BrainStorm: Storm Chasing Tool for Linux

// December 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Storm Chasing, Weather

Adam Boggs has release version 0.9 of the BrainStorm, a storm chasing tool for the linux platform. The new platform integrates web-based maps, such as Google Maps, radar and warning polygon data, and gps data pulled from an attached device.

The software is released under the GPLv2 license and as source code, so you’ll have to build it and install it yourself. While this is helped along by the use of autogen, there are dependencies that are not listed. The following had to be installed on my Ubuntu 9.04 system:

libtool
libsoap-dev

After installing these two I was able to run autogen, which will have a default prefix of /usr/local/ . A third library came up as not loadable when I went to run the binary, libosmgpsmap, a quick install of libosmgpsmap0 resolved this.

I was not able to test the GPS capabilities since I didn’t have mine handy enough. I’ll test that out at a later date.

As for the radar and severe overlay…

It only comes with radar sites in the ‘alley’ and are hardcoded, making the software somewhat useless in this respect for those outside of the radar coverage area. The warning polygons are actually overlayed images from the NWS site so they do appear pixelated. It seems this is how the software mainly works, by overlaying images upon the map, rather than creating shapes from polygon coordinate sets.

For the radars that it does offer, you can view various types of radar data that are available on the NWS site, including 1 hour precipitation and both velocity types. Only one type of radar can be viewed for all visible radar sites at a time. You’re also not given a choice of elevation angles so I’m assuming it is defaulted to the lowest.

The key here is that it can show your position in relation to a storm and give an idea of what is warned and not, on linux. For that, it does a good job… if you’re in the radar umbrella. What really needs to be improved is the ability to change more properties, such as radar types and sites to show, and even what is shown on the screen.

I look forward to where the software goes from here and so is Adam from the sound of it. It’s written in C/GTK+ and Adam states that anyone is more than welcome to help out.

Customized Ignition Switch Timer from Aug 09 QST

// November 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Amateur Radio, APRS, Mobile

So the August issue of QST had an ignition switch timer that was very easy to build and implement. I thought this was perfect for my car so I didn’t have to worry about disconnecting my OpenTracker+ and Icom 228 from power when I didn’t want to use it. There was just one problem, there was no way to make it optional; sometimes I don’t want to use APRS.

First a note about the parts list. There is a 10k ohm resistor (R6) that is not there, but shown in the schematic and PCB (if you order one from Far Circuits like I did).

Now, onto the problem of making my APRS optional. After perusing the circuit, my father and I thought best to dremel away the trace between Q2 and ground. The only concern is that the transistor would not like floating but we’ll test that further once it’s finished. After drilling new holes for the switch between the transistor and ground, I put the components to the board and everything looked good.

The next step would be to put in a 6 terminal rail in a large project box so I could control up to 3 devices with the timer switch. Of course, everything has powerpoles on it so I can quickly dis/connect devices and radios.

Final installation should be on Thursday before our Extra class and I’ll post up some pics of my handy work on Friday.

Twitter Serves Up Bad Bacon

// November 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media, Twitter

So I got a notice from Twitter that I was being blessed with their new retweet interface and let me tell you, it’s creepy.

I mean, suppose you’re just checking your timeline for the 40th time of the day (don’t lie), and you’re expecting your usual group of profile pics that hopefully resemble your followed should you ever have the chance to meet them. These are people you spend a lot of face to pixel time with!

You turn away, just for a moment, forever needing to bludgeon the spam from your inbox, and when you look for that smile from that person you forgot you were following — AHHH!

Who the hell is this person and why are they invading my social space?! Did I leave the door open? Did my business card fall out of pocket in the parking lot?

Wait. No.

I’ve been subjected to what I’m now going to call, ‘bad bacon’. You know, that stuff that if you tried to eat it would probably chip your tooth; burnt to a crisp so bad it smells more of carbon than meat. Yeah, that stuff. It’s supposed to be good because you wanted it in the first place, or at least asked for it, right? Nope. Now, that desire for something tasty has left you subject to that which you might not want, and that’s meant in a non-insulting way to the awesome bacon you’re used to.

And why? Why do I have to be served this destroyed treat by Twitter?

Interestingly, the more I think about it, if you want people to use your new feature, then perhaps that’s how you have to cut out this ‘bad bacon’. You’re going to force me to use lists in order to see only tweets by those people who I follow? Wow, very nice play.

Even if they later allow for you to turn this off, I find it hard to think it’s going to be default. This is a perfect way to force the user to build lists which offer more metrics than even Google or Microsoft can shake a fist at. Influence, just check how many lists they’re on. I mean, they have virtually created Kevin Bacon!

It all comes full circle. Rather than letting the desktop clients use their loyal user base to help define how to better implement retweets, which mind you were not controversial enough to warrant this change, they’d rather force you to a feature they just released to mixed review.

Until they give me the option in my settings, I’m stuck with this bad bacon when using their web interface.

No thanks.

Interview: HamBrief.TV #47

// September 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Amateur Radio, Development, Random Stuff, Skywarn

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Chris Matthieu, N7ICE, for HamBrief #47. We talk about my involvement with Wayne County’s Skywarn program, emergency communications, and other assorted rag chewing.

Thank again to Chris for the opportunity to talk about one of my hobbies!

You can find more information at:

weather.gov
skywarn.org
Central Region NOAA Ham Radio Page

Skywarn Recognition Day Logger

// September 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Amateur Radio, Development, Weather

For the last couple of years at the SRD event at DTX (NWS in White Lake) we’ve used a logger I’ve built using Ruby on Rails. Last year I did a complete rewrite only days before the event, but this year I’m building on the existing codebase. One of the features I’ve added since last year is an Ajax dupe checker. It’s pretty simple but goes pretty far in saving us having to hit the Submit button.

Right now I’m looking for ways to improve the function and feature-set and in November begin trying to spruce up the interface. I’d like more of it to be Ajax, but degrade extremely well as it is with the ham community that they tend to use older hardware.

Eventually this will build out to be an event logger that can be extended to work for any sort of event, with a focus on amateur radio oriented activities. From Skywarn nets, to disaster events, I want to make the logger that can easily manage and display what happened.

I’m seeking thoughts and ideas on the SRD Logger right now, but I’ll be thinking of how to abstract its parts out. If you have an interest in using it this year, or want to help beta test the existing software, just shoot me a line.

Reflections of a Previously Ignorant Student

// September 25th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Amateur Radio, Random Stuff

Yesterday I started a 14-week class to upgrade my ham ticket to Extra Class. I’m fairly anxious to learn all the fun stuff and even have the chance to help my dad! He too is taking the class and while I’m at least 20 years everyone’s junior, I feel like I’m back in high school again.

We’re at what used to be an old Jr. High School, which is now an adult education and autistic center. Each room is stocked with the old desks of my elementary school (which is actually just across the football field and the street) and even came with the old classroomy smell of chalk and books.

It’s funny how when I reflect about the time great time I had in school, I repeatedly think of how nowadays I’m so damn interested in the things I cared nothing for (other than getting a passing grade). It’s a good thing I feel like I jipped myself out of only a few years of learning and not half my life. Perhaps it’s time to really think about night class. I’ve tried the online learning, but for someone who sits in front of a computer for countless hours at a day, a plastic chair and a desk/table might not be such a bad change.

But what? Philosophy? (Solar/Astro/Theoretical)-Physics? Business? Archeology? Electrical Engineering? So many choices. It’s like I’m a kid again, but this time with a hunger for knowledge. These days I lean towards Philosophy if I was to go for purely selfish reasons, but I know Business is probably the way to go.

With life hopefully slowing with what seems like the days of autumn, I’ll bring a focus back into learning and education. With any luck and lots of hope, my son will appreciate what I had such high disregard for growing up.

RedZ: Revolution or more Z’s?

// July 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

“Introducing Patent Pending Search 2.0″ by RedZ Revolution Search

They seek to provide results by website snapshots to speed up your access to accurate results. Do they find it or put me to sleep?

“…most people do not have the time to patience to read through page after page of text based listings.”

That’s why the real goal should be giving us the most relevant results first. While I see that the company is trying to move the decision making more towards the human mind, you can not get around the fact that human thinking is linear.

“The Web sites are the results instead of plain ordinary text, allowing you to sift through massive data quickly.”

A computer is able to produce and cycle imagery faster that our mind can comprehend, at least that’s the common understanding. It’s therefore our own mind creates a bottleneck in the flow of information and decision making, not the method of display in my opinion.

It seems from information provided on their site, that RedZ is focused on presenting the data in a visual way, rather than a textual format. So what’s new? Seems like a gimmick and even potential advertisers on the WebHostingTalk forum are not buying it either.

Several site statistic sources are putting their daily visitors in the tens of thousands, so you’d have to rely on their network to provide good numbers for your money. They also don’t charge of pay-per-click so as to avoid the chance of fraud, another key component of their pitch.

I’m not impressed with what they are looking to provide, especially when there is already quite a bit of thought about how a website’s design affects the human mind and decision making. I don’t want that to have an effect on mine, and I like my results to be normalized; it’s one less thing to worry about.

For me, RedZzzz…

How I got here:

I was brought to them by a tweet by @suedecrush.

FIXED! Ruby and MySQL “double free or corruption”

// July 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // Development

I was having a problem with the MySQL adapter for Ruby throwing a stack and memory trace when the script was finished running. The script ran fine and from the error below, you can see it’s related to the garbage collection, or lack thereof, that the MySQL adapter is doing.

Here’s the error I got:

*** glibc detected *** ruby: double free or corruption (!prev): 0x09bb64b8 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/libc.so.6[0x5130f1]
/lib/libc.so.6(cfree+0x90)[0x516bc0]
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.7/lib/mysql.so[0x9d9d7b]
ruby(rb_gc_call_finalizer_at_exit+0x91)[0x806ff41]
ruby[0x8059d99]
ruby(ruby_cleanup+0xd0)[0x8065400]
ruby(ruby_stop+0x11)[0x8065511]
ruby[0x806a8f1]
ruby[0x8052edf]
/lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xdc)[0x4bfe8c]
ruby[0x8052de1]


The application I was working no longer needed to connect to the database so I put the problem off until I came across it again today. After some research I looked for alternatives to the old adapter, but there was nothing.

Then I came across a post by Stefan Kaes, “Make ruby-mysql create less garbage“. He had found a problem with the amount of objects the adapter created and that was leading to a performance hit.

I thought perhaps the problem I was having would be fixed by applying his patch. It certainly couldn’t hurt anything, right? Who doesn’t want a faster database adapter?

After downloading the patch and applying it on my server, I rebuilt the mysql 2.7 adapter and POW!

Problem solved. Many thanks to Stefan.

Dayton Hamvention Dashboard is Live!

// May 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Amateur Radio, APRS, Dayton

You can watch my video stream, my APRS location, chat about it, and then see who’s tweeting about it!

http://www.k8djk.com

I’ll stream while I can, and perhaps even while I’m out in the flea market. I’ll be posting galleries to the page Dayton page which you can find a link to at the top.

See you all there!

Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Enhancement Act of 2009

// May 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // Amateur Radio

Don, KB6NU, posted what the ARRL wrote about a recent bill introduced in the House to help recognize the importance of Amateur Radio to government communications. I’ll certainly be contacting my reps about this and hopefully get some more sponsors for the bill.

Houston Rep. Introduces Amateur Radio Bill