-------- Original message -------- Subject: [Linux_adult_swim] An entire day wasted on politics... From: Paul Flint <[email protected]> To: [email protected] CC: [Linux_adult_swim] An entire day wasted on politics... Greetings List Lurkers, Sadly today, Monday I will be traveling so I am going to declare this Monday an Adult Swim holiday. Anyone who can help me figure out how to edit the remainder of this message out would win my undying affection... Regards Flint Today has been completely absorbed in the dreaded politics of life. The great news is that we have received an excellent donation of computer books from a local benefactor, so part of the Adult Swim shall today shall involve the re-distribution of the excellent collection of O'Reilly class books into the arms of the awaiting young geeks as they arrive. This is what we live for, the other thing is getting the politics lined up. The really good news is that EnGenius directional 801.11 G distance WAN radio link has found a good home, and is now helping humanity in a strange and wonderful way. So, after this most recent success with the radio links I can honestly say, these radio link things are very cool. The radio links for 802.11 can go about 2 miles, we are looking for other test sites as well. Want 300 Mb/s for about 2 miles? Respond and we can set you up. Our latest idea involves setting up a PXE boot distribution loader at the Barre library which would allow folks to enter the library, and load onto their equipment the distribution of their choice. While this would be a free service and would not defray the cost of the LinuxWorld subscription it would tend to center Open Source activity and extend outreach in Barre, which might be a model for other state library institutions. It remains a beautiful thing watching Yarger and DTG tart up the snobot. All it really took was troubleshooting the controller. The latest Very Interesting Thing (VIT) that has happened is the discovery of the Robot Operating System (ROS) tar ball. This is open source's answer to the Robot Software Wall, here is where we discovered that the "Hawking Class" wheelchair to robot mod is called a differential motor system and can be made to talk to Turtle Graphics... very cool. Again, we have posted a partial working pin-out of the output board on the snobot web site, look for Control Module for Ranger II MWD - current diagram. At risk of repetition, the real payoff was to realize that a 24V APC without batteries is an excellent power center and can charge the 24V general batteries on the bot, as well as supply 110VAC for all sorts of nefarious purposes. At the end of the day this breakthrough is the use of the capability of adapting the APC UPS so that we can charge the snobot traction pack and use the extra space where the old battery went to install the motor system control. Pictures are on G+, Yarger has a video commentary up and additional still and motion pictures shall be forthcoming. Now that the right controller and power system are complete for the snobot, the damn thing will be visiting Adult Swim again today, and we can begin the real Robot issue, software... The FM project http://docbox.flint.com:8081/raspberry/pifm/index_html Turning the rPi into an FM transmitter is a solution looking for a problem. There are numerous applications for this technology, stay tuned. We hope to expand use of "Andro-Mouse", which is a series of apps for an Android controller and a Java control element. That said, ListNote, which we are using as part of the great garage gestation remains fairly cool... The "tsp" site has stabilized (http://docbox.flint.com:8081/tsp) there are now live shots and consolidated shots of the working beasts (look at the first three links off this site). One goal is to get the pictures better organized, and we expect to have pictures of the spiffy new enclosure. You will find on the site the actual programs that exploit the python miniterm class to gather data from the Arduino based temperature sensors via the USB. The software interface between the Arduino and mrtg is solid and have what we need in that department. This baby is done for the first phase, now for the rewrite, after we get organized (the triple t's again)... We are continuing our attack on the the furmon project. At least Flint will, Yarger and DTG are still playing with the Snobot. Bit Ed and Eric the sculptor are so far into music software that we will need a new citation for their stuff. See the bottom of the url list below for more As mentioned again last week about the furmon, the Xbee radio link work from the pellet furnace is now on the pbug development system. This is a milestone since we now have live data to play with. For more information see the furmon site as detailed below. Regarding the furmon, with mrtg you can trend the sample data, I want to also exploit pylab, an include that makes time-series data plotting and analysis a snap. Maybe this coming week, with snobot keeping everyone else out of my hair, we will get to complete the furmon at least to a release point. Kevin has taken package management to the level where we may able to release the code using the "quickly" product to package code as ".deb"s. Once I have completed this I will cite this in yet another wiki. Watch this space... The need to package software makes me reconsider my release dates, say two weeks from now. I am really looking foreword to going to the Barry Library and reading the latest issue of Linux World. The ever growing list of projects includes: - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/snobot - jesum they love this robot - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/furmon - monitor that pellet furnace - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/arduino - moving in the arduino groove - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/javajive - to get better at Javascript - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/tsp - Temperature Sensors Project - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/robotsrules - The quest for Roberts Rules - - - - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/visual.bash - Yea, I am not kidding... - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/mrtg - remedial raw mrtg for the slow... - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/raspberry - all rPi'ness - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/organized - oh please let me be organized! - http://docbox.flint.com:8081/music - this may be the least organized site ever! Otherwise, Barre indeed remains a great venue for a Linux and Open Source Software meeting and general system rejuvenation. That said, we expect to assemble more of the Dallas Semi "1-wire" temperature probes, and we have two Arduinos, with lots of fixin's as well as several Raspberry Pi's a boat load of radio modules, and an embarrassment of riches in terms of books. Needless to say the Arduino remains the coolest thing for 2012, the Raspberry Pi the coolest thing so far for 2013, and Ras-BMC the coolest thing for the month of April, xBMC for May, and PiFm the coolest thing for June... What, pray tell will July bring? Do not forget that the Barre library stocks "Linux World", and the latest issue is on the shelf. The DVD's are available to checkout and copy, we intend to continue provide copies and isos of each and every one. Anyway, come and do open source stuff. For more information about the BOSI Adult Swim meeting time and location try this: http://family.flint.com/adult_swim_location/index_html Show up at the the Hedding United Methodist Church Basement if you have questions or are interested in Linux or the concept of free and open systems, The basement of the Hedding UMC facility is actually working out pretty well. If you wish to be included on the "Linux_adult_swim" mailing list, send a response to this note. Note that the mailing list system is a bit peevish right now. Let me know if you have any difficulties. Kindest Regards, Paul Flint /************************************ Based upon email reliability concerns, please send an acknowledgment in response to this note. Paul Flint Barre Open Systems Institute 17 Averill Street Barre, VT 05641 http://www.bosivt.org http://www.flint.com/home skype: flintinfotech (802) 479-2360 Home (802) 595-9365 Cell Consilium _ gratuitum .~. 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