Happy Father's Day

A careful man I want to be –
a little fellow follows me.
I do not dare to go astray,
for fear he’ll go the self-same way.
I cannot once escape his eyes.
Whatever he sees me do he tries.
Like me he says he’s going to be –
that little chap who follows me…
He knows that I am big and fine –
And believes in every word of mine.
The base in me he must not see –
that little chap who follows me…
But after all it’s easier,
that brighter road to climb,
With little hands behind me –
to push me all the time.
And I reckon I’m a better man
than what I used to be…
Because I have this lad at home
who thinks the world of me.


I found this poem on ArtofManliness.com, and it really hit home. Variously attributed to Rev. Claude Wisdom White, Sr. and Anonymous. Happy Father's Day!

I finally found it

After 10 years of agonizing, I finally found it, thanks to one single comment on a random Youtube video that Google happened to pick up on. The song that has perpetually been stuck in my head for the last 10 years, since I first heard it as a missionary, has finally been discovered. Nauvoo, by Mark Geslison and Angela Soffe (also), on the For the Beauty of the Earth (Amazon) cd.

Apparently, someone had heard someone sing the song on a Youtube video of a family reunion (starts at 18:36), and made a comment about it on another Youtube video, and the people subsequently posted a video of them singing the entire song, and referenced the original. Thank you Niamh Conway (and Vince Crofts)!

The Wyndham Estate (not the wine)

So, I'll admit to you one of my guilty pleasure... really nice houses. I don't know why, but I really like really nice houses.

One of my favorites (my absolute favorite) is the Wyndham Estate in Newport (apparently you have to include the Newport part when you talk about it, because there is a famous Australian wine with the same name.) I found it in an article on CNN about ridiculously expensive foreclosures. Here's a run down from the article:


Asking price: $7.9 million

This sprawling estate is a throwback to the Gilded Age -- just with all new appliances. Originally built in 1891, the estate was foreclosed on last year and then renovated by one of its lien holders. It was listed last summer for $7.9 million and remains on the market.

There are 7 bedrooms, 7 1/2 bathrooms, a ballroom, music room and a library. Located at the highest point in Newport, there are impressive views of the ocean and -- on a clear day -- Martha's Vineyard, from the rooftop deck. The property also includes 7 acres of manicured lawn and an extra lot with an additional lot available.


The house + grounds remind me of the English countryside (think Downton Abbey).

Will I ever be able to afford it? No. Do I really want to live in Newport? Probably not. But come on, this place is just awesome.








   


   

Move Chrome Window Buttons in Ubuntu

I love Cinnamon. The desktop environment (well, ok, the spice too.) But one of the things that has bugged me is that in almost all windows I can move the window controls (max, min, close) to either side I want. That is, all except for Chrome. Turns out, this is a common problem because Chrome draws its own windows controls based on some system settings. Here's how to turn things around:

To set the controls to the right side:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string ":minimize,maximize,close"

To set them to the left:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "minimize,maximize,close:"

Source, and discussion

Using PrimeSense Carmine 1.09 in ROS

If you're using the new PrimeSense Carmine 1.09 short range RGB+D sensor in ROS, you may run into a few issues. When I tried to run openni_launch with this sensor out of the box, I got the following error:


[ INFO] [1370531242.800201916]: Number devices connected: 1
[ INFO] [1370531242.800284555]: 1. device on bus 003:07 is a PrimeSense Device (601) from PrimeSense (1d27) with serial id ''
[ INFO] [1370531242.801449470]: Searching for device with index = 1
[ INFO] [1370531242.902652607]: No matching device found.... waiting for devices. Reason: openni_wrapper::OpenNIDevice::OpenNIDevice(xn::Context&, const xn::NodeInfo&, const xn::NodeInfo&, const xn::NodeInfo&, const xn::NodeInfo&) @ /tmp/buildd/ros-groovy-openni-camera-1.8.8-0precise-20130418-2203/src/openni_device.cpp @ 61 : creating depth generator failed. Reason: USB interface is not supported!

Thankfully I found this thread that deals with exactly the problem I was running into: being able to run the Asus Xtion Pro Live, but not the PrimeSense Carmine 1.09 short range sensor. 

The answer provides a link to access updated OpenNI drivers that will allow you to access the data for this sensor (choose the OpenNI-Compliant Sensor Driver v5.1.2.1 for your OS). With these drivers installed I have been able to successfully run the Carmine without any other real issues. 

Did this work for you? Let me know!

How to Use Linux Terminal Commands in Windows

Have you ever been using a Windows command prompt and been frustrated because you've forgotten those old DOS commands for navigation and file manipulation? Well, you're not alone. And I'm happy to announce that with a few short steps you could be happily using Linux command line commands at a DOS prompt near you. (Directions borrowed copiously from this awesome play-by-play tutorial here.)

1. First, install cygwin 
2. Next, add the cygwin path (C:\Cygwin\bin) to the Path environment variable (step by step instructions with pictures found here)
3. Open a DOS promt (WinKey+r, then type cmd), and enjoy your new found power!

Is this helpful? Let me know!

Download Youtube Videos in Ubuntu Using youtube-dl

Need to download a Youtube video in Ubuntu? Whether it's laughing babies you want to watch offline, or that cat video you just must save for posterity, grabbing videos off of Youtube is a cinch with youtube-dl.

Simply open a terminal, type

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl

then

youtube-dl -U

and you're on your way to hours of offline Youtube delight.

Some helpful hints:

• youtube-dl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foobar". The video will be saved to the file foobar.flv

• To save the video with it's title as the file name, and the associated extension, try   youtube-dl -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" http://the_youtube_address     

• Note: this also works with playlists

Any questions? Let me know!