And here we go again …

Just bracing myself for a torrent of UNHELP on homeassistant user group.

The problem, well there is a couple of problems.

Problem 1. I found the charger for my old Acer A500 android tablet so that is being set up in kitchen as web search, YouTube and Netflix gadget for cooking assistance. That means, apparently, I cannot use it for homeassistant client since a) Chrome version on A500 is too old and b) the homeassistant android app is not compatible with the version of Android running on the A500 and therefore c) see Problem 2.

Problem 2. I need to ask questions on the homeassistant user group.

Problem 3. I need to sort why the rest API works fine in all examples provided on homeassistant web site EXCEPT! for the POST that is to set the sprinklers on. When I use the POST it complains their is a non-JSON problem with the data despite the token, IP address, device id all work fine with other API calls and so that means see Problem 2.

I was able to play with the API by installing curl onto my widoze 10 laptop and then GETing and POSTing to my raspingdoodleburry pi home server running homeassistant under hypriot/docker.

Why all the bother? I will likely write a Kotlin app, for my old A500, with n buttons and POST calls to sprinkler zones to the ESP Home device via HA since HA has been set up with default sprinkler times (so you just turn the sprinkler on).

I can go to a fallback and send MQTT messages if I must, but at the moment the preference is to try to use the API. Generating a POST message in Kotlin is straight forward. The fun bit might be reading back states to make sure the sprinklers are up (so ghosting or not the buttons) and changing button colour or toggling the button on Android device by following the switch state, so as to provide an indication of ACK from device.

WoW!

Clusterised heavon! Except they are blown out of the water by a new option, more modules, more features and cheaper! JESUS! Everyone is now doing it!

Now the Turing Pi is to the Gumstix Stagecoach what the Odroid-W was to the Raspberry Pi. I wonder if the Raspberry Pi community gets the irony of a Raspberry Pi option cheating by copying another open source hardware design. Perhaps the Turing Pi should be pummelled the same way the Odroid-W was?

Now I have been at hardkernel to do a similar thing for years. If you talk about a sodimm DDR2 form factor and a cluster motherboard, people on the hardkernel forum still want 1) tell you why they like other form factors or 2) tell you to look at other offerings (such as those above). Losers!

I would even consider the Turing Pi, even though its under powered with only quad cores with 1G mem each. Really an educational toy. I hope then they have the module LED pointing in a useful direction for running lights. Plenty of USB for AI dongles, but still Raspingdoodleburry based. Still …

However, since I am not a pi fan, mostly because monopoly aspects, I did just order a Pine64 Clusterboard. That will retire my 3 Odroid C1 current on the cluster, well not really, that will open them up for additional robotics projects. SBC based clusters are clumsy and too complicated given clusters based upon compute modules had been introduced by gumstix years ago. Note that the gumstix “stagecoach” design is posted by gumstix so was always ripe for copying.

I note that a Rockchip RK1808 with 3TOP NPU is coming from Pine64 with the same compute module footprint. So there appear to be options of a 64bit 2Gigabyte compute and an AI compute module. Whether I need go wild though is a question, since I have a NVIDIA Jetson Nano and my Parallella. I note that there are USB ports in any event so probably need not burn cluster slots with the AI compute module, just need add USB version.

Since the Clusterboard is half the price of the Turing Pi it has to get my vote given AUS dollar means I need multiply all the costs by 1.5.

The Clusterboard will be a great docker based and or Chapel based toy.

OH … MY … GOD! A cluster of cluster boards. Eat shit hardkernel!

Shame QANTAS shame

Like some evolutionary story about psychopaths getting a taste for killing pets, QANTAS appear to have stepped up their efforts to eradicate unwanted staff. That’ll teach those pesky unions.

Wanna bet the explanation is that the staff were snub nosed. We’ll QANTAS certainly did snub their nose at staff and community safety.

So, does QANTAS deserve a government safety net? If anyone in the street coughed on someone is that not a fine and especially a jail term if they were infected? Did infected QANTAS not just cough on the Australian public?

Interesting finds

Thinking about APL as anti-patterns to the way software engineering has narrowed our thought practices. That is thinking in APL and not tradition programming mindset. This is not an uncommon problem given functional thinking and object oriented thinking are opposing camps.

Not to mention an APL interpreter in GO. Not that I am big on GO but why not.

WHO are we kidding

Ocean’s collapsing this decade.

China’s primitive beliefs about exotic animals and medicine striking back at the world.

And all we get back is one animal from the brink of extinction if we stop Chinese wet markets.

Dogs, it seems, will now be “pets“. But, will that change beliefs? Indeed, what will happen to the dogs that are not adopted as pets? On last round of dim sum? Let’s be real. For how many thousands of years has this practice been ingrained not merely in the Chinese culture but in the identity of the Chinese people? There will be black wet, or if you like wet black, markets on the other side of this.

Not forgetting dogs and cats are not the “exotics” that are really the problem source. We may never know since the Chinese government appears hell bent on continuing the cover-up.

And the one exotic creature that we can apparently all eat, which is proliferating due to pollution, warming seas and over fishing, is also the one China introduced as an entree at your local Chinese restaurant. Irony.

Again our fault, but apparently you can turn jelly fish into ethanol alcohol! So we can make hand wash to help in COVID 19 using that one exotic animal its okay for Chinese to eat! Except we actually need ethyl alcohol. DOH! Wait, that’s same thing! Winner! Winner! Chinese Dinner! Irony.

In any event, like that jeep add, we might need a bigger boat, of course being a meme originating from Jaws.

Now only if we could convince Donald Trump that jellyfish are a treatment for malaria. Irony.

WHO cut funding?

WHO?

Oh who you and you and you … and the evidence keeps coming.

Shssssssssssssh!

Don’t say SARS.

Don’t challenge the leaders poor response.

No really, don’t challenge the leaders on their poor response.