Monday 20 October 2014

New bike lights for myself and for Kate. Moon Mask and Comet Rear and Knog Blinders. LED and USB rechargable.

Bike lights arrived today.
I especially was in need of a front light so good to have that sorted.
Charged up and ready to go . . . road test on way home.
Moon Mask and Moon Comet Rear. 
Glowey blue and orange charging lights. Mini-USB.

Also got red knog front and back for Kate.
This is the place I got them from, good price and v. good selection AND good website where can sort lights by category: 


This morning on cycle in at the junction of Baggot St. Upper, Haddington and Lemsip road just before going over the bridge on canal there was a rear bike light on ground. Totally run over and smashed. I picked it up (compulsive rubbish picker-up) to get it out of the way. It has red duct tape on it. In case someone is wondering where their rear light has gone to! It's in the bin :-7


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Selecting bike lights . . . 
There is a very big selection out there.
LED lighting and battery tech has been improving every year.
But what are good lights to buy for bike?

We got a pair of knog blinders for Daire at start of September. 
They're so small and handy and also neat/cute/cool!
I borrowed one a couple of times.

Bike shops in Dublin have some lights but there is really a much better selection at better price on the internet.
Bike Light Database . . . compare features and look at reviews.

Lights needed for James, Kate, ?Maeve, ?Fionnuala . . . 


Knog frog, cheap - coin batteries.
€23.99
coin or AAA batteries in Halfords Knog style silicone lights . . . 
coin batteries
city cycles 1 AA 10 euros

There are alot of very simple Knog frog style lights now from generic/any manufacturers.


Cycleways on Parnell St.
€139.99

Knog Blinder 1 LED Front & Rear Twin Pack
NOW€46.99   out of stock until 17/10/xxxx

Wow. A shop that allows you to categorize on rechargable lights:



CONCLUSION:
all good! But moon meteor/comet front rear prob good for me    ?or mask(better and on sale :-P)+comet?
Knog red front & rear blinder for Kate


also looks good: moon shield rear





rathfarnham


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Fun/prezzies:    POV.    KITS      BIKEPOV for ME?Kate?Daire?  LilyPad for Kate?  And For Maeve?    
There are some cool POVs commercially available.
- SpokePOV from adafruit industries (and its i'ble)
- Monkeylectric's m132s
- Monkeylectric's recentely announced m464q



http://www.adafruit.com/products/5     SpokePOV Kit - v1.1 $37.50  + DONGLE NEEDED 
https://www.adafruit.com/products/46   USBtinyISP AVR Programmer Kit (USB SpokePOV Dongle) - v2.0 $22.00

http://www.adafruit.com/product/535   V1.1 blue mini usbtiny dongle + magnet needed 
MiniPOV 3 Kit - V 3.0 PRODUCT ID: 20 $17.50


2 images



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wearables

LilyPad Wrist Band POV by quasiben




colouring book

Saturday 18 October 2014

weekend log 17 oct 2014. cycling. run. puncture fixing. clothes washing. it's windy!

fri 7:30 flight tracker EI108.  
2014-10-17New York (JFK)Dublin (DUB)A333 (EI-EAV)01:0001:1607:40Landed 07:19
 Breakfast.  Head to airport to collect mum and dad. Rav won't start. Orange jump starter does job. Moist morning. Windscreen slow to unmist. Traffic slow at our estate exit across bridge. M50 grand. Park. Wait maybe 10 mins. Two sleepy parents appear. Good form. Bring them back to our house for rest. Mum tells me lots about holiday. I leave them to breakfast.

Cycle to work 10.6k nice weather. Wind with me somewhat.

Working on clearwater enum file and dns route to IMS hub with Shaila. we get an OPTIONS to go to hub from clearwater by end of day. Also more documenting.

fri 18:20ish bike home from work. 10.6k
  Epic windy driving rain From south but soft, warm.
Cycle home fri evening epic wind, driving thankfully soft sleety rain. Great fun! :-D Windy and sunny all saturday.
Kids good watching soccer (epic conditions Bray vs Dundalk) and that 70s show. They have eaten lots of grapefruit. I drip on floor, mop, shower then cook savoury curried turkey mince with leek carrot tomato kidney beans ginger and rice. Nom. White wine w sugar!? for me.

Bedtime for girls. Wrap Maeve's finger with vinegar in cotton wool in sellotape anti wart.
Films on tv and fix puncture fionn's bike (rm failed patch, add round one, awkward spot beside valve top doesn't stick add patch around valve) and put on uniform wash. I'm reading Girl Genius cute steampunk graphic comic these days, great fun :-).

Sat 8:15 up, hang wash, banana plus pint water, cycle gear and runners still damp, bye to kids - Maeve making loom band snakes - cycle to Marlay park. 5k.  beautiful sunny day. Breezy. I was thinking it would be wet! Stretch and join in warm up exercises. ParkRun 5k. 4:26 at 1k. Results run#82 will be up once laptop problems sorted. Mapmyrun result 24:51. Stitch on r side shortly after earlier than usual probably the banana plus water. Catch Derm at last 500m. Meet JamesCarroll and Derm & family. They're both off to IBM now factory moving from Sandyford. Cycle home 5k.

Map of route

james coleman rode 6.13 kilometers from home to Marlay Park.



james coleman ran 5.17 kilometers in 24min:51sec


james coleman rode 5.35 kilometers from Marlay park back home


Hang clothes. Put on light wash. Maeve plays a tune on piano onto google now and after a few goes and moving down an octave we find it is Beethoven's Für Elise. Breakfast straggled with kids. Daire has toastie. Maeve grapefruit. I oats currants museli. Daire off to gaa. K porridge. Cupcakes. Blog diary.

We look for Cathy's cat. Maeve and I collect dried grass, leaves, sticks, haws, blackberries and dandelion for gerbils.
Offering dandelion and blackberry. Red haws and grass seed heads.
Basket of stuff collected for gerbils. Plum woods and leaves. Whitethorn/hawthorn. Grass with seed heads. 
Maeve goes visiting. I hang light wash. Start cooking lunch. Pasta in crab soup with green beans - curried! Maeve comes back. We eat. I grab Coffee also.


Great drying out today. Windy and sunny.

Girls and I cycle to stage school. I give Maeve a backer. Kate brings ukelele. We go straight down over Bearna motorway roundabout, Kate follows us. 2.6k to school. Wind kindof with us. I meet teachers, parents and kids.

I cycle to Benildus. I act suspiciously and a very nice Polish school caretaker man opens doors and gates for me to get Daire's bike. I fix puncture at school. Rm two sharp bits of glass from tyre. Rode 4.11 km on my bike bringing Daire's bike back from Benildus after fix puncture. tough work! :-P especially up Sandyford hill. Couldn't change gears while holding other bike.

Daire and myself at home. Glance at newspaper. I go meet Kate, zoom down to school with wind. Maeve goes off on visit. Kate and I cycle home. I demonstrate front wheel wheelie and do a somersault crash! Whoops. Bounce up. Nobody saw it but Kate. Right arm got a little graze.
Map of route

james coleman rode 2.80 kilometers to St Olaf's with Maeve on backer with Kate

Map of route

james coleman rode 4.11 kilometers WITH Daire's bike AGAINST the wind
and up Sandyford Hill. Phew.


  1. Map of route

    james coleman cycle/zoomed 5.72 kilometers down to St Olaf's wit h wind and back against wind with Kate

Kate and I grab a bite to eat. Venture Scouts hike is on, Daire grabs lunch, clothing, map, money and heads off on bike. Kate & I take in clothes, do ironing, empty dishwasher. Fionn comes home. Tea. TV. Computer. Bedtimes. 

TODO star maps for cubs.

DONE orange jumpstarter not charging - found another 12V DC transformer.

Thursday 16 October 2014

boldly going where no man has gone before . . . perhaps . . . with Android Studio . . . and a review of Android Sensor graphing/recording/visualising apps

A nice list of resources for getting started with Android Studio by Peter/Golgi: http://blog.golgi.io/get-started-with-android-studio

I have tried Android Studio out for a few things now. And generally found I can get an app built and working easily enough (usually after a bit of updating of SDK and libraries in the studio). As updates come out Android Studio is getting better.

My last experiment was importing and building the cute Android Tricorder which is not available in play store for some time now. Source code here: https://code.google.com/p/moonblink/. Import code. The Tricorder depends on hermitLibrary and hermitAndroid and the import took care of each module. Build errors gave helpful clues to what was needed to be done to solve them. Update SDK versions needed. Edit build.gradle a little. Needed to find junit test libraries. Fiddle a bit. And tah dahh. We have an .apk and lovely beepy tricorder on my phone again.

There is a-lot going on under the hood. I am gradually getting used to not knowing about every tiny detail of the build process. While it works it's all good. We can certainly work with this for a while :-). I'm sure we(the royal we) shall learn more as we use it and go under the hood when required.

As usual with Android if you want a Tricorder-like app on phone there are a good few to choose from. It took a while to find one which would record the values. 

The AndroSensor app wins. Very usable interface though it looks a little clunky and with ads. Perfect for recording data. You can select which sensors you are interested in.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fivasim.androsensor
View and record data from sensors. View numeric or graph for different sensors. Record to csv. Nice and simple. I want to send this up in a bottle rocket!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=imoblife.androidsensorbox
Sensor Box - Nice visual widgets 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.onyxbits.sensorreadout
https://github.com/onyxbits/sensorreadout
Open source, Apache licence - Clunky but simple and ready for hacking. Graph sensors one at a time. Zoom/scrollable graph after stop sampling.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.innoventions.sensorkinetics
Display data and graphs for sensors. Log and share files. Interactive graph while sampling. $ for file sharing and data but good app without it.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mtorres.phonetester
Shows values for Sensors WiFi Telephony GPS Battery Multi-Touch-Test-Graph System-Info


https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tomplesko.app.esensor
Just a couple of sensors work without $$. Nice interface. but UNINSTALL

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tom.plesko.apps.audio
An Audio Spectrum Analyzer grand . . . but :-P UNINSTALL

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.calintat.sensors
Sensors - text values shown from sensors. Can take a snapshot of values. Neat. But UNINSTALL

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.danms.LCARSScanner&hl=en  SciScanner
$$ Very Nice GUI, Solar, Geo, Weather, Audio, Magnetics, GPS(free), Gyro(free), Device(free), Camera


$$ looks nice
https://sites.google.com/site/neotechni/system/app/pages/subPages?path=/Home/lcars
LCARS star trek next generation various apps