a new era

the collective of interconnected computers has switched to the most centralised model ever. It’s like when people left the countryside and gathered to big cities, computers are staying together in big houses they name data-centers and create new communities called clouds. Each cloud either private or public, has it’s own policies and rules. Small corporate and in house server rooms are dying in the name of cost effectiveness and scalability. Data gets imprisoned in the premises of very few big corporations that get advantage of it, to train their all shiny neural network models in a race to develop the smartest Artificial Intelligence.

In the new era of information, it’s not your physical instance that has value, it’s the weightless pieces of data that construct your consciousness. There is no meaning in getting advantage of your physical strength or abilities, it’s your mind that is exploitable. The new target of our global political and economic system is to control the masses by taking advantage of our intellectual vulnerabilities. It’s easier than you think. All the information is there, you just have to process it, or even create new models of society based on the interactions between the entities that consist it.

It’s easier for us to text or chat, but it’s also easier for them to process that information and gain value on it.

You can ran but you can’t hide.
You can encrypt but others won’t.
You can still hope but it’s futile.

Awakening the crowd one might say is the way, but it’s not. People need leaders and cannot see reality from your perspective. In a race to control more, there is an advantage to the one that can process more information.

Please get in touch if you think alike, let’s team up to create a better future for human beings.

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New domain

Hello dear friends.
The blog has moved again to our new domain that will now host all personal information and activities. The new domain is takis.org !

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New blog and site URL

Time to make some changes in my life.

That’s why I’m also changing the domain that this blog is hosted. We are moving from http://takis.name to http://takiss.tk

Don’t ask about the double S 😛

All requests to the old site will be redirected to the new one!

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ADS-B SDR and Dump1090 performance

Quite some time ago I’ve been testing ADS-B Mode S reception with a RTL-SDR dongle and various embedded devices using SoC. The results were very good, and therefore I dediced to make an outdoor enclosure to be as closer to the antenna as possible. At first I was experimenting with the raspberry pi, but I soon figured that on busy places with lot of air traffic the raspberry processor was not enough. So I went with RK3066 solution and managed to capture even more airplanes passing by. The problem was that RK3066 stick was overheating and CPU speed was throttled by the kernel so hypothetically there were some signals I was missing. All this until I discovered a fork of antirez dump1090 on github by MalcomRobb. The GUI looked better, with more features, and then I read on github that the whole Mode S decoding part had been re-written with performance in mind.
When I installed this fork of dump1090 (that is in my opinion the best ADS-B software until now) I was excited to find out that my CPU load had dropped! Take a look below:

RK3066 load before and after

You can clearly see that dump1090 was lighter now, and the processor was working less. This has also a side effect on board temperature that decreased drastically after this software upgrade:
RK3066 CPU temperature

Also the next day I figured that indeed I had a problem with kernel clock throttling and that this new fork of dump1090 is much better in terms of performance because I was able to capture much more ADS-B messages!
Unique planes above

Now what remains is to integrate dump1090 to a web site and show it to you 🙂

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Gnuradio gr-wxgui on Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10

I’ve spent almost one week of my free time trying to make the latest gnuradio work under Ubuntu 12.04.2LTS
I’m so happy that I finally managed to compile gnuradio with gr-wxgui that I’d like to share with you the way. The only way to get Python wxWidgets to work is to follow this small tutorial:
http://wiki.wxpython.org/CheckInstall

All other ways failed. As long as I has package python-wxgtk2.6 installed gnuradio could identify that wxgui essentials were there and compile it, but it didn’t work. When I removed this package and only python-wxgtk2.8 was installed, then it could not find wx on python, so it could not make gr-wxgui.
I tried to install manually wxPython and wxWidgets-2.8.12 with no luck.
Until today when I followed this tutorial, made the Ubuntu packages, installed them and now I can import wx on Python, and Gnuradio can find the required stuff for gr-wxgui…

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My first FPGA test

xilinx FPGA

xilinx FPGA

xilinx FPGA

This is my first FPGA test ever!
I bought this incredibly cheap Xilinx FPGA board from ebay: Xilinx FPGA and in a few days I’ve managed to display my own message into an 2×16 LCD!

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Head World Cup Rebels I.sl 2013

Kalavrita stiga

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Asterisk GSM 3G voice gateway (FCT) using Raspberry pi and huwaei modem for under $100!

A success story today!
After playing for about one month with chan_dongle and Huawei dongles I’ve managed to compile and run it to raspberry! It makes a brilliant lightweight portable open source PBX with a GSM module consuming under 5W!!!

You have to take the following steps in order to make it work 🙂

Download the latest raspberry pi disto from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
I used the wheezy 2012-09-18
After installing login via SSH and do:

apt-get update
upgrade
apt-get install gcc g++ make libnewt-dev libncurses5-dev openssl libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libxml2-dev
wget http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/asterisk/old-releases/asterisk-1.6.2.24.tar.gz
tar xzf asterisk-1.6.2.24.tar.gz
cd asterisk-1.6.2.24/
vi makeopts.in and set PROC=arm
./configure
make
make install
make samples
cd
apt-get install subversion automake
svn checkout http://asterisk-chan-dongle.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ dongle-read-only
cd dongle-read-only/
aclocal && autoconf && automake -a
./configure
make
make install
apt-get install usb-modeswitch
cp etc/dongle.conf /etc/asterisk/
vi /etc/asterisk/dongle.conf and set dongle0 to user /dev/ttyUSB1 for audio and /dev/ttyUSB2 for data

plug in you Huawei modem (make sure it has voice feature enabled and is chan_dongle compatible)
start asterisk and make a test call to your mobile number inserted in the dongle!!!

That’s it! Asterisk welcomes you to the world of open source software PBX!

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Google’s best in Greece as of July 2012!

Α:

αντ1
αθηνοραμα
ανεκδοτα
αμκα
ανταρσυα
αλφα
ασεπ
αργυρω
ανεξαρτητοι ελληνες
αστρολογια

Σα πολύ τηλεόραση δε βλέπουμε; και είμαστε ακόμη επηρεασμένοι από τις εκλογές νομίζω..

β:

βασεις 2011
βικιπαιδεια
βασεις 2012
βημα
βιοιατρικη
βίκυ σταμάτη
βιογραφικο
βετ365
βεροπουλος
βουλη

ΟΚ, είδαμε τις βάσεις, φτιάξαμε το βιογραφικό μας, πάμε τώρα για ψώνια στο βερόπουλο και μετά μια βόλτα από τη βουλή των ελλήνων… Α, μη ξεχάσω να δουμε και 2-3 φωτογραφίες της βικούλας της σταμάτη… Και η βιοιατρική είναι η επιστήμη του μέλλοντος!!!

γ:

γοογλε
γμαιλ
γαμεσ
γοογλε μαπσ
γενικη ταχυδρομικη
γερμανος
γαζζεττα
γγπσ
γοσσιπ
γκαλοπ

ΧΜΜ, μαλλον ξεχνάμε να γυρίσουμε το πληκτρολόγιο στα Αγγλικά ή νομίζουμε πως υπάρχει και το φεβερο γμαιλ! τα γαμες παντως είναι τρομερά, έχετε παίξει;

δ:

δημιουργια ξανα
διαυγεια
δεη
δημοσκοπηση
δημοκρατικη αριστερα
δραση
δημοκρατικη συμμαχια
διαιτα
δσα
δημοσκοπήσεις

Άντε πάλι με τις εκλογές τα κόμματα, και τις δημοσκοπήσεις.. Μας τάχετε πρήξει.. Ας κάνουμε καμμια δίαιτα τώρα που είναι καλοκαίρι, και μετά πληρώνουμε τη ΔΕΗ από Σεπτέμβρη. Μη ξεχνάτε να μπαίνετε στη διαύγεια να βλέπετε τις αποφάσεις που περνάνε τώρα που δεν ασχολούνται τα ΜΜΕ.

ε:

εοπυυ
ενικος
εκλογες 2012
εορτολογιο
ειδησεις
εθνος
εθνικη τραπεζα
ερτ
εθνικο τυπογραφειο
εμυ

Πόσες ειδήσεις πρέπει να δείτε; Πόσες πια;

ζ:

ζωδια
ζοθγλα
ζοο
ζαρα
ζουζουνια
ζακυνθος
ζορπιδης
ζήσης ρούμπος
ζυμη για πιτσα
ζαππιτ

Έχει εμπλουτιστεί το λεξιλόγιό μας τελικά με αυτό το ιντερνετ. Νέες λέξεις όπως ζοθγλα ζοο και ζαππιτ θα μπουν στα λεξικά το 2013! τι να κάνουμε αυτές θέλει ο λαός!

η:
ηοτμαιλ
ηλεκτρονικη
ημερησια
ημερολογιο
ηβη αδαμου
ηρα
ησαπ
ηρωδειο
ηγγικεν
η καθημερινη

ηγγικεν η καθημερινή ώρα να μπώ στο σαιτ της ημερισίας, και να ελέγξω τα δρομολόγια του ησαπ για να πάω στο ηρώδειο. Μη ξεχάσουμε να μπούμε στο ηοτμαιλ να δω την ηλεκτρονική αλληλογραφία μήπως μου έχει στείλει η ήρα τις φωτογραφίες της ηβης αδάμου…

θ:

θεματα πανελληνιων 2012
θεμα
θτθβε
θάνος τζήμερος
θεματα οεφε 2012
θεατρο βραχων
θασος
θερμιδες
θερινα σινεμα
θεσεις εργασιας

έχουμε θέμα εδω… πριν πάμε διακοπές στη θάσο, να δούμε πόσες θερμίδες έχει το τόστ που θα πάρουμε μαζί στο θέατρο βραχων να δουμε το θανο τζήμερο…

ι:

ιν.γρ
ικα
ικεα
ισοτιμια
ικαριαμ
ιμδβ
ιδανικο βαρος
ιασω
ιθακη
ικαρια

αφου περάσουμε μια βόλτα από το ικα, θα πάμε στο ικεα. Μόλις γυρίσουμε σπίτι θα δουμε την ισοτιμία ευρω/δολλαρίου, θα παίξουν τα παιδιά λίγο ικάριαμ, και μετα θα ετοιμάσουμε τις βαλίτσες για ιθάκη. είναι πιο κοντά από την ικαρία, και φθηνότερα τα εισητήρια… για το ιδανικό βάρος δεν το συζητώ, είμαστε όλοι μέσα…

κ:
καιρος
καθημερινη
καψε το σεναριο
κεπ
κκε
κινο
καριερα
κιζι
κτηματολογιο
καμμενος

κάψε το σενάριο καμμένε! τα κόμματα πάντως είναι σταθερά πιο πάνω από τα τυχερά παιχνίδια…

λ:

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GNUradio on Raspberry Pi

After about 2 days of messing with Debian on the Raspbery Pi I got an out of memory error during the compilation of UHD.
Seems like I have to cross compile. AGAIN…

[ 58%] Building CXX object lib/CMakeFiles/uhd.dir/usrp/usrp1/soft_time_ctrl.cpp.o
[ 59%] Building CXX object lib/CMakeFiles/uhd.dir/usrp/usrp1/usrp1_iface.cpp.o
[ 59%] Building CXX object lib/CMakeFiles/uhd.dir/usrp/usrp1/usrp1_impl.cpp.o

cc1plus: out of memory allocating 708240 bytes after a total of 22532096 bytes
make[2]: *** [lib/CMakeFiles/uhd.dir/usrp/usrp1/usrp1_impl.cpp.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [lib/CMakeFiles/uhd.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2
pi@raspberrypi:~/uhd/host/build$

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