<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
<atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
+ <item>
+ <title>VLC in Debian now can do bittorrent streaming</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/VLC_in_Debian_now_can_do_bittorrent_streaming.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/VLC_in_Debian_now_can_do_bittorrent_streaming.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 24 Sep 2018 21:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Back in February, I got curious to see
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_VLC_to_stream_bittorrent_sources.html">if
+VLC now supported Bittorrent streaming</a>. It did not, despite the
+fact that the idea and code to handle such streaming had been floating
+around for years. I did however find
+<a href="https://github.com/johang/vlc-bittorrent">a standalone plugin
+for VLC</a> to do it, and half a year later I decided to wrap up the
+plugin and get it into Debian. I uploaded it to NEW a few days ago,
+and am very happy to report that it
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/vlc-plugin-bittorrent">entered
+Debian</a> a few hours ago, and should be available in Debian/Unstable
+tomorrow, and Debian/Testing in a few days.</p>
+
+<p>With the vlc-plugin-bittorrent package installed you should be able
+to stream videos using a simple call to</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+vlc https://archive.org/download/TheGoat/TheGoat_archive.torrent
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+</p>It can handle magnet links too. Now if only native vlc had
+bittorrent support. Then a lot more would be helping each other to
+share public domain and creative commons movies. The plugin need some
+stability work with seeking and picking the right file in a torrent
+with many files, but is already usable. Please note that the plugin
+is not removing downloaded files when vlc is stopped, so it can fill
+up your disk if you are not careful. Have fun. :)</p>
+
+<p>I would love to get help maintaining this package. Get in touch if
+you are interested.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>Using the Kodi API to play Youtube videos</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_the_Kodi_API_to_play_Youtube_videos.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_the_Kodi_API_to_play_Youtube_videos.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 2 Sep 2018 23:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>I continue to explore my Kodi installation, and today I wanted to
+tell it to play a youtube URL I received in a chat, without having to
+insert search terms using the on-screen keyboard. After searching the
+web for API access to the Youtube plugin and testing a bit, I managed
+to find a recipe that worked. If you got a kodi instance with its API
+available from http://kodihost/jsonrpc, you can try the following to
+have check out a nice cover band.</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
+ --data-binary '{ "id": 1, "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "Player.Open",
+ "params": {"item": { "file":
+ "plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=LuRGVM9O0qg" } } }' \
+ http://projector.local/jsonrpc</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>I've extended kodi-stream program to take a video source as its
+first argument. It can now handle direct video links, youtube links
+and 'desktop' to stream my desktop to Kodi. It is almost like a
+Chromecast. :)</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>Software created using taxpayers’ money should be Free Software</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_created_using_taxpayers__money_should_be_Free_Software.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_created_using_taxpayers__money_should_be_Free_Software.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Thu, 30 Aug 2018 13:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>It might seem obvious that software created using tax money should
+be available for everyone to use and improve. Free Software
+Foundation Europe recentlystarted a campaign to help get more people
+to understand this, and I just signed the petition on
+<a href="https://publiccode.eu/">Public Money, Public Code</a> to help
+them. I hope you too will do the same.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>A bit more on privacy respecting health monitor / fitness tracker</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_bit_more_on_privacy_respecting_health_monitor___fitness_tracker.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_bit_more_on_privacy_respecting_health_monitor___fitness_tracker.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 13 Aug 2018 09:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>A few days ago, I wondered if there are any privacy respecting
+health monitors and/or fitness trackers available for sale these days.
+I would like to buy one, but do not want to share my personal data
+with strangers, nor be forced to have a mobile phone to get data out
+of the unit. I've received some ideas, and would like to share them
+with you.
+
+One interesting data point was a pointer to a Free Software app for
+Android named
+<a href="https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/">Gadgetbridge</a>.
+It provide cloudless collection and storing of data from a variety of
+trackers. Its
+<a href="https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/#supported-devices">list
+of supported devices</a> is a good indicator for units where the
+protocol is fairly open, as it is obviously being handled by Free
+Software. Other units are reportedly encrypting the collected
+information with their own public key, making sure only the vendor
+cloud service is able to extract data from the unit. The people
+contacting me about Gadgetbirde said they were using
+<a href="https://us.amazfit.com/shop/bip?variant=336750">Amazfit
+Bip</a> and
+<a href="http://www.xiaomimi6phone.com/xiaomi-mi-band-3-features-release-date-rumors/">Xiaomi
+Band 3</a>.</p>
+
+<p>I also got a suggestion to look at some of the units from Garmin.
+I was told their GPS watches can be connected via USB and show up as a
+USB storage device with
+<a href="https://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-development/fmt_garmin_fit.html">Garmin
+FIT files</a> containing the collected measurements. While
+proprietary, FIT files apparently can be read at least by
+<a href="https://www.gpsbabel.org">GPSBabel</a> and the
+<a href="https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/gpxpod">GpxPod</a> Nextcloud
+app. It is unclear to me if they can read step count and heart rate
+data. The person I talked to was using a
+<a href="https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/564291">Garmin Forerunner
+935</a>, which is a fairly expensive unit. I doubt it is worth it for
+a unit where the vendor clearly is trying its best to move from open
+to closed systems. I still remember when Garmin dropped NMEA support
+in its GPSes.</p>
+
+<p>A final idea was to build ones own unit, perhaps by basing it on a
+wearable hardware platforms like
+<a href="https://learn.adafruit.com/flora-geo-watch">the Flora Geo
+Watch</a>. Sound like fun, but I had more money than time to spend on
+the topic, so I suspect it will have to wait for another time.</p>
+
+<p>While I was working on tracking down links, I came across an
+inspiring TED talk by Dave Debronkart about
+<a href="https://archive.org/details/DavedeBronkart_2010X">being a
+e-patient</a>, and discovered the web site
+<a href="https://participatorymedicine.org/epatients/">Participatory
+Medicine</a>. If you too want to track your own health and fitness
+without having information about your private life floating around on
+computers owned by others, I recommend checking it out.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Privacy respecting health monitor / fitness tracker?</title>
<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Privacy_respecting_health_monitor___fitness_tracker_.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>The worlds only stone power plant?</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_worlds_only_stone_power_plant_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_worlds_only_stone_power_plant_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 30 Jun 2018 10:35:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>So far, at least hydro-electric power, coal power, wind power,
-solar power, and wood power are well known. Until a few days ago, I
-had never heard of stone power. Then I learn about a quarry in a
-mountain in
-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremanger">Bremanger</a> i
-Norway, where
-<a href="https://www.bontrup.com/en/activities/raw-materials/bremanger-quarry/">the
-Bremanger Quarry</a> company is extracting stone and dumping the stone
-into a shaft leading to its shipping harbour. This downward movement
-in this shaft is used to produce electricity. In short, it is using
-falling rocks instead of falling water to produce electricity, and
-according to its own statements it is producing more power than it is
-using, and selling the surplus electricity to the Norwegian power
-grid. I find the concept truly amazing. Is this the worlds only
-stone power plant?</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Add-on to control the projector from within Kodi</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Add_on_to_control_the_projector_from_within_Kodi.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Add_on_to_control_the_projector_from_within_Kodi.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 26 Jun 2018 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>My movie playing setup involve <a href="https://kodi.tv/">Kodi</a>,
-<a href="https://openelec.tv">OpenELEC</a> (probably soon to be
-replaced with <a href="https://libreelec.tv/">LibreELEC</a>) and an
-Infocus IN76 video projector. My projector can be controlled via both
-a infrared remote controller, and a RS-232 serial line. The vendor of
-my projector, <a href="https://www.infocus.com/">InFocus</a>, had been
-sensible enough to document the serial protocol in its user manual, so
-it is easily available, and I used it some years ago to write
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/infocus-projector-control">a
-small script to control the projector</a>. For a while now, I longed
-for a setup where the projector was controlled by Kodi, for example in
-such a way that when the screen saver went on, the projector was
-turned off, and when the screen saver exited, the projector was turned
-on again.</p>
-
-<p>A few days ago, with very good help from parts of my family, I
-managed to find a Kodi Add-on for controlling a Epson projector, and
-got in touch with its author to see if we could join forces and make a
-Add-on with support for several projectors. To my pleasure, he was
-positive to the idea, and we set out to add InFocus support to his
-add-on, and make the add-on suitable for the official Kodi add-on
-repository.</p>
-
-<p>The Add-on is now working (for me, at least), with a few minor
-adjustments. The most important change I do relative to the master
-branch in the github repository is embedding the
-<a href="https://github.com/pyserial/pyserial">pyserial module</a> in
-the add-on. The long term solution is to make a "script" type
-pyserial module for Kodi, that can be pulled in as a dependency in
-Kodi. But until that in place, I embed it.</p>
-
-<p>The add-on can be configured to turn on the projector when Kodi
-starts, off when Kodi stops as well as turn the projector off when the
-screensaver start and on when the screesaver stops. It can also be
-told to set the projector source when turning on the projector.
-
-<p>If this sound interesting to you, check out
-<a href="https://github.com/fredrik-eriksson/kodi_projcontrol">the
-project github repository</a>. Perhaps you can send patches to
-support your projector too? As soon as we find time to wrap up the
-latest changes, it should be available for easy installation using any
-Kodi instance.</p>
-
-<p>For future improvements, I would like to add projector model
-detection and the ability to adjust the brightness level of the
-projector from within Kodi. We also need to figure out how to handle
-the cooling period of the projector. My projector refuses to turn on
-for 60 seconds after it was turned off. This is not handled well by
-the add-on at the moment.</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>youtube-dl for nedlasting fra NRK med undertekster - nice free software</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/youtube_dl_for_nedlasting_fra_NRK_med_undertekster___nice_free_software.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/youtube_dl_for_nedlasting_fra_NRK_med_undertekster___nice_free_software.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 28 Apr 2018 10:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>I <a href="https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS">VHS-kassettenes</a>
-tid var det rett frem å ta vare på et TV-program en ønsket å kunne se
-senere, uten å være avhengig av at programmet ble sendt på nytt.
-Kanskje ønsket en å se programmet på hytten der det ikke var
-TV-signal, eller av andre grunner ha det tilgjengelig for fremtidig
-fornøyelse. Dette er blitt vanskeligere med introduksjon av
-digital-TV og webstreaming, der opptak til harddisk er utenfor de
-flestes kontroll hvis de bruker ufri programvare og bokser kontrollert
-av andre. Men for NRK her i Norge, finnes det heldigvis flere fri
-programvare-alternativer, som jeg har
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK.html">skrevet</a>
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK_med_den__nye__l_sningen.html">om</a>
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nedlasting_fra_NRK__som_Matroska_med_undertekster.html">før</a>.
-Så lenge kilden for nedlastingen er lovlig lagt ut på nett (hvilket
-jeg antar NRK gjør), så er slik lagring til privat bruk også lovlig i
-Norge.</p>
-
-<p>Sist jeg så på saken, i 2016, nevnte jeg at
-<a href="https://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl/">youtube-dl</a> ikke kunne
-bake undertekster fra NRK inn i videofilene, og at jeg derfor
-foretrakk andre alternativer. Nylig oppdaget jeg at dette har endret
-seg. Fordelen med youtube-dl er at den er tilgjengelig direkte fra
-Linux-distribusjoner som <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
-og <a href="https://www.ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a>, slik at en slipper å
-finne ut selv hvordan en skal få dem til å virke.</p>
-
-<p>For å laste ned et NRK-innslag med undertekster, og få den norske
-underteksten pakket inn i videofilen, så kan følgende kommando
-brukes:</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-youtube-dl --write-sub --sub-format ttml \
- --convert-subtitles srt --embed-subs \
- https://tv.nrk.no/serie/ramm-ferdig-gaa/MUHU11000316/27-04-2018
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>URL-eksemplet er dagens toppsak på tv.nrk.no. Resultatet er en
-MP4-fil med filmen og undertekster som kan spilles av med VLC. Merk
-at VLC ikke viser frem undertekster før du aktiverer dem. For å gjøre
-det, høyreklikk med musa i fremviservinduet, velg menyvalget for
-undertekst og så norsk språk. Jeg testet også '--write-auto-sub',
-men det kommandolinjeargumentet ser ikke ut til å fungere, så jeg
-endte opp med settet med argumentlisten over, som jeg fant i en
-feilrapport i youtube-dl-prosjektets samling over feilrapporter.</p>
-
-<p>Denne støtten i youtube-dl gjør det svært enkelt å lagre
-NRK-innslag, det være seg nyheter, filmer, serier eller dokumentater,
-for å ha dem tilgjengelig for fremtidig referanse og bruk, uavhengig
-av hvor lenge innslagene ligger tilgjengelig hos NRK. Så får det ikke
-hjelpe at NRKs jurister mener at det er
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best___ikke_fortelle_noen_at_streaming_er_nedlasting___.html">vesensforskjellig
-å legge tilgjengelig for nedlasting og for streaming</a>, når det rent
-teknisk er samme sak.</p>
-
-<p>Programmet youtube-dl støtter også en rekke andre nettsteder, se
-prosjektoversikten for
-<a href="http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html">en
-komplett liste</a>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Stortingsflertallet går inn for ny IP-basert sensurinfrastruktur i Norge</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stortingsflertallet_g_r_inn_for_ny_IP_basert_sensurinfrastruktur_i_Norge.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stortingsflertallet_g_r_inn_for_ny_IP_basert_sensurinfrastruktur_i_Norge.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 24 Apr 2018 15:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p><a href="https://www.vg.no/sport/i/J1g8zj/stortingsvedtak-snart-ip-blokkerer-utenlandske-spillselskaper">VG</a>,
-<a href="https://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/stortinget-blokkerer-utenlandske-spillselskaper/69740219">Dagbladet</a>
-og
-<a href="https://www.nrk.no/ostfold/tar-opp-kampen-mot-utenlandske-spillselskap-1.14021381">NRK</a>
-melder i dag at flertallet i Familie- og kulturkomiteen på Stortinget
-har bestemt seg for å introdusere en ny sensurinfrastruktur i Norge.
-Fra før har Norge en «frivillig» sensurinfrastruktur basert på
-DNS-navn, der de største ISP-ene basert på en liste med DNS-navn
-forgifter DNS-svar og omdirigerer til et annet IP-nummer enn det som
-ligger i DNS. Nå kommer altså IP-basert omdirigering i tillegg. Når
-infrastrukturen er på plass, er sensur av IP-adresser redusert et
-spørsmål om hvilke IP-nummer som skal blokkeres. Listen over
-IP-adresser vil naturligvis endre seg etter hvert som myndighetene
-endrer seg. Det er ingen betryggende tanke.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
</channel>
</rss>
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff