Shallow Thoughts
Akkana's Musings on Open Source Computing and Technology, Science, and Nature.
Mon, 22 Apr 2024
My new binocular came! And something curious came with them:
a "tactical pen".
It seems to be quite a nice gel pen, with an aluminum body and a
locking retractor. But the "tactical" part is less clear.
Me | What makes it tactical?
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Dave | Maybe that it's black?
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Me | Tactical is the new black?
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And of course, my mind couldn't help wandering off to explore what might
make the difference between a tactical pen and a strategic pen.
Maybe something about how long the ink reserve lasts?
Or how long it takes to click the clicky retractor thing?
Oh, well, it was free when buying the binocular from B&H,
and it really is a pretty nice pen.
On the binocular:
Read more ...
Tags: humor
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16:06 Apr 22, 2024
More humor |
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Thu, 18 Apr 2024
I mentioned last month that I'm learning guitar. It's been going well
and I'm having fun. But I've gotten to the point where I sometimes get
chords confused: a song is listed as using E major and I play D major
instead.
Also, it's important to practice transitions between chords,
which is easy when you only know three chords; but with eight or so,
I had stopped practicing transitions in general and was only practicing
the ones that occur in songs I like to play.
I found myself wishing I had something like flash cards for guitar chords.
Someone must have already written that, right? But I couldn't find
anything promising with a web search. And besides, it's more fun to
write programs than to flail at unhelpful search engines, and you
always end up learning something new.
Read more ...
Tags: guitar, linux, programming, python, audio
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20:02 Apr 18, 2024
More linux |
permalink to this entry |
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Sat, 13 Apr 2024
I'm sorry, but I have no eclipse photos to share. I messed that up.
But I did get to see totality.
For the April 8, 2024 eclipse, Dave and I committed early to Texas.
Seemed like that was where the best long-range forecasts were.
In the last week before the eclipse, the forecasts were no longer
looking so good. But I've heard so many stories of people driving around
trying to chase holes in the clouds, only to be skunked,
while people who stayed put got a better view.
We decided to stick with our plan, which was to stay in San Angelo
(some 190 miles off the centerline) the night before,
get up fairly early and drive to somewhere near the centerline.
Read more ...
Tags: eclipse, astronomy, photography
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12:36 Apr 13, 2024
More science/astro |
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Wed, 03 Apr 2024
Several years ago I wrote about
Making
a Land Ownership Overlay with QGIS
and Making
Overlay Maps for OsmAnd.
I've been using that land use overlay for years. But recently
I needed to make several more overlays: land ownership for Utah for a
hiking trip, one for the eclipse, and I wanted to refresh my New Mexico
land ownership overlay since it was several years out of date.
It turns out some things have changed, so here's an update,
starting from the point where your intended overlay is loaded
as a layer in QGIS.
Read more ...
Tags: mapping, GIS, qgis, osmand
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18:15 Apr 03, 2024
More mapping |
permalink to this entry |
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Fri, 29 Mar 2024
In 2022 I wrote about
Sending Mail via Gmail using OAuth2.
But it turned out that Google expires OAuth2 tokens on a weekly basis.
So if you use that method, once a week you'll have to bring up a browser,
log in to your Google account and go through the five or so pages of
re-authorizing. Which will invariably happen when you're in a hurry
and just wanted to send a quick email so you can move on to other things.
However, it turns out there's an easier way, which apparently doesn't
expire: App passwords. I switched to using app passwords back then
(I've been using that app password since then),
and I even wrote it up, and then forgot to post it. What a dingbat!
But I changed my GMail password recently, and it turns out when you change
your Gmail account password, Google revokes all app passwords you've
set up (and, of course, doesn't bother to tell you that, and the
error message you get when you try to sign in with the old app password
has nothing whatever to do with the actual problem, which is that your
app password has been revoked and you need to create a new one).
So I dug out this old never-got-posted article and used it to
make a new app password, and have updated the parts that were a little
out of date.
Read more ...
Tags: email, mutt, gmail
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20:32 Mar 29, 2024
More tech/email |
permalink to this entry |
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Sat, 23 Mar 2024
I mentioned before that I'm taking beginner guitar lessons.
Justin recommends using a
metronome for some of the practicing, and that makes sense:
I notice that sometimes when I practice I try to go too fast,
which might or might not be good for learning the chord changes
but it also leads to more mistakes and worse chord quality.
There are probably lots of phone metronome apps,
but I'm usually practicing near my computer (where I watch
the lessons and where I keep all my notes on chords and rhythms for
particular songs), so I thought it would be nice to have a metronome
on Linux.
Read more ...
Tags: guitar, music, cmdline, linux
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18:37 Mar 23, 2024
More linux |
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Mon, 18 Mar 2024
(This is a followup to
Upgrading
an Old 1-1/4" Cannondale to a Modern 1-1/8" Fork.)
After
installing
a new headset and fork on my mountain bike,
I slid the stem onto the new steerer tube, cinched it up, tightened the
top bolt and went for a test ride.
It tested out fine, but the way I'd installed it was exactly wrong,
and I didn't realize it until I did some more reading.
It turns out cinching down a threadless headset requires a step
that's not at all obvious if you don't know any better.
Or at least it wasn't obvious to me.
Read more ...
Tags: bike
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10:52 Mar 18, 2024
More bike |
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Fri, 15 Mar 2024
My (beloved) mountain bike is an old 1993 Cannondale M700, which I've
customized fairly heavily over the years. I know people say the
new (enormous, heavy) mountain bikes are more capable, but I'm
not convinced. I've ridden Dave's new Specialized and while it's
a nice bike (and I love the modern trend of an 11-speed cassette
with a single-speed front), it's heavy and slow-steering and honestly,
it didn't tempt me to replace the Cannondale.
But one thing about the 'dale that could definitely use replacing:
the fork.
Read more ...
Tags: bike
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16:48 Mar 15, 2024
More bike |
permalink to this entry |
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