Segmentation fault (core dumped)
my flesh has cooled the fire.
my flesh has warmed the iron.
Quelab trip report
Yesterday I spent the day working at Quelab, a recently opened hackerspace in Albuquerque. I first visited Quelab for an afternoon several weeks ago, pitching my need for a soil moisture sensor I could use at my farm, Sunflower River.
Yesterday I had an early morning errand to run in downtown, and since my first visit Gabe Ortiz and Adric had built a breadboard prototype, and were ready to receive soil samples from my garden, rather than testing with the potting soil pilfered out of a planter. As Quelab is a co-working space, there wasn't any reason not to spend the day.
When I arrived midmorning, Gabe Ortiz and Walter Duran were there. Gabe has been the primary organizing force behind Quelab, and Walter works there most days.
On my previous visit, I also sat and talked with Kemper Barkhurst, who is on the Board of Directors for Rio Grande Community Farm. One of the WWOOFers volunteering at Sunflower River is also working up at Rio Grande Community Farm, making this a surprising and pleasant connection to make. RGCF is working with some neat technology for maintaining a large scale drip irrigation system. Since Sunflower River already spends a lot of time fiddling with drip line, I'm curious to see how this project progresses.
Yesterday I didn't get a chance to visit with Adric, who wasn't planning on being there until the late evening. I've known Adric through his involvement organizing regular 2600 meetings. Adric has been working with Gabe on the soil moisture sensor.
After playing with the moisture sensor, I settled into the front room to work for the day. Quelab is a large space, with a workshop in the back, a meeting room, kitchen, and several areas for offices.
This meant I had a room to myself. It rained in Albuquerque yesterday, and I certainly missed the expansive view through the windows we have at Qforma. All the same, my work environment was quiet, and the internet connectivity was extremely good.
The office remained quiet throughout the day, with all three of us focused on the work we needed to get done. I had eaten a late breakfast after my errand and was saddened to skip the opportunity to go out to lunch with Gabe and Walter.
I'm quite happy working from home, though often my reason for doing so is an errand I need to run in town. Having a place to drop by in this event is very nice, and I like having people around while I work.
I had a great day working at Quelab, and the environment permitted me to focus and enjoy myself!
Ben NanoNote Trip Report
This is my trip report for the first extended use session with my NanoNote. I went camping for four days without access to power or any computer other than my NanoNote.
The battery powered the device for the duration of the trip. I used the NanoNote for the following of applications:
- Outlining
- Writing
- Task List
- Summarizing Conversation
- Journaling
Outlining
I wrote outlines for a couple of topics I wished to write about later. Recording an outline was very easy. I would like rearranging the outline material to be easier.
Writing
I brought one partially complete writing project with me. Working on an existing project was difficult:
- The project was started on an 80 character terminal, lines wrapped poorly on the 40 character NanoNote.
- The document was poorly organized, which was more obvious and difficult on the small screen.
Task List
I recorded a handful of tasks for later completion. I haven't yet transferred them off the device and into my normal system.
Summarizing Conversation
I used the NanoNote to summarize several conversations. This use was similar to writing an outline.
The intention would be for this summary to make it's way into a larger document's outline.
Journaling
I also used the NanoNote to record thoughts and observations while engaged in activities. This use could benefit from a template to record date, time, and location.
Bugs
I'm experience a bug where typing a right single quote in vim causes the cursor to advance two spaces on the display, rather than the one I expected.
Refreshing the display with ctrl-l fixes the display. The final output is unaffected.
The del key being right above the enter key was frustrating. I would often hit one when I intended to hit the other.
I was typing at night, and really wished for a back lit keyboard. I settled for tilting the display down to illuminate the keyboard.
Summary
I consider my first extended use of this device a success. My most pressing unmet need is to have a better outlining tool, as the screen size on the NanoNote makes outlining a document a necessity to effectively see enough context.
This document was written from my NanoNote, while I was traveling and not able to use a full size computer.