Shallow Thoughts : : Nov

Shared Folder in QEMU Between Linux Host and Windows Guest

Update: I have found a much easier way, using QEMU's built-in Samba. See QEMU Windows Guest: Sharing Files with the Host.

Unexpectedly, one of the hardest parts of Migrating a VirtualBox Windows Virtual Machine to qemu/kvm/virt-manager was finding a way to exchange files between Linux and Windows. In virtualbox, setting up a shared folder is trivial. In QEMU, not so much.

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Lizard Hunter

This is the first of two baby fence lizards that got into the house in the last few weeks. I guess I can't really blame them: it's getting cold outside, even for an endotherm.

It's funny how we always start seeing lots of baby lizards when the weather seems like it's getting too cold for reptiles to be out and about. Maybe the little ones just haven't learned yet that they should find a nice burrow to wait out the winter.

We usually capture spiders and crickets in the house with a cup and card, and escort them outside. But lizards are a lot harder to capture than spiders. Even with cooperative hunting — Dave holds the cup and sneaks up on the lizard while I try to herd the lizard toward him — lizards are fast, and there are so many possible hiding places.

This lizard didn't duck under the cabinets, the hole you can see in the photo. Instead it went the other direction and dove into the heater vent. We pulled the vent cover and left a little ramp so the lizard could get back up easily; later in the day, we found it, caught it and escorted it outside. As we did the second lizard (assuming it was a different one), a few days later.

I hope they've found a nice place to hibernate.

Action Camera Comparison Videos for Mountain Biking

I've long been wanting an "action camera" to shoot mountain biking, and maybe R/C plane, videos.

Last week I ordered an Akaso V50x. Everybody seems to agree that Akaso offers the best bang-for-the-buck, but choosing among Akaso's large and varied collection of models isn't easy, especially since there aren't many comparisons between the V50 line and the Brave line. The V50x was well-liked by most reviewers, and gets high praise for its digital stabilization ("6-axis", which apparently means three axes of translation plus three gyro-driven rotation axes).

I worried, though, that all the sample V50X videos I found on YouTube were severely underexposed, and I had written it off my list until I stumbled upon a review that listed all the V50x Settings options and I learned it offers exposure compensation (which it calls "Exposure value").

In the few days I've had the Akaso I've been fairly impressed. The stabilization is indeed very good — if anything, it's almost too good,

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Limiting Battery Charge on a Lenovo Carbon X1

Ever since I got my Lenovo Carbon X1, I've wished there was some way to limit the battery charge. I keep it plugged in to a USB hub and external monitor most of the time, which means that the battery is at 100% for weeks on end. That isn't particularly good for lithium ion batteries: it's better for battery life to stop charging at around 80%.

Lots of laptops, including Dells and Apples, have a charge limit feature in their BIOS, but I searched through the CX1's BIOS several times and never found anything, so I'd resigned myself.. But just this week I accidentally stumbled on a way to set this at runtime!

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Fun With Little Bikes

I wrote in midsummer about the fun Dave and I were having on our Lectric ebikes. We've been riding the Lectrics most days for errand running and jaunts across town, and it's gotten us back into pedalling our regular mountain bikes again, too.

But then one day a big box showed up on the doorstep. Dave had been lusting after a different sort of ebike: a Jackrabbit.

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