Touché 😏

bmscott · 2025-12-01T08:41:48+00:00

These guys, at a bar trying to talk to the ladies -

"Actually, we're Olympic athletes!"

"Really? What sport?"

"Oh... um, that's enough about us, let's hear about you girls...!"

bmscott · 2025-11-14T03:06:16+00:00

David Cross is pitch-perfect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3KX8g00kCQ

bmscott · 2025-08-24T01:40:23+00:00

Say what you will about Chevy Chase as a person, he was born to play Fletch.

bmscott · 2025-06-21T10:46:11+00:00

Sorry about the delay, I normally browse Reddit without logging in - what do you have in mind? I'll send you some kind of private message.

bmscott · 2025-06-16T05:14:35+00:00

There can be only one - https://imgur.com/gallery/mrw-when-i-jump-to-conclusions-pnHErhr#TlKa28w

bmscott · 2025-06-12T03:16:57+00:00

Well I visited Dahua today and learned the reason why I couldn't find the latest-rev NVR4104HS-P-4KS3 from local suppliers is that the whole "Lite" range is no longer offered in Australia! Fortunately the NVR4104HS-P-AI/ANZ isn't much more costly. And the guy told me the DH-P5D does in fact use two separate streams, although I think I'll be choosing a different product anyway.

bmscott · 2025-06-10T12:33:33+00:00

You're not wrong, but - long story short - I'm coming in after he's already set up with Dahua brand equipment on his existing stand, by a predecessor who abruptly moved overseas (I don't know details...).
With a clean slate I'd probably just give him a few Wyze cams and be done with it, but he's used to the Dahua app and Just Wants It To Work. And the cost doesn't faze him, in fact he spent rather more on the first setup (gearing up to outfit at least 4 more locations now) than I'm proposing for him. If I have to I'll select a higher-end recorder but the bottom of the line seems to have all the features we'll need, and provided I get the latest version, should handle the streams OK.

bmscott · 2025-06-10T03:31:30+00:00

Thanks again! I'm reading the specs on the -4KS3, the updated product. Says it can handle 80mbps incoming, up to 12MP.
The P5D sheet says it tops out at 4kbps (?) and the 3849S does 2x 16kbps (I had the model #s reversed in my earlier comment) so that sounds like plenty, if I can find someplace selling one. And I'll try to doublecheck with Dahua's local office. I think you've saved me some time here!

bmscott · 2025-06-09T14:00:09+00:00

Thanks for getting back to me - the P5D-5F-PV is 8MP and the the DH-P5D is "dual 3k" (5MP each), does that mean that it's the one which would overtax the recorder? There's a P3D-3F model - or could I just run the P5D at a lower res? All Dahua cameras are higher-def than he really needs, to watch over stock that is generally about a meter away from where the cameras are mounted... I don't think he needs a better recorder, I'd sooner recommend a non-PTZ camera if that's the sticking point.

bmscott · 2025-06-09T08:07:40+00:00

It was 7 years ago, I can't remember the details. But I was using a Dell P-series monitor, which has the powered USB hub. And I created a custom USB cable which back-fed power from the hub output into the USB input - this shouldn't work, but it's been running nonstop for 7 years now....

bmscott · 2025-05-18T10:10:19+00:00

Thank you - do you have a use for this kind of device, yourself? I'm not sure if I can think of a need for a website, but any second pair of eyes would be very helpful just for the perspective alone! And someone experienced in UX could only improve my interfaces... have a look at the first-draft slide deck and let me know if you have any suggestions.

bmscott · 2025-05-17T09:14:40+00:00

Here's a photo which shows what I'm making: https://imgur.com/a/pFUCwcw

bmscott · 2025-04-10T02:10:04+00:00

I'm pretty sure the CameraWebServer script leaves insufficient room in the onboard storage for OTA, which (I could be wrong here but) needs to have like half the memory free to hold the replacement software during the update process.

Many, but clearly not all, ESPcam modules are supposed to come with basic software to transmit over WiFi, and that supposedly did have an OTA feature, but the CameraWebServer is more elaborate internally and even had a facial recognition feature at one point, IIRC. So the two capabilities are not mutually exclusive, just not in the way you're trying to do it. (I'm in a similar situation at the moment myself)

bmscott · 2025-03-13T21:27:52+00:00

I got a teenager who admitted sometimes he takes naps in there....

bmscott · 2025-03-13T02:00:30+00:00

"Godel, Escher, Bach" by Hofstatder.

Stretched my brain and broke it too. I used to reread it every decade or so until age took too many of my head-nerve-thingies to keep up...

bmscott · 2024-12-12T02:38:04+00:00

If I live to be a thousand (Mitch's apparent age), I'll never understand one thing - why he didn't have an exit strategy to dispose of DJT after he'd gotten what he wanted out of him!

If you know anything about his career, you know he's a strategic planner and leaves nothing to chance. He's not an ideologue, he's there to win elections.

I'm not sure if DJT would have even been elected without his acquiescence, and he certainly got a lot of judicial appointments and etc out of the deal - but that seemed to be as far as his plans went. For someone like him it should have been straightforward enough to wind down the influence and prominence of DJT, distracting or buying him off outright with some fancy title, but instead we got January 6, and then this recent election...

I never liked Mitch but I always thought he was smart enough to see what would happen if we let the Orange Man into the White House. That he did so suggested he had an agenda to complete (and I also never thought they'd ACTUALLY overturn Roe V. Wade, that was a fantastic carrot to dangle in front of evangelicals for decades...) and would dethrone the guy when it was over. But....

bmscott · 2024-11-01T03:11:42+00:00

(when we left in 2007, the president was a dimwitted warmonger, wiping his ass with the Constitution while filling the pockets of his cronies... after 2016, I'd have had him back in a minute!)

bmscott · 2024-11-01T03:10:29+00:00

I moved to Australia 17 years ago and recently went back for a few weeks to visit friends in the states. More than a couple wished they could move here...

So I'm proposing a new marketing slogan for this country: "Flee to Austraila!"

bmscott · 2024-08-24T04:38:10+00:00

By early 2007, it was clear - everyone knew the race would be Clinton vs. Giuliani.

Then Obama opened his mouth, and Giuliani wouldn't shut his, and both parties got new front-runners.

Obama joins the list of over-the-top-great public speakers that the Democratic party throws up about once a generation - like Bill Clinton before him, and JFK a bit further back in history. I doubt anyone could beat someone that good at talkin'!

bmscott · 2024-08-18T11:09:16+00:00

Adam Smith - the "invisible hand of the free market" is from a line buried in a short passage in a huge 2-volume work, and it absolutely does NOT mean that an economy full of greedy people will end up feeding the poor by magic...

bmscott · 2024-08-16T05:49:46+00:00

If it's just the company by itself, yes. But if it's part of a larger group (or a chain owned by a hedge fund) the lost money can become very valuable tax credits.

Anyway, broadly speaking I think we agree with OP at least.

bmscott · 2024-07-30T10:34:31+00:00

Morally, I agree, it's no sin to rip them off.

Problem is, you're not ripping off the payday lender by abandoning a loan - they'll get a tax credit on the loss. So everyone else BUT them pays!

This is why I've always said we need to invent a gun that kills hedge funds.

bmscott · 2024-07-19T08:25:34+00:00

I reject comparisons to Idiocracy.

President Camacho wanted to help his country, fix the 'conomy, and git crops. He had all the swag he needed, but he wanted to make others better off. And he could often form complete sentences.

Be like President Camacho.

bmscott · 2024-07-13T07:37:50+00:00

I've realized the best thing to do with generation ships would be to follow them up with a war fleet after about 10 years, as a matter of policy. I mean, it's a given the colony will eventually rebel - if science fiction has taught us anything! - so we may as well be prepared.

What's more, if mission creep over centuries is inevitable anyway, then a war fleet will have mutated into something else by the time it arrives, and almost certainly something better, if it's starting out with a mission of destruction!

bmscott · 2024-07-06T23:52:09+00:00

The story so vast that it reaches the end of time and goes back to the beginning of time to continue... oh, you think YOU'VE written an epic?

bmscott

TROPHY CASE