Rick's b.log - entry 2024/08/11

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FYI! Last read at 18:11 on 2024/11/21.

Shattered

I got up at 11am this morning. Actually, I got up at six, fed kitty, made a tea, then went back to bed.
In my defence, I was up until something like 3am.

For the stupidest reason.

My satellite receiver, when you press REC, will set a default timeout of two hours on whatever is being recorded. You can press REC again and enter a custom time, so it's not as if you're limited to two hours.

Unfortunately, when setting a scheduled recording, it's about fifty fifty as to whether it will obey the times given, or whether it will start when scheduled and stop exactly on the two hour mark.
This is clearly a bug, but, hey, there's not really much point in having something with upgradable firmware if there isn't any such thing...

Resurrecting that old Pi 1

I found an old SD card that said "Pi1" on it, so I popped it into the Pi 1 and booted.

Nothing. Well, not quite, the drive LED flickered and then nothing.

I put the SD card into an adaptor and fed it into my phone. The CONFIG.TXT file was making reference to SDTV, so it was trying to use the composite video output. No wonder the little HDMI screen wasn't working!
After fixing that, I got RISC OS to appear on-screen. I had set the output to 720p which didn't really work with the 3.5" screen. It showed the picture but it was unreadable. So I swapped over to the 7" screen that I use with the satellite receiver.

The firmware was ancient old, like 2013 or so, but I was able to coax it into recognising a network connection and sharing the disc.
I moved the previous firmware and OS into a directory called previous and copied across the firmware and OS ROM that I had on the 3B+.
I should add that this was a little more fiddly than it should have been as RISC OS depends heavily on a mouse, and I only had the one. There is another mouse around, but I didn't spot it on the scant few minutes I looked while waiting for the kettle to boil. Priorities.

After rebooting, it failed at start: Support for RISC OS version 520 is missing - reinstall !Boot
I added a quick hack to trick the system into thinking that I was running an older version of RISC OS. It then booted without problem, only for some reason networking was broken. I figured that it may be due to the old version of Boot, so I popped the SD card again and put it into my phone. I downloaded the self-extracting Harddisc4 and copied it to the SD card. This meant I had to delete the previous OS and firmware, but that was okay as the new one was running correctly.

It was extracted to RAMdisc and copied across. Quite a lot of stuff failed to copy having been set as Protected, so I had to change access rights to a lot of stuff (like Maestro and MemNow, what?) and try again.

Finally to set up ShareFS again... only... it could only see a Serial adaptor. Interesting that shows up given that I have no such thing. What it didn't see was EtherUSB. I opened a TaskWindow and looked. No EtherUSB. Huh? Oh, facepalm time, all of that stuff was unplugged because on the 3B+ I was running the RODev stack.
A few RMReInits later, all was good. I didn't need to configure anything, after a reboot it all started working correctly.

I added an entry to Choices.Boot.Tasks called _DropKick that says this:

Key11 Run $.Drop.!Run|M
IfThere $.Drop.!Run Then Filer_Run $.Drop.!Run

What this does is set F11 to run the Run file, so I can get the application running quickly by pressing F12 for the command line, then F11 to run the thing.
Then, if there is an application (within $.Drop), then it will be automatically started at boot. The use of Filer_Run rather than Obey is to allow the boot to complete and return to the Desktop before invoking the application.

Finally, I set the Pi to use 480×320 natively (using the hdmi_cvt setting) and then made a few ModeFile with 480×320 for RISC OS to use, so the little LCD was being used at native resolution rather than the Pi resizing whatever RISC OS was using to 720p and the screen resizing that to its own 320p. It's a bit comic, as that's a really tiny resolution, but it works. Still, I'm not intending to use this device for anything other than a specific purpose.

This might sound a bit weirdly complicated, but it is for a very specific reason. I can create the code on the 3B+ and when I want to see how it looks on the real hardware, I can push it over using ShareFS and then just press F12 then F11 (or reboot) to have it do this...

The old Pi 1 with a 3.5 inch display.

With careful adjustment of the positions and offsets, I can get a nice 31 characters on 15 lines using 20 point Corpus.
18 point Corpus can expand that to 36 characters on 17 lines, but being smaller it may prove to be harder to read, so I'll stick with 20 point.

The green text was printed character by character. The yellow text at the bottom was printed as a string. Obviously it's important that they match...

I have also Leo White's MouseKey module. It works fine on the 3B+ but crashes the Filer on the Pi 1. Very odd. But I can't be arsed to try to work out why.

I've spent a few hours and a couple of mugs of tea on that, so let's look at something else now. It's stupid hot outside now. It was the upper half of the 20s yesterday, it's 31°C today. I feel like I ought to throw magnetic sun symbols while yelling Scorchio!

The value of shopping

As a comment yesterday, David Pilling said:

There was the checkout free Amazon store, where they used cameras and AI to tell what was in your truck. Story that it was actually people watching who decided what you'd put in your truck.

Yes, all of the AI and tech is the lame hallucinatory rubbish it has always been. The smart checkouts were actually videos watched by hundreds of employees in India; which sometimes made mistakes (but likely less than actual AI would have). I guess Amazon decided it wasn't worth the trouble...

To be honest, I wouldn't go near a Just Walk Out store. There's far too much left to chance.

For me, as an introvert, the ideal sweet spot is self-scan shopping. I can do my usual shopping and I don't need to interact with anybody (except the few random times when The System wants to check my scanning was correct). I have a running total of what my shopping is costing me, and finally once I pass the checkout (which is usually just handing over my scanner and then paying), everything is concluded. I won't have some random payment deducted at some random time later.

The danger with places like Amazon is that there is a total disconnect between bank and bounty. When you go shopping, you have tangible things in your hand and you pay money (in whatever form). Going to the shops carries an implicit budget. How much you want to spend, how much you can spend, what you need, what you'd like (but don't need). Shopping is an assault on the senses (moreso for us neurodivergents), all designed to get you to spend more. The idea of a shop where you can run in, grab some stuff, and dash back out? That is turning shopping into a giant impulse buy, and removing the logical and analytical part of the mind from the process. It's a deeply cynical attempt to extract more cash from you, but what else should we expect from the company that flirted with little smart "Dash buttons" and introduced the one-click purchase to their website. It's all about the sales, and the ruthless efficiency to help Bezos flirt with spacey stuff, which might be important now that more and more people are realising what a complete twat Musk is.

Oh, and one piece of advice I'll give. I believe it's an EU rule that shops should display the prices of things according to a standardised appropriate measure, like "per litre" or "per kilogram". I don't know if this made it to the UK or not, but if it did it is worth looking carefully at the price of multipacks... and if not, just divide the price by the weight. Your granny will probably tell you that it pays to buy in bulk. Well, once upon a time when the girls in Sainburys wore brown uniforms that made them look almost like nurses, yes, buying a 16 pack of toilet paper or several bags of sugar taped together would have made you a saving. But vendors are aware of this now and all too often the larger sizes are not good value for money, so it pays to look at the pack. For instance, a 500g pack of rice pudding is more per gram than a four pack of 125g rice puddings, despite getting the same amount plus more plastic waste.

Olympics 2024

As I write this, having done a bunch of random things not worth writing about here, I'm watching the closing ceremony of the Olympics. They have done a really good job to hold the contest throughout the landmarks of Paris, rather than within the confines of an expensive custom stadium.
Of course, France being France, they're not going to do things in any traditional way. The opening musical piece was imagining what might happen if some faraway intelligent civilisation discovers the gold disc that was sent into space ages ago...and tries to understand the long gone civilisation known as humanity. Well, that's heavy on the melacholy, isn't it? And, of course, there's going to be something really off the wall along the way, and indeed they didn't disappoint with a bloke playing the piano. No ordinary bloke playing the piano, this one was floating through the air vertically in a worryingly precarious manner. Because, you know, a bloke sitting at a piano on a stage is just so boringly traditional. Elton John did it. Billy Joel did it. Tori Amos did it with two pianos back to back (showoff! ☺). So they need to raise the bar and do it in improbable style.

Tonight, thankfully, it was good weather. Warm. Summery. Mosquitoes. Beats the pouring rain, doesn't it?

I dunno. I can't help but think in terms of opening and closing ceremonies, the Brits did it better in 2012. I'm not saying that because I'm a Brit, but because it was a massive celebration of everything that was British. Which, I'm sure, much of the rest of the world was confused and befuddled by the nurses and Kate Bush (before Stranger Things made her famous all over again) and a giant inflatable octopus. I was, I guess, hoping for something really really French - and I don't mean endless shots of a light show on the Eiffel Tower. Where were the dancing croissants? The playful Brie? How about breakdancing bottles of wine? In fact, come to think of it, where were Les Phryges? I've seen them more on the post van that comes by every once in a while than on the TV.

The Mayor of Paris has just handed the flag over to the Mayor of Los Angeles, the next host. As expected, there's somebody called "Her" doing a completely overwrought rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Now enter Tom Cruise diving down from the roof and land in amongst team USA, because...why the hell not? And, in Cruise style, he's off on a bike, without a helmet. And now a bunch of pre-recorded over the top segments to get the flag to America. Which leaves only one question:

Dear France, how did the Americans manage to steal your show in a mere few minutes?

And for dinner?

Well, I'd better go cook some pasta so I've had more to eat today than cake. Because cake with lots of tea is nice but it's not exactly a balanced diet. So I feel I should add transformed wheat flower with less sugar. Actually, I have pieces of wild salmon with a white onion sauce (a frozen thing) to put on the pasta, but I'm torn between whether I should have penne rigate (tubes) or farfalle (bow ties). I have already procrastinated this important decision for hours, which is why I'm going to be eating after midnight rather than hours ago like I should have.

Anyway, I want to get this uploaded before midnight so it can carry today's date, so I'll leave you with cake, and please excuse typos.

The cake is not a lie.

Your comments:

John, 12th August 2024, 10:53

The sprinkles spoil the cake for me. It reminds me that a round sponge cost one and thruppence at the grocers when I were a lad.

The same price as a boy's haircut at Fred the Barber's. I remember how outraged my father was when the haircut went up to one and six! IIRC that was when he decided to have a go himself and my hair turned curly in protest!

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

David Pilling, 12th August 2024, 12:34

I thought the Paris Olympics was good overall. No disasters. Closing ceremony was a bit tedious. What sticks in the memory, from London, the Queen/James Bond skit, NHS and industrial revolution scenes and the rock music closing ceremony. I don't recall anything from Tokyo, and from China the birds nest stadium. Probly the river pageant will be something to remember from France. From LA 84, the rocket pack man. From Atlanta the pickup truck parade.

Big article in the Telegraph today about shops getting rid of self service checkouts (aimed at their readers feelings).

Prices - shops do put per kg etc but it is often not easy to compare - because whilst one thing is in per kg, the alternative will be per 100 g (not the hardest conversion but gives the idea). Then they will have offers and not put the price per unit for the offer price. Change may be coming because last week Tesco or wherever had priced up offer and non-offer prices.

There is an AI Pi5, in the adverts people train it to recognise things, smart larder base maybe. I mean packets are designed to be recognisable, that's why at Aldi you can pick things out despite them being Aldi own brand, just because they look vaguely like the branded item. What's yellow, bananas and Wheetabix.

Rick, 12th August 2024, 15:06

John: Conversely, the sprinkles make it for me. Texture. Important.

I cut my own hair these days. Given my hair is always a mess, it's not as if I can make it much worse. Plus I have it cut more or less as I want and not as some random person thinks will do. And, of course, I save money (as hair cuts are expensive these days).

Notalgia? Walnut Whip and Creme Egg. 'nuff said.

David: I can but imagine the massive police operation going on in the background. Given what is going on in the world, in particular the ruins of Gaza, I'm surprised some brainwashed dickhead didn't try to do something. Well, maybe they did and the Rozzers got them before anybody got harmed?

That's exactly what I meant about the London Olympics, plenty of memorable "Very British" things. The French closing ceremony seemed to go more for peculiar artistry. There's a town not so far away, just a little bit above Châteabriant, that puts on a show called the Étincelles Aquatiques (Water Sparkles?), which looks like a similar sort of ambience.
https://www.etincelles-aquatiques.org/

I don't think anybody remembered Tokyo, sadly. It was during the pandemic and, well, the top of the page says it's currently the 1626th of March 2020. ;)

For me, I think the main thing to take from France this time was the complete game changer of hosting the entire thing at famous locations in Paris. Like, don't bother watching whatever those people are doing, check out that architecture!

I see your shops aren't entirely following the rules. They are supposed to use standardised units (kg/litre) to enable direct comparisons. Using differing measurements allows for a lot of trickery. Plus, over here, ALL prices must carry this information - so special value signs will say something like "BUY 2 GET 1 FREE" (that's the most France will allow after the Nutella Riots) and in small print it'll say the price individually, the price for all three, and the price per whatever for all three.
I was thinking less of special offers and more about multipacks and larger sized ("family size") packs being poor value for money.

I fear that my fancy AI Pi5 would be unable to correctly recognise a pack of Starbucks hot chocolate because it is brown... just like it does with people.
Generally, I find AI useful for creating interesting images (I'm currently playing with the "Genie Anime AI" app which has loads of adverts but can, with the right prompts, create some decent images - that's the one that made the skydiving photos in the 2024/03/20 entry.

David Pilling, 12th August 2024, 15:34

We now have armed police at every local gathering - e.g. this weekend's Blackpool Air Show - few 100 people on the promenade.

Of course Munich Olympics memorable for terror attack.

Nutella riot, they must be nuts 8-(

Rick, 13th August 2024, 15:53

I should add, what the hell was up with the Olympics sound mix on the BBC?

jgh, 14th August 2024, 01:19

Most items in the UK are labelled per {weight}, with some mental juggling needed when it's either per kg or per 100g. But, annoying, some are labelled per item. I don't care that this bag of potatoes is 45p each, I want to know how they compare with the bag next to them labelled 85p per kg. And the jam tarts at 125p for six vs the apple pies at 145p for six.... six of how much???? It is often quite an effort to actually work out how much actual qualtity of product their is in a box - sometimes I have to calculate using "calories per 100g" vs "calories per pie" labels because there no actual rassenfrassen actual weight on the box. Let me rummage in the recycling...

Ah ha, here we are: 6 Mr Kipling Viennese Whirls. Yeah, ok, what's that in actual quantity of mouth-stuff? Scans entire box. No weight anywhere. Ok. 496kcal per 100g, 133kcal per whirl. Riiiighttt....

Ok. 133kcal/496kcal * 100g. 26.8g. Ok, that sounds like I've got the calculation the right way around. That's about one ounce. Sounds about right for a single biscuit. So, six ounces or 160g for 145p.

And then do something similar with what I'm comparing it with.

In my head standing in the shop I'd have done something like 133/496... 133/500... 133/5... pictures blocks of 25 in my head getting to 125... bit too small, add on five more 1s, gets to 130. Ok, call it 26g. Waddayamean kids don't get taught this?

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