Dlrcoco pilot schemes connecting cycle walking paths

 https://www.dlrcoco.ie/en/news/general-news-public-consultation-press-releases/public-engagement-new-safe-walking-and-cycling

Making a CONNECTED network is really important. This is great to see. Looks like these pilot schemes use existing greenway paths and connect them up using quieter roads. So looks like great value for money as well as improving cycling and walking network. Making parks and green space more accessible for walkers and cyclists gives more pleasant spaces for leisure/exercise/activities.  Encouages healthier less stressed lifestyles.

Sea to mountains route ==

Blackrock up to Stillorgan and on to Goatstown where any cycling now is mostly on busy roads. Then Kilmacud and Balally luas stops around Airfield. Then Slang river greenway across to Marlay park.

Very familiar with the area, we use the existing paths as they are to travel locally. Scheme will make getting across to Rathfarnham area or down towards Blackrock area easier and safer.  St. Olaf's school is on this route, St Tiernans school isclose to route, might be possible to connect St Tiernans better to cycle routes? . . In time. School is a hub for evening activities as well as school.

The route goes from Kilmacud and Balally luas stops around Airfield. this is good connecting luas stops to route. It would be cool if route could go into Airfield or allow connecting into Airfield .. good for airfield and for cyclists & walkers. Yeah, maybe impractical :-7 but could be great also.

Mountains to metals = across Balally Sandyford Ind Est down towards sea at Dun Laoghaire

Great to connect area from Sandyford Ind Est down to Deansgrange and further to the Metals better. I already fly down on the cycle lanes and road myself but it is not for novice cyclists or younger. I am familiar with disconnected route through parks and quiet roads and use that sometimes especially with others but often getting a bit lost!! Please remove kissing gates, make route usable for wheelchair users, mobility scooters, cargo bikes etc.

Existing dean's grange park loughlinstown park are nice, great if paths can go in to help keep cyclists away from walkers so there is happy use for all, less conflict. Great to connect existing paths in a route!!

Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa (a Madagascar wild cat) on USB and dual boot install Dell XPS 13 Windows 10

Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa (a Madagascar wild cat) on USB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossa_(animal)

The fossa is a cat-like, carnivorous mammal endemic to Madagascar. It is a member of the Eupleridae, a family of carnivorans closely related to the mongoose family Herpestidae. Wikipedia

I have installed linux from CD(DVD?) last few times. 

USB needed this time . . . 

Create a BASIC linux bootable USB installer: 

 download Ubunto 20.04 .iso image. 

    https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/

    Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)

 Use ubuntu "startup disk creator" utility to write it to USB key.

Disadvantage: image not writable, extra space on USB key cannot be written to.

 (iso9660 NOT WRITEABLE):

https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-a-usb-stick-on-ubuntu#1-overview

Create a linux bootable USB with writable partition: <- much better

 download Ubunto 20.04 .iso image. 

 Install mkusb and mkusb-plug tools. (sudo apt add repository for mkusb and apt-get install). 

 Run mkusb-plug, selecting "live drive with usbdata partition" and select the .iso file and USB device. 

See detail here on different methods to create bootable linux USB keys:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1181854/how-is-it-easier-to-make-a-persistent-live-drive-with-ubuntu-19-10

You now have Ubuntu on a USB stick, bootable and ready to go.

With a bootable Ubuntu USB stick, you can:

Install or upgrade Ubuntu

Test out the Ubuntu desktop experience without touching your PC configuration

Boot into Ubuntu on a borrowed machine or from an internet cafe

Use tools installed by default on the USB stick to repair or fix a broken configuration

Dual boot install Dell XPS 13 Windows 10. Install for kate's laptop.

"Install ubuntu alongside Windows" == Installing dual boot Ubuntu and Windows:

Backup your stuff, read many docs. 

CAVEAT! BEWARE! Installs like this could go wrong, your windows stuff would still be there. Probably. Recovering from a problem could be quite tricky. If you have pretty common computer/hardware then most likely all will be easy, fine no problem.

Disable windows Fast Boot (optional).

Disable Secure Boot (windows UEFI ~= bios settings)

Create free disk space for linux install,

  open windows "create and format hard disk partitions" and shrink disk. 

These pages have decent detailed instructions:

https://itsfoss.com/install-ubuntu-1404-dual-boot-mode-windows-8-81-uefi/

https://hackernoon.com/installing-ubuntu-18-04-along-with-windows-10-dual-boot-installation-for-deep-learning-f4cd91b58557

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-ubuntu-20-04-alongside-windows-10-dual-boot

Wow. The grub menu test on the Dell XPS 13 is teeeeny tiny.

The install of linux went easy, exactly as with instructions.

Disable secure boot/fast boot was already done. 

Getting  UEFI menus to boot into bios took some fiddling.

Writeable usb boot:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1181854/how-is-it-easier-to-make-a-persistent-live-drive-with-ubuntu-19-10

mkusb-minp - small stand-alone shellscript that can use this new feature in Ubuntu 19.10. It works with Debian 10 too.

mkusb-plug - small set of shellscripts that can use this new feature in Ubuntu 19.10. It works with Debian 10 too. I think you will find things easier with this new and very safe tool with a graphical user interface.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/565250/cannot-mount-live-usb-drive-as-read-write

$ sudo mkusb-plug 

source file: '/home/xxxx/Downloads/ubuntu-20.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso'

--{vfat|exfat|ntfs}

*** usbfs ***

spawn bash -c xorriso-dd-target -plug_test -trust_lsblk_udev  | tee /tmp/tmp.WoL3W0SOhv

Caused by option -plug_test: Attempt to find the desired device

by watching it appear after being plugged in.

Step 1:

Please make sure that the desired target device is plugged _out_ now.

If it is currently plugged in, make sure to unmount all its fileystems

and then unplug it.

Press the Enter key when ready.

 

Found and noted as _not_ desired:  sda nvme0n1  

Step 2:

Please plug in the desired target device and then press the Enter key.

 

Waiting up to 10 seconds for a new device to be listed .... found: sdc

Now waiting 5 seconds to let it settle .........

Found and noted as desired device:  sdc

sdc : YES : usb+ has_iso9660+ has_vfat+ : FLASH Drive_SM_USB20 

Repeating test of target device with elevated permissions:

target device: /dev/sdc

 sdc : YES : usb+ has_iso9660+ has_vfat+ : FLASH Drive_SM_USB20  

         task: '--ntfs'

  source file: '/home/james/Downloads/ubuntu-20.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso'

target device:  /dev/sdc

MODEL          NAME FSTYPE  LABEL                     SIZE

Drive_SM_USB20 sdc  iso9660 Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS amd64  7.6G

               sdc1 iso9660 Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS amd64  2.6G

               sdc2 vfat    Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS amd64  3.9M

          ***** datp: live with ntfs data partition ***** 

Trying to unmount partitions if mounted on the target device

umount: /dev/sdc: not mounted.

umount: /dev/sdc2: not mounted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Please wait until the process has finished and 'Done' is written 

..... Flash modified iso file to target ........................................

2785017856=file size

2779774976 bytes (2.8 GB, 2.6 GiB) copied, 466 s, 6.0 MB/s 

2656+0 records in

2656+0 records out

2785017856 bytes (2.8 GB, 2.6 GiB) copied, 466.784 s, 6.0 MB/s

----- cleanup after dd ------------------------------------------

18681 pts/4    00:00:00 mkusb-sedd

Warning: The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes.

/dev/sdc2 after flashing

..... Create partition .........................................................

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.34).

Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.

Be careful before using the write command.

Command (m for help): Partition type

   p   primary (2 primary, 0 extended, 2 free)

   e   extended (container for logical partitions)

Select (default p): Partition number (3,4, default 3): First sector (5439488-15814655, default 5439488): Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (5439488-15814655, default 15814655): 

Created a new partition 3 of type 'Linux' and of size 5 GiB.

Command (m for help): The partition table has been altered.

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

Re-reading the partition table failed.: Device or resource busy

The kernel still uses the old table. The new table will be used at the next reboot or after you run partprobe(8) or kpartx(8).

prober: /dev/sdc2 for persistence

prober: /dev/sdc2 for persistence

prober: /dev/sdc3 for persistence

..... Overwrite first mibibyte of partition ....................................

umount: /dev/sdc: not mounted.

umount: /dev/sdc1: not mounted.

umount: /dev/sdc2: not mounted.

umount: /dev/sdc3: not mounted.

1024+0 records in

1024+0 records out

1048576 bytes (1.0 MB, 1.0 MiB) copied, 0.219854 s, 4.8 MB/s

..... Create file system in usbdata partition  .................................

Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.

Creating NTFS volume structures.

mkntfs completed successfully. Have a nice day.

Finally, please wait for a few more seconds ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NAME MODEL          FSTYPE  LABEL                    MOUNTPOINT  SIZE NAME

sdc  Drive_SM_USB20 iso9660 Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS amd64             7.6G sdc

sdc1                iso9660 Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS amd64             2.6G sdc1

sdc2                vfat    Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS amd64             3.9M sdc2

sdc3                ntfs    usbdata                                5G sdc3

 Done :-) 

back to Scouting under Covid-19 health restrictions . . .

*back to Scouting under Covid-19 health restrictions . . . *

Attempt to summarise the restrictions . . . 

The limits could be there a good while. The 15 outdoors - .. or indoors is with social distancing and precautions masks and hygiene if closer than 2m. 

Group Council meetings to figure out when can get back to Scout Den, what meeting rules/procedures and cleaning regimes need.

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/cf9b0d-new-public-health-measures-effective-now-to-prevent-further-spread-o/   Indoor sporting and culture guidelines (e.g. museums, gyms) allow multiple pods of 6. PODs must be kept separate. *Indoors("Youth sector specific allowance") and Outdoors currently group max size is 15*, "no mixing between groups" and "May operate multiple groups if sufficient space and strict public health protocols are in place."  So if have enough leaders (maybe county events) with multiple PODs are possible but with less leaders (e.g. 2 or 3) groups are restricted to one group of 15 meeting (including leaders).

The Scouting Guidelines https://www.scouts.ie/Covid-19/Advice/ - https://www.scouts.ie/Covid-19/Advice/Getting-Back-to-Scouting-Roadmap.pdf and youth sector guidelines say the same, follow govt/HSE guidelines - from scouting roadmap:

"*Small team:* Scouting has always been based in the small teams of lodges, sixes, patrols/watches, crews and teams (depending on your section). Activity can restart from this basis and focus on getting these teams up and running. Not only is this a safe way to control numbers for social distancing but it is also a key part of good scouting. As measures relax, we can look at bringing more of these small teams together in the same place while still keeping to these teams."

"*Outside:* We will emphasise outside activities over Autumn and into the Winter where possible. Many Beavers and Cubs sections will want to start back in September so the focus needs to be on outdoor activities and meeting when and where possible.

"*Youth and Adults:* Before we can have new style indoor meetings consider how we can continue with the online environment to create a new blended scouting model to further reduce the risk of viral spread."

"*Camps involving up to 15 participants may take place having regard to public health advice*"