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Last updated 2025-10-23 (nownownow.com)

  • Tending to two daughters.
  • Always have some house remodeling going.  Kitchen floor next?
  • Reading The Count of Monte Cristo--very slowly, eBook from standardebooks.com
  • Enjoying my job as a network administrator at NISC.
  • Weekly "article club" (like book club) with a few guys.
  • Starting up a YouTube channel: @AxvigAcres
  • There's always something cooking in my homelab.  5 node Proxmox cluster running about 20 VMs and some LXCs.
  • I am building out Drupal as a sort of personal ERP system.  Very slowly.  I have had books, vehicles, trips, and computers in there for a while.  I started adding vehicle maintenance records and plans now.  Some is not public of course.

LeapFrog Fridge Phonics decoded

LeapFrog Fridge Phonics pieces front and back

The kids' toy "LeapFrog Fridge Phonics" has letter pieces that mount in a decoder, which then say different things depending on which letter you mounted.  Of course this requires some system for describing each letter, which I have documented below.

There are six bits.  I will mark the presence of a bump as 1, and no bump as a 0.  A couple pieces were missing but I am reasonably certain I have deduced those values correctly (guesses in parenthesis).  I have recorded them in what seems like "most-significant bit on the left" order.  If you have the letter upright and look at the back at the bumps along the bottom, this is the matching order.

All sequences ending in 00 were skipped.  And I suppose any starting with 00 were also skipped, since A starts off the sequence with the lowest binary value that would satisfy both criteria.  I'm thinking that the mechanics of the toy work best when the force is distributed on both ends of the pieces, hence always wanting at least one bump at or next to each end.

I find the two-code gap between N and O to be a real puzzle.  It must be for Ñ but I found a video of a Spanish version of the toy and the Ñ was just an aside drawn on the N.

The characters do actually line up with the characters in the ASCII binary table if:

  • Shift a digit in from the left.
  • Perform some modulo 3 adjustment to compensate for the gaps.
  • Compensate for the Ñ gap (module 14 adjustment?).
A(010001)
B 010010
C 010011
  010100
D(010101)
E 010110
F 010111
  011000
G 011001
H 011010
I 011011
  011100
J 011101
K 011110
L 011111
  100000
M 100001
N 100010
  100011
  100100
O 100101
P 100110
Q 100111
  101000
R 101001
S 101010
T 101011
  101100
U 101101
V 101110
W 101111
  100000
X 110001
Y 110010
Z 110011
  110100

Lint trap logic

Back when I had roommates I sometimes imagined that they would scorn me for not emptying the dryer lint trap after using the dryer. The logic behind my actions:

  • Messing with the lint trap could get lint or debris on the clean clothes (whether they are still in the dryer or nearby in a basket).
  • When you start a load, you really should check/verify the lint trap anyways. Might as well just clean it then.

Calendar info

An explanation of calendar things, using Aaron & Anna as an example.  I set these up on everyone's accounts before handing the account over, so they should all be consistent regarding naming and sharing settings.

In the Beginning was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson

An interesting read, weaving between topics of operating system histories and philosophies.  I am about a year into my Linux journey and I think this mostly motivational for me to continue that, but also made me think what would have been different if had succeeded in my experiments to get Linux running at home in the basement during my high school years.  I remember burned Mandrake Linux CDs and also Ubuntu ones that I got in the mail for free.

Completion status
Complete
Rating
Enjoyed

Raspberry Pi 4

Submitted by aaron.axvig on

This has been the HomeAssistant server in our Mandan house even before moving in.  One of the first things I did upon starting work on the house was get Internet service and set this up to keep an eye on the temperature.  Now it is busy taking care of all sorts of things.