TechnoPrimitive

Was a bit tired and sore from the day yesterday so didn’t do any more out and about the farm today but managed to spend the day doing stuff inside instead. Got an email from the Nero Wolfe mail list the content of which reminded me that I hadn’t updated Wordpress on my Nero Wolfe site yet. So I go and do that. While there I realize that it’s been months and I STILL haven’t finished scanning the rest of the book covers and getting them uploaded nor all the other housekeeping things that have needed doing on that site. One of the problems with the scanning is that the computer that I use for that is in the wrong building. (See where this is going yet?) So I figure where in this already over crowded room I can put a computer desk and everything that goes with it. Move several boxes of books and shift several dozen others and a large coffee table and finally clear an area large enough to move in the computer desk. Once I clear it off. Clean it off and get it moved, and the computer, monitor, scanner, and ups. Get it all hooked up and then realize that the ethernet is gonna have to be moved too. Duh. No biggie as it turns out as I had already put another line in that was much too long and had coiled the extra up, just have to unhook it all as the coil is at the wrong end of the line. Gotta love the little challenges that life throws at you from time to time. Anyhow, that’s where most of the day went.

Ate supper then got out and stirred the fire from yesterday back into life and added some more scrap wood and broken limbs to it so maybe it will finish burning. Twas dark by then so came back in and scanned one book and figured out how to use the command line OCR program on the linux box. And learned a bit more about Gimp in the process of getting the pnm file to a true black and white so the ocr software will actually find the text instead of giving me a page of i’s and l’s and j’s. But now I can scan a page and only spend a few minutes correcting the mistakes instead of having to type it all in by hand. Bit by bit I think I’m getting closer. And I only have another 70 or 80 covers to scan in in the Wolfe series.

It’s late and I am beat. Will see what the morrow brings when it gets here. Till then…

The Society for Librarians* Who Say “MoFo”

Warning - Profanity… A lot of the posts are humorous but also show what a bunch of total arsehats a large number of people are to the good folks that work at libraries. If it were I in quite a few of these situations there would be blood spilled and it wouldn’t be mine…

Organic Fire Ant Control - DirtDoctor.com - Howard Garrett - The Dirt Doctor

Gonna have to do something, cause the little suckers are over running us this year. Some of the stuff on this page sounds good, some not so good.

Have had success with pouring boiling water into the mounds before and that’s what I’m gonna do for right now at least around the immediate area. As soon as the Airsofters get the rest of their stuff gone I’ll work on those areas too. Got a couple of wash pots that I set over a fire, fill with creek water and boil, open the mounds up and pour it in. Never had to do it more than once to a mound to kill the queen and most of the workers and never had one come back either.

: : G O G O L B O R D E L L O H O M E : :

Gypsy Punk band. Interesting music and the videos are wild stuff! Gonna have to see if I can find some of their cd’s.

Shedworking: Children Need Sheds Too - Rainmac

These are just too cool! And give me too many ideas…

» Beware of the Tiger » The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century : Joey deVilla’s Personal Blog

Wonderful warning!

Viewfinder: tool for “Flickrizing” Google Earth - Boing Boing
Media artist Michael Naimark and his colleagues developed a system to “Flickrize” Google Earth. The Viewfinder tool not only enables photos to be placed in the right geolocation on a 3D model like Google Earth, but “poses” them at the correct angle.

This sounds like a seriously cool and useful tool!

Writing this on the Linux machine running on the Kubuntu LiveCD with KDE 4 beta and so far I am impressed. It found all the bits and bobs and booted right up. Doesn’t have Firefox so went into Konqueror and then to Gmail and it loaded right in which I have had trouble with in the past (though haven’t tried recently). Opened a new tab and went to Technoprimitive.org (here) and everything looks just fine.

Plugged the Belkin Wifi adapter into the USB and it came right up. Didn’t connect but still found it with no trouble which PCLOS refuses to do for some reason. Unplugged the ethernet and clicked on the network icon in the toolbar at the bottom right of the screen (after not being able to find any network stuff in the start menu) and it brought up a window with tabs that allowed me to select the wirless and it connected right off with a good 54 mbps connection. reconnected the ethernet and disconnected the wireless and it switched right back over. Good enough!

Lots of my usual apps missing but that looks like only a install away. Gonna get another machine from the Yard Sale Trailer and install it to the hard drive and give it a try. Looks like they have gotten the things that used to bug me worked out with this upcoming release.

Universal Music: it’s illegal to throw away the promo CD we sent you without your permission - Boing Boing
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Fred von Lohmann sez, “In a brief filed in federal court yesterday, Universal Music Group (UMG) states that, when it comes to the millions of promotional CDs (’promo CDs’) that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs, and other music industry insiders, throwing them away is ‘an unauthorized distribution’ that violates copyright law. Yes, you read that right — if you’ve ever received a promo CD from UMG, and you don’t still have it, UMG thinks you’re a pirate.”

Well I’ve read the Boing Boing piece, The EFF piece and the 24 page “brief” and it looks to me like UMG has been WAY out of line with this. They have violated the DCMA numerous times using takedown notices filed through the RIAA to EBay and caused this poor guy’s account to be frozen and his auctions removed just because he DARED to offer for resale promotional CD’s that he had purchased. I hope the judge throws the book at those arsehats!