cd techblog git fetch git merge | grep "Already" > /dev/null || jbake
24 July 2018
Listen 0
Hourly News Summary - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=500005
Listen 1
Radiolab from WNYC - http://feeds.wnyc.org/radiolab
NPR Programs: Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Podcast - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=35
PRI Echoes Interviews - http://echoes.org/podcasts/feed
Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing - http://www.qdnow.com/grammar.xml
NPR How To Do Everything Podcast - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510303
The Candid Frame A Photography Podcast - http://thecandidframe.libsyn.com/rss
Photography Tips from the Top Floor - http://feeds.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/tftf
All About Android - http://leoville.tv/podcasts/aaa
Android App Addicts - http://feeds.feedburner.com/androidappaddicts
APM: Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac Podcast feed - http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/podcast/feed.php
Back to Work - http://feeds.5by5.tv/b2w
Android App Arena (MP3) - http://feeds.twit.tv/arena.xml
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - http://lenswork.com/podcast.xml
TWiP Talks - http://thisweekinphoto.com/category/interviews/feed/
TWiP Street Focus - http://thisweekinphoto.com/category/street-focus/feed/
The Digital Photo Experience - http://feeds.feedburner.com/DPExperienceEnhancedPodcast
The Photo Brigade Podcast - http://photobrigade.libsyn.com/rss
Thoughts on Photography - http://thoughtsonphotography.libsyn.com/rss
99% Invisible - http://feeds.99percentinvisible.org/99percentinvisible
Android Police Podcast - http://feeds.feedburner.com/AndroidPolicePodcast
TWiP Your Itinerary - http://thisweekinphoto.com/category/your-itinerary/feed/
Groovy Podcast - http://groovypodcast.podbean.com/feed/
PetaPixel Photography Podcast - http://petapixel.libsyn.com/rss
Functional Geekery - http://www.functionalgeekery.com/feed/mp3/
Jeff Curto’s Camera Position - http://feeds.feedburner.com/cameraposition
Acquired - http://www.acquired.fm/episodes?format=rss
Hit The Streets with Valerie Jardin - http://valeriejardinphotography.libsyn.com/rss
Do By Friday - https://rss.simplecast.com/podcasts/2389/rss
Smart Talk - https://features.witf.org/stpodcast/feed/podcast/
Listen 2
This Week in Tech (MP3) - http://feeds.twit.tv/twit
Android Central Podcast - http://feeds.feedburner.com/AndroidCentralPodcast
NPR: TED Radio Hour Podcast - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510298
NPR: Car Talk Podcast - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510208
The Moth Podcast - http://feeds.feedburner.com/themothpodcast
Triangulation (MP3) - http://feeds.twit.tv/tri
APM Marketplace All In One - http://feeds.americanpublicmedia.org/marketplaceallinone
FLOSS Weekly (MP3) - http://feeds.twit.tv/floss
The Giz Wiz (MP3) - http://feeds.twit.tv/dgw
This Week in Law (MP3) - http://feeds.twit.tv/twil
Rationally Speaking - http://nycskeptics.org/storage/feeds/rs.xml
Tank Riot - http://www.tankriot.com/rss.xml
The Digital Story - http://www.thedigitalstory.com/feed/podcast.xml
Martin Bailey Photography Podcast MP3 - http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/podcastmp3.php
The Linux Action Show! MP3 - http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLinuxActionShow
Linux For The Rest Of Us - http://feeds.feedburner.com/linuxfortherestofus
All Chariot Podcasts - http://chariotsolutions.com/podcasts/show/all-shows/feed/
The Cognicast - Cognitect Blog - http://feeds.cognitect.com/cognicast/feed.rss
Photofocus - http://feeds.feedburner.com/photofocuspodcast
Cory Doctorow’s craphound.com ยป Podcast - http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast
Hanselminutes - http://feeds.podtrac.com/9dPm65vdpLL1
Android Developers Backstage - http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/AndroidDevelopersBackstage
Song Exploder - http://songexploder.libsyn.com/rss
Note to Self - http://feeds.wnyc.org/notetoself-podcast
Ask Me Another - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510299
The Changelog - http://feeds.5by5.tv/changelog
Welcome to Night Vale - http://nightvale.libsyn.com/rss
Freakonomics Radio - http://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio
Alice Isn’t Dead - http://aliceisntdead.libsyn.com/rss
Oh No Ross and Carrie - http://feeds.feedburner.com/OhNoPodcast
WITF Smart Talk - http://feeds.witf.org/witf-smarttalk-podcast
StreetPX - A Photography Podcast - http://streetpx.com/feed/podcast/
Engineering Culture by InfoQ - http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:258266127/sounds.rss
How I Built This - https://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510313
The Stack Overflow Podcast - http://blog.stackoverflow.com/feed/podcast/
Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything - http://feeds.prx.org/toe
defn - http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:220484243/sounds.rss
B&H Photography Podcast - http://bhphotopodcast.libsyn.com/rss
No Name Photo Show - http://nonamephotoshow.libsyn.com/rss
On the Media - http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia
10% Happier with Dan Harris - http://feeds.feedburner.com/abcradio/10percenthappier
Voices in AI - https://voicesinai.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=go_briefing_feed&feed_type=xml
Wrong About Everything - http://wrongabouteverything.libsyn.com/rss
The Picturing Success Podcast - http://picturingsuccess.libsyn.com/rss
At Liberty - http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:40330678/sounds.rss
Everything is Alive - http://feeds.everythingisalive.com/everythingisalive
Listen 3
This American Life - http://feeds.thisamericanlife.org/talpodcast
Security Now (MP3) - http://feeds.twit.tv/sn
Hacker Public Radio - http://hackerpublicradio.org/hpr_rss.php
the memory palace - http://memorypalace.wm.wizzard.tv/rss
Quit - http://feeds.5by5.tv/quit
Software Engineering Radio - The Podcast for Professional Software Developers - http://feeds.feedburner.com/se-radio
All Songs Considered - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510019&uid=n1qe4e85742c986fdb81d2d38ffa0d5d53
The Allusionist - http://feeds.theallusionist.org/Allusionist
The Mortified Podcast - http://feeds.getmortified.com/MortifiedPod
You Are Not So Smart - http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:16745745/sounds.rss
Process Driven - https://jefferysaddoris.com/processdriven/feed/
Music
Goldie presents the Metalheadz podcast - http://feeds.feedburner.com/Metalheadz
Chrono
On Taking Pictures - http://feeds.5by5.tv/otp
LambdaCast - http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:239787249/sounds.rss
Conversations with People Who Hate Me - http://conversationswithpeoplewhohateme.libsyn.com/rss
Meditations, The by AURELIUS, Marcus - https://librivox.org/rss/1095
18 October 2016
The First Transistor Radio hit the market on this day (18 October) in 1954. (Read that in the voice of Garrison Keillor.)
Learning this today reminded me of one of my first pieces of electronics as a kid. It was a little blue, portable transistor AM radio that took 2 AA batteries. I got it as a prize from the school fundraiser, and I specifically remember it being listed as a transistor radio, like that was something special. I’m not sure how special that really was in around 1985, since we’d evidently had the technology readily available since 1954.
That radio was packed full of components on a board in its blue plastic shell. From the first time I had to open it to put batteries in it, I was intrigued by it — solder joints, variable capacitor, capacitors, resistors, transistors, antenna coil with ferrous core, bits of glue holding it together, etc. That thing came apart many times as I compared its contents to other devices and to those on my electronics kit later.
12 February 2016
The kids got a little M3D Micro for Christmas, and so started our adventures into 3D printing.
I intended to let the kids learn the whole thing from scratch, but I knew I was throwing them a little bit of a curve ball by only having Linux netbooks to drive it, so I ended up getting a headstart setting up OctoPrint and the M3D-Fio driver.
At the end of December 2015 when I was starting, the M3D-Fio driver had some configurations in the repository that might not have been optimal, so I was fighting a bit with a few problems:
adhesion to the bed
gaps and lines in the bottom layers
stringing
speed
other quality issues
I thrashed around for quite some time changing settings I didn’t really understand, and Matthew spent a night helping me and showing me what his much larger printer could do — that helped immensely, since it gave me some hints as to what I should be expecting from my printer. I also learned what the different settings should be doing for me.
For an entire Sunday, about 18 hours, I printed 1cm test cubes and experimented with settings. I quickly decided I should have my settings and profiles tracked in my own local git repository, so I can always rollback to previous settings.
After a week or so, some updates from the M3D-Fio repository brought us more success with more default settings that matched the defaults found in the original software from Micro. The conservative settings also added rafts and slowed down the print a bit.
I was able to take those conservative settings and speed them up a bit and remove the rafts — the BuildTak holds a print pretty well even without the raft. I based my customizations on the stock profile that prints at 0.25mm layer thickness to get even more speed out of the printer.
I also found keeping a -0.4mm bed offset on my printer helped get just enough squish in the first layer to help get a more solid bottom layre and good adhesion to the bed.
Another notable configuration tip I had picked up was to set the wall thickness to a multiple of the nozzle size. In the case of the M3D, the nozzle thickness is 0.35mm, so I’m using a thickness of 0.70mm. Before I had learned that, a couple of my initial chachkies came out with thin gaps where the slicer should have decided to fill.
I’m at the point now that I have pretty reasonable expectations for what the printer can do, and I can start up the machine after a week or 2 of sitting, and run a print through reliably without needing to make adjustments. That’s great for letting the kids just make whatever they want. Both kids have been able to get into Tinkercad and produce some printable designs. Ben’s doing Nerf rail accessories, and Marie is designing a new cap for my growler.
Finally, I’ve pushed my configurations to a public git repository to serve as reference for anyone else who cares.
An update added a slicker settings dialog to allow more intuitive adjustments to a profile, so I’ve been testing relatively successfully with using the stock PLA profile and just flipping options. I did find that using a raft in "medium quality" mode fused my little 10mm test cube to the raft in a way that I can’t remove it. I usually avoid the raft anyway, though, since it sticks so well to the buildtak already.
05 January 2016
I’ve moved the blog to a static site generated by JBake. The source for the content lives in my techblog project in Github, so I have a full versioning of my content for the small price of a git workflow.
I installed JBake using the familiar SDKMan that I already use to manage my Grails and Groovy installations. I initialized it with the Groovy templating engine and have started customizing the templates.
To make sure this thing is easy to update, I keep a local clone of the repo, so I can update it any time and push whenever I’m ready. I have a shell script scheduled to run on the server which basically does:
cd techblog git fetch git merge | grep "Already" > /dev/null || jbake
That little bit of code
only runs jbake
if the git pull
doesn’t say "Already up-to-date".
That provided me a simple little "continuous integration" hook
that polls git for changes to trigger the build.
I’ll probably use this trick in other places.
I brought all my old content from my old database into the new platform using a quick little Groovy script to dump out an HTML file for each article including the header of metadata for JBake’s use. While most of these old articles will remain HTML, I intend to use AsciiDoctor format for all the new stuff.
I’ve been collecting a long list of (mostly technical) articles to write, but replacing the old platform kept trumping my attempts to write. Hopefully, this move can open the flood gates, and eventually, I’ll break out another instance of it for the photography blog. JBake should make it easy and interesting to continue the blogs.