Posts

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Lego Bugatti Chiron

So in follow up to my previous post about the Lego Porsche 911 GT3 RS I have been fortunate enough to receive the gift of a Lego Bugatti Chiron thanks to the ever patient Octavia.

Again a massive box of Lego, and what looks to be amazing building experience, over the next few days I’m going to listen to the podcasts that accompany the build and hopefully at the weekend at least open the first bag of bits to get cracking on the build….

….not a fan of Lego, probably best to come back in a few weeks time when I might have posted about something else (maybe)

So here’s a tease….

Outside
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So the fitness thing…

…once again failed this year.

Started well with a few months of marathon training and getting to my longest run ever (25km) but then as ever injury and lethargy “prevented” me doing much more.

Clearly I need a target to motivate me to do something and “fitness” isn’t enough.

Anyway the stats from 2017:

Cycling : 263Km (all commuting to and from the station)
Running : 440Km (mostly in the first 3 months of 2017)
Swimming: 12Km

Lots of changes happening in 2018, but alongside the changes and unknowns I’d really like to find a way to consistently exercise.

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Getting your (Pi) dev on

Update and install some things, this is of course biased to how I like things to be setup ;-)

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
$ sudo apt-get install -y vim-nox git zsh python3-pip python3-smbus i2c-tools python3-envirophat python3-blinkt python3-inkyphat
$ sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
$ mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/<github_username>/start && $_
$ git clone https://github.com/python-mode/python-mode.git
$ cd python-mode
$ git submodule update --init --recursive

note: just using my github_username above as a handy folder name, probably good if you’re using the dotfiles pattern as well.

And then this guide to configure I2C helped with get the EnviroPhat working

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Debugging headless Raspberry Pi Zero W

So of course having posted about setting up a Raspberry Pi Zero W there now follows the inevitable debugging connection problems post ;-)

Without a monitor to use, or a working connection to the Pi debugging was going to be less than simple as I need to look at the logs.

So how do I mount an ext4 volume on a Mac to take a look at the logs?

$ brew cask install osxfuse
$ brew install ext4fuse

So now I can plug the SD card into a reader and mount up the volume which in my case was as simple as:

$ sudo ext4fuse /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/pi -o allow_other

Then I could navigate into /Volumes/pi and start poking around at the log files to try and find what the issue was.

$ more /var/log/syslog

In my case it was down to user error and not checking the types of WiFi the Zero could support. 5Ghz isn’t supported it would appear, switching to my 2.4Ghz WiFi resolved the problem.