Mike’s blog posts

We here at Prairie Haven live on Little Waumandee Creek in Buffalo County, Wisconsin.  We’ve always wondered about where the word “Waumandee” comes from and what it means.

Listen to these blackbirds and see if you hear them saying “waumandee!” the way I do.  Maybe that’s where the word comes from?

This is a scratchpad post about the battery power-storage system. Another in the “Prairie Haven Operator’s Manual” series of posts.

Right now there are just a series of documentation diagrams that I made — I’ll add explanations as time permits.

Just for fun — here’s a picture of the Submarine Control Room Command Console that shows off the three inverters at the heart of the system.

Here are the panels that are supplied by the inverters (the fourth one, on the right, is the panel for loads that aren’t supplied during power outages).  The boxes below the panels are for the loads that are interrupted during outages, but can be re-enabled during periods of excess power production. Continue reading “Battery power-storage system”

This is a scratchpad post to remind myself how to decontaminate our well the next time it tests positive for bacteria.  I bet we have to do this every time we get flood runoff, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.  Related post: Winterize the RV

The process was easier and less complicated than I thought.  Basically, dump a couple jugs of bleach into the well, distribute that bleach-water through the system, let it sit for a day and flush it out.  So not too hard, doesn’t take much time to do except for the waiting.  It wasn’t even terribly disruptive to live with — basically just missed one shower.

The hardest part to get right was taking the water sample afterwards.  I took video of the well servicing people when they ran their sample.  See below.

Continue reading “Decontaminate bacteria from the well”

I decided to compare some digital recorders for the purposes of recording soundscapes here at Prairie Haven.  I’ve got two of them, bought at different times for different purposes and I was curious to see how much different they were and whether it was worth carrying one of them instead just using my phone.  The nice thing about the phone is that it’s with me all the time, but I’d start carrying one of the others if they were better. Continue reading “Soundscapes — audio recorders compared”

Intro

Exactly five years ago today, I published this little rant about the growth rates projected for the new “generic top level domains” that were being introduced by ICANN at the time.  You know, domain names that end in things like .run or .lol or .bot (yep, those are all real alternatives to .com or .org if you’d like to strike out into new territory).

I decided to update it with the way things have turned out. Continue reading “Are projections of registration growth in generic top-level domains realistic?”

We’ve been noticing that the Ranger has been pretty tough on our trails here at Prairie Haven.  Our pet theory is that the EV (plug in electric) version of the Ranger is quite a bit heavier than a normal one and that the standard (narrow, aggressive-tread) tires add to the problem.

The Mission: wider tires for the Ranger EV

We’ve just mounted four Carlysle 25x11x12 Multi-Trac (574369) turf tires .  These are a little wider than the standard tires and have a much less aggressive tread pattern.  Here’s Marcie on her test drive — early returns are positive.

Continue reading “Wide tires on a Polaris Ranger EV”

A scratchpad post to remind myself how to configure a Kontakt instrument so that light guides and knobs will show up correctly in Komplete Kontrol.  There’s a video walkthrough at the end of this post.

Here’s a picture of the destination – the light guides appear on the keyboard and Komplete Kontrol knobs are mapped to the patch in two banks.

Continue reading “Push custom light guides and knobs from Kontakt to Komplete Kontrol”

This one’s going to get the least hits ever, I bet.

I transferred the authoritative nameserver of a domain from Godaddy to Cloudflare and things got stuck.  The NS propagated pretty well, but it never got picked up by Google or Verisign’s public DNS (check with https://www.whatsmydns.net).  Since my ISP uses Google’s 8.8.8.8 server for customer DNS, I couldn’t reach my sites and mail got goofy.

The problem turned out to be outdated DS records that lingered at Godaddy after I tried their DNSSEC product, had all sorts of problems and turned it off.   DS records aren’t deleted automatically in that process — they need to be deleted manually on the Domain Details/Settings tab.  Who knew?  Why should I have to know?? Continue reading “Scratchpad post: clearing up a failed nameserver transfer between Godaddy and Cloudflare”

This is a scratchpad post to remind myself how to put together a machine-learning system on a Mac.  This won’t work on a PC as some of the software is Mac-only.  In this configuration a WiiMote (input device) is connected to Wekinator (real time interactive machine-learning software) through OSCulator (OSC bridging and routing software).  Wekinator outputs are mapped to MIDI to drive Ableton Live through another instance of OSCulator.

Here is a block diagram (clicking on it makes it bigger)

Continue reading “WiiMote -> OSCulator -> Wekinator -> OSCulator -> Ableton Live”

This is a scratchpad post for links to Drone articles that have caught my eye

Click here – to get back to the “Aerial Favorites” page on PrairieHaven.com Continue reading “Drone links”