The Swifts are coming 2026: BirdNet & BirdWeather

A slow trickle of swifts are returning to Britain

but by the end of this month, it will be a flood.

So its time to switch on our swift-caller & keep an eye on our 3 nests!

MG S5 ev: using the API #3

Does my S5 stop maintaining the 12V battery when ev battery SoC drops to 20%?

There seems to be a lot of 'chatter' about electric vehicles based upon supposition.

Opinions posted on the net often get repeated, then eventually get peddled as fact.

MG S5 ev: using the API #2

 OK, so I got distracted...

...and I've been using api access to investigate the 12V system battery

but I often drift off-piste on projects like this!

MG S5 ev: using the API #1

 MG have an api for accessing car data

but it has not been made public

so if you want to use it, you have to hack it!

BirdNet-Pi Species Stats: post analysis graphing

 

I like graphs!

 

And I like the annual count-by-month bar graph in Species Stats

But I’m less keen on the hourly chart.

BirdNet-Pi Portable: chart info mods

My BirdNet-Pi Portable system gets taken to places away from home!

So its important that the daily records are properly labeled.

BirdNET-Pi: direct file editing

I've been editing files on my BirdNet-Pi systems via my laptop.

This post just describes the procedure I use.

Playing with colour recognition #1

A Python tutorial on Colour Recognition recently grabbed my attention.

 

It looked like an interesting playground to step into, so...

...like any good Gambaser, I decided to write some code.

Geany Syntax Highlighter for Gambas Script

Gambas scripts can be written using any text editor in 'black & white'.

But I'm so used to seeing my code in colour that black text seems to slow down my comprehension.

Although this post shows how to add colour for your Gambas script files in Geany, it may be more widely useful for those trying to add syntax highlighting for other languages to the Geany code editor.

Acrylic Splashbacks & KitchenPi

Earlier this year we refurbished our kitchen & utility room.

With a new layout, new floor, new sink, a mixture of new cabinet doors and a few completely new kitchen cabinets, we are happy with the end result.

However, the choice of red splashbacks meant we also needed a new enclosure for our internet radio: KitchenPi.

KitchenPi: adding a watchdog

Although KitchenPi has been running well for over two and a half years, I do get the occasional blip.

A recent issue caused the system to fall silent.

But this turned into an opportunity to do a couple of simple software modifications.

Mycroft: the open source Alexa

Mycroft AI is a voice assistant similar to Amazon's Echo/Alexa, with a speaker module that the user can shout instructions to.

In both cases the user can "wake up" the unit, and then ask a question or issue a command (e.g. "What's the weather like in Nairobi?").

But what makes Mycroft especially interesting to an old hacker like me, is that it is open source!

Gambas: command-line programming

I must have been using Gambas for small projects since I fully switched to Linux for my home computing needs almost 10 years ago.

Gambas was a natural choice for me as I'd spent several years in industry using Visual Basic, Delphi and Turbo Pascal.

But up until quite recently, it had not occurred to me that there might be some benefit in using Gambas for command-line programming.

KitchenPi: an internet radio for my kitchen

We needed a radio in the kitchen to replace our Bush DAB/FM portable which has put in good service, although DAB reception in our area has never been great.

As space is at a premium, I wanted the new radio to take up as little space as possible.

So I came up with the idea of building something that would fit under the eye-level kitchen cabinets, behind the decorative molding.

Pi Unicorn Hat: as a photographic strobe light

This Hat sits on a Raspberry Pi and contains 64 LEDs in an 8 x 8 grid format.

The documentation says that the LEDs are very bright "...bright enough to cause eye pain... possibly retina damage..." ...so I wondered if they had a use in photography.

This post details some experimentation, some Python code, and a few photos.

BlissFlixx: wifi config & user information

I was thinking recently about how I might send a configured BlissFlixx SD card or complete system to a friend.

How easy is it for someone to configure and use?

This led to a bit of Python coding, as I attempted to make wifi configuration just a little bit easier.

The Insomniacs Bedside Radio

If you ever have difficulty getting [back] to sleep, you may find that reading a book or listening to music for a while will make you sleepy.

That's OK if you sleep alone, but turning on a light to read a book or cranking up the volume on your MP3 player at 2am may make you very unpopular if you share your bed.

But maybe you can get away with listening via a pair of headphones, if you keep the volume turned down low on your radio.

RaspberryPi inputs: to poll or to interrupt?

One of the best features of the RaspberryPi is the GPIO (General Purpose Inputs & Outputs).

Reading the input levels on the GPIO is pretty easy, especially using Gordon's wiringPi library.

But you need to think carefully about how best to do this in the software for your chosen project.

Class notes; How To Drive LEDs From A RaspberryPi

I was asked recently to help with a RaspberryPi training session for a group of young Computer Science pupils.

 

So this post is simply the hand-outs from this session.