On 12/01/2025 18:33, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 11/01/2025 23:41, D wrote:
>>> Fun fact... when Ericsson built out cell phone
>>> networks in africa, they quickly discovered that every base station
>>> needed
>>> guards. If not, as soon as they were built, and the crew left, some
>>> local tribes
>>> dismantled it and sold it as junk.
>>
>> Musk got that one right with Starlink. Kinda hard to pillage a
>> satellite 60 miles overhead..
>
> You just wait! I am certain shortly they will construct state of the art
> crossbows and shoot them down. ;)
Did you see the Ukrainian drone with a shotgun? Shot down 2 drones and
terminated a Russian in a trench.

--
"Nature does not give up the winter because people dislike the cold."

― Confucius

On 12/01/2025 18:36, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 11/01/2025 23:44, D wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>
>>>>  You REALLY hate solar, don't you ?
>>>
>>> I personally am a huge fan of solar for my offgrid fortress of
>>> solitude during
>>> 8-9 months of the year.
>>>
>> That is fine. If youtr usage is low and there is plenty of sun - My
>> sister oin Cape Town relies on it to keep the house going during the
>> planed powercuts that characterise an ANC destroyed power grid.
>
> That country is very messed up. I think they need more peace, love and
> understanding, and spiritual dialogue between whites and negros. Only
> then will peace reign supreme! ;)
>
What is happening is that the populist communist corrupt ANC are being
called out by the rising affluent black middle class.
And of course, the Indians who run EVERYTHING.

>> Bit it doesnt work very well in wintertime, and the batteries are
>> expsenive
>
> This is the truth! Impossible at a realistic cost in northern europe.
>
>>
>>
>>> For the rest of the time, I wonder if small 2-3 meter wind turbines
>>> might be a
>>> thing?
>>>
>> Absolutely not.  You might get a few hundred watts at best If you
>> build it talle ebough
>>
>>> For heating I would use a wood stove or a pellets burner.
>>>
>> How not very green of you!
>
> I wipe my ass with green toilet paper! ;)
>
Well that's a start. I am wearing a green fleece

>>> Last time I was trying to calculate the cost of battery storage for a
>>> 100% solar
>>> it came out at 600k USD or so, that is... madness.
>>>
>> Now multiply it by the whole of california...
>
> This is the woke dream of paradise. Until we make massive gains in
> energy storage technology, it will remain a dream.

And we simply do not know how to make those gains. The green fantasy is
that like Tinkerbelle, if we believe in Green solutions, they will
magically appear.

35 years later, we are still waiting...

--
"Nature does not give up the winter because people dislike the cold."

― Confucius

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 11:09:56 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> GPIO on a PI under linux is a breeze.

I was surprised. It has limits compared to a Pico since the machine does
have other tasks to perform rather than being dedicated.
> Picos are not bad either.
>
> The Pico is an adventure to get anything going without using the ghastly
> python, which is slow and limited

It depends on the application. For many things Python is perfectly fine.
You need the ability to determine when it isn't and act accordingly.
MicroPython or CircuitPython abstracts away much of the low level cruft.
otoh working with the C SDK is like building a wall a brick at a time.

On 12/01/2025 20:46, rbowman wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 11:09:56 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> GPIO on a PI under linux is a breeze.
>
> I was surprised. It has limits compared to a Pico since the machine does
> have other tasks to perform rather than being dedicated.
>
>> Picos are not bad either.
>>
>> The Pico is an adventure to get anything going without using the ghastly
>> python, which is slow and limited
>
> It depends on the application. For many things Python is perfectly fine.
> You need the ability to determine when it isn't and act accordingly.
> MicroPython or CircuitPython abstracts away much of the low level cruft.
> otoh working with the C SDK is like building a wall a brick at a time.
>
>
>
I wanted my picos to show up in my routers DHCP tables as something
other than whatever is the default. Python could not do it. C could.

static void set_hostname(char * hostname)
{
struct netif *n;
// set hostname
cyw43_arch_lwip_begin();
n = &cyw43_state.netif[CYW43_ITF_STA];
netif_set_hostname(n, hostname);
netif_set_up(n);
cyw43_arch_lwip_end();
// end set hostname
}
--
Canada is all right really, though not for the whole weekend.

"Saki"

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 10:46:55 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 12/01/2025 02:23, rbowman wrote:
>> Then there are the Torx drivers, the weird little drivers used in
>> electronics stuff that are close but no cigar. Damn them all to the
>> fires of hell, starting with Harley. They use #25 and #27 Torx screws.
>> #25 is just the right size to strip out a #27 head and a lot of the
>> Torx sets skip #27.
>
> Oh those fuckers. Yep they pop up all over the place.
>
> And there are other head styles that are similar
>
> Here is a classic example of 'diversity'
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives

I find the cruciform types particular annoying. They're all so similar you
can get by with a standard Phillips unless they're tight. With some of the
cheap Chinese screws I'm convinced no driver in the world is really a good
fit.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 11:53:46 +0100, D wrote:

> A for gnome, maybe try xfce? I find it a nice balance of batteries
> included and light resource use.

My Debian box is Xfce. Years ago I installed Ubuntu, decided I really
didn't like gnome, and added a KDE DE. I ran it for several years but it
was fragile with unexpected interactions. That soured me on switching DEs
after the install.

For this box my first attempt was Kubuntu. It had problems with the
installation and I wound up hosing the original Win 11 and not having a
working Linux. I had a Ubuntu iso that installed so I went with it.

The stuff I normally use is on whatever passes for the taskbar on that
particular OS so they're really all the same for most purposes.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 11:54:34 +0100, D wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, rbowman wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:
>>
>>> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
>>> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very
>>> shitty ryanair flight back to eastern europe.
>>
>> 'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
>> really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.
>
> Ahhh... good to know! If I ever travel to the southern US, I'll fit
> right in with a nigra or two! ;)

You'll be fine as long as you like sweet tea. The regional dialects are
smoothing out as everyone 'learns to talk like the man on the 6 o'clock
news'.

Back in the '90s I found the older white speakers in North Georgia almost
incomprehensible. I did better asking directions from blacks because they
spoke the standard African-American dialect. In the '70s we set up a
plant in central Georgia and I couldn't understand either.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 11:59:24 +0100, D wrote:

> Isn't Harris indian?

She's more Indian than she is black but identifying as black has more
advantages.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 12:07:02 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> The 64K barrier was alive and well on the 8086/8.
> I wrote a lot of horrible code to deal with large arrays. Then there
> were all the memory models: tiny, small, large,
> huge... yuck.

That is my fondest memory of the time. Which memory model and libraries
did you want to use? There were also the medium and compact models.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 12:00:56 +0100, D wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> On 1/11/25 9:26 PM, rbowman wrote:
>>> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
>>>> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very
>>>> shitty ryanair flight back to eastern europe.
>>>
>>> 'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
>>> really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.
>>
>> Kinda half and half ... term heard most often in Alabama and
>> Mississippi.
>
> Ahh! I know a thing or two about Alabama. I've seen Forrest Gump! =)

You're about 70 years too late for the real fun. My brother worked at
Redstone in Huntsville AL in the '50s. Alabama was completely segregated,
with the whites and blacks working out a more or less comfortable
arrangement. The engineers, mostly white northerners, didn't have a clue
how the social boundaries worked. I'm sure von Braun's crew had some
interesting thoughts on American hypocrisy.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 17:06:16 -0000 (UTC), root wrote:

> Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>>
>> I am glad I did not get a Pi-5. I have had enough problems getting the
>> GUI to start up at boot time with my Pi-4B that I decided to just run
>> it in headless server mode.
>>
>>
> I can't understand your problems. I have two Pi4B and a Pi5 running
> 24/7. It is convenient that they all take the same version of Raspian.
>
All three worked right up on the first boot. You do, however,
> have to make sure you have a good power unit.

My Pi5 is running the Debian based Raspberry Pi OS. It stable. Part of the
Canakit was a power supply that meets the 5's requirements.

On 1/12/25 21:32, rbowman wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 17:06:16 -0000 (UTC), root wrote:
>
>> Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am glad I did not get a Pi-5. I have had enough problems getting the
>>> GUI to start up at boot time with my Pi-4B that I decided to just run
>>> it in headless server mode.
>>>
>>>
>> I can't understand your problems. I have two Pi4B and a Pi5 running
>> 24/7. It is convenient that they all take the same version of Raspian.
>>
All three worked right up on the first boot. You do, however,
>> have to make sure you have a good power unit.
>
> My Pi5 is running the Debian based Raspberry Pi OS. It stable. Part of the
> Canakit was a power supply that meets the 5's requirements.

Yeah, mine was completely unstable before I got the official rPi5 PSU.

-hh wrote:

> (snipped, unread)

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 14:40:46 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:

> I think it was 1981 that Motorola announced the LANCE chip, which made
> Ethernet practical. Lots of companies designed products around it, but
> in the end it was 2 years late to ship production quantities.

The early '80s were insane. Companies were quoting delivery dates out a
year or more. If you could dangle a high volume order you might get better
treatment but the company I was with didn't operate on that scale. The
8751 would have been a better choice but we could get 8749s.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 20:48:41 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> I wanted my picos to show up in my routers DHCP tables as something
> other than whatever is the default. Python could not do it. C could.

https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/network.html

I believe network.hostname() has been available for more than a year.

On 2025-01-12, root <NoEMail@home.org> wrote:
> Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>>
>> I am glad I did not get a Pi-5. I have had enough problems getting
>> the GUI to start up at boot time with my Pi-4B that I decided to just
>> run it in headless server mode.
>>
>
> I can't understand your problems. I have two Pi4B and a Pi5 running
> 24/7. It is convenient that they all take the same version of
> Raspian.
All three worked right up on the first boot. You do, however,
> have to make sure you have a good power unit.

I did not mention that I run Fedora.

Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>
> I did not mention that I run Fedora.

Oh, big difference. I tried running a version of
Slackware and gave that up. Raspian proves to
me perfectly satisfactory for my Pi needs.

On 1/12/25 9:41 PM, Lars Poulsen wrote:
> On 2025-01-12, root <NoEMail@home.org> wrote:
>> Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am glad I did not get a Pi-5. I have had enough problems getting
>>> the GUI to start up at boot time with my Pi-4B that I decided to just
>>> run it in headless server mode.
>>>
>>
>> I can't understand your problems. I have two Pi4B and a Pi5 running
>> 24/7. It is convenient that they all take the same version of
>> Raspian.
All three worked right up on the first boot. You do, however,
>> have to make sure you have a good power unit.
>
> I did not mention that I run Fedora.

Pi4 runs a bunch of distros - Pi5 ... even after a
year there's no "Just Works" Fedora install. CAN
be done apparently, but it's all pain and many of
your fixes are likely to vanish at the first update.
The processor/accessories are just WEIRD on that board.
I'll never buy another one.

As suggested, Raspberry needs to dump the Pi5 and
make a Pi4-Ultra instead. Any more raw computing
power needed, use something else, you're more in
the 'PC' range then - try BeeLink/BMax.

This all is less a 'diversity' issue than a "poor
thinking" issue by Pi. Felt they just HAD to come
out with a New Model but ignored all the gotchas.

On 1/12/25 1:36 PM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 11/01/2025 23:44, D wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>
>>>>  You REALLY hate solar, don't you ?
>>>
>>> I personally am a huge fan of solar for my offgrid fortress of
>>> solitude during
>>> 8-9 months of the year.
>>>
>> That is fine. If youtr usage is low and there is plenty of sun - My
>> sister oin Cape Town relies on it to keep the house going during the
>> planed powercuts that characterise an ANC destroyed power grid.
>
> That country is very messed up. I think they need more peace, love and
> understanding, and spiritual dialogue between whites and negros. Only
> then will peace reign supreme! ;)
>
>> Bit it doesnt work very well in wintertime, and the batteries are
>> expsenive
>
> This is the truth! Impossible at a realistic cost in northern europe.
>
>>
>>
>>> For the rest of the time, I wonder if small 2-3 meter wind turbines
>>> might be a
>>> thing?
>>>
>> Absolutely not.  You might get a few hundred watts at best If you
>> build it talle ebough
>>
>>> For heating I would use a wood stove or a pellets burner.
>>>
>> How not very green of you!
>
> I wipe my ass with green toilet paper! ;)
>
>>> Last time I was trying to calculate the cost of battery storage for a
>>> 100% solar
>>> it came out at 600k USD or so, that is... madness.
>>>
>> Now multiply it by the whole of california...
>
> This is the woke dream of paradise. Until we make massive gains in
> energy storage technology, it will remain a dream.

Speaking of "dreams" .........

Sorry, SA is going down the proverbial toilet and
it's not JUST a 'black'/'white' issue per-se.

On 1/12/25 1:42 PM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025, root wrote:
>
>> Lars Poulsen <lars@cleo.beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Yes, but then I'd have to find or make an enclosure that fits the board
>>> SET.
>>
>> An enclosure is purely cosmetic. I attached my Pi5 to a piece of
>> cardboard with zip-ties and hung it down the back of my desk.
>>
>
> My other TV computer, a radxa zero, dangles off the hdmi cable, and I've
> attached it to the back of the OLED tv with some tape. It's lived
> happily there for a year or so at the moment.

Try Velcro or double-sided tape ... works great for
sticking a Pi to whatever :-)

On 1/12/25 6:38 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 12/01/2025 11:00, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/11/25 9:26 PM, rbowman wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
>>>>> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very
>>>>> shitty
>>>>> ryanair flight back to eastern europe.
>>>>
>>>> 'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
>>>> really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.
>>>
>>>  Kinda half and half ... term heard most often
>>>  in Alabama and Mississippi.
>>
>> Ahh! I know a thing or two about Alabama. I've seen Forrest Gump! =)
>
> I think that most of my pre-visit experience of the USA was from Mark
> Twain.
>
> One piece of dialogue really brought southern racism home...
>
> “Good gracious! Anybody hurt?”
> “No’m. Killed a nigger.”
> “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.”

Um ... ain't 1830 or even 1955 anymore folks ...

Why, imagine, you can see 'white' girls hangin' off
'black' studs in Birmingham now !

Don't be too quick to believe 'movies'.

On 2025-01-12, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 12:00:56 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 Jan 2025, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/11/25 9:26 PM, rbowman wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:41:53 +0100, D wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Nigra? This group is a wonder of education! Something to study deeply
>>>>> tonight, as soon as I get off my current, delayed and very, very
>>>>> shitty ryanair flight back to eastern europe.
>>>>
>>>> 'Nigra' is sort of a southern thing in my experience. I think they're
>>>> really saying Negro. Or maybe Nigger. It's hard to tell.
>>>
>>> Kinda half and half ... term heard most often in Alabama and
>>> Mississippi.
>>
>> Ahh! I know a thing or two about Alabama. I've seen Forrest Gump! =)
>
> You're about 70 years too late for the real fun. My brother worked at
> Redstone in Huntsville AL in the '50s. Alabama was completely segregated,
> with the whites and blacks working out a more or less comfortable
> arrangement. The engineers, mostly white northerners, didn't have a clue
> how the social boundaries worked. I'm sure von Braun's crew had some
> interesting thoughts on American hypocrisy.

The movie _Hidden Figures_ has an interesting take on this.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On 1/12/25 7:07 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2025-01-12, 186282@ud0s4.net <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:
>
>> The 8086 would have been better, but the extra wiring
>> apparently would have pushed up the price too much
>> according to some old interview with an IBM guy.
>> They didn't KNOW it would be super-successful, so they
>> kinda hedged their bets, split the diff. 640k banks
>> were a hell of a lot better than 64k banks.
>
> The 64K barrier was alive and well on the 8086/8.
> I wrote a lot of horrible code to deal with large arrays.
> Then there were all the memory models: tiny, small, large,
> huge... yuck.
>
>> The instructions for the 8088 were "familiar" to
>> anyone who did the 8008/8080 and not TOO far
>> from Z-80 sensibility - so I think that cinched Intel
>> as the maker. WISH they'd used the 68000s. Ever
>> see the Sage boxes ... gone alas before I could
>> afford one .......
>
> I got into the Amiga and enjoyed the 68000 that way.

Alas I spent big $$$ and bought the very first Amiga
model. NOTHING but "Guru Meditation" errors ... dumped
the thing and bought a PC clone.

The little Macs were cute - but kinda expensive and
had that weird 'Apple mentality' - so never bought one.
At my age now I'd need special glasses just to read
the tiny screen :-)

I remember Tandy had a TRS model that'd take a 68k
add-on board, ran some version of CP/M-68k. Again
out of my price range at the time.

So, alas, my exposure to the 68k series wound up
being limited. Too bad, it WAS a great chip for
the time. Apparently Intel could just produce
more for cheaper and won The War.

Haven't researched it in detail, but it's said the
68k's ultimately had 'scalability issues' - ie
it wasn't easy to change the architecture, not
easy to go forwards. They could make slightly
faster versions, but no Great Leaps.

You can still buy 68000 chips from DigiKey and
Mouser - about nine bucks - and the 'ColdFire'
successors. STILL useful and used for embedded
apps, esp 'devices'. Good ideas persist.

On 1/12/25 9:52 AM, Lars Poulsen wrote:
> On 12/01/2025 13:46, Lars Poulsen wrote:
>>> The one thing I was missing on Pi-4 was a second ethernet port so I
>>> could use it as a firewall/edge router with room for all the monitoring
>>> capabilities I could dream up to implement with PCAP.
>>>
>>> Dongle-attached extra ethernet ports are a bit unstable in my
>>> experience. Often have spotty Linux driver support, often get
>>> redesigned with a different ethernet chip with no visible/noticeable
>>> change in product name or packaging. Being on an ARM system makes the
>>> problems stemming from this several steps worse.
>
> On 2025-01-12, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Plenty of Pi ethernet hats available...
>
> Yes, but then I'd have to find or make an enclosure that fits the board
> SET.

Yea ... good point ... all the Pi boxes are only
big enough to hold JUST the Pi ... no hats. You
can find taller boxes for Arduino's but .......

Anyway, from the Pi3 on you didn't really NEED
an ethernet hat unless you needed multiple
plugs - like for a router/firewall or something.
See 'ipFire' or similar. Used it, worked good,
FUNNY name :-)

While attractive, some micro-PCs might be even
better for that than a Pi. Check SuperMicro - they
have some very small boards/boxes that are perfect
for that kind of need. Impressive boards actually,
connectors for interfaces even I'd never heard of.

On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 00:21:26 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 1/12/25 7:07 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2025-01-12, 186282@ud0s4.net <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:
>>
>>> The 8086 would have been better, but the extra wiring apparently
>>> would have pushed up the price too much according to some old
>>> interview with an IBM guy.
>>> They didn't KNOW it would be super-successful, so they kinda
>>> hedged their bets, split the diff. 640k banks were a hell of a lot
>>> better than 64k banks.
>>
>> The 64K barrier was alive and well on the 8086/8.
>> I wrote a lot of horrible code to deal with large arrays. Then there
>> were all the memory models: tiny, small, large,
>> huge... yuck.
>>
>>> The instructions for the 8088 were "familiar" to anyone who did
>>> the 8008/8080 and not TOO far from Z-80 sensibility - so I think
>>> that cinched Intel as the maker. WISH they'd used the 68000s. Ever
>>> see the Sage boxes ... gone alas before I could afford one .......
>>
>> I got into the Amiga and enjoyed the 68000 that way.
>
> Alas I spent big $$$ and bought the very first Amiga model. NOTHING
> but "Guru Meditation" errors ... dumped the thing and bought a PC
> clone.

I didn't have anything that sophisticated; I bought a 68000 evaluation
board. I also have my Captain Zilog t-shirt from a Z8000 seminar but I
never had one in my hands. I don't know how much Exxon had to do with it
but it quickly became apparent the Z8000 was an 'also ran' and the Z80000
never hit the streets. I loved the Z80 but Zilog did a lot better dropping
zeroes than adding them. The Z8 lives on but a $200 development kit isn't
very attractive.