Tony is a Geek

So....I've been a fan of Ubuntu linux pretty much since day one, way back in the day - good god, was it really 17 years ago? ... how time has flown ( we'll come back to that below ). Well, this isn't an article about that "type" of ubuntu. It's about a different one. As you may or may not know, I've been a bit of a "behind the scenes investigator" of the "origins of the human race" pretty much since I was a teenager, then work got in the way, then travelling around the world for work allowed me to have nice big chunks of time to continue that investigation work, then work changed again, as is expected in the protestant work life dictatorship, I had to "move up" and that just means "do more" and well, y'know the liquid based addictions crept in as a mechanism to deal with the frustrations of doing the work b*ll*x and that just ended up frying the brain/body and was not helpful in continuing the investigation work ...

On Saturday night, some oiks decided to break into the petrol station at the end of my road - I was not aware of this until late in the day on Sunday. However, when I opened my front-door on Sunday morning, I noticed my motorhome hab door was wide open and swinging in the breeze & slight rain drizzle.  I was perplexed.  I swear blind I locked it - I always lock it, the foot step was underneath the motorhome and that retracts when you press the key fob button to lock the entire motorhome.  I cautiously walked over, took a look inside - everything seemed okay, the new TV was still attached to the tv-stand, the new swishy handheld hoover was still on the floor, the walkie-talkies were still on the dashboard, nothing looked like it had been moved - I checked a few cupboards and for some reason the fridge! nothing seemed to be missing or moved.  hmmm... I had left the 2 air-vent things in the roof open, maybe it was windy overnight and maybe I had not clicked the door...

Some people just amaze me.... this lady evidently reversed her modern sized car and struck my kustom vanguard quite hard actually causing quite a lot of bodywork damage (est. £5-8k) and then just drove off. Speechless is the word I would use. If this CCTV footage did not exist then I'd be stuffed with footing that bill myself.  I'm usually a nice calm zen buddha style person and accept that people have "off days" and that "accidents happen", but you would have noticed that impact and to then just drive off.... well, karma is all I shall say. More CCTV footage was available, including the car registration, so if the person doesn't come forward then it becomes a Police matter.  sigh. and yes, there is a sense of irony here.... the car had been in for repair to the "other side", that was a nice £15k bill (bodywork / re-paint / bumper repair / rear diff) and was all finished and ready for me to go pickup.... I guess it'll be another 3-4 months ...

Although titled: "How to corrupt my intern robot", there is a LOT more information contained within this video than you would actually expect.  I would highly recommend a full watch, or zoom FWD to 11:39. Okay, so Misty the robot is pretty cool   CLICK HERE TO SEE / READ / VIEW MORE I think its great that they've made different ways to code the robot, from 100% beginner using BLOCKLY (a person fav. of mine for non-coders to get to understand coding) You also have the option to code using the Python SDK, Web APIs and C# SDK; which is pretty cool.  So, you can go from total novice through to expert coder, well, as expert as calling HTTP APIs or using Visual Studio is...no C-code level for the hardcore.... except, oh wow! https://docs.mistyrobotics.com/misty-ii/robot/misty-backpack-for-arduino/ They have a backpack module that is an Arduino, so you can extend and enhance the robot yourself...and use C (coz that's what Arduino is coded in), so it looks like they've c...

I had one of these fitted to the motorhome: https://maxview.co.uk/product/motorhome-wifi-caravan-wifi/ Whilst I've set it all up and got it working on the driveway, yesterday was the first time of real usage... so how did it go? " We'll let you know after this short commercial break ", It was awesomely good, to be honest. Now, the reason it was awesome, apart from being a brilliant piece of kit, is mostly due to the SIM card fitted.  Not all SIM cards are made the same :-) This company provide a SIM card ( you can replace with your own - but why would you? ) with the device and you get 5GB FREE usage as a trial:   https://broadbandgo.com/#/ I admit, I was a little skeptical and thought I'd give the free trial a go and see what it's like and then make a decision on what price plan we'll go for. As with most people, I have no idea nowadays how much data throughput I'm using over the network - I remember the late 90s / early 2000s having apps on the deskt...

Don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone and do something, different! As previously posted, I purchased a 2015 Kon tiki motorhome, that is 8m long and 2.35m wide.  That in itself is not that bad, however the gap between the driveway wall/post on one side and wooden fence on the other side, only left a margin or space of a few inches. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't really present a problem, however, seeing as the road itself is about 8m wide and when reversing you cannot actually achieve a straight-on position, the inevitable "crunch"-ing noise was heard.  Luckily, I think I escaped any structural damage and just broke the fibreglass outer protector (I say, luckily, could have done without it, but I suppose it had to happen at some point). So, is reversing a massive great motorhome onto a thin spaced driveway getting out of my comfort zone? well, a tiny bit, but not really. I had made a bit of room and cut the rockery in half to allow for getting th...

I highly recommend signing up to the Pimoroni notification email system to be informed when RPi4 devices become available for sale. As some of you may know, getting hold of an RPi4 4GB/8GB device over the past 6+ months has been nearly impossible - you "could" go on eBay or Amazon and fork out £275 for one from a "squatter", but that's just insane, no RPi 4 project is worth that much. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-essentials-kit?variant=39850460086355 So, I did the proper thing and I signed up to get informed and that's exactly what happened.  I received the email yesterday morning, I clicked on the link - I see that Pimoroni have the RPi4 4GB in stock for £54 (basic board), they are limiting purchasing to 1-device for 1-person (totally agree with this approach), so as to be fair to everyone....  A few clicks later and one is winging its way over: I now just have to remember what it was that I needed the RPi4 for in the first place!?!?!?!...

well, it's been a rather long time coming, but I've finally gotten around to getting another campervan / motorhome. I did have one back in the early 2000's and think I 'sold it/gave it away' around 2006.  It was an old 1980 VW T25, not the sexy curvy ones that everyone pays silly money for nowadays, but the boxy practical one.  Well, I say practical, it had the 2.0Ltr petrol engine in it that did about 15miles-per-gallon and weighed about 3-tonne! She was great though, we did drive her all around the country, from the edge of Cornwall, all around Scotland and back again - mostly in the rain! I did say, we would get a proper motorhome "shortly" afterwards..... errr.... well, time flies doesn't it! I did start to make serious enquiries in 2018 and was going to look at getting a motorhome at the end of 2019... and then COVID-19 kicked in (I so wish I'd just gotten a van at this point - it would have saved about £30,000!!!! oh well.... it is what it is...

Okay, so I posted a while back that I had a PICADE that I had built and I was very happy with, although it wasn't the same playing XEVIOUS on it as it was the original arcade machine. Well.....some time went by....I bought an arcade cabinet - well, I bought just the pre-cut wood (it took a while to be delivered but I got it in the end).  It also did not come with any fittings, fixtures or instructions, apparently this was so I could "customise" it as I wanted.... hmmmm.... as you'll see this meant having to layout the pieces of wood and attempt to figure out what went where and use masking tape to hold it together as I figured it out.  It stayed in this format in the middle of the lounge for a few weeks :-) Then I went to B&Q and finally got some screws (wrong size, so had to get more), got some space blocker thingies that you use in the kitchen cupboards and some other bits & bobs. All put together and up-right, it looked HUGE from this angle! I also had to p...