Greetings List Lurkers,
After babbling on about software arts last week this newsletter is
basically an homage to a new piece of hardware. I was in Williston
wandering through A.C. Moore, a craft store, when I cam upon the Universal
Insight Virtual Reality Glasses in a box for $14.00. I was hooked.
Brought them home, and immediately tested them with my trusty Samsung
Model IV running cardboard. The damn thing worked well. Once I finish
with this letter I am gonna test this with my old Samsung II. Sadly it
appears as if the damn Kindle Fires are too big. Anyway this is clearly
something you should get hold of. The idea of even doing software
development in Virtual Reality needs to be explored and worked on soon.
Anyway, that's the latest here:
Otherwise it has been a very quiet week here in Barre Vermont. Projects
languish as I summarize below.
BAKEDAPPLES
Hopefully these sites are mapped to the current wiki:
http://bakedapples.org/
http://bakedapples.net/
This weeks budget went to get a 2 Terrabyte drive for the Trantor project
- $89.00. What a world...
TRANTOR
Put the Trantor project up on Github, got the platforms we are gonna suse
from the library and have a 2T SATA ready to plug in and rock.
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/trantor
As we said before the first pass for Trantor is done. The second pass,
where we integrate everything into one package that runs on a non GUI
based linux server, is what we are working on. Obviously this much stuff
in shell script needs some kind of framework, so we are using the
http://visualbash.org framework.
On the inside of the Casa Flint network Trantor is actually running. We
actually now have a complete set of disks thanks to Neil at Linux Format.
The next trick is to get it on the public web. I am working on that
hopefully in conjunction with the Aldrich Public Library. So the test of
trantor up and running. If you want to see a preview try:
http://docbox.flint.com/~flint/trantor/test/
As you can see it contains 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. All the links will likely rick-roll till I get the
actual server online.
All that 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...
JARVIS ON JENKINS
A very quiet week for Jarvis on Jenkins....
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/raspberry#JarvisOnJenkins
In continuing travels and travails the local instance of this project is on a
hiatus, but is not out of active development... This week will hopefully bring
some developments... I wonder if Jarvis on Jenkins can be integrated into the
PitchBox Garden?
KINDLE LIBERATION FRONT
At this point the Kindle Liberation fron is the mainstay of our video
links but little else. Why they don't build a version of the Universal
Inshght Virtual Realty Glasses for the Kindle is beyond me.
THE TECHNORUBBLE REPORT TECHNORUBBLE - The Website
http://technorubble.org,http://technorubble.com
Went to the Vermont Tech Jam at the Essex fair ground in the final hours
of Sunday. It was raining, and I am sort of glad that I did not spend a
lot of time there. The whole thing seemed sad.
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. We have more vinyl and blades coming.
Cannot wait to try cardboard. That said where does the time go?
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/maker
3DPRINT
No change here... Thinking about inviting Toby from Filabot over and
asking for some help. This machind has only seen maybe 5 hours of actual
operation is that this lasted about two days. Why is this so damn hard?
The 3Decology constructed around the HICTOP Prusa I3 3D Desktop Printer,
has helped 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
Again, 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. I need Bezels for the...
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 two weeks ago... And I found the moisture
sensors this week (Yay!). More on this project as it unfolds (forgive the
pun :^).
I hope to show Bit Ed one of the DC-DC converters, they are nifty, I will try
desperately to bring one today if I can find one.
The latest is that there is a git hub for this project which we are jointly
developing with the Arlington FOSS mob. Anyway, we need to continue to develop
the software and hardware PiTchBox library such as...
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 got to go do some carpentry.
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
