Only_Oli (The O_Zone)

I am going nutz with this confinement thing….did this today…it is on wheels so can move easily around. The top is like a hat to have easy access to the bottle. It is also open on the back to slip the bottle into it without having to lift it very high. It is made with cedar wood which is nice to work and soft. Also smells nice when cutting which I had lots to do…

With the home confinement imposed by the epidemic of the COVID-19 virus, I have been doing many projects that I had on hold for long. But also started new ones…

I saw a nice explanation of the impact of containment on the spread of the virus through the population and the potential impact on the health services and the level of mortality etc…

I thought that I could make some sort of display frame and build a simulator.

It is an electronics build but the actual coding of the simulator has been more of a challenge. In particular, creating a model that is simple enough so that the display is fluid and give an impression of true virus spreading etc…

This is interesting: try

The current system creates a random population of people (pixels) scattered across the 4 panels of 64 by 64 leds. The system picks randomly a level of containment (or none), and a level of agitation of the people moving across the display. These are blue pixels.

The computer creates an initial load of viruses across the population randomly. Between 5 and 10.

If the people with the virus get in contact with a pixel that is not sick, then there is contagion and the new person can infect others.

There is a lifetime for the disease and a mortality rate. If a person survives the virus, they are then immune but only for a certain amount of time. This creates waves of disease spreading across the screen.

At the top of the display, there is a graph that shows the number of people sick in the population. This clearly shows the curve of the evolution of the disease. Sometimes the peak is very sharp and sometimes the peak is only a small bump.

The system tracks the time it takes for all the sick people to either die or recover. Once there are no sick people anymore, the system re-starts a new simulation with new parameters picked randomly within boundaries.

The system also tracks the parameters that result in the longest disease time, the shortest disease time, the hight death ratio and the lowest death ratio.

In general, it takes between 1 to 6 minutes to run a single simulation. This one is about 3 minutes.

So far I have been able to observe that the longest disease is when there is a high level of containment. It also reduces the level of mortality but not as much as I expected. I tend to spread the disease over a longer time period.

As per the above, the shortest simulation was 31 seconds with a starting population of 1600, an initial virus load of 12 viruses, as disease life of 45 cycles and an immunity life of 70 cycles, with no containment at all. This resulted in a 54% death rate.

Clearly this is not a scientific experiment but just a toy display. I am very please with the simulation effect which gives a good sense of a disease spreading through a population.

It is made with a Raspberry Pi running a version of Linux. It is programmed in Python.

Since we are now on confinement and only allowed to go out alone and for essential reasons, I cannot go out on a ride with the motorbike beast.

So I converted my authorised sports activity to be a cycling ride to the same location but this time I was accompanied by Philippe who also passed away last year in February. He was a keen cyclist and the weather made us both happy this morning.

30KM cycling even with the electric bike is still a good exercise for the body and the soul.

It is a bit more than a year that Guy left us. So much has happened since and the recent events are putting a lot of things in perspective.

Decided to take Guy on a motorbike ride with me today. He loved his motorbike and I know he was looking after me as I was getting back on the wild animal…with a 1.2L engine, 4 parallel carburettors, a V-Boost compressor, a shat-drive, 145 Horsepower, a loud puffing noise…

On many occasions, I have considered selling it. My brain says, I only do a few miles per year and it is costing me taxes, MOT and insurance, it is dangerous. My heart says… NEVER…. love it too much. The thrill and adrenaline always put a smile on my face. It reminds me of good times and brings them to the present.

As I come back home the prime minister just announced the full lockdown of the UK for the foreseeable future…I am glad I followed my instinct to do it “now” and not tomorrow.

Life is too short to wait for the right time just do it now.

Yes, that is right, not a world clock, a word clock.

It tells the time in English…

Made it all from scratch using online inspiration, in particular, the faceplate.

I saw this first online a long time ago and then at Selfridges more recently, it reminded me that I must build one for myself. Various versions of this are sold for an enormous amount of money (£1000-£2000), there is much satisfaction in building one yourself.

The code is a copy and pastes from a version I found online. The box is made from scratch using Fusion360 and my laser cutter. I made 4 different iterations before getting to the right dimensions and hole alignment etc…this is the latest. Not 100% perfect but nobody will notice except me. Will do one last version…it is my OCD.

It is made of a Trinket 5V controlling a matrix of NeoPixels and the time is kept accurate using a Real-time Clock communicating to the Trinket using I2C protocol. The time is kept in memory in case of power cut through a small button battery.

As usual, it took me forever to get this project done…I bought the part almost a year ago exactly!

When I started this blog in 2012, I already had some interest for “time” in general. (As per the tag line ) Why do some people manage to do more things than me with the same amount of time as me? How can somebody become a president within 50 years and others struggle to do their tax returns on-time?

Why is there no “pause button” (that would be super cool) for time? [some science why]

When I was still working, I used to tell my team:
“Enjoy today like if it was the good old days……. because it is!”

Recently, I feel that time is taking me through life quicker than I would want it to. Seeing time as words rather than a running set of numbers or a needle counting seconds gives me a bit more peace to enjoy “now” as a dear friend used to tell me.

Friday

At last Gilles et Chantal are over to visit our house and to discover London…last visit was probably when Jules was born so close to 20 years….

Because I cannot find “Lessive de soude” (a 30% Caustic Soda or Lye mixture). I am trying to use Baking Soda which is also a higher PH.

Lessive de soude at 30% (as you purchase the liquid bottles in France) is usually PH14.

Baking Soda of 3 Table Spoons in 500ml of water PH9.5 (I have measured this ). So I am using that to take the bitterness out in the initial soak.

A quick post to record how to set up a mountain bike for a good fit.

This link is a good explanation.

In 2020 we have one extra day to do “something”….given the state of our planet I will use this extra day to try to improve my CO2 footprint.

In 2018 we got rid of the petrol car and went full electric with the Tesla. In 2019 we installed solar panels.

But when you look at the below graphic it seems that there is still a lot to do and clearly changing our diet to a more plant-based diet should be part of the master plan. (by the way I recommend watching this…)

As I was browsing the internet to better understand how we “capture” CO2, I realised that there is almost “NO” solution other than planting trees…..which seems such a low tech solution and inefficient in terms of returns.

To illustrate the lack of technology to absorb the CO2, it would take 1 cubic meter of porous basalt (ie a rock of 1m by 1m by 1m) a full year to only “absorb” 0.5KG of Co2 from the atmosphere.

We challenged our friends in our yearly “New Year Wishes”  video to do something about the environment.

To fulfil my commitment, I am currently researching some sort of carbon capture device that I could build at home similar to this thing. I would love to work with these people….they seem to be having a lot of fun.

It was Darren Hooker’s anniversary of his passing recently (22nd January 2016) and unfortunately, another one of my work colleagues (Paul Foster) has gone to join him upstairs only a couple of weeks ago.

The last time I saw Darren we met at the Crown and Treaty for a last beer and say goodbye to each other. He was tough and kind at the same time, a very special person that I am very happy to have met and called my friend. I miss him but nothing like his family does.

Paul loved the CAT as well and I had a few beers and parties with him over there. I knew Paul for something like 20 years of my 26 years at Xerox. The scary thing is that when I met Paul he had already done 26 years of Company !!!….yes 46 years in Total. He was a character that everybody loved.

I remember that when I left Xerox and walked to all the desks to say goodbye to people the only desk where I got emotional was when I saw him and he said it was the wrong way round for me to go before him…

Although it is very sad that he will not be able to enjoy a long retirement which he definitely deserved, Xerox was everything to him and many of us loved him very much like family.

I like to think that Darren is showing his old mate Paul the best places up in the heavens.