CPU and Memory
The Star64 board is a bit bigger than the Raspi4, both are available with 8GB RAM. Both have 4 cores at up to 1.5Ghz, the Star64 has a RISC-V cpu, the Raspi ARM.
My first goal was to look at power consumption, and cpu temperature. At 20°C environment temperature, without attached cooler, the Star64 cpu idles at 46°C. The board pulls 4W then. With a single core under full load, 6W are consumed and the temperature rises to 54°C. With all 4 cores under load 6W and 62°C.
The Golden Week
This years Golden Week approached, a sequence of national holidays in Japan. Like the last 2 years, a friend invited me to help with planting rice. I live in Tokyo, he lives in Tochigi-ken, north west of Tokyo. In the last years, I did day trips: 2h30min by train, then my friend fetched me by car and we drove another 30min.
I have a roadbike which I typically use for up to 40km day trips. Google maps estimates 140km if walking over to my friends house, and it is not able to suggest a cycling route. Cycling these 140km in the morning before rice planting would not work out, but the day before rice planting was also a holiday, so: let’s go 122km to Utsunomiya on the first day, stay over night, and go another 30km in the morning before rice planting.
1: What’s BSD + my BSD history
I mostly use Linux, but since the time of the Linux Install parties with the Thüringer Linux User Group, I’m also using BSD. I was lucky enough to meet many BSD folks when I lived in Munich.
What’s BSD, after all? My summary: Unix operating systems, mostly with code bases older than Linux. The biggest 3 variants, each with it’s own goals:
- emphasizing security: OpenBSD
- emphasizing performance, and desktop usage: FreeBSD
- emphasizing code cleanness and purity, as well as running on many different architectures: NetBSD
Linux distros are constructed of the Linux kernel, and many GNU software pieces like glibc and utilities ontop. The BSDs include not only their kernel, but also their own set of utilities. Much software like Apache webserver or Xorg is usable on both, BSD and Linux.
When I started to learn Japanese, I tried to look up Japanese input - and it felt much like an in-club: not having the right search terms, not having a good understanding of the writing system either, and without someone around to ask you were lost. Let’s look into this, along with some details about the Japanese language.
The Latin alphabet which is widely used has just 26 characters, so normal keyboards simply map one letter to each key. The shift key allows to choose upper/lower case. In Japanese, one should know 2000 Kanji to read a newspaper. These are composed out of one or more glyphs, this picture shows an old keyboard which actually attempted to map multiple glyphs to single keys, and then use modifier keys to select one of these glyphs:
Some weeks ago, architect Florian Busch presented in German on architecture in Tokyo. Picking up on his details, I attended an event where we visited one of the buildings he designed, and learend some things.
Building in Tokyo
Tokyo was built on a river delta, with this it got right from the start many rivers. Over time the rivers got removed, and constructs started to prevent floods. Still as of today, most buildings in Tokyo are located below the rivers. Especially in August Tokyo often sees Typhoons, along with these the rivers rise and sometimes flood houses.
I’m back in Germany for some weeks, and have revived the Commodore Amiga 500. It still works! The gaming experience is different from what we have now, and that is not about better graphics or such. Got me thinking.. why is that?
The Technology of the Commodore era
I’m focusing here on the 2 systems from the Commodore era: the
Commodore 64 (“C64”, released 1982) and the Amiga 500 (released 1987).
These systems were capable of displaying colors,
and produced (considering their time) really good sound.
With joysticks attached, they were often
used for games. To get an understanding of their computing power: that was
so low, that the chips did not need coolers. Typical available memory:
64kb (C64), 1MB (Amiga). No dedicated chips for 3D, but
the Amiga hat blitter chips for making some 2D graphic operations more
efficient. Up to 2 joysticks could be attached.
My classic software selection
In 2016 I moved to Japan, and started to share experiences via multiple ways, all with their own strong points.
- Japan life observations is a static html document, rendered by asciidoc from a file in markup format. I find this useful for text, with a few images inbetween.
- The pictures are backed by 2 kinds of albums:
- The wiki to easily modify content
These services are updated quite frequently over the year, announced via Mastodon or via RSS feeds for these components.
What’s this about?
This is my attempt of an overview of my current social networks/news fetching setup.
Ever explained a colleague or friend a technical problem, and along with giving the explanations understood the issue better, leading to a solution? Summarizing my current social network/news fetching setup forces me to rethink it, and can give ideas what to improve.
Also, the increasing numbers of Mastodon users show that also many people rethink their habits and tools, so this can also provide food for thought for others.
TL’DNR
Both smartplugs (reporting electrical consumption of a connected device) and the laptop battery allow consumption measurements. Results are in the same ballpark, but also differences of 20% can be seen.
Smartplugs for Linux system power measurement
So far, I only measured power Linux system power consumption with the help of the internal battery, details here and here. Now I got 3 smart plugs for Japanese power outlets which can measure power, and wanted to use these for more experiments. All 3 devices are setup in installing an Android app on the mobile phone, activating bluetooth, and then the smartplugs hook into the local network. While you have the smartplugs directly next to you, all of these vendors intend you to use their Android apps to turn the smartplug on/off, or read the current measured power consumption of connected devices.
For me, Japan deals with culture, technology and religion in different ways from what I was used to. I will try to grab these specialities here.
Combining Culture & Technology
I started to wonder about this when I came to Matsuyama, and saw the Dogo onsen. There it was, with more than 1000 years of history one of the oldest bathes in Japan. Just in the middle of new buildings, a nice combination of traditional old and new things.
Off for a daytrip to the tea garden Takanashi (高梨茶園) in the Tanzawa area. After 60 min train ride from Tokyo I arrive at Hadano station, where I had been before when going to the Tou-no-dake mountains. After 15 min by bus and a walk, there is the tea garden. The trip is organized by oag, we are 23 people.
20220605 011344836 fresh tea
My past views on Apple hardware
In 2007, some time after Apple had rebased MacOS on unix, I bought a Macbook and had a look. MacOS was not convenient for me, it did not even offer virtual screens at that time - I had been using these with Windowmaker on Linux since years. I tried native Linux on that Intel-CPU based hardware, it was not bad, but I preferred IBM Thinkpads for better driver availability, price and because of the red Trackpoint/nipple. My mum got the Macbook, I still felt much better with that than recommending her some Windows laptop. She stayed with Macbooks, before going to Japan I got her a Macbook in 2015, which she is still using.