Greetings List Lurkers,
Dr. Mark Enhglehart's has done it again, and I smell a trend rising.
Beyond the Mac Lampshade that boots lubuntu Linux he graciously supplied
to the Adult Swim, he has also provided us with a Macintosh G5 tower with
a 500 GB drive, and a giant 23" screen.
As Apple moves away from the PowerPC based systems, and even the early
Intel based products, I wonder if maybe there is life after Apple for this
hardware? Maybe Dr. Mark is onto something?
Food for thought... Anyway, on to the status of the current Projects!:
THE TECHNORUBBLE REPORT TECHNORUBBLE -
The Website http://technorubble.org,http://technorubble.com
Doug Webster sent out a letter indicating there were more maker fairs
happening in Central Vermont. These are:
1. Randolph Maker Faire (Saturday October 8, noon-5:00 pm downtown
Randolph)
www.randolphmakerfaire.com .
2. Tech Jam School Maker Faire (October 21, 10:00am - 2:00pm, Champlain
Valley Expo.
https://cmfinc.wufoo.com/forms/r1ljeych0h39g51/ )
3. Aiken K12 Maker Faire (November 19, 10:00am - 2:00pm, UVM Davis Center.
https://cmfinc.wufoo.com/forms/qrsjtn20qt60ry/).
We cannot make the Randolph Fair, wife and I have plans for Columbus
Day weekend. Part of today's meeting will involve determining what we can
do about the Tech Jam and the Aiken Maker events.
Again, we need more TechnoRubble. We are working out the details
for getting this to us. The idea is to get people to mail their TechnoRubble
to us in a USPS Flat Rate Box.
VINYL CUTTER Wow, a completed project. I know this because I have run out
of Vinyl and need to get some more in. Damn thing works fine under open
source. The prototype and disorganized site for this is:
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/maker
I am still seriously considering adding the plotter to octoprint.
Basically this would involve setting up a point where a cron job would
take any file in the que, run it through pstoedit with the appropriate
switches and sending it to /dev/lpr/usb0.
3DPRINT
Again, the good news is that the pre-ordered extrusion heads which arrived
before I began my travels to Washington DC arrived, and we suddenly had a
3Dprint capability. The bad news is that this lasted about two days. Why is
this so damn hard?
Again the key to this appears to bre the 3Decology constructed around the
HICTOP Prusa I3 3D Desktop Printer, whivch seems to help a lot, at least there
is a place to store the tools this thing needs. The take away here is that 3D
infrastructure is important to facilitate printing. But more important is
the ability to render designs from the head into products.
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/3D_print
The thing is that there is a new guy in this part of town called Antimony;
http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony/3/
This is the spot to watch. I am gonna learn this product or perish n the
process.
TRANTOR
The latest project coming sideways at us is Marius's server, which I have
tentatively named "Trantor" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trantor).
We have the entire Linux Format DVD series available there. There is a
visual.bash project for this, and the project now has a website:
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/trantor
On the inside of the Casa Flint network Trantor is actually running. The
next trick is to get it on the public web. I am working on that. So the
test of trantor up and running. If you want to see it try:
http://docbox.flint.com/~flint/trantor/test/
As you can see it containds all the scanned in CD covers and backs.
CD cover acquisition was accomplished with the use of gimp, a script-fu and
something called deskew.
As I said sphinx now rocks my world. I am getting interest from some
parties in contributing more stuff to trantor. Do not be bashful (pun?).
let me know if you want something faithfully curated and systematically
reproduced as nice clickable html...
VMulater:
I am retiring this project to the "kinda done projects" list at the bottom
of this screed.
Still is there anyone out there willing to go off the reservation with
VM5.3? Could you turn the Raspberry Pi into an IBM VM emulator? As
discovered last week, it appears yes...
http://www.rs-online.com/designspark/electronics/blog/my-raspberry-pi-thinks-it-s-a-mainframe
...and it appears here on a PI B. What will it do on a PI3? Still holding,
but getting warmer...
PITCHBOX
You may have heard that the PiTch-Box is an enclosure built out of the shipping
case the Raspberry Pi Touch Display comes in. The power supply design is
actually coming along. The latest incarnation of the PiTchBox is the PiTchBox
LunchBox which should be up on the site.
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/PiTchBox
The wonderful thing about our current society is that there is a great deal of
activity in the area of basement agriculture. In the spirit of this and due to
the fact fall is on the way here in the Frozen North, I have ordered a basement
enclosure for growing plants in. The goal here will be to experiment with the
enhanced phosphor Grow Lights attached to the PiTchBox. This would Flint
Indoor Phosphor Enhanced Indoor Greenhouse to keep me sane this winter.
I got the tent in the mail last week... More on this project as it unfolds.
I hope to show Bit Ed one of the DC-DC converters, they are nifty, I will try
desperately to bring one today.
Anyway, we need to continue to develop the software and hardware PiTchBox
library such as...
JARVIS ON JENKINS
You may recall that brother Kevin Cole has ported Jarvis, a voice recognition
product to run on a Raspberry PI3. This is exciting and we are attempting to
reproduce this here in the Casa Flint Lab... His current comments is that
other projects are using Google or Amazon voice recognition. His is hard core
local.
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/raspberry#JarvisOnJenkins
In continuing travels and travails this project is on a hiatus, but is not out
of active development... This week will hopefully bring some developments...
PYRS
PYRS is in stuck deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, background, so that I am
placing the site in the list at the end of this newsletter. I remain
fascinated with the idea of writing a python tax library... PYRS - A
python interface to the IRS!
KINDLE LIBERATION FRONT I am sorry to report that the economics of the
Kindle Fire died with the new version which costs north of $90.00... So
this web site is retiring to the list at the bottom of this document.
Sadly Amazon no longer appears to be selling Kindle Fires for less than
$45.00 each... a real bummer.
To summarize, the meeting today is again at 40 Washington Street, Barre, VT
05641.
Topics for discussion as usual remain:
- Open Source Educational Human Development
I am working on an idea... I am changing the priority of our
eternal needs, and placing education first.
- Maker Movement A Maker Space in Barre? Why not? Could it be that the
commercial power centers do not yet appreciate the value? I need to
revise my paper on this subject and get it out to Lucas Jensen
who has good ideas about a Barre Maker Space.
- Move BOSI to become more git centric... develop gittlywiki... working!
check out tiddlywiki5 here: https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5
We still need to convert... Yea buddy...
- Blue Sky R&D, but in Vermont it will be Gun-metal Grey Sky(c) R&D.
- I fought the DREK and the DREK continues to win. Remember, What
really is holds us back is DREK!!! DREK is what happens to your
workspace (both hardware and software) when you fail to put stuff
away, or you let your friends or relatives use it. This is a cosmic
law. I am still fighting the DREK. How to get over it? Maybe slave
labor and more shelves...
These five points are becomming almost like policy!
Anyway, we have the technology and we will have Pizza tonight 5-7 at Hedding
UMC.
This is the official notice of the Barre Open Systems Institute (BOSI) Adult
Swim. For those coming in via the Google Plus and the Internet, and there are
folks who are gonna try, the swim stars at 6:00 PM EST.
Our ongoing major objective is to continue to try to figure out how to invest
the time and resources to turn the Barre Open Systems Institute into more than
just the Adult Swim technical clinic and more into a real learning facility.
One direction we have been working on is to begin thinking about classes. The
curriculum that I am most interested in is teaching documentation.
Once again, the goal of the meeting shall be as usual, to get organized and try
to get the various projects moving forward, despite DREK. We continue to wonder
about how to build the BOSI curriculum to this webpage:
http://bosivt.org/classes, Take a look if you dare...
Remember, the BOSI Adult Swim is essentially about helping out fellow users of
open source products in a clinic environment. Despite my very best of
intentions, the Adult Swim is really almost a perpetual Linux install-fest, and
only secondarily a learning environment,
The ever growing list of projects (now on our web site :^) includes:
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/vm - A Docker copy of VM370
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/kindle - The Kindle Liberation Front
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/pyrs - A pythonic interface to Income Tax?
- http://ledroid.org - Ok, this is a real project eh?
- http://bzinga.net - What happens when you combine Bash and Zenity?
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/nodejs - ok, it is on the list.
- 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 versions
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/strembot.org - maybe a very cool project.
- 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!
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/bb - A big noble idea.
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/grantbot - A less noble idea to feed the
big idea...
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/gitlywiki - is tiddlywiki5 the answer?
Otherwise, Barre indeed remains a great venue for a Linux and Open Source
Software discussion and general system rejuvenation. Expect to be remotely
preached at on the various topics of Open Source and how I am confident it
shall cure all the evils and ills of this wicked world. In a perfect meeting,
people would come in, sit down, see the stuff we have been doing and hopefully
help us get the DIY stuff we are doing done, or maybe just fix a laptop.
So, do not forget that the Barre library stocks "Linux Format", and the latest
issue is on the shelf, and it is good. The DVD's are available to checkout and
copy, we shall to continue provide copies and isos of each and every one. I am
continuing to duplicate about a years worth of DVD's which is quite a task. You
may want to watch this space for developments.
Anyway, come and do open source stuff. For more information about the BOSI
Adult Swim meeting time and location try this:
http://bosivt.org/directions
Show up at Hedding UMC if you have questions or are interested in Linux or the
concept of free and open systems. Again, we are in the basement of the Hedding
UMC facility which is actually working out pretty well.
Somehow we need to make progress not more projects!!!
If you wish to be included on the "Linux_adult_swim" mailing list, send a
response to this note.
This is Flint signing off...
I will continue to refactor this newsletter at some point in the future
(do not hold your breath :^)...
Kindest Regards,
Paul Flint
(802) 479-2360
(802) 595-9365 Cell
/************************************
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://family.flint.com/flint
skype: flintinfotech
Work: (202) 537-0480
