Setting up a Raspberry Pi-hole

Setting up a Raspberry Pi-hole

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Ad blockers such as uBlock Origin and Adblocker make the web usable – but are not available on every platform and not of the same quality.

Pi-hole is an Linux-based server setup that absorbs ads by filtering DNS requests. You set up the Pi-hole server on a simple Raspberry Pi, set your devices to use the pi-hole server to resolve DNS entries, and voila – any requests to ad sites are immediately and transparently absorbed.

This is far superior to ad block applications for a few reasons. First, because the websites doesn’t even know you’re using it, you will never get those annoying ‘disable adblock to continue’ messages. With a little extra work, you can make your wired/wireless router also run DNS requests through it so that all devices wifi connected phones/laptops/game systems/etc get free ad filtering.

I just set one up this weekend on a raspberry pi and it’s been interesting to play with so far. Pi-hole has been a bit too fiddly in the past, but seems to be working pretty well these days with a slick web interface and easy installation. So far, it has worked really well – but I do occasionally get a false positive and have to turn the filtering off. I’ll give it a few days and see if it grows on me.

Here’s the instructions I used: https://blog.cryptoaustralia.org.au/instructions-for-setting-up-pi-hole/

Changing the DNS for your Win10 system while still using DHCP:
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-your-pcs-dns-settings-windows-10

Setting up SSH after install on your raspberry pi so you can access your pi hole via windows/putty/etc.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/ssh/

Here’s the parts list from Amazon:

Raspberry Pi 3 b+ Case, iUniker Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Transparent Case with Raspberry Pi Heatsink for Raspberry Pi 3B+, 3B, 2B – Access to All Ports (Clear) $5.68
Samsung 32GB 95MB/s (U1) MicroSDHC EVO Select Memory Card with Adapter (MB-ME32GA/AM) $7.49
Element14 Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Motherboard $36.97
iTrunk Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (B Plus) Power Supply, 5V 2.5A Extra Long 2M Micro USB Power Supply Charger Adapter for 2018 New Version Raspberry Pi $8.15
Federal Ammunition SKU identification

Federal Ammunition SKU identification

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When purchasing 5.56 ammunition, it’s important to purchase the right kind. Federal Ammunition makes some very good products, but when I was first looking this up, there was a lot of confusion about the different product SKU’s. There was XM193, XM193BLK, XM193A, XM193AF, etc – even M193. Which should one get?

As it turns out, there is NO difference between any of the XM193 SKU’ed rounds. All of them are the same spec and manufactured 5.56 round. The ending designations are 100% to indicate the kind of packaging they come in. That is it.

M193 is also 5.56, but has different tolerances/specs than XM193. “M” by itself means that it must meet military specification (mil-spec) while “XM” means it does not. Mil-spec is very stringent and even a small thing out of specification can lead to tons of ammo being rejected. It is also usually illegal to purchase “M” specification (since it should be going to the military) – and reviews show XM shoots just as well in most circumstances.

So now that we know that all the different XM193 round flavors are the same round but in different boxes – what do those different ending designations mean?

SKUDescriptionAppearace
XM193XM193 5.56, 20 round brown box. 25 of these small boxes are often packed in a larger brown box to yield 500 rounds per case.
XM193F“Packaging for XM193 is now done in Anoka, so a new part number (XM193F) was needed for FET purposes. THIS IS THE SAME ammo as XM193, and XM193C.”
Example		Federal Lake City 5.56mm NATO XM193 Ammo 55 Grain FMJ BT
XM193BKXM193 5.56, Loose Bulk, 1000 rounds per case. Not as pretty as the boxed stuff as some note that rounds may get small dents during transit, but hasn’t been considered to cause actual firing problems.
Example		223 Remington (5.56x45mm) 55gr FMJ Federal American Eagle Ammo Case (1000 rds)
XM193A and XM193AFXM193 5.56 rounds packed in ten round stripper clips.
Or AF with 900 per case: Example		Lake City 5.56mm Ammunition 30rd box on stripper clips
XM193CXM193 5.56 commercial package. American Eagle Tactical “Black Box,” 20 round box.
Example		Floral Dresses: American Eagle Xm193 Ammo
XM193CBPXM193 5.56, commercial package. American Eagle Tactical “Black Box”, Loose rounds in 200 round bulk (value) pack.
Example		223 Remington / 5.56 NATO-https://shopwilsoncombat.com/
XM193BLXM193 5.56 in a 100 loose packed box. ExampleFederal American Eagle 5.56 x 45mm
XM193BXXM193 5.56 in 20 rounds per box.
Example		5.56MM NATO 55 GR FMJ BT
XM193ML1
XM193 5.56 in an ammo can of 400 rounds.
Example
XM193BK420 AC1XM193 5.56 in an ammo can of 420 rounds
Example

All of these boxed rounds have the EXACT SAME kinds of rounds in them. It is purely a packaging difference. Take their word for it (slow loading due to it being on the internet archive). Here’s a copy of their fact sheet on it:

Links:

Google hand tracking now open source

Google hand tracking now open source

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Google has made its hand detection and tracking tech open-source, giving developers the opportunity to poke around in the tech’s code and see what makes it tick.

“We hope that providing this hand perception functionality to the wider research and development community will result in an emergence of creative use cases, stimulating new applications and new research avenues,” reads a blog post from the team.

That post over on the Google AI Blog dives into exactly how the tech works, and devs interested in getting a closer look at it can find the project over on Google’s Github repository.

Computers are for funny cat movies – even in 1968

Computers are for funny cat movies – even in 1968

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More than 40 years ago in 1968, a team led by Nikolai Nikolaevich Konstantinov created a mathematical model of the motion of a cat. The BESM-4 machine, executing a written program for solving ordinary differential equations, draws a cartoon cat. Each frame was physically printed using a standard desktop printer (using W’s to fill the drawing space), photographed, then put together into this simple animation.

Read more about it here (use google translate):
http://www.etudes.ru/ru/etudes/cat-animation/

100 year old lens

100 year old lens

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 Photographer Mathieu Stern decided to see what kind of video he could capture with a lens he snatched from a 100-year-old Eastman Kodak camera. The footage is quite good, with a dreamy and warm quality to it.