Sweet CLT

Cool evening tonight complete with sun-showers.  Even saw a rainbow over the BOA building.

Another Arduino Plant Watering System

Since my previous plant watering system was much too complex (using wifi, ftp, a hacked cell phone, and power line communication) I decided on a bit more low-level technique:  home built sensors and the Arduino platform.

In comparison this method is:

• Reliable.  If there is a power outage watering will begin again upon power return.
• Equipment is safer.  The water level must test positive before the pump is cycled on, preserving pump life.
• Intelligent.  Software modifiable instruction.
• Independent.  Isolated system is not affected by remote issues.
• Much cooler.

Everything is boxed in an exterior double gang receptacle container, which I deemed appropriate considering the 110v AC involved.  The expandable sensor assortment currently contains two (2) RCA jacks to connect to a low-water-level sensor as well as a moisture sensor (placed in the pot most likely to dry out).

Since there is no water supply on my balcony, a pump is cycled on at proscribed times to supply drip irrigation lines.

If the pump runs dry it will seize, so prior to usage a low-water-level sensor is polled.  If the test fails, it will not run.  The test will be reconsidered at the next scheduled watering time.

In my current configuration, it's difficult to over-water due to the building configuration and elevation.  The Arduino is set to water everyday for five (5) minutes.  In addition to that, two (2) more times a day it will test for dryness at the most susceptible pot.  If it's below the set threshold it will water more.

There is also an alarm pin that will provide an indication of low water level, should I not be paying attention.

I'll post more specifics later on.

EggFarmerFunny

I just got a laugh from the full page ad in the Wall Street Journal taken out by America's Egg Farmers - a message to the American people.  According to them, they cannot produce a product safe enough for "over-easy".

That's top quality for you.   Since more than 99% of our eggs are produced by large-scale jokers, that means the extintion of certain kinds of food we eat...

How safe is our food supply?

For people who live their lives blissfully unaware of where that burger came from - they probably have no idea.  Those few who strive to consume small batch local products are free to worry about their family and friends -- content in their relative safety.

The massively scaled U.S. food production and distribution system -- which generally favours 'food stability' over 'food taste' and actually anticipates fecal matter in its final product  -- could use some improvement.  It's surprising how little consumers care about it until people start dieing.

But its only 5,000 people who will die this year in the U.S. -- at least according to the CDC.  I guess that's more people than will be killed by terrorists from Afghanistan...  I'm sure that next week the same people will pick up the pack of 97¢ eggs.

It's cheaper to eat clean good food that you cook yourself than it is to eat fast cheap food -- even with unfair subsidies propping up the system.  Save a life -- teach someone to cook.

Dude, you still got a light out

$880 million dollars, and they can't fix the light that's been out for months?



View from 28203.

Watering My Plants FAIL

Well, they're still alive -- but the system failed.  Earlier I drew a diagram of my plan.

The X10 controller -- which I wasn't even using in it's X10-electrical-wire-transmit-glory because, probably, it sucks -- worked flawlessly for a week prior to me going on vacation.  I was using it in it's RF capacity, via the Firecracker attachment.  Windows scheduler ran a batch file to cycle the Firecracker.  I was pretty sure about this part.

I wanted to be able to supplement watering on hot days, or when my plants were visibly wilting.  My Touch Pro phone was setup on a tripod downstairs to ftp images every couple of seconds back to the webserver over wifi. Unfortunately, I knew I would have problems with this setup.  The phone would overheat in the sunshine and stop recharging the battery.  So I had to have it reboot itself a couple times a day to be safe.

I don't know how long it lasted, but on the second day I couldn't access the website.  It seems the Savant web server went down without asking me.

And I couldn't ftp in to check the pics, but I may have never opened up ftp to the outside...

But at least I could VNC on in and run the watering cycle.  At least for a couple days.  Apparently that failed too.  I thought the power went out...  Nope, UltraVNC went down.  And it never does that.

But the scheduler kept trickling along every day to supply just enough to keep them alive in the 100 degree heat.  At least until the day I returned.  It seems that the X10 receiver received the ON command, but not the OFF command.  I think it was trying to break my pump.

So I'm going to try an isolated arduino approach.  It should function as a basic fine-tuned timer with push button instant gratification and optional programming opportunities.

How to run Teenpup on a really old computer

So I wanted to run Teenpup2010mini on a 500MHz PIII with 192MBs of RAM and about 4GBs of storage on a second partition.  I wanted to use Amarok to manage and play FLACs over wifi from my music server.  Internet streams would be nice, too.

Lucid Puppy was my first choice, but I couldn't get Amarok to work with a "frugal" install.  Teenpup comes with Amarok pre-installed so I went with that.

I used the LuPu to mount and extract the Teenpup .sfs to its home on the second partition -- after converting it to the proper squash file format with the included utility.

I put the vmlinuz file in the first partition, since my grub can't access stuff on other partitions.  One Grub menu entry boots into a root on the second partition. [I'll have to copy the grub entry here...]

Thanks to the excellent Puppy developers and folks at murga-linux!  It works flawlessly, so far.  Now I have a dependable, lossless, wireless music manager & client for my stereo.

Rebuild Day

Today was a fairly productive day for me.  For starters I fixed my bicycle.  The derailleur had shifted, so it was a pretty easy fix to shift it back.  I had been without transportation for a few days, though, until I figured I had enough time to take it apart.




I rebuilt an animatronic crow.  I guess 'animatronic' is a bit of a stretch... Still, I had to rebuild an electric motor and gearbox.  It had seized up due to years of moving parts and failed grease.  And most of the lights had burned out.  Unfortunately it's hard to come by Christmas lights in August.  I replaced the old ones with those from a used string that I found - testing each and every bulb like a persistent, thick-headed moron.  In a couple weeks I should be able to get some good LED strings that I can use to replicate the creator's original design.

I fixed the air-conditioning in the Volvo.  After Jeff told me recharging worked out great for his Jeep, I decided to inquire at the parts store.  Jose down at the Scaleybark store showed me how to do it.  Friggin amazing because last time I was in the store I had to walk out after some dude implied I was stealing since I had a backpack full of groceries.

And speaking of commuting by bike:  This week the Creative Loafing published a response from CABA's Zimmerman, et. al. to Servatius's idiotic anti-bicycling piece I commented on earlier.  Um, and I didn't see her column in there... ;)  Excellent!

I also fixed the Volvos headlight and taillight by jiggling the wires.  I guess that doesn't really count as fixing them.  Still, now I know I really need a new wiring harness from my headlights.  I noticed the insulation flaking off about four years ago.  I wrapped them with electrical tape the best I could, but I think that's starting to fail.  The rear running light bulb just wasn't seated properly, so it's fine.

My plants are fine now that I have them controlled by the computer.  I have an opensource X10 controller called fireck32 that is called by a batch file to run the pump for five minutes.  Windows scheduler runs it daily to keep them from dying.  I can VPN on in and click the shortcut if I want to add some.  I would still like to set up a little web server and cam, though, to be on the safe side.

Wikileaks

It's not often that I feel that I know more about a story then the Journal writers.  But knowing what I know, I must say that opinion writer Bret Stephens has taken quite a childish stance on the recent Wikileaks hupla.  I get the feeling he's upset that the Journal didn't get the scoop.

The Times got the scoop.  Of course they claim they ran it by the US gov to get their take on it before moving forward.  Which is very considerate.  But I thought that the freedom of speech awarded certain rights -- particularly for the reason of communicating amongst the populace to discourage an oppressive government.

So if this had been a real emergency, then the Times would have failed.

But it is a real emergency.  That is if you consider that all people are created equal.  (Not all citizens...)  And if you can admit that the reason is more economic than humanitarian...  (Perhaps xenophobia sells it to the masses.)

We don't have troops stationed in Afghanistan to support the women who wish to remove their burqas, Mr. Stephens.  It may be a nice side effect, but I think that providing drinking water to those in need may be a more urgent necessity.  Oh!  But what of the implied atrocities?  Perhaps there's a better way. Wait!  They attacked our country?  Sure they did.  That's a load of bull. It was a small group of jackasses -- not a country.  And the US has a horrible track record of 'correcting' regimes, so I don't have a lot of confidence.  It takes years and years and years and lives and lives and lives...  We've already accounted for so many.

At a certain point the US becomes the terrorizer.  Case points come up time and time again.  The US will obtain no respect from those who employ reason if we continue to protect soldiers who commit errors.

And what of those who imagine they're playing a video game?  At what point does killing someone become alright?  It is not.  I'm sorry if I made your job more difficult, but perhaps I made you more human.

What of culture?  What of civility?  I take it for granted.  And I absolutely do not have the troops on the ground now to thank for it.  They are doing a job.  Hopefully they chose their careers with the intent on providing good, and not just because it was the only game in town, or because they thought they owed a debt.  Most of my friends who have participated in the US military did so out of desperation or opportunity.

Many of the US troops on foreign territory don't care at all about the people that they're there to protect.  And that's where Wikileaks comes in.  It's there [It can be used] to protect the masses from an oppressor by exposing it's secrets.  It seems to have no allegiances to one group or another.  It's, hopefully, beyond that.  And so far it has a perfect track record, unlike the US (not that it's a fair comparison...)

Anyway, much of the knowledge I have of Wikileaks has been derived through 2600 and Democracy Now, which I've been following since my formative years.  Julian Assange is always happy to speak his peace, but Jacob Appelbaum gave a keynote speech at HOPE a week and a half ago.  He gave a great talk about the organization and its intent.  I'm sure Mr. Stephens missed that one...

Watering the Plants

While I was on a 30mi ride down to SC the other day I realized that I still needed to find a way to water the plants while I'll be gone.  I guess most people would just ask a friend or neighbor.  I could always still do that, but they could do it from the comfort of their own cellular phone.  And so could I...  It's really too easy, and I'm sure countless have done it before.  Here's the diagram:



Basically, I'll setup a webserver (Apache?) to ask whether you'd like to water and show you a picture of the patio.  The picture would be generated by my multimedia center (also know as an EnergyROM Touch Pro phone running tinyCAM) and then transmitted up to the webserver via wifi.

I could make it private, but it might be exciting if some random people water my plants for me.  I guess pressing a button with no cache will run a script that enacts the X10 device for 15 minutes or so.

So the web server will interact with a cheap old X10 device to turn a pump on and off.

I have a porch light outside, so I have power but no water supply.  I had been stuck on the whole gravity feed idea but kept getting stumped on how to use a cheap low pressure valve but get enough pressure to water everything.  I picked up a cheap pump for < $20 which should do the trick  I've never used those X10 devices before, but nows my chance.  I'll just hope that no one else in the place uses them since they seem to have zero security.

I should also post the times and durations watered.

Letter to Creative Loafing Servatius

Re: Crash Test Dummies, The Cycling Epidemic, http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/the_cycling_epidemic/Content?oid=996069

Citizen Servatius's short-sighted scrutiny of cycling safety leaves much to be desired. I get it: now that Mayor Anthony Foxx is supporting cycling as a viable means of transportation, the alternative weekly feels the need to support the other side.

But wait – I thought that bicycling commuters produce less emissions, reduce congestion, and foster a greater sense of community? She ignored that, and seems to be a step away from suggesting we rip open Tryon Street to keep those darty peds out of the way, just like in our not-so-distant history.

But Servatius even feels bad for the drivers who run over cyclists because they might have to pay for the injuries. Luckily for her, if you follow http://charlottevelo.com/ you'll see that it's very difficult to hold vehicle drivers accountable, even though it's often an impatient, inconsiderate driver at fault. Drivers easily forget that their cars can be very dangerous weapons. By her logic, if Servatius accidentally shot someone she might blame them for getting in the way.

Watch out! Don't get pregnant! Don't want to catch that 'N1... Her logic escapes me.

By the way, you're 10 times more likely to die from a collision in your car than in a bus. (NHTSA, http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm )  

Unsolicited advertising

Just a heads-up, a reminder if you will, that advertisments sent to me under the guise of businesses I have deals with, that include prepaid return postage will always yeild a response from me - like it or not. So please don't forget to factor my cost into your advertising calculations. (At least I don't mail bricks.) Also, please remember to recycle, to help offset some of the shipping waste.

Thanks,
Ryan

I'm such a rascal...

Transportation

Heading home.  End of the line on a beautiful evening.  Eventually the train will extend north to UNCC and North Davidson where stuff happens.  That is, as long as the corporations can keep raising pigs and chickens so Bank of America can keep making money and paying taxes and employees (who buy property and pay taxes), so our local government can stay afloat.  Or, that those kids who romanticize trains grow up and want them.

But for now, it stops here.  Just blocks from city center.  Inside the immediate two-square-mile-beltway.  But that's alright with me.  I enjoy riding my bicycle.

I take the train into work when it's too hot, not that I couldn't get away with it, just that I grew-up and have remained accustomed to a certain level of comfort.  I, unlike most people who complain about, perhaps rightfully so, tax dollars spent on someone other than them, chose to live and work along the train line.  In fact, positive transportation planning awarded Charlotte with a check-mark while searching for a city to live in.

But I ride in when the sun is down, or the weather bearable, and I always ride back.  Not only is it thrilling, but it helps me prove to myself that my job is not draining.

As a 21st century shopkeeper, I was informed by another that they wished that they could ride their bike everywhere because they figured it'd be a good way to stay in shape.  I offered that perhaps it would be so long as one didn't mind arriving to appointments moist, or making trips to the grocery a couple of times each week.  And that was that.

I think that if more people are to consider bicycles as a legitimate form of transportation, then more people are going to have to actually enjoy riding bikes.  And I don't think they do.  But I don't know why.  Maybe they think its childish or unsafe.  I enjoy riding through a city with an unobstructed view of the buildings and the lives going on around me.  I enjoy the rush and thrill of pwning the roadway in city traffic.  I envy the elite few who make their living pedaling.  I love that I am being propelled by nothing more than a gear physically manipulated by my living body.  

And my bike runs on vegetables.

And when I transport I grow stronger.

And the contraposition holds true.

The States are an highway wasteland.  If we incorporate safe paths for bicycles more people will be able to enjoy them.  Just lets not render this a class divide.  Lets not put the bikes on the hitch to go for a ride.  Lets enjoy it for real.

Urban Assault Charlotte

Urban Assault was a blast.  I would probably do something like that everyday if I could.  I guess I do to some extent, but it makes an impact doing it as a group.  The Ski Team, (Chris & I) came in 104th out of 340 or so participants.  But we captured all the bleeds, and that's what counts!



To see that many bikes at one time in Charlotte makes me appreciate this city a bit more.  And if the solar powered sound system, and wind-made brew were irrelevant to my cohabitants, then at least no one complained.  And I'm sure a lot of people, like Ski Team, actually rode to the event ;)




The last obstacle was a BigWheel track which held me back as I had to retract to collect my phone which I had just rolled over...


View UA traversal in a larger map

All in all, it turned out to be about 26 miles.  And it felt like 95 degrees.


  
For some reason I'm not as excited as I should be about free food.

Fun times!

***UPDATE***
Some pictures I forgot to post...



    The calm before the cycling storm.



The first wave run for their rides.  We were resigned to the end of the line.  Either too slow (in registering) or too stupid (to pass the quiz).  And then we didn't even know where we were racing to!  Probably should have let us go first...



Sweet bike.  Functional.



Chris demonstrates how light the bike is.


These crazy people wanted me to take their picture.  Note - everyone is protecting themselves, post-race, from the scorching action of the midday summer sun by hydrating themselves with tasty beer.  Oh yeah, and there exists a picture of a dude wading in that green swan poop water.  [Seriously, they have to pressure wash all that excrement off of the sidewalk into the water.]

I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural occupation as building his house. -Henry D. Thoreau

A love story for capitalism

I finally got around to watching Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, and you've already formed your opinion about what you're about to read.  Every fiscal Conservative should love his argument, but it's dismissed as quickly as sentence one.

As his Vizzini says: The guy who makes the best ice cream gets the customers, and the guy who doesn't fades away.  There you go.  We all want the best ice cream.

What Moore argues is that we let the crappy-ice-cream-making-guy cheat and serve us pus.  People let themselves be swayed and spoken for by media and commercials rather than asking where the milk came from.

When people can work together in a Democracy with Capitalism, they can win.  Divided and unquestioning they're at the mercy of the few in control -- for better or worse.

On his argument that Capitalism is to blame for corporations profiting on the death of their Peasants?  Is it the gun that kills the people, or the people that kill the people?  Obviously it is people who kill, but I don't own a gun.

But you might say that Moore has a thing against guns.  It doesn't matter: his whole point is to get people to wake up and pay attention, already.

Android tethering for Puppy

How do you tether an Android Motorola Droid to a Linux Puppy?

I have an old Pentium III laptop, running Puppy 4.31.1 (Macpup Foxy 3) and a Droid phone.  Using the phone to supply internet connectivity to the Puppy is easy using USB tethering - provided you can add some functionality to the kernel on the phone.

The easiest way to do that is to root the phone and then install the Clockwork ROM updater (from the Marketplace) in order to install Cyanogen's ROM.  This of course voids your warranty and whatnot, but it's fairly easy to do and allows for a bit more functionality.

With the phone prepared, you'll need to:

• Turn OFF USB SD drive access
• Turn ON Settings-> Applications-> USB debugging
• Turn ON Settings-> Wireless & Network-> Internet tethering
• Connect the USB cord to the Droid and the Puppy
• Launch Network Wizzard on the Puppy.   You should now see USB as a network option.  Verify the network, DHCP, and you're good to go.

Verizon allows 5G/mo transfer on their "unlimited" plan.

I did have a bit of difficulty connecting through WIFI and BT.  The WIFI problems I suspect are due to the ad-hoc nature of the WIFI programs:  Barnacle, WIFI Tether for Root Users.  My WIFI card may have limited support.  My Bluetooth adapter may also have limited driver support or functionality.

I also had difficulty utilyzing methods employing the Android Development Kit Tools.  For some reason, my Puppy seemed to behave flaky -- most of the time the command 'devices' yields no results.  This prevented me from attempting various proxy methods.

And the popular PDANet was out because of an apparent lack of Puppy support.



Thanks to all the folks on DroidFurums.net, Alldroid.org, and Murga-Linux.com!

I'm very impressed with both Google's and Archive's implementation of privacy considerations.  Upon marking a site private, I am immediately presented with this:

Robots.txt Query Exclusion.

We're sorry, access to http://murrayhillroad.blogspot.com has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.

You may want to:

Read more about robots.txt

See the site's robots.txt file.

Try the page on the live web: http://murrayhillroad.blogspot.com

Search for all pages on the site murrayhillroad.blogspot.com/

Try a different page address, at top

See the FAQs for more info and help, or contact us.

Snipets are still available in Google search results, but requests of the cache are denied.  Bravo.  I'm sure records are still kept forever, but they at least require a court order.

Google MyTracks

I tried out the Google GPS tracking software, MyTracks, and it worked flawlessly right out of the box.

Here is the first track.

I did the Smelly Cat Circuit, since it turned out to be an OK day today.  I stopped off at the Common Market on the way back, which is the waypoint marker.  Google's My Maps even shows the statistics, if you click on the "end" marker link.  If you check out the altitude, you can see why they call it "Uptown".  I guess before cars, people had to haul stuff up-to-town.

The best new feature that Google brings, I feel, is the ability to automatically save it to Google Docs, where it throws your stats into a spreadsheet so you can compare them.


Update:  Here's a picture from North East of the city (looking South West).  That's one of my favourite parts of this ride -- actually riding up to the city, rolling underneath the skyscrapers, and then seeing it fade into the distance.  Here is the spreadsheet.

Charlotte Radio is Awful

As I read Nsenga Burton's column about Charlotte's lack of a black music scene, I'm reminded that this city seriously lacks quality radio.

Radio is a dieing media, and in Charlotte it's practically dead.  TV is more exciting, and the internet, cellular included, is the wave of future.  But it's a shame because radio as a technology is cool.  It's fairly easy to broadcast it to a large number of people.  It's actually "analog", at a time when even TV is digital.  And don't even get me started on the HD-radio-oh-I-have-the-letters-"H"-"D"-in-my-name-so-I-must-be-better trash.  Radio IS local.  It IS part of YOUR community.

What do we have?  Commercial Corporate Crap and Christian Channels.

WFAE looks great compared to everything else on our dial, but compare them to a WBAI or a WMNF.

A couple remote college stations come in when the atmospheric conditions are right...

Can anyone tell me the frequency of ONE pirate radio station in Charlotte?

Radios are cheap.  Your car has one.  You can probably figure out how to build one yourself if you never have.  (Try to build a device that can receive and decode a cellular internet stream from scratch.)  I'm reminded of the imbeciles in Idiocracy that watered their crops with Gatorade.   Technology is great, but only if it solves problems -- not creates them.

We have this excellent technology - radio - that's being unused.  Why?  Is it because Charlotteans love to listen to the same stale music that Nsenga was referring to?  And then go out and buy junk from the advertisers so they can stay in business?

On IR Remote Codes and resurrecting a lost controller

IR, or CIR Consumer Infra-Red has been around for a long time -- used as a fancy magic controlling device. [Prefaced by inaudible high frequency tones generated by whacking a rod with a hammer?].  Now, IrDA is related technology that has allowed peripherals to beam at each other since before PDAs came with built-in cell phones.  They unite in archaic technology like my Wizard to perform the wonderfully unimportant task of changing the channel on my TV.

Never before has technology been so widespread, so easy to understand, and yet undocumented.  I guess because no one really loses their remote control.  But is it really so easy to understand?  Why does everyone seem to be fooled by the TV-B-Gone?

TV-B-Gone power cycles a list of popular TVs from a far, while most IrDA devices are meant to be used up-close.  But in my case, I don't really care.  I'm just going to use the Wizard's IrDA port to program a universal remote control.

I don't think anyone uses IrDA anymore.  They've been leaving it off of the newer smart phones, and who cares when wifi and bluetooth are so prevalent. [What, you mean your peripheral isn't connected to the internet!?]  So it's a pain to find relevant software for it.

One of the few that I was able to get running was the Novii Remote.  They charge money, but they let you borrow it for 10 days which is nice.  I installed it on a Windows Mobile 6.1 OS.

I couldn't find the IR pulse codes for my amplifier:  a Nakamichi AV-300.  I know they exist somewhere on the net, because I found them before.  Today I could not find them.  But I did find a .ccf file that included codes from a Nak AV-10 on http://www.remotecentral.com/.  From that I was able to extract the hex control codes with Prontoedit4.

Copying the hex codes to buttons on Novii Remote running on the Wizard took way too much time.  That's why I'm writing this.  And just so I don't lose them again, important codes that work on my AV-300 are as follows:



Nakamichi AV-300 Remote Codes

Power ON: Power OFF:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

Mute:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

Volume +:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

Volume -:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00a9 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

Input Functions:
Tuner:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

VIDEO:
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CD:
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And, yes, I'm aware that I could just buy a new remote on ebay, but that doesn't sound very fun.

Crowders Mountain Ridgeline Trail from SC/NC Border to Pinnacle and onward

Dexter and I hiked the Ridgline Trail today.  It's about 17 miles out and back, so it required a bit of endurance and much of the daylight.

The day wasn't that clear, but it was still a pretty hike with vast views, amazing rock formations, and un-vandalized trails.  We started at the main park office and followed the Pinnacle trail nearly to the top where the Ridgeline trail began.  The Ridgeline was just competed last year after decades of work and was hailed as a big win for both the North and South Carolina Parks.

It runs for a little over six miles to the border, which we discovered was the petroleum pipline from Atlanta.  Exciting.  I guess that was the one that was pumping slowly 18 months ago causing sky-high gas prices.

The entire trip was about 6 hours, and I sat-tracked myself on the return.  Temps were in the 30's, but it really wasn't too bad since the wind was calm.  Dexter walked for about five miles, but decided to ride when the trail became covered with snow.

It was nice, but it left me longing for Alaskan views ;)

Crowders Mountain

I considered heading up to the Appalachian trail this morning, but reports from the National Weather Service ("TRAVEL IS EXPECTED TO BECOME VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.") encouraged me to stay closer to home.  Plus, the Volvo needs some maintenance.  So Dexter and I took off for Crowders Mountain.


He's hiked it before, as have I, but it really does offer some spectacular views.
  
The only wildlife we saw was a hawk soaring below us.  The top offered a 360° view of North and South Carolina.  Despite the clouds, I could see the city of Charlotte and beyond.


I noticed that the Ridgeline trail, the one that connects the North and South Carolina parks, has been completed since the last time I was on the trail.  I think I may hike that on my next day off as a bit of a challenge.  It's posted 210 minutes, one way, so I should start out once it gets light out. 


But it would be nice to hike around some of the white, fluffy stuff.

WinMo ROM

For a couple of weeks it seems as though my phone (an HTC Raphael stripped-down mod by at&t called the Fuze) would choose to ignore some mail pushed by google, so I thought it might be a good time to re-up the ROM.

Lately I've been preferring the ROMs put together by NRGZ28. The latest stable for Windows Mobile 6.5 (based on the 21889 Build from the OEM COM2 tree) is EnergyROM.

There's still a lot of activity on the XDA Raphael forums, but I think it'll die down a bit as more and more people get Android phones, and the like.

But anyway, the EnergyROM is running quick and smooth.  It's amazing how much better it is than the software that came installed on the thing.  It's a testament to what kind of advances can be made when software is open.  Oh wait, I guess MS isn't open.  I guess it's a testament to what kind of advances can be made when a company looks the other way as others reverse-engineer, recalibrate, and then redistribute their software.

XBOX XBMC PlayOn

We've been using the old skool XBOX as a media center with XBMC for some time now. XBMC is a great piece of software -- probably the best at what it does. I used the IDE Hot Swap Method to softmod the XBOX back when we lived in Baltimore, but only recently we've been using PlayOn to stream video from the office computer to the XBOX via ethernet.

If I told Nicole how much money we saved by not paying for cable she'd probably be momentarily pleased, but then she'd remember all of the programs that were cut short or all the time I spent fiddling with it.

Being denied The Daily Show for a week I figured is was time to reinstall a new build. Since Microsoft won't open up the system, or XDK, (even though it doesn't develop for it anymore) the only way to obtain new binaries is through illicit means and there are only a few that I know of. Right now it seems to be working great. This is what I've got:

+ T3CH XBMC 2010-01-03 SVN rev26316 from http://t3ch.yi.se/
+ PlayOn Version: 2.59.3664 from http://www.playon.tv
+ PM3HD skin as included with T3CH build

And it seems to be working quite well!

I also just tried a different build, but it couldn't display the PlayOn categories using the same skin.

The Transparency! skin can view all of the categories, but it can't play any from Hulu or CNN - which is a shame because it looks great. The older Rapier skin seems to work well, with Hulu at least, but I'll check out the new release.

One thing that I suspect may have been a problem was the extent of thumbnails that existed in the User directory of the old build. I don't know if XBMC manages these, but I didn't copy them over to the new build.

I'll have to test it out a bit more and decorate with a suitable skin.