The end of the Christmas season – Epiphany

The end of the Christmas season – Epiphany

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Epiphany – N. a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

The arrival of the wise astrologers from the east in many countries is more traditionally the time to exchange gifts (instead of Christmas day). Many places around the world dress 3 children as the astrologers and they proceed through a town blessing houses as they go. (I’ll be blessing my door later today).

But these non-believer wise astrologers/astronomers are also something else. They are a reminder that at the heart of every person is a profound and unquenchable desire to find Truth. Not platitudes or passing cultural fads – but real truth that lasts eternally and fills the heart with endless and complete joy. It aligns our actions for peaceful existence with each other. The truth about ourselves, all of creation, and how much we are loved. How someone is ready to pick them up and lovingly bring them back today – no matter what life has dragged them through. Truth about how we should live and treat each other. Truth that heals relationships and causes enemies to become friends. Truth that also is a profound call to constant and complete conversion of heart and action.

As a child, I loved watching shows on science. Quantum mechanics, the planets, and the universe. I became an engineer because I loved every new thing I learned about our world and how it worked. Each new thing brought joy to me. In the same way, I believe these non-believers followed the study of the stars towards truth. But there is always more. All the study of everything in the world, while great and wonderful, is simply never enough to fill our hearts.

Epiphany reminds us that no matter what course we take – we will end up at the same destination: the mystery and ‘scandal’ of divinity in a child born in a barn. Born to humble, Jewish, blue-collar parents in a country defeated and under the rule of another nation. The reality of a God that casts off all his privilege and wealth – sheds every royal garment to become a helpless child in the midst of this mess. One that call us to complete conversion of desire and heart. To reframe ourselves to value, as he does, every human being and all of creation.

May this be a blessed Epiphany for each of you.

$200 dishes served on…iPads.

$200 dishes served on…iPads.

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Quince restaurant in San Francisco – you’ll find one of the most ridiculous and pretentious concepts in fine dining ever conceived- frog legs and white truffle croquettes served on an iPad.

A Dog In Search Of Gold

A video posted by rosé (@asap.rozzy) on

The croquettes plate is called A Dog In Search Of Gold, and it’s served on an iPad showing a video of dogs hunting for truffles, part of a $220 fixed-price supper that otherwise sounds quite delicious

Connecting iSpy to an Amcrest IP2M-841 webcam

Connecting iSpy to an Amcrest IP2M-841 webcam

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This was more annoying than it should have been. When setting up my Amcrest IP2M-841B camera, I was able to use the Amcrest IP Config tool to log in and watch my camera without issue.

When using iSpy 64, however, the darn thing couldn’t figure out how to connect to it. Here’s how I did it. I left the camera on channel 1, set the encoding to plain H.264, and then did the following.

Test your camera using Amcrest IP config.

The first thing is to make sure your camera is working at all:

  1. Be sure you can open the IP config tool and see your cameras.
  2. Make sure passwords are correct, you can get a live view, and that it’s set to H.264 encoding and the channels are correct.

 

Test your rtsp line using VLC:

  1. Open VLC (install it if you need)
  2. Media->Open Network Stream
  3. Copy in your rtsp: address
    1. example without the username/password: 
      1. rtsp://192.168.1.99:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0
      2. VLC will ask for your username/password and you can enter it.
    2. example with the username/password: 
      1. rtsp://<username>:<password>@<ipaddress>:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0
      2. I left the arguments as –rtsp-caching=100 (the default)
  4. You should see your stream come up in VLC
  5. NOTE: When setting your password, if you have any special characters like %!&#$ – or the like – be sure to convert them to their equivalent hex ASCII codes. See this chart here.
    1. Example: if your password is ‘cat&dog’, you should use the password: ‘cat%26dog’

Connecting to iSpy

If connecting via VLC worked, your 75% of the way there.

  1. Start iSpy
  2. Add->IP Camera
  3. Select the VLC Plugin tab (I have VLC installed, not sure if that’s 100% necessary)
  4. Set the VLC URL to what you had above (with the username+password): 
    rtsp://<username>:<password>@<ipaddress>:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0
  5. When setting the password, if you have any special characters like %!&%#$ – or the like – be sure to convert them to their equivalent hex ascii codes. See this chart here.
    1. Example: if your password is ‘cat&dog’, you should use the password: ‘cat%26dog’
  6. I left the arguments as –rtsp-caching=100 (the default)

Once you have iSpy connected, you can set up events and connect to the cloud for full web monitoring.

 

Resources:

So, where did I get that rtsp line? Directly from the Amcrest HTTP API SDK Protocol Specification. Section 4.1.1, p14 – Get real-time stream. It’s also a handy guide on all the other parameters you can send the camera.

Lane Finding

Lane Finding

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My first homework assignment for my self-driving automotive class was to find lanes on still, then on captured video. Here was my first attempt, which seems to have come out pretty well. I still want to improve it a bit with some more frame-to-frame smoothing.

Useful links/techniques:

Social Media sites are Highly Manipulable – by just as few as 3-5 accounts

Social Media sites are Highly Manipulable – by just as few as 3-5 accounts

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Research is demonstrating that changing the entire narrative on a topic is shockingly easy on social media sites. Sites that claim to be free of such manipulation via user-submitted content and using up/down vote systems such as Reddit are shockingly susceptible.

In most cases, researchers found it only took 1 bot casting 3-5 up/down votes at the right time to change the tone of an entire subreddit for/against something. Further experiments showed that it only took about $200 to get a completely false story to the front page of Reddit. There is growing evidence that this is already been happening in the Bitcoin Reddit forum.

This is likely not only going to be used by advertisers but foreign agencies to change the narratives of just about any topic. All of this comes on a budget that is just pennies compared to traditional advertising and military efforts.

Perhaps this will cause us to come full-circle back to curated media – or for a startup to start a vetting and verification service?

Either way, the old adage is as true than ever: Don’t believe it just because you read it on the internet. But now we might add: Also don’t believe it just because it gets lots of up/down votes.

Mercy and Advent

Mercy and Advent

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Mark Shriver, an advocate for poor kids and families, wrote a great reflection in the NY Times on this last Year of Mercy.

“At the beginning of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, I felt that Pope Francis was on “my side” — that he saw the church, as I did, as a social justice entity. I had considered mercy from an intellectual perspective and believed the pope was essentially calling me to be nicer to people. But as the Year of Mercy progressed, I realized that what Pope Francis meant by mercy had almost nothing to do with what I thought it meant.

Francis’ call for mercy is much deeper. When he says that “life grows by being given away, and it weakens in isolation and comfort” and goes on to ask us to “leave security on the shore and become excited by the mission of communicating life to others,”

He is telling us to get out of our comfort zones. He is saying to me, a supposedly progressive Catholic who works on behalf of poor kids and families: Don’t be isolated and content, enter the chaos and the pain and the joy of others’ lives.

Then you will be truly merciful, and truly alive.”

This is exactly what we are about to celebrate – what Christmas is. That God, perfect and needing nothing, so loved us that he became human to live among us – as one of us – in all our human frailty. So that he could be in relationship with each of our broken, messy, and joyful lives and to open boundless healing for each.

Is there some ‘comfortable’ area of my life that it’s time I invited God into? Is there a lack of real relationship with those in my life or those I interact with – family, a coworker, or even the poor? Now is the time for us to open ourselves and have an advent arrival into the stony parts of our own hearts.

De Tomaso Mangusta Legacy Concept

De Tomaso Mangusta Legacy Concept

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That’s a beautiful concept car.

de-tomaso-mangusta-legacy-concept-gear-patrol-full

Design student Maxime de Keiser decided to recreate it for the 21st century and we like what we see in his De Tomaso Mangusta Legacy Concept. Though it clearly steals some of its rear quarter panel work from the Lamborghini Diablo, the overall execution works well. The crazy flat hood and the aggressive angry-eyebrow headlight and taillight treatment give the car a cat-like appearance and the massive air intakes and wide platform give it the requisite supercar aesthetic. For now, it’s just a 3D model and the birth of an idea from a talented designer, but it could potentially be the start of a resurgent brand if it found the proper funding. We envision a carryover of the original powertrain manufacturer, perhaps dropping in the 5.4L supercharged V8 from the Ford GT. Oh, to dream.

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