Tue Jul 22 22:24:43 PDT 2003

So Prismiq released a "preview release" of their Linux media server, so I purchased one of their machines. The machine is OK, but after an awful lot of debugging on the linux server I discovered that their server detection mechanism basically consists of the server dumping UDP packets to a seemingly meaningless address 239.251.255.255 at a fairly good rate (At least 1 a second). Apparently these packets are detected by the prismiq client which can then identify the sender from the header.

This mechanism seems like a bad idea for several reasons.

1. Constantly dropping packets on your network seems like a inefficient waste

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of resources. 2. These packets are routable to someplace, currently mine are headed for the
WAN. This is really bad for me since they go out the wrong ethernet
interface, so the client never sees them. 3. Some poor network out there is getting a lot of UDP packets.

Anyway, hopefully the prismiq developers will respond with a simpler solution than the current idea that I have which is to add a routing rule to dump the UDP packets onto my local interface instead of going out to the WAN. But I’m a bit hesitant to add another rule, as I’m not that good at writing these rules and I’m concerned that it might have some strange side effects…

We also tried flying the kite again yesterday, but the wind was still too variable. We are going to have to go to the coast to get any steady wind.

Tue Jul 29 23:18:27 PDT 2003

UPDATE: Turns out that the UDP packets are multicast packets. So adding a rule to support multicast routing to my /etc/rc.d/rc.local to route them:

sbin/ip route add 224.0.0.0/4 dev eth0

Was the necessary trick :-)

Tue Jul 15 09:30:36 PDT 2003

Interesting weekend. I built a Delta-Conye (box/delta hybrid) kite this weekend. Building it wasn’t really that hard. Got some great instructions on KiteMongers

http://www.kitemonger.com/kiteplan/sbd/index.html

It actually was pretty fun and easy to put together. I had a lot of "help" from the cats while trying to work. I even got out the camera to try and dissuade them from helping me quite so much, but thye just kept on playing and making a mess of things. But I got some fun photos of them as well as some good photos of the kite in various stages of construction:

http://pooh.asric.com/gallery/kite_building

Ran into a couple of problems when flying it:

First, the 1/4 inch wooden dowels aren’t sufficient for the cross spar in moderate wind. My first flight in the field by our house was going great, the kite was about 400ft and when I stopped it from going out further the high wind snapped the backspar. It then dropped moderatly quickly. I pulled it in as quickly as possible which probably kept it out of the powerlines, but I ended up with the kiteline over a corner of brush, trees and blackberry bushes. After finally retreiveing the kite and spending a lot of time that evening rewinding the kiteline. I found that we do have one kite store in Portland,

Paint The Sky Kites
828 NW 23rd Ave
Portland, OR 97210
503 222 5096

Unfortunately they don’t seem to be much of a kite-building shop, but they do have spars and such to repair the stunt kites they sell, so I got 3 0.20×48 fiberglass rods (all they had) for $1.85 a piece, so I bought all 3 that they had, which turned out to be a good thing.

Upon returning the sewing machine we cut the fiberglass rod to 36′ and got the kite up again, but crashed it into a lightpost and snapped the delta wing spar. So we pulled the wing spars out and replaced them both with the two remaining fiberglass spars.

Next flight we landed it on it’s side and shoved the spar through the pocket since I just used the ripstop nylon for the spar pockets instead of cordua or something stronger. So after sewing denim flaps to reenforce them and sanding the corners of the spar edges, back up it went again, and while it landed on the roof, it worked fine, but the wind just wasn’t consistent enough to keep it up enough for KAP.

In other news, Prismiq has released a "preview release" of their Linux server, so I’ve ordered one with a keyboard to start playing around with it. Laurie isn’t happy with the user interface on the Rio, so at a minimum it should be a decent Rio replacement. If things go well and I can get it working as a full DVR solution with either MythTV or freevo, I’ll buy one for upstairs (I even have a spare wireless card that should work).

I’ve really been enjoying the SciFi Stargate reruns on Mondays. There’s some really great comedy in some of them.

Thu Jul 10 18:54:29 PDT 2003

I may get to sell off Laurie’s old college fridge. Needed the dimentions for the potential buyer:

Internal Dimensions

side view:

14 deep on top
+————-+
| |
| |
| | 15 1/2 tall
| |
+—-+ |
| |
| |
+——–+
9 deep on bottom

Front view:

16 1/4 across
+————–+
| | | &gt;—- freezer part is 6 1/4 tall by 8 in
| | |
| +—-| 15 1/2 tall
| |
| |
| |
| |
+————–+
A

The model seems to be a Kenmore 564.9931704

Update: the potential buyer found one at Lowe’s for $58. I guess ours isn’t acutally worth that much then…

Sat Jul 5 16:03:32 PDT 2003

Laurie and I went out the coast on Wednesday as we both had the day off. We tried flying her dad’s kite with the camera attached at Oceanside, but to say the least, it didn’t go well since the wind was strong, but gusting in multiple directions. We got it up for a few seconds at a time, but between the dual lines, gusty wind, long tail on the kite and the extra load of the camera it just wasn’t working. So we packed it up and went to get lunch in Tillamook.

We did learn a few useful things:

• Oceanside isn’t the best place to do it due to the cliffs causing swirling

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and unpredictable wind.
– A two-line stunt kite probably isn’t the best choice for a kite
– Recommendations to get the kite up, then attach the camera to the line now
sounds like a vastly superior way of doing things.
– The EZ Mega Cam by Ezonics has photo quality about like a inexpensive
disposable film camera. http://pooh.asric.com/gallery/KAP_1
– Ditching the camera into the sand probably isn’t very good for it and
cleaning it isn’t very easy.

Anyway, we had a fairly nice time the rest of the day. After lunch we went to Cape Lookout, walked along the beach, took some photos and after getting ice cream at the Tillamook Dairy we stopped at a couple of places along the Wilson river on our way back home and got some interesting photos.

http://pooh.asric.com/gallery/July_3_2003_coast

On the evening of the 4th we hung out in the neighborhood. At the end our street there’s a bit of a field, which will get developed in a year or so I’m sure. But a number of our neighbors were out with their kids setting off fireworks and from the field we could just see the Hillsboro fireworks show over the tops of the trees. I tried playing with the manual exposure to photograph the fireworks and it turned out to be fairly easy. I got some good shots of the little ones. Unfortunately the big ones that were being set off at the Washington County Fairgrounds were a little too far away to get good photos of, but I got a couple of them as well.

http://pooh.asric.com/gallery/2003-4th-fireworks