Google Earth Engine Timelapse

This is cool...
From here https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/

Coding for Amazon Alexa + Amazon Lambda

Bought an Amazon Echo Dot in the Black Friday sales...  having a quick play at developing a test application for it using Amazon Lambda.

It's quite easy once you've wired things up.

This link was mega helpful and I used this as a code template to thanks to the original author: http://moduscreate.com/build-an-alexa-skill-with-python-and-aws-lambda/ 


First I wrote some code in Python on Lamda - excerpts below:

import json

import random

def lambda_handler(event, context):

    

    if event["request"]["type"] == "IntentRequest":

        return on_intent(event["request"], event["session"])

def on_intent(intent_request, session):

    intent = intent_request["intent"]

    intent_name = intent_request["intent"]["name"]

    if intent_name == "GetNumber":

        return get_number()

    elif intent_name == "GetLetter":

        return get_letter()

    elif intent_name == "GetNumberBetween":

        return get_numberbetween(intent)

def get_number():

    session_attributes = {}

    card_title = "RandomNumber"

    r=random.randrange(10) 

    speech_output = 'the number I chose is '+ str(r)

    reprompt_text = "OK"

    should_end_session = True

    return build_response(session_attributes, build_speechlet_response(

        card_title, speech_output, reprompt_text, should_end_session))

def get_letter():

    session_attributes = {}

    card_title = "RandomNumber"

    r=random.randrange(26) 

    speech_output = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwyz'[r]

    reprompt_text = "OK"

    should_end_session = True

    return build_response(session_attributes, build_speechlet_response(

        card_title, speech_output, reprompt_text, should_end_session))

def get_numberbetween(intent):

    if "NumberA" in intent["slots"]:

        num_a = intent["slots"]["NumberA"]["value"]

    if "NumberB" in intent["slots"]:

        num_b = intent["slots"]["NumberB"]["value"]

    

    print (num_a)

    session_attributes = {}

    card_title = "RandomNumber"

    r=random.randrange(int(num_a),int(num_b),1) 

    speech_output = str(r)

    reprompt_text = "OK"

    should_end_session = True

    return build_response(session_attributes, build_speechlet_response(

        card_title, speech_output, reprompt_text, should_end_session))

def build_speechlet_response(title, output, reprompt_text, should_end_session):

    return {

        "outputSpeech": {

            "type": "PlainText",

            "text": output

        },

        "card": {

            "type": "Simple",

            "title": title,

            "content": output

        },

        "reprompt": {

            "outputSpeech": {

                "type": "PlainText",

                "text": reprompt_text

            }

        },

        "shouldEndSession": should_end_session

    }

def build_response(session_attributes, speechlet_response):

    return {

        "version": "1.0",

        "sessionAttributes": session_attributes,

        "response": speechlet_response

    }

===========

You will need to copy the Application number which should be in the form  arn:aws:lambda.....

You can this from the AWS Lambda Dev page - click on functions and in the code view it should be top right of the page.

Then head here to set up the link from AWS Lambda to the Alexa skills kit.

https://developer.amazon.com/home.html 

NOTE: If in the UK you must set up the ENGLISH (UK) language tab - not the default English (US) tab - otherwise even though things will work in the online dev test environment your Echo won't respond to voice requests.


The Main setup is the intent schema and sample utterances. The intents must link to those in your code (eg python) and to the sample utterances.  You can create slots of various data types (eg dates, lists) and pass those values to your application too.

========

Intent Schema

{
  "intents": [
    {
      "intent": "GetNumber"
    },
    {
      "intent": "GetLetter"
    },
    {
      "intent": "GetNumberBetween",
      "slots":[
        {
          "name": "NumberA",
          "type": "AMAZON.NUMBER"
        },
        {
          "name": "NumberB",
          "type": "AMAZON.NUMBER"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}



==========

Sample Utterances

GetNumber for a number
GetNumber random number 
GetNumber for a random number 
GetNumber for random number 
GetNumber give me an integer
GetNumber number please
GetNumber choose a number
GetNumber pick a number
GetNumber another number
GetNumber choose a number
GetNumber give me a number
GetLetter for a letter
GetLetter for a random letter
GetLetter for random letter
GetLetter choose a letter
GetLetter letter please
GetNumberBetween give me a number between {NumberA} and {NumberB}
GetNumberBetween for a number between {NumberA} and {NumberB}
GetNumberBetween for a random number between {NumberA} and {NumberB}
GetNumberBetween select a random number between {NumberA} and {NumberB}
GetNumberBetween give me a number from {NumberA} and {NumberB}
GetNumberBetween select a random number from {NumberA} and {NumberB}
GetNumberBetween choose a number between {NumberA} and {NumberB}
GetNumberBetween pick a number between {NumberA} and {NumberB}

Batch loading OS Highway GML files to a PostgreSQL (+PostGIS) database

With one line at the Command Prompt (Windows) you can load a whole directory of files into a PostgreSQL database



D:\gisdata> for /R %f in (*.gml) do ogr2ogr -f "PostgreSQL" PG:"host=1.2.3.4 port=5432 user=postgres dbname=db password=pass123" %f -append


This will append the converted GML files into PostGIS format in the DB

Writing an ISO image to USB on Mac OSX

First up find which disk the USB is using:


diskutil list


then you will see a list of devices like this

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            499.4 GB   disk0s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +499.0 GB   disk1

                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2

                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *15.6 GB    disk3

   1:             Windows_FAT_32 KINGSTON                15.6 GB    disk3s1

(eg if I wished to target the KINGSTON 16GB USB drive then it'd be /dev/disk3)


diskutil unmountdisk /dev/diskN


then


sudo dd if=/data/yourfile.iso of=/dev/diskN bs=1m


(wait)


should be done!

Concept Net

Some great work on common sense graphs...

https://github.com/commonsense/conceptnet5/wiki

http://conceptnet5.media.mit.edu/


Example:

park

Get /c/en/park in JSON format

grass  AtLocation  park

*Something you find at the park is grass

frisbee  AtLocation  park

*Something you find in a park is a frisbee

slide  AtLocation  park

*Something you find at a park is a slide

human  AtLocation  park

*Something you find at a park is a human

flower  AtLocation  park

*Something you find at the park is a flower

playground  AtLocation  park

*Something you find in a park is a playground

dog  AtLocation  park

You are likely to find a dog in a park

squirrel  AtLocation  park

*Something you find at a park is a squirrel

bird  AtLocation  park

*Something you find at the park is birds

picnic table  AtLocation  park

*Something you find in a park is a picnic table

animal  AtLocation  park

*Something you find in a park is animals

pigeon  AtLocation  park

*Something you find in a park is a pigeon

pond  AtLocation  park

*Something you find at the park is pond

driveway  UsedFor  park

A driveway is for parking

LINKS to things to check out one day

Links to things I really should find time to check out :

http://mapsurfernet.com/demo/gallery

MapSurfer.NET is a free, modern and advanced framework for producing a cartographic product of a high quality. This full featured framework offers a rich set of tools and techniques to automate various cartographic tasks. MapSurfer.NET is designed to be fast and flexible for being used both in desktop and web applications.

-------

http://openrouteservice.org/
Open least cost paths (car, public transport, walking etc)

------

https://datahub.io/dataset/open-flights
(Flight data, and airport details)

SSL HTTPS on IIS - https://letsencrypt.org/

Google Chrome now blocks access to HTML5 geoocation stuff I need... unless it comes form HTTPS secure server.  Here are a few notes - mainly for Windows IIS.

1) SSL is really for 2 things (a) encryption (b) authentication of your server    - self-signed certificates are fine for (a) but not (b)

IIS - self certificates are really easy to generate and use on HTTPS site but you will get msg about not being trusted as (b) above

2) There's a relatively new Cert authority trying to make HTTPS free   --- https://letsencrypt.org/ 

they seem to have been set up April 2016

You can download a file and put on server to authenticate you are who you say you are...  without FTP you can still do this manually but need to create a file path on your Web server which has folder .well-known    which Windows doesn't like but you can make it do it by doing this:

 .well-known. (the last dot is important), Windows will create the folder and automatically will remove the last dot.

The certificate can then be downloaded and installed on IIS... you need to import the Cert  in  Microsoft Management console if on Windows.. then Complete the certificate import in IIS.

ALT to 2) Instead of going the time consuming pain of (2) then this makes life a lot lot easier.. (Windows)

Download the compiled version of this source   https://github.com/Lone-Coder/letsencrypt-win-simple   from here  https://github.com/Lone-Coder/letsencrypt-win-simple/releases  

Run the letsencrypt.exe on your server.. answer the prompts.. it does the authentication using letsencrypt.org and installs the certificate for you on IIS

Job done...  :-)

IMU - complementary filter

Some links on complementary filters for IMU

http://blog.bitify.co.uk/2013/11/using-complementary-filter-to-combine.html





http://www.geekmomprojects.com/mpu-6050-dmp-data-from-i2cdevlib/


http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32228629/imu-orientation-constantly-changing/32231388#32231388

Getting I2C to work on Rapsberry Pi

Recently been trying to get an I2C sensor to work on a Raspberry Pi.. found these articles very useful.

Two parts

Part 1) Turn on in BIOS

http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2014/11/enabling-the-i2c-interface-on-the-raspberry-pi/

sudo raspi-config

In the advanced settings turn on I2C

Now complete the following steps :

• Select “8 Advanced Options”
• Select “A7 I2C”
• Select “Yes”

The screen will ask if you want the interface to be enabled :

• Select “Yes”
• Select “Ok”

The screen will ask if you want the module to be loaded by default :

• Select “Yes”

The screen will state the module will be loaded by default :

• Select “Ok”
• Select “Finish” to return to the command line

When you next reboot the I2C module will be loaded.

_______


Part TWO  - setup software

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=74763


Add this to /etc/modules and reboot

i2c-bcm2708
i2c-dev



sudo apt-get install python-smbus
sudo apt-get install i2c-tools



sudo i2cdetect -y 1

Resize Oracle Virtual Box Machine’s Hard Drive Size

On Windows host PC….

Goto CMD and type:

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage modifyhd f:\virtualmachine.vdi –resize  500000

(to make new drive size 500GB)

plpythonu + numpy and other modules - on a linux server (in this case a Raspberry Pi)

Setting up some plpython functions inside a PostgreSQL database on Linux is great...

sudo apt-get install postgresql-contrib postgresql-plpython    (with correct version numbers added)


and python module installations

pip install numpy

Test it in Python 

------------------
import numpy
print (numpy.e)


However on creating a plpython2u function the error msg report numpy couldn't be found ??

After much searching and looking to add the path of the user that installed the module - the easiest fix was to go back to the server (Rasp Pi2 in this case) and switch to the postgresql user

su postgres
{answer password prompt}

then do                    pip install numpy
also in this case        pip install nltk
then run  python as this user (postgres)

import nltk
nltk.download()
{select all - wait to download - close dialogue box}

Now the plpython2u modules that the postgres user sees has all the necessary data files to work properly...