Github woes

I was trying out a friends project the other day and was struggling to download some of the files. Internet couldn't find me the answers but I soon got an email about what to do and this is what I got told to do:

git clone https://github.com/the directory/thesubdirectory/

Cd thesubdirectory

git fetch origin Development

git checkout Development

git submodule update --init

Then it worked a treat, hope this helps others out.

The power of twitter

My blog normally gets around 50 hits a day, but recently I advertised via twitter that I had updated my blog around 6pm that evening. Up to this point I had around 30-40 hits, the next 6 hours generated over 900 hits as fellow geocachers and raspberry pi users retweeted my link about my blog.

I'm normally lucky to earn a few pence a day from the advertising on my blog, but this particular day it was a few quid, still nowhere near my activation level to have my money processed, but a step closer and hopefully when I do get it I will be able to buy some more raspberry pi add ons to try and blog about.  So slight hint, like my blog then please click an ad and help support me ;) however many thanks for taking the time to read my blog, gives me more reason to take time out to blog things to it.

Cacheberry pi

I came across a post on twitter about making a car caching gps to warn you if you are close to a cache n dash cache.

I then googled it and tried two different github versions. One being jclement.ca and another by aurock. Each time I could get both a usb GPS and also the adafruit gps working, but the lcd i2c screen? Not a chance. From what I've read there is a lot of slightly different 2x16 led i2c s.  

I've since ordered another i2c and see if that makes any difference, certainly would be good if it works.

Why are us Brits charged so much?

I recently had to pay for my premium geocaching membership renewal, the company wanting £24.99 surely that's a lot just so I can download geocaches to my gps. So I looked up how much if I was American and it was £29.99 .  So I set to work 1.60 dollars to the pound or one dollar worth 60p so I'm sure if you do the maths you see how much more it costs to be a uk member than an American.  However there is more, they charge uk members vat, but don't have a vat number and from the research I've done no offices in the uk. According to uk tax laws this is wrong charging vat to uk members when they are American based with no offices in the uk.

There are many threads on the geocaching site about this but no clear answer to why uk are charged so much compared to American members.

So if your membership is up for renewal have a look around at different currency values I'm sure like me you can save yourself some money too.

Out near high worth

A well stocked cache

Out for a 3-4 mile walk with frodo today, a few drivebys to start with before going onto the walk in near by village of Hampton. The paths started out muddy but over the course became nice to walk.  As with all roobydoo caches they were good size, well stocked and well maintained and a pleasure to do his caches. 

We ended the afternoon with a newish side tracked at shrivenham. A cleverly hidden cache, but soon found I was on private rail track ground after a worker turned up.

Him: what you doing?

Me : having a rest from driving and stretching my legs? Why what you doing?

Him: I work for rail track and I believe you're acting suspicious.

Me: what watching for trains, is it cos I don't have an anorak on?

Him: no its just you don't look like a trains potter and this track to the gate is private rail track land.

Me: I'm sorry but never saw any signs, but heyho I will watch them from my car instead.

Which I did and after a few minutes he went and I got the cache. Looks like I'm afraid to say this one is on private land, but certainly a cleverly hidden cache.

Night cache for my 9600th find

Out tonight with frodo to do a local night cache as it seemed fitting for my 9600th find. The start was well marked with firetacks and each one ahead lit up well with my led lenser head light. I reckon I could have found it in the light with how bright this headlight is but it's not as fun in the day as it is at night when all the animals are out. Made a quick video showing the reflective tacks for those that don't understand it and a photo of firetacks at night. TFTc we enjoyed it, even more so for my 9600th cache find.

See the two reflective bits on the branch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaoIUIEQbI4

Bird webcam

It started about a year ago and I never got it running so I went back to it today and did a fresh install installing ffmpeg and motion as instructed by many other sites and blogs.

Sure enough it worked straight away which was good, god knows what I did wrong last time. 

Even through I can use the raspi cam that plugs into the csi on the motherboard, I really wanted to finish this project off and mark it as success.

So with a sweex national geographic hd usb webcam I was able to do this and with a generous lead can place this on our bird tree within and watch the birds close up.  It saves as jpeg pics but with details in my timelapse post with the raspi cam from the summer you can turn the pictures into an excellent timelapse video.

I also have a 8000mah usb battery pack that can charge three iPhones from flat that powers this. The 2amp usb socket is linked to the power in cable and the .2amp into the usb socket once I have set it up as I find occasionally it needs that extra .2 amps to stop it resetting itself.

The battery lasts over 12 hours and a 16gb card is more than adequate for the project. I'm yet to write a small python script that starts up motion on start up like I have done on my raspi cam project but this is early days.

Hdmipi

A kickstarter project for an hdmi 9" screen started a few days ago and hit its £55k funding in 50 hours. This is something the raspberry pi has been calling out for since day one, an affordable, transportable screen.

A hype of attention on twitter all day Saturday with tweets and retweets soon brought the goal within reach and beyond. With 28 days still left to go and fu ding now at £68k as of writing this, I firmly believe this could hit the half million mark before its 31 days are up on kickstarter.

If you would want one of these which can also be used with gaming consoles, DVD players, dslr cameras then pop over to kickstarter and look up hdmipi certainly is a worthwhile project with nearly 700 pledges in three days.

Pi noir

Yes the camera was out this week so I purchased one and with the help of phenoptix sourced a little ir light that now has a usb lead attached so it can run from a usb battery pack.  Although you can only get a few metres so fr from the infra red light it is bright and although to the naked eye just glows a dim red, shone it to the camera and its like a flash light.

My next project with it is to get a 48 led ir light from china for a few quid, a 8xaa battery pack to run the ir light and try this on a dry and not so windy night outside in the garden on a time lapse.

Kingston loop

Out with frodo on the 7 mile 21 caches Kingston Loop today placed by opti and t bag two friends of ours. Weather was windy but dry at 10c.  We soon made pace of an average 3mph through out and by the half way mark was having to spread our search as cache containers were just out in the middle of paths and didn't seem to be placed back correctly. We didn't enjoy the short walk along the a415 Witney road, we thought that to be dangerous. The next cache we spent ages at only finding the remains which we signed, photographed and texted the owners that it needed maintenance after finding that ringing only lead to the voicemail. By the time we got to too I was feeling soaked from sweat and light headed, no doubt from lack of fluid and a drop in sugar levels.  We then went over to dry sand ford to do an earth cache a lively area that was once a quarry, but now a nature reserve, some caches here to, but I've done them previously.

Now home in dry clean clothes with some chocolate and sugary hot tea, yum. Thanks for a nice series me and frodo enjoyed.