interest and organising time to do them should be aided by tech, but just isn't. ToDo, task lists, calendars, etc. should be so much better than they are.

GMail recent added the auto post link to GCal which is okay, but still limited.

Still looking for a better way.

To sit or not to?

With the launch of the ConnectTVT Open Devices Lab there's a new opportunity and new facility within GROW. During launch week several people have commented upon the height of the display stand's, and this got me thinking about a discussion that has been a work meme in recent years - standing desks.

What are the pros and cons now that people have had some experience of using them?

I found a number of interesting articles on the Web discussing blogger’s experiences of using both standing and standing/sitting desks.

If you want to build one for yourself, then just ask at your local MakerSpace (e.g. rlab.org.uk), they will have the facilities to help you build one from existing materials such as those found at IKEA as shown in this guide (http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html)

But, what type of desk to build?

Constant standing seems to be as bigger a problem as constant sitting.

In his article (http://blog.pickcrew.com/why-i-killed-my-standing-desk/) Mikael Cho decides not to continue with his desk, but introduces new ideas about exercises that will tackle such things as “tight hip” which is often the underlying culprit leading to lower back problems, and then raises the issue of our mobility as we get older and what exercises can be useful to develop muscles in the body.Studies by Kelly Starrettt found a lot of people are uncomfortable with exercises such as squatting in a keep-fit gym. As linked in the article Kelly recommends three stretches to help.

Part of a series on Networked Fitness and the Quantified Self, The ReadWrite Web  post (http://readwrite.com/2013/09/26/standing-desks-productivity) by Julia Gifford starts off saying there's lot’s of companies supporting Standing Desks, Google, FaceBook and others. She looks at the history with Thomas Jefferson and Winston Churchill noted users.

She notes positive and negative aspects that vary depending on the type of activity, standing added urgency that can destroy creativity, but it can help “get things done”, give relief from headaches and help quit smoking.

On Quartz (http://qz.com/272350/theres-a-huge-hidden-downside-to-standing-desks-that-no-one-told-me-about-2/) Gywnn Guilford discovered a huge hidden downside to a standing desk but concludes that even when the crankles made it hard to put shoes on, she never considered going back. She lists 5 points that she learned from working with a standing desk.

• Switching is more complicated that just standing
• Choosing a standing or a more complicated stand/sit version
• Differences for men and women
• Understanding the research results
• To sit or stand, changing your work protocol

So I am wondering about others experience and views on Standing vs Sit. Should the Lab offer a choice? And if so what tasks to be facilitated on which style?

Planning a new blog for my use of the OpenTRV

I went to meetup with the OpenTRV team on Saturday. We had a great discussion about the current place and future plans for the project. Although I have been following the project and I have printed some of the first cases as part of TVRRUG and I received my tinkering kit board a while back, I was unclear what I could do with it.

I now have a Conrad FTS TRV that is the same model as the Rev2 boards have been designed to work with. Mine is a German version, but I believe it is the same as the UK FS20 as mentioned in this thread from the opentrv archives.

So I am going to create a new blog to follow the work I do on this project.

Processing and FreeNect on Ubuntu 12 64bit

I recently acquired a Kinect sensor with the intention of using it for 3D scanning of things for printing on our TVRR printer. But it seems there is a lot more I can use it for. Robots, midi and more are now on my project list.

I've got it working on various OS's  including Win7 and Xbuntu 32bit and Lubuntu 64bit. There seems to be lots of choices of software, but much stems from around 2010 and has ownership and development seems to to have alot since then.

I am obviously rather late to the Kinect game and this means I have to pick the right bones out of a pile of skelebones,

I plan to records notes here to help others that may come across the same problems.

Today I got Processing working on my Lubuntu 64bit system and able to run the Freenect examples. An option is to use OpenNI instead of Freenect, but I had Freenect installed and working already and I understand they are not compatible with each other.

I found instructions at http://www.local-guru.net/blog/2010/12/28/how-to-use-the-libfreenect-processing-wrapper-on-ubuntu the differences being my 64bit OS and my use of OpenJDK 7 (needed for PraxisLive - but that is another story) So my Paths were different and I did not remove the -m64 directive.

It compiled okay but I got an error:
java: symbol lookup error: /home/../sketchbook/libraries/openkinect/library/libOpenKinect.so: undefined symbol: libusb_init

There are several forum posts reporting this error, but no good answers. I initially thought it may be a PATH error so I double checked the paths in build.sh, I added a symbolic link in the /usr/lib/jvm/ directory for JDK 7 to mirror the one for JDK 6, but this did not help.

I found this post: http://fightpc.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/use-processing-and-kinect-in-ubuntu.htm and in the comments found this http://fightpc.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/use-processing-and-kinect-in-ubuntu.html#c3034086444552109525
reporting the same problem. As the main post +Miguel Sánchez mentions an update advising he has 64bit Ubuntu running okay, I am encouraged to pursue a solution. The post is from May 2011 though.

and I see this reply that matched my googling:
http://fightpc.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/use-processing-and-kinect-in-ubuntu.html#c2174108083274595404
saying: I'm assuming you have libusb-1.0 already installed in your system. The complaint is about not being able to find libusb init code. 


So I'm still not working. The reference to having libusb-1.0 installed (which I have) got my googling libusb and without reference to kinect or freenect.

This pulled up the post: http://libusb.6.n5.nabble.com/Compile-in-GCC-td7048.html from 2009 which holds a query about a problem 'Roman' was having with gcc and libusb and getting the same error.

Tim Roberts reply was:
You told it where to find the include files, but not the name of the 
library.  If the library is in your /usr/local/lib directory, try adding 
-lusb-1.0 to your command line. 

I tried this and Viola! my example loading in Processing and reported it couldn't find the Sensor. I plugged the Kinect in and a window popped up, but no images.

I ran 'freenect-glview' to check this was still working, which it was, and reran the Processing sketch, and double viola! the images came up.

A simple solution but a pig to find even with all the help of google.

TVRR 3D Printing at ECOS

On Saturday the 2nd November I had the pleasure of attending the Electronic Organ Constructors Society ( eocs.org.uk ) meet up close to Euston station in central London.

My visit had been inspired some weeks earlier by an event at the Bracknell Gadget Fair where I was displaying the Thames Valley RepRap Users Group (TVRRUG.org,uk) demonstration of 3D printing machines

Alan Douglas was visiting the fair and had been coincidentally requested to do a talk on 3D printing at their meetup. Seeing the 3d printer so he took great interest and we discussed some advantages and opportunities that the TVRRUG approach offers

I arrived early in London and found a parking space close to the church hall where the event was taking place.

At 10 o'clock I took my TVRR RepRap around to the hall and found inside a welcoming cup of coffee, some biscuits, and a group of people of varying ages, and unsurprisingly, all male. In the church next door the sound of an organ playing and many men and women dressed smartly for a service.

To prepare for the event Alan had sent me a drawing of, what is known as a “stop”, a piece of an electronic organ which is often used in construction projects. One of the members has been casting them in plastic and it seemed a good example of something that could be 3d printed

I worked on creating a design using the OpensCAD software and printed out a sample which I took a long to be event.

A feature I had not been able to reproduce, using the OpensCAD software, was a radius on the top of the stop, this is the main difference between my reproduction and the original drawing, it is something that is possible to do, but would have taken me more time than I had available.

Alan presented his talk to the animated audience and it covered a lot of areas of general 3D printing, the opportunities and limitations. Afterwards he handed over to myself and I talked through the specific areas around the Thames Valley RepRap design,  in particular a involvement and cooperation with the Reading Hackspace (rlab.org.uk), and other hackspaces in general.

There were lots of questions and discussions about 3D printing and its role in electronic organ construction. I thank everyone I met for a warm welcome and wish you well with all your projects.

In this document I want to add some links to the sources of information and resources that I referred to in my discussion.

Thames Valley reprap user group - http://tvrrug.org.uk

Reading hackspace - http://rlab.org.uk

Manchester fablab

Faberdashery filament supplier

OpensCAD - http://openscad.org

Slic3r - http://slic3r.org/

Meshlab

Blender

Sketchup

EagleCAD

DesignSpark - http://www.designspark.com/

RepRap - http://reprap.org

3DPrintuk - http://www.3dprint-uk.co.uk/

Solderpad - http://solderpad.com/‎

Open Source Hardware User Group http://oshug.org

No comms in the age of comms!

The downside of number porting.

Yesterday I was woken by an unsolicited text from an online bingo provider, not for the first time. Getting fed up with them I searched and found a number that I could forward them to that deals with spam.
I duly forwarded the msg, and received a reply asking for the originator callerID. I had to tell them that it was sent from 000000, and expected to hear no more.

I have a new phone in addition and wanted to update the contacts so I know own number. I called my old phone number and found it was reported as "Temporarily Unavailable". I found I could send texts and make calls but not receive them.

Thinking the phone was faulty I swapped the SIM to another phone and now there was no signal at all. Back to the other phone and now no signal there either.

I checked the O2 status page, and it said all the network was fine.

I had a spare PAYG SIM on the same network, so I tried that and it worked fine. So I thought that it was the SIM with my main number that was faulty. I contacted my MobileSP to ask for my credit to be moved to the working SIM.

Then at 2am today I get a series of txt msgs on the 'dead' phone over a 30 min period. These turned out to be messages from yesterday, including test ones I had sent to myself.

So what did I learn. My current analysis is that the problem was caused by using a 'Ported Number' on the SIM

The working SIM is on the same network, but with a 'native' number. OFCOM documents indicate that there may be routing changes underway at the moment. 

If this is the cause then maybe porting your number is not a good move, not only does any spam follow you, but it adds another layer of 'service' to fail.

Spring 2013,

As the real Spring starts to arrive, somewhat late this year indeed, I am reviewing my Social spaces and what which offers to me and those that follow me. There are still lots of places, although with the loss of Posterous, there is one less.

G+ is quick and easy to post upon, but a recent discussion I had there did indicate that it is more image orientated than here.

So I am thinking "where does Blogger fit in?", being a G property, it is one egg in basket that should not contain all my eggs, on the other hand they have just revamped Blogger to integrate it more with G+, so it could be useful for more "page" orientated posts than G+ and more personal posts than GCommunities.

Any followers thoughts are most welcome.

This Week In Google 174: Reggae Jeff - Section 1h48m37s

I'm testing this "autopost from YouTube" feature by seeing if this link passes the bookmark with the video link. I set at 1h48m37s where an amusing and informative interchange between Leo and his team starts. 

The scenario is that Leo (The Boss at Twit.tv) has just returned from a trip away in Australia on a Geek Cruise boat and while he was away his team were prepping for Xmas. The end of year show is always a highlight episode to give the live presenters a break.

To solicite feedback, regarding the best clips to include in the show, a member of the team created a web form...... this mini-rant by the boss will be familiar to anyone who has worked in IT... but is still fun to watch or listen to.

If you are a budding IT person listen and learn.

Alcohol in LCHF Diet

Here is one answer posted in reply to the question of beer etc. when on a LCHF diet.

Eva-Brit Kram posted in Swedish at post


My interpretation of the post is: 


Alcohol stops the fat burning process and gives a craving for carbohydrates..A glass of red wine every now and then is ok. After a time on LCHF you will not be as tolerant of alcohol as before. The alcohol pulls down blood sugar and it makes it possible to be very poorly.

Steve Gibson mentioned in his podcast that Chardonnay is his tipple of choice and he also referred to reports that some people on the LCHF  diet produce vapours that can trigger a breathalyser  false positive.

Low Carbohydrate High Fat Diet

After listening to Steve Gibson @stevegrc and www.grc.com and Leo Laporte of twit.tv discussing Steve's analysis of a diet based on the principles of LCHF. The dramatic results that Steve described inspired me to feel it is worth looking at my diet through a pair of LCHF tinted glasses.


I am posting notes, info and links here as I find them. It may help others who are similarly inspired and find, as I am, that the answer to 'what can I eat?' is not as easy to find via Google as I expected.


I found this Swedish website that seems promising. For example this page was translated by google and I have re-written it to make smoother sense as the raw translation was good, but not great. (and yes, I have posted my suggestions back to google)


Original written by Kamilla Fredberg. Find it at http://www.lchf.se/Mat/Ist%C3%A4lletf%C3%B6rkolhydrater.aspx


My interpretation:


Instead of eating traditional carbohydrates like rice, pasta, couscous, potatoes, etc. use vegetables (up to 100g food weight). This way you only need to cook one dish with two different accessories for a meal where others wish to eat high carb vegetables. Nuts can also be an option for those who can tolerate them. It is important is that you increase your fat intake, because that is what makes the big difference. It lowers blood sugar and makes you feel full.


Here is a shopping list of low carbohydrates. For most vegetables, you can ensure that you always have some in a bag in the freezer, but buy any fresh. Broccoli,  Cauliflower,  Green Beans, Brussels,  Squash,  Eggplant,  Cabbage, and Red Cabbage, Asparagus, Broad Beans.


Sweet Pea Salad, mix a range of different varieties of Cucumber, Tomato,  Mushroom, Artichoke.


To replace Rice: 

• Use Cauliflower, Broccoli  & Vegetables: Fry squash, mushrooms, fennel and pepper. Grate the selected vegetable using the rough side of a grate or mix in a food processor. Fry in pan with butter or oil until it is cooked through and has the consistency you like. Season with salt, pepper and your favorite seasoning. 

To replace Pasta:

• Use Squash strips. Cut into bars, 0.5 cm thick, 4 inches long.
• Use Squash slices: Use small, thin zucchini and cut 0.5 cm thick slices.
• To replace spaghetti use slices of cheese cut in fine thin strips, or cut into 2 * 3 cm pieces instead of macaroni.
• Lasagne can be replaced with Courgette slices. Use large courgette, cut into slices 0.3 cm thick. Layer with meat sauce and whipped cream, top with cheese and brown in the oven.

To replace Potato: 

• Cook cauliflower then mash and mix with cream and butter, salt and pepper.
• Vegetable Beef and potato pancakes. Use the trunk of broccoli and cauliflower left over when you boiled florets. Grate and blend with a food processor adding grated cheese, egg, salt and pepper. Fry the patties or pancakes in a pan with plenty of fat.
• Aubergine. Divide in half and cut cut in. Salt, pepper and pour over the olive oil. Bake at 200 ° C for 20 min. Scoop out and mix with, for example, ground beef, or just add the minced meat on top halves, top with cheese and browning in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  
• Cauliflower or broccoli florets, raw, cooked or baked with a topping of cheese 
• Green Beans, Other Beans, Brussel Sprouts,  Asparagus,  Artichokes, boiled or oven baked with a topping of cheese. 
• Eggplant, fried, diced, cubed or oven baked with a topping of cheese salad.
• Tomato, cucumber, lettuce, red onion, bell pepper, sweet peppers, capers, olives, sun dried tomatoes. 
• Salads: Red and/or White Cabbage Salad.  Tomato Salad or Mushroom Salad. Cut into slices and mix with finely chopped red onion. Pour over a good vinaigrette and let sit for an hour before serving. 

Nuts: Almond Flour, cashews, hazelnuts, peanuts, walnuts, pissacio, pecan, brazil, coconut

A real face for the brand.

@Krishna De ( http;//twitter.com/krishnaDe )retweeted a link about Three things Google is up to while we focus on Google Plus http://goo.gl/K9eeN < an important post by @SteveRubel in Adage

The thing that came to my mind was about the reference to companies needing 'real people' to represent them. The larger the company the more difficult, maybe undesirable, and possibly false, is the idea of having a single 'real person' representing the 'brand'. G+'s lack of brand support at the moment highlights the difference wants of the people behind the brand and the brand itself.

Many geeks 'are' the brand and this may be an opportunity for the micro-businesses to have a higher profile than larger ones, the question is how to make the most of chance.

Excitement about Nanode

I attended Ken Boak's ( http://sustburbia.blogspot.com ) Nanode Workshop at the London Hackspace recently and built my Nanode5 kit. This AVR microcontroller is a low cost simple version of the Arduino + Ethershield. It is ideal for Home Monitoring and simple Automation projects.

I have created a special Blog to track my progress and experience with my Nanode.

You can find it at http://j.mp/ntbee [ http://nanodethebee.posterous.com ] and also a twitter log at http://twitter.com/nanodethebee

Saving separate audio from DOT flv file

I recorded an audio only broadcast using uStream and wanted to use the audio in a podcast after editing. I usually use Audacity to edit audio and could not import the flv format into Audacity 1.13beta directly using Windows Vista.

I search Google but the suggested solutions using VLC command line seemed to be Linux specific, but they triggered me into looking at VLC more carefully and found that using VLC 1.1.7 [ http://videolan.org ] I can save the file from within VLC using "right-Click/Save/" and selecting "Profile Audio/mp3"

I am noting this here as I could be helpful to others.

What is the Big Idea? Post1

After David Cameron's speech was in the news yesterday, I was driving to an appointment and I heard several phone-ins on BBC local radio stations around London and the tone of the comments was mostly cynical, skeptical, confused or un-trusting. This does not surprise me at all.

I am hearing this alot. So I thought I would start collecting up links to various views, conversations and resources around the subject.

My first link is to the www.NESTA.org.uk event Collaborative Consumption resource, a set of videos recorded at the second of their series on this subject.

I have started to watch the recordings of the presentations at the second event in a series. The focus of this session was 'Trust'

The event was chaired by Jon Kingsbury, Director at NESTA. Speakers included Rachel Botsman, Jonathan Simmons from Public Zone, Stan Stalnaker, founder Hub Culture, Ben Reason, Designer LiveWork and Meriel Lenfestey, founder Ecomodo.

Rachel Botsman discussed online examples of tools for building trust, quoting Ebay and TaskRabbit, AirB&B and Couchsurfing.

Jennie Winhall of www.participle.net identified 'service users' are seen as 'assets' or 'drains'. Discussed a private social network tool sponsored by NESTA and being used in Southwark to drive community interaction and turn people into 'community assets' rather than 'drains' and address the individual hoarding of services and to build trust relationships.

Drawbridges built with red tape.

To certify or not to certify?

At a time when there is a call for the reduction of the 'red tape' involved in business, it is fascinating to hear business owners argue for extra regulation.

Listening to a hairdresser argue for more regulation of Hairdressers reminded me again how one persons freedom is another's prison. The desire of cooperation, community and collaboration is at odds to monopoly, greed and elitism and I think red tape is really the red line that separates the two.

It seems to me that certification is just one bit of Red Tape, and has been seen as a bad thing/good thing that needs addressing ever since the year dot.

A Google never forgets.

Following an interesting discussion at the TVSMC event recently I though I should note the details for others reference.

We were discussing whether it was worth commenting on a blog or news article some time after its posting and how it is easy for good intentions to go out the window, and being a time to think of 'things for the new year' should the past lost intentions be forgot.

My view is that commenting and updates should be done whenever. My thinking goes as follows.

Your blog posts, Twitter comments, FB wall writings, etc will never be forgotten by the googles. so take advantage of this rather than treating online as if it was dead tree media.

You are in the world of brand building once you are online at all.

This thinking is totally undermined by the blogs and interactive sites that solicited input from readers and then after a short time they close the comments. In my view this is short-sighted, misguided and rude.

I comment on this subject further on my Creativity and Greentech podcast Show HC61 (available via http://hcpodcast.mevio.com/feed/ )