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Just before, while moderating, I got this enormous error message:

Internal SAN check blew up checking moderation rights. Please let the powers that be know how and where you recieved this error Internal SAN check blew up checking moderation rights. Please let the powers that be know how and where you recieved this error Internal SAN check blew up checking moderation rights. Please let the powers that be know how and where you recieved this error Internal SAN check blew up checking moderation rights. Please let the powers that be know how and where you recieved this error Internal SAN check blew up checking moderation rights. Please let the powers that be know how and where you recieved this error Internal SAN check blew up checking moderation rights. Please let the powers that be know how and where you recieved this error Internal SAN check blew up checking moderation rights. Please let the powers that be know how and where you recieved this error Internal SAN check blew up checking moderation rights. Please let the powers that be know how and where you recieved this error

I have no idea where to properly report this, though. Thus I just put it here and hope that either the right person finds it, or someone who sees it can tell me where to report.

FWIW, apart from that message, everything seemed to be fine (including moderation, reduction of mod points, and no longer being able to moderate after using up my mod points).

I discovered this morning that we are missing moderation options that I think we should have: Mod points should be available for Journal posts. Why? because some of you write some good stuff but don't really get the credit or recognition you deserve.

There is a downside in that it might be used by some to suppress some views... the easy way to deal with this is only allow "up mods". Goodliness should be rewarded. Take a visit to Ethanol-Fueled's Journal and read about his Arduino Code or Fliptop's Journal for his five part series on Perl and IP cameras.

The best I can do is post this journal entry and hopw you go and give these fellows your comments.

After some of the comment exchanges this morning on topics such as Pollard and SCOTUS deciding money == speech, I think I'm going to swear off commenting on "political talk".

It does nothing to make the needed legal changes and does nothing to expand social discourse. Instead it becomes clear there is willful misunderstanding and a unwillingness to compromise by those who support the politics of selfishness and moral corruption. I don't have a problem with people if they want to live in hell and do despicable acts... that's their choice... but when they want to drag everybody else along that's a whole 'nother story.

It only makes me sad that people can be so gullible and believe in things which are not in their own best interest... but as I have learned from my mistakes I can only hope they learn before it is too late.

So go ahead and party boys while the country's morality burns to the ground, and the U.S. becomes just another corrupt rapacious Evil Empire... and our standing as a beacon to the rest of the world becomes the light of the on-coming train of our destruction... we all know how that story line ends.

No I'm not talking "religious morals"-- I'm talking humanist values and obligations to be kind to your family and community. To build and give rather than to destroy and take. I'm sorry but I do not find Libertarian or Tea Party philosophy has any moral value nor any grounds to stand on. It is selfish, destructive, short sighted, and anarchistic pack of twaddle which is being sold to the gullible as a real viable thing... except it ain't...

But I can't teach the willfully ignorant... and the only way they will learn is by letting themselves become an example of what not to do when trying to live a good life. Alas... some smart people can be really, really stupid.

So I'm swearing off political commentary... it serves me no good purpose and I'm sure those with whom I have disagreed will be grateful.

You're welcome... ;)

Creating a "movie" from a bunch of stills is pretty simple when you have ffmpeg handy. As before, code below is in chunks and the full script can be found here.

Since we're storing all a day's images in a particular directory, all we need to do is glob them up and pipe a concatenate to ffmpeg.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use File::Glob ':glob';
use Date::Calc qw{ Today Add_Delta_Days };
use Data::Dumper;

use constant DEBUG => 1;
use constant BASE_DIR => '/home/fliptop/tv-ip551wi/';

We'll use File::Glob to gather all the image filenames into a list. We'll also need the Add_Delta_Days method to figure out yesterday's date so we know which files to glob (this code gets run sometime after midnight and operates on the previous day's pictures).

Please note that this script is designed to work on images from just one camera. It could easily be modified to handle multiple directories for more than one camera by setting the BASE_DIR constant to an array of directories then looping over them with the ffmpeg code below.

open LOG, '>>/tmp/ffmpeg_tv-ip551wi.log' or die "can't open log file: $!";

my @Yesterday = Add_Delta_Days(Today, -1);

# does the dir exist?
my ($year, $month, $day) = @Yesterday;
my $dir = sprintf "%s%s/%02d/%02d", BASE_DIR, @Yesterday;
my $movie_dir = sprintf "%s%s/%02d", BASE_DIR, $year, $month;

unless (-e $dir) {
  printf LOG "base directory %s does not exist!\n", $dir if DEBUG;
  die;
}

As always, open a log file for debugging purposes. After we figure out yesterday's date, make sure it exists and die if it doesn't.

my $files = sprintf "%s/*.jpg", $dir;
my @list = bsd_glob($files);

printf LOG "found %s images in directory %s\n", scalar(@list), $dir if DEBUG;
my $mpg = sprintf "%s/%s%02d%02d.mpg", $movie_dir, @Yesterday;

If the directory exists, we use the bsd_glob method to put all the filenames into the @list array. We'll give the final movie a name that corresponds to yesterday's date as well.

print LOG "creating mpg from images...\n" if DEBUG;
my $resp = qx{ /bin/cat $files |
               /usr/bin/ffmpeg -f image2pipe -sameq -vcodec mjpeg -i - -y $mpg };
print LOG "finished creating mpg\n" if DEBUG;

if ($resp) {
  printf LOG "unable to create mpeg: $resp\n" if DEBUG;
}

close LOG;

exit();

Here we use the cat command and pipe the output to ffmpeg, which will create a mjpeg movie. If you take one picture every 10 seconds over a 24-hour period, the final movie will be about 5 minutes long. See the ffmpeg man page for more information.

Coming next, invoking it all with cron.

I've been a little busy this week, too busy to spend much time soylenting. I've only written about three more paragraphs of Mars, Ho!; I've been working on Nobots and The Paxil Diaries. The Paxil Diaries was waiting on my porch when I got home from Patty's Tuesday evening, and boy was it a mess. I've mostly been working on it. It's funny how much easier it is for me to notice mistakes on paper I miss on screen.

I finished editing it again last night and am waiting for another copy, which they haven't shipped yet. When it comes I'll go over it again, upload the revisions and buy another copy. It may be green outside before you can get a copy after all.

Nobots needed more sales outlets, so I worked on that, too. You should be able to get it at bookstores in a few weeks. If you bought a copy last year, you may own a rare book. If my name is on the bottom right of the front cover instead of right under the title, you have one of fewer than two dozen copies. It should be worth something in a decade or so.

I may work on the Mars book today, but then again I might just take the day off, take the computer to Felber's and watch Cosmos on Hulu since channel 55 was off the air last night; their web site said there was equipment failure. And drink beer in the beer garden and listen to music and enjoy the 65 degrees they're forecasting.

Or maybe sweep the floor... nah.

We're testing a new configuration between the site and the database. There may be unexpected issues with the site while we're testing. Keep calm and carry on.

Now we're a few weeks in, and most stories when I come here are re-treads of things that I read on Slashdot a few days earlier. There's no point commenting on them, because I've already commented on the ones I'm interested in on Slashdot. Everyone else seems to feel the same way, because I rarely see a story with more than 10 comments. For a site that is meant to be all about the comments, that's an abject failure.

How could this have been solved? Well, as I proposed around launch time, the editors could have made a point of commenting on each story to prime the pump. When a story scrolls off the bottom of the front page with fewer comments than there are editors, then it's a failure. It means that either editors are posting stories that they're not interested in (in which case, why are they posting them?) or that they don't actually visit the site (in which case why are they editors?).

The only stories currently on the front page with more than 12 comments are 'people opting for dumb phones instead of smartphones' (which I'm just about to read - sounds like a typical rehash of the 'I have no self control so I'm going to use crappy technology to limit my exposure to stuff' story) and 'SCOTUS Signals Support for Corporate Religion?'. Where's the tech news? Are there any people here interested in discussing tech stories?

It feels like the staff gave up after the public temper tantrum between two of them and the community followed.

A Soylent News story posted last Saturday got me to thinking about the potential for a Markov chain based music "toy" application. Understand that at this moment I don't quite have the skill to write this app but it is an interesting thought experiment... so I'm writing it down here.

Yes I realize that you can do a lot of things with Max [$400!] but that is outside my budget [$0]... OTOH CSound is free but is a primarily sound design software suite rather than a composition application... tho' I have found some interesting things that I might investigate...

Most of the Pi based music I have seen / heard is based upon using the numbers 0 through 9 in the Pi sequence to correspond to a single note in a key. An example is the pi10k flash app.

The Markov Sliced Pi idea is to take a file with n number of digits of Pi and run a n-gram analysis where n=2. The result gives you the probability of two digit sequences of 00 to 99.

With this one can then do a number of interesting experimental musical things:

1) Using these digits as midi note numbers, and then picking a note at random, a note sequence of arbitrary length can be generated in a note rage of C0 to D#8 [greater than the range of a piano]. This will probably sound chaotic.

2) Add a "key Filter" which will drop notes that are not in the "key" of the starting note. For example if the starting not is C3= midi not number 36 then any note that does not fall in the Key of C [C D E F G A B] would be dropped from musical playback.

3) Add a "Shift filter" to shift discarded notes to be played in the relative minor or other key related shift [i.e. the idea is to force the output stream to sound "musical". While this might sound like twisting the input stream one might use pi or tau as a means to shift the note

3a) Modify the shift filter to work on notes which fall off of the circle of fifths for the key the song is played. this would prevent "non-harmonic notes"

4) Add additional midi note channels and assign octave ranges to specific instruments. Assuming that you had 4 instrument channels the first billion digits of Pi played at 1 second per note, the composition should last at least 3.96 years at 24 x 7 x 365.25. Generally normal performances are not this long. but once one had the software script written it would be the ultimate in elevator music as it would be an ever changing tune

5) Add a filter which forces the note stream into an 8 or 16 note Sequencer of notes. This causes "patterned musicality". This is done by taking the next 8 or 16 notes of a instrument and playing them until the next 8 or 16 notes are captured. The process could then be repeated until you run out of notes.

6) Add a Chord construction algorithm / filter / sequencer that builds chords much in the same way that the filter / sequencer operates. Take 3 notes, construct a chord, play it until the buffer files again. Variation between single notes and the chord may be based upon how far apart in the note sequence they are.

7) Run the Markov filter again and this time use n=4. this will give two note [or chord] sequences

7a) Run the Markov filter again and this time use n=6. this will give three note [or chord] sequences

8) use 7) and 7a) to build a Markov chain based Chord patterns using the circle of fifths.

Of course this is all a written out thought experiment on some of the things which might be done by crossing Markov Chains and Pi... since I am the lazy guy I am [and get easily distracted] it remains to be seen if I will get around to doing them.

[edited at 2014-04-24T13:52Z]

"Which?" is the magazine of the UK's main consumer group. It has over 1 million subscribers. (It is a member of Consumers International, in case you want to find a comparable organization in your own country to get a better idea of what I mean.)

The April 2014 issue (I'm talking dead tree here) has an article that takes a strong line against tower PCs, and is very in favour of "all in one" PCs.

To a geek like me, "all in one" PCs are very rarely the right tool for the job.

I'd planned on traveling to Cincinnati last Monday to visit my daughter and came down with the flu. I called Patty and told her it would be the next Monday; she works full time and is a full time student at Cincinnati State, and Monday is the only day she has off.

I looked her address up on Google Maps. It looked pretty easy to find. "Don't trust Google," Patty said. "They're doing road construction and it will try to send you down a road that's closed. Take the Hoppit exit, turn right and I'll meet you at the Shell station.

My nose was still producing copious amounts of snot, I was still coughing up lots of mucus but felt a hell of a lot better than I had last week. I woke up about 5:30 Monday morning, did my morning routine functions, especially coffee, one function of which was checking my phone. Three missed calls and a voicemail from Patty. I called, knowing she wouldn't answer because she's never awake that early and left a message that I was on my way and to call when she woke up.

I have a big laptop bag and a small laptop; the bag had cost me $5 and came with a broken laptop. I put spare clothing, charging accessories in it and loaded it, my battery jumper, and Patty's cat's ashes in the car.

I had a half tank of gas and figured it would get me to Indiana, where fuel would surely be cheaper. After all, it's a red state and Republicans hate taxes, right? No such luck, I was down to an eighth of a tank by the time I reached Bloomington.

It's a little frustrating that Cincinnati is southeast of Springfield, but you have to go northeast to get there unless you want to drive over three hundred miles of two lane road with 30 to 45 MPH speed limits and lots of stop signs and so forth. It would take forever that way.

Gas was a nickle cheaper than Springfield; $3.55. I put twenty bucks in, figuring I'd fill up in Indiana and started on my way again. I had my phone plugged into the car stereo for times there was no music and I'd heard all the CDs, which I'd neglected to change before I left. There was a rest area so I stopped to urinate and change CDs. I checked the phone; Patty had called. I called back, and again she warned me about Google.

Apparently people from Illinois aren't welcome in Indiana, as the usual "Welcome to [state]" sign was nowhere in evidence. The only way I knew I'd crossed state lines was that the pavement got a lot worse. I-74 had apparently been badly neglected for years in Indiana, except for a stretch by Indianapolis. Gasoline was more expensive than at home.

The sun was shining, the pavement was dry, and there was little traffic. "Welcome to Ohio!" the big sign proudly proclaimed in bright graphics as the pavement improved. I reached Cincinnati and the traffic was terrible. I-74 East split into I-75 north and south; I guessed south but wasn't sure. I pulled over to the shoulder and called Patty to make sure I wasn't going the wrong way. I wasn't.

The next exit was the Hoppit exit. I met Patty at the gas station. "You shaved!" she said.

"Yeah, my upper lip hasn't seen the sun since before you were born." Patty had never seen me completely shaven; most of her life I've had a beard, or at least a mustache when my chin hair went gray.

"I don't like it," she said, frowning."

"Neither do I. I'm growing it back this fall." I noticed the gas cap door on her car was open as she pulled out and was about to honk to let her know when she pulled over and shut it.

We got to her apartment and we hugged and I shook her fiance's hand an gave Patty the metal box and envelopes. I hadn't opened one of them, which had come from Coble Animal Hospital. I'd thought it contained Princess' ashes but they called a week later to inform me I could pick her up.

"Ooh, this is a pretty box," she said. "What's in it?"

I still can't believe I spent over three hundred dollars for a dead cat, part for the vet to tell me she was dying and part to have her cremated, since the ground was frozen and I couldn't bury her. I discovered that animals and humans are cremated in the same crematorium, which is why it's so expensive. If Little One dies in the winter I'm storing her in a deep freeze until the ground thaws.

Patty opened the unopened envelope and started crying. It was a plastic placard that read "PRINCESS" and had her paw prints in it. No, I guess I didn't spend $300 on a dead cat, I spent it on my daughter. "Put this with Calie under the tree," she instructed. "When you move, take it and Calie's grave marker with you."

Colby had planned on making Reuben sandwiches for lunch but the corned beef was still frozen. "Let's go to Chick Filet," he said. "OK," I replied,"but then Patty needs a phone." Her iPhone had been broken for months, its screen cracked. And she'd liked my phone and especially liked my low phone bill.

We had chicken sandwiches and went to Best Buy. The price of the phone was half what I'd paid for mine. She was trying to decide between it and a more expensive one with a front facing camera but decided she liked the idea of it being waterproof and resistant to shock.

"Lets buy a TV while we're here" she said to Colby. After they talked for a while she said "well, I'm buying a TV. I have the money." They have an old twenty two inch tube TV that doesn't work and a little nineteen inch widescreen.

But she didn't like the prices so we went to H.H. Gregg, whose prices were no better than Best Buy's. Best Buy's crack Geek Squad couldn't activate Patty's new phone so we took it home and did it ourselves.

I'd bought Gravity, which had come from Amazon amazingly the day before it was supposedly released for sale. It was a "combo pack" with a DVD, Blu-Ray and download. I'd brought the Blu-Ray for Patty, and we watched it using her Playstation and little TV set.

None of us had seen the previous night's Cosmos so she fired up Hulu plus on the Playstation. After watching it and an episode of Doctor Who I decided that I wanted Hulu Plus.

The next morning she gave me a big bowl of corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes, and two T shirts. One was almost a joke; a St. Patrick's Day Reds shirt. The other was hawking some video game, a nerdy shirt I'll wear proudly.

She wanted to see how badly Google would have set me astray so I gave her my phone. She was amazed. "They got it perfect, that's how I told you to go." I loaded up the car, we said our goodbyes and I set off on the long journey home.

The trip home was as unpleasant as the trip there had been pleasant. First, I missed my turn to get on I-74. Five miles later I got on I-75, saw I was headed to Dayton and took the next exit. I stopped at a gas station, got gas, and consulted the map.

It would be nice of these things came with manuals. I think it ironic that everything used to have a detailed manual when technology was primitive enough you didn't need one, and now that interfaces have only icons and no way to discern WTF they mean, they don't. Let's see, looks like I go that way...

The radio was playing commercials so I switched it to the phone to listen to KSHE. The disk jockey started giving directions! "Go west on" whatever street the gas station was on "point seven miles and turn right." It wasn't KSHE, it was Google Maps. It easily got me back on I-74 north and it wouldn't shut up so I switched back to the radio.

Traffic was horrible; a semi that read "TARGET" zoomed past me doing at least twenty miles above the speed limit and almost made me miss my exit. Looks like it isn't just their IT that could use more training.

A little green sign with white lettering said "Welcome to Indiana". It started snowing. Twenty miles later visibility was poor, and twenty minutes after that the pavement was covered.

It was a miserable trip. The snow stopped around Indianapolis and the traffic was almost as bad as Cincinnati. Halfway to Illinois the wind started blowing. A couple of semis almost got blown off the highway.

Gas in Bloomington was $3.49.

When I got home there was a box on my doorstep; The Paxil Diaries had arrived. I'd screwed it up terribly. So you still can't have a copy yet...