|
|
|
|
|
| There is a view from a new perspective this week. See BRE1, which indicates the the first entry to the village from the intersection of Brock Road and the Bypass (BRAV/BRTV). Not much at this end so far, but it does give a sense of the heavy rains, with tornado warnings and watches, that poured down last Thursday.
The street bed for Old Battlefield Blvd. is viewable in both OBB and SLDR.
And the grass and foliage is much greener than a week ago; from the rains and the progression of Spring. Still much cooler than expected in this region for this time of year.
Here are this week's pictures:
BRE1
This is the added perspective hinted in earlier posts. The identifier "BRE" indicates a street entrance to the village from Brock Road. The number following the "BRE" counts the streets from the BRAV/BRTV location, which is just behind the camera. OBB
Noticeable is the grading that was done since last week for the street bed for Old Battlefield Blvd. The ground is very wet still from the rain last Thursday. SLDR
The framing for another story is up for the first building of the village. It now is clear to see that it will be a straight drive across Brock Road to the Bypass from Spotslee Drive. SYW
The grass in the school yard is much greener, but the construction area is commensurately muddier.
mcw
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth Alien novels. Feed available also via html.
05/10/2008 09:57 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| I'm going to try something different this time. I'll provide a short narrative as needed, but with it a description of the pictures together with a thumbnail instead of just a link. Please let me know if you like this presentation style better.
There was a lot of needed rain this past week, so not as much construction work was done. Some more rows of cinder blocks on the building next to SLDR, and the Mega Mix containers were moved (they're farther apart this week; see SYW).
I included another "one time" picture, one that I'd been intending to include for several months. That is the view from what is now the "new" Business 208 ("B208" for reference here), which is really the old main 208 that went through the Courthouse and County Government complex. For some time now, there has been a direct view to the Bypass that was obscured by trees before they were cleared. At first it appeared that another spur connecting the Bypass with Business 208 was planned, but nothing has been constructed; not that anyone would want that necessarily.
So here are this week's pictures:
-
B208
This is the view from B208. You can see the break in the trees done near the beginning of the Bypass construction in 2007 allowing a clear view of the traffic signal at OBB.
-
OBB
Not much difference from this perspective, except for the wetter ground from last week's rains.
-
SLDR
The rains kept construction work to just a couple of days, but a few more cinder blocks were laid in the first building of the Village to be started.
-
SYW
Visible from this perspective are the additional walls of the building and the Mega Mix containers a little farther apart from each other.
At this point the project looks like it could be just another strip mall going in, but at least the signs around the edges indicate the "Village" concept. Let us hope.
mcw
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth Alien novels. Feed available also via html.
05/10/2008 06:35 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Up until now, the work has been concentrated on the Bypass. For the past few weeks, preparations were being made for the Village between the Bypass, Brock Road, and Robert E. Lee Elementary School. The open area that has been a "field in waiting" is waiting no longer; the first building walls went up this past week.Just as notable, and welcome to drivers at the BFEX end of the Bypass, was the completion of the pavement at that end and the opening of all four lanes between the new Business SR 208 traffic light (see the final pre-opening picture at 080106BFEXSR.jpg) and the Battlefield exit. Compare the picture 070429BFEX.jpg with 080426BFEX-1.jpg, which is a year later. The bit of bare earth in the 2007 picture is where the road curves to the right behind the signs at the Battlefield exit in the 2008 picture. All traffic used to go straight at the new curve, and now drivers must go through the curve and turn left at the Business SR 208 traffic light to go directly to the Courthouse and county administration buildings; the straight route is not only blocked, the former pavement has been covered with earth with curbing around it.
Here is a guide to the new pictures chronicling the Village construction:
- The SLDR and SYW pictures are the same as before, only now they will show the building construction.
- The BFEX picture was a one-time addition to highlight the before/after comparison described above.
- Next time, the BFEX picture will be replaced with a new set of BRTV pictures. These will be just to the Courthouse side of the traffic light installation that was visible in the BR608, BRAV, and BRTV pictures of the road construction.
The large Mega-Mix dispensers were visible from SLDR up until Friday evening, April 25, 2008. The cinder blocks in the building had gone up that day, and blocked the view of them. The RACSB building is visible in 080426OBB-1.jpg straight above the post lying on the ground in the picture; the Spotsylvania Post Office is the brick building on the left side of the picture. Observe that Old Battlefield Blvd. will curve to the left just before its intersection with the Bypass so as to meet it square on.
Not shown, but the OBB intersection and the 7-Eleven on Business SR 208 can be seen from each of those two locations. The view of the 7-eleven is at about 60 degrees to the left of the view in OBB.
The whole area seems smaller now that these areas can be viewed from locations where they were obscured before. On a smaller scale, it is similar to what happened to the distance between the Interstate 95 interchange at Route 3 and Fall Hill Avenue when Fredericksburg's Central Park went in; or what is happening now with construction at the Spotsylvania Towne Centre in the area behind what used to be know as Spotsylvania Mall.
Traffic is sparse along Business SR 208 during non-business hours since the Bypass opened. However, the 7-Eleven and the twice a week farmers market are still operating; and complaints of no more Courthouse traffic jams have not surfaced so far.
mcw
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth Alien novels. Feed available also via html.
04/27/2008 08:12 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| No more detour for SR 608; the new road is open.
The Fredericksburg.com site has done a great job of providing videotours. Here's their general story about the road.
A driving tour from BFEXTV through BFEXSR is here.
A driving tour from BFEXSR continuing through BFEXTV is here.
A driving tour from BFEXTV through a right turn at BRAV is here.
A driving tour from BFEXTV past the traffic light in SYE through a left turn at BRAV and past SLDR, RACSB, and SYW in quick succession, and finally ending up at the original Courthouse traffic light (where all the traffic used to be choked through) is here.
A driving tour from SR 648 (Blockhouse Road) almost near the Po River through to BR608 (looking from the opposite direction) is here. This tour shows (from the opposite direction) where BRAV will tie into SR 648. It takes you through the four-way stop signs at SR648 and SR 608 (Robert E. Lee Drive) and on past where SR 608 used to continue (about where the SUV from the opposite direction appears). The tour turns off to the right where SR 608 picks up again after being cut off by the Bypass; had they continued 1/4 mile further they would have been at BRTV. By turning right onto the near segment of SR 608, the tour ends where SR 608 joins Brock Road; and they then turn back onto the Bypass at BRTV.
Very nicely done tours. Compare the completed Bypass with the beginnings from April 2007.
The next phase in progress now is to complete the four lane expansion for BFEXAV/BFEXTV. Work on that is ongoing as of now, and those videos starting at BFEXTV provide a glimpse of that work toward the early part of the videos.
The Canada geese shown several months ago in BRTV have made themselves athome near the drain water pond just to the westbound side of the Bypass.
Plenty of traffic on the Bypass, and now hardly any on Brock Road— it's just a little eery if you remember how it used to be.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth Alien novels. Feed available also via html.
02/24/2008 02:04 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Word is that the Spotsylvania Bypass is to open this Thursday, January 10,
2008. What a change that will make to traffic patterns around the
courthouse!
But this Thursday will not be the end of Bypass construction. Look closely
at 080106BFEXAV and 080106BFEXTV, and observe that the four lane Bypass
squeezes down to two lanes at the eastern end.
So there's yet more to be done on the highway. And then the village itself
is yet to be built.
The detour still is in effect for SR 608, with additional road signs so
advising drivers.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
01/06/2008 07:25 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Noticeable change at the Brock Road intersection, especially with the new paving and curbing (compare 071209 pictures with those from Christmas Eve, 071224).
Completion now appears to be expected in early 2008.
The detour for SR 608 remains in effect, but things will be different when that road is open once again. The Bypass cuts through SR 608 between Brock Road and The Laurels subdivision, and SR 608 stops at a "T" into the Bypass; that instead of SR 608 continuing straight through to SR 648 as before.
12/30/2007 12:27 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| They're going in; the lights for the traffic signals at the Brock Road and
Bypass intersection are up but not on. What the intersection will look like
is becoming apparent, in
071111BRAV and
071111BRTV, even though drivers must
navigate the mix of old and new road in that construction zone. Look just to
the left of the orange and white barrels near the center of
071111BR608 to
see the median that will divide that part of Brock Road.
Poles for another traffic light are located where an extended Spotslee
Drive would intersect the Bypass, which is located where the maroon arrows
point in
071111SLDRtruck and
071111BRTVtruck.
That is in addition to the third traffic light at the Battelfield exit end
of the project, as seen by the traffic light sign in
071111BFEXSR. Another traffic light sign for that intersection is just out of view to the right edge of
071111BFEXTV; but zoom in on that picture (the Opera browser is excellent for this) to see the the SR 208 West and Business signs along the westbound shoulder, both approaching and at the intersection with the side road.
Get ready for trees along the Bypass. Look closely along the shoulders of
the Bypass in
071111BRTV to see the new trees planted this past week. (When
trees were planted along the Spotsylvania Parkway, between US 1 and Smith
Staion Road, the trees affected the speed limit on the Parkway.)
The detour still is in effect for SR 608, with additional road signs so
advising drivers.
11/11/2007 06:47 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| So far it's only the poles and a sign or two, but more traffic lights are under construction; both annoying and necessary.
There was further progress on the side road intersection at the Battlefield
exit end of the project,
071104BFEXSR. And another set of traffic lights is
being installed where the Bypass crosses Brock Road,
071104BRTV,
071104BRAV, and
071104BR608.
This is the first day of standard time, starting a week later than the
previous long-standing schedule. The late afternoon sunlight is beginning to
take on its winterish glow. After all, it's only a little over a month before
the winter solstice.
The detour still is in effect for SR 608, with additional road signs so
advising drivers.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
11/04/2007 08:32 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| If you use
rss2email, you might have encountered difficulty when copying
and pasting a feed link from your browser to the r2e utility when the link in
the browser address field starts with "feed://" and then the link.
I've observed that r2e does not recognize the "feed://" part of the
address; it wants "http://" instead.
So I block copy the address in the browser from the right all the way up
to and including the "://" part. Then in r2e, I type in "http" and then paste
the rest, to produce:
~/.rss2email$ ./r2e add http[pasted link from browser]
Works fine. Prove it with:
~/.rss2email$ ./r2e list
Enjoy your reading.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
11/01/2007 08:42 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| The first day of beautiful Fall weather after several days of much needed
rain was a delight that drew many people outside. It followed a week of
paving progress, with some of the work done in the rain.
Some things of note are:
- Paving was extended at both ends of the project, with the eastbound
pavement finally growing again after several weeks of stopping just past
the side road. Look closely in 071027BFEXTV and you might notice the line of
demarcation where the paving had halted and then started again. The end
of the current eastbound paving progress is visible in 071027BFEXAV.
- It appears there will be a traffic light at the intersection of the
By-Pass and the side road. Try expanding 071027BFEXTV to the point of pixelization, and
observe the two brown traffic light poles in the background just to the
left of the paving equipment on the right. Another view of the near
traffic light pole is in the background in 071027BFEXSR just to the right of the left-most
orange and white barrel. Blocked from view by the barrel in 071027BFEXSR are the indentions in the pavement for
traffic sensors at that intersection; the second brown traffic pole is
obscured from view by the yellow paving equipment.
- Finally the paving has progressed for the first time across Brock Road,
as you can see in 071027BRAV. With the additional paving equipment
visible in 071027BR608, it is clear that that small but busy
intersection will never be the same again.
The detour still is in effect for SR 608, with additional road signs so
advising drivers.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
10/27/2007 09:09 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| After several weeks of other preparatory work, the pavemet appears to be
extending farther eastbound at the Battlefield exit end, as seen in 071020BFEXAV and 071020BFEXTV.
To get a better perspective, observe the same piece of paving equipment in
071020BFEXTV and 071020BFEXSR.
The detour still is in effect for SR 608, with additional road signs so
advising drivers.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
10/20/2007 10:45 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Just a quick note on my experience with trying to boot the Fedora network install utility from a thumb drive. Some of the blogs and other documentation said to just dd the boot.iso image onto a USB flash drive. I did that and no joy, at least for me.
What did work was an image file named bootdisk.img. It's located on the Fedora mirror sites with a path such as:
[mirror ftp or http url]/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/i386/os/images/
The key is to drill down past the os directory to the images directory, the same place you find the boot.iso file for the network install boot CD.
A site I have found very helpful is:
LinuxQuestions.org - where Linux users come for help.
More later on the network install process.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
10/15/2007 09:58 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| A few things worthy of mention this week:
The curbing is being extended around onto Brock Road at that end of the
by-pass; a small part of it is viewable in the lower right corner of 071014BRTV, and more of it is viewable in 071014BR608.
Notice how Brock Road shifts to the left heading toward the courthouse in 071014BR608; and its old path is beside it in 071014BRAV where it appears that pavement will be laid
soon.
As a matter of perspective, the dirt path in the near view of 071014BFEXTV is the old roadbed for the previous
westbound lanes of SR 208 just before the road narrowed into two lanes.
The detour still is in effect for SR 608, with additional road signs so
advising drivers.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
10/15/2007 09:18 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Last time we observed that there's a nice median shaping up in 070923BRTV. The camera's battery died at a most inopportune time and the 070930BRTV
picture was lost, but take a re-look at the median picture from last time. There appears to be no
left turn provision due to the solid median. So if a driver wants to turn
into the village from the westbound lanes, there is no place to make that
turn. An alternative would be going on down to Brock Road, turning left and
then left again into the village area. Another alternative would be to follow
the old road past the Court House to the traffic light at the "T" where SR
208 turns left and Brock Road joins in from the right; turn right at the
light and then right again into the village area.
The further lane shifting just out of view to the right of 070923BRTVa mentioned last time is revealing the
intersection of Brock Road and SR 608 that is taking shape, as shown in 070930BR608.
Paving work at the Battlefield exit end of the project was almost at a
standstill this past week, as shown by 070930BFEXTV as compared with the previous week, 070923BFEXTV. Since then, another strip of asphalt has been laid for the eastbound SR 208 By-Pass traffic (to be shown next time).
The detour still is in effect for SR 608, with additional road signs so
advising drivers.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
10/03/2007 08:49 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Looks like the paving equipment in 070923BFEXTV got some use last week as shown by the new
pavement in 070923BFEXSR—compare that with the lone gravel pile
only a week earlier in 070916BFEXSR.
Now there is a similar gravel pile in the actual village area, as seen
just to the left beyond the stop sign in 070923SLDR1 and 070923SLDR2, and to the right middle of 070923RACSB.
There's a nice median shaping up in 070923BRTV; also some further lane shifting just out of
view to the right to accomodate additional paving work. Will start including
a view of that next time.
The detour still is in effect for SR 608, with additional road signs so
advising drivers.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth
Alien novels. Feed available also via
html.
09/23/2007 07:41 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Naturally, you start with an old computer, perhaps a laptop, on which to install Fedora. The information that follows is for frustration prevention, that I learned from returning to do an additional installation a few months after doing the last one. Some small but critical things had changed in the process, namely:
- The mirror I had used before no longer was a mirror, and there were other changes to the mirrors list
- Just as importantly, the paths had changed. Not only that, but the different mirrors had different paths than each other for the locations of the install files.
This will affect whether or not your over-the-Internet install will get past finding the files on the mirror site. To save headaches, NB the below info.
Select a mirror near you from this list:
http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/7
Important: The list of mirror sites in the link just above changes, as do also the paths on those sites. If you have not installed from these mirrors lately, it could save you time and frustration to check the list to ensure that your favored mirror is still there. Also, and just as important, it's best to check the path to the iso file you want, and in the case of running the CD from boot.iso, the image files that the install program will use to install your selected options. One way to do this is to anonymous FTP to your selected mirror site, and drill down to the directory with installs for the architecture (e.g. i386) of the machine to which you are installing Fedora. The directory you are looking for is the /os/ directory underneath the architecture directory. The boot.iso process will find the image file it wants from there, so going deeper into the directory in the mirror site and path screen of the install program will only cause an error and stop the process. Once you've determined the path to the os directory on the mirror you intend to use, note it exactly and then use that path for that mirror when installing.
To just run Fedora 7 from CD, download your preference between the following two full CD images off the download root level from your selected mirror site (remember to verify the mirror path via FTP beforehand):
/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Live/i386/Fedora-7-KDE-Live-i686.iso
/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Live/i386/Fedora-7-Live-i686.iso
Get the Internet installation boot CD image from this directory off the download root level from your selected mirror site (remember to verify the mirror path via FTP beforehand):
/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/i386/os/images/boot.iso
After you boot your target install machine with the Internet boot CD, when it asks you for the path from your selected mirror where the installation files are, enter (remember to verify the mirror path via FTP beforehand):
/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/i386/os/
If all goes well, the screen should display a message advising that stage2.img or minstg2.img or something similar is being downloaded. After that, installation will launch and you are into the selection menus.
Once the installation process checks all the transactions, it will start installing hundreds of files. As with previous Red Hat installation utilities, this one displays the filenames and a one line description of what each file does.
Always double check for changes.
09/19/2007 09:09 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| We had more needed rain this past week, as evidenced by the small muddy
puddles in 070916BFEXAV. Not much additional paving, though (070916BFEXTV); although a pile of gravel awaits spreading
on the side access road (070916BFEXSR).
Three culvert pipes await installation in 070916SLDR, just to the left of the large dark blue
political sign.
An orange backhoe is visible near the center left in 070916SLDR—for further perspective on the backhoe,
it is visible just above the top right rear corner of the SUV in 070916RACSB1, and also at just about exact center in 070916SY.
No geese this week, but then the hummingbirds have migrated on too.
The detour still is in effect for SR 608.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien Trilogy, and they
sometimes might even talk about the people in the Earth Alien novels. Feed
available also via html.
09/16/2007 06:53 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Just a quick note about some minor adjustments to the email service,
thanks to Feedblitz,
the service that emails the RSS feed to those who subscribe to it on marwalk.com. It's a little
more personalized now.
A lot of the traffic to marwalk.com is to the Linux Notes
and Mac
Notes pages. In the next few weeks, there will be more frequent additions
to the 'Notes and the RSS info about them.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk
about the people in the Earth Alien novels. Feed available also via html.
09/14/2007 10:19 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| The most visible activity in the past two weeks was further curb work.
Also see the median work in 070909BRTV.jpg and 070909BFEXTV.jpg, as well as 070909BFEXSR.jpg. Look closely at 070909SY.jpg and the curb and median work at 070909BRTV.jpg is visible in the distance.
Here's a special pictorial treat not included on the CVchron web page: Canada Geese on the westbound side of the bypass (look closely to see them in 070909BRTV.jpg).
The detour still is in effect for SR 608.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk
about the people in the Earth Alien novels. Feed available also via html.
09/09/2007 08:38 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Convert Formats with Python Audio Tools
Have some audio files in one format, that you would like to convert to another? Try Python Audio Tools. This is an excellent audio format converter. It uses very simple syntax from the command line and does a great job. It will work with as many different formats as you can install. Remember that any tool, this one included, cannot create something that is not there—that is, it cannot add fidelity to a conversion from an already lossy format.
Required: You will need a working recent installation of the Python Interpreter. The Audio Tools installation instructions are very straightforward.
If you would like to "geek out" on audio formats, there also is an excellent PDF from the Audio Tools site that will explain a lot of aspects of audio, about which you might not have known to ask.
09/01/2007 10:43 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Curb work is visible on the westbound side in
070826BRTV.jpg—and a start also on the eastbound side at
the Battlefield exit end as seen in
070826BFEXTV.jpg
; it appears to stop at
the side road at this stage. The curbing is visible also in
070826BFEXSR.jpg,
and in the distance in
070826SY.jpg.
Had some heavy thunderstorms last night (most of the mid-Atlantic was
under a severe thunderstorm watch)—see evidence of the storms as rain
puddles in
070826BFEXAV.jpg,
070826BRTV.jpg, and
070826BRAV.jpg.
Additional utility work in the form of more water/sewer pipes above ground
in
070826SLDR.jpg
and
070826RACSB1.jpg, and also in 070826SY.jpg if you
expand it and look very closely. Communications/electrical utilities also
making progress; take another look at 070826BRTV.jpg to see the cables poking
out of the ground.
The detour still is in effect for SR 608.
It was a very hot and muggy week, especially with the 100 ℉
temperatures during part of that time.
MarWalk.com website cross promotion
Penelope & Friends
The world of humans and other hominids as seen through the eyes of perceptive
animals. Three of these animals are "characters" from the Earth Alien Trilogy, and they sometimes might even talk
about the people in the Earth Alien novels. Feed available also via html.
08/26/2007 08:58 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| If you've read Penna: The Alien Earthling and/or Familiar Aliens, you already are familiar with Penelope,
the clever and lovable pellar rat. You also would have met Comet the cat and
Gretchen the dog. There now is a new series on MarWalk.com, named
"Penelope & Friends," that is available both as an RSS feed
and in an HTML version.
This new series views the world of humans and other hominids as seen
through the eyes of these perceptive animals. In addition to the three
animals mentioned above that are "characters" from the Earth Alien
Trilogy, there also is a fourth animal, Ariel the alpaca, created just
for Penelope & Friends. Ariel and his buddies sometimes might even talk
about the people in the Earth Alien novels, as they continue their "lives" past
the end of Familiar Aliens.
So add Penelope & Friends to your subscription list in your favorite
RSS reader or browser, and enjoy poking good-natured but candid fun at those
silly humans.
08/20/2007 08:57 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Open Source Ports for Mac OS X
Tired of tweaking Linux and just want something productive? Get a Mac. Now that you have your Mac, do you miss all the fun things about tweaking? No problem.
Many of the open source projects, such as those on Sourceforge, are ported to Mac OS X. A Google search turns up a plethora of such projects and useful utilities.
See the link listed above, Open Source Ports for Mac OS X, for a forum post on MacResearch.org with a list of several websites featuring open source programs and utilities that are ported for Mac OS X, many of them already in compiled binary form.
No need to accept limits if you don't have to—and in this case, you don't have to.
08/20/2007 08:48 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Take a look at Community Supported Agriculture, and then ask yourself:
"What would agriculture have to do with alternative fuels and renewable
energy, other than growing crops for bio-based fuels?" The answer could be
"plenty."
Here's how: Local production and consumption of basic agricultural
products would significantly reduce the burden on national and regional
transportation systems. That reduces the gallons/watts of energy needed for
trucks and trains—and this would have an associated benefit of reduced
cost for road and rail mainenance (wouldn't it be great if the potholes on
your favorite highway were patched faster). We still could have our favorite
crops that don't grow in our region shipped in, but chances are we would find
that we don't need to eat those special things as often anyway.
Local production and processing also would go far in meeting employment
needs in economically depressed areas, where jobs have been sent elsewhere
because they are no longer profitable under current circumstances. "Local"
would and should be a major component of the solution to numerous regional
and national problems.
08/20/2007 08:37 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Except perhaps for those within the Linux kernel development listservs,
the name Con Kolivas might not have been a household word. But it's bound to
be now. In a nutshell, after having contributed patches and other code for
the Linux kernel for several years, Con Kolivas is stepping away from the
project in a very public way. The apparent reason: Linux kernel development
is concentrated on server and enterprise functions at the expense of desktop
users.
Kolivas' interview in Austrailian online magazine APC is worth reading through to
the end. Don't stop there—read the posted comments following the
interview too.
That there is a problem, well at least an issue, for Linux on the desktop
is fairly well recognized. The reasons described by Kolivas in his interview
would remove any hope of Linux becoming commonplace as a desktop environment
under the current situation. That situation is that mainline linux kernel
development is dominated by full time professionals solving corporate
enterprise needs, such as support to backend databases, etc.—it's
likely thought by this group, perhaps correctly, that there's not enough
profit to be made for them by supporting a Linux desktop for the general
public. Kolivas' take on the state of PC architecture, the economic reasons
for its stagnation, and the effect of that on kernel development for any
operating system is thought provoking to say the least.
Many of the discussion posts after the interview address what to do about
this problem and where do we go from here. The impression I get from reading
the post-interview posts is that it might be time for a forked Linux kernel
project dedicated to optimizing desktop performance versus server
performance. For example, how may people need a web server on their
laptop?
Ubuntu gets kudos for aiming toward making the Linux desktop attractive to
people other than computer geeks. As one post put it, having fun tweaking a
system is no substitute for something that works without any fuss. But even
Ubuntu is a distribution versus a completeley desktop-optimized kernel.
I think the aggregate of the posts points the way—it's time to fork
a Linux kernel made for the desktop. Done creatively it might be very
profitable. Takers, anyone?
Kernel patch homepage of Con Kolivas
Home Page of Con Kolivas
08/19/2007 04:23 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| One week and one more set of lanes on the bypass; this time the eastbound
lanes. See 070812BFEXTV.jpg and 070819BRTV.jpg to view them from both ends of
the bypass. Also a good start toward paving for the interchage at the
Battlefield exit end of the project; see 070819BFEXAV.jpg for a look at that.
Concrete curbing also is visible along the westbound side in
070819BRTV.jpg.
Indications of foundational work for the village part of the project can
be seen as what appear to be water and sewer connections sticking up, and are
visible beyond the numbered highway sign and the hedge in 070819SLDR.jpg.
Expand 070819SY.jpg to the point of pixelization and you can see the pattern
of these connections as well as get a sense of the planned street layout.
The detour for SR 608 is still in effect—and it probably will be for
a while, as paving work on the west side of Brock Road is not yet visible in
070819BRAV.jpg.
At least from my observations, everyone seems to be negotiating around the
project with minimal or no difficulty.
08/19/2007 03:36 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Sometimes I like to move between two computers, usually my Fedora 7 Linux
machine on an older Dell Dimension box and my MacBook Pro running OS X Tiger.
One of my favorite programs is the one I'm using to write this feed: ListGarden.
You can create, publish, and maintain as many feeds as you like with ListGarden.
But if you want to work on your feed on more than one box and keep the
content constant, you can't do that by just downloading your xml and/or html
(yes, ListGarden
does a paralell html version of your RSS feed if you choose, very cool) from
your public website.
So, here's what to do: Change into the operating directory where you
installed ListGarden.
List all the files in that directory that end in ".txt" and look for the ones
of that set that contain "feed" or "listdata" in them. For example, from your
ListGarden
directory, execute a command like:
ls *.txt | grep feedname
and all of your list data files will be shown. Then you just need to be
sure you synchronize those files on your different local machines. Nothing
fancy required, sneakernet can work just fine.
As ListGarden
has an html option (via checkbox) for inputting the content, you can approach that in a couple of ways. One is to just write it all out by hand as if in vi or Notepad etc, tags and all. That might give you a good personally validating geek rush, but when you tire of
that there is another way.
Take just about any web authoring tool that lets you at least view, and
preferably tweak, the html source. An excellent such tool that is open source
is Amaya, which I am using for this
feed item. Have both the "design" and "source" windows open in your authoring
tool of choice. Write out your feed content in plain language in the "design"
window, and tweak the source as necessary along the way. When you're done
writing your content, block copy everything in the "source" window between
but not including the "<body>" tags. Then paste the code into the
"Description" field in ListGarden.
Be sure all your changes are reflected in the code before you finalize your
feed item.
Save and publish your updated feed, and you're done.
08/16/2007 09:01 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| You can see it in 070812BRTV.jpg and 070812BFEXTV.jpg—blacktop has been laid for the westbound lanes of the new bypass from Brock Road up to the side access road at the Battlefield end of the project. The paving enabled another perspective I hadn't noticed before, perhaps because the new blacktop provided sufficient contrast to other objects reflecting the bright sun. From the vantage point of 070812BFEXTV.jpg, I could see the traffic in the distance on Brock Road at the other end.
Not shown but worthy of mention, are the pre-placed sidewalk wheelchair ramps at the several access streets to the village being prepared along the short stretch of Brock Road between Spotslee Drive and SR 608. When these streets open, the right turn lane from the RACSB end will earn its keep in spades, as the left turn lane for Spotlee Drive already is.
As "advertised," SR 608 has been closed to all but local traffic this past week. Detour signs are included on Brock Road between the bypass project and Blockhouse Road, and also for traffic approaching Blockhouse Road from the opposite direction. Brock Road has been a little busier as a result, but without noticable problems.
08/12/2007 03:26 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Perhaps the only thing Fedora 7 and ethanol have in common is the moniker "Moonshine." But the following updates on vegetable oil alternative fuels and the Fedora Project's latest release should prove to be interesting reading:
-
WVO & SVO—What in the world is that?
A growing number of people at least talk about alternatives to fossile fuels, especially for power generation and locomotion. Unfortunately, as of August 2007 there is no combination technological-economic silver bullet for the displacement of fossile fuels from their central place in national and world economies. It doesn't require agreement with global warming theories to observe that no one is breathing easier physically as a result of the emissions malaise.
Brazil's "successful" experiment with ethanol notwithstanding, there are serious complications for other industrialized countries involving the resources required to produce ethanol that regrettably change that equation to negative gain in too many settings. With current technology, ethanol production takes corn from hungry human mouths, and the ethanol production process uses more energy than it yeilds (even allowing for the upcoming use of non-corn cellulosic ethanol). Technology could change, so it might yet be too early to write off moonshine as a vehicle fuel.
But consider Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) and/or Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) as a diesel fuel. It's being used right now to power small fleets of vehicles in various parts of the world. One problem yet to be solved is that of a collection system that is quality controlled, fair, and accessible to businesses and individuals who would be willing to pass a certification inspection—if WVO/SVO fuels were used on a large scale, inspection/certification would be required for public health and safety. But even motorcycles are being built to run on WVO or SVO. There are dozens of serious references to private and business development of WVO/SVO fuels. It's a technology that deserves watching, as the current petroleum distribution infrastructure could be adpated to it with workable cost. The referenced link above is a good example of the resources that are available.
-
Fedora 7—Linux worthy of installation and use
The Fedora Linux Project, associated with Red Hat, is one of the more geeky and fully featured of the several Linux distributions. But for Fedora versions up through Core 6, one had to be a programmer, or at least a tweaker of code, to get it running the way you wanted or at least could live with. To a certain extent, that's the way it was intended and still is.
Although there still is plenty of geek room in Fedora 7 (they dropped the "Core" part in the name this time), this Fedora distro is noticably friendlier. There are a lot of good distros available, and among them I've tried Debian and its derivatives Knoppix, Helix, and Ubuntu. I've also tried some more off-beat distros such as Damn Small Linux. One of the beauties of open soruce is the quick pace that things change and get improved.
The main link above refers to the adventures with Fedora 7 section on the LinuxNotes page on the MarWalk website. Follow the steps there, and you should have an up-and-running Fedora 7 machine in very short order.
08/11/2007 10:26 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back in late June, I had mentioned a long and difficult way to remove unwanted RSS feeds from your implentation of the rss2email utility. There is a much better way that is provided for in the program itself. You have to pay attention to what you're doing with it, but their delete feed feature works cleanly and effectively.
As with other commands in this utility, you have to be in the hidden directory where the Python scripts reside to execute them. So here's how to delete a feed you no longer want from your rss2email installation:
- cd to the …/.rss2email/ directory (wherever you put it when you installed it). Remember to put the dot before the "rss2email" path name because it should be hidden.
- The process is twofold: First you "list" the feeds, and then you delete a feed by its list number. Be sure to "list" again, as the list numbering is changed after each individual deletion. Your can do multiple deletions, but great caution is necessary to avoid deleting a feed you want to keep. Here's the process and the syntax from the ./rss2email directory:
- Find the feed(s) you want to delete from your current feeds with the command
./r2e list | grep <unique string from feed to be deleted>. Note the list number of the feed that you want to delete.
- Next delete the unwanted feed with the command
./r2e delete <list number of feed to be deleted>.
- If you want to delete more than one feed at a time, what you do next is critical: Redo the command
./r2e list | grep <unique string from feed to be deleted>. Note this time the _changed_ list numbers due to the one you just deleted being removed and no longer counted.
- Redo the command
./r2e delete <list number of feed to be deleted>, and "do while" those two steps, list afresh and then delete one, until you've removed all the feeds you want to be rid of.
That's it. If you like my earlier harder way better, enjoy. But now you have choices.
One thing I have noticed about different RSS feeds: Some of them will give you enough narrative to get the gist of a particular feed item without having to go the their web link to find out what it's all about. I like those a lot. Others just offer what I'd call "tease text" and if the link doesn't show what they've teased about, then those are the ones to which I apply the above deletion procedure.
Happy reading. It sure beats spam.
08/05/2007 08:15 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Some much needed rain came Friday, with wet ground and a nice big rain puddle visible in 070804BRAV.jpg—notice also the
pavement related equipment along the left side of the road. Looks like they're getting serious about that link between Brock Road and SR 608,
even to the point of electronic signs advising of SR 608 being closed starting Tuesday August 7th between Brock Road and SR 648 (only people whose residences
are on that stretch of road will be allowed there for a while).
Rapid progress visible at the Battlefield exit end of the project this week. More of the old SR 208 pavement was torn
out as is visible in 070804BFEXTV.jpg.
No one stops behind the stop line at Spotslee Drive, as evidenced by the white SUV visible behind the cedar tree in 070804RACSB1.jpg—you can see the white line just under the SUV's rear bumber. It's the only safe thing to do there.
08/05/2007 07:33 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| This past week showed the most rapid visible progress in a single week so far.
The obvious pre-surfacing work for the main by-pass pavement gives a feel of greater imminence
than before. See 070729BRTV.jpg and 070729BFEXTV.jpg for a paving perspecitve from
both ends of the by-pass section between Brock Road and SR 208.
Also in 070729BFEXTV.jpg you can see where the old westbound lanes of SR 208 used to be,
just before the end of the four-lane extension that was done about 10 or 15 years ago
(I remember watching
that go in but cannot remember exactly when it was).
There are several things in certain of these pictures to help with perspective. In the distance
down the road in
070729BRTV.jpg there is a white truck parked to the right of the road.
That same truck is visible from a different angle in the center of
070729SLDR.jpg; also new in
070729SLDR.jpg this week are the jersey barriers across Brock Road from Spotsless Drive.
Another thing to help with perspective is the concrete pipe opening into the storm drain pond,
visible
in 070729SY.jpg between the chain link fence and Brock Road where Spotslee Drive
joins it. You might have to expand the picture to the point of pixelization to see this, but it also
shows some water in the storm pond. The pond is located behind the orange plastic fencing in
070729RACSB2.jpg, which is just to the right of the view in 070729RACSB1.jpg where the
jersey barriers opposite Spotslee Drive are visible behind the solar-powered school zone sign.
Also visible on the left side of 070729RACSB2.jpg is a small construction equipment service
road along the edge of the pond. This road runs just beyond the parking lot pavement in
070729SY.jpg; the tree that usually is visible in previous pictures is just out of the view of the
camera on the right side of 070729SY.jpg.
A strong thunderstorm came through toward evening; surely there will be some patch-up work
to do on Monday.
07/29/2007 06:00 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| There appear to be no more /dev/hd(x) devices in Fedora 7. The main hard drive, what used to be hda, is now sda; and the second hard drive is /dev/sdb. Having forgotten that I some time ago had reformatted the sdb drive to ext3, I thought there was a problem when I tried to mount it as vfat and got a bad superblock error (well, duh).
So I took the sdb drive off the IDE/ATA chain and put it on an external USB hub connected to the computer. It showed up as /dev/sdb1, just as when it was inside the box. Finally remembering what file system I had on it, I mounted the drive just fine through the USB hub (probably could have done the same from the ATA chain). Even without mounting the drive, and using the system mount when it appears, I found that I could edit a file and write it back to the drive (had not been able to write back in that mode in earlier versions of Fedora). Just to be sure the "write" took, I released the sdb1 drive via the KDE removal option and reconnected it. This time I mounted it in the traditional way to its old mount point in the /mnt/ directory. A cat of the edited file showed the changes (woohoo!).
Now to see what Fedora 7 will name a CD. I popped in a CD and it came up as /dev/scd0; yes the letter order is stated correctly: scd (just think "CD" perhaps as a means of remembering that).
Sound system's in good shape, and I played one of the ogg files I had to prove it.
Nice look and feel for the login screen after bootup. The hot-air baloon theme seems a little 1990s-ish to me, but mainly because I remember that theme from a commercial application package from that time.) For login, instead of the blank field default from Fedora Core 6, the Fedora 7 default login screen provides a list of accounts on the machine by person name versus account name (nice touch, but I'm sure there's a way to have it not list the accounts if needed for security reasons). In any case, leave it alone for a short time and you have to re-enter your user password to re-open the screen; as I've been having to do when I switch my KVM to my Macbook and stay there for a while.
PDFs display crisp and clear.
KDE on Fedora 7 has a nice feature with file properties being displayed upon mouseover of an icon. The temporary pop-up window shows device, permissions, owner, mount point if it's a storage device or type and name if it's an application, and other no-nonsense information.
So far no serious unhappyness on my part with Fedora 7.
More as the adventure continues … .
07/22/2007 08:24 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Fedora release 7 installed without a hitch on my old Dell 933MHz Pentium III tower. Easiest Fedora upgrade I'd ever done.
Running sudo yum -y upgrade downloaded several hundred updates/upgrades, but there was enough extra disk space on the 20GB /dev/hda drive on the machine to cache and install them.
An issue yet to be resolved is the system now does not even see the second, former /dev/hdd1, partition on the 250GB drive that is in there. Fedora 7 install had complained about designating the drive in fstab as /dev/hdd1 instead of a label name. My favorite partion editor, parted, refused to label the msdos partition on the drive, so I had just commented out the /dev/hdd1 line in /etc/fstab to let the install proceed. After Fedora 7 installation, there was no hint of that drive in fstab, so it appears that the Fedora 7 install process re-writes fstab to its liking. I have options on this, and will be exploring them.
More as the adventure continues … .
07/22/2007 03:02 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| The most noticable change this week is the gravel easily visible in the 070722BRTV.jpg view. The median also is almost end-to-end now, as visible in the 070722BFEXTV.jpg view.
From the 070722RACSB1.jpg view the excessive degree that the stop line is set back on Spotslee Drive is visible just to the left of the bottom of the cedar tree at the middle left edge of the picture. A driver who stopped at that line never would see the approaching white car in the picture.
Look closely in the left area of 070722SLDR.jpg and you can see the leveled out areas for bulding foundations across Brock Road.
07/22/2007 02:37 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| Adventures in upgrading from Fedora Core 6, without a DVD.
(there are no CD images available to download,
so if you have no DVD burner and/or blank DVD media, your options are reduced somewhat)
This is about installing Fedora 7 from the Internet using a boot CD. Let's start by listing the download sites and paths upfront for easy reference, and instant use if you're so inclined.
Select a mirror near you from this list:
http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/7
To just run Fedora 7 from CD, download your preference between the following two full CD images off the download root level from your selected mirror site:
/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Live/i386/Fedora-7-KDE-Live-i686.iso
/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Live/i386/Fedora-7-Live-i686.iso
Get the Internet installation boot CD image from this directory off the download root level from your selected mirror site:
/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/i386/os/images/boot.iso
After you boot your target install machine with the Internet boot CD, when it asks you for the path from your selected mirror where the installation files are, enter:
/pub/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/i386/os/
If all goes well, the screen should display a message advising that stage2.img is being downloaded. After that, installation will launch and you are into the selection menus.
Once the installation process checks all the transactions, it will start installing about 722 files. As with previous Red Hat installation utilities, this one displays the filenames and a one line description of what each file does.
More later, as installation progresses.
07/21/2007 10:32 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
| It's finally broken through to SR 208 at the Battlefield exit end of the project. By broken through, I mean the project has reached the pavement of SR 208, and the west bound lanes of the four lane section have been closed off at the Battlefield exit. There now are three rows of pictures in each set starting with 070715.
Take a look at 070715BFEXAV.jpg from the MarWalk CVchron page and expand it in an image viewer (the Opera browser does this nicely without having to copy the picture). Although the image will become "pixelized" you still can identify the orange and white plastic barrels that shunt the westbound traffic into one of the lanes of the eastbound side (just like the days before the four lane expansion was extended to there). The day after, the pavement in that picture was torn out.
In 070715BRAV.jpg notice the beginnings of an access turn lane to the right across from Brock Road.
In 070715SLDR.jpg notice the further development of what appears to be an extension across Brock Road of Spotslee Drive, whether or not it is named that when it's completed. From the location of the corner to the left it is easy to observe that the stop line is much too far back for drivers to see oncoming traffic from that direction.
To help with perspective, the respective distant ends of road in 070715BRTV.jpg and 070715BFEXTV.jpg are practically the same spot as seen from different directions.
The access road in 070715BFEXSR.jpg, as seen from across SR 208 just east of the new fire station, has been in progress for several weeks. The more distant piece of equipment in the center of the picture probably is one of the two visible in 070715BFEXTV.jpg.
What once was a farm field is rapidly being transformed into what certainly will be a busy bypass highway, but with an accompanying residential and commercial village.
07/16/2007 09:47 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
These pictures (on the reference link) from just past noon on July 1st show the progress of the turn lanes. Later in the day, the Courthouse area was crowded with traffic and people, with Spotsylvania deputies and state troopers directing traffic at the most congested choke points, specifically the traffic light and SR 208 at the pedestrian crosswalk. Nearby subdivisions were lined with cars as people tried to park closer to the festivities. The event had the look and feel of one that was well planned, and the people there appeared to by having a good time, along with their children.
In the SY picture you can see the orange crowd control plastic fence, and a small sign that serves notice of fireworks that evening. Where will they do fireworks after the Courthouse village is developed?
In the BRAV picture, you might be able to notice the road curving to the left just at the picture horizon. That road, the bypass, crosses SR 608 just before the Laurels subdivision.
In the SLDR picture, a wide stop line is visible. It is way too far back to see what traffic is coming from the left, and drivers have to creep half a car-length past it to see if any traffic is approaching.
In the BRTV picture the developing median is visible for the first time. The median had taken shape a week earlier at the Battlefield exit end of the road project.
07/01/2007 09:53 PM |
|
|
