I own one of the best gaming laptops you can buy. I have owned it for a year and played less than 10 hours of games on it. Ah well, such is life. But while I currently use the GPU power to run neural nets, it used to be I did play games. Indeed, I […]
A Civilized Life: An Essay on Growing Up Playing Civilization Read More »
While cleaning to move, an old PS3Eye – a webcam for the PS3, was found. Turns out this little device has a 640*480 camera and 4-microphone array that have made it popular for DIY’ers for making motion trackers, virtual Alexa-style assitants, and so on with Raspberry Pi’s. It’s pretty much plug and play. I’ve got
Just one more piece to the Pi… Read More »
It can be difficult, as an absentee farmer, to really have a good idea of what is going on with everything that is being managed. Now true, my parents are about to retire and stay at the farm full-time, but I won’t be doing so myself any time soon. There’s also just something weird about
Logging Weather, Solar, and Sensor Data for a Smart(er) IoT Farm Read More »
Having spent quite a bit of time messing around with a Raspberry Pi, where it took hours just to get a few temperature probes running, it was refreshing to have a nice, made for consumer object like setting up the weather station: an AmbientWeather Osprey 2902. I chose this station because the company provides more
Weather Station Setup Read More »
My first Youtube video in 4K! Flying a high quality drone is wicked fun. It’s fast, responsive, and really quite easy to do. I got into drones for the photography, but now I can also see the allure of drone racing and hobbyist RC pilots -it’s just so fun to fly. I started flying drones
Deadly Winds, Diving-Bombing Birds, and the Challenges of Flying a Drone Abroad Read More »
With my plans to expand my propogation of plant cuttings for operations like building a hedge, I built a mist bed to start them in. Well, I haven’t installed the actual mist heads yet, just the sand bed. I’m a bit behind posting, more engaged with doing projects than sharing them. Construction was quite simple,
I somehow failed to take and upload any pictures of my cold frame in operation, so here have a stock photo of a similar one. Mine, however, was placed high up on our ‘fortress’ raised bed, exposed to winds. Cold frames have a long history as an agricultural tool to expand the growing season, in
Cold Frames Need Insulation/Wind Protection: Measuring the Benefits of a Cold Frame Read More »
Curious what a prairie looks like just over a month after planting? The soil quality variation across the site can be clearly seen here in the plant growth (best soil variable, generally to the right). The mammoth grey stripe sunflowers I planted are the only plants that were immediately identifiable. The rest is mostly… grass.
Prairie Update and Gossip Read More »
For the last four and a half years, I have kept a diary recording my daily thoughts and activities of note. During this time, I also have been posting frequent records to more 21st century data stores: to Strava, using Google (Calendar, YouTube, Search, Maps, etc. which data history can be accessed through Google Takeout),
Setting Up a Personal Journal Database Read More »
It was a busy weekend at the farm, with native prairie planting, this, starting vegetable seeds, and other farm chores (including messing around with a new wifi network via cell data network, so far unsuccessfully). One of the tasks was to start the apple rootstock and scionwood I had received (purchased back in November for
Grafting Apple Trees and Starting Grape Cuttings Read More »
