|
|
|
Saturday, 1 February 2025 | Dereel | Images for 1 February 2025 |
Top of page | ||
next day | ||
last day |
Vitamin B₆ again
|
Topic: health, opinion | Link here |
My investigations into Vitamin B₆ have been interesting. While I don't think that there is any cause for concern, do I really need the magnesium supplement in the first place? My recollection was that I started taking it after the results of my DEXA test 2 years ago. And since then I have been feeling less active. One of the symptoms described here is “lack of muscle control...”. Is that what I had two years ago, only slightly later? Could it be related? But the Mayo Clinic article goes on to mention ataxia, definitely not what I have.
Just to confuse the issue, it seems that I was taking magnesium supplements 7½ years ago. I'm pretty sure that I stopped in between, but I don't recall any issues then.
Trump causes heart problems
|
Topic: health, politics, opinion | Link here |
Today Yvonne pointed me at this video, on Facebook of course. It shows signs of having been published elsewhere, but I can't find it. <conspiracy-theory>Could it have been removed?</conspiracy-theory> It's quite interesting: it was published just after the US elections, but it describes almost exactly what Donald Trump is now doing to establish power and become a dictator. Once again I'm wondering how resilient the US democracy is, and whether some important US government building will be seriously damaged in about 3 weeks' time.
But it worries Yvonne. For the first time in nearly 3 weeks she has tachycardia again. Bloody Trump! As if he hadn't done enough other damage.
Wikipedia Library
|
Topic: technology, general | Link here |
Tidying up my notifications on Wikipedia, I found a 3 year old note: “Congratulations! You are now eligible for The Wikipedia Library".
What's that? “an open research hub, a place for active Wikipedia editors to gain access to the vital reliable sources that they need to do their work and to be supported in using those resources to improve the encyclopedia”. That sounds interesting, but I'll have to put it off until I can investigate in more detail.
Tailor-made spam
|
Topic: technology | Link here |
Yet Another scam email today trying to steal my email password (what's that?). But this one was tailored to an address that should never have seen the light of day:
<div>
<div><p style="font-size: larger;"><span style="font-weight:300;font-style: italic;">Hydra</span><span style="font-weight: 600;">Mail</span></p>
<p>Hi Grog</p>
<p>Please note grog@hydra.lemis.com authentication expires 01 February, 2025.</p>
<p><table><tr><td style="background-color: cornflowerblue;color: white;padding:5px 7px;border-radius: 3px;"><a style="color:white;text-decoration: none;" href="https://ipfs.io/ipfs/Qma8kStn7DAiwSWLoPeQRBU1GBEWSUDSLQbKkVb16TJoDd/#grog@hydra.lemis.com">Continue</a></td></tr></table></p>
<p>Please continue to keep or change your password.</p>
<p></p>
Regards,<br>
Hydra Mail </div>
</div>
</div>
I like the “Hydra Mail”. Not so https://ipfs.io/ipfs.
More fisheye fun
|
Topic: photography, technology, opinion | Link here |
Spent some time today investigating the panoramas that I took yesterday with the 7Artisans 4 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens. There were surprises. The project files that I created with my mkpto script were completely broken, presumably because of incorrect assumptions that it makes. In particular, it didn't know the focal length of the lens: it has no electronics, and the other fisheyes report the length.
OK, use the Hugin GUI. Here the three images that it had to merge:
|
|
When I loaded them into the GUI, I got:
|
What's that? It was consistent: the second image had this fleur-de-lis crop. It didn't matter which image it was, just the second to be loaded. I could add the image again, and it would work, but I wasn't able to come close to stitching a panorama.
OK, try de-fishing. I had done this before with sample images, and the results are acceptable if not good. Today I did some playing around with the first images I took:
|
|
|
|
That's better, but nowhere close to good. I need to follow up on other defishers.
In passing, came across this strangeness:
![]() |
|
Where does it get that angle of view from? According to my field of view program, a 4 mm fisheye lens has a (theoretical) horizontal field of view of 247.8°. It can't be assuming rectilinear; then it would be 130.4°. So where did it get the value from? Could that be part of the problem?
While pondering that, I saw this:
![]() |
|
That's correct! Well, close enough. But that's the same lens, and the supplied parameters are the same. Could it be that I have messed up the Exif data?
Sunday, 2 February 2025 | Dereel | Images for 2 February 2025 |
Top of page | ||
previous day | ||
next day | ||
last day |
Still more fisheye fun
|
Topic: photography, technology | Link here |
Spent some more time trying to stitch the panoramas I shot with my 7Artisans 4 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens. I failed.
After some consideration, it seems that the problem lies with the incorrect angle of view calculation that I saw yesterday. And the Exif data causes the problem: images that don't contain a focal length result in a popup that asks for the focal length and may calculate the angle of view correctly as a result. If the focal length is in the Exif data, it doesn't need to, but it seems to calculate the incorrect angle of view. It also assumes a rectilinear lens.
How can I fix that? I could change the lens type, but I couldn't find anything that would allow me to specify the field of view. Where is it stored? I recall something about a lens database. There!
=== grog@hydra (/dev/pts/32) ~/Photos/20250131 3014 -> l ~/.hugindata/
-rw-r--r-- 1 grog lemis 94.208 19 Jan. 13:21 camlens.db=== grog@hydra (/dev/pts/32) ~/Photos/20250131 3016 -> sqlite3 ~/.hugindata/camlens.db
sqlite> .tables
CameraCropTable LensCropTable TCATable
DistortionTable LensHFOVTable VignettingTable
EMORTable LensProjectionTable
sqlite> select * from LensProjectionTable;
OLYMPUS M.8mm F1.8|2
OLYMPUS M.12-200mm F3.5-6.3|0
Pixel 8 Pro back camera 18.0mm f/2.8|2
LUMIX G 20/F1.7|0
NIKON|COOLPIX L1|0
sqlite>
No mention of the 7Artisans lens. But of course not: it was last modified on 19 January. But what a lot of other junk in there! Nikon Coolpix L1. “Pixel 8 Pro”. Where did that come from? And the copy on eureka contained hundreds of duplicates. Still, not what I'm looking for. I really don't know what I am looking for. Time to ask for help.
Stuffed capsicum and courgettes
|
Topic: food and drink, opinion | Link here |
It's been nearly 9 years since we last cooked “filled vegetables”, typically aubergine, capsicum and courgettes. Somehow the filling wasn't as tasty as I liked, and today I made significant improvements, mainly more herbs:
|
Kangaroos
|
Topic: animals | Link here |
We've seen evidence of a lot of kangaroos in the garden, but we don't see many animals. Today Yvonne saw a couple, only 10 m from the verandah door:
|
|
|
Monday, 3 February 2025 | Dereel → Ballarat → Dereel | Images for 3 February 2025 |
Top of page | ||
previous day | ||
next day | ||
last day |
Evil Bill Gates!
|
Topic: politics, general, opinion | Link here |
This morning Yvonne showed me an article on Facebook: 11 years Bill Gates recommended vaccinations to reduce world population. Bad Bill Gates!
Huh? That doesn't make sense. But she believed it. All the post showed was somebody holding a newspaper clipping with some similar claim. Where's the backup information? Off to check and came up with many results, in particular a screenshot of the article, with this quote:
![]() |
|
According to the image, the article appeared in the 4th edition of the “Sovereign Independent”, a publication so obscure that Google can't find it. But it has a domain name: sovereignindependent.com. And that currently belongs to a domain squatter. So not surprisingly, it's a hoax. But it's sad that Yvonne believed it.
Corymbia ficifolia in flower
|
Topic: gardening | Link here |
I've been keeping an eye on my Corymbia ficifolia, which should be flowering now. It's been a dry start to the year, no rain at all for the last 3 weeks, but last night we got 9 mm rain. And bang! the buds flowered:
|
|
The dry lawn in the first image show how bad things are.
More cardiology
|
Topic: health | Link here |
Unexpected phone call for Yvonne today at 10:00: Can you be at St John of God at 12:00 to speak with Professor Peter Kistler?
She originally had had an appointment with him tomorrow, but that had been postponed until next week. But given the experience of the past couple of days, it was welcome. Only: 2 hours, including breakfast and travel. Can we do it later? Yes, 13:30 would do too, so we took that.
Took along the KardiaMobile 6L and phone with the readings in the hope that the ECG nurse would help explain things to me. But no, she knew of them, but had apparently never seen one, and she was also not able to help interpret the readings, though she did uncover a history function that made viewing the ECGs marginally easier. “Show it to Peter, he likes that sort of thing”.
And so it was. I said “here's our toy ECG device”, and he replied “I like that kind of toy”, and spent some time looking at the results of the weekend. Only he wasn't able to help me understand the ECGs. It seems that the only use is to show them to specialists.
He confirmed that the recovery from November's ablation was not what he had hoped—in some cases it can take up to 6 weeks for symptoms to decline, but the New Year was the latest for that scenario. It seems that up to 20% of such ablations require further treatment. So she'll need another ablation, of a different kind. I forgot to note the term, but it could be pulsed field ablation. And that will happen Real Soon Now, probably later this month. And there, too, there's a 10% risk that it won't be the last.
One interesting insight is what the long-term effects of atrial fibrillation are. As long as it's not continuous, it doesn't have an overly dangerous effect on the heart; the real danger is a stroke. But the apixaban prevents that. Me: “Does it prevent them completely or mainly?”. Peter: ”For you, I would say mainly”. I think he has recognized me.
Tuesday, 4 February 2025 | Dereel → Ballarat → Dereel | Images for 4 February 2025 |
Top of page | ||
previous day | ||
next day | ||
last day |
Dentist again
|
Topic: health | Link here |
Into town to see Mario Cordioli, the dentist, today. As I feared, it looks as if he will need to remove the Bernd Doroschan monument, the bridge that has caused so much trouble over the years. That will happen next month.
A new car?
|
Topic: general | Link here |
While in town, took a look at a used car lot that Leigh had recommended. Not encouraging. Apart from the fact that he had nothing that I would consider, the prices were astronomical. Eleven years ago I bought my current Hyundai Elantra for $4,750. It was built in 2002 and now has 187,000 km on the clock. Chris offered a Mazda that looked similar in size for $8,000 (before negotiation). But it was built in 2005 and had 175,000 on the clock! It's barely better than what I want to replace!
That's only one yard, of course, but Leigh tells me that people have bought there and were satisfied. Hopefully that's not an indication of what's in store.
Blue camera
|
Topic: general, photography | Link here |
Found on the back seat of my car when I got home:
|
What happened? An ALDI carrier bag is disintegrating for some reason. Fortunately it was easy to wipe off.
Still more fisheye experiments
|
Topic: photography, opinion | Link here |
I've been trying to stitch my office panorama for 3 days now, and I'm no closer. Time for a message to the Hugin group. And how about that, I got a reply from Bruno Postle, who was able to stitch the panorama:
|
Yes, it's not perfect, but nobody expected that. In particular the camera wasn't mounted in the correct position, so there's parallax. But somehow the answer raised more questions than it answered, and I need to think about it. We're still not out of the woods.
Wednesday, 5 February 2025 | Dereel | |
Top of page | ||
previous day | ||
next day | ||
last day |
Trump, the ethnic cleanser
|
Topic: politics, opinion | Link here |
It has been 16 days since Donald Trump was sworn in as the President of the United States of America. In that time he has done more damage than most presidents have ever done. The only comparison I can think of was Adolf Hitler, though I don't think that even Hitler came close. I've been trying to get my head around it, but he keeps coming out with more atrocities. Close down whole government departments, leave international organizations, repeal environmental protection legislation. I don't understand how, under US law, he can get away with it. Hitler needed the Ermächtigungsgesetz to do what Trump is doing.
But today took the cake. Standing next to Bibi, he announced that the USA would take over Gaza and send the population to Egypt and Jordan—neither of which, of course, were aware of his intentions. Instead he would turn it into a tourist destination.
That's almost the definition of ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity even in the USA and Israel. Under the circumstances, the international protest took longer than I had expected, but it came.
I can agree with some of his arguments: Gaza is a ruin. Never mind that that's the combined fault of the USA and (especially) Israel; it needs to be rebuilt, and that would be easier if what's left of the population (about 97%) were not there. But they could move the people out of the north to the south (for the umpteenth time) and rebuild the north, then move all north and rebuild the south. But one way or another there's no space for tourist resorts: the strip has a population density of 6,000 per km². Still, who believes what Trump says? I hope it wasn't serious.
A new car?
|
Topic: general, opinion | Link here |
For some reason Yvonne has taken up the challenge of finding me a new car—on Facebook! She found one that had been advertised for $3000, and which was now being offered for free. That's interesting, but of course there's no way to select cars based on my preferences.
Off to ask Google Gemini, which pointed me to a couple of sites. Discovered that they're all not very well sorted. On one site, after selecting “Victoria only”, the first hit I had was in New South Wales. But gradually I whittled things down to what I'm looking for: Front Wheel Drive, manual gearbox, price $5000 to $8000. And to my surprise almost all the hits were Holdens! One caught my eye: a 2014 Holden Cruze, 91,000 km, 3 year warranty(!), for only $6,990:
That's a far cry from what I saw yesterday. But I recognize that place. Yesterday my car was parked exactly where the front of this car is in the image. It's the same place. So why didn't he tell me about it, when it ticks all the boxes? My guess is because it has long since been sold. And somehow a 3 year warranty on a car of this age seems completely implausible. Sent a message and received no reply—not what I would expect of a used car salesman.
A new lagoon
|
Topic: technology | Link here |
It's time for more systems upgrades. Not only is Yvonne's machine, lagoon.lemis.com, way down-rev, it also doesn't have enough memory to satisfy firefox, and I recently saw disk errors.
So: start again with a new machine and one of the many SSDs that I have lying around. How do I do it? Upgrade, in principle, starting with the current disk contents. Boot from SD card, enter shell, partition the disk (thoughtfully wiped by Peter Jeremy) in the same way as the one on lagoon, copy, boot.
Well, a couple of issues. First I needed mount points, and the SD card is read-only. It didn't occur to me that there's probably a /mnt directory exactly for this purpose: instead I used the second UFS partition (later to become /home), and mounted the root file system there.
On booting, it couldn't find the kernel. I don't yet understand why, but for some reason it tried to boot from /dev/ada0p4, the /home file system. Why? I don't know. After changing loader parameters, I got it to work, but it paniced during boot and was far too polite to display the trace for even a fraction of a second.
Next attempt: installed a real system from the SD card onto /dev/ada0p4 and told it to boot from ada0p2 (which is to become the real root file system). That worked, at least for the kernel, but I still ended up with the root file system on /dev/ada0p4.
This is all because of the strange way I chose to set up the system, but it should have the advantage that upgrading will be easier. More fun tomorrow.
Gardening!
|
Topic: gardening | Link here |
I've done almost nothing in the garden for years, and it shows. But the Fuchsia in the hanging baskets in front of the house entrance were on their last legs, so I've finally repotted them and one of the ferns:
|
Thursday, 6 February 2025 | Dereel | Images for 6 February 2025 |
Top of page | ||
previous day |
Upgrading lagoon
|
Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
So why did I end up booting dereel (the current name for the new lagoon) from the wrong partition, /dev/ada0p4 instead of /dev/ada0p2? Simple: that's what was in /boot/loader.conf from lagoon. Fix that and it booted fine, though of course I managed to forget the network configuration and had to disconnect and reconfigure on the fly. That had the interesting result that rwhod still claimed to be lagoon, so the ruptime display for lagoon alternated between 244 days and 7 hours.
OK, build a new FreeBSD 14 world. After some hours,
stable/14/amd64.amd64/tmp/obj-tools/lib/libz -lz -L/usr/obj/hydra/home/src/FreeBSD/git/stable/14/amd64.amd64/tmp/obj-tools/lib/libthr -lpthread -legacy
ld: error: undefined symbol: pthread_getname_np
>>> referenced by assert.c:136 (/hydra/home/src/FreeBSD/git/stable/14/sys/contrib/openzfs/lib/libspl/assert.c:136)
>>> assert.o:(libspl_assertf) in archive /usr/obj/hydra/home/src/FreeBSD/git/stable/14/amd64.amd64/tmp/obj-tools/cddl/lib/libspl/libspl.a
cc: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)
*** [ctfconvert.full] Error code 1
One of these days things will happen without problems. But I was trying to upgrade from release 12-1. What happens if I try to install release 13 on the way? At least a long delay, of course, so I didn't manage anything further today.
Bruno catches another bird
|
Topic: animals, opinion | Link here |
Yvonne into my office today with a sad object: a dead estrilid finch, brought in from the enclosure by Bruno. The enclosure may keep him in, but it doesn't keep birds out. So far $500 expenditure and he's still killing birds. I suppose we're going to have to cover it from above as well.
No Cruze for Groggy
|
Topic: general, opinion | Link here |
Call back from Chris Polkinghorne of Ballarat Auto Group today: yes, as expected, the Holden Cruze that I was looking at yesterday has been sold, but he hadn't got round to updating his listings. But the interesting thing is that it really did have a 3 year warranty: up to $1000 on any repair, and up to the sale value of the car. If he offers that on other cars, it might be worthwhile. And I'm in no hurry.
Do you have a comment about something I have written? This is a diary, not a “blog”, and there is deliberately no provision for directly adding comments. It's also not a vehicle for third-party content. But I welcome feedback and try to reply to all messages I receive. See the diary overview for more details. If you do send me a message relating to something I have written, please indicate whether you'd prefer me not to mention your name. Otherwise I'll assume that it's OK to do so.
Top of page | Previous month | Greg's home page | Today's diary entry | Greg's photos | Copyright information |