Rome Lab's supercomputer is made up of 1,700 off-the-shelf PlayStation 3 gaming consoles | syracuse.com

Rome Lab's supercomputer is made up of 1,700 off-the-shelf PlayStation 3 gaming consoles | syracuse.com Sometimes technology is remarkable at several levels. Many years ago I worked at the labs in Rome. This is interesting and amusing at the same time.

Bike ride with BB.

BB and I took a short bike ride today.  Here's a time lapse of the adventure.

Here's the route with elevations and speeds:

It's clear that I'll need to do a bit more experimentation with the time lapse parameters.  I'm inclined to shoot at one frame per second or perhaps a bit faster.

Pan-Seared Sea Scallops

How To Make Pan-Seared Sea Scallops: Step-By-Step Tutorial With Photos

The grocer had scallops on sale yesterday.  So tonight it's pan-seared scallops and salad.  They are rather easy to make just don't shake the pan.

Herb-Crusted Chuck Roast, chocolate, and a rainy day

I'm not a great fan of chuck roast but this one (Herb-Crusted Chuck Roast Recipe - Allrecipes.com) is really good.  There's a new Target near us.  While I'm no great fan of big box stores, this one has a grocery of a sort and some great prices on Angus Chuck Roast.  It turned out outstanding.  Made some herb new potatoes and zucchini as well and then French vanilla ice cream with home made pecan chocolate sauce for desert.


Beyond good food, today is cool, low 30s and rainy.  Good day to run errands then stay indoors and read.

Deck day, time lapse video, Art and keyboard

Up early this AM.  I was a bit concerned that BB was well recovered from yesterday's tests.  She is.

Plan for the day is to work a bit on the deck furniture.  Understand that we have a LOT of deck furniture so getting it all out of storage and setup is a challenge.  Also I'll need to put up the screen room on the deck.  Here's what it looked like:



This is my first attempt at a time lapse video using an old Canon A530 enhanced with CHDK to take a photo every 15 seconds.  In hindsight I should probably have had the interval set rather shorter.  Still it's a bit of fun.

You might note that pugs are very good at being still.

Had a good conversation with Art last night concerning keyboard and music generally.  I've decided to track Craigs list for a bit before doing anything.  One of the things Art suggested was that I spend some time on the web studying music theory.  Really sensible suggestion.  So I'll spend some time today doing just that.  Wikipedia seems like a fairly sensible place to start.

Not just another Thursday

Today started a bit early.  BB had an appointment for some tests.  You know the ones where you need to bring along someone to drive you home.  Not a big issue but it did mean driving during the mourning commute.  I must admit that I felt rather smug while driving in heavy traffic in the knowledge that virtually everyone around me had to face it every work day while I didn't.  Being retired does have its advantages.

Unfortunately, when we got home Cindy, one of our pugs, had been rather ill and I spent over an hour cleaning up the floors and rugs.  Hopefully she's OK.

One of the things I've been interested in now that I'm retired is learning to play the piano/keyboards.  At one time I had a Casio keyboard but it's vanished, perhaps destroyed in the fire.  So I've been looking on Craigs list.  There are lots to choose from and all sorts of prices.  Since I don't know anything about such things I'm going to involve my brother and try to take advantage of his experience.

Dreary day

Another rather dreary day.  Oh well, good day to do inside things.

Spent some time messing with CHDK to get a handle on setting up time lapse videos.  I'm a bit concerned about battery life.  A bit of checking found some links for external battery packs.  Surprisingly, there isn't a commercial one!  I also found an interesting video on using Picasa to make the video.  I'm a fan of Picasa and a bit of experimentation suggests that it will work well.  The final piece is to work out how to set parameters when taking the photos.  Todo list:

• external battery pack for camera
• good set of rechargeable batteries
• work out parameters
• mount for bike/self

Used CHDK and v_intvl and Picasa no make a test video time lapse video.  Interesting but unfortunately you have to click through to actually see the video.

From 2011-04-20

It's a bit like a time lapse video made from still photos but instead made from a set of short videos.  Hopefully this will resolve some of the blurring I've encountered when making time lapse from stills.

Put the video on youtube which does allow embeding:

Computer mystery

While the Toshiba seems fine I got a curious email:

What's curious about this is that I've not had any issues there!  Time to run a very through security scan.

Toshiba lives

Happily my Toshiba now seems to live.  After getting the HP working reasonably again I did a bit of research on the problem.  Great thing about the Internet is that it's full of suggestions.  Now, admittedly many are not so sensible but one mentioned really powering down by taking the battery out.  Duh!  This is something I know, really I do.  So I pulled the batter and left the machine sit for a bit so the electronics would good and truly reset.  Put it back in.  Powered up and bingo got a sensible Windows restart screen.  I'm not sure what happened but all seems well now.

Interesting day

Good news, after yesterdays bike ride my weight is down a bit.  Sadly, my pelvis is a bit saddle sore.  Not so good but tolerable.

It's a rather grey and rainy day so I'll not be out geocaching or riding.  Good day to mess with inside things.

After messing with the Canon camera things took a sour turn.  My Toshiba laptop seems to have died!  I think it may be a display related issue.  So faced with the need I've been working to get my old HP machine working properly again.  PCs seem to always need some amount of updating so it will take a bit of effort.  Meanwhile, I'm going to try to boot the Toshiba from a CD to see if it might be a software issue.

Hack PowerShot With CHDK

Hack Your PowerShot With CHDK

One of the things I've been wanting to do for a while is to make videos of my geocaching and biking adventures. I don't want to make a big deal out of taking and creating videos so what I thought I'd try making a time lapse video.

Now there are a number of ways to do this but most involve some amount of equipment or software.  That's not an especially attractive option.

I've got an old Canon A530 that I've been happy with and is small enough to use while riding or walking.  Unfortunately, there is no time lapse feature built in.  Enter CHDK!  It provides a set of additional software that runs on the camera and provides a remarkable collection of advanced features normally only available on much more expensive cameras.

After a bit of research, fuss, and bother I've got it installed on one of the camera's memory cards and have tried it out.  It works, rather well actually.  It's now possible to take a series of photos evenly spaced over time automatically.

What remains is to turn these photos into a reasonable video.  I've experimented with a couple of free Microsoft programs on my laptop and they seem to work well enough.  So it seems I'm ready to actually try it.

Ants Climb A Tree

Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook : Ants Climb A Tree

Mine looks like this but I forgot to actually take a photo

Wonderful dinner last night.  This is one of our favorites.  There are many many recipes but this is the one I use, sort of.

The dish tends to be rather salty because of all the soy sauce.  So I replace the 1/4 cup of soy and all the water with chicken stock.  It's still a bit salty but delicious.

I've also experimented with replacing the hot pepper paste with hot bean paste.  Again a bit of adjustment to the quantities is necessary as they can both be very salty.  I control the heat with a bit of hot pepper oil or sauce.

Finally, I adjust the noodle to meat quantities since we like a bit more meat than the recipe calls for.  I find about 6 oz of noodles per pound of port about right.

Leftovers for lunch today.  Yum.

Bike ride with BB

BB and I took a bike ride over the the Assabet.  Great day for the ride.  Here's the profile and a photo of herself.  I noticed that we're both riding a bit faster than last year on average.  We also seem to have a higher top speed.  Perhaps it's time to try touring with a group.

Sometimes you just got to love the news.

YouTube - Chinese Students Do Michael Jackson Dance

Where was this when I was in school?

Bright spring day

Beautiful spring day and a holiday to boot! Lets hear it for MA Patriots day and the Boston Marathon so BB and I get an extra long weekend!

I think it's finally safe to put out the deck furniture. We'll probably go for a bike ride and checkout what's happening over at the Assabet wildlife reserve.

Tornadoes v. cold: is this a choice?

I'm glad I'm not in the south where they are having very dangerous weather, but really 20° and possibility of snow!  Enough already it's flipping spring!!

Canceled plans to go for a longer bike ride.  It's to blinking cold.  Instead it's a good day to read in front of the fire and tend to some inside chores.  Also need to send tax return off.

Facebook page for Common Sense

Created a Facebook page for Richard's Common Sense here.  Not entirely sure how it should/will work but worth a bit of effort.

Also created a new gmail account richardscommonsense@gmail.com and associated Facebook account.

Friday plan

Today's a bit of an odd Friday.

I've spent some time this mourning trying to connect my Facebook account and my two blogs.  The Facebook published technique didn't work with an error that said Facebook couldn't find the RSS feed.  Never mind the feed verifies OK.  So I'm going try using RSS Graffiti.  It should allow me to flow both my blogs into my Facebook account.  We'll see.

I need to do some paperwork today as well.  That's the plan for after lunch.

I've also got to make a bank run.

All in all a fairly quiet day.

Dinner last night

Had some very nice Haddock last night.

Haddock baked (20 min at 350) in 1/4 cup white wine with mushrooms, scallions, and seasoned with dill.  Quinoa with portabella and pecans.  Brussel sprouts sauteed with onion, chicken stock, worcestershire sauce and Tabasco.  Outstanding!

Great day for a bike ride

BB and I went for our first bike ride of the year today.  We only did about 3 or 4 miles or so but had a very pleasant ride in 50F and clear skies.

The bikes are in generally good shape though I've got some sort of catch in my crank.  I'll have to take a look and see what's up.  Also the rear break could have a good deal more authority.  Otherwise things are good.

The return of Spring has BB and I thinking about possibly taking a trip in early May to the Cape for a bike ride.  There is a 22 mile rail to trail path.  I'll see if I can find a B&B about mid way so we can ride one half one day and the other the next.  Should be fun.

Just another Friday

It's been an interesting couple of days with some good and some not so good.

I got an email from Deb Williams letting me and other friends know that Bill Bradway had died.  Bill and I worked together at Meridian and Financial Insights.  He was a good man and very well regarded.  He'll be missed.

There is something about a colleagues death that gives me pause about my own mortality, particularly when it's someone who was a contemporary.

Mark stayed with us last night as he had an early mourning meeting in Hudson NH.  We had a nice if somewhat brief visit.  Their new house is coming along and they hope to be in by mid May.

We are down to two cars just now as Mike's is in the shop.  It's a bit inconvenient but we'll doubtless survive.

April fools in NE

Spring was rather late this year.  Here's what April 1 looked like.