Getting Line 6 POD Studio UX2 to work on Linux

I was blessed to have a friend who lent me their recording gear. Here's what I did with it =P

Seek and you shall find

Luckily, someone (Markus Grabner) wrote a driver for Line 6 devices on Linux here:
http://line6.com/supportarchivenew/thread/4031
Their website is here: http://www.tanzband-scream.at/line6/
Note the link to the source code on that webpage is old - the latest should be v0.9.1beta not v0.8.1

Getting the latest version

Using svn to checkout the repo and make didn't work (I got a bunch of errors, possibly due to using svn to clone the repo causing the make command to create a bad revision.h file. I also got errors from driver.c

To get around the errors, I tried downloading the zip from sourceforge here:
http://sourceforge.net/p/line6linux/code/HEAD/tree/
(Click "Download Snapshot"). 

After that, just unzip, go to the "drivers" folder, "trunk" branch then $make and #make install inside that directory. Btw, for dependences, you need gcc, make, your kernel's headers (e.g. linux-headers-generic), and alsamixergui + pavucontrol (for later).

Here's a nice article about ./configure, make and #make install. http://www.codecoffee.com/tipsforlinux/articles/27.html

Plugging it in

Now for the harder part, thanks to bkmfs2 on the line6.com forums in the 1st link of this post we have:

#Then you have to find your soundcard with:
cat /proc/asound/cards
#This tells you how your Line 6 device viewed by the computer ('hw:' number).
#Replace 'hw:1' with whatever shows up for your sound card when you type:
alsamixergui -D hw:1
#You HAVE TO turn the 'monitor' slider all the way down or things will crash (unless the 'svn' site has a newer version that fixes this).
#Just so you know, the thing is a little volitile but I was able to use my Line 6 UX2 with jack-audio with (so far) dependable success.
#Just F.Y.I., I bought a M-Audio MobilePre the other day and it works right out of the box.

I didn't have to get alsamixergui to select the device to control - I use Audacity and it allows you to switch between devices.
My favourite audio setup/control tool on linux has to be pavucontrol although I couldn't use it for audio in and I could use Audacity to select the hw2:0 device for recording, letting me record.

By using the monitor turned up to 100% in the alsamixergui, I was able to hear the input from my mic, albeit quite distorted. It obviously was more clipped when I turned up the "phones" dial and/or turned up the monitor signal from aslamixergui. This is mentioned in 4.3.5 of the driver doc manual PDF (from Markus Grabner's Tanzband-scream.net website), but I haven't been able to fix it yet. The PCM audio works phone though, using the computer to play to the phones without clipping.

I decided to get the full experience dual-booting into Windows and using POD farm (didn't want to set up WINE/VM as I was short on time and didn't want to troubleshoot any errors that would come up). However, I didn't have time to do that either (only effectively had one afternoon) so I just stuck with recording in Audacity on Linux.

Yes, this means you might get to see some art/annihilation related projects released soon showcasing the results.

Space and Tech update - This week in Space! & Tech!

Had the webpages going for a blog post, decided now that I'm on holiday (for a week) I've gotta work on actual stuff including projects instead of blogging news. So here's a list of somewhat outdated links/quick rundown.

www.space.com/27741-google-leases-nasa-moffett-field.html
- yay for Google acquisitions and diversifying into hardware tech =) I might actually want to work for google's hardware subsidiaries if I could =D

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30026398
- we landed on a comet
www.space.com/27756-comet-landing-google-doodle.html
- technically a robot did but whatever, also got great pics
http://xkcd1446.org/
- and xkcd did live updates on it

www.space.com/27684-orion-space-capsule-test-flight.html
 - wow, I thought we were behind on this project, oh wait, that was the horribly executed SLS. How did they manage to screw up everything in both the analysis and design phases? I mean they wrote the book on Systems Eng and SDLC.

www.space.com/27669-orbital-sciences-rocket-explosion-soviet-engines.html
 - they're not gonna use the 40 year old (built) engines anymore. yay.


EDIT: Forgot Virgin Galactic news
http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20141106/US-Space-Tourism-Virgin-Galactic/ - looks to resume tests in 2015
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/analysis-ntsb-will-have-no-quick-answers-after-virgin-galactic-405675/
www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/06/us-space-crash-virgin-new-idUSKBN0IQ02920141106
http://www.betawired.com/ntsb-theorizes-miscommunication-may-have-led-to-virgin-galactic-crash/1415503/
- Feathering system deployed early 
http://www.ntsb.gov/news/2014/141112.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOSNVJzZn90
- NTSB last daily briefing

TECH:

http://news.microsoft.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-open-source-and-cross-platform-adds-new-development-capabilities-with-visual-studio-2015-net-2015-and-visual-studio-online/
- Interesting ... open source big leagues now?
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-to-open-source-more-of-net-and-bring-it-to-linux-mac-os-x-7000035716/
- Still wouldn't trust them with my dev environment though. Even after all those great trust building things they've done in the past. /sarcasm

1st interview published online

So another Star Citizen post. With a very Linux-y twist. Here's all the previous SC related posts.

1st interview published on web-@CzenStar:New Org Profile: #StarCitizen's own #Linux User Group http://t.co/TJms4Iur0n pic.twitter.com/7FwhkDlNVB
— V C (@pd_12) August 9, 2014

I've blogged a bit before but never have had anyone blog about me (I think ...)
Here's my first interview published online! It's about our 'org' (i.e. clan, guild, outfit, etc. in the Star Citizen universe) called "Linux Users Group", based on the LUGs around the world. (Link is to Australia, VIC LUGs but hey, that's where I am =P)

Obligatory iframe for this momentous (=P) occasion:


It'd be great for anyone interested in Linux to join our LUG org! It'd also be cool to see you in the Unofficial Linux Thread. Hope to see you around the verse!

P.S. recently re-watched some Firefly (among other things) on my new 1080p 3D TV setup with 5.1 =3

Tesla Confirms Bluestar as Model III, not E

Yes! Name of Tesla's Bluestar finally confirmed
Haha, didn't know Elon Musk wanted to spell SEX with his model "numbers" but Ford sued them for the E. 
This coming from the company that recently open-sourced its patents (for the good of sustainability and EVs)! 

Quick update, so obligatory iframe:

Dragon V2 Unveil and All Tesla's Patent Are Belong To Us!

Back from a hiatus, we have news which may be a bit outdated, but interesting nonetheless!



SpaceX unveils Dragon V2, a manned spacecraft with the significant difference from V1 of being both manned and having Super Draco thrusters, with over 100 times the thrust. These are required for both the LES (Launch Escape System) built into the vehicle (as opposed to an LES tower ala Apollo), as well as propulsion based landing from orbit (it includes parachutes but isn't planned to normally use them).

It has massive 4*17" touch screen array powered by multiple redundant Tegra chips from nVidia, with technology shared from Tesla's own touchscreens on the Model S. In the middle of the array are a variety of hardware buttons for critical functions in case the touchscreens fail. Rest assured, Musk says (while laughing) the rest of the ship's systems aren't powered by Tegras. A lot more juicy info can be found at this arstechnica article.

Also, rodents (live animals!) will be flying on CRS-4, for SCIENCE! =D Because we know from KSP having a lab in space process science and recovering science module data gives you more science! =)


_______________________________________handmade_break__________________________________________

Tesla has released all of its patents as open in the spirit of open source and rapid development of Electric Vehicles to stop the evil and unsustainable oil pollutions! =P Go Tesla and Elon Musk!! Great FOSS philosophy. While some people may spell doom for the company, I don't see any specific licence they're releasing it under, and since they still hold the patents, they can enforce any at will if someone oversteps and abuses their limited rights. Also, the example of AT&T's decline is wrongly used, since Tesla will only fail if it fails to continue to innovate and capitalise on their innovations with the rest of the competition. Also, as we can see from AT&T releasing their patents, the global telecoms industry has grown so much, and this is the same goal of Musk and the reason he made Tesla in the first place.

Apparently, lots of confused media inquiries about blog title. Look, we just to make sure they don't set us up the bomb.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 12, 2014

Incidentally, one of the ranks of the Linux Users Group - an org in Star Citizen is AYBABTU. =)

P.S. I should be able to do that Model S test drive post soon, holidays are good. =)

Making fuel from seawater, FOSS, USPTO and copyright

The US navy is researching methods to make fuel from seawater and have a working prototype!
This has been a many-year effort.
Basically CO2 is extracted from sea-water by acidifying seawater with HCl and using electrolysis to extract CO2 and H2.
Then, using a Fischer-Tropsch catalyst and high temperatures (190C) long-chain hydrocarbons can be formed. 

Both main reactions/processes are obviously endothermic and require energy, so you wouldn't expect a ship to make their own hydrocarbon fuel and run on it, so ships can't be self-sufficient and not need to dock for fuel. However, it also means a whole new supply chain can be opened up which don't require traditional shipping/supply of oil from oil rigs and mines around the world.

----------------------------------------------

Yay for Linux on military drones courtesy of Raytheon! It might be a smart move to do stuff like open API for cost redundancy reduction and inefficiency reduction. Security through obscurity is not real security, so it's arguable no less safe than a proprietary *nix system like Oracle.
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/05/us-military-drones-are-going-to-start-running-on-linux/

---------------------------------------------

Speaking of open APIs, wtf is this:
Oracle granted API copyright, wins vs Google.
I mean, we've been down this road before with software patents and all their predicted detriments, and now you can copyright an API. Not sure how closely your API can resemble another's but this is treading deep into the patenting an idea. Maybe in 10 years time I can patent the idea of mining asteroids, even though Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries would have been going at it for 10+years. Then I'll just receive royalties from any enterprising new-space company or project and live in luxury while drowning my guilt and shame and morality in loads of ice-cream. Also, everyone will have to hire more lawyers and the ratio of lawyers to engineers, scientists and other staff would be 50-50 in any technology company. And all the lawyers will be busy doing nothing but harming everyone.

And speaking of horrible copyright and patent rulings, if you know me you should know how much I look down on the USPTO - I have no hope in it. I mean, they just let Amazon patent taking photos against a white background! Watch out, passport photo takers! - That Star Trek double face-palm image is quite apt, so is "credibility reaching zero".

The rise of Linux

The Downfall of Windows (xP)

So I just read (or re-read) some news about ISS laptops being changed to Linux last year (2013) as Windows XP nears its EOL in April this year with no more security or technical updates. With Windows 8 being hard to use and the UI being unfamiliar, that's prompted me to write this post instead of sneaking it in a section within another post like I normally do =P
By the way, all those Windows XP users, it's a great time to switch to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, since Win 8 users will have to familiarise themselves with a new UI anyway. WinXP/7 users would probably want to use Kubuntu/Xubuntu to have a familiar desktop environment (you can set the UI up to be almost exactly like Win XP/7). You want LTS versions because they're supported for 5 years, although you're free to upgrade to different versions anytime when they're out. (LTS versions happen every 2 years, and non-LTS versions are supported for 9 months now, instead of 18 months previously.)

The adoption of Linux in the world

So why use Linux anyway?

• It's free - as in financially and in the sense of free speech. You can freely modify and customise it to suit your needs and use it however you like!
• It's stable and reliable - updates and patches happen quickly as it's open sourced, and won't fall into the traps of things like the Mac OS/iOS SSL bug. Security by obscurity is wrong in an OS context.
• It's efficient - My Linux (Kubuntu 12.04) is pretty fast and does things faster than my Windows 7 HP 64bit, even with KDE, which is a relatively intense DE compared with things like XFCE and GNOME/forks.

In Science:

Used by people and places like:
CERN
Experiment Platforms
NASA
-MSL (Curiosity Rover)
-ISS (probably almost everything since the move to Linux on desktop laptops).

Linux in Space

United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor that supports the laptops on the ISS used the Linux Foundation to train their devs to migrate and port apps over to Linux.
Apparently they have over 140 laptops with 80 online at any time; they chose Debian 6, it being Google's choice of distribution too. They also have Scientific Linux and RHEL/CentOS on some computers already on the ISS. Robonaut R2 uses it and the ISS has used it since Linux started, but rarely on the desktop PCs.

We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable — one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust, or adapt, we could.

ZING! Apparently they have faced a few random crashes (probably BSODs lol) and in 2008 had some virus infect the ISS LAN.

Consumer Devices:

Android (kernels are being merged, and hopefully completely in a few years)
Tesla Model S

So why is adoption important at all? I think it's especially important in gaming where the catch 22 can clearly be seen - 'everyone' uses Windows to game, so game devs only build for Windows and so 'everyone' has to use Windows to game. So when devs have this alternate option instead of being locked into Windows (and perhaps DirectX), they can build for it and the Linux gaming community can back them and get rid of this catch 22 problem. Things like the humble bundle clearly show the Linux community is ready to throw money at devs who make games for Linux.

In Gaming:

Wow, GDC 2014 just prompted announcements of Linux support everywhere!
And look, someone else did a great article about the rise of Linux gaming! =)
While Phoronix downplays (or is disappointed by) the interest in Linux at GDC, it's a great improvement, from having 0 Linux announcements at GDC to having a Linux presence with SteamOS, CRYENGINE, AMD, etc. Valve's SteamOS and Steam for Linux official release announcements were only last year, so AAA devs haven't had time to announce and demo Linux games at GDC yet - but we've already seen heaps of indies get onboard. Like a Phoronix forum user said:

We have gone from "it would be cool to have a game on Linux" to "omg the next-gen CryEngine with its OpenGL 4.3 renderer might not be perfectly ported".

Game Engines: Unity,
Unreal (announced 19/3!),
CRYENGINE (dev tools, CrySDK coming to Linux),
Source & Source 2,
Leadwerks (and the editor/IDE is on Linux thru Kickstarter too!)

Game Publishers: Steam On Linux (on a sidenote, Valve wants to move from Greenlight to a more easy self-publishing system where any dev can post something),
Desura,
 GOG.com (announced 18/3) 

Consoles/Hardware:
SteamOS, Ouya/Android, Oculus Rift

Games & Devs: Steam Library Catalogue, Upcoming games on Steam,
Devs liking OpenGL and freedom of Linux and hating Windows restrictions.
Recent announcements of games on the PC usually announce on Linux in addition to Windows.
GabeN also said devs like Linux! =)

Valve: check out these awesome vids at Steam Dev Days 2014 (where there are a whole lot more Linux and VR related stuff including):
Getting started on Linux (incl Myth-busting),
Valve seriously supporting and working on moving to OpenGL exclusively,
Modern OpenGL reducing Driver Overhead (by nVidia which looks like their portion of the GDC talk below).

Vendors: nVidia, AMD, Intel @ GDC "Approaching Zero Driver Overhead", nVidia sponsored video posted in the future. There'll probably be more news from them with the GPU tech conference in the next few days as well.
AMD plans to open-source kernel space driver support, while keeping user-space binaries for their Catalyst driver (so they can keep their "secret-sauce" optimisations away from prying eyes of nVidia). AMD roadmap/info summary from GDC here; I'm not feeling as much love as I was hoping, but tbh I mostly just care about GFX performance and that means high performing nVidia drivers, even if they're binary blobs. 


On a related note, check out all the awesome vids from Steam Dev Days (click for PDFs, etc.)! They have at least 4 talks related to Linux and OpenGL (including debugging hehe)!

Updated: 24/3 to include links to latest Phoronix wrap-up articles. 

Pidgin - my favourite IM, and Skype crashing my X Session

Pidgin - Because all the protocols are in one place =)
Skype, MSN, FB, Steam, etc.
Unfortunately Skype's a nuisance and needs to be running for pidgin to incorporate it.

Pidgin works cross-platform so I can have my logs (at ~/.purple/logs) symlinked to my window's partition logs so cross-partitions they're all the same logs =)
I could also symlink some of the files as shown in the config file link below. 

Good cheatsheet for config files:
https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ConfigurationFiles

Learnt that account.xml contained saved passwords in plain text.
https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/PlainTextPasswords

And that Pidgin 3.0 will support a keyring feature (Like KWallet, Secret Service)
https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/KeyringSupport

Help Pidgin get there! https://developer.pidgin.im/roadmap

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of Skype being a nuisance, for some reason when I logged into Skype my X session would crash, and the KDE log-in splash would display (logging back in). Since my KDE saves the previous session and restores it on login/boot, Skype would run and auto-login, and crash the session again, so I had to spam killall skype to stop the loop. 

Here is how I went about researching the bug trail to the fix:

[OK, so I wrote the intro above this line a couple of months ago and kind of forgot the whole process of how I got to the problem but here is a summary:]

While searching for a solution to the problem, I found this:
community.skype.com/t5/Linux/Skype-forces-reboot-on-Ubuntu-11-10/m-p/2844027
I may have used the search term I got while running skype in the terminal or something (still not too sure where Skype stores its logs)

Xlib: extension "RANDR" missing on display ":0.0".
skype: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.0.

So my suspicions that it was related to the X server were confirmed, but I still didn't know the cause.
Then I found this:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183029
And the work-around actually worked so now I hypothesise Skype loads some font loaded by X in "unix/:7100" and that supposedly caused it to crash.

The bug is in launchpad:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/738526

I opted to comment out the part in my xorg.conf instead of going to the extreme of uninstalling XFS:

# Apparently comment the below out to stop Skype crashing X Session
# Or sudo apt-get remove xfs (X Font Server)
#Section "Files"
#    FontPath        "unix/:7100"
#EndSection

Edit: Skype dumps massive (read GBs) of log files. If you delete the folder ~/.Skype/Logs as per this link from Arch forums, it won't create logs any more. It's probably some nefarious NSA reporting method.

Ubunchu ch.08 and PSA: Sudo powers

Here's a double release of art projects geared towards new(ish?) users/discoverers of Linux and the Ubuntu distribution.

Ubunchu chapter 8 typeset by me took a year (lol, I had no schedule and it was very on-off, next time I'll schedule it properly so I don't forget what I was doing). It's my first official type-setting/translation manga release, hope you like it. =) I was going to try and perfect it but because the project dragged on so long I thought I should just try and quickly push it out and release/ship it.
Ubunchu is about a school club in a Japanese high school which is tinkering with Ubuntu.
Read the whole series (and a better synopsis) here: ubunchu.net
My latest release (ch8): on google drive - zip of PNGs (click File -> Download),

        Shared folder here - DL in PDF (recommend you DL the zip of PNGs instead and use MComix to read get MComix1.00), 

        and on the ubunchu website (when it gets uploaded there someday).

Getting to work on an open sourced manga/project like this one is pretty nice. Especially without having to clean 'scans' using levelling, and other more sophisticated techniques. xP All of it was done in GIMP which is open source and is also available on windows due to GTK magic (but it feels nicer on my Kubuntu). I've never used photoshop properly (to a certain extent) but I can say GIMP is competitively advanced and has nice plugins too. Mostly used Blambot's fonts - free for non-commercial use.

Also would be nice to get a Wacom tablet/ergonomic mouse/SteamController (check out this demo vid!), I get RSI with at least my index finger when using conventional mice. Currently use a trackball for everyday use, but gets annoying since it doesn't have a scroll wheel. Steam controller definitely looks promising since my HKD20 PS-like controller definitely has bad resolution, and I don't imagine my PS controllers or the XBox ones will be much better. Although having fond memories of my Saitek joystick (which is so old it used a serial or parallel connection), I might use that for Star Citizen, although I'll have to test the Steam Controller first, like how I tested the OR. Which reminds me, Oculus Rift post coming soon =)

[Linux is complete with gaming rant]
With Valve's SteamOS, Steam on Linux and Source, Unity, Unreal game Engines being native on Linux as well as CryEngine soon, games seem to be moving en-masse to the Linux OS. This is welcome news, since gaming, and atm, only one particular game (Star Citizen, which has gained 4mil in crowdfunding since I last blogged about last month - 1.5mil of which was from the last 4 days) is the only thing holding me back from never booting Windows on my laptop. It's on CryEngine 3, so can't wait for that to build natively for Linux.
We've got Dota 2, KSP, Guns of Icarus Online, L4D2, TF2, X-series and an increasing amount of games, indie and big-publisher alike natively on Linux already or coming. I find if I'm looking at a game purchase/Humble Bundle, availability is a deciding factor. These next few years will be very interesting for Linux =)

[/rant]

Here's the PSA (it's related to Ubunchu ch.8), sad to say I learnt this the hard way one too many times:




_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Came across an interesting blenderguru post about why and how Blender's UI is broken and the principles of making good UI, how Blender can be fixed. The folks who made Unity should have a look =P [Sincerely, KDE/XFCE user]

UPDATE: Blenderguru made a video with suggestions, here it is!


=)

Valve and AMD reveals

So Valve has revealed their SteamOS a couple of days ago which is based on Linux, so it's pretty much a Linux distro. It will be a living room entertainment OS, so think console+xbmc combined. It is also free and open source!
Today, they also revealed SteamBox, and are offering 300 beta units for testers to be randomly selected, as long as you earn the Steam Hardware badge level 2.Unfortunately, actual specs are not disclosed, although they are saying the system is open, and you can upgrade individual components (like a PC!), as well as being free to install any OS on it or turn it into a robot! Gotta love Valve and their open/hacker/community culture. First open console since the PC =P. They are also claiming to have different boxes available in 2014 from different vendors, so PC and linux gaming seems to be ever on fire and advancing, thanks in no small part to Valve! [S2] (companion cube). It's great to see games like Dota 2, L4D2, Kerbal Space Program, X3: Albion Prelude and Guns of Icarus Online (and hopefully the Crytek 3 Engine soon) on Linux!
In a couple of days, Valve will reveal something else. Using symbols 'O' as the SteamOS reveal, and '[O ]' as the SteamBox reveal, they are revealing something along the lines of 'O+O'. They've already suggested streaming video from your gaming PC to the steambox via LAN, and family sharing for games, but it could be something different. Check the reveal here below in 33 hours:



AMD has revealed their newest line of GPUs at every price point, and personally I'm rooting for them as they are actually supporting open source linux driver development. Unlike a certain competitor which only releases binary blobs, although they run alright. In the livestream other game devs were also featured as were a lot of audio technology.
Check out Star Citizen's Chris Roberts at 1hr 44minutes of the livestream and some new hangar module features! (And an Aurora take off sequence in the new trailer demo!). It's also set to break 20 million in crowdfunding within 24 hours. See you in the 'verse!

Watch live streaming video from amdlivestream at livestream.com

Ubuntu Edge ... Final Hours

While I posted about Ubuntu Edge before, It's at the final hours (17) of the campaign and with only 12.25mil and just under 20mil to go, it doesn't look very likely this crowd-funding campaign will reach its goal.

At the discounted price of $695/phone, that is now 46k units instead of 40k units, which is a decent manufacturing run, although I'm not sure on the exact numbers in the economical analysis of these things.

Spec-wise, and functionality-wise it trumps anything in that price-range, Xperia Z or HTC One. Unfortunately, probably due to inadequate advertisement/social media-ring and just not enough people ready to upgrade/commit (a lot of the early adopters may have already bought something this year like the previously mentioned phones), the campaign won't be breaking crowd-funding records like Star Citizen's record breaking crowd-funding dollars.

Still, 12mil is pretty respectable, it was 11mil yesterday and comes close to the 14.6 mil that Star Citizen had when I posted about Ubuntu Edge before (see previous blog post link). Right now Star Citizen has a whopping 15.7mil and growing everyday. Hangar module comes out 24th August at GamesCon, so can't wait to see the news and test it.
I hope they release something like an OpenGL version soon because apparently it'll be DirectX11 and my GT330m doesn't have that support T_T. Also, recent look at ATI's open source driver support leans me towards getting an ATI graphics next time. These nvidia binary blobs sometimes screw up and took me an hour to get my 319 driver working with Linux 3.8 and jockey -_-.



P.S. So for Systems Engineering Analysis (ENGN2226) I get to look at nanosats woot.

ArduSat is In SPACE!!! (and AIAA Sydney Section tour of Canberra)

omg it's SPACE!!!
So Greg Chamitoff came to speak at the ANU a couple of weeks back (with U Syd and AIAA) and he said everyday, his commander would wake him up with "Guess what? WE'RE IN SPACE!!! =D"

Anyways, ArduSat was launched into space in the early morning (AEST, which is similar to Japan time) between the AIAA tour days when some students from Sydney came over to visit Canberra's Aeronautical and Aerospace stuff =P

I was so tired helping out and staying up and waking before 9 that I skipped the live launch, but here it is in all its glory (launch at 47:30). Rocket is JAXA's H-IIB, ArduSat is piggybacking on the HTV-4 resupply mission to the ISS, and will be deployed off Kibō [yes, I was a bit annoyed with the pronunciation of Kibō xP]



ArduSat was my first Kickstarter project I backed with $1 =P (Poor student who really wanted to afford time for operation of ArduSat). It's also apparently partly built in Australia. And has a goal for education and science, you could buy time on the kickstarter and I assume before EOL they'll have time for other people to do some science/education with it! Test and learn your arduino programs on the spacecraft here! =)


Here's a video about AITC, one of the places (CDSCC, AITC, ATSB and ADFA/UNSW@Canberra)  where the AIAA tour went in Canberra; by a Melbourne Hackerspace/Maker Jonathan Oxer (who not so coincidentally worked on ArduSat):


UPDATE 16/7/2014:  I posted some photos of the AITC when we visited here. I posted a lot more (100+) photos on facebook back around when this post came out which you can view if you're my "friend". =P

OpenShot video editor v 2

So I realise I've been blogging about games (most on Linux) lately, especially with my yearning for Star Citizen to hurry up and get made.
This post, I won't use the 'games' tag. =)

So I was casually browsing kickstarter as you do, and found THIS. Evoking memories of trying hard to find a proper video editing software, finding the most feature filled one on Linux being a readily crashable OpenShot video editor ;P It also kind of reminds me of getting blender and being completely stumped at how to use it. (Along with Maya).
This was back in 2010, and we were able to put together a simple video:


Now, I'm happy to see more work being done, OpenShot getting a new framework, fixing apparently 99% of previous bugs, and cross-platform support.
Oh, and they're switching to Qt from GTK. I liked GTK back on Ubuntu10.04 with GNOME, because Qt would usually look ugly or fail, but now that I'm on Kubuntu12.04, both work pretty well from an end-user point of view. Here's a funny port GIMP to Qt thread that descends into mini-flamewar from the middle till near the end.
Anyway, obligatory iframe of latest blog post (which includes a restrained comment on Operating Systems for devs which I can understand/agree upon):


P.S. Yes, I'm running out of holidays to finish two arty projects in the works, one which was intended to be released a while ago =S; Also, may be starting a eng/tech project (finally!)

Open source projects being funded!

Title is as self explanatory as Kim Jong Un looking at things.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcbotics/sparki-the-easy-robot-for-everyone
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1923745690/open-source-nimh-battery-charger-analyzer
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kytelabs/bleduino-bluetooth-40-ble-made-easy-arduino-compat
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/495099991/ember-and-torch-apps-meet-arduino?ref=live

It makes me happy to see people backing projects which are open source =) The last project still needs funds to be funded!
Ah, BLE 4.0, when you come on Android, all those things I could do with you -fantasizing-.

IP, law, patents

This is why I think the USPTO is ridiculous, especially in light of Apple vs. Everyone they can extort  =P (eg, Samsung, HTC, Google, etc.) ;P
http://blog.joshuafox.com/2012/10/the-evil-engineers-guide-to-patents.html

That said, this is on my do to list just to see the whole process and whether or not I should do it for something in the future just to protect my/our work (so people like Apple can't just patent something you made but didn't bother patenting). And then I could open source/give out ALL the licences for it. =D

Canonical going to dark side?

So Canonical going to dark side? Well I don't use Unity nor Dash - nor ubuntu one, and rarely their software center, though sometimes I check out which indie game devs get to go on there - so I'm barely affected (Kubuntu/Xubuntu FTW) but if they do go to the dark side, then we can always fork it (oh the joys of FOSS) and develop a Community Organisation =)
[Or just switch to fedora or arch or whatever]
 
I have been an ubuntu fan since I started linuxing mainly for its compatibility and support for other projects built on ubuntu. It sometimes irks me when they do stuff differently and directories aren't referenced properly and you have to symlink to configure/make or make something work properly. I am also an Emacs fan, as terminal based editors irks me, and nano irks me the least. 
[Remind to self to install Yakuake so I don't have at least 1 window on each of my 6 desktops dedicated for konsole]

In project news: 

yeah, the ubunchu kinda got stalled over the Christmas holidays (was busier than I thought, and getting stuck into Uni now, so maybe expect it in a couple of weeks). There's also a certain collab which is in the making stages atm =). 

Public Laboratory Spectrometer

for those who've missed the Kickstarter for Public Lab's spectrometer, here it is (the paper version):
http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/mathew/11-30-2012/final-fold-mini-spectrometer-print-files-and-instructions

Can't wait for my aluminium desktop USB one, although the first thing I want to test is HK water (and why it tastes funny, and requires boiling/filtration) and I got them to send it to Australia ...


Also on Kickstarter, Star Citizen raised 6.2mil in total for the campaign, with >$2mil from Kickstarter. Since, they've raised a bajillion dollars and are now at almost $7mil. (You can still 'pledge' and buy ships till what I'm assuming is alpha (they say "12 months from now"). However, there are less benefits than the campaign pledges like no life-time insurance on ships.) Totally can't wait for this! Especially if Oculus Rift fairs well with Star Citizen, will defs try this euphoric combo.

WLM going down, MS proves once again games are its only strongpoint

and not support, end-user OS/applications or anything else =P
Although I must say I prefer the PC to XBox/any console for gaming as it doesn't lock you into a particular device/device family. FOSS ftw!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20222998
Didn't realise MS bought Skype 1.5 years ago at $8.5bn massive.
WLM aka MSN will be turned off "by March 2013 worldwide, with the exception of China.".
Bye bye MSN protocol in Pidgin. Over these 10 years, you have served me well ='/

Steam for Linux finally arrives! (in beta, x86, with more than a score of games)

HELLO new era of gaming, with Steam's big picture mode (finally, console experience on PC! wireless controller on wishlist! =D) saw it on steamforlinux's FB, post here: http://steamforlinux.com/?q=en/node/130

**Update: This pretty much means Steam's Big Picture mode pwned Ouya for me, PCs are more open than consoles, in terms of compatibility and you're not locked into a certain device anyway =P
Pictures of me playing World of Goo thru Steam on Linux soon in a post another time =)
***

Valve stuff:
Press release: http://store.steampowered.com/news/9289/
Hub (latest news): http://steamcommunity.com/linux or http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410
Game group page (not sure what this is used for anymore): http://steamcommunity.com/games/221410

Got so excited, downloaded the .deb, realised it was built for x86. And I also didn't have a 'key' but I heard there were ways of getting around that on the hub >.>
Just waiting for 64-bit release or source with lovely configure and make files =D
In the meantime, will CrossOver/WINE my Client/TF2 ^^

This news probably released just after/around the same time as this one, but nVidia's news travelled faster?? =S:

nVidia supports Steam Linux beta in latest drivers:
http://steamforlinux.com/?q=en/node/127

Also, all you friends out there, add me on Steam!! >=D

Now .. that I've got that out of my system .. time to study >=D

Ohloh - track Open Source projects!

Ohloh - Wow, stumbled upon this through Linux Mint's tumblr. 

Contains really cool stats, go to a project page, and click the stuff under "In a Nutshell ..."
Especially under /factoids/, there's number of comments as a %!!! xD documentation ftw =P

=) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =)

Also, what happens when closed-source stuff has nothing more to offer (both entertaining and informative!):
http://www.businessinsider.com/dear-apple-im-leaving-you-2012-11
 Includes the (only) apple ad I actually liked on youtube!



---------

P.S. I'm thinking I'll be able to push my lil Ubunchu project release out at the end of next week. =D