Judebert.com

First T-Shirt Design Available

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:39:00 -0400

Electric Love

I just made my first design, "Electric Love", available at CafePress! (I originally tried ShirtCity, but they couldn't make a decal in two colors, and their servers were too slow.)

It's designed for electric vehicle drivers, although it's pretty generally appealing, I think. It's available as a decal for your car and a matching T-shirt for... well, surely you know how to wear a T-shirt.

Support alternative energy with an Electric Love T-Shirt!

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty on LaserDisc

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:39:00 -0400

I did a little work for a friend who sells art online. I've only recently learned that the language used is a variant of Ruby; I'm interested in learning more.

For some odd reason, she thought it necessary to compensate me. She checked out my wish list on Amazon and remembered that my favorite actor is Danny Kaye. So she did some legwork and bought me an out-of-print laserdisc: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

I'm so excited! The rear cover was a little munged up, but the disc looks just fine. A different friend recommended it to me as her favorite Danny Kaye movie.

Copyright law allows one archival copy, so I've hooked the LD player to the Tivo. With luck, the Tivo will allow me to record the movie, then burn it to a DVD.

All I need now is two free hours to watch it!

Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Ghost Drain

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:43:15 -0400

Many of you know I damaged my batteries by allowing them to discharge to 6V. The question at this point is: how much capacity do they have, and how much can I get back?

Well, they seem to rest around 128V after a full charge. They're supposed to rest at 132V. And with a bottom of 105V, that's... 85% of their original capacity. Assuming you can use voltage to determine capacity in AGM batteries, which you really can't. (You need to check voltage under load, which is hard to do with just your eyes.)

I'm using every technique I can think of to restore the batteries. Some of those techniques require a lot of monitoring.

You can imagine my surprise when I went to check the charge yesterday and discovered that I was draining 18 amps! I cut off the charger and my E-meter claimed I was actually draining 28 amps!

Continue reading "Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Ghost Drain"

Alpha Geek Learns Python for Star Wars XScreenSaver

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:06:38 -0400

My work computer is pretty restricted. I don't get any admin privileges at all. This is occasionally a real problem, like when I need something for development. But usually it's only a pain; although my browser's Java plugin only supports 1.4, I can't imagine a business case when I need a better one; after all, we're developing a real application, not an applet.

One such pain is the text in XScreenSaver. It's using uptime to provide text for the Star Wars screensaver and similar text-based modules, which is just boring. I'm allowed to specify a command that will produce text output, like fortune, but I'd like to get an RSS feed. And since xscreensaver-text isn't installed, all I can use is elinks, which puts raw HTML in the output.

So, being the Alpha Geek, I learned enough Python to read a feed. It's installed by default, but the Universal Feed Parser isn't. I had to figure out how to manipulate the module search path, read the arguments, and traverse and combine lists and dictionaries. No biggie. The source to my python "screenfeed" script is available if you read more.

Continue reading "Alpha Geek Learns Python for Star Wars XScreenSaver"

Local FindJar

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:47:45 -0400

FindJar is an online search engine that tries to tell Java programmers which jar file holds the class they need. It's always done a mediocre job for me.

The FindJar Python script does a fantastic job; it searches your local directories. That way you don't have to worry about results from libraries you've never heard of, or from jars so outdated they blight the rest of your code.

I'd probably like regular expression parsing, and maybe a printout of all the classes in all the jar files. After all, I've got a few thousand, and it can take a while to search. But hey -- it's Free, I can see the source.

Time to learn Python!

Rough Night

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:49:14 -0400

Eri's sister usually watches after Omi and Opi (since she lives next door), but she's going down to Miami to help her daughter with the oncoming string of hurricanes. They need some supervision, so Omi and Opi are staying at our house, even though their home is in no direct danger.

That means Eri and I are sleeping in the kids' rooms. Sleeping apart isn't so difficult; it's a little disheartening, but not so bad. But last night Eri woke up our youngest daughter, Kayla, on the way to bed.

Kayla has been suffering from anxiety over mummies.

No, seriously. And somehow I don't think the "Oh, no, mummies! I'd better walk slightly faster!" argument is a good tack to take with her.

Continue reading "Rough Night"

The Man Who Opened A Door

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:52:31 -0400

My sister locked herself out of the house. She called me, with her kids panicking in the background, to find a locksmith who worked on Sundays.

I suggested that I just drive down and get the spare key from somebody. It would probably only take 30 minutes, less than a locksmith.

Unfortunately, the KeyMaster wasn't where she expected him to be, so I arrived without it.

Her little daughter was very disappointed.

Continue reading "The Man Who Opened A Door"

Inkscape Paintbrush Strokes

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:00:00 -0400

Hey, Honda, can I use your logos to make T-shirts? Please?

I want to sell some T-shirts, so I'm experimenting with Inkscape to produce vector graphics for the designs. I once spray-painted a tee shirt with some Volkswagen logos on it. The results were extremely attractive. Now I want to reproduce that with vector graphics.

It's surprisingly difficult to make blotches. Although I couldn't get a spray paint effect, I finally got a wet paintbrush stroke to work. Continue reading for my method.

Continue reading "Inkscape Paintbrush Strokes"

Goodbye, Neppy

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:43:00 -0400

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to our cat, Neplehu.

The name means "mischief" in Czech. We got him so young that his gender was not easily determinable. He couldn't eat from a food bowl without a boost. His face was flat, not fully developed; he had to dunk his whole head in his food, so we had to clean him after every meal. We knew he was a "Hemingway", a cat with extra toes.

We didn't know he would be so lovey-dovey. After a few years, he unfortunately developed the bad habit of urinating on our clothes piles, so we put him outside. We got a canopy to protect him from the heat and rain. He took to it with dignity, refusing to even step indoors except to get from one end of the house to the other. I gave him some attention every evening during feeding time, and our kids would occasionally go outside to pet him.

He was an old cat; he'd had trouble breathing for a couple of weeks, so we took him to the vet. It turned out his intestines had herniated into his diaphram. He was suffering pretty bad, but like a cat, refused to let anyone know.

We brought everyone in to say goodbye. He got a lot of petting, even if it was from a bunch of crying girls. We took a bunch of pictures. Then the girls left the room and Neppy left his pain behind. We buried him beneath a new pink lemon tree in our back yard.

Goodbye, Neppy. You will be missed.

Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Wet Charging

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:10:42 -0400

In short, it doesn't work.

I drove through a giant puddle caused by ex-hurricane Fay. Eri has been really worried about that; she seems to think it'll destroy my car or something. (In reality, the water isn't conductive enough to cause a problem in the motor. In fact, it would help cool it. The dirt in the water is problematic, but not a huge deal.) My engine compartment is organized so that nothing important got wet.

But it got in my spare tire well, which is where my charger resides. It apparently got wet, because turning it on tripped my GFCI.

I let it dry out for a day or so. I planned to use a hair dryer on its fan ports if it wasn't dry, but yesterday morning I started charging as usual. Today I'm all full.

Happy Birthday, Kayla

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:41:09 -0400

Kayla turns 6 today!

Despite the "hurricane" stalled overhead, we had the room decorated and a big pile of presents ready for her to open when she woke up. She was thrilled with the presents, which included a new table and chairs (from Omi and Opi), a beautiful rug (from Mommy and Daddy), paint pots and brushes (from Melissa), and a teddy bear (from Tatiana). I don't intend to list all the presents or anything; she was happy to turn 6, and everybody got a big hug.

She didn't want to go to school, but we took her anyway. When she comes home, she can clean up her room and give away enough old stuff to fit the new stuff in.

Happy Birthday, Kayla!

Hurrican Fay

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:45:00 -0400

Hurricane Fay finally made up her mind and decided to roll through Central Florida. Since Omi and Opi live in Daytona, there's a possibility of flooding and power outages for them. Since they're 85, we don't think they'll be able to make it down the 7 flights of stairs.

So we brought them over to our house!

Due to the "hurricane" (I think it's turned into a tropical storm now), and keeping track of kids and parents-in-law, I probably won't be online much for a week or so.

NozzleRage

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:09:34 -0400

I just had to share this funny gasoline protest commercial from NozzleRage. I thought it was hilarious!

Ran Over My Cat

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:04:00 -0400

Don't freak out, he's okay.

But yes, I did run over Neppy. Or at least, I ran into him.

I was backing Silent E out of the garage. I had just seen the cat, so I was moving slow and using a light throttle so the car made its Pedestrian Warning Noise. He's so dumb he didn't even care! Just as I'm figuring he must have moved, the whole car grinds to a halt and I hear this terrible "MRROWWRRR!".

I pulled forward quickly, seeing Neppy slink away in the rear-view mirror. When I went to fetch the idiot, I found a big hunk of his hair in the driveway.

Continue reading "Ran Over My Cat"

Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Without a Net

judebert@judebert.com (Judebert) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:45:09 -0400

Since I've only been driving Silent E for a week, I've kept Ao-kun (my Civic Hatchback) as a safety net just in case I have problems.

I knew yesterday's trip to Goodwill would probably be out of Silent E's range, so on Monday I drove her batteries down to 118V, then set her up with a very slow charge (1A) to try and get the batteries equalized.

Ao-kun did fine on the way to work. There was an emergency afterwards, though, and I had to take kids home.

Things got worse from there. I got a flat, couldn't inflate it with Fix-a-Flat, couldn't inflate it from the gas station pump, destroyed the valve, overheated the engine, and generally pushed the car beyond any reasonable limits to pick up my kids and get them home.

Ao-kun needs two new tires before he moves again. Until then, Silent E is running without a net as my only daily driver.

I'm only a little worried. I think I'll just sell Ao-kun as is, let somebody else handle the tires, and put all that expense into tools and upgrades for Silent E.