Matt Burton-Kelly's home on the Web
If you ever have to move a Webtrees install to a new server, make sure your data/cache folder and files within are given the right user:group ownership. I was seeing 6-7 seconds per page load with all modules off, because thumbnails etc. weren’t able to be cached and were being rebuilt every page load. Yikes!
For example, on YuNoHost, I ran this command: chown -R webtrees:www-data cache, which aligns with the user:group as installed.
Cory Doctorow explained last month, quoting Aaron Cope (highlighting mine):
The internet was inspired by the end-to-end principle, the idea that the network’s first duty was to transmit data from willing senders to willing receivers, as efficiently and reliably as possible. That principle made it possible for whole swathes of people to connect with one another. As Cope writes, openness “was not, and has never been, a guarantee of a receptive audience or even any audience at all.” But because it was “easy and cheap enough to put something on the web,” you could “leave it there long enough for others to find it.”
This is a variation on the more succinct thing I saw on fedi the other day that (paraphrasing) “a blog post is a query through time to find similar people,” “A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox,” which I thought was nice. If I find the source, I will update this post. Updated!
To that end, here are a few things that don’t warrant their own posts (even though that might be better SEO), but that I’m interested in, if other people locally are:
So if you’re into these ideas or something similar, know that I am too! Drop a comment and let’s make something happen.
Update: Speaking of community solar here in East Grand Forks, I ran across this page, with a map that highlights EGF, but with some questionable conclusions:
Hydroelectric
Two of MMPA’s member communities, East Grand Forks and Olivia, purchase a portion of their power from the Western Area Power Administration. Because it produces no waste and causes no carbon emissions, hydroelectric power is a sustainable form of energy.
The WAPA page has this to say (highlight added):
Western is a Federal agency under the Department of Energy that markets and transmits wholesale electrical power from 56 Federal hydropower plants and one coal-fired plant.
Hmm…
Long story short, it was really loud. This post came to the rescue: https://tech.akom.net/index.php?url=archives/132-Replacing-Dishwasher-Circulation-Pump-Bearings-without-buying-a-whole-new-unit.html.
I had to grind down the outside angles on the gear puller so it would grab the stuck-on bearing right (thanks to this comment for the suggestion: “Jeremy on 2022-05-05 14:29”).
Here’s the motor I replaced the bearings on:
Some other resources:
From roughly November 2013 (I think I ordered the domain on Thanksgiving) to early 2020 (we know what happened then), I sunk a bunch of time into an endurance event calendar/map called Northern Plains Athletics. It wasn’t used by anyone very much. Soon the website will be gone completely. I’m letting the domain name go free and removing the site from my server. The Twitter account has already been deleted.
This is bittersweet, but I’ve been involved in too many things beyond the time I should have quit them. Maybe NPA should never have happened, but it did let me learn a lot about Drupal and the races happening in the North Dakota/South Dakota/Minnesota/Manitoba region. Perhaps if I’d spent more time traveling and less time with code, I would have been happier–but now I know more about sunk costs.
Because I still have a hard time letting go, I’ve archived the blog posts here, under the Northern Plains Athletics category. It was nice to skim through them again, and maybe some of the contributed race reports will be helpful to someone else.
Finally, here is a CSV file containing the several hundred events (or event versions, because the data structure changed over time) I ended up with. Names, locations, descriptions, date last updated, stuff like that. So if you want some data to play with, or are just looking for a race, this might help. Click here to download.
Get out and race!
Matt
Or not, it’s up to you.
I’ve been on the Fediverse for four or five years, using various accounts. Here’s one to follow or interact with if you want to talk to me while I use my real name: @mburtonkelly@scholar.social.
I’ve had an on-again/off-again relationship with Twitter and using my real name, so I won’t be linking that here. Politics, personal stuff, hobbies, work stuff, all rolled together can work for some people, but I’ve never been able to figure out the right balance. I will probably be removing all posts soon, while leaving the account in place to retain the username (and avoid impersonation if it gets reused). The Fediverse makes it easier to partition myself among a few different accounts.
It’s not that they’re annoying, it’s that they’re attention-grabbing. I’m trying to get work done here!
// ==UserScript==
// @name _Remove Hot Network Questions
// @include https://stackoverflow.com/*
// @require http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.0/jquery.min.js
// @grant GM_addStyle
// ==/UserScript==
//- The @grant directive is needed to restore the proper sandbox.
/*--- Use the jQuery contains selector to find content to remove.
Beware that not all whitespace is as it appears.
*/
$("div[id$='hot-network-questions']").remove()
//-- Or use .hide(); to just hide the content.
Mostly from: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53839574/how-to-remove-a-div-with-a-changing-id-via-tampermonkey-greasemonkey#comment94527524_53839574. See also https://mattbk.com/2020/09/how-to-ignore-port-on-the-grand-forks-herald-website/.
(Long title, but had to cover all the bases)
For my radio, it was `/dev/cu.usbmodem53620077003`. Trying different order of operations (plug radio first, then start JS8Call vs start JS8Call, then plug radio) may have been what I needed to get the right serial port to show up in the list. Below is a screenshot of all the settings that seem to work.
Following this post by HB9TXB Branko, I did also check the list of serial ports using this command in the terminal: `ls -lrt /dev/tty*`.
Everything is a tool I use daily to replace Windows search, which is painfully slow. In addition to indexing files by name, it allows you to run normal file operations on the resulting list.
I ended up with thousands of files starting with “._” after a OneDrive migration. The eventual solution (after looking for CMD commands) was to just use Everything to search, select all the files, right-click, and select “Delete.”
Just like everyone else, I’m going to put down the settings that work for me, but they might not work for you. VARA was easier to get working with appropriate CAT control (changing frequency and keying PTT), but ARDOP was a pain. Maybe this will help someone else.
These settings are DIFFERENT than ones shown by SA7SKY here (at least, that’s where I found a copy). Looks like they were using Winlink Express 1.5.11.3. The images below are from 1.6.6.0.
With these settings, you cannot have flrig running at the same time, because flrig and Winlink are trying to use the same COM port. I’m still working on a solution to this.
Above, note that “Enable RTS” and “Enable DTR” are checked (differs from SA7SKY). Baud is set to match my IC-7300.
Below, the ARDOP_Win_Virtual_TNC window opens when you start the ARDOP session, but it is usually minimized by default.
My settings above match SA7SKY.
Above, “Use Radio’s Internal Sound Card” is checked (you’ll get an “are you sure” popup if you choose the Icom 7300 and don’t check this box), SA7SKY does not have it checked.
At some point over the winter, I started reading Thomas’s posts at QRPer.com. It may have been after I listened to one of his guest appearances on Ham Radio Workbench.
Long story short, last week I got a new Xiegu X6100 from Radioddity. I’ve been playing with it and a MFJ-1984LP EFHW antenna in the front yard for a few days now, and it’s been a hoot to chase POTA activators using only 5W. It’s definitely something I can do for 5 (let’s be serious, more like 15) minutes at a time in between other things.
Some early notes, maybe to follow up on in the future: