Month: January 2024

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Stashing Christmas

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and this week I did not complete my intended project for the week, but I did finish something interesting nonetheless. Let’s get started!

Red or Blue?

God has blessed my family to the point where when we pull out the Christmas decorations in November or so, we ask ourselves, “Do we want a red Christmas or a blue Christmas this year?” We then set up our artificial tree and garlands and adorn them tastefully from our “red” or “blue” bucket.

In fact: God has blessed us such that we could surprise my aunt some years back by getting a skinny artificial tree for our Christmas party. Circumstances dictated this tree as now our main tree this year, and we were able to bless a school run by our church with not just our large tree, but also some smaller ones for a few classrooms.

But Christmas is over. It’s time to put things away.

Let-There-Be-Christmas Boxes

In the likely event we are with the school next Christmas, my mother, Annie_8472, wanted to re-organize our buckets into our usual red/blue/both categories plus a number of classroom kits with our tiny trees and decorations for them. For each of red and blue things, we have a bucket for shatterproof balls, a case for smaller themed ornaments, etc.

Most of my contribution was hauling buckets between the living room and garage. I spotted a few buckets in comparatively poor condition, and arranged for them to end up at the bottom of the bucket stack. Annie clearly marked each bucket she used and had me aim them out when shelving them.

Takeaway

The same sorting system can be used with anything. Fabric –for example– can be sorted by color or material. Rank your items’ most important qualities, and store the most similar stuff together. This way, other people can find things (and put them away when done).

Final Question

Red or blue?

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Dropped Computer Warranty Work

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I have an update on my father’s (Leo_8472) new computer. Let’s get started!

It’s Going Back

I have throughly tested my father’s new Thelio Mira from System76: it needs to go back. There is no doubt: the shipping company dropped it, and it sustained damage. While Sonic Frontiers seemingly eventually stabilized after re-seating the graphics card (GPU), the RTX remasters of Portal and its unofficial mod, Portal Prelude, crash the system in around half an hour.

The human System76 agent we’ve been working with (I’ll call him Luke for this post) mentioned advanced replacement where we retain the original computer while waiting for the new one. Once we sign to receive delivery, we have two weeks to return the old or it goes on a provided credit card. This arrangement gave us time to swap the hard drive –an M.2 chip– as we’d spent some good time setting everything up. And since it’s a Linux machine as opposed to Windows, the operating system won’t give us any licensing flack over a different motherboard!

M.2 Exchange

The replacement system arrived with its packaging scratched, but not crushed. M.2 drives typically mount directly to the motherboard, and Leo’s system is no exception. Luckily, the its innards are arranged for access without removing the CPU heatsink and having to redo the thermal paste – though we do have to remove the GPU to get to them. There, we find four M.2 slots in a 1+3 arrangement with the 1 slot having a a fancier heatsink supposedly intended to host a primary OS drive.

The Thelio Mira has some convenience ports on the top. When the first system was dropped, these got tweaked – giving us a bad first impression; the warranty replacement lined up, leaving me with a sense of satisfaction every time we closed up the case. Where the original had a lone, damaged bracket to stabilize the GPU during shipment, the new system arrived with two square brackets secured a little tighter than before. As we had explained our plan to swap the drives to Luke, I expected no M.2 chip. Sure enough, the single chip bank was empty. Curiosity struck however, and we found one of equivalent size when we removed the larger bank’s heatsink. We swapped the chips and re-assembled the new computer.

Testing and Return

When booted, the new system gave nothing until we bypassed the video card. We unplugged everything for the I-forget-how-many-th time, opened it back up, and reseated the card. In the process, a push wing broke off the PCI slot’s retainer clip – leaving us with no easy removal of the GPU once it clicked into place. During long-term testing involving a [mostly?] blind game of Portal Prelude, we noticed that the system was significantly quieter while under load.

We kept Luke informed about the development, and he appeared confused at our request to buy the good clip off the dropped-computer motherboard. To our simultaneous request to purchase and retain the additional M.2 chip, he referred us to an online store instead of offering a price to buy the one in hand. We went ahead and extracted the good clip. Leo used a wooden chopstick to interface with the damaged clip when extracting the good GPU. As “beautiful” as the unused M.2 drive was, we installed it in the dropped computer when reassembling the machines, printed off a shipping label, and packaged the dropped computer in its original, dropped box. As a good customer, I planned to include the unused power cord, but we couldn’t find it. I extracted the original System76 cord from use at Leo’s workstation and replaced it from our sock. It should be in the mail by this afternoon.

Takeaway

System76 takes customer support seriously. Luke (not his provided first or last name) worked to turn our poor initial impressions around where a support chatbot would have worked toward cementing us against future computers from them. I in turn could play an active role in diagnostics – presumably skipping some early portions of his script. Perhaps catering towards Linux attracts more tech savvy customers, meaning fewer cases where a bot would be helpful.

Regarding the computer case: it’s a little more tedious to open than I like when working on computers, but we got faster each time. The custom cut rocket graphics are fun, but the most I saw of them were the PCI expansion bay covers I usually found tricky to re-install. I don’t like dealing with the case, but it was miles better than shipping it back and forth and having to wipe its data.

Final Question

Leo and I have been maintaining separate accounts, and I believe this has given me a better intuition about normal users vs. using sudo. Have you ever meaningfully shared a Linux machine?

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Telescope for Christmas

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am covering a new telescope I got for Christmas. Let’s get started!

I’ve wanted my own telescope since before I was old enough to responsibly take care of one. My childhood Monopoly set is a novelty Astronomy Edition. Solarquest was an even more dear game – though we’ve learned a bit more about our solar system since our copy was made.

Unboxing and Assembly

Unboxing was straightforward enough. I followed the assembly instructions, but had a little trouble extracting the tripod’s hex wrench out of its storage slot the first time. The kit reminded me of how a good camera may be bought in accessory parts as easily as a starter kit. Standardized interfaces on interchangeable parts make for an upgrade path.

The instructions cautioned against letting adults unfamiliar with with the telescope on top of the usual warning about children. To see why, I needed look no further than the fine adjustment tools. While intuition says to point them like a camera aiming stick, they’re actually designed to rotate.

The star scope was of interest to learn about. To use, aim the main telescope such that a little, red dot is over the object you wish to view. No matter the direction you look into it, it points at the same spot. The instructions said to aim the main telescope at a land-based location a distance away to calibrate it.

First Light

One “Sabbath afternoon” drive after unboxing the telescope, my father and I scouted a local lake after sundown for stargazing locations. The best spot we found is above a boat ramp, but it has a gate we found open. While a ranger may ask us to leave if we use that area, it’s not like we’d be doing anything more destructive than intended use. We [my mother and I] later called the visitors’ center during hours to confirm a good spot.

After the drive, the clouds broke at home enough to get some nice details of the moon. With the telescope’s magnification, the Earth’s rotation is apparent, but not impossible to manually track while taking turns looking. I tried holding up my tiny Nicon digital camera I’ve used in 3D printing, but was only able to get some blurry pictures before clouds dimmed the sky.

Accessorizing

Starting a new hobby involves cost. There exist a wide range of accessory lenses, filters, eyepieces, tracking systems, and more, but I don’t yet know how seriously I will take this telescope over the course of months to years. First off, I got a bag to take it in the car. Other than that, I at least want some good pictures of the moon and hopefully Saturn’s rings.

The included smartphone mount is nice, but I don’t have a functional smartphone at the moment. My PinePhone prototype unit might work, but the mount will mess with the power button when lining up the camera properly. Another idea is to rig something with a Raspberry Pi. They’re releasing a new generation after what feels like forever, but I’d need to be careful about exactly what case I pick. I’d want something to accommodate a nice touchscreen and a power bank.

Camera Bracket

My first thought was to get a second cell phone mount and pinch fit the tiny Nicon by the camera lens. The obvious concern here is when the battery runs dry and the lens retracts. I’ve abused a similar vintage camera when it was relatively new, and my guess is it would be fine. Nevertheless this idea evolved into cutting up a pool noodle just right to grip the telescope eyepiece and support the camera.

Guess what! Pool noodles are out of season at the moment. Early on we’d considered using the standardized photography mount somehow, but upon closer inspection, all we’d need is a corner bracket. We considered 3D printing, wood, and even bending a retired road sign we [legally] have as aluminum stock, but a near-perfect steel bracket turned up while chasing down compatible bolts and wing nuts. It just needed the holes enlarged a little.

The bracket ended up going together in a single night as my father and I refined a design that would be safest for both the camera and equipment.

We took the telescope out for a second night. I aimed it at what I thought was Saturn, but turned out to be Jupiter. It clearly picked up the four Galilean moons around it. A real time tracker online informed me that Saturn was below the horizon and that the moon was almost new at the time. I was unable to get the bracket to cooperate and a gentle wind occasionally made it difficult to keep the telescope still.

Takeaway

There is still much to do in getting started with my telescope. I plan on follow up posts in the coming months.

Final Question

Have you ever used any optics to observe the night sky?

I look forward to discussing your answers in the comments below or on my Socials!

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Maintenance: Pacman and Power Supply

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am working on my Upstairs Workstaion. Let’s get started!

Twin Issues Both Alike in Annoyance

Over Black Friday this last November, I picked up a time travel sandbox game called No Time where our main character takes his totally-not-a-DeLorian with a totally-not-a-flux-capacitor on a journey through the history of Pine Island. My Upstairs Workstation struggled to keep up with rendering time portals when I drive [or fly] fast enough, but I made it through the main story [to date] without issue. Fun game, I can recommend it.

While hunting down a few more Steam achievements –however– I started getting sudden power cutoffs followed by the motherboard booting to an warning after a few seconds. It explained how an anti-surge mechanism tripped from a potentially faulty Power Supply Unit (PSU). I dusted it, and the problem went away for a couple weeks, but now it’s back.

While I have at least a couple projects I’ve actively worked on this week, it’s always bad news and top priority when the package manager breaks. I ignored the first issues over Mickey’s Public Domain Day release celebration post, but the second would otherwise get priority 1.

Pacman PGP Key Lockout

I want to install a power diagnostic tool for the PSU, but can’t with Pacman crippled. It took a couple sessions on different days, but I circled back around to a near-perfect description of my problem (but with a different list of keys), which you can read about on the EndeavourOS community forum. Link in Works Cited section [1]. I suspected at first that the keys expired over New Year’s – including one important to re-installing the keyring system, but I’m not curious or annoyed enough yet to find out for sure.

The solution that worked for me was found in a linked FAQ on another thread on the same forum: basically move Pacman’s keys to a backup in root’s home directory and follow a few steps for repopulating them.

Motherboard Crash

Having repaired Pacman, I installed Powertop, but couldn’t figure it out on my own. When I looked it up, I just got more confused. One source even recommended using some other laptop battery utility instead.

My suspect PSU is 650 Watts. Derpy has a PSU rated at 1,000 Watts, so an initial plan was to move that one over, but I also have a 500 Watt PSU that shipped with my sister’s computer, but wasn’t good enough for her system. The big power draws are CPU and GPU. My father and I looked up the ones I’m using, and they totaled in the 300 Watt range, so we installed my sister’s old supply.

A power supply transplant is the single most invasive procedure without needing to change thermal paste. Given the motherboard geometry with the heat sync towering over the CPU, the CPU power connector is tightly wedged into the corner of the case. I used a pair of needle nose pliers to extract it. Installing the new CPU power cord was even more of a hassle. The power cord barely reached as it was and the replacement PSU is a fraction of an inch shorter. Consequently, it took a shortcut across the top of the RAM on its way to the case’s cable management area.

While the PSU was out though, we took the opportunity to re-attach a plastic foot. Originally, it snapped into place, but we installed a screw/washer/nut to match another foot which had similarly undergone repair. At some point, I’d like to get a PSU tester to see what exactly it’s doing that trips my motherboard’s protection.

The new PSU solved the problem. Otherwise, I suspected we’d be looking at a dying graphics card or the possibility of the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) giving an unstable voltage. Worst of all would have been the motherboard frying. All that was left was to refresh some encryption keys from Caddy, as I got that working again, but I still don’t have it fully figured out.

Takeaway

I’m thankful I had that spare part around. Otherwise, I’d be down a machine. In any case, I’ve already got a my month lined up. Hopefully we don’t get any more priority 1 side projects until those are cleared out.

Final Question

What side topics could you get excited about this year?

I look forward to discussing them in the comments below or on my Socials!

Work Cited

[1] points, et. al, “Cannot update due to key errors,” endeavouros.com, Feb. 14, 2023. [Online]. Available:https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/cannot-update-due-to-key-errors/37286 [Accessed Jan. 8, 2024].

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New Year’s 2024! Let’s Talk Public Domain

Good Morning and Happy New Year/Public Domain Day 2024! This is Shadow_8472 and today in the US public domain we welcome original Mickey Mouse along with many other works from 1928. Let’s get started!

The Need for Copyright

Art takes effort to create, but less to copy. We live in a world where the collected works of around 35-40 authors spanning around 1,500 years have been preserved by tens of thousands to millions of scribes, monks, reformers, translators, archaeologists, shepherds, curators, app developers, system admins, and more. The cost of a copy is negligible to the point of free; one could probably squeeze more than a couple million copies onto a 2 Tb external drive sold on Amazon for $10.50. (This figure assumes individually compressed 4.3 Mb files. I did not actually compress a full text Bible as a proof of concept.)

By the same principle, it is similarly trivial to copy and distribute any non-material good. Uncontrolled, it will disincentivize the creation of new works. This is why we have copyright protection so we can enjoy new works.

The Need for Public Domain

Art takes inspiration to create. Somewhere between whatever day you are reading this blog post going back to antiquity is a point where a work’s original creator is long gone and further copyright protection only serves to let the work either fade into irrelevancy or turn into a perpetual income source for the cost of maintaining an archive.

Meanwhile artists wishing to use copyrighted material must either sign a contract with the copyright holder or work in a legal gray zone. To a non-legal expert such as myself, all is fair in this gray zone except directly selling works containing copyrighted content unless the owner bothers stopping it with a cease and desist notice. And if/when it ends up in court, legal experts may explore the possibility it might have been fair use all along.

Some Intellectual Property (IP) holders are chill and consider fan works as unsponsored advertising, while others ruthlessly defend their copyrights to the fullest extent of the law. While the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle estate was bad with Sherlock Holmes’ stories, Disney has been the most ruthless of them all – going so far as to lobby themselves up a total of 40 years of extended protections atop the original 53 entitled to Mickey Mouse. All this was done while ladling stories from the very same public domain they were sabotaging.

Be it from financial troubles, forfeit legal privileges, pressure from social media, or something else, they did not seek another copyright extension, and the public domain finally contains long sought after characters such as Mickey, Minnie, as well as the second of two original storybooks about Whinny the Pooh – releasing Tigger along with it.

Speculation: If Copyright Was Never Extended

The first national copyright law in the US was the Copyright Act of 1790, which came the year after the constitution. It provided up to two 14 year terms of protection assuming the copyright holder was alive to renew within 6 months of an upcoming expiration. Assuming subsequent copyright expanded to cover new technologies beyond maps, charts, or books, aggregated expirations to January 1 in the same way, but never extended the total of this term, what would the next few years look like? Probably too wildly different to explore right now. But suppose they were to snap back instead…

The first thing that comes to my mind is the WINE project. WINE Is Not an Emulator; it’s a compatibility layer that translates Windows programs’ system calls into Linux equivalents on the fly – often for gaming. To skirt copyright, its developers are split into two teams: one team decompiles Windows files and takes notes. The other team uses these notes to re-implement open source files based on these notes without ever having seen the original code.

If copyright lasted 28 years tops, we would be getting Windows 95 into the public domain today. From prior research I might not have posted about, I know DosBox runs early Windows programs just fine until Windows 95 because up until then, it was all a glorified command prompt and backwards compatibility was in its nature. In this scenario, Windows 95 files would be fair game for WINE team 2 to directly use and improve so long as they remove all trademarks. Microsoft would have competition as upset users switch to one of a growing list of forks – both community driven and commercially maintained by 3rd parties. There would be security patches and I’d be surprised if nobody developed a 64 bit version.

In the entertainment industry, people would have a chance to independently retell the original stories they grew up with before old age. Original copyright holders would have to tell a better story if they want the nostalgia money. Meanwhile, fans would have a chance to hire original talent to extend canceled classics. Game devs who originally made works for hire could patch/modernize old code for another generation to enjoy. Comic book fans who have lost loved C-list characters to a disgruntled artist walking off with most of the copyrights could have hope of seeing them restored to the story.

In some ways, this feels a bit like Year of Jubilee stuff God told Israel to observe every 50 years.

Takeaway

Be advised that only the earliest Mickey animations are public domain; his colorization, friends, and details added later are still protected. Furthermore: Mickey Mouse in particular still has a lot of trademark hooks which could render him unusable anyway. My take is that Mickey Mouse has belonged in the public domain for a long time and that trademark ought not smother his use outside brand recognition. I expect legal fireworks in the coming years whose fallout will set precedent for generations to come.

Final Question

Imagine if I were to build a business empire strongly associated with the 500 year old Mona Lisa by Da Vinchi and I became so successful and diversified you’d need to live as a hermit on Mars to get away from me – and even then you would see Mona Lisa branded equipment when shopping for homesteading supplies. Should I be able to claim copyright infringement on someone selling posters of the original painting?

I look forward to debating answers –especially from an opposing viewpoint– in the comments below or on my Socials!

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