. . . affordable housing that I can, in good conscience, purchase.
One story, three or more bedrooms, 1.5+ baths, not a slab foundation, not in an HOA, with a simple roof line, and where the property taxes won't eat us alive.
It's a challenge and my dear spouse is working hard to find one that meets our needs and is within our ability to make the down payment.
Friday, July 15, 2016
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Stargate Atlantis
Last year I posted a blog entry mentioning the journey from beginning to end of Stargate SG-1 for me. I thought I might finish the remaining live-action shows by year-end.
I didn't make it.
I did finish Stargate Atlantis a few months ago, but still have the bulk of Stargate Universe to go. The last few episodes of Atlantis were pleasing, but the finale seemed rushed.
I've been watching Person of Interest and Law & Order, as those recordings on my DVR are bigger and I wanted to reclaim space.
I didn't make it.
I did finish Stargate Atlantis a few months ago, but still have the bulk of Stargate Universe to go. The last few episodes of Atlantis were pleasing, but the finale seemed rushed.
I've been watching Person of Interest and Law & Order, as those recordings on my DVR are bigger and I wanted to reclaim space.
Hodiaŭ estas dimanĉo
Hodiaŭ estas dimanĉo. Hieraŭ estis sabato. Morgaŭ estos lundo.
Lernu Esperanton! Vizitu http://www.duolingo.com.
I'm not sure when or where I first learned of Esperanto. It could have been the Stainless Steel Rat books of Harry Harrison, or the Riverworld books of Philip José Farmer. Back then the best resources were obtainable only by mail.
A few months ago I restarted it in earnest when I discovered that Duolingo, a web site devoted to free language learning tools, had a course for English speakers. I've also joined a few Facebook groups devoted to it, where I can be exposed to the language on a daily basis.
So far I've had fun.
Lernu Esperanton! Vizitu http://www.duolingo.com.
I'm not sure when or where I first learned of Esperanto. It could have been the Stainless Steel Rat books of Harry Harrison, or the Riverworld books of Philip José Farmer. Back then the best resources were obtainable only by mail.
A few months ago I restarted it in earnest when I discovered that Duolingo, a web site devoted to free language learning tools, had a course for English speakers. I've also joined a few Facebook groups devoted to it, where I can be exposed to the language on a daily basis.
So far I've had fun.
Friday, June 24, 2016
Person of Interest
Nearly five years ago I began a journey. You might not think of watching a television show as a journey, but if a show has a compelling story, you might.
Such was with Person of Interest, created by Jonathan Nolan, noted for screenwriting on The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, and for the short story "Memento Mori" which was turned into the movie Memento.
Person of Interest starts fairly episodic, then dives into lengthy story arcs around the Machine, a government surveillance system that has also been turned to good purpose by our protagonists.
There's really not much more to say except that it worked, despite the technical overreach typical of TV crime shows, and I recommend it.
Such was with Person of Interest, created by Jonathan Nolan, noted for screenwriting on The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, and for the short story "Memento Mori" which was turned into the movie Memento.
Person of Interest starts fairly episodic, then dives into lengthy story arcs around the Machine, a government surveillance system that has also been turned to good purpose by our protagonists.
There's really not much more to say except that it worked, despite the technical overreach typical of TV crime shows, and I recommend it.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Dirty Flashing CyanogenMod
It's not what you likely think it is.
"Dirty flashing" refers to installing an OS update, in this case an Android phone update, without wiping data first (which has attendant hassle of restoring apps and their data).
My aging Android phone is one of those officially supported by Cyanogenmod. Since I acquired it, I've been running CM11, which tracks the official "KitKat" (Google version 4.4). In the meantime, CM12 (Lollipop) and CM13 (Marshmallow) have been released. I had been resisting upgrading, because the device install instructions recommend wiping data and a brief attempt to install CM13 led to a continual crash loop.
Since then I read an official Cyanogenmod blog post inviting people to dirty flash. I decided to try again, but this time with CM12, which has an officially stable release for my phone ("snapshot"), while CM13 is still in test/development/experimental releases ("nightlies").
I followed the instructions for downloading the CM12 bundle, Google Apps, and updated the recovery manager I had installed already. I made a fresh backup of the running OS, copied that to another machine for safekeeping (also I keep a backup of the stock (factory) OS KitKat image, in case I have to run through any activation steps with my phone provider), put my phone in airplane mode, disabled XPrivacy (with its fine-grained application permission settings), and booted into recovery. Then I wiped Dalvik (the Java runtime cache) and Cache (the rest of the operating system cache) and flashed CM12 and Google Apps. And rebooted. And waited. Upwards of an hour later, my phone had finished booting and updating application caches.
And everything works, though the settings have moved around a bit and I'm still getting it set up as I like it. Still, my apps, my data, my home screen setup, all there without trouble.
I'm going to try CM's Privacy Guard feature for a while instead of XPrivacy, because it's less intrusive. XPrivacy was constantly asking for permissions and it became tiresome.
Next up, CM13 after a snapshot release is posted for my phone.
"Dirty flashing" refers to installing an OS update, in this case an Android phone update, without wiping data first (which has attendant hassle of restoring apps and their data).
My aging Android phone is one of those officially supported by Cyanogenmod. Since I acquired it, I've been running CM11, which tracks the official "KitKat" (Google version 4.4). In the meantime, CM12 (Lollipop) and CM13 (Marshmallow) have been released. I had been resisting upgrading, because the device install instructions recommend wiping data and a brief attempt to install CM13 led to a continual crash loop.
Since then I read an official Cyanogenmod blog post inviting people to dirty flash. I decided to try again, but this time with CM12, which has an officially stable release for my phone ("snapshot"), while CM13 is still in test/development/experimental releases ("nightlies").
I followed the instructions for downloading the CM12 bundle, Google Apps, and updated the recovery manager I had installed already. I made a fresh backup of the running OS, copied that to another machine for safekeeping (also I keep a backup of the stock (factory) OS KitKat image, in case I have to run through any activation steps with my phone provider), put my phone in airplane mode, disabled XPrivacy (with its fine-grained application permission settings), and booted into recovery. Then I wiped Dalvik (the Java runtime cache) and Cache (the rest of the operating system cache) and flashed CM12 and Google Apps. And rebooted. And waited. Upwards of an hour later, my phone had finished booting and updating application caches.
And everything works, though the settings have moved around a bit and I'm still getting it set up as I like it. Still, my apps, my data, my home screen setup, all there without trouble.
I'm going to try CM's Privacy Guard feature for a while instead of XPrivacy, because it's less intrusive. XPrivacy was constantly asking for permissions and it became tiresome.
Next up, CM13 after a snapshot release is posted for my phone.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
OpenWRT on a Linksys WRT600N v1.1
Note: At first blush, it does not appear that OpenWRT supports the 5GHz radio. This is fine for my application, as I have another wireless router.
I've been running OpenBSD as my firewall, but have often had performance problems on the old hardware on which I run it. While searching for an alternative, I decided to revisit possibilities for the Linksys WRT600N wireless router I've had in storage since I replaced it with something with better 5GHz and 802.11n performance. I had been running DD-WRT on it, but maintenance of that release fell by the wayside several years ago.
OpenWRT, on which DD-WRT is reported to be based, appears to have a more active development community. I discovered that version 1.1 of the WRT600N, with serial numbers starting with "MNR0", has been supported since version 14.07 of OpenWRT.
I still had a copy of the original firmware, downloaded from Linksys when they made it easy to find, so I loaded that, replacing the DD-WRT image. I set the load to switch to factory defaults.
The latest version of OpenWRT is distributed in the TRX format, so requires conversion for the stock Linksys firmware to be able to process an update, which must be in BIN format. The OpenWRT ticketing system has a case concerning this and here is a direct link to the conversion tool in base64 format. This tool is a 32-bit x86 Linux executable, so I had to install 32-bit glibc.
The resulting file installed smoothly from the Linksys firmware's update page.
A subsequent post will discuss configuration of features of interest to me.
I've been running OpenBSD as my firewall, but have often had performance problems on the old hardware on which I run it. While searching for an alternative, I decided to revisit possibilities for the Linksys WRT600N wireless router I've had in storage since I replaced it with something with better 5GHz and 802.11n performance. I had been running DD-WRT on it, but maintenance of that release fell by the wayside several years ago.
OpenWRT, on which DD-WRT is reported to be based, appears to have a more active development community. I discovered that version 1.1 of the WRT600N, with serial numbers starting with "MNR0", has been supported since version 14.07 of OpenWRT.
I still had a copy of the original firmware, downloaded from Linksys when they made it easy to find, so I loaded that, replacing the DD-WRT image. I set the load to switch to factory defaults.
The latest version of OpenWRT is distributed in the TRX format, so requires conversion for the stock Linksys firmware to be able to process an update, which must be in BIN format. The OpenWRT ticketing system has a case concerning this and here is a direct link to the conversion tool in base64 format. This tool is a 32-bit x86 Linux executable, so I had to install 32-bit glibc.
The resulting file installed smoothly from the Linksys firmware's update page.
A subsequent post will discuss configuration of features of interest to me.
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Watching SG-1: Thirteen years in the execution
Thirteen years ago a friend introduced me to Stargate SG-1 after I'd said I'd liked the original movie. It took me a while to get started on the show, then I slowed down, then I picked up speed again after finding it offered by one of the streaming providers. Last night I watched the proper finale for SG-1. I have the remainder of Stargate Atlantis to watch, then the not-as-well-received follow-on show Stargate Universe. For the moment, I'll likely skip the animated spinoff Stargate Infinity, as I tried to sit through the first episode and couldn't stick with it.
It's been difficult to do research on the shows while avoiding spoilers and that avoidance hasn't been entirely successful. I don't like spoilers.
Maybe I'll finish them all before year-end. It's been a fun ride.
It's been difficult to do research on the shows while avoiding spoilers and that avoidance hasn't been entirely successful. I don't like spoilers.
Maybe I'll finish them all before year-end. It's been a fun ride.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Borrowed from a comment on Slashdot
If your religion requires others in public to change their behavior, your religion is broken.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Nearly one year
It's nearly a year since I started this blog. And it's still small.
The day job is stressful and it saps creativity. I would like to find more mental quiet time to offset that.
For a good blog, see http://www.cringely.com/.
The day job is stressful and it saps creativity. I would like to find more mental quiet time to offset that.
For a good blog, see http://www.cringely.com/.
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Cutting the cord, one month later
It's been a month since we ditched cable. Some channels are spotty, but that's okay. Not having the frustration of abysmal customer service and ever-rising prices make their own reward.
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