Unleaded fuel 77c per litre

That’s the cost here in a small town in Wisconsin (really, USD$2.39 per gallon). Prices are a bit different to Oz, often much cheaper (like the fuel), sometimes much more expensive (e.g. mushrooms, AUD$18.87/kg).

It’s been an adventure. Being with someone I can trust (absolutely, in every area), with a great sense of humour, great legs, much understanding, much to share has been a beyond-awesome experience by itself.

Seeing SummerFest then the County zoo (they had a walk-in Oz bird display on the day including budgies, weiros, rosellas) at Milwaukee was a blast.

The Dells, with their near-unique sandstone layers ex the Missoula mega-flood was also highly memorable. About a quarter of the number plates said Illinois, about another tenth said Minnesota. I’m getting to know Interstate 94 quite well. (-:

I got to walk through the Wind Point lighthouse in Racine, kept by mine host’s paternal grandfather for 34 years.

I got to eat lunch at Fred’s, a great dinner at The Cheese Factory, another great lunch at Paul Bunyan’s, another great dinner at The River’s Edge Pub, River Walk Pub, other places as well...

Stepping onto a United aircraft in Chicago presently to return (via Los Angeles & Sydney) to resume being an Australian. Already missing mine host (the song Leather & Lace was very much a prediction).

Comments

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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