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Quorten Blog 1

First blog for all Quorten's blog-like writings

Playing around with Marathi language typing

quorten

2016-11-16

Categories: random  
Tags: random  

So, here we go playing around with Marathi language typing. There are two methods of inputting the Devanagari characters used to spell out Marathi language. One method is the one key per character method. In today’s world, that method is not very popular, but historically it was the only method that worked with typewriters. By contrast, in today’s world, an input method editor (IME) is preferred that works by taking in a Latin character phonetic spelling of the words and translating them to their Devanagari characters.

N.B. Baakarwadi is a type of food that is like spiced mini dumpling rolls.

  • बाकरवज्ञ
  • yekjb%
  • बाकरवडी
  • बाकरवडी
  • yekjb[r
  • बाकरवादी
  • baakarwadi
  • bakarwadi

Compiling Emacs 23.1 on RHEL 6

quorten

2016-11-15

Categories: centos  
Tags: centos  

Or so I thought. This is where the issues come into play. To summarize from a top-level:

  1. The packaging for Emacs 23.1 is broken. Thus, you should go with Emacs 23.2b instead.

  2. The packaging of developer packages on RHEL 6 is broken. Specifically, `giflib-devel’ was not in the RHEL 6 package archive. Thus, you’re going to need to do a variety of trickery here, either by building your own package or by only unpacking the needed development headers and dynamic libraries.

  3. RHEL 6 is missing the glibc-static package, so you’re not going to be able to compile statically-linked binaries. Yes, there is reason to be concerned that this may create some portability issues, but lucky for me, my only target system I was intending to run the binaries on was RHEL 7 x86_64, so given these limitations, I’m still good.

Read on →

`hdiutil` on Darwin is missing in action

quorten

2016-11-15

Categories: misc  
Tags: misc  

Okay, so I looked again at the Apple open-source website, and it looks like there actually isn’t hdiutil in Darwin. It’s just referenced many, many times, albeit not being directly available. I guess I could try to talk to Apple about this, but you know how they’ll respond. Oh, yeah, that’s bad. So, it’s something that is only on Mac OS X.

128 GB SD card with Raspberry Pi 3?

quorten

2016-11-14

Categories: raspberry-pi  
Tags: raspberry-pi  

Important! Raspberry Pi 3 notes. So, the question I ask. “Should I get a 128 GB SD card for my new Raspberry Pi 3?” The answer is “no.” For a disk of that size, you’re better off with either a HDD or SSD. Also, beware that SD cards > 32 GB tend to be formatted as exFAT instead of FAT32, and the Raspberry Pi will not be able to boot off of such a partition. Such SD cards may not be worth the money, so it has been put. Also, there’s the danger of fakes.

20161113/https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=98368

  • UPDATE 2019-11-20: You can use a 128 GB SD card just fine with Raspberry Pi. However, the noted performance and honesty caveats are still in play.

JJJ TODO LINK!!!

Reflection on mainstream media, entertainment industry, fiction

quorten

2016-11-12

Categories: misc  
Tags: misc  

3D computer animation notes. Notes about entertainment industry, the media, limitations in human logical decision making, and how to avoid letting those biases leak through to computer systems that we want to make logical decisions.

  • The media is biased. So, you ask, what makes a “good” song or a “good” movie in the entertainment industry? Well, one that is entertaining, of course, and for the matter of fact that there is such a distinction definition, we know that what you end up seeing from the “professional media” is indeed quite biased. What both music and animation share in common. And video, and movies. Not just any random sequence of data, will do, and for this reason, this is one of the reasons why it is so much harder to predict whether some commercially developed entertainment will be a box office hit or a box office flop.

    • The difference between data that is to be “ingested by a computing machine” versus what is most entertaining. If you are training a machine, you really do want it to receive a stream of unbiased information, otherwise its logical decision-making capabilities will be erroneous.

      Actually, as a matter of fact, it is just as bad for humans to be fed with a long stream of entertainment as it is for computers. Indeed, in both cases, it causes the intelligent subject to tend to think irrational thoughts.

Read on →

3D scanner equipment setup, computations, and more

quorten

2016-11-02

Categories: 3d-scanning   3d-scanner  
Tags: 3d-scanning   3d-scanner  

3D scanner notes. 3D scanning notes.

Okay, now here’s the low-down on the design of the system. I think I’ve got it entirely thought through. Here, I’ll mostly describe the technique by which the system is supposed to operate.

First of all, let’s describe the equipment setup simply. You have some sort of digital imaging device setup on a tripod that can take images spaced equal time intervals apart. Essentially, either one of a rapid-fire still camera or a video camera. Whichever is the case, it is preferred that your camera records a series of uncompressed frames for maximum quality, but individually compressed and video-compressed frames will still be workable.

Read on →

Set up a Darwin cross compiler, to target Mac OS X

quorten

2016-11-02

Categories: misc   important  
Tags: misc   important  

Important! Set up a Darwin cross compiler, so that you can compile native binaries that work on OS X, but without the hassle of needing to download the proprietary XCode SDK.

20161102/http://askubuntu.com/questions/274471/cross-compiler-for-darwin-x
20161102/https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross
20161102/http://ranger.befunk.com/fink/darwin-cross/
20161102/http://ranger.befunk.com/fink/darwin-cross/darwin-cross-centos.repo
20161102/http://ranger.befunk.com/fink/darwin-cross/SRPMS/
20161102/https://github.com/distcc/distcc
20161102/http://docs.huihoo.com/darwin/opendarwin/projects/odcctools/
20161102/http://docs.huihoo.com/darwin/opendarwin/projects/odcctools/usingodcctools.html
20161102/http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13227162/automatically-install-build-dependencies-prior-to-building-an-rpm-package#13228992

__LP64__ build problems…

20161102/http://www.unix.org/version2/whatsnew/lp64_wp.html
20161102/http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1753834/lp64-on-os-x-snow-leopard-equivalent

So it turns out that the previous build is not known to succeed compiling under a 64-bit compiler. Well, that kind of makes sense, though it is not fully correct form as we are building a cross compiler.

Read on →

Learning about Django Python

quorten

2016-10-31

Categories: python  
Tags: python  

Cool, learning about django:

20161031/http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21069950/how-to-extend-the-django-user-model#21070846
20161031/https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/auth/
20161031/https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/models/instances/#django.db.models.Model.save
20161031/https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/db/models/
20161031/https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/models/options/#table-names
20161031/https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/databases/
20161031/https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/models/fields/

Create an object only once, after another object gets created:

20161031/http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21623061/django-create-object#21623796

Basically, you modify the save() method with the appropriate hooks. If the object does not exist, create it. Else, do nothing.

Notes on Docker

quorten

2016-10-06

Categories: docker   important  
Tags: docker   important  

So, these are just some scratch notes I took early on in learning Docker for my own reference. Pretty scratchy, actually.

  • Network routing, DNS in Docker?

  • Build an image from scratch?

    Dockerfile: FROM RUN RUN ADD app.py EXPOSE 5000

So you use an ADD command?

FROM scratch
ADD directory

ENTRYPOINT python app.py

or COMMAND? or CMD? Entrypoint cannot be overridden, all arguments are passed to the command.

Alpine Linux

Read on →

Highest resolution smartphone cameras?

quorten

2016-10-06

Categories: media-prog   pentax-k-1-camera  
Tags: media-prog   pentax-k-1-camera  

Highest resolution smartphone cameras? The Nokia 808 PureView at 41 megapixels. Note that this camera is out of production, though. But does this mean that 1200 DPI camera-style CCD scanners are available? Not quite. Note that the 808’s camera sensor was over 4 times larger than that of typical point-and-shoot cameras. So, although it might be possible for there to be 135 megapixel cameras (1200 x 1200 x 8.5 x 11 = 134.64 MP), don’t count on it being very cheap. Oh yeah, and what about the quality of the sensors? Well, this shouldn’t be too bad for a scanner designed for taking still images. As long as the resolution is there, cumulative time exposure can be used to overcome noise and other artifacts associated with small pixel elements.

Wait, it is possible. 41 megapixels, 10.67 x 8 mm. 85.36 mm^2. 4x = 164 megapixels, 341.44 mm^2. APS-C = 329 mm^2.

Yes, a 1200 DPI one second camera-based scanner is indeed feasible. The question would then, be, where to buy it and at what cost? Does it come in a flat-bed form factor with an embedded and directed light?

20160105/http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/feature/mobile-phone/which-smartphone-has-highest-resolution-camera-3426635/
20160105/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_808PureView
20160105/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_camera
20160105/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_camera
20160105/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb%28optics%29
20160105/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_single-lens_reflex_camera#Larger_sensor_sizes_and_better_image_quality
20160105/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format