Blog

Random thoughts, notes and musings, some migrated from my various old blogs and sites. Here are all posts in reverse chronological order - you may want to see posts sorted by tags and categories.

My old cycling blog will remain available on Blogger.

Gnucash Processing

Abhijit | 04 January 2025

I have been using gnucash for a while now for tracking transactions, but the outputs of most banks do not have the date or amounts in a format that gnuacash accepts. For example, Gnucash requires the date in y-m-d (with hyphens) and numerals with no comma separators. Hence, some simple python pre-processing is necessary. In early 2024 I wrote scripts to do this pre-preprocessing for SBI and Canara Bank which I am publishing on Github.

Home Library

Abhijit | 26 February 2024

I have substantial numbers of books in my house and searching and managing them has been quite painful. Worse - it has been even harder to keep track of books that I have borrowed from (or lent to) others. I have recently started exploring a free web based “home” library tracker called LIBIB. The free tier is just about perfect for a home library with one user. The best part is that the data entry system (which I imagined to be the most painful part of the process) is actually a breeze - there is an android app that allows...

Two Column Papers on a Kindle Paperwhite

Abhijit | 19 February 2024

Reading double column IEEE formatted PDFs on a 7-inch Kindle White is not a good experience. Far from it, in fact. The situation is not much better with any of the other major journals either. I have long felt that if only journals were allowed to charge a reasonable profit margin they might be able to support publishing in multiple modern formats - single column for Kindle style devices, text and image side by side for wide monitors, lightweight HTML for browsers, and much more.

Animating GPX Tracks

Abhijit | 13 December 2023

I had been struggling to animate / plot GPX files from my rides and commutes. Strava has Flyby (and Strava Premium now has an animation option); Relive.cc has a nice 3D pan and zoom effect with elevation included, but that does not support multiple tracks. Last week I was pleasantly surprised to find a fully open source tool for animating GPX tracks called GPX Animator.

D Check on the Toshiba

Abhijit | 23 September 2023

I now have two laptops that are >10 years old, both in reasonably good working condition. The Toshiba (purchased in 2013) is quite a beast in terms of performance but let down by a poor design (the display hinge and part of the plastic broke three months after purchase) and somewhat inadequate thermal design. In the last few months the laptop had started to heat up too much and was probably causing CPU throttling, so it was time for a D-check - completely pull it apart, clean it up and re-apply some fresh heat-sink paste. Took about an hour to...

Car Free Day, Sep 22, 2023

Abhijit | 23 September 2023

From the UN Environment Program Website:

Brevet Routes From IIT Dharwad

Abhijit | 31 July 2023

Here is my collection of Brevet-style routes originating from IIT-Dharwad:

Commute Time Analysis

Abhijit | 06 April 2023

After I shifted to the new place, I was curious to see how long the commute took. I drive most days, bus being non-viable, and I wondered if tweaking my departure time on each end made a difference. It seemed like it, so I plugged the numbers into a spreadsheet last weekend and this is what the data say:

Bike Checklist

Abhijit | 09 September 2022

I was recently asked to suggest a “checklist” of items one should carry for a brevet. Here is an old list that I re-use from time to time, with some comments below.

Reverse Engineering Serial over USB

Abhijit | 21 August 2022

I recently discovered that the GWInstek power supply (GPD-3303D) had a USB-B connector on the back - which meant it could have some remote monitoring and control features. Sure enough, the user manual lists all the serial commands and also has a dedicated windows executable with a GUI for sending the commands. Unfortunately, when I tried to replicate the commands through minicom, it did not work, leading me down a rabbit-hole of USB/serial debugging.

SMBR 21.01

Abhijit | 26 September 2021

I’d been planning to slowly get back into cycling regularly and work my way back up to riding brevet distances (at brevet speeds). Populaires are a great stepping stone, but I’ve been so out of form that even a 50k populaire seemed iffy. The next best ride format is of course the SMBR: the Sunday Morning Breakfast Ride.

Video Processing In Kdenlive

05 June 2021

layout: post title: Processing a Timelapse Video date: ‘2019-06-05T20:02:00.004+05:30’ author: Abhijit tags: Photography categories: Photography #modified_time: ‘2021-02-10T20:02:53.417+05:30’ —

Jekyll Themes

Abhijit | 30 April 2021

As I see it, the trick to to having a quick and manageable Jekyll setup is to find a good, open-source theme with all the necessary features as the starting point. Editing the Jekyll theme is not impossible but not exactly always easy for beginners. Here is a short list of some elegant yet simple Jekyll themes / templates I considered when I was looking for a theme: Lanyon Corporate Pudhina Poole Bay

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