A raspberry Pi Zero 2 W with camera module

The Subtle Art of Trial and Error

Byrichard
Reading Time: 4 minutes

For 40 CHF you can buy a Tapo or Xiaomi webcam and it is almost ready to be used as a webcam. You take it out of the box, plug it in, add an SD card, download the app, pair it with the phone and let the phone connect it to wifi and then it detects motion, can take video, photos and more, with ease. In such an environment it’s easy to forget about what we called “Plug and pray” back in the day.

Back in the geeky old days of computing there was a lot of trial and error to get things to work. You would try one thing, and see if it worked, and then another, and then a third, and then a fourth, and eventually you would either find a solution, or give up. One of the reasons I switched to Apple, rather than Linux, in 2003, is that I wanted to be able to connect to the university’s wifi with ease. I expected that if I used a linux machine I would struggle with wifi.

Apple is the leader in making everything work so flawlessly, as long as they want you to do things, that trial and error is part of history. Apple controls everything, to ensure that it works “flawlessly”. I put “flawlessly in quotation marks because my phone crashes or hangs on almost every one of my walks. I rebooted it today and yesterday, while walking. If I take photos during a walk the phone acts up and freezes, and stops the podcast I’m listening to.

I’m being distracted. The point is that Apple, until recently, was known for producing reliable devices. Windows is also known for dumbing down their devices more and more. They try to make it so that users just click install, and the computer does the rest. Usually webcams, printers and more are plug and play.

With Linux you’re using a tinkerer’s OS so things can be simple, if you buy a generic webcam and plug it in. I tried to set an android phone up as a webcam and it worked within minutes. Integration with Home Assistant was smooth and efficient.

With a Raspberry Pi 3b and a Raspberry Pi zero 2 W I have struggled for three or four hours trying to get the camera to work. You have to do A, and then you need to do B and then you need to do C. You also need to wire the camera into the board the right way.

As you’re doing this from a CLI you’re not seeing whether the webcam is giving a picture or not. I tried to take pictures and it appeared to take them but when I tried to get motion to work with the camera to stream to a device with a web browser I just see nothing. I get an error message about the camera not being available.

I know that the right camera is detected because I see it in the output. I just haven’t taken the time to see if the images generated correspond to what I expect them to be. The subtle art of of trial and error is about having a goal and tweaking and experimenting until you get the result you want to get.

The first error is that I wired the camera the wrong way. The second error is that I don’t need to use the legacy camera option with this camera. The third error is that I’m trying to get a Pi and camera module to work as a webcam before I get it to work within its own device.

I am so used to Windows, MacOS and dedicated hardware being so reliable that I forget about the trial and error part of computing that was once so familiar to those of us geeky enough to spend hours of our free time playing with computers. When computers just work it’s easy for everyone to be a geek, because turning it off and on again is easy. So is plugging in a USB device.

My aim is not to build a CinePi.My aim is to setup a webcam that I can see via Home Assistant. I can then add motion detection and more features when I achieve the initial goal of building a Raspberry pi webcam server in minutes“. The instructions are for the V2 module, or a logitech device, and I’m using the V3 module, so the instructions need to be updated. That’s why I’m struggling, and that’s why it’s interesting to do these projects.

I came across this challenge when following programming courses that were over a year old. Sometimes I had to look for the new way of doing things to get the code to behave as it was expected to. Sometimes ChatGPT, Bard and Bing are helpful to find the up to date way of doing things. It is also a case of Reading the Fabulous Manual (RTFM).

There are at least ten Home Assistant Camera integrations to experiment with, so if the method I have been experimenting with doesn’t work I still have 9 other solutions to experiment with. The FFMPEG option looks interesting.

The Subtle Art of Trial and Error Summarised

I call it the subtle art of trial and error because the art lies in learning a methodology by which to come up against an issue and to develop a system by which to resolve the issue in an increasingly short amount of time. The point isn’t in knowing how to do things. It’s in knowing where to look for help. It used to be called Google Fu.

I could easily buy a webcam for 12-30 CHF now but by experimenting with various “integrations” I invest my time in learning new skills and that has value. If I get FFMPEG to work, then I can potentially build my own camera systems. Instead of reverting to film like some, I could go the other way, and experiment with concepts similar to the Cinepi.

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A Weekend Walk During a Pandemic

A Weekend Walk During a Pandemic

Byrichard


Today I went for my daily walk and I saw a shape. I thought, “That looks like a fox” and as I approached i had a doubt about it being a dog and I felt fear but I continued forward anyway. Eventually the fox noticed me, looked at me and then fled the other way. This is good news. This means that the fox was healthy, rather than rabied. It also means that I can keep being relaxed about seeing foxes.


Plenty of flowers in a field


At this time of year fields are filled with flowers by the thousands and if you walk around the right fields you hear the buzzing of bees. I didn’t hear them today. Summer heat seems to be back now. The thermometer is going up to 26 to 27 degrees. Warm enough to cycle in shorts and not feel cold. This is a nice time of year for such sports. I have cycled 100 kilometres so far and tomorrow I expect to add another 20 to 30 kilometres so I will have reached my pre-pandemic goal for the first time in two or three years. I haven’t cycled seriously since I broke my arm.


I have now completed 50 percent of The Complete JavaScript Course so I am finally closer to the end than the beginning of this course. I feel that I am learning new and interesting things, as well as consolidating knowledge about other topics. What I am learning about JavaScript can be found here. This is sorted by learning, rather than projects. I keep this as a notebook rather than a repository for others to use. When I am confident about the projects I am working on I will share them in an organised manner.


Coquelicots, and the Alps

A Good Run

A Good Run

Byrichard

It’s good to vary between walking, cycling and running. I even threw in skateboarding but I am not confident at that sport yet. The beauty of walking, cycling and running is that these are sports that you can do straight from home, without getting into a car, and without having to put up with other drivers. The one drawback is that dangerous drivers endanger you on every outing, but that’s another topic.

Comfortable

Although I was worried that I would regret running with barefoot shoes, after wearing them for over six hundred kilometres I can say that they were the right choice. The reason for which they were the right choice is that now, rather than run two kilometres before my knees hurt I can run for five kilometres and reach the goal I wanted to achieve. I wanted to be able to run five kilometres comfortably, and I can.

No Extra baggage

For this run I took no backpack, no lumbar bag or any other form of bag. I had my phone, some cars in case, and my house keys. I don’t usually run so light. I didn’t expect rain. I didn’t expect to feel thirsty, and I didn’t expect to need the external battery pack, to recharge the phone. I didn’t even take earphones.

The Route

Originally I was thinking of running the usual route, to avoid being near homicidal car drivers but I noticed that there was a village party, which I didn’t want to run through. I changed my routing and it had me run up a steep road for several hundred meters before turning left and heading down towards the lake, and then turning right along the motorway. That’s not really the point. The point is that I routed it perfectly, so that I stopped running just as I got to a busy road where I sometimes have to wait for cars to pass.

Quiet

It was quiet on this run. I saw one or two walkers and one runner. In a different age, and time, I might have said hello, but in this day and age it is better not to. She was doing interval running, but when she had a rest interval she took the rest part more seriously than I do. When I’m told to rest I walk at full speed. That is my rest pace.

It was busy with dogs and walkers on another route but I always avoid routes where I expect to meet dog walkers. I don’t want dogs to jump on me, and force me to overcome my desire to run away.

And Finally

Running allows you to experience the same route as you would walk, in half the time. It’s a way of enjoying the outdoors, without devoting the same amount of time. I would not replace walking with running, because I like taking the time to walk that route. By walking you can read a lot of audio books, but you also take a break from sitting and being indoors.

By running I am forced to look at where I’m going, as well as to think of how my feet are hitting the ground. I consider the route. Today I surprised a heron that hid behind some trees. It saw me and flew away.

The Unedited Podcast

The Unedited Podcast

Byrichard

There was a time when I wanted to listen to hours of podcasts a day, and I did. I would listen on my walks, on my commutes to work, while driving and more. I would love listening to podcasts so much that I would wish I had more time to spend on listening to podcasts. That, unfortunately changed, as podcasts became livestreams, and thus unedited.


Too Long For Casual Listening


It’s not that I don’t like listening to people talk, but that when a podcast goes from being fourty five minutes to an hour long, to being one and a half to two hours long then it becomes too long for a walk, and too time consuming to listen to more than one podcast a day. It gets worse. The problem with This Week in Tech, and that entire network of podcasts is that by being unedited they waste our time. Instead of getting tech news we get personal stories. Instead of analysis and context we get opinion and sidetracked. They used to joke about rat holes. By being live and unedited, when shared as podcasts, they become irrelevant.
Hiking podcasts, programming podcasts and others all make this mistake. The result is that listening to podcasts is less engaging than it was. What makes this worse is that podcasts are sponsored and funded, so as they become profitable they become less engaging for the listener.


Using A Running Order


I was thinking about this yesterday, when listening to a French podcast by France Culture. The podcast was organised, with a running order, various sound bytes. It kept on track and it was about something specific. Podcasts have value because they are specific, because they offer information efficiently. When podcasts get sidetracked they become a waste of time.


What Changed


The first thing that changed is the pandemic. It made listening to normal people have normal conversations, whilst in self-isolation deeply unpleasant. I couldn’t listen to people living “normally” when I felt so isolated due to the pandemic still going on.
The second reason is advertising and promotional messages. When a podcast is young people are talking about the topic they’re about. Eventually, with time, they become about self-promotion and advertising. If you listen to one podcast a week, then that’s fine. I don’t. I would listen to a podcast episode or more every day for weeks. Eventually I burned out on adverts and self-promotion. I have the same complaint about YouTube content. They’re breaking the fourth wall.


Audio Books


Paradoxically the fact that podcasts have become so time consuming and long winded has encouraged me to do two things. The first is to listen to more audio books once again. If I’m going to spend hours listening to something it might as well be a book. I have been listening to The Practicing Stoic, Eye of the Beholder, Journey (by Tony Blair) and The Cult of the Amateur. I find it hard to stick to just one book at a time.


Nature


I also listen to nature. I listen to the sound of traffic, and I walk without earphones for up to an hour at a time. Somehow by podcasters losing focus, I have found the time to walk more mindfully, to day dream, to think and just to be in the moment, in space and time.


And Finally


I am looking for podcasts that are worth my time, that are 45 minutes to an hour long at most, that are worth listening to. Walking without distraction is a good thing, anyway. Walking, in the moment is good.

The Last Thing I learned
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The Last Thing I learned

Byrichard

What is the last thing you learned?


I am currently learning to run five kilometres again. I’m one week away from completing the training program. This isn’t learning in the conventional sense of the word. It’s about fitness and endurance. About pacing and stamina.


I have run five k in half an hour in the past. I managed to run 10k and more. I stopped because my knees disliked my running. Now I am running again. In less than eight days I will have completed the challenge and I will be able to move on to something else. I ran 5.6km two days ago. The next runs are one or two short runs, and a 5k run.


The biggest challenge today, with the 4k run was running directly into the wind. At 21km/h according to Strava or 28km/h according to Garmin connect it almost stopped me when I ran into it. You just push forward, until you’re facing a different direction.


Today it was raining and I wore glasses anyway. They steamed up at one point so I took them off. Running in the cold and rain isn’t too unpleasant, until the rain blows onto wet trousers and you start to cool. I wore quick drying hiking trousers and I changed when I got home. It’s more comfortable than wearing rainproof layers and a winter jacket.


When it rains I usually wear the cycling rain coat. It has no hood but it’s light and practical for these conditions. For half an hour to fourty minutes it is fine.


Recently I have been running on rainy days, and having rest days on days with nice weather. I am getting to run in sub-optimal conditions.


Summer is almost back. I Hope that this year will be more interesting and inspiring than “I walked, ran and cycled in circles.”

Thoughts On Long Drives

Thoughts On Long Drives

Byrichard

The most I drove was 3600 kilometres in four days. I went to Western France, Barcelona, back to Western France, and then back to Switzerland. It was an average of 800 kilometres a day. About two or three hours from home I was so tired of driving that I stopped at an empty motorway stop and just zoned out for ten minutes or so before continuing to drive.


Sports and Driving


I like driving, and I like long journeys by car. I know that they can be tiring, either due to traffic, or because of the entire day. The Leukerbad Via Ferrata drives were tiring because I woke at 3am to get to the destination at 8am for the first ride up, and then climb for five to seven hours, before driving home. That is a demanding day. Eventually I booked hotel nights. That changed the experience. Spa and meal with people after sports is nicer.


I have driven to and from Spain several times, in a single hop. It is tiring. It is hours of focus. Hours of sitting still. Hours of staring. This isn’t your two hour drive from Geneva to a mountain chalet. This is 13 hours of driving. You can get up early, to finish early, or you can get up at a normal time, to finish later, or you can get up later to finish in the middle of the night.


Traffic and Snow


A few years ago I said a sad goodbye to a friend in London, before getting stuck at Blackfriar’s tunnel, heading to the English channel. I think I spent three or four hours in that traffic jam. What was funny in this case is that I got to France late, and with it snowing. When I drove across the Jura there was a layer of snow and I had to go fast enough to have momentum, but not so much as to lose control of the car. I really didn’t want to get stuck. I got home very early the next day, but I don’t remember feeling tired. On that drive adrenaline keeped me awake.


Avoiding Busy Days


Sunday could be easy, or it could be hard. I have no idea. it’s the first road trip with the current car, so the experience is new. If the day of travel made no difference traffic wise, then I think I would set off today or tomorrow. It’s because it does, that I am dedicated to drive one day of the week.


This is my first trip out of Switzerland for two years, due to the pandemic. I am always excited to have the freedom to drive for hours in a row in a single day. I am looking forward to the opportunity. It will feel good to set off and drive.


Apple Play


For the first time I can play with Apple Car play, and this time it isn’t for a five or ten minute trip to the shops and back. It’s a thirteen hour trip. Plenty of time to listen to audiobooks, maybe podcasts, and to think. I will test to see whether the has 800 kilometres of range on a single fill or whether that range is shorter. We will see if I make it to the border without refueling. With current road conditions it should take 7hrs to the border and half a day to get close to my destination.


Well Rested


Although I like the idea of getting up at 3am to drive for 12 hours I know that, driving alone, this is not a good idea. If I had someone to share the drive with then I could. I think waking up a little later, at a time that is within my normal time to wake up will yield a safer and more pleasant driving experience.


If I wake at 3am then I could have a siesta around lunchtime, before continuing the drive. This is sub-optimal. A 15 minute break, when I feel fatigued will be enough. Usually that’s when the refuelling stops are, to recharge before the next leg.


And Finally


This blog post could be more eloquent. I count it as practice. Eventually I will find an inspired voice, more frequently.

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