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Quorten Blog 1

First blog for all Quorten's blog-like writings

Scanning your blog for broken links

2018-08-22

Categories: blogging   reiterate  
Tags: blogging   reiterate  

Again, I reiterate, because this is important!

Earlier, I’ve noted that I timestamp all my hyperlinks so that I can refer back to the appropriate copy in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Now we’re taking this a step further. How do you automatically scan for broken links on your blog?

20180822/DuckDuckGo check your website for broken links
20180822/DuckDuckGo check your website for broken links wget
20180822/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65515/how-to-find-broken-links-on-a-website#65523
20180822/https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/8234/check-broken-links-using-wget-as-a-spider

wget --spider  -o wget.log  -e robots=off --wait 1 -r -p \
  http://www.example.com

Read on →

Architect marketing -- Architects are facing a silent war?

quorten

2018-08-22

Categories: random   home-network  
Tags: random   home-network  

Failed search.

20180821/DuckDuckGo why is the professional media so conceited and rude toward amateurs

On the other hand, I found some very interesting article here. Architects are facing a silen war? Ah, very interesting. Ah, so most people don’t understand architects’ jobs, architects aren’t getting paid very much, they feel like their work is being undervalued. And the verdict? Although they are smart, they are not as well-paid as one might think, but the solution is for them to get better at marketing themselves. They are part of both the problem and the solution.

Oh, and there’s very interesting comments on this first article.

20180821/https://archmarketing.org/architects-facing-silent-war/

The story behind the diamond marketing strategy was very interesting here. There was a deliberate attempt to create a scarcity of supply, and generate demand. The plan to generate demand? Market diamonds as something not just for the rich, but for everyone at their marriage. Ha, tricky method to generate a mass market. And nowadays, people hardly even question that the association of diamonds with love and engagement are all merely but an artificial one, courtesy of an ads marketing agency.

20180821/https://archmarketing.org/architect-marketing-diamond-strategy/

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Raspberry Pi 3 B+ on-board power supply tech in detail

quorten

2018-08-21

Categories: raspberry-pi  
Tags: raspberry-pi  

First I start by trying to look for the most energy-efficient USB power supply for a Raspberry Pi Model B+.

20180821/DuckDuckGo raspberry pi b+ smallest energy efficient power supply

Oh, then I find this is a very article about the development of the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ on-board power supply. So much has changed about the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and so much engineering went into it that they could have called it the Raspberry Pi 4. Now, in the case of the on-board power supply, in the past they have been putting together a collection of discrete devices to get the desired because all the Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC) available on the market were too featureful and too expensive for the Raspberry Pi. But, nowadays, with the Raspberry Pi’s awesome economy of scale, they could get a Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) custom engineered just for the Raspberry Pi, that met the feature and cost requirements. Also, now this is cruical. The custom engineered PMIC allowed more power to be supplied on-board, which they could then use to feed to a CPU with a higher clock speed. Yep, that’s the reason why your Raspberry Pi 3 B+ consumes so much energy.

Lots of other detailed electrical engineering information is also on this page.

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More on 24-hour analog clocks

quorten

2018-08-21

Categories: misc  
Tags: misc  

The Wikipedia article on 24-hour clocks? Looking back at it, it doesn’t make much mention of the analog clock format used in modern times. After all, considering 24-hour format is used in most countries, surely there should be a widespread analog format.

Oh, and sure enough, knowing the way Wikipedia is, the 24-hour analog clock format is covered in a different Wikipedia article. And also, there are 24-hour analog clocks for sale on Amazon, albeit rather cheap ones that are not well-liked as the tend to break.

20180821/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_clock
20180821/DuckDuckGo 24 hour analog clock
20180821/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_analog_dial
20180821/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_GMT_Master_II

20180821/https://www.amazon.com/24-hour-analog-clock/s?page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A24%20hour%20analog%20clock

Wizards of the Coast and the D & D Open Game License

quorten

2018-08-21

Categories: random  
Tags: random  

Wizards of the Coast? Oh, interesting. They’re the ones who published Magic the Gathering, and they bought out the company that made Dungeons and Dragons and are now the modern publisher of it. Not to mention, of course, they published Pokemon cards during its earliest days. Although I remember them having some of their own retail stores, nowadays they no longer have any retail stores, they are wholly a publisher/supplier.

Plus, they’re a company that got their heyday in Washington state.

20180820/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_of_the_Coast

And this is also interesting. Dungeons and Dragons created the Open Game License for their gameplay system, allowing third parties to create different game content that used the same gameplay mechanism. Later on, it panned out and wasn’t quite so popular, partly due to misunderstandings on both party sides.

20180820/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D20_System

Updates on the Free Software Foundation

quorten

2018-08-21

Categories: random-software  
Tags: random-software  

In light of this Android money-making machine… How is the Free Software Foundation’s website doing? Are they staying up-to-date on this news. Now this brings memory back to me. How often have I been visiting the Free Software Foundation’s websites? I’ve visited fsf.org a number of times recently, mainly due to interest over their Respect Your Freedom Hardware certifications. But gnu.org, I haven’t been visiting that site nearly as much. Okay, now this is kind of interesting, then. Why don’t I go visit gnu.org for a spin at how up-to-date its mention of Android is?

Well, well, a cursory front-page analysis leads you to believe that it is primarily about desktop-oriented softwere. Now, I know from closer detail visits in the past that this is not the full story, but that’s the gist you get from the front page.

Read on →

Android is the new Windows

quorten

2018-08-20

Categories: random-software  
Tags: random-software  

Android is the new Windows. Detailing the various interesting articles and evidence on this subject, from older to newer.

20180820/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
20180820/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-focus_lens
20180820/DuckDuckGo android is the new windows

First signs, skeptic but pointing out the advantage of the increased openness over Windows.

20180820/https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/why-android-is-the-new-windows-mobile

The story continues, Android’s increased openness is a clear advantage over Windows, something Microsoft previously had the most of but is now throwing away.

Read on →

Interesting articles on GitHub blog

quorten

2018-08-20

Categories: random-software  
Tags: random-software  

Interesting visit to GitHub blog.

Very interesting here, the emphasis on learning how to program “without learning dependency management.” I must admit, however, that the premise is a precarious one. So, if you’re bundling these in-built dependencies into a development environment, you’re intending to imply that the resulting project will be less portable? What’s going to happen when the user doesn’t account for the dependencies? Is it really right to leave them outside of full understanding of the fact that modern software undergoes a modern development process?

In my opinion, learning programming without learning dependency management is perfectly fine if you target simple hardware systems, rather than modern software systems, that doesn’t quite appear to be the intended emphasis here.

https://blog.github.com/2018-08-17-release-radar-july-2018/

Now, this is interesting. Using an actual button to deploy software. But what’s the catch here? The button used is a pre-made Amazon AWS IoT button, and to get it set up requires creating an Amazon account. Yuck, but… you get the idea. If you ask an average consumer, surely they would think that process to be more simple than going through a home server, or even their own laptop/PC.

https://blog.github.com/2018-08-16-how-to-deploy-to-production-with-an-actual-button/

Ethernet over RS-485?

quorten

2018-08-20

Categories: raspberry-pi  
Tags: raspberry-pi  

Ethernet over RS-485? Can it be done? Indeed it can be done, and there might even be commercial products that can convert between the physical media standards.

20180820/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-485
20180820/DuckDuckGo ethernet over rs-485

Yeah, people who don’t know what they are talking about here. If they use a distance of over 100 meters, they need to decrease the data rate, as noted in the excellent Robotiq article.

20180820/https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/ethernet-over-rs485-634218/
20180820/https://blog.robotiq.com/what-is-rs485-communication-protocol

Images are broken in latest webpage, look at Internet archive copy to see images.

20180820/https://web.archive.org/web/20160104170447/http://blog.robotiq.com:80/what-is-rs485-communication-protocol
20180820/https://www.amazon.com/ethernet-rs485/s?page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aethernet%20to%20rs485
20180820/https://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Max-921-6Kbps-Interface-Converter-Adapter/dp/B071XP4PY6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1534788631&sr=8-4&keywords=ethernet+to+rs485

Parallel port discussion continued, and some analysis on the history of computer size, capabilities, and market share

quorten

2018-08-20

Categories: raspberry-pi   tour-de-force   reiterate  
Tags: raspberry-pi   tour-de-force   reiterate  

So, about the parallel port emulation problem. With all the complexity for full parallel port support on PCs requiring a PCI card, surely you could do full parallel port support on Raspberry Pi by the use of the GPIO, I2C, or SPI, correct? Indeed, you can, and I found one such project, but you have to do a bit of searching before you get there.

20180820/DuckDuckGo ecp port on raspberry pi
20180820/https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/4f5ltd/gpio_to_lpt_is_it_possible/

Here is an interface for Arduino control over CNC mills, etc. connected via a parallel port.

20180820/http://www.coreforge.com/blog/2014/08/grbl-tb6560-interface/
20180820/DuckDuckGo raspberry pi parallel port

Ah ha! Here it is. Full support for ECP in version 2, i.e. IEEE 1284 bi-directional.

20180820/https://github.com/garlick/pi-parport
20180820/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_port

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