Author: Paul Hubbard

Computer engineer from San Diego. Obsessed with hardware, software, timekeeping and elegance.

Internet manners – download if newer

On By Paul HubbardIn programmingLeave a comment

If you’re a developer, sooner or later you’ll need to poll a website or URL, looking for information. There are good and bad uses of this, (looking at you, Ticketmaster and scalpers) and I want to be good. (This was inspired by reading Rachel’s post about her rate limiter.)

As part of my podcast speech-to-text project I am downloading a chunk of XML from their RSS feeds. These are commercial and can handle lots of traffic, but just the same why not be smart and polite about it? My goal is to have a cron job polling for new episodes, and I don’t want to cost them excess hosting and traffic fees.

The HTTP spec includes a header called Last-Modified, so your first thought might be:

  • Use the HTTP ‘head’ verb to only get metadata
  • Check the Last-Modified header to see if its newer

This will not work. ‘HEAD’ doesn’t include Last-Modified. Instead, you need the ‘ETag’ header! It’s roughly (see that link for details) a file hash, so if the RSS updates the ETag should as well. Simply save the ETag to disk and compare the version returned in the ‘HEAD’ metadata. Fast, polite, simple. Here’s the Python version from the project:

def podcast_updated(podcast: Podcast) -> bool:
    # Based on our saved last-updated time, are there new episodes? If not, don't
    # hammer their server. Internet manners. Method - call HEAD instead of GET
    # Note that HEAD doesn't include a timestamp, but does include the cache ETag, so
    # we simply snapshot the etag to disk and see if it differs.
    filename = podcast.name + '-timestamp.txt'
    try:
        r = requests.head(podcast.rss_url)
        url_etag = r.headers['ETag']
        file_etag = open(filename, 'r').read()

        if file_etag == url_etag:
            log.info(f'No new episodes found in podcast {podcast.name}')
            return False
    except FileNotFoundError:
        log.warning(f'File {filename} not found, creating.')

    open(filename, 'w').write(url_etag)
    return True

It adds a local file per URL, which is a bit messy and I need to rework the code a bit, but it’s working and runs quite fast.

Another idea would be to try the requests-cache module, which does this plus local caching of content. I’ve read their docs but not tried it yet.

P.S. Yes, I also shared this on StackOverflow. 😉

Goddamn WordPress

On By Paul HubbardIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

So I pay for WordPress to host this blog. Money well spent at 48/year. I also run a private blog. The WordPress iOS app as well as their new Jetpack app both refuse to log into the self hosted instance.

Why? I’m guessing fuck you, pay me. The BlogPost app kind of works but I need to work on its image uploading.

Had to rant. Guessing there are lots of others in this predicament.

Wonderful performance of JS Bach

On By Paul HubbardIn MusicLeave a comment

I’m a fan of JS Bach in general and of his pipe organ work in particular. My mom was sometimes a church organist, so I’ve memories of reading while she practiced, though always with synths and not a full organ. I did get to hear the instrument at Cordiner Hall many times while working there, complete with hunchbacking down a five foot tall tunnel underneath the seats while it was played… anyway.

This is an excellent performance, a bit different than my favorite by Marie-Claire Alain, but its well recorded and definitely wonderful. Good headphones recommended, otherwise the pedal tones don’t come through as they should. That final chord resolution, singing through the hall, just goosebump inducing. Enjoy.

Clothing for tall men

On By Paul HubbardIn recommendationsLeave a comment

This is a topic for a small percentage of people, but the Internet is vast so I’ll post it for others who’ll find it useful.

By way of context, I am 6’10” (208cm) and 260lb (118kg). I’m looking for daily clothes for office work mostly, and exercise gear as well with a strong focus on longevity and environmental impact. I do have a couple suits and a tuxedo but those mostly sit idle so they’ll be discussed as a side topic. Let’s go!

My go-to, trusted brands for daily wear

  • Eddie Bauer – pay attention to fit descriptions (classic versus relaxed) but many of my clothes are EB. Their modular winter coat was great for Midwestern winters.
  • Land’s End – similar notes here. For a while, they were owned by Sears and you could try stuff on, but even as web-orders they are solidly reliable.
  • LL Bean – ditto, though I think a slightly smaller selection of tall sizes.
  • String King – this is an awesome find. A lacrosse brand from Los Angeles, but they make custom t-shirts, hoodies and quarter-zips. You tell the site your measurements and they ship it to you, complete with your name on the tag. I’ve got on t-shirt from them, in the poly blend, and its holding up well and seems an excellent value, so I plan to shop here again.
  • Levi’s – the 541 athletic fit is my daily. I take each pair to a local tailor to add two more belt loops on the back, since they are made with only a single rear loop, and then I wear the hell out of them. 2% Lycra/elastane. Wrangler and Carhartt also make tall sizes and I’ve a pair of each, but save them for yardwork, mud and camp outs as I find them less comfortable than the Levi’s.
  • J. Crew – I’m only a bit of their clothing. Sometimes excellent.
  • Darn Tough – their merino-blend socks are expensive at ~20/pair but they work superbly, last a long time and are fully guaranteed for life. Despite having size 15 feet, I prefer their XL size to the fit of the XXL.
  • Ex Officio – their give and go travel brief is expensive at $26 but last. I have a couple of weeks’ worth and they’ve held out well.

New discoveries I’ve not yet purchased

  • American Tall – sizes up to 7’1”. I’ve a nephew who likes their clothing.
  • Navas Labs – recommended by family.
  • Tommy Bahama – I’m not really the Parrothead type that I associate with the brand but their tall size listing actually looks promising.
  • The Gap – I’ve few from them but they’re well regarded
  • Norrøna. Similar to Patagonia in that they don’t sell tall sizes, but my 6’2” sibling tells me that their torsos and sleeves are long enough. Premium prices and reputation. They also have a mountain bike lineup with longer torsos and sleeves.
  • A relative (6’2”) strongly recommends the European brand Devold. Their stuff is well made, proportioned for tall folks despite not being labeled as such and is durable and well made. A quick search found this importer, so I may give them a try.

Exercise clothing

  • AeroTech Designs makes mountain biking jerseys and shorts. I’ve their long-sleeve merino jersey and it’s great.
  • The tech shirts from Eddie Bauer are my go-to here. Since learning that microfibers from polyester are a significant pollutant, I’m searching for merino replacements but haven’t found one yet. Contact me if you can help!
  • Patagonia does not make tall sizes but they seem to make their cycling jerseys long in the torso since cycling requires a bent-forward position. I have two pairs of their Dirt Craft shorts and the 3/4 sleeve merino jersey, and they are worth every penny and fit pretty well.
  • Kitsbow makes high-end outdoor and cycling clothing to order, in America. It’s beautiful stuff and quite expensive. They now have a few tall items! I’ve one of their hot-weather jerseys (Superflow Cooling Tee) (took a chance on a non-tall XL size) and it’s damned good at wicking. I admire them as a company and, if you read up on them, I think you might also. They recently introduced a used-gear store called Experienced Gear.
  • Cognative MTB (great name, also US-based) now has unhemmed 39″ inseam riding pants! In green and black. Bought a pair, getting them hemmed, they look good.
  • I’ve been using Endura riding pants based on posts on the very helpful Clydesdale forum for big heavy riders. They make good stuff.

Information sources

I skim via RSS as explained here, and two sites I’ve come to trust are Dappered and Put This On. String King and Taylor Stitch, for example, were both via Dappered.

Formal wear

Back when I was doing more business travel, a friend recommended Sam’s Tailor, on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. I’ve been there twice, and gotten a suit, two blazers, several dress shirts and some dress pants. It’s been years since I was there though. My tuxedo was a random purchase on a trip to Singapore, and the price and experience were meh so I’d recommend Sam’s there also.

Note that Sam’s does women’s clothing too – I took one of my wife’s favorite shirts along and they made a couple copies in silk for her.

I hope that this list helps someone else out. Do contact me or leave a comment, please.

DIY MagSafe stand

On By Paul HubbardIn recommendationsLeave a comment

So there are fifty to one hundred dollar stands that hold a MagSafe puck for your phone on your desk. Save your money – this is a 20 dollar stand with a MagSafe attached using two 3M Command Strips.

Less classy

I got the stand from Amazon(non referral link). Tablet Stand Adjustable, Lamicall. The strips are “Command Poster Hanging Strips Value-Pack, Small, White, 48-Pairs (17024-48ES)” which are eight dollars for 48, I used two here to hold the puck firmly. The magnets in the puck are strong, so this provides enough adhesion to keep it in place when I pull the phone away.

Simple, cheap, and the 3M strips remove cleanly for when things change. I can now just drop my phone here as I work and it’s visible and topped off. The AirPods also work well.

iPad coding

On By Paul HubbardIn programmingLeave a comment

It’s Saturday, and I wanted to do a bit of Python coding. Specifically, I want to use

  • my iPad Pro with keyboard
  • my home Raspberry Pi 4 server
  • a full IDE with Python support

I’ve been 96% happy using my iPad as laptop replacement (note the arbitrary precision! So science-y!) and this is a continuation of that effort. Based on a six colors post, I’ve used the REST endpoint from my power monitor to build an iOS widget using Scriptable:

Today I want to extend that with timestamps. To do so, I need to edit Python (Flask and SQLite) that’s running on my Raspberry Pi.

There are a few ways to code on an iPad, and I’ve bought a few. In this case, I need remote development, where the code is remote and the iPad is a terminal.

Commence the searching! This post was a good start, and I dimly recalled that VS Code had a remote capability, which eventually led me to this post. He links to the code-server project, which in theory can run on my RPi. It looks great:

https://github.com/coder/code-server

Well, that doesn’t work. NPM issues. More searching led me to the single-issue raspi-vscode project.

Nope, that fails too:

I found the log file and it appears that there’s no cloud-agent binary for the arm7l on the Raspberry Pi:

This leads to the saddest and loneliest page on the Internet:

Zero results. Gotta leave it there for now, but maybe someone else can move this forward. It’s worth noting that the code-server project now has a new open source project called ‘coder’ but it doesn’t have arm binaries either.