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Quorten Blog 1

First blog for all Quorten's blog-like writings

What is the new thing that comes after DevOps?

Failed search.

20190731/DuckDuckGo what is the new thing that comes after devops

On the the other hand, I found this interesting article about DevOps as it is.

20190731/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/08/devops_real_talk/

Code golf

2019-07-31

Categories: unlipic  
Tags: unlipic  

Code golf is a competition to reduce the size of program source code as much as possible.

20190731/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_golf

Now, this poses some interesting ideas for a bootstrap operating system. What if all the early bootstrap system code was written in a code golf programming language? That would, most importantly, reduce the number of keystrokes for the initial type-in program, which has obvious benefits for this particular purpose, namely reducing human error that is proportional to the number of keys typed.

But, being that code golf programming languages are regarded as unnecessary esoteric, I guess that would mean that I would have to stick to the traditional ideas that I was developing for the sake of creating a bootstrap operating system that is consistent with modern cultural assumptions.

On the other hand, if the goal is to get as large of a program into as small an amount of memory as possible, compiling code to a “code golf” programming language, then running an interpreter on the code golf language code could be a pretty slick way to further compress your program code in-memory than is possible with machine-style byte code. I’m going to have to look into that.

Missing subjects from my blog

2019-07-29

Categories: blogging   misc  
Tags: blogging   misc  

Over the course of some of my recent previous work for hire, I worked with some technologies that I really didn’t want to work with, and I have cemented that viewpoint by refusing to write blog articles or claim having any knowledge on those technologies. But on second thought, maybe I should take a different approach, where I might write blog articles on those technologies anyways, just to have some proof for myself of what I was doing during that time that otherwise looks like it was wasted. Well, it was wasted time in my opinion, so that is correct… except for the fact that I did end up getting paid during that time. The point is, no matter how much I don’t like the technologies from a religious standpoint, the big picture doesn’t add up if I fail to write blog articles after having worked with the technology.

So, the point in hand, simply put, is that in the end, I need or organize and section off an area of my blog where it is clear that although I do not endorse some particular technologies and that I do not want to work with them again in the future, I have ultimately ended up working with them. So, what are the technology categories that I have previously worked with but deliberately omitted adding the corresponding information to my blog?

  • Windows Server
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Windows PowerShell
  • VMware ESXi and VMware vSphere
  • Electric Commander and Electric Flow
  • Splunk
  • Other yucky proprietary stuff like that

Read on →

Two random subjects to blog about, simply to have some interesting but non-technical things on this blog too.

Beauty and the Geek was once a show, but it is now discontinued, as is must be. Although it was somewhat popular when it first started, subsequent seasons had gradually sliding ratings, as did all television shows on the CW station that aired/hosted it. Nevertheless, the producers said this was a run that you can never be sad about.

20190728/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Geek
20190728/https://web.archive.org/web/20090710122410/http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117984775.html?categoryid=14&cs=1&nid=2562

What are bail bonds? Basically, it’s a system that allows trial inmates to get out on bail with a company behind them to provide assurance that they will be back for their trial. This assurance is provided with the assistance of bounty hunters, should they fail to come back on their own. That’s the reason why bail bonds don’t exist in most places of the world, due to bounty hunters being illegal. The most notable exception is the United States.

20190728/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail_bondsman
20190728/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounty_hunter

Want to get POE to some equipment that doesn’t natively support POE? Don’t worry, it’s easy through the use of commercially available POE splitters that take a POE Ethernet line and split it out into separate standard power and Ethernet data plugs. 5 volt and 12 volt splitters are plenty easy to find. For 9 volt splitters, you’ll find the market to be much more hard-pressed. More typical is “universal” 5 V, 9 V, 12 V splitters, but this equipment much bulkier and simply not as nice as a purpose-built one would be.

There are also POE injectors available for situations where you may only want to run one cable, but don’t have access to a POE switch port.

20190728/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet

This is a useful article about proper grounding for POE equipment. It should not be connected to local ground because it may not be at the same potential as the remote ground, and you can get ground loops. If you want to connect to protective ground, you should do so with an appropriate protective circuit.

20190728/https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/222630/grounding-a-poe-powered-device

20190728/DuckDuckGo 5 volt micro-usb poe splitter
20190728/https://www.amazon.com/poe-splitter-micro-usb/s?k=poe+splitter+micro+usb

20190728/DuckDuckGo 12 volt poe splitter
20190728/https://www.amazon.com/PLUSPOE-IEEE802-3af-Splitter-Ethernet-Switches/dp/B075CQD69R

20190728/DuckDuckGo 9 volt poe splitter

Not so successful, but luckily, it looks like step-down 12 V DC to 9 V DC converters are easy to buy on Amazon.

20190728/https://www.amazon.com/Magnolian-Efficiency-Converter-Supply-Waterproof/dp/B00A71E52G/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=12+volt+to+9+volt+converter&qid=1564339891&s=gateway&sr=8-3

Now, let’s see if this nifty gadget is available. 12 volt UPS. There is equipment available, but it is not being sold by Amazon.

20190728/DuckDuckGo 12 volt ups
20190728/DuckDuckGo 12 volt output ups

The name of the game is additional battery power systems for use in taxis and other cars. Yes, so if you want to have a relatively ready-made system to boot, look around for devices built for car power systems.

20190728/https://www.powerstream.com/DC-UPS-1212.htm
20190728/https://www.pimfg.com/product-detail/PIPS-UPS-12V

20190728/DuckDuckGo 12 volt dc ups
20190728/ttps://www.powerinverters.com/

As you may know, in the very earliest days of television in the early 1900s, inventors were experimenting with mechanical means of generating a raster scan, but apparently, “all” of them failed to produce sufficient resolution to gain popularity with the public. Later, when electronic raster scanning came along through cathode ray tubes in the 1920s, the resolution was greatly improved, thus started the adoption of television by the public at large. Then, when LCD monitors came to market in the late 1990s, businesses at large switched to the space-saving, and energy-saving technology. Never again would anyone want to use the old CRT monitors because they contained so many hazardous materials, unlike the modern flat-panel display technology, and pretty soon, in the late 2000s, it was a race among companies to get rid of CRT monitors as quickly as possible. CRT manufacturing was pulled to a halt, and old stock CRTs were sold at considerable discounts to deplete the inventory as quickly as possible.

Well, this isn’t the full story, as it must turn out. Although it is an accurate reflection of the public consciousness, it is wrought with many misconceptions. Worst of all, if you take this viewpoint to heart, it stifles your ability to build useful Raspberry Pi electronics projects in the modern era.

So, let’s retrace our steps to the beginning, review how each such earlier technology is still being used in the present, and ultimately, present a viable “modernized” design for building a raster-scan display.

Read on →

So, I have linked in a previous blog article, to a Wikipedia article, that car culture reduces people’s random social occurrences in public spaces, which was once an important way that people would get to know new people. So, how do people tend to get to know new people in the midst of car culture? So, now imagine this. In car culture, people typically travel from one boxed building to another, enclosed in their car in the spaces between, so social interaction on the road is largely off limits. So, you’d imagine that people would only socially interact when their in the box, at their destination. Or, in the case of marathons, sporting events, and the like, when they’re on the field, which is basically but a bigger box with void space in between the points.

So, let’s go about on an Internet search and see what we can find… yup, basically the results, though specifying in more detail, fits the abstract picture that I’ve painted. It’s all about the boxes.

Lifehacker, yes, that’s a good site, it had a pretty good article on the effects of ads on people.

Oh wait, one mention, walking groups. That one is not a box. Another one, the army. Not really a box in the same sense. You could argue that these are simply moving boxes. Ingress and Pokemon Go, those ones are interesting, not quite boxes there. Biking groups. Photography clubs share similarity to walking clubs.

Read on →

Register allocation considerations in a compiler. There is more than one way to do register allocation in a compiler, but the simplest way is to lazily leave a variable allocated to a register until there are not enough available, then do a least-recently-used (LRU) eviction, using the number of instructions since allocation as a reference for the LRU clock. This provides pretty good performance for the common case: You have a section of code that needs to operate on a variable a few times in rapid succession, then once you are past that section, you don’t need to use the variable for a long while. The idea of “pinning” a variable to a register and leaving it there until it goes out of scope is a more obscure one, and it also subtracts from your supply of registers that can be used for LRU management.

The extreme opposite end, loading a variable into a register for one use, computing, and storing it back to memory, is the easiest and most orthogonal to compile, but also the least efficient computation technique.

How to make a pipe.

pipe() system call does what?

  • Creates a buffer.
  • Creates two file descriptors, input and output.

And why is this essential to implement so early in a new operating system development? It allows you to write a multi-stage compiler with ease. You can develop and test components separately, then run them altogether via pipelining.

So point in hand, for this use we are primarily interested in contiguous memory buffers in RAM. Why? Because that is the only thing that will work for the results of running an assembler, code that you want to jump to in a pre-boot environment.

Okay, okay, so that is word. Pre-boot file descriptor is as follows.

Read on →

While searching for some software tech information, I found some interesting StackExchange questions discussing some of the considerations you need to evaluate before upgrading your DSLR camera body.

20190724/https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/109766/how-important-is-a-good-quality-camera-for-good-photography
20190724/https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/71199/when-should-i-upgrade-my-camera-body