From my materials research findings: pigeonite. (from Wikipedia).

This notion reminds me of my "ceiling pigeons" motif, of when I left the door open, and left to camp out, for court, at my old Section 8 apartment off of Broadway (the original iPigeon.institute slight home exhibition).

The ceiling in my bathroom had caved in and crumbled, due to significant dampness that had built up, undoubtedly from some transient who had occupied my place for a good time, in the bathroom. I could see the rafters, and there were pigeon-ish crumbles and pigeon icon "bamms" of the drywall pieces, and I spotted some nuclear echo pigeon interlopers, up there, in the ceiling, peeking down at me. I caught it on video, as well, but this is the line art ink brush version.

How to: hand-crafting a Material Design icon.

Google's Material Design website is a rich resource, dedicated to functional and compelling web | app design. On the website, there is a tutorial detailing the construction of a hand-crafted paper-based Material Design icon; done so (with paper), for the purpose of creating true-to-life shading. 

The tutorial inspired me to create my own Material Design icon, based from my "pigeons and friends" repertoire of square-shaped iconic pigeons [and friends]. Here are the source images:

According to the material.io guidelines, the icon's design ought be uniform in stroke thickness, somewhat bold and simplistic.

I've got a challenge, at hand, therefore, n rendering and shaping the image that I end up choosing, for the icon, in that my illustrations are more gesturally-based and freehand, rather than designed and pixelated. I'm somewhat hoping to design with a future-forward eye to the project (if that makes any sense), in perhaps trying to keep detail that I might, for the sake of higher-resolution Dot Per Millimeter (DPM) schemes on devices that are newer and allow for on-screen zoom, for further clarity. Otherwise, I stand to compromise the decipherability of the icon for the end-user's sake of identifying and connecting to the icon. My goal, other than the material.io website's 24 x 24 pixel design basis (for system icon's), is a larger visual scope final purpose, such as placement and viewership established on mediums such as the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store.  

Here are the tools and materials that I purchsed for developing the card paper "shaded" model of the finalized icon, which I purchased from Blick Art Materials store in Pasadena.

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Product Review: Trace Minerals Research Ionic Calcium 200 mg 2 fl. oz.

I commonly use ionic trace minerals for nutrition supplementation, as well as for experimentation with my biological projects (now on IoTpigeons.eco). Now, since I’ve been receiving Unemployment Insurance payments and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Award money from the California Employment Development Department, I’ve been fortunate to be able to venture out beyond the general concentrated Utah Great Salt Lake sea water solutions, by Trace Minerals Research, and I’ve expanded my inquiry and experimentations in cellular regeneration, nerve, blood, and bone health, in to their single-element concentrates. 

In my latest epiphany, from Trace Minerals Research’s product line, I purchased two bottles of ionic calcium; one for me, and one for extra experimentation in to my algae project that I’m documenting and developing upon, over in my new blog. I had a highly beneficial rejuvenating experience, after ingesting some of my algae-and-ionic-mineral concentrates water solution, after sleeping, upon waking up, the next morning. I decided to start a blog about it, and it’s called IoTpigeons.eco, forming from out of the iPigeon.institute brand, of my original pigeons blog. 

Every now and then, since late July, it’s been, I’ve gotten a well-with-all Umemployment Insurance and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Award boon to my finances. It’s good money, coming from receiving General Relief ($221) and SNAP Food Stamps ($194) for years on end, now, leading up to this year, as my only source of income, aside from collecting recyclables for CA redemption money. The guys at the recycling places know me by name. It’s a friendly little establishment of reasonable gains, given adverse circumstances. If I collect glass bottles, as well, I consider it good work ethic. For that matter, I’ve gained 15 pounds, since I’ve come in to this extra Employment Development Department money, perhaps akin to the college “freshman 15,” as I reconcile the new-found luxuries and accountability inherent in receiving the Unemployment Insurance money, paying payroll tax, filing sales and use tax, and submitting quarterly personal income tax returns.

Getting ahead on my personal physical health endowment aspirations is something that I’m investing deeply upon in this span of time (the Unemployment Insurance money and COVID-19 pandemic era of 2020), and my latest favorite ionic mineral single-element concentrate is Trace Minerals Research Ionic Calcium. I’ve been fortunate to experience that with even as little as 4 droppers, I have noticed that my thinning teeth, from formerly smoking hard drugs, is winnowing its way back, in to thickening of the teeth, even after only a few days in, after sampling the product. As you can see, the dosage, of which there are about 48, in the bottle, supplies 200mg (15%) of Calcium, from calcium chloride; not even a full 100% FDA recommended amount of calcium; yet, for damaged teeth, just a single-day’s supplementation of 4 droppers produced a notably palpable effect upon the thickness of the edge of my front teeth. 

I purchased the ionic calcium from Amazon.com. There are several suppliers and dealers who sell the product, at comparable, or competitive prices. 

 

Constructing Trap House Music - the bunchie. [resonance; sourcing audio samples; music production].

In the context of producing a quality audio sound design and music composition based on Trap House music, the percussive development and intelligence in placement and sequencing of a standard motivic idiom - based on what might appear to be seemingly simple, yet which the pros would attest to: a four-on-the-floor beat is one of the most difficult drum tracking and drum session gigs to play out. Not only is the beat quite obvious, and naked, in its simplicity, rendering mishaps and slip-ups most apparent and uncomforting, to the listener. It is a bold and challenging rhythm, requiring much timing, insightful progressive design, in choicing the splices of the beat, as it develops, and stands, on its own. Drums and bass are known as the backbone of a song. Moreover, the drums and the bass are aught to live off of each other, and for each other, oftentimes picking up slight syncopations and touches upon one another, as bass can also lead several lives; sometimes, a percussive element about it. 

Good and well-placed drums and percussive elements, within a track, are notoriously difficult to pull off, given stock virtual instrument patches on a beat-making sequencer machine, drum synth, etc. - in general. For one thing, drums and percussive elements are tunable instruments. A live percussive or drum set has some give to it, in that the live instrument can be malleable in its tuning, given the nuance of the performer and performance that is played out. Somewhat similarly, yet less organically, designed drum beats and sequences can be tuned, with individuality to the notes, when using MIDI, and, as well, in audio, although pitch-shifting or transposing audio supposes a bit more of destructive editing and computing resource. In addition, having to tune a drum sound individually is a very non-present tense mind-mode activity - I find that the creative process is easily abandoned, or that it becomes an ineffable debacle of becoming bored, or apathetic upon the subject, this being the creation of a fuckworthy track dance music piece. 

Somewhere (recently), along the way, “bunchie” got introduced to me. The semiotics of bunchie are obvious, in common usage in higher analytical standard American English: its bunch, it’s an active, present-tense descriptor, it describes a subject, or topic - it’s easily adapted to the comically [attempt] insulting, yet for me, over a short while in tossing “bunchie” around, in my head, and that it had floated by others, in the confines of my mind, and here and there, I’d let it leak out that bunchie had been developing in other people’s | smells, etc., | eww, umm. BunchieApHff way off calibration meter, on this one. Take some care towards others; few things, at this point in time, are truly as hermitic as we might appreciate, given that “no man is an island” happened long ago, in literature, and we live in a techno trap house bwopp-down dance-off, at least sometimes, and it’s a hard to live down and abandon pop and electro scene musical form, and it gives rise to more advanced, more chill, more future, more fancy, through its simple and rudimentary primitivistic design and demand - a promise of a relentless four-on-the-floor bass kick, and a BPM that can be extensible, modular, and transient, and with mixtapes online being a significant distributor of musical supervisory taste and disposition on aesthetics and preference, a lot of ground can be covered, and trap house beats commonly set the feature of much of what I consider to be well supervised mixes. 

The bunchie, though, simple and dumb as it might seem, is actually a resonance freedom declaration, of a departure from octaves and A=440 Hz common and standard music theory: it is the sound of our anything; here, in my case, for my bunchie, I chose the bunchie of my recyclables-collection bag, with bunches of smushed plastic bottles, cans and glass in it, as I jogged down the beach boardwalk earlier this afternoon. It is the resonance of me, myself; I bunched up and smushed the cans and bottles, and the glass containers are made at a standard size that suits our Imperial system standards, our measures of our selves, as human form, and for that sake, there are elements of individuality, as well as community, within a bunchie bag of recyclables being jogged out, spliced up, and sampled, for bunchie scrum, of drum tracking in a basic trap house music beat, as the aspiration and inspiration towards a banger track. 

The bunchie carry-alongs of an of on bum.

My other source audio comes from the Metro train’s sounds, as I can appreciate the hums, chugging, whistling, poofs, and struggle of the great force of weight being compelled, via locomotion, as it were, of a massive and deeply resonant source sound element. 

The sound of a bunchie tracking design, or for a build-up or break-down development or bridge element in a song is well, when it’s tuned | appropriately |, yet it can stand on its own, with a complementary tuning, unique to the song itself, given that it resonates, or develops well, within its own context and for the other elements of a completed music production piece, or song. 

Bunchie just happens, in life, sometimes. The dance floor gets bunchie. People get bunchie, too, all on their own, although a bit less distasteful, of the preferably notion, moving on, in life. At some point, I’ll compose a new track with my new bunchie beat-making concept, fresh in my mind. Hopefully you’ll become inspired, as well, to exercise your musical intelligence and resourcefulness, through the node of bunchie. 

How to get more SafeLink data tethering usage when developing on iPadOS.

If you’re like me, and you happen to have invested in, let’s say, for example, an iPad base model from Target’s 🎯 holiday sales

Because, let’s face it. $80 - $100 off a brand new iPad is a great deal. Target has been hosting these deals since back to school days this year, and I’m sure that with the upcoming Christmas shopping season coming around, that they’ll repeat the same deal, as far as Apple iPads go. 

and, in addition, you’re on a General Relief | SNAP Food Stamps | subsidized housing | homeless | mental health | emergency funding basis, 

and, as well, that you happen to have become a recipient of SafeLink phone service LifeLine “free” government phone service, 

Yet, you’ve found yourself trying out their recent Net10 marketing MMS outreach notifications offering paid data plans that are definitely reasonable, such as a $5.78 4 GigaByte data plan, ~ $15.00 for 14 GigaBytes, and $25.00 for 40 GigaBytes of high speed 4G LTE cellular for a month. The SafeLink TracFone-based service and product offerings (even though they started out free), are definitely worth making the switch, if you’re eligible, as a California welfare beneficiary. I typically find the representatives outside of the Downtown Los Angeles, CA Department of Public and Social Services office. 

 For those who are <_< not interested,

Or for those who have not yet been initiated, this call to action heralds at minimum, this much: that the paid data plans, or, for that matter, the free and no charge data plan allotment, in and of itself, (which is unlimited, [true], yet at times, when lots of data has been consumed, the service allotment throttling speed goes down to 15 KiloBytes per second, which is okay, if you’re patient like I am. I get through those tough times of data unlimited, long-gone and forlorn, with a perseverant attitude-positive about it; other phone benefits providers promise less data per month, and when the data is used up, its definitively dead data link [gone 🙄]). In this framework of consideration of General Relief | welfare beneficiary phone service plans - and beyond, considering major service provider’s phone plans for the general public - this is truly unlimited data tethering for your base model iPadOS device (ostensibly from Target’s holiday sales (or otherwise). I simply imagine that somebody else could conceivably latch on to the same productivity-on-mobile model that I’ve gotten, with a SafeLink Wireless free subsidized phone service plan, with $5.78 - $25.00 data plans that can tether an iPad, iPhone, or Android mobile device with unlimited service throughout the extent of the data plan. 

Typical phone service providers charge an arm and a leg for service recharges, and from what I most commonly have seen, the most data tethering any major carrier has offered, up to this point in time (2019), is 10 GigaBytes per month, which, for data-intensive device users, could be used up in a matter of several days, on an iPad, or other tablet device. 

I suppose that the SafeLink Wireless data tethering plan could be allotted to a desktop or laptop, as well, although in truth, I’d have to say that the iPad is truly where it’s at, as far as investing your time and money in to a long-standing device á la mobility tech and lifestyle development “thing,” a tablet is much more fruitfully enjoyed than a small-screen device, and an iPad is the most fulfilling device implementation for taking in to consideration the most common and popular mobile device usage personas that I imagine most users take on, inasmuch, to consider that there’s all sorts of mobile device users.

Hopefully, if words on a device couldn’t sell you on heading over to the Department of Public and Social Services in your local neighborhood, the simple imperative I’m preaching of that being that SafeLink Wireless is free phone service, as well as true unlimited tethering, for up to the amount of data allotted to the phone service per month. I believe it used to be 5 GigaBytes, perhaps now 3 GigaBytes.

Update:

It turns out that the free wireless data tethering workaround option, detailed below, will apparently work with any Android device, which is very useful with prepaid plans such as Kroger Wireless, whom I’m currently with. They offer a 25 GB data plan for $45 a month. They’re currently also offering the Google Pixel 4a phone for $349. Not a bad deal. 

Okay, 

now - for the über-data-intensive users who had been tethering data from their Android government subsidized phone service beneficiary “LifeLine” plan (such as SafeLink service), who now find themselves “locked out” of being able to tether any more data to their iPad device, after using up a HUGE 40 GigaByte data plan, over several days, for example, here’s the fix. Pay attention, because it’s going to come quickly and it’s only a few steps.

1. Download NetBridge - No root tethering on your Android source tethering device from the Google Play Store (or likewise, other SafeLink service-provided phone - they offer iPhones, also). 

NetBridge - No Root Tethering

Ninja Net StudioTools

Everyone

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This app is compatible with all of your devices.

Actually, nix that, if you have an iPhone as your SafeLink device. The App Store doesn’t have a NetBridge ported app, yet. 

2. Once NetBridge downloads, open it up and turn on the tethering mode. It couldn’t be simpler, as an app interface - but, in addition, turn on Wi-Fi on both your source [check 1] Android device, and your [check 2] iPad. There’s no need, just yet, to configure the Wi-Fi parameters.

This one’s important! This is what your iPad’s Wi-Fi proxy and DNS server settings should look like when you configure the connection (last step).

3. Drag down from the top of your Android device, and swipe left. If you haven’t toyed around with this drop-down window previously, you’ll see the Hotspot activation icon. Press and hold it. When the tethering window comes up, turn on Bluetooth tethering only.

4. Now, for the Wi-Fi settings. On your source Android phone, no need to do anything with Wi-Fi, except have it turned on and scanning.

?????? [okay for Wi-Fi here, in this case, on your Android device]. The NetBridge connection requires that you have Wi-Fi scanning, but not connected through your Native Android interface.

On your iPad device, go in to your Wi-Fi settings, and configure from scratch (if needed), the Wi-Fi connection. (Add Wi-Fi connection). 

If you see the NetBridge tether Wi-Fi link in your available Wi-Fi networks, on your iPad Wi-Fi settings, (it (settings Wi-Fi available) acts as if you had turned on Wi-Fi tethering already), go ahead and connect to the NetBridge Wi-Fi connection. The NetBridge Wi-Fi connection will be named something similar to your Android device’s “Cast | mirror screen” setting to mirror an Android device’s screen to another host device. You can also change the name of this Direct Wi-Fi network in the Cast Screen Settings tab on your Android Device. 

5. 😅 I told you it’s simple stuff, right? But still, just a bit complicated, if you have no internet service on your mobile tech and lifestyle kit duo setup of an Android and iPadOS device internet service mainstays.

Okay.

The only thing left to do now, is configure the iPad’s direct Wi-Fi tethering settings to suit the settings offered in the Android device’s app’s instructions for you. I believe that the settings would be unique, compared from mine to yours, and I’m not really so fond of giving out my IP address information to an open public forum, for security reasons. 

But, to offer a nudge in the right direction, you’ll have to change the settings on the bottom two form fields of the iPad’s Wi-Fi connection settings (where you’re connected to the Android’s Wi-Fi advertised service). 

6. Done. That’s all.

The Beginner at IoT with the Google Coral Devices - a Blog Repo of Shortcomings, Mishaps, and Resolutions.

For beginners in to IoT Micro-computers and Systems-on-Chips (SoCs) and Systems on Modules (SoMs), 

It's compelling (within budget constraints) to spend some flex on the specs of the baseboard that would be the first (or second, or further) dive in to trying one's hand at Linux and Open Source development, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science statistics and modeling. 

Given several months in to the hobby (or profession, that it could be, and is, for more established development and manufacturing firms), I've become more familiar with the various current popular devices out there, in the micro-computer "credit-card size," (give or take) field, from the various online retailers who serve the consumer and professional prototyping and  manufacturing niche tech economy. 

It's marketed as a booming industry to come, in the upcoming years, and I'm sure that the appeal of having a dedicated board and development model, for individuals, startups, research and development firms, and mechanical and electronics engineers, is a situably hot topic, as you might infer of me, recently. Perhaps someone you know, personally, has a similar hideaway pastime and hobby in IoT manufacturing aspirations. 

I picked out the Google Coral line for the sake of the fact that Google is known to produce quality services, docementation, and products, at global scale. With their Coral AIY line, they bring a facet of their Cloud Platform data centers and Content Delivery Networks to the home user, with a handful of various uses encapsulated within the primary grounding element of Tensor Processing Unit: Inferencing. 

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Product Review: Magenet Corkea 5Vx3A (15 watt) 13.3 inch portable monitor with mini HDMI, USB-C, and USB-C OTG x 2.

 For mobility tech purveyors purchasers of late-model laptops, such as myself, with my Gold 2020 Apple MacBook Air, the world of portable Thunderbolt 3 USB-C portable monitor additions is a vast online playground. During the recent Amazon Prime Day, internet retailers, in addition to Amazon, themselves, went all-out in a celebratory manner, for the consumer, as it turns out, in what ended up being a massive e-commerce blow-out event that suited the tastes of all manners of shopping fanatics, when store front retailers had been bought out, looted, and ransacked, due to COVID-19 and activist rioting, around town. 

I wanted a monitor that matched the size of my computer, and I wanted a similar pixel frame size, so that I could fit the device in to my backpack. There’s many variables involved in portable monitor Shopping, such as weight, device width behind the screen itself, color profile, connectivity features, etc. Throughout much browsing, for days on end, leading up to deciding upon this monitor, the Corkea 13.3 inch 2560 x 1440 2K IPS monitor, with mini HDMI and USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 connectivity on Amazon, for $159.99 ended up being the winning suitor, with me as a much-satisfied customer. 

The Apple MacBook Air (early 2020) features 2 Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, with support for its native display resolution of 2560 x 1600, in addition to up to 5K on external monitor(s) is for real: big-time display workspace extendable on the cheap, and it’s not much like the days of working with desktop computer monitors - big, bulky, and demanding upon live-work space real estate. Here, I set up my workspace for the night in a new spot in my room, in the corner, just to have an element of novelty new-ness to my working environment. 

Everything is modular, ephemeral, and ad hoc, in this mobility-centric lifestyle workspace assertion. The monitor itself is lightweight, even compared to the MacBook Air, itself. In a backpack, even one pound adds a lot of weight and muscular exertion to an outing. I made sure to compare the device weights on the external monitors I had to choose from, and I chose Amazon, over other internet retailers, such as Walmart.com and Google Shopping, for the simple matter of their prolific and daunting arrays of offerings and features. 

I’m willing to give newcomers and unknown brand names a chance, in my tech device procurements, on account of the fact that it’s a golden age for technology and manufacturing, and for that competition is fierce, whereas a resourceful manufacturer who presents themselves within the competitive ecology of internet retail space has probably stood the tests of enterprise startup infancy, and proven themselves for resilience well enough to make way for advertising and fulfillment space within Amazon’s internet retail ecology. 

I purchased this monitor, in addition to the fact of its compatibility with my MacBook Air, for my IoT edge computing projects, such as the Google Coral Dev Board, which I’m finding to be a much-riddling and arcane experience in bootstrapping the device. Should I port over to Raspberry Pi? I’m somewhat at odds with that notion, given that I feel that it’s simply a matter of getting the right documentation in front of me, paired with the right resources. In any case, I wanted the HDMI port compatibility that this monitor offers, with its mini-HDMI port, and the shipping box included the ported regular-to-mini HDMI cable with it, in addition to what seems like a valid Thunderbolt 3 cable, for power, a 5V x 3A AC power adapter, a 1-to-2 port USB-C to USB-3 female adaptors OTG cable, and a USB-3 to USB-C cable, for plenty of attachments. 

The monitor acts, somewhat, as a Thunderbolt 3 USB-C hub, for the computer, in that it has 2 USB-C OTG ports, for connecting other peripherals, such as storage, or keyboard and mouse. The monitor, once it’s plugged in, and suitably powered on, is capable of externally powering the laptop, through the laptop’s daisy chaining in connectivity to the powered monitor. Alternately, the laptop can power the monitor, drawing energy from the computer, if needed, in a pinch. The monitor draws up to 45 watts of power, I believe, as it’s built with Thunderbolt 3 USB-C capable ports, which the cable and port protocol is known, in the realm of laptop device hubs, batteries, and power adaptors, for example, to pull up to 100 watts of electricity, for all of the devices connected. From dealing with voltage and amperage of smaller devices, adaptors, and external battery devices frequently, that much wattage is a mind-boggling amount of energy to command use of, in a device on-site setup environment, yet the MacBook Air 2020 laptop computer does it in fine form, with the Magenet Corkea 2K 13.3 inch IPS monitor coming through in brilliant resolution and clarity. 

In fact, the Corkea external monitor is capable of delivering much brighter colors and tones than the native Apple MacBook Air monitor. Here’s the Corkea external monitor in HDR mode, and side-by-side with the MacBook Air monitor. This feature disables the user-defined brightness, contrast, and color leveling options of the monitor. 

I’m supposing that this is as bright as it can get. For that matter, the MacBook Air is set to its brightest levels, although, to be fair, the macOS Accessibility options, in System Preferences, allows for single color “Color Filters” to be applied over the display’s output, which can significantly alter the brightness and tonal warmth of the monitor’s output. All this being the case, I commonly do my on-device development and productivity work at night, and in the dark, so I don’t turn the brightness all the way up, anyhow. 

For the price that it’s been offered at on Amazon, I’d venture to say that this is one of the best upgrades for the MacBook Air, as a perhaps little-known and oft-overlooked feature to take advantage of, given the MacBook Air’s native hardware capabilities - in this case, the graphics card GPU is the Intel Iris Plus Graphics card with 1536 MB of VRAM. That means that the GPU can muster the worth of about a third of an entire DVD-R 720P video, from back in optical device drive days - all at once. 

For most every day and typical uses, having an extra external monitor is a significantly handy feature, and it allows the user experience profile to be alternate from the standard on-device navigation and input profile of having everything in front of the user, which helps out, when it comes to lounging and sprawling out with the tech mobility lifestyle setup on the floor, for the sake of a uber-customizable, comfortably suitable posture and body aesthetic set of options.