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The Noel Blog

AI Image Processing at Home (Hot Dog/Not Hot Dog)

AI Image Processing at Home (Hot Dog/Not Hot Dog)

Home automation is wonderful.  Up until recently, I used things like motion sensors and contact sensors to trigger various things.  While these devices still have their place, they are "dumb.

  • Noel
Noel 1 Sep 2020 • 3 min read
A Simple Utility to Expose Shell Commands as an HTTP API

A Simple Utility to Expose Shell Commands as an HTTP API

I lost most of this original post due to datacenter outage at my cheap VPS provider (https://buyvm.net/ - they are pretty good cause they are pretty cheap).  Since

  • Noel
Noel 4 Apr 2020 • 1 min read
Freedom! (From your wireless carrier's hotspot throttling)

Freedom! (From your wireless carrier's hotspot throttling)

So, for Independence Day, my family set out on a road trip to Lake Tahoe.  My wife and I take turns driving.  During one of my turns riding shotgun, something

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Noel 5 Jul 2019 • 3 min read

BlueKeep Scanner Docker Image

"Hey - this isn't a security blog!" IKR?  But yeah, this BlueKeep stuff  a.k.a CVE-2019-0708 seems scary.  So, some nice peeps out there have made scanning utilities for this stuff.  https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/rdpscan There are pre-build MacOS and Windows binaries

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Noel 28 May 2019 • 1 min read
Docker Container for August Lock Bridge

Docker Container for August Lock Bridge

It turns out that my old blog post about making an August lock bridge device was popular https://www.thenoel.org/diy-august-l/ Unfortunately, some folks had problems getting things to

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Noel 6 Apr 2019 • 2 min read
Ghost 2.0 and Sausage!

Ghost 2.0 and Sausage!

2019 is here.  That means it's time to update Ghost to 2.0.  Also, I put a new picture up as the cover for thenoel.org.  It's a picture of

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Noel 12 Jan 2019 • 1 min read
Great Utility - ngrok

Great Utility - ngrok

https://ngrok.com/ It lets you make a public, Internet accesible endpoint. It's great for doing quick tests.

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Noel 21 Jul 2018 • 1 min read
1 Year with the Chevy Bolt

1 Year with the Chevy Bolt

It has been about 1 year since I got the Chevy Bolt. It's time to reflect on this revolutionary EV. First, I have to say - this thing is still

  • Noel
Noel 9 Mar 2018 • 2 min read
Things I Learned While Trying To Solve Euler Project Problem #3

Things I Learned While Trying To Solve Euler Project Problem #3

Euler Project problem 3 took me way longer than I expected. While I am not a real programmer, I thought I was good enough to script this in bash quickly.

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Noel 3 Mar 2018 • 6 min read
Getting Laid Off Sucks - And Then it Doesn't

Getting Laid Off Sucks - And Then it Doesn't

Of course getting laid off sucks! Duh, right? It bruises the ego and makes you question your own abilities. I was laid off recently about a month ago. Ouch. I

  • Noel
Noel 24 Feb 2018 • 2 min read
ESP8266 DeepSleep Mode Button

ESP8266 DeepSleep Mode Button

I ran across this neat idea on Random Nerd Tutorials that is basically a way to make your own Amazon Dash button with a customizable action. While you can certainly

  • Noel
Noel 13 Feb 2018 • 4 min read
HomeGenie - A Look at My Home Setup

HomeGenie - A Look at My Home Setup

HomeGenie is what I have been running for my Home Automation needs. It does a lot, but I mainly chose it for these features: Z-wave support. Multi-platform. It's an app

  • Noel
Noel 11 Feb 2018 • 4 min read
DIY Digital Pool Pump Control

DIY Digital Pool Pump Control

Most of the motivation behind my projects comes from being cheap. There are usually easy solutions out there to problems I want to solve, but they are expensive. For this

  • Noel
Noel 4 Feb 2018 • 4 min read
Stumbled Across Something Neat - vutil

Stumbled Across Something Neat - vutil

So, since I'm trying to blog more, let me share some little neat thing I found tonight. It's called vutil. It does a few things, but the neat thing I

  • Noel
Noel 3 Feb 2018 • 2 min read
DIY August Smart Lock Wi-Fi Bridge

DIY August Smart Lock Wi-Fi Bridge

I briefly mentioned the Wi-Fi bridge used for my August Smart Lock in my Control Practically Anything with Alexa post. I'm writing this post now to describe it more in

  • Noel
Noel 30 Jan 2018 • 3 min read
Control Practically Anything with Alexa

Control Practically Anything with Alexa

Alexa is great. I'm not talking about the silly stuff you see on TV or strange skills available from Amazon. I'm talking about it's simple ability to control things in

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Noel 29 Jan 2018 • 5 min read
Cheap Wall Sconce Conversion - Part 2, The Software

Cheap Wall Sconce Conversion - Part 2, The Software

Continuing my post in part 1, now we will look at the software side of things. As I mentioned, the heart of the controller is the ESP8266. It is a

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Noel 17 Jan 2018 • 5 min read
Cheap Wall Sconce Conversion - Part 1

Cheap Wall Sconce Conversion - Part 1

A few years ago, I picked up 3 sets of cheap, AA-battery powered wall sconces for my home theater. You can pick these up anywhere including Ebay for good deals.

  • Noel
Noel 16 Jan 2018 • 3 min read
Some Neat Kodi Automation
kodi

Some Neat Kodi Automation

I use Kodi for my home theater management. There are a couple of neat plugins I want show off. The first one is the PseudoCinema Poster plugin. This neat plugin

  • Noel
Noel 13 Jan 2018 • 2 min read
It's That Time of Year Again!

It's That Time of Year Again!

This is the time of the year where I resolve to blog more. I just updated a bunch of stuff on the server and hopefully this motivates me to write

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Noel 13 Jan 2018 • 1 min read
Voice Control Airfoil (aka, my home audio rube goldberg machine)

Voice Control Airfoil (aka, my home audio rube goldberg machine)

So, I've always wanted to control my home audio setup via voice. Sure, there have been solutions for voice control in the past, but nothing has really worked well for

  • Noel
Noel 25 Mar 2016 • 2 min read

My 2016 Predictions

In the Blu-Ray release of The Martian, an alternate ending shows Sean Bean dying as the Hermes lands right on top of his house. Someone on the internet will do a mashup of the new X-Files series and Californication. Spoiler: His name is Cox

  • Noel
Noel 31 Dec 2015 • 1 min read

F the Internet

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Noel 28 Dec 2015 • 1 min read

Horrible Skiing Accident

Horrible Ski Accident by great-and-funny-videos

  • Noel
Noel 26 Dec 2015 • 1 min read

Wiring Up the Coin Door

So I got a good deal on a coin door for my MAME cocktail cabinet. I'm waiting for some other parts to wire up control, but I grew impatient tonight and wanted to do something. So, I started wiring up the lights behind the

  • Noel
Noel 24 Dec 2015 • 1 min read
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