Greetings List Lurkers,
THE ADVENTURES OF SGT SOLIFIX
We have all received word that "The Eagle Has Landed" in Tennessee. (I
would suggest that "The Turkey has Roosted" might be more appropriate :^).
That said, Brettmeister is pretty much the "Economic Refugee" that
typifies what you can expect from the state of technical development here
in Vermont. The moral here is if you can, find work out of State.
SPLUNK CLASS
Months ago, at the insistence of Eric-the-weasel, we updated the BOSI web
site "Classes" section to include educational materials about Splunk.
After much kvetching by the aforementioned weasel, we agreed to try to
apply to Splunk to attempt to teach Splunk, a most worthy cause for those
following the the trend to Internet Fascism.
Well, the clouds, or rather the stars are aligning on this project.
1. We have the old Capital Candy server which is looking for something to
do, and we have...
2. Dave-the-Geek, who remains fascinated with all things Red Hat, and now
we have...
3. The acquiescence of the Methodist church-folk in the form of permission
to use their EIN number to register our interest with Splunk.
This last step is critical and now I can begin the labor of filling out
whatever Splunk has in order to start this class. Anyway this will be a
major topic of the meeting banter today. If someone else wants to fill
out whatever silly form there is, they should feel free to speak up.
Eric-the-Weasel is back and is making me feel very guilty... I propose we get
him to help us build a sample Splunk Server, as eventually I want to set up a
copy of Splunk here in the Casa Flint Network Kitchen. Maybe today. Watch this
space...
VISUAL BASH
"Never bring hard liquor or ADP equipment into the bedroom"
Is devoting all your time to developing a framework a good way to live?
Sad to say I have violated this immutable and universal law in the case of
my beloved wife, in as much as she is an amature animator, and needed a
way of stringing pictures and sound together. This led to yet another
project called "anibot":
(http://docbox.flint.com:8081/visual.bash#anibot.sh)
So this day, Columbus Day is devoted to her torturing me about how to use
this in support of her relentless quest for animation perfection. The
good news is that anibot.sh has allowed for discovering some really
excellent stuff about how VisualBash can stand the onslaught of
developmental use.
This is in conjunction with yet another project, attempting to get the
Openbulds-c-beam CNC router left over from #1 and only son who showed up
this summer and coerced me into buying an Openbuilds C-Beam
(http://openbuildspartstore.com/openbuilds-c-beam-machine/) cnc router, as
well as a really nice router tool to put in the beast. The summer has
passed and while much progress is made in the world of 3Dprinting, the
router, labeled as "broken" and sorta ignored for a couple of months has
come under my scrutiny.
I finally got around to trying to figure it out, and after some cursory
research and correspondence, such as this:
To test your steppers, Connect to it using any Grbl host
(grblpanel, ugs, bcnc, cncjs, chilipeppr, cncweb4, etc) and use
the Jog buttons to move the motors.
As I had no idea what these various software were, I asked; If this is a
USB device can I talk to it with minicom? They responded.
We reached out to our technical department and they stated the following:
You can, but Minicom would be a less ideal method, than say a proper CNC host
(like github.com/LaserWeb/LaserWeb4-Binaries/releases (works with lasers, and
CNCs, and has AppImage builds that works on Debian), or bCNC, Chilipeppr, etc
- which all have Linux builds these days.
That is all they had to say. I realized that what I needed was some kind
of diagnostic program to run this thing. The result is the following
VisualBash code:
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/3Dprint/#ctob.sh
What I did learn was that the hardware was indeed not that broken, but
apparently intermittent. Based upon this assertion, the good
folks at Openbuilds sent me a new card.
The problem is that this new card has reacted like the old one at least
once. This leads me to ask The Good Folks At Openbuilds (TGFAO) if they
are running some kinda communication flow control protocol on the link,
(say X-on X-off).
What I need from you good readers is someone with better knowledge of
the open source program "expect" as this is the basic tool I am using to
poke and prod the xPRO V3 Controller Stepper Driver board at this time.
Don't be shy you expect mavens!
The objective here is to exercise this cnc system to figure out if the
issue with glitching ... The new board GRBL version is Grbl 1.1f.
So the version of the code the original Openbuilds CNC Xpro V3 controller
stepper driver is running is also Grbl 1.1f...
As I said before, is not the friendliest code I have ever dealt with (let
me suggest that "help is cheap"), but I now with visual bash and ctob.sh I
have a way of dealing with it.
Thus with Visual Bash at my side, the saga continues..
Say what you want but spell it correctly... As you may surmise, I have
been trying to develop and popularize the VisualBash framework. Despite my
own incompetence, we still have use of the "VisualBash.org" domain name,
which is quite a relief. I have tried in vain to get an article posted
about VisualBash on Wikipedia, but do not seem to have the "psudeo-savvy"
necessary to satisfy their editors. So I need help. Any of you who can,
write about VisualBash either on Wikipedia or other blogs, I would very
much appreciate it.
TADA
Now that Sgt Soulifix is remote we really need to work on
Teleconferencing At Da AdultSwim (TADA) which starts again at 6 PM EST
today.
I suppose we are gonna need to figure out
how to do more than one party, as we now have Kevin Coke, Brett and Joseph
Hart who might want to participate. What we can do? Would TOX
support this? What about a Visual Bash or Termux interface to Google
Plus? BOSI needs a solution.
Hopefully these will be discussed on:
https://hangouts.google.com/hangouts/_/flint.com/tada
TECHNORUBBLE
We did arrive and shine at Shelburne Farms in Champlain two weekends (Sept
23-24)ago. We arrived and returned with minimum loss.
At risk of repetition, We met interesting folks and we want to welcome
YourDuino.com to our mailing list, and want to go down and visit with
them as soon as possible. Terry of YourDuino.com has caused me to want to
show him what we are doing with Raspberry Pi's for education:
(http://docbox.flint.com:8081/raspberry#PiTch-Box). Lets hope this
becomes part of the newsletter conversation soon.
As part of the trip to Rutland with Brett we got down and saw the Maker
Space in Rutland. Would it be nice to do the same thing here in Barre!
(http://bbbvt.org/)
Technorubble at Libraries.
At the meeting back in February, J West came up with this angle and I would
very much like to try to set TechnoRubble up at the Kellog Hubbard, Kimball and
the Aldrich Libraries and see if this would work. I may also try to get some
traction at the Kellogg Hubbard.
I am beginning to believe that this will never happen, and may take this off
our agenda unless I see some action, going once...
TechnoRubble Supply
While we got through the Shelburne Maker Fair, we need more TechnoRubble. Two
local sources of TechnoRubble might someday be the ReStore and CVSWD. The
TechnoRubble untangling and packing is part of that effort.
TechnoRubble Taxonomy
Lets start with the hard part:A TechnoRubble Taxonomy
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/technorubble#TechnoRubbleTaxonomy. had some good
feedback about this issue. As the summer burns off I intend to tackle this,
using the framework developed in the Trantor project. This needs to be
reflected in the "unlikely candidate for software development" category above.
While at the Maker Fair, I Talked to Nick Floersch and the gang at the Code for
America Vermont brigade. Code For America Burlington appears to be Slack based,
and I clearly am not. The idea is to make TechnoRubble much more network
centric (after all what created most of the technorubble?) maybe get people to
mail their TechnoRubble to us in a USPS Flat Rate Box. Get TechnoRubbble
available on Amazon or Ebay! Not high priority, but could change...
The latest news is that we have the worlds cheapest RFID system arduing
card, and 101 RFID cards. The next step is to try to include this into the
TechnoRubble Taxonomy design...
Nick of Code for BTV is also interested in the streambot, and interested
in running Minecraft on Raspberry Pies... This will become a topic!
TRANTOR LLDD
The Trantor Project designed to be a Linux based operating system
resource (http://docbox.flint.com:8081/trantor) languishes. As you My
know, LLDD stands for Local "Library Digital Destinations", and is the
real important part of this project that remains undone. As of now the
system is once again 100% operational after Sam performed a "security
evaluation", on the physical hardware at the library.
Recently, I had a chance to speak to Sarah, as I am most interested in her
help with both the trantor project and Library-based TechnoRubble.
Sarah the librarian indicated that there is new management (Scott Murphy) at
the State Library level and that they are hiring a technical coordinator who
can address Local Library Digital Destinations (LLDD), but this has not yet
happened.
Sarah also still wants a press release. I hope that the concept of Local
Library Digital Destinations has not been completely wiped out by entrenched
powers would so much prefer that to raise revenue by concentrating everything
in the very expensive DII Data Center at National Life, likely for a hefty
monthly fee! I may still do a press release, and after talking to her will no
doubt have a draft for her to review on the Trantor web site shortly. Sarah has
been busy, I may stop by and see how things are tomorrow.
Maybe we can crank out a press release before much longer.
The hard part of trantor turns out to be:
1. Getting a State bureaucracy to recognize
Free Open Source Software (what's in it for them?)
Could there be some action here finally?
2. getting the visual bash trantor prototype complete, with
appropriate features, which is done.
3. Adding the new elements to the collection...
Sadly, not much has changed here. Sent David Zukerman a note about this, but I
am not getting involved with State Gumment...
THE 2017 VISUAL BASH TOUR FROM HELL RESURRECTED?
Something called CPOSC... Watch this space. In first week of November...
EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES
Python
We will be scheming (no pun intended) to go (pun intended) forward with this
somehow.
LOFTIER EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES
Blockchain Tic-Tac-Toe
part of the SHARE conference is to reconnect and somehow figure out how to code
the transactions. This will be attached to the tic-tac-toe.py game. We have
decided on using python 3 for the first cut which merely involves writing a
simple tic-tac-toe game. Now get thinking!
see http://docbox.flint.com:8081/blockchain#blockchainttt
I am gonna continue this because it seems relevant.
MAINFRAME ZLINUX
I will be going down to New York to hang with the Metropolitan VM Users
Association, Inc. (MVMUA) after our meeting on Monday October 16th.
Anyone who wants to come along is welcome. If you want to play in this
space, please let me know.
REXTRY
Now that the Maker Faire is over I am going to get back to this.
We actually got copy of the VM program RexTry running on the zPDT. Now I need
to figure out how to turn it on. I am almost ready to focus on this again,
just got to debug some Visual Bash, then I can get at this.
I also have a line on curl for VM. This could be very cool.
he BOSI Adult Swim meeting today is again at 40 Washington Street, Barre, VT
05641. We shall again meet tonight at our usual place and time if you need to
know more see below...
Topics for discussion as usual remain:
- Open Source Educational Human Development
I am working on the BBB and ... I am changing the priority of our
eternal needs, and placing education first.
- Maker Movement A Maker Space in Barre? Why not? We clearly have a
Maker Faire profile. Could it be that the commercial power centers
are beginning to appreciate the value of the maker movement.
See http://bbbvt.org/
Here are the city and statewide plans:
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/bb
who has good ideas about a Barre Maker Space. Why not do digital
stone soup?
- Move BOSI towards reStructuredText. I am seriously researching a
tiddly2rest converter. This would allow us to become more git
centric... avoid the need to change to gittlywiki...
We still need to convert... Yea buddy... Shut up Effin.
- Blue Sky R&D, but in Vermont it will be Gun-metal Grey Sky(c) R&D
(GMGSR&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? The secret
may be empty pellet bags. Is TechnoRubble organized DREK? Or is DREK
just what you get prior to something becoming TechnoRubble?
These five points are quickly becoming more than our policy, and more like a
prayer...
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. Accept no substitutes... 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,
and figure out where our good chairs went. One direction we have been working
on is to begin thinking about classes. The curriculum that I am most interested
in is teaching documentation.
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, works, and has just been updates see javascript link to
"classes"...
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.
While we need to update this list soon, 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?
This will be updated, hopefully two newsletters from now!
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:
Directions to the Adult Swim:
http://docbox.flint.com:8080/bosivt.org/directions or, go to http://bosivt.org
and click on 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 we like 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.
Join us in the heat this afternoon!
This is Flint signing off...
I will continue to refactor this newsletter, and at some point in the future
(do not hold your breath :^), it shall become readable!
I expect to hear from eagle eyed Dr. Mark, as he is our Honary Editor.
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
