Some things like MPD just get better with age.
How To Set MPD Up As a Single-User Player
How I did it in Linux Mint 22.3 'Zena'
These are the steps I took (and choices I made) to get MPD up and running for my user in Linux Mint …
read moreOther articles
Remap the Copilot Key on My Dell Laptop
Microsoft overstepped the bounds here. This cannot stand.There is a Copilot key on my brand new Dell laptop. This will not do.
When confronted with unwanted change, one must compensate. I don't know who those people at Microsoft think they are, but this is my computer, and I will …
read moreHolai, Holai, Holai
It can give me answers to all my questions. It must be a superior intellect.A New World Religion Has Exploded on the Scene
Faith in AI is as powerful as faith in a divine being.
When confronted with the unknown, we reach out for help. Previous generations reached out …
read moreDesire's Child
I want it. I gotta have it. Give it to me. Consequence be damned.Every Desire Creates a Vulnerability
Every vulnerability is eventually uncovered.
That discovery inevitably results in exploitation.
The Big Three: Food. Sex. Shelter.
These three things drive nearly every thought that passes through the brain of any …
read moreAmazon.com + Coffee = Hilarity
This is the exact same item I've ordered multiple times in the recent past.Everybody makes mistakes.
A wise man (or company) learns from them. The fool repeats them.
I discovered I actually like this Amazon Basics medium roast Arabica coffee. You can't beat the price.
Nearly a year ago …
read moreConfession
We Are Sometimes Sure of Ourselves When We Should Not Be
Often because we want to believe.
I want to tell you a story.
I received a letter from Triumph USA about a safety recall on my bike. This is the second recall related to the same issue. Last time …
read moreThe Distinguished Gentleman's Ride
A group of distinguished gentlemen on their bikes. Taken from the About section of the gentlemansride.com website.Update: We Rode as planned on May 31.
The ride went off without a hitch even though by midnight that evening we had received six inches of rain at my house. Thanks …
read moreA Reading Lamp for The Bug
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
The cabin lights are great. But when I'm sitting at our tiny table, I'm in one of the dim spots, so reading is not pleasant. I must fix this.This Has Been An Ongoing Problem.
Many times during the building and first uses …
read moreThe Bug Gets an AP
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
The Bug's BugPi gets an assist from an outdoor AP. You can see the two antennas sticking up on the top.The GL.iNet Portable Travel Router was almost enough.
Remember BugPi? My intention was for it to be a connected part of …
read moreSynergy
Logrotate
The obligatory AI generated creepy error-filled post image screen-clipped from search results.I have no idea why this took me so long. I needed this for years, but every time I looked at it, I decided to put it off.
Well no more.
I finally got around to setting up …
read moreEdit Nails It
A Good Boy
You Were Such a Good Boy, Charlie
Charlie is gone. He had eaten part of a string. His small intestine could not pass it. By the time we figured it out, the prognosis was untenable.
Charlie joined our family one June night in 2024 when the mother human found him …
read moreLearn
Every Situation Provides an Opportunity for Learning
So what can be gleaned from our current state?
I am an idealist. I think that is obvious to all who read my previous treatise. Don't be fooled by my complaints of unfulfilled expectations. I am aware of how one survives, yea, even …
read moreChurn
Lately I've Been Generally Dissatisfied
I'm not happy with my personal physical state. I'm not happy with the state of The Union. I'm not happy with the state of human development. Not happy with the state of the environment. There just don't seem to be many things I am happy …
read moreA Linux Story
I Was Raised to Practice Kindness.
In computers, no one is more kind than The Penguin.
Way back in 1985, when I was a mere child, I bought my first computer. It was a Tandy 1000.
This beast had two 5.25" floppy drives, a CGA display and 8088 processor …
read moreMy Linux Reference
In a perfect world, I would remember every single detail.
Unfortunately I don't live in that world.
In my day job, because of certain Autoxxxx products, I'm stuck with Windows. But Linux Mint is normally running nearby as well.
I'd say about a third of the time I spend in …
read moreFPV and Me
"A man's got to know his limitations." - Dirty Harry
I just can't keep this up. I really wanted to do FPV, but it just doesn't fit into my life.
So I'm selling the stuff I accumulated during my hallucinations.
I only spent a total of about 15 minutes actually flying …
read moreSenescence
When we are young we are eternal. Standing arrow straight.
Sure of tomorrow and the day after, with conviction and a heavy metal energy we sang,
Like a true nature's child,
We were born, born to be wild.
We can climb so high,
I never wanna die.Years later we …
read moreBlossoms
Blossoms Are Like Poems
The bloom foretells
a future fruit,
to be enjoyed
in time.The fruit holds dear
the nascent seed.
The promise of
a line.So one by one,
the seed, the line,
brings growth, brings life,
brings joy.The new thing now
read more
can blossom forth,
and make …Snapcast & Garbage
Welcome 'garbage', the latest member of PiNet. Garbage makes me smile every time I go into Bldg S2.Snapcast Is Really Wonderful
Garbage is too!
Wha? Garbage is the name given to the latest node of my PiNet. It has that name because it is made mostly of leftover parts …
read moreOctopi Brings Octoprint to Prusa
Octoprint is not new or exciting. But I figured it was still worth writing about.
To clarify: OctoPi is my PiNet hostname for the hardware. Octoprint is the software.If you have a 3D printer, you should consider Octoprint.
I first looked into Octoprint while waiting on my Prusa i3 …
read moreBldg S1 Gets a Coffee Bar
[
This is how we made coffee before. It was, let's just say . . . not fun.Every workspace needs a place for the occasional cup.
Being banished from the house out to my former shop building required a bit of adjustment. In my old office, now the "adult guest room" which is …
read moreExponential Ignorance
We All Do Our Part
Exponential Ignorance is one of the biggest problems facing mankind in our modern age.
In the old days (before radio, TV and the Internet), people shared ideas with relatively limited groups of people. The number of individuals one could influence were only a tiny fraction …
read moreBugPi & More
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
This is BugPi in all its glory.The industrial/steampunk aesthetic of The Bug appeals to me.
It was always my intent to build The Bug to be spartan: strong and capable, but devoid of anything existing only for visual appeal. It was …
read moreCut From the Same Cloth
We Humans Think We're a Unique Life Form, but . . .
We Are All Cut From the Same Cloth
The fool says to himself, "I am man, homo sapiens. I am capable of providing all I need. As things have been, so shall they ever be."
We think we are fully capable …
read moreVolts, Watts, Amps, Water
The Hoover Dam, circa 2013. This is the prime example of a hydro-electric dam and a great way to visualize the 3D nature of electricity.My Take on an Old Analogy
I've always had problems grasping the relationships between volts, amps and watts.
I've seen analogies with water that almost …
read moreThe Case of the Harbor Freight Case
A Crying Case For Better Case Latches
This faux Pelican case is like the poster child for Harbor Freight: It almost works great.
The case latches do not stand out away from the case when you open them. They flop uselessly back down where they impede my progress. That was …
read moreWhat Happened to the Middle?
The middle is normal. Fringe is not.What Happened to the Middle?
I watch TV. That's probably my main problem.
If I didn't watch TV, I wouldn't notice that fringe groups get the most attention. The entertainment industry loves fringe. From sitcoms to movies to the evening news and religious …
read moreA House for Every Relay
My current favorite relay board.A PiNet Without Relays is Like a Day Without Sunshine.
There is a host of small inexpensive microcontrollers available such as the Raspberry Pi's, Arduinos, and ESP32, and they are great for controlling stuff. But many things we want to control require more power than …
read moreqr4wd - Handle QR Codes on the Windows Desktop
Confronted with a QR Code on a Windows desktop and a desire to get that text without using a phone camera, what do you do?QR Codes Can Be Handy. Or Not.
"Scan this QR Code with your device." Obviously the developer thinks I want the code's information on my …
read moreA Boring Fan Hack
My new shop ceiling fan. Doing what a fan is supposed to do. Fanning.Just Another Story About Making Working Things Out of Junk
One of my favorite things is making a thing to meet a need out of stuff I already have. The fact that I do this time …
read moreBug Control
I recently did a four-day trip to South Georgia and back. Spent three nights in The Bug. It was wonderful.We Don't Like Bugs
We have been very fortunate thus far. Our few real uses of The Bug have been pretty bug-free. Insects have pretty much left us alone. But …
read moreShields Up!
The Bug has two new forward solar panels, and now it has deflector shields to protect them from flying debris.Forward Shields are up, Sir!
The Bug originally had two solar panels. After some time it became apparent it would be worth adding two more, so that's what I did …
read moreCivilized
I have only now, in the evening of my life, come to understand that civilized society is a dream, not a reality.
Day after day the paint peels a little more off the facade of my world. The civilized world. The 'First World'. As a species, we homo sapiens had …
read moreWhat is The Bar and Why Raise It?
Such a fun little guy. Just makes me smile.(Updated to include adequate info to build your own.)
It is what it is, and it pleases me.
It is such a simple thing. It's not fancy. It does not evoke cool. It does not perform any singluar significant function that …
read moreToto Reborn
(The band, not the dog.)
You can call that an overstatement and you wouldn't be wrong.
40 Trips Around the Sun. Turn, baby, turn.It's not that Toto ever really died, it's just as far as my life-path was concerned, they had ceased to exist. I had forgotten them. I …
read moreAndrauthentic
May I Suggest a New Term
Andrauthentic
I wrote The Last Gasp of Trust a few days ago. I just updated that article to include a section titled, "(Dis)Trust and Verify". I needed a term to describe web content that had the quality of being actually generated by human …
read moreThe Last Gasp of Trust
Nothing Stays the Same
I enjoyed the few years where we could trust at least some web search results.
I spent a brief stint as a website content writer in the early 10's. It was for several of the thousands of click-through sites designed both to be helpful and to …
read moreSneaky IPv6
IPv6 is like a zombie apocalypse.
You can kill it, but if you're not paying close attention, it will come back to haunt you.
A little background: I have IPv6 turned off in my main router because it creates more problems than it solves for me at this point in …
read moreCharlie - Six Months In
The Rat
This rat-like creature has just had a bath. He looked much worse before that.You may recall from my previous treatise that my wife found a pitiful mangy-looking furry object in our front flower bed late one night. She named him Charlie.
The Cat
Practically a Miracle Transformation …
read moreOld Friends
Some things work by design,
Others just work on their own,
Some will turn out fine,
While others make us groan.Some things make us wary,
Unsure of what comes next,
Old friends rarely vary,
That's why they're the best.Divergent paths we follow,
read more
Then find common ground,
The threads …Reality Sucks. Let's Pretend.
UNTENABLE adjective
Something that cannot be defended or maintained. A situation that is not sustainable for the long term.When You Don't Like It, Reason it Away.
Arisotle suggested reason, that is, rational thought, was the thing that mainly differentiated human-kind from other animate life-forms on the Earth. Since then …
read morePixel Buds Series-A and Linux Mint
Renegade: My Most Awesome Computer
Got my Pixel Series-A buds working with Renegade, the little Dell Inspiron 13-7378 laptop. This little guy is six years old, but truly is the best computer I've ever owned. But this is about getting the buds working with Linux Mint on this machine, not …
read morePiNet - BugPi
The Bug project now has a PiNet node of its own to monitor various hardware and conditions.
read moreShakedown for The Bug
We traveled to Mississippi and did an overnighter at a KOA campground 150 miles away. It was a good test of The Bug's systems.The Bug Proves Its Metal
This project has FINALLY reached its end. We just wrapped up a 300 mile round-trip overnight shakedown test of The Bug …
read moreThe Air Conditioner
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
I Did It My Way
We are spoiled. All of us. Anyone born into the world of air conditioned summers is spoiled by that experience. We just don't want to even imagine life without that cooling hardware.
The Problem
Have you priced RV …
read moreGalley
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
It's a Galley When It's Mobile
One of the more important functions of our Bug-out trailer is meal preparation. So a full 30% of the interior space goes to food storage and cooking and cleanup. No surprise there. We all love to eat …
read morePropane
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
We Have a Really Good Case of Gas
If you got bad news, you wanna kick the blues,
Propane.
When your day is done, and you want to ride on,
Propane.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie.
Propane.
Camping without …
read moreWater
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
Water: The Simplest System
When I was thinking about fresh water, hot water, cold water, city water, water storage, water pump, water heater, etc., I was feeling a tad overwhelmed. It seemed like so much.
Turns out it was one of the simplest …
read moreBathroom
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
Head, Crapper, Showers, Bathroom, whatever.
It seems a bit of a stretch to call this toilet/shower combination a 'bathroom', but 'shower/toilet combination' is just too hard to type over and over.
I could revert to Navy lingo and refer to it …
read moreAn openSCAD Toggle Switch Housing
This is the stereotypical SPST toggle switch. These are everywhere.A Home for Every Switch
I like toggle switches. I like the tactile impression they make on my finger as I flip them. The satisfying click that tells me, 'yes, it did'.
But sometimes mounting them is a bit of …
read morePower and Light
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
Here is a recent photo of all the pieces and parts.
read more
Like everything else, it starts with pen and paper I write it down if I even think it might be important. Ideas are cheap and disposable. On the left are my earliest …The Bug - Most Recently
March 22, 2026
Added an outdoor WiFi Access Point
June 19, 2025
May 4, 2025
Forward Solar Panel Deflector Shields
November 1-2, 2024
The Bug Shakedown
We took a shakedown overnighter.
October 29, 2024
The Bug gets a logo.
Just a little touch of art …
read moreThe Bug: Tanks
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
Three Shades of Water
There are three tanks every RV needs:
- Fresh water: holds water for washing and maybe drinking.
- Gray water: holds kitchen and shower drain water.
- Black water: holds the really nasty smelly biohazard stuff.
I purchased all three of my …
read moreThe Bug: Planning The Layout
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
This is a good place to be. It took a LOT of work to get here. Learning never stops. Never.I have a long history of managing projects as I go.
This project, however, was obviously too big to handle that way.
So …
read moreFirst Steps - Disassembly
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
The trailer had neither insulation nor a ceiling. First order of business: strip it down to the frame on the inside.I stripped out everything down to the steel frame on the inside of the trailer. Then I used a foil-backed foam board …
read moreThe Trailer Has History
Run Home to Mama: The Bug Pages
The Bug started life as a working trailer.From 2006 until 2014 I was the sole proprietor, CEO and Chief Systems Engineer for Full Circuit Technologies, LLC. I normally flew everywhere and lugged my tools in huge Pelican cases in and out of …
read moreCharlie
The Woods
The woods behind our house. Thick, full of danger.The Sound
"Did you hear that?" I ask. "What?", she says. "I thought I heard a cat crying in the woods out there." She stops, listens and says, "No, I don't hear anything."
I go on about my business …
read moreWiremold End Plug
Clipped from the Legrand website, this is the Wiremold 500/700 Small Raceway we've all come to know and love.Wiremold
You've seen it. You probably just didn't notice. It's ubiquitous like walls and floors.
Wiremold has been around a long time, and is a very useful product. In my …
read moreGood Things Come In Threes
Three good things: red, blue and yellow.Three things have happened lately. Good things.
Thing One: Saying Goodbye to Ham Radio (again)
What? You may recall I only recently wrote about the Return of Ham with glowing terms of endearment. And now I'm saying it's a good thing to be …
read more2112 is Now
Rush 2112 album cover.Have you listened to Rush's 2112 lately?
We all watch the world evolving from one where individuality and self-reliance was highly valued to one where social saturation and centralized everything is the norm. If knowledge is power (it is), then more and more power is concentrated …
read moreIntroducing Stackernoes
This is Stackernoes. We play with a double-nine set, but I don't think it matters.This is Stackernoes
First thing let me say this: I did a reasonable search of the Internet for a similar game, and I didn't find one. So until proven otherwise, I'm under the impression I …
read moreBackyard Music
Bands on the Blackwater is a weekly series in my backyard. Not literally, but almost.You might think that life in a small town in Northwest Florida would be boring. You might be right if you measure excitement by the number of drive-by shootings and bar brawls on an average …
read moreFlowers of the Yard
A rose by any other name might be called a weed.We have a very natural Northwest Florida yard. That would be pretty much the opposite of a manicured yard. My basic philosophy is, if it is green and will grow in this sand, I'm not killing it. There are …
read moreStories
A well-lived life looks a bit like this twisty road.What if you lived your whole life, and at the end, when asked how you spent your allotment of time you realized you really had nothing to say.
You woke up every day and did what everyone expected of you …
read moreBlame the Tool
Spreadsheets Don't Kill People. People Do.
There's been quite a bit of stuff published in the past few weeks about the "dangers of spreadsheets". Excel in particular is being spotlighted as a dangerous tool hurting millions of people.
James Vowles, Robin Harris, Tim Worstall of Forbes are a few such …
read moreSomething to Say
We All Think We Have Something to Say.
We are full to overflowing. Synapses connecting, linking, birthing ideas.
Surely the world needs to know what's on our mind. Our thoughts, our griefs, our passions, our angst. Our burden will not be confined. Our compulsion to exposit is strong. The urge …
read moreCat Proof
What in the world happened here!?"My Dog Ate My Homework, Miss, I Swear!"
If you have pets, it's generally a choice you've made. Kinda like getting married or having kids, or both . . . or neither, but you get my point.
We love our pets. Dogs, cats, weasles, skunks, chickens, skinks …
read moreMMC4W - the Minimal MPD Client for Windows
The Thrill is Gone, Internet
Bored. So bored. So very bored.I am SO bored with the Internet anymore.
It was the 1980's and the sky was the limit. The Internet was going to change the world . . . and it did. We were excited by all the possibilities, like a child on December 20th looking toward …
read moreSyncthing: My Favorite Synced Storage Solution
Choice and Peers: Two concepts important to this post.I'm 97% sure I've finally found a file storage/backup/sync solution that works.
Dropbox, Ubuntu One, Google Drive, OneDrive, and don't forget Box and ownCloud.
What do all these have in common? I've tried them, and I don't like them …
read moreFan-Tastic!
The Yaesu FP-1030A is a great power supply. 5-stars!This is Not Rocket Science
I never said everything I post here is going to knock your socks off. This little blurb certainly will not do that.
However, when I find something that is pretty easy to do and makes my …
read moreTogether at Last: Hamlib, Log4OM2, Fldigi, JS8Call & WSJT-X
Coming. Going. Streaming. Flowing.Step by Step: How to Get Hamlib Working in Windows
"If this is too long for you to read, then maybe you don't need to know." Teaching Men to FishI'm new to HF. And HF is new. HF is being reinvented every day. For …
read moreThose Who Would Divide Us Do Not Deserve Us
America Strong: standing together in a world of adversity.
There is an attitude that permeates our culture these days. I know you've felt it, it's impossible to ignore.
It's "me first" and "winning is everything" with a strong dose of "make the money now, worry about the consequences later" tossed …
read moreAn Antenna Saga
Four antennas and 3 guy lines. Yes!Two Antennas Are Simply Not Enough
Ham radio is a hobby. It can be much more than that, but it goes well with a large dish of experimentation and learning. That's the biggest appeal to me.
I knew when I made the leap …
read moreStill Got It
Image: The yoke holding the pulley is there.Let one thing be perfectly clear: I am an old man.
I am past both the social and legal definition of retirement age. I still work full-time, and will continue to do so as long as they want me and I want …
read moreRabbit Trails
Image: This was purchased to replace a very old AA battery powered cordless trimmer."You Get What You Pay For"
. . . or so they say. But sometimes you don't even get that.
My old Wahl AA battery powered beard and mustache trimmer was on its last leg. It had endured leaky …
read moreThe Return of Ham
Image: This is what I call fun.Many years ago in a far-away land . . .
. . . there lived a not-quite-so-young man who was about to realize a life-long dream: he was about to get his ham radio license.
It was the mid-90's in the Great Republic of Texas and my wife and …
read moreThe Monstrosity Gets An Appendage
Image: This is The Monstrosity. It was thusly named by my wife.What was "big and ugly" is now even better!
My hobby bench was in a seriously sad state. I can't believe I don't have a picture. I can only guess I was too embarrassed to let anyone see …
read moreSometimes the Best Reason is Just Because
Sometimes No Real Reason is All You Need
Image: It all started here: a condenser fan motor.When I was a child I rarely needed a good reason to do a thing. When asked why I had done a thing, quite often my first response was, "Uh, I dunno. Just …
read moreIR Remote Controls with Linux
Adding Remote Control of the Stereo Receiver to PlayerPi via Brilliant
Image: The screen served by Brilliant on my local network.(PlayerPi? Brilliant? wha?) 1 Photo gallery below.
It is possible to control devices using IR with a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian.
In the old days if you wanted to …
read moreYann Arthus-Bertrand | Legacy
Image: Inspiringly beautiful, and yet deadly.Everyone disagrees on some things, but we can all agree this Earth is a wondrous place.
A Frenchman shares my thoughts. Maybe my thoughts are not so strange after all.
I stumbled upon a documentary on Amazon Prime the other night. Legacy. Narrated by …
read moreLilWeatherPi Gets Pooped On
No, Mr. Bird, you can't sit here.
I was out in the back yard a week or so ago and just happened to see a bird perched happily on the pointy top of LilWeatherPi. I thought, "How nice," and went on about my business.
A couple of days ago I …
read moreI Got Your IPv6
Image: This is an IPv6 address. Gaze upon its glory, mortal.The Glacial Creep of IPv6 Adoption Creeps Into My Stuff
I was having problems with random wifi dropouts.
WeatherPi, DoorPi and LilWeatherPi all suffered from a tendancy to just randomly lose their wifi connection for no apparent reason. Video …
read moreXMerge v1.4.0 Released
Image: The XMerge icon.XMerge v1.4.0 is released on Github
If you are an Excel guru, you probably don't need XMerge. But if you have a bunch of .csv or tab-delimited data files that you want to merge into one .xlsx file, this tool may be exactly what …
read moreVS Code SSH Key Path
The Simplest Thing Can Sometimes Be Hard
** I'm no dummy.** I know how to google a thing. But I struggled to solve this simple problem regardless of the fact that I have the entire Internet at my disposal.
I use VS Code on both Linux and Windows. I use an …
read moreCasspop is Now DrGerg
Melding My Diverse Personalities Into a Singularity
Multiple personalities can be fun until they turn into a mess. Then it's fun again when you find out you can clean up the mess quickly and easily. Such is the case here.
I chose 'casspop' as a username on Github a long …
read moreBoring New Cars
Image: One long row of boring.Yet Another Boring Car Dash
It seems to me we are very interested in divorcing the physical world and marrying instead a sanitized, dead image of it.
It must be the fate of old men to decry the progress of younger generations as loss …
read moreRecycled Wood Makes Great Holiday Project
Does this look like a project to you? It does to me.It's one thing to read about recycling on the Internet, or to see kids shows promote the ideals of good stewardship of resources. It's another thing altogether to actually make something useful out of junk. I maintain the …
read moreTesting One Two Three
Inline Gallery Mystery Solved!
If I put the gallery at the top of a post, it got included in the post summary.
There were a few times when posts with galleries of images that were also the 'index.html' post (the featured post) had a problem. Their gallery would have …
read moreHow to Waste a Perfectly Fine Weekend
It's hard to solve a problem when you literally cannot see the solution.
I just burned up two whole days trying to solve a problem caused by an invisible non-entity.
It was a space. Well, two spaces to be precise, one at the end of each account password.
We recently …
read morePelican Plugins Present Problems
Overcoming them requires a bit of detective work.
This is not a rant, it is just communication.
The Pelican static blog generator system is wonderful. It is not perfect, but few things are.
I only use two plugins on this blog, and both of them took quite a bit of …
read moreAutoLISP Again: Blocks in Proximity
This fifth exercise uncovers the secrets of near-by blocks.
At work, we use a AutoLISP routine called CAF (Cable Auto-Fill) that snags values from one block and inserts those into attributes in blocks that are determined to be within two grid spaces (GRID=15) from the first block.
read moreThe proximity …
Thinking About Nothing
Have you ever tried to think about nothing?
It seems easy enough. Just think about everything you know not existing. Go ahead. Do that.
Nothing is a term we use a lot, but it's actually a conundrum, a paradox, a falsehood. It is not possible to conceptualize nothing; to create …
read moreAutoLISP Again: Dissecting Blocks
UPDATE: The lisp now dissects any entity, not just a block.
A Reminder:
These blog posts are not the exercise. The code is the exercise, and that is where most of the useful information is to be found. If you only read my post and skip over the code block …
read moreMPD is Just Awesome
Image: The MPD logo. Basic. To the point. Just like MPD.I really stressed over titling this article this way. "Awesome" has become another perfectly useful term to find itself tossed into the refuse pile of formerly 'cool' terms. That's so sad.
Awesome is one of the best words I …
read moreAutoLISP Again: Blocks and Attributes
This third exercise takes a look at block guts.
We learned about writing AutoLISP to select an area in model space. We learned about using those coordinates to do something else, specifically to draw four lines making a rectangle.
Then we learned about using the 'mapcar' function to generate lists …
read moreAutoLISP Again: mapcar
'mapcar' is the next thing I need to understand
This codeblock (below) is a complete AutoLisp program. Load it into a running instance of AutoCAD and issue the command DOAMAPCAR. Nothing will happen on the screen, but you will see quite a bit of output into the console.
The comments …
read moreFirst Steps Into AutoLISP
Getting over the initial hump with AutoLISP
Up to now, Python has been my only programming language. Now there's AutoLisp. Once I discovered LISP routines in AutoCAD, I wanted to learn how to write and debug them. Until recently, there was no practical tangible reason for me to do that …
read moreWeatherPi Lives Up to Every Expectation
This month is the 3-year anniversary of the deployment of WeatherPi
When I built WeatherPi, I was trying for a robust, reliable, repairable Raspberry Pi based weather station. So far, it has lived up to every expectation.
WeatherPi has now lasted three times longer than either of two consecutive Accurite …
read moreGivi Trekker Dolomiti Side Cases
Are You Out of Your MIND?
There are those among us who are inclined to think spending $1,100.00 on a pair of side cases for a motorcycle is insane.
I was one of those people.
But no longer.
read more
Image: Are these cases really worth $1,100.00? Absolutely …Basic Online Safety
I'm sure everyone here knows all this, but it still bears repeating. Be safe out there.
Image: These people really do exist.No matter to what lengths you go, you simply cannot be connected to the Internet without exposing yourself to bad actors out there who want as much data …
read moreZen Garden
Why Pelican
Image: The Majestic White Pelican in FlightThe software that creates this blog out of plain text (Markdown) is called Pelican (an anagram of calepin which is French for notebook).
Ours is a world full of highly popular services like Medium, WordPress and even LinkedIn all promising to make your …
read moreBuilding Pelican
Field Tips: No.3 - Never Give Up
Quite often, you'll find you can manufacture your own solution if you just keep trying.
I had finally gotten around to starting a small woodworking project I had put on hold for a long time. It was a relief to actually get some traction on it.
Then the table saw …
read moreOne-Shot IR Helper
Turning this schematic into functioning hardware is the goal of this exercise.Sometimes you just need one thing done. This was one of those times.
This is a quick and not-too-dirty tool that does one job well.
The Pi Pico makes it pretty simple and cheap. MicroPython and the IR …
read moreA Welcome New Addition
An old friend makes way for a new one.
Oh. My. Gosh.
I miss the old Goldwing. But it only takes about three seconds on the new kid in town to lose any sense of reminiscence over saying goodbye to the old girl.
This is the 2022 Triumph Bonneville T100 …
read moreThe Second Constant
"Change is the only constant in life." - Heraclitus
In 500 B.C. that may well have been true. Even 100 years ago, that may still have seemed true.
However, the expanding mass of humanity has engendered new perspectives, and from those perspectives we draw new conclusions.
Careful examination of the …
read moreFeedback Loop
A long time ago, a guy named Skinner proposed that how we behave is a consequence of environmental histories.
We are either the giver or the receiver in interactions with our world. We stimulate, they react. They stimulate, we react. Both sides provide feedback to the other. This goes on …
read moreA Gun Safe Safer
A Gun Safe Has Two Jobs.
- Keep the gun out of the wrong hands.
- Release the gun into the right hands.
If it fails at either of these two jobs, the result can be serious.
Introducing the SnapSafe Item No. 75430. It fails job number two. I purchased this at …
read moreRescued and On the Road
A few weeks ago I was able to take the old girl out on a 510 mile road trip. I rode up to see my mother. It had been far too long, due in no small part to Covid. Other than my ride from NW Florida to Denver, this is …
read moreIt's a Wonderful World
I'm pretty stoked today.
Last night I finished converting all the content from my old WordPress Dr.Gerg site into markdown.
Another reason I'm happy is after literally decades of contemplation and half-hearted attempts, I finally made headway into IRC. That may not seem like much to most of you …
read moreApprehensive
I am feeling apprehensive.
Apprehensive. A past-participle of apprehend. (A participle is verb that can do the work of an adjective, like 'baked' in "baked beans".)
Apprehend comes from the Latin word apprehendere meaning, "take hold of, grasp" In essence, when you've taken hold of something mentally, or if it …
read moreMarkdown Cheatsheet
Markdown Cheat Sheet
Thanks to The Markdown Guide for providing this cheatsheet.
This Markdown cheat sheet provides a quick overview of all the Markdown syntax elements. It can’t cover every edge case, so if you need more information about any of these elements, refer to the reference guides for …
read moreDrGerg Transitions from Wordpress to Pelican
I was in love with WordPress
I truly was. It is an awesome system that gave me the power to generate a nice looking site in a short amount of time.
So why leave it behind?
- fit
- need
- patience
those are the three reasons that come to mind.
Fit
I …
read moreFairing Repair Concluded
In our previous encounter, we ended with the really sad photo of the damage I did by violating one of my cardinal rules: "If you don't feel comfortable doing something, don't do it." The result was I smashed the fairing into the doorpost and broke my heart.
I made a …
read moreThe Rescue Continues
I came real close to deciding it was time to let someone else have my Rescue Bike. In the end, I decided we're not done with each other. So it was time to finish some repairs and get back on the road.
I had already rebuilt the '83 rear master …
read moreOde to Time and Nature
Time's a cruel-hearted bastard.
Nature's a cold-hearted bitch.
Both will surely wear me down,
and scoff at my last twitch.From the day that I was born,
Until the day I die,
They push and prod and poke and pinch,
and dare me to defy.Their hand is cold. So …
read moreEight Billion Worlds
Your world is not my world,
Is not his world, is not her world.
Our world is a mixed world,
Made of their world plus yours.Eight Billion Worlds.
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There are eight billion worlds,
Each one the same, with nothing in common,
Each knowing the other but not the same …Payphone Lock
Many years ago, I was given this rebuilt payphone as a gift. It is fully functional, but the two locks are not. The bottom lock is completely missing. My granddaughter loves to drop coins in the slots and hear the bells ding, so we pull the door out and it …
read moreDeBugging the Rain Sensor, Literally.
Some time ago, one of the GPIO pins on WeatherPi stopped working. It was the one the tipping bucket rain gauge was attached to. I was able to move the wire to another pin, and change my program. Problem solved.
When the rain gauge stopped working again, I assumed I …
read moreOpenSCAD files for LCDPi
This post is a listing of the OpenSCAD code for the 3D printed parts of the LCDPi. Slideshow at the bottom.
This is PiddlePi, one of the P*Pi's.
Here is the main body file. I have it saved as "2004 LCD case.scad".
read more// Dr.Gerg's Pi LCD Mount …Communication, Guts Out
I recently read an article about how to speak in a manner that would make me sound more confident. There were good points in it.
While the writers were technically correct, their advice was sharply focused on a single aspect of communicating: presentation. There is much more to communicating than …
read morePut Line Numbers in Python print() Output
If you have more than a hundred lines in your Python script, remembering where in the flow any particular print output comes from can cause you pause. I felt like having the line number from my code would help me more quickly and easily recognize the output.
I googled to …
read moreIntroducing LilWeatherPi
LilWeatherPi is the newest member of the PiNet family.
Why another WeatherPi? Well, I was concerned that my humidity readings may be skewed by the proximity of WeatherPi (the original) to the pool. There are times when the air is completely still, and I have actually measured the humidity with …
read moreBattery Brouhaha
Every once in a while I learn a valuable lesson. Sometimes that lesson is more valuable because it actually costs me money.
Today's lesson is that, even though these three batteries look the same on the outside, and all three fit into the same holder, one of them is very …
read moreSaving the Planet, One Toad at a Time
We have a nice fiberglass in-ground pool in our backyard. Like everything we own, it comes with some responsibilities.
One of those responsibilities is keeping the water clear of all the critters that find themselves suddenly fighting for their lives in the water.
There is a device on the pool …
read moreThe Monstrosity
This article was brought here after 4 years at Hack-a-day.io.
The Monstrosity is this 4x4 frame which allows me to build the workstation I need without marring or drilling any holes into the walls of our spare bedroom.As you can see, there are 3 computers and six displays …
read moreShoppingList now prints PDF
This is a follow-up to this post introducing an "spreadsheet to receipt printer" shopping list system.
There are downsides to everything, including paper shopping lists. The most frequently confronted downside to paper shopping lists is experienced when you reach into your pocket for the list, and realize you left it …
read moreWeatherPi Gets a New Sensor
It has been really humid here for several weeks in a row. Rain nearly every day. But that doesn't explain the BME280 Temperature/Pressure/Humidity sensor saying we have 100% humidity nearly all the time. So I read up on it, and found several places where it was written that …
read moreBest-Tech Shopping List
We've been around the block with shopping lists. From a piece of paper with handwritten notes to desktop PC created lists printed on 8.5x11" paper to apps like Out of Milk on the phone, we've done it all.
And we've been less than happy with all those. Now that …
read moreLong-Sought Crimper
OMG. Finally! I've been trying to find a low-cost crimper for Dupont-style open-barrel pins and sockets for years. After purchasing a couple of tools that failed to fully measure up, I finally have one that crimps these little guys perfectly.
This is not in any way, shape or form a …
read moreThe Tiniest Thing
I've printed a bunch of parts on the Prusa printer. But today (yesterday, actually) I printed the smallest functional part I've ever done. Roughly 7x7x5mm. Tiny thing.
The tiny thing is part of PoohPi.
PoohPi sits at my wife's desk and greets her every morning with statistics that will inform …
read moreOpenSCAD 1602 LCD with i2C
Here's another model in my project. It's a 2-row 16 character per row LCD screen with an i2c interface module attached. I'll be using this to display whatever I want on my portable project.
You may be wondering what the value of this is. The value is in fitting this …
read moreOpenHab, Home Assistant, Why Not?
Surely, among the MILLIONS of people who are regularly devouring every word I write here on this blog, someone has asked the question, "Why go to all the trouble of building your own bespoke home automation system when there are great open source offerings like OpenHAB and Home Assistant out …
read moreField Tips: No.2 - Waste Not, Want Not
OpenSCAD Pi Zero Model
When I build things using the Prusa 3D printer, I like to also create a model of the part I'm making brackets or enclosures for. That way I can see how the whole thing is going to fit together without making bad assumptions about how any particular part is going …
read moreTroglodyte
Nothing has really changed. Sure, we speak with sophistication, wear finely woven fabrics and adorn our feet with coverings to enhance or protect. We are able to keep ourselves out of uncomfortable circumstances for the most part. We adjust the way we smell to make close proximity less revolting, or …
read moreRecycled Laptop Display
For years I've wished I could recycle laptop displays instead of just throwing them away. It just seemed so unnecessarily wasteful. Now I can reuse them thanks to some enterprising people in China and eBay.
Using this driver card and cables, I was able to build a Raspberry Pi development …
read moreOpenSCAD and Prusa - things that work
I just re-discovered OpenSCAD. I say 'rediscovered' because I knew it existed, I just didn't know I liked it so much. It took finding a book called "Mastering OpenSCAD" by Jochen Kerdels to get me over the hump. The text of the book is available online as well. I bought …
read moreCognition Ignition
A Tear-Down of a Hidden Process
How do you know anything? Most of us never ask the question.
We engineering types want to know how things work. We'll spend tons of time learning how things works so that we can make things do what we want them to do. So …
read moreField Tips: No. 1 - Intermittent Open
Searching for Daddy
Everybody wants a daddy.
Everybody wants to call,
A hero when the lightning flashes,
To hold us when we're small.Everybody wants a daddy.
Protector. There in time of need.
Arms like trees, a loose, quick smile,
Arrow-straight in word and deed.Where can I find him? Where do they …
read moreSelf-Evident
I want to talk about truth. ("Oh boy, here he goes . . . ")
You might be inclined to think the definition of truth is pretty well settled. A lot of people believe that, and for a lot of those people, there's no need to even talk about what truth is. So I'm …
read moreSketchup & Prusa - things that work.
Now this could be a problem. We have new silverware (stainless steel, actually, but you know what I mean). First time in the dishwasher we discover the handles of the large spoons and forks will only fit in a few of the slots in the silverware tray. This not only …
read moreTime
I don't think we will EVER get there. I've been sitting in this back seat for most of my life. Every time I ask the people in the front seat how much longer, they say stuff like, "About two minutes less than the last time you asked."
The day is …
read moreWant to Save the Planet?
Stop having babies.
There. I said it. Somebody needs to say it.
Come on, people, this isn't rocket science. It's just simple math.
You want to know what the human population of the planet was in 1950? Go look it up. Compare that to the current human population. If you …
read moreJust Replaced a Drive
"So, what did you do today?"
"Not much, just replaced a drive in a computer."
Want to know why he never goes into detail?
You look at him. He looks at you. You're thinking, "How could replacing a SSD in a computer take all day?" He's thinking, "Where do I …
read morePiNet - the Shop
The GE air conditioner came with a cute little remote, and WiFi connectivity. Of course, the window unit wants to connect with GE's servers. I'm not a fan of the concept.
read moreLaugh With Me
Life is serious. You might die.
Uh. Yeah? I guess so.
My dear mother gave me one gift that has been more valuable to me than anything I know or can imagine. She taught me to laugh at myself.
It's easy to laugh at other people or at situations that …
read moreuNsocial
The irony of this does not escape me.
I am compelled to talk about my lack of social-ness here in a virtual diary that is a common tool of social media.
I tried to listen to a podcast the other day. It's not the first time, just the latest of …
read morePiNet - the Weather Station
I like knowing what the temperature is in my back yard.
And the rainfall amount when it's raining. And the wind speed and direction. That's why I've had a weather station in my backyard for several years now.
We had two Accurite stations in two years. Both crapped out after …
read moreThe Necessity of Failure
If you haven't noticed, in spite of what some folks would like to believe, we are not all the same.
We are not all the same height. We are not all the same build. We have different smiles, different hair, different tastes.
We do not all make the same first …
read morePiNet - the pool
Pool Pump and Lighting Control
When my wife's in-ground pool was completed, it quickly became apparent the controls for the pump and lights were designed in a tech vacuum.
The control head (receiver, and manual buttons) was attached to the power panel through a knockout on top. It looked like …
read moreKnowledge is . . .
What if every utterance of any person in the world could be saved and served to requestors forever?
Would that be a good thing? As you might surmise, the answer is not clear cut.
IPFS: the InterPlanetary File System is intended to replace HTTPS and de-centralize the content delivery process …
read morePython - now you're talkin'
I'm always learning. Always.
I've always been curious about coding, even before I knew it was called that. When I became aware of the first personal computers that weren't just game consoles, I wanted to be able to make it do what I wanted. But I didn't know how to …
read moreThe Rescue Bike
This is a retrospective of sorts. The project started in the spring of 2013 when I saw this 1983 Honda GL1100i at a second-hand store on U.S. 41 in Hahira, Georgia.
The bike was loaded down with every conceivable piece of aftermarket bling known to man. I'm sure someone …
read morePiNet: the garage
For decades, I wanted a simple way to keep track of whether my garage door was open or closed.
I started this project in 2015 and it does exactly what I need. The project eventually morphed into a component of what I have come to call my PiNet, a network …
read moreThreats
It's the middle of January, 2021. You know what that means, don't you. We're waiting to see what is going to happen. If you're like me, you feel a bit of trepidation about the future. You may be feeling a bit vulnerable. A bit unsettled. A touch afraid.
We watch …
read morePiNet: one simple wish
Eight Raspberry Pi's and two desktop computers, what is now called PiNet started six years ago as a simple wish to know whether the garage door was open or closed.
the garage door
It started in 2015 with my wish to know whether my garage door was open or closed …
read moreThis Love
This love is a slow love,
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This love don’t move too fast,
This love was in the first place,
This love will be the last.
This love can bring me to my knees,
This love can give me wings.
And carry me to heaven high,
Or bind me with …Serenity
With all that is within me,
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I will choose serenity,
accepting the things I cannot change,
standing courageous to change the things I can,
and seeking wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hard work as a path to …Word
In the beginning was the word,
Dawning mouth to ear.
The word begat motion,
Became action, became consequence,
Became eternal.The word made friend of stranger,
Carried power, grace and death.
Made weak men strong, strong men servants,
Masses slaves.The word ignited, spreading,
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Consuming speaker,
Engulfing parent, partner, prodigy …I Am
I am.
What more is there to say?
I wake to find the dawning,
Another Earth-bound day.
Another quest which lay,
Before my feeble feet.
Another hour of effort,
Exchanged for bread and meat.I am.
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Alone it should suffice.
To breathe, to laugh, to struggle,
Between the fire and …Dead Men Mean Nothing
Died a drunken loser,
That's what the papers said.
It was all they needed for,
The vacuum in their heads.Never mind his torment,
Leave go his private pain,
Years of wretched discontent,
The dis-enabling strain.So easy to ignore,
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The strength with which he'd pull,
To live his life …Treasures of the Quest
The sun melts 'neath the western line,
my body hushed at rest.
These days, these joys, these loves of mine;
my treasures of the quest.(c) Copyright 2010, Greg Sanders
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Road
This is my highway.
It stretches true and straight
as far as the eye can see
from mountain to mountain,
without hint of ambiguity
or duplicitous intent.This is my road.
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It waits, neither friend nor foe,
impassionate, trustworthy, honest.
And when upon it I step with the load I …Seven Bells
Seven bells wail their plaintiff song,
One for childhood,
Two for love,
Three for waits too long.Four more times the cold air rings,
Four for youth,
Five for lust,
Six for shiny things.Last the crystal sound is heard,
Seven . . . seven . . . seven,
Seven for the stifled word.
read more(c) Copyright …Fire
I watch a new piece of wood on my fire.
It slowly warms up to its surroundings,
and,
when ready,
bursts into flame,
adding its energy to the
cumulative heat of the community.Brightly it burns,
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eager to express,
to produce,
to participate.
It gives all that it is
in …Down
It is in my heart to cry,
But barren is my eye,
A smoldering fist in my chest,
Snatches the tear,
That would fall silently by.It is in my soul to scream,
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More questions than answers seem,
Obsidian steam builds in my chest,
And slashes my resolve to dream …Ebenezer (Rock of Help)
What started out as many,
By fate became as one,
A single surface scoured,
And rudely etched upon,By wind, by water, sun and time,
The face does slowly change,
The core, however, holds its own,
Its substance will remain.Though besieged by all the force,
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That life can bring …Of Pain and Peace
When day alone is not enough,
To illuminate my soul,
When I eat life dry and tough,
And force to swallow whole,
When the wind of circumstance
Blows cold against my skin,It is then, only then I truly know,
How blessed I am
To hold your hand.When it …
read moreDog in the Trash
Some people think that dogs are dumb,
but that's a mistake as a rule of thumb.
They sucker you in in their hang-dog way;
when you're asleep they commence to play.It's late at night and the puppy's bored,
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she's looking around for a brand new toy.
Sneaks into the …Summer Smiles Again
"Mommee! He hit me!"
"Did not! She hit me first."
Onto the placid summer scene,
Two small tornadoes burst.And Mom, with inward summer smile,
Plays referee once more,
"Go sit out on the porch a while,
And please don't slam that door!"The words have barely hit the ground …
read moreBeauty is in the Eyes
Every woman is beautiful. Deep in the eyes of all women shines the hopeful expectancy of a young girl gazing up at her father with all the wonder, trust and love of the whole world sparkling. If you look past the hurt, past the fear, beyond the suspicion, yes, even …
read moreStrength
Some are like the towering oak,
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impervious to the storm.
Some are like the grass that patiently
crumbles great mountains beneath its roots.
Some are like the apple or plum,
yielding up their fragrant fruit.
But I am like the sunflower,
easily bending, long and spindly,
face following the sun …
