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| Sunday, 19 May 2024 | Dereel | Images for 19 May 2024 |
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Yvonne still sick
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Topic: health | Link here |
Yvonne still hasn't more than started to recover from her cold, and she spent all day in bed. Only in the evening did she get up, ate a slice of bread, and watched TV. Hopefully things are looking up.
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SMS backup, the down side
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Topic: technology, general, opinion | Link here |
After yesterday's success with saving SMS messages, I set up SMS Backup & Restore to back up at frequent intervals, once an hour. Today I downloaded the results. 20 files, each 20 MB in size, and all almost identical. Only the backup date was different.
Complete backups! It's bad enough to have a single file backup, but it seems that there is no provision for incremental backups. Clearly once an hour is far too frequent. For the moment I'll go back to once a day.
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Building enblend 4.1.4
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Topic: technology, photography, opinion | Link here |
I can't run the enblend 4.1.4 binaries directly on hydra due to library hell. Sometimes I wonder if dynamically linked executables are still a good idea. But I have the source: build it.
Use the port in the Ports Collection? That's too fragile. If it's not up to date, it won't work. So build it as the author intended. After tripping over the confusing installation instructions, I came to:
Extract the source archive, of course. I chose to do so in /usr/ports/graphics/enblend-4.1.4/work, giving the tree /usr/ports/graphics/enblend-4.1.4/work/enblend-enfuse-4.1.4.
Adapting the path name from the README file,
cd enblend-enfuse-4.1.4/
make --makefile=Makefile.scm
mkdir build
cd build
The next line in README is only for Apple, and it reads:
CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/local/include LDFLAGS=-L/opt/local/lib cmake ..
But of course I used simply cmake ... And it worked, though it produced lots of grumbling at the top that nobody would normally see.
Then simply make. That didn't go so well:
[ 7%] Building CXX object src/CMakeFiles/enblend.dir/error_message.cc.o
In file included from /usr/ports/graphics/enblend-4.1.4/work/enblend-enfuse-4.1.4/src/error_message.cc:29:
/usr/ports/graphics/enblend-4.1.4/work/enblend-enfuse-4.1.4/src/error_message.h:29:14: error: functions that differ only in their return type cannot be overloaded
extern char* strerror_r(int errnum, char* buf, size_t buflen);
~~~~~ ^
/usr/include/string.h:94:6: note: previous declaration is here
int strerror_r(int, char *, size_t);
~~~ ^
/usr/ports/graphics/enblend-4.1.4/work/enblend-enfuse-4.1.4/src/error_message.cc:58:11: error: cannot initialize a variable of type 'char *' with an rvalue of type 'int'
char* messageptr = strerror_r(anErrorNumber, &message[0], buffer_size);
^ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2 errors generated.
Why? The error messages are valid, and they relate to incorrect types in the source file. But this used to compile. Is the compiler just getting more finicky?
And there I left it standing while I pondered how to fix the problem.
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tiwi problems?
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Topic: technology, multimedia | Link here |
While looking at a web page on tiwi in the afternoon, everything froze. Well, almost everything. The mouse cursor still ran, but I couldn't input anything. Off to hydra, which told me that the X server was running at 100%. Rogue web page? Quite possibly. Shot down firefox, and X went with it. Restart X, and things seemed to work, but though I had started it with -listen tcp, I wasn't able to start anything that would talk to tiwi:0, not even locally. Is that because I started X from a different system?
But while watching TV later, the system paniced:
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: cpuid = 3; apic id = 06
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: fault virtual address = 0x0
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: fault code = supervisor read data, page not present
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: instruction pointer = 0x20:0xffffffff828debf2
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: stack pointer = 0x28:0xfffffe0073550a90
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: frame pointer = 0x28:0xfffffe00b1ff8e10
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: code segment = base 0x0, limit 0xfffff, type 0x1b
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: = DPL 0, pres 1, long 1, def32 0, gran 1
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: processor eflags = interrupt enabled, resume, IOPL = 0
May 19 18:55:22 tiwi kernel: current process = 12 (swi4: clock (0))
What caused that? Normally the software interrupts are as solid as anything could be. Hardware issues? Looking further back, I saw:
May 19 16:39:21 tiwi kernel: NVRM: GPU at PCI:0000:01:00: GPU-85983119-e9ef-ac66-6817-fbed5657b871
May 19 16:39:21 tiwi kernel: NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000005, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
May 19 16:39:31 tiwi kernel: NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 38, 0001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
May 19 16:39:31 tiwi kernel: NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 39, CCMDs 00000006 000090b5
May 19 16:42:09 tiwi kernel: NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 31, Ch 00000001, engmask 00000101, intr 10000000
May 19 16:42:12 tiwi kernel: pid 1353 (Xorg), jid 0, uid 0: exited on signal 6
I've never understood these Nvidia messages. It looks as if that, and not a rogue web page, was the cause of the X crash.
The good news is that the system display came up on the TV, as I had hoped to achieve last week. Still, time for new hardware?
| Monday, 20 May 2024 | Dereel | Images for 20 May 2024 |
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Another ramen experiment
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Topic: food and drink | Link here |
I still don't have a good recipe for Ramen noodles for breakfast. Earlier in the month I tried an AI-generated recipe that didn't really go as I expected. OK, try again, interpreting these emetic cups and spoons, and came up with:
| quantity | ingredient | step | ||
| 50 g | beef | 1 | ||
| 2 | shiitake mushrooms | 1 | ||
| 50 g | miso paste | 2 | ||
| 25 g | light soya sauce | 2 | ||
| 25 g | vinegar | 2 | ||
| 10 g | garlic paste | 2 | ||
| 5 g | ginger paste | 2 | ||
| 25 g | water | 2 | ||
| 5 g | sesame oil | 2 | ||
| 150 g | cooked ramen | 3 | ||
| 35 g | spring onions | 4 | ||
Cut the step 1 ingredients into serving pieces. Mix the step 2 ingredients and bring to boil in a pan. Add the step 1 ingredients and cook. Add the noodles, mix well and heat. Serve with chopped spring onion on top:
How was it? Still too salty. I need to take a step back and think of alternatives.
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More VoIP issues?
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Yvonne received a phone call this morning on her mobile phone. Why that? The caller told me that she had tried the (VoIP) “landline”, but that it wasn't available.
It works for me. But somehow this sounds like a compatibility issue. Do I have the courage to call Aussie Broadband and report it?
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Yvonne's progress
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Topic: health | Link here |
Yvonne is still feeling anything but well, though there are indications that she's getting over whatever it was. It wasn't COVID-19, anyway: we have a dead RAT to prove it.
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Failed cat photos
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Topic: animals, photography, opinion | Link here |
Found Bruno and Mona together today. That needs a photo! Got my Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark I, put an appropriate lens on it, and tried to take a photo. Couldn't focus! Tried various things, during which the camera made strange noises, similar to but different from the noise that the image stabilizer makes when composing a photo. Then the display went blank.
Tried again with a different lens. Similar problems, though the noise no longer occurred. This time an indicator S-IS.AUTO at top left blinked red. Then it went blank again.
And it stayed that way. Spent some time investigating. Almost certainly something has failed, probably (based on the display and the strange noises) something to do with the IBIS. Should I get it repaired? It's well over 10 years old, and I can get a replacement for $400. The last repair that Olympus did for me cost $431.63, and there's no reason to assume that this would be any simpler. So a replacement it is.
But what? The E-M1 on offer is clearly one possibility, but it would also be close to 10 years old. How about the latest and greatest, the OM System OM-1 Mark II? A quick check showed that the cheapest body I could get would set me back about $3,300. Yes, I could afford it—it's been over 7 years since I last bought a new body for myself. But what can it do for me that the E-M1 can't? Spent some time comparing things, and found only that the sensor technology is better (allowing boosted sensitivities of up to 51°/100,000 ISO), better IBIS, potentially better autofocus (including animal eye recognition). Is it worth it? I still need to agonize.
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Paul Callow
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Topic: history, opinion | Link here |
Mail from Rosemary Bunnage today. I had never heard of her, but she's the cousin of my schoolfriend Paul Callow. She included a photo of him with her and his father, along with Mark.
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From the indication at bottom right, that photo was taken some time in the 1990s, on an 8 August. Rose says that it was taken “before he became ill”, something that I must follow up on.
But that's the second reference to Paul today. While walking the dogs I saw the first Amanita muscaria of the season. I've known that name from over 60 years ago, from when our group of unsporty intellectual misfits (Peter Green, Paul Callow, Rees of unknown Christian name) were talking about St. John the Divine (now apparently identified as John of Patmos), the author of the Book of Revelation. The general opinion was that he saw visions as the result of consuming Amanita muscaria. It was only decades later that I identified it as the common toadstool:
But somehow Paul was special. I knew him throughout our time at school, and in fact his father was partially responsible for our choice of school. It was pure coincidence that we became relatively close: I had almost nothing to do with his twin brother Nigel. Looking back it seems that we continued to do things together throughout my time at school. Here we are skiving games (something that we both hated) by working in the “Pioneers”, where we did some very lazy and inefficient building work:
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And then there's this picture of the whole Pioneers group, with teacher “Drax” Baker at the left. He too had strong connections to Malaya. Paul and I are both wearing boaters (straw hats). I wonder if there was some kind of agreement.
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I wonder what happened to him.
It seems that Rose lives in Port Fairy, while her children live in Ballan. How do you get from one place to another? A good choice is through Dereel. Maybe we'll see her some time.
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Still more weather station pain
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Topic: technology, general, opinion | Link here |
After yesterday's crash on tiwi, I forgot to restart the weather application. When I did, I once again ran into this issue with the MySQL libraries. I really need to RTFM about that.
But it only ran for about 20 minutes. Then it hung again with the eternal
May 20 15:46:31 tiwi wh1080[26226]: Can't read device: Input/output error or Unknown error (5)
May 20 15:46:32 tiwi wh1080[26227]: Can't read device: Device busy or Unknown error (16)
How I hate this thing! USB connection problems? Tried the usual workarounds, to no avail. Then I disconnected the extension cable and moved the device closer to tiwi with just a normal cable. Works! So it was all just an issue with too-long cables!
Well, no. That ran for about 30 minutes and hung again. Looked more careful at the output:
=== root@tiwi (/dev/pts/12) /home/grog/src/weather/WH-1080-teevee 20 -> ./wh1080 $STATION grog "" eureka
./wh1080 starting
Raw rain: 0.000000, max: 3.000000
temprain before: 7245
Rain prev: 7245, now: 7245, raw 7245.0, temprain 7245
Can't read device: Unknown error or Device busy (16)
Why did it stop then? That was in the middle of retrieving the information. More investigation shows that there were—once again—multiple copies of the binaries running. That's my fault, not the station's. But how do I work around it? I start daemons that run no matter what. Time to find a way to kill existing ones when I start a new one:
ps waux | grep dorun | awk '{print "kill " $2}' | sh
For reference, usbconfig tells me:
ugen1.3: <vendor 0x1941 product 0x8021> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=LOW (1.5Mbps) pwr=ON (100mA)
ugen1.3.0: uhid0: <vendor 0x1941 product 0x8021, class 0/0, rev 1.10/1.00, addr 3>
| This page contains (roughly) yesterday's and today's entries. I have a horror of reverse chronological documents, so all my diary entries are chronological. This page normally contains the last two days, but if I fall behind it may contain more. You can find older entries in the archive. Note that I often update a diary entry a day or two after I write it. | Do you have a comment about something I have written? This is a diary, not a “blog”, and there is deliberately no provision for directly adding comments. It's also not a vehicle for third-party content. But I welcome feedback and try to reply to all messages I receive. See the diary overview for more details. If you do send me a message relating to something I have written, please indicate whether you'd prefer me not to mention your name. Otherwise I'll assume that it's OK to do so. |
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