Bus drives itself

I thought this was kind of cool. There's magnetic markers embedded in the roadway that the bus will track. It will "S curve precision dock" at the stations.

Ubuntu 14.04 keep losing sound

Ubuntu 14.04 is pretty good but for some darn reason I keep losing the ability to hear sound with my Optiplex 760. I fiddle with the sound control panel, changing volume and devices and often I can get it back.

It seems to happen coming out of standby frequently.

Maybe a usb audio adapter would fare better.

I got a Vantec USB audio adapter that ubuntu detects as "CM106 Like sound device" and it plays audio just fine, but sometimes it won't play sound. I can see the blue led flashing on it that indicates activity (it's solid blue when it's not doing anything) but there's no sound and no fiddling will make it come back. (The blue led is the brightest led I have ever seen, it's like a laser when it catches your eye straight on)


It's like there's no volume or something. I won't hear anything when clicking on the Test Sound buttons in the Control Panel.

Unplugging the USB audio and replugging seems to fix it.

After dozens of times fiddling with the sound I just want something that works the first time and every time.

Smelly electonics and stuff

I have to rant about smelly electronics. I notice that a lot of electronics today have a really nasty chemical smell. I bought this usb tv tuner at fry's a few years ago and had to return it because I couldn't be in the same room with it. It was just that bad.

I used to like to go to Harbor Freight Tools, but now I really notice the chemical odors in there. Once we bought a replacement cart wheel at Harbor and left it in the trunk for a week or so. There was something in the rubber that really stunk and it took at least a month for the smell to get out of the car.

A new library opened up and I went inside and the chemical smell from the new carpet was overwhelming to me.

There's no way that can be good for you.

The hostile hostel and the tenacious tennis shoes

Language is always fun. Are you being chased or being chaste? So remember to watch it, teach it, and catch it.

Two smart cards in my wallet

So I've got two DESfire smart cards in my wallet and they interfere with each other. I like to tap my wallet without getting the card out.

One I use pretty frequently and the other I hardly use. A simple RFID sleeve keeps one of the cards isolated so I can tap without interference. It works best to keep the one in the sleeve on the far side of the wallet and the exposed card on the near side close to the reader.

Problem solved.

Cable modem died...

One of the reasons I haven't been posting stuff for a few days is that my cable modem died. It was an old terayon and it died. All the leds are lit and it does nothing. Comcast/Xfinity has been bugging me to go docsis 3.0 for quite a while and I have a Netgear CMD31T so I put that on. So far, it works well but the lights on the front aren't lit up like they should be?

When I first plugged it in, I had two green download led lights (which is supposed to be 4 channels), then it went to 1 amber led (which is supposed to be 1 channel) and now there are no download lights.

But it works, and I get around 20Mbps down and 6Mbps up according to speedtest.net. (Is that good?)

I guess it's ok as long as it's working. But I like my green lights... where did they go?

http://beta.speedtest.net

Fun with the Logitech z515 bluetooth speaker

So I got this Logitech ipad bluetooth wireless speaker for ipad (z515) and it works well as long as its plugged into the wall socket. It's got a rechargeable battery so you can go without wires.

This is great until the power runs down. When it runs out of charge it doesn't give you a pleasant beep or a musical chime, oh no. It startles you with the most horrible loud screech you can imagine.

My ears thank you for such a great design.

Apparently, it's not just me. This is from a review on amazon.

It made horrid screeching alarm sound when the battery went dead. Frikin' scared me to death. Almost had a heart attack.
I'm returning it because of that. I'll know the battery is dead when it stops making sound.

Wacky in Chilliwack

It gets pretty wacky in Chilliwack...

360 degree turning car

This would be cool as an autonomous vehicle like a kiva systems robot.

China makes 2x the cars the US does

According to wikipedia, in 2013 China made 22,116,825 vehicles and the US made 11,045,902 vehicles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry

And in 2000, China made only 2,069,069 vehicles, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_motor_vehicle_production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Motor_Vehicle_Prod_share_RITA_T1-23.svg

Big buses or smart cars

So in a big city, you've got public transportation in the form of buses. Each city bus is pretty expensive, around $500K for a 40 foot, $755K for a 60 foot bus.


http://www.mta.info/press-release/nyc-transit/mta-purchase-120-new-buses

One of the new services that's coming out now is car sharing like car2go. And smart cars cost around $15K each. For each 60 foot bus, you could buy about 50 smart cars. (50*15 = 750)

So 800 smart cars would equal about 16 60-foot city buses. And you could get different cars other than the smart car that are "real" cars with 4 doors for about the same $15K (the honda fit starts at $16K).

Which makes me wonder why you don't have a public fleet of car sharing cars with all of the massive $$$ going into public transportation. Oh yeah, because you can't have the municipal government compete with private industry...

HP 5740 - paper mismatch error with 4x6 photo tray

So I've got a new hp 5740 and I've hooked it up to my Ubuntu 14.04 box. Trying to set up the printer was a little hard. I had to download the latest linux drivers from the hp website, and after installing them I could select the hp 5740. The Hp 5600 driver didn't work at all giving me a lot of wasted paper with funny characters on it.

I have a box of Premium HP Photo Paper and the photo tray isn't big enough for the "4x6 plus perforated tab" paper. Whaaat?

The driver/printer synergy doesn't work. I choose HP photo paper in the dialog and it puts up a big red ! and says the settings conflict? Seriously?

Then after choosing 10x15 photo the printer goes "Paper size mismatch detected". It doesn't tell me what paper size it's detected or what the size is that I've requested. I've chosen all of the "right settings", this should work.


Oh my goodness I want to break something right now.


edit:

Hmmm. Using Gimp seems to work with printing to photo paper, but using Firefox doesn't print to photo paper. Weird.

Knoppix 7.7 in April 2016 Linux Pro Magazine

I just bought a copy yesterday of the April 2016 Linux Pro Magazine at Barnes and Noble with Knoppix 7.7. Can't wait to try it out.


http://shop.linuxnewmedia.com/us/magazines/linux-magazine-linux-pro-magazine/eh30185.html

Automatic Doors

I love everything automatic.

I like this Securifi Almond touchscreen router

I got one of these touchscreen wireless Securifi Almond routers and I have to say that I really like it.

The interface is really slick. It's probably the easiest I've ever configured a router, and I didn't need a desktop computer to do it.

Seriously, everything should have a color touchscreen like this.


https://www.securifi.com/

More obese people than hungry people

So according to http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-s-obese-population-hits-641-million/ there's more obese people than hungry people in the world.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/04/01/0251225/more-people-on-earth-now-obese-than-underweight-says-study

It's just another example of crossing a threshold where we can produce far more than we need. If there's people going hungry, it's not due to not having the ability to make the food, but rather distribution and control.

One of the questions I always ask is that if we have such abundance, how is there so much insufficiency?

Save the ping pong balls

Ford's got a new active suspension that they call CCD "Continuously Controlled Damping" that allows the Fusion to mitigate potholes. It's pretty cool. And it saves the ping pong balls who live in every pothole.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a28232/fords-fusion-pothole-skip/

Here's also an article about Ford's Lommel proving ground where they test suspensions against bad road conditions.

http://www.pothole.info/2016/02/a-road-built-to-be-bad/

the beauty of Tiny Transistors

Lots of cool stuff at www.tinytransistors.net

For instance, that electronic tealight may be playing Fur Elise!

http://www.tinytransistors.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32&Itemid=33

and what does this actually say? I was thinking BAMBOO or maybe RAM300-1

http://www.tinytransistors.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11&Itemid=11&limitstart=3

Put your foot on the Big Belly

I just used one of these foot pedal operated big bellys and it worked pretty well. No more trying to quickly throw something in before the spring-loaded opening swings closed.


"People feel uncomfortable touching the handle, so we met with BigBelly several times and pressed upon them the need to develop a foot pedal to activate the device.”

I guess they *pressed* upon them. No word if that was a foot pedal.

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/05/27/pedal-operated-bigbelly-trash-cans/

grepping in color with less

Yes, I like to use grep, but I like to pipe it to less, AND I like the color highlighting.

How do I get all of these to work together?

firstly, grep with --color=always

then pipe it to less with the -R switch


then you get the lovely colors:


so for instance:

less traceout2.txt | grep -n -A 3 -B 2 'ONI A,$01' --color=always | less -R

gives me:

A Spaceship Has Landed On Earth

Years ago, I had an OMNI magazine that had this space shuttle iron-on. Sadly, I no longer have either the magazine or the t-shirt I ironed it on (it transferred kind of faintly), but I still have memories of both. Here's a webpage with a nice scan. Seriously, how cool was the space shuttle when you're a kid? Super cool.


A Spaceship Has Landed On Earth

http://blog.dave.org.uk/2011/07/a-spaceship-has-landed-on-earth.html

There's reproductions too (that aren't quite exact)

Tesla Model 3

Finally, the big reveal of the Model 3. I'm not sure about the styling. The nose reminds me of clog shoes.



Maybe it's just that I'm used to seeing visual "stuff" on the nose of cars. Kinda like when you have celebrities without eyebrows.