Rick's b.log - entry 2012/05/30

Just done my tax form

I still have to put aside around €700 towards the end of the year for land/property taxes. That's not so nice.

Beagle still not barking

So the plan is as follows. Joe is kindly sending me a microSD to try. I will run my board from a computer PSU (most likely my A3000's power supply) which ought to have enough juice to get the thing going. I will power up with Joe's card inserted. If it works, it suggests a corruption of both of my cards (odd, given the second card was formatted and with the official Angstrom distro imaged onto it - several times over!).
And if it doesn't work, it suggests a hardware problem. Which, frankly, is looking more likely given some of the quirks I recall from the past. It is possible that the kernel panic is a symptom rather than a cause?

In this case, I will request an RMA and send it back home. Joe has offered to do a swapsy for his, which is a kind offer, but if something really is wrong, it would surely be better to get it fixed or replaced, no? I know Joe reads my blog, so I'm sure if he (dis)agrees, he'll comment...

For now, I can do nothing except quietly sulk. It was magical to see a RISC OS machine going that fast. I never, ever, thought I'd experience the OS running at 1GHz. It was... pretty awesome.
And I'll make you a promise. When I get a working Beagle, I will set up RISC OS and I will run RISC OS and Linux can go take a running jump. I think Linux knows I don't like it much, and it obviously feels the same about me. No loss, playing with Linux was just for fun. It was RISC OS that I intended to set to work with...

Look on the bright side - for all of you waiting for your RaspberryPis, at least I'll shut up about the Beagle for a while. ☺

Vide genier

Mom got a Japanese stitchwork picture for me (€10). Here's a photo of it:

It is a beautiful thing, stitched in silk and metallic thread in long stitch. Here's a closeup to show the level of detail:

A little further on, a woman wanted €20 for a 17" flat-screen monitor. She said it works, though vide greniers are always caveat emptor. It, sadly, does not accept DVI (for the Beagle), but it takes analogue VGA-style so I could get rid of the assortment of crappy CRTs around.
Sorry, I said, I only have fifteen with me holding up a ten and a five.
Sorry, she replied, I guess I'll have to let it go for fifteen.

Here's the lovely zombie girl Sanka Rea:

I'm sure you're getting an idea of where I might find a use for this monitor. Imagine animé films...

Your comments:

Please note that while I check this page every so often, I am not able to control what users write; therefore I disclaim all liability for unpleasant and/or infringing and/or defamatory material. Undesired content will be removed as soon as it is noticed. By leaving a comment, you agree not to post material that is illegal or in bad taste, and you should be aware that the time and your IP address are both recorded, should it be necessary to find out who you are. Oh, and don't bother trying to inline HTML. I'm not that stupid! ☺ ADDING COMMENTS DOES NOT WORK IF READING TRANSLATED VERSIONS.
 
You can now follow comment additions with the comment RSS feed. This is distinct from the b.log RSS feed, so you can subscribe to one or both as you wish.

joe, 31st May 2012, 08:27

Hi Rick,  can't you claim your laundry expenses, for washing work clothes? We can do it, something like $0.50 a load, twice a week is like $100, you'll get 30 to 40% back.  If this Japanese thing is real Japanese, it might be worth much, much more.  Yes I am still willing to send you my Beagleboard xM, I'm an optimist and I don't think the swap would be necessary, besides we have DigiKeys her, just around the corner.

Rick, 3rd June 2012, 03:38

Due to sterility/hygiene, washing stuff is contracted out. Some days, the girls come out of work looking like they'd just done mud wrestling in a vat of chocolate (hmmm, pervy!) so washing that muck in a domestic appliance would kill it in short order.    I'm always a little upset when I see something that took a lot of work being flogged off for pennies. There was a cross-stitch that somebody bought. Looked like a famous painting, though I don't recall which, and it must have been over a metre wide. A real labour of passion if you think a stitch is maybe 2mm or so across. The woman that bought it paid TWO euros. WTF?    Okay, okay, it'll be in the mail soon! ;-) I'd like to be an optimist, but I'm of British descent. <rotfl>

Add a comment (v0.11) [help?] . . . try the comment feed!
		Your name
		Your email	(optional)
		Validation	Are you real? Please type 97305 backwards.
		Your comment