Greetings List Lurkers,
I must be getting old...
Instead of conducting the meeting tonight, and then getting in the bashist
death mobile and driving to Connecticut in order to attend the Metro VV
Users Association (MVMUA), meeting tomorrow morning in NY at 8 AM, I have
engaged no less than Mr. Shawn (of the Dead :^) to open the Adult Swim
doors, engage his gastronomic talents to make the pizza, watch over the
enterprising geeks who attend, clean up and shut down. This will allow me
to depart of points south at a sane hour this afternoon. Gone are the
days when I would leave after the meeting, drive the night, nap, board the
train for the Big Apple at 6AM...
That said, there will be Pizza!
THE ADVENTURES OF SGT SOLIFIX
The reason Brett has been uncharacterisitcly quiet appears he is steeling
himself to go this morning in search of remunerative activity, or as they
say, work. As always, we wish him luck.
SPLUNK CLASS
An update on last weeks activity...
1. We have installed the current Fedora the old Capital Candy server which
was looking for something to do, and we have...
2. A buy in from the good church folk who have come through with a tax ID#
and
3. Eric-the-weasel whining that I never do what I am supposed to...
As I am outa town for this meeting, watch this space as next week there
will likely be some progress here, as this week I can begin the labor of
filling out whatever Splunk has in order to start this class. I am
desperately hopping that Los Weasel sends me the URL I need to fill out
for this program offered by Splunk.
VISUAL BASH
Part of the need for the trip to Manhattan is to meet with the folks using
a dialect of Visual Bash to power and manage Virtual Linexn on IBM zVM
systems.
In terms of the wife's cartooning progress, "anibot":
(http://docbox.flint.com:8081/visual.bash#anibot.sh) along with the two
cartoons she wanted will air on Wednesday the 18th in a very narrowcast
mode. I must say that anibot.sh has allowed for discovering some really
excellent stuff about how VisualBash can stand the onslaught of
developmental use.
The Openbuilds CNC system produced it's first "Hello World" artifact.
Now comes the fun part... Modification. It is a fact that I needed some
kind of diagnostic program to run this thing. The result is the following
VisualBash code:
http://docbox.flint.com:8081/3Dprint/#ctob.sh
The great news is that the new card from Openbuilds worked like a champ.
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 and many folks we know including your
truly, are traveling, we really need to work on Teleconferencing At Da
AdultSwim (TADA) which starts again at 6 PM EST the meeting after this
one. The teleconference equipment will be with me, and who knows, I may
pull over at a rest stop on some damn super highway and try to use it to
call in, as I join Kevin Cole currently in Oslo, Brett in the South and
Joseph Hart at Niagra Falls 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
Technorubble has been quiet, which may change next week.
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 twice...
TechnoRubble Supply
Beyond direct donation, our favorite method, 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 last month, 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. Apparently this RFID card also works on the
Raspberry Pi (http://docbox.flint.com:8081/raspberry#PiRFID). We have a
long way to go here...
LAKECRAFT PI
Nick of Code for BTVd developed "Lakecraft" (http://www.lakecraft.net/)
which is a terrarian of the Champlaign Lake that can be used on an intel
Minecraft version. We now know that Minecraft is default loaded on
Raspberry Pies... Wonder if there is data set compatability...
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.
I have an ongoing conversation about this with Sarah, the Aldrich Library
director, 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...
WATCHING OTHER MAKER SPACES
Likely be up at "Big Maker: Amelia Marzec – Making Systems Prepared For
The Apocalypse" 27 September at the Generator... If you want to come along
register, let me know if you need a ride.
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
This morningm New York to hang with the Metropolitan VM Users Association,
Inc. (MVMUA) after before our meeting as I said above. Anyone who wants to
come along need to contat me now. 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 Shawn of the Dead 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
