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About erickclasen

This is my Blog for writing about technical items and my other thoughts. I also use it to experiment with WordPress.

Penguin

Raspberry Pi Bridge from Wireless to Ethernet

Linux, Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi Server, Unpolished Gems, , , , , , ,

The sky, when the stars rise, the stars fly away, the stars weep.

Setting up a bridge wlan0 to eth0 on a Raspberrypi

This is for an ipv4 Bridge connection between WAN and LAN using a Raspberrypi. Another Linux computer would also work instead of a Raspberrypi. Some of this is basically a dump of note that I took while trying to get this up and running in 2017. This post may be of use to someone who is struggling to get this sort of thing going as some of the sources on the net were not always clear on how to do it and validate it’s operation.

The idea with this plan is to have the R-Pi act as a router and hand out addresses to devices on the network and do a DNS masquerade on the eth0 connection. It will also forward ipV4 packets in BOTH directions, thereby bridging a wired and wireless networks. Note: Devices running on the LAN will require setting up a default route to the gateway on the WLAN to see devices on the WLAN.

Why Setup a wlan0 to eth0 Bridge

I had to do this to allow a connection between a ZTE WiFi hotspot that did not have any Ethernet connection port and a need to connect a set of desktop computers that only have Ethernet ports to the Internet. Essentially I have two networks, one is WiFi, one hardwired and they machines have to be able to reach the Internet and each other from both sides. The Ethernet machines are connected to a switch with a router connected to it acting as an access point, DHCP set to off. This network is on an “island” that needed to be bridge via WLAN to get out to the Internet via the ZTE hotspot.

Install dnsmasq

dnsmasq is a lightweight program that will run as a service that will take care of the DNS and the DHCP functions that are required to make the R-Pi act as a router and bridge.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y && sudo apt-get install rpi-update dnsmasq -y
 sudo rpi-update

Static IP on Ethernet Connection

Next, setup a static ip for the dhcp server. Edit /etc/network/interfaces to make the R-Pi reside at a static address on the wired network. In this example it is setup for 192.168.1.17, the typical gateway address for a router on a 192.168.1.0 network, would be 192.168.1.1 which was the gateway at one time on this network. There is nothing magical about the 192.168.1.1 address, a default gateway can exist on any valid address, excluding 192.168.1.0 and 255.

NOTICE THAT THE DEFAULT GATEWAY FOR THE eth0 IS NOT SET! This is important because the default gateway should be grabbed from the WiFi network and not the wired, which in my case is not connected to the Internet. It will go to the Ethernet first by default if there are two default gateways, WLAN and LAN.

Router Settings

If there is a router on the network, it is important to turn off DHCP on it as it does not have to hand out addresses anymore. It should just behave as a switch instead, just forwarding packets in/out of all ports including WiFi if it has it and this option is wanted, then it will function as an AP ( Access Point) as well on it’s own network (192.168.1.0/24 in my case).

 

erick@raspberrypi ~ $ cat /etc/network/interfaces
 auto lo

iface lo inet loopback
 #iface eth0 inet dhcp

iface eth0 inet static
 address 192.168.1.17
 netmask 255.255.255.0
 network 192.168.1.0
 broadcast 192.168.1.255
 #gateway 192.168.1.1
 # nameservers
 dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4

allow-hotplug wlan0
 iface wlan0 inet manual
 wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
 iface default inet dhcp

Sanity Check using mtr, a.k.a. My Trace Route

Running mtr shows a direct route to Optiplex-790, running mtr from Optiplex-790 to 192.168.128.1 shows a bounce via the R-pi.

See Appendix 1 for more info.

Configure dnsmasq via /etc/dnsmasq.conf

Copy the rather wordy original to a backup copy and use sudo nano to edit in new details. The listen address will be the same as entered into the /etc/network/interfaces file for the R-Pi now that it is at a static address, mine is at 192.168.1.17 for example. Server is the dns server that dnsmasq will be using to do it’s masquerade magic. This can be a comma separated list. I have Google in there for DNS at 8.8.8.8, but an ISP would do as well. Sometimes the router upstream includes a caching DNS and it can be included as well. If the upstream router does have a caching DNS this helps a bit with lookups as the lookup table will be maintained locally as a cache of frequently visited web addresses. Having a local lookup for DNS has less delays than reaching out on the web for every word address to IP numeric address translation.

Address Reservation

For dncp-range I am choosing from 192.168.1.20-192.168.1.255 as the ones below 20 on my network are kept in reserve for static addresses.

Backup and then edit…

sudo mv /etc/dnsmasq.conf /etc/dnsmasq.conf.orig
 sudo nano /etc/dnsmasq.conf

/etc/dnsmasq.conf example

This is the one that I am using for the R-pi bridge. R-Pi is static on 192.168.1.17. DNS server is Googles 8.8.8.8 and I am reserving addresses from 192.168.1.0-20.

interface=eth0      # Use interface eth0
 listen-address=192.168.1.17 # Explicitly specify the address to listen on
 bind-interfaces      # Bind to the interface to make sure we aren't sending things elsewhere
 server=8.8.8.8       # Forward DNS requests to Google DNS
 domain-needed        # Don't forward short names
 bogus-priv           # Never forward addresses in the non-routed address spaces.
 dhcp-range=192.168.1.20,192.168.1.255,12h # Assign IP addresses between 192.168.1.20,192.168.1.255  with a 12 hour lease time

 

Enable IPv4 forwarding

The R-pi kernel has to be told explicitly to forward IPv4 packets between wlan0 and eth0.

sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

Fin and UNCOMMENT the following line

 net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

TO APPLY CHANGE WITHOUT A REBOOT

sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward"

IPTABLES rules update

iptables needs a few rules added to it to cover the DNS masquerading and accepting packets forwarded from wlan0 to eth0 and in the other direction. Execute the following commands to add the rules to iptables.

sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o wlan0 -j MASQUERADE
 sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i wlan0 -o eth0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
 sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o wlan0 -j ACCEPT

iptables will keep it’s info as long as the machine is booted up. Needs a reload when rebooted.

THE STUFF BELOW IS NOT NEEDED AS THE PI HAS A METHOD TO RESTORE THE IPTABLES VIA iptable-save.sh
HAVE NOT DONE THIS YET as of 12/12/2017

sudo sh -c “iptables-save > /etc/iptables.ipv4.nat”

HOOK FILE

sudo nano /lib/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-hooks/70-ipv4-nat

ADD…

iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.ipv4.nat

—————————————————-

 

—————————————————–

On the PC – Optiplex-790

I  set up the main desktop PC as static IP via Edit Connections on the GUI.

Configure Wired Connection 1 as IPv4 Settings, Manual with address as 192.168.1.18 netmask 255.255.255.0 and gateway as the R-pi at 192.168.1.17

DNS servers, the R-pi itself 192.168.1.17 and Google at 8.8.8.8. It might be possible to have 192.168.128.1 as well as that might be a caching DNS on the upstream ZTE WiFi hotspot. It might have a caching DNS server inside of the Sprint Box itself, not sure and requires looking at the specs for it.

Feasibility Test Using a PC as a Bridge

Before I went through the trouble of setting up the R-Pi as a bridge I did a sanity check/prototype by using a PC as a bridge. By taking the WiFi USB dongle and plugging it into the PC, Optiplex-790 running Linux Mint. I was able to test the feasibility out beforehand.

Create shared connection

On an initial test of setting up the network, before digging into the R-pi to do this, I shared the wifi to the eth via editing the Wired Connection 1 and sharing under IPv4 Settings. But it puts it on a 10.42.0.x network. Use the following to change this…

In versions before 1.4.2, 10.42.0.x is hard-coded into NetworkManager. The choice is either upgrade to Ubuntu 17.04, with version 1.4.4, or go the easy way and use the following command from Thomas Haller to set the host IP and class. For my setup it was 192.168.1.18…

nmcli connection modify $CONNECTION_ID +ipv4.addresses 192.168.1.18/24

where $CONNECTION_ID if found via…

 nmcli connection show

… Afterwards, verify with…

nmcli connection show $CONNECTION_ID.

from …
https://askubuntu.com/questions/609645/configure-connection-sharing-with-specific-ip-address

ANY CHANGES MADE TO THE CONNECTION EDITOR REQUIRES A DISCONNECT AND RECONNECT TO APPLY THE CHANGES!!

Uncheck and Recheck Enable Networking

erick@OptiPlex-790 ~ $ nmcli connection show
 NAME                   UUID                                  TYPE             DEVICE
 Wired connection 1     1a2d9768-104d-3714-814c-57ea2faff63b  802-3-ethernet   eno1
 NETGEAR63              13f543ac-ea4b-455e-9ff7-9e0ecaddb139  802-11-wireless  --
 SprintHotspot2.4-BA3A  b85d60f9-5875-4eaa-a0c0-df43d174c869  802-11-wireless  --
...Verification that the change took hold after setting via nmcli connection modify command...
 erick@OptiPlex-790 ~ $ nmcli connection show 1a2d9768-104d-3714-814c-57ea2faff63b
 connection.id:                          Wired connection 1
 connection.uuid:                        1a2d9768-104d-3714-814c-57ea2faff63b
 connection.interface-name:              --
 connection.type:                        802-3-ethernet
 connection.autoconnect:                 yes
 connection.autoconnect-priority:        -999
 connection.timestamp:                   1513298233
 connection.read-only:                   no
 connection.permissions:
 connection.zone:                        --
 connection.master:                      --
 connection.slave-type:                  --
 connection.autoconnect-slaves:          -1 (default)
 connection.secondaries:
 connection.gateway-ping-timeout:        0
 connection.metered:                     unknown
 connection.lldp:                        -1 (default)
 802-3-ethernet.port:                    --
 802-3-ethernet.speed:                   0
 802-3-ethernet.duplex:                  full
 802-3-ethernet.auto-negotiate:          yes
 802-3-ethernet.mac-address:             18:03:73:D1:52:FC
 802-3-ethernet.cloned-mac-address:      --
 802-3-ethernet.mac-address-blacklist:
 802-3-ethernet.mtu:                     auto
 802-3-ethernet.s390-subchannels:
 802-3-ethernet.s390-nettype:            --
 802-3-ethernet.s390-options:
 802-3-ethernet.wake-on-lan:             1 (default)
 802-3-ethernet.wake-on-lan-password:    --
 ipv4.method:                            manual
 ipv4.dns:                               192.168.1.17,8.8.8.8
 ipv4.dns-search:
 ipv4.dns-options:                       (default)
 ipv4.dns-priority:                      0
  ipv4.addresses:                         192.168.1.18/24
 ipv4.gateway:                           192.168.1.17
 ipv4.routes:
 ipv4.route-metric:                      -1
 ipv4.ignore-auto-routes:                no
 ipv4.ignore-auto-dns:                   no
 ipv4.dhcp-client-id:                    --
 ipv4.dhcp-timeout:                      0
 ipv4.dhcp-send-hostname:                yes
 ipv4.dhcp-hostname:                     --
 ipv4.dhcp-fqdn:                         --
 ipv4.never-default:                     no
 ipv4.may-fail:                          yes
 ipv4.dad-timeout:                       -1 (default)
 ipv6.method:                            auto
 ipv6.dns:
 ipv6.dns-search:
 ipv6.dns-options:                       (default)
 ipv6.dns-priority:                      0
 ipv6.addresses:
 ipv6.gateway:                           --
 ipv6.routes:
 ipv6.route-metric:                      -1
 ipv6.ignore-auto-routes:                no
 ipv6.ignore-auto-dns:                   no
 ipv6.never-default:                     no
 ipv6.may-fail:                          yes
 ipv6.ip6-privacy:                       0 (disabled)
 ipv6.addr-gen-mode:                     stable-privacy
 ipv6.dhcp-send-hostname:                yes
 ipv6.dhcp-hostname:                     --
 GENERAL.NAME:                           Wired connection 1
 GENERAL.UUID:                           1a2d9768-104d-3714-814c-57ea2faff63b
 GENERAL.DEVICES:                        eno1
 GENERAL.STATE:                          activated
 GENERAL.DEFAULT:                        yes
 GENERAL.DEFAULT6:                       no
 GENERAL.VPN:                            no
 GENERAL.ZONE:                           --
 GENERAL.DBUS-PATH:                      /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/14
 GENERAL.CON-PATH:                       /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Settings/1
 GENERAL.SPEC-OBJECT:                    /
 GENERAL.MASTER-PATH:                    --
  IP4.ADDRESS[1]:                         192.168.1.18/24
 IP4.GATEWAY:                            192.168.1.17
 IP4.ROUTE[1]:                           dst = 169.254.0.0/16, nh = 0.0.0.0, mt = 1000
 IP4.DNS[1]:                             192.168.1.17
 IP4.DNS[2]:                             8.8.8.8
 IP6.ADDRESS[1]:                         fe80::7abb:ec07:22dc:c7bd/64
 IP6.GATEWAY:

Looking at the ZTE WiFi Hotspot as seen from the Optiplex-790

erick@OptiPlex-790 ~ $ nmcli connection show b85d60f9-5875-4eaa-a0c0-df43d174c869
 connection.id:                          SprintHotspot2.4-BA3A
 connection.uuid:                        b85d60f9-5875-4eaa-a0c0-df43d174c869
 connection.interface-name:              --
 connection.type:                        802-11-wireless
 connection.autoconnect:                 yes
 connection.autoconnect-priority:        0
 connection.timestamp:                   1513128371
 connection.read-only:                   no
 connection.permissions:
 connection.zone:                        --
 connection.master:                      --
 connection.slave-type:                  --
 connection.autoconnect-slaves:          -1 (default)
 connection.secondaries:
 connection.gateway-ping-timeout:        0
 connection.metered:                     unknown
 connection.lldp:                        -1 (default)
 802-11-wireless.ssid:                   SprintHotspot2.4-B838

802-11-wireless.mode:                   infrastructure
 802-11-wireless.band:                   --
 802-11-wireless.channel:                0
 802-11-wireless.bssid:                  --
 802-11-wireless.rate:                   0
 802-11-wireless.tx-power:               0
 802-11-wireless.mac-address:            08:86:3B:04:85:88
 802-11-wireless.cloned-mac-address:     --
 802-11-wireless.mac-address-blacklist:
 802-11-wireless.mac-address-randomization:default
 802-11-wireless.mtu:                    auto
 802-11-wireless.seen-bssids:            34:69:87:BB:B8:38
 802-11-wireless.hidden:                 no
 802-11-wireless.powersave:              default (0)
 802-11-wireless-security.key-mgmt:      wpa-psk
 802-11-wireless-security.wep-tx-keyidx: 0
 802-11-wireless-security.auth-alg:      --
 802-11-wireless-security.proto:
 802-11-wireless-security.pairwise:
 802-11-wireless-security.group:
 802-11-wireless-security.leap-username: --
 802-11-wireless-security.wep-key0:      <hidden>
 802-11-wireless-security.wep-key1:      <hidden>
 802-11-wireless-security.wep-key2:      <hidden>
 802-11-wireless-security.wep-key3:      <hidden>
 802-11-wireless-security.wep-key-flags: 0 (none)
 802-11-wireless-security.wep-key-type:  0 (unknown)
 802-11-wireless-security.psk:           <hidden>
 802-11-wireless-security.psk-flags:     0 (none)
 802-11-wireless-security.leap-password: <hidden>
 802-11-wireless-security.leap-password-flags:0 (none)
 ipv4.method:                            auto
 ipv4.dns:                               8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4
 ipv4.dns-search:
 ipv4.dns-options:                       (default)
 ipv4.dns-priority:                      0
 ipv4.addresses:
 ipv4.gateway:                           --
 ipv4.routes:
 ipv4.route-metric:                      -1
 ipv4.ignore-auto-routes:                no
 ipv4.ignore-auto-dns:                   no
 ipv4.dhcp-client-id:                    --
 ipv4.dhcp-timeout:                      0
 ipv4.dhcp-send-hostname:                yes
 ipv4.dhcp-hostname:                     --
 ipv4.dhcp-fqdn:                         --
 ipv4.never-default:                     no
 ipv4.may-fail:                          yes
 ipv4.dad-timeout:                       -1 (default)
 ipv6.method:                            auto
 ipv6.dns:
 ipv6.dns-search:
 ipv6.dns-options:                       (default)
 ipv6.dns-priority:                      0
 ipv6.addresses:
 ipv6.gateway:                           --
 ipv6.routes:
 ipv6.route-metric:                      -1
 ipv6.ignore-auto-routes:                no
 ipv6.ignore-auto-dns:                   no
 ipv6.never-default:                     no
 ipv6.may-fail:                          yes
 ipv6.ip6-privacy:                       0 (disabled)
 ipv6.addr-gen-mode:                     stable-privacy
 ipv6.dhcp-send-hostname:                yes
 ipv6.dhcp-hostname:                     --

Note: Needed to Add a Route on a Machine Connected to Raspberry Pi via Ethernet

I needed to add a route to the rpi to get to the 192.168.1.0/24 network.

I THOUGHT that this had worked automatically initially. It seemed that I could at least get to the pi at http://raspberrypi and 192.168.1.17.

But really a route is needed to the 192.168.1.0/24 network via the raspberrypi.rputer on 192.168.128.X

sudo route add -net 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.128.46

there is a helper file for this in ~/bin add-route-to-192.168.1.0.sh

erick@media-pc ~/Music $ route
 Kernel IP routing table
 Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
 default         192.168.128.1   0.0.0.0         UG    600    0        0 wlx08863b02838f
 link-local      *               255.255.0.0     U     1000   0        0 wlx08863b02838f
 192.168.1.0     raspberrypi.rou 255.255.255.0   UG    0      0        0 wlx08863b02838f
 192.168.128.0   *               255.255.255.0   U     600    0        0 wlx08863b02838f

using mtr to a device on the 192.168.1.0 network confirms hw packets are routed through!

————————————————————————————–

NETSTAT VERY HELPFUL

netstat –help
usage: netstat [-vWeenNcCF] [<Af>] -r         netstat {-V|–version|-h|–help}
netstat [-vWnNcaeol] [<Socket> …]
netstat { [-vWeenNac] -i | [-cWnNe] -M | -s }

-r, –route              display routing table
-i, –interfaces         display interface table
-g, –groups             display multicast group memberships
-s, –statistics         display networking statistics (like SNMP)
-M, –masquerade         display masqueraded connections

-v, –verbose            be verbose
-W, –wide               don’t truncate IP addresses
-n, –numeric            don’t resolve names
–numeric-hosts          don’t resolve host names
–numeric-ports          don’t resolve port names
–numeric-users          don’t resolve user names
-N, –symbolic           resolve hardware names
-e, –extend             display other/more information
-p, –programs           display PID/Program name for sockets
-c, –continuous         continuous listing

-l, –listening          display listening server sockets
-a, –all, –listening   display all sockets (default: connected)
-o, –timers             display timers
-F, –fib                display Forwarding Information Base (default)
-C, –cache              display routing cache instead of FIB

<Socket>={-t|–tcp} {-u|–udp} {-w|–raw} {-x|–unix} –ax25 –ipx –netrom
<AF>=Use ‘-6|-4’ or ‘-A <af>’ or ‘–<af>’; default: inet
List of possible address families (which support routing):
inet (DARPA Internet) inet6 (IPv6) ax25 (AMPR AX.25)
netrom (AMPR NET/ROM) ipx (Novell IPX) ddp (Appletalk DDP)
x25 (CCITT X.25)

—————————————————————————————

APPENDIX 1:

https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/8010/internet-access-via-1-of-2-network-interfaces

You need to verify that you DO NOT have a default gateway set on your ETH0 interface. It has probably been assigned by DHCP, so you may have to address it statically, edit your router configuration. You will also need to verify that you have a default gateway on your WLAN interface.

Post the output of ip route show when both interfaces are connected for more detailed response.

You also need to ensure that your two routers are on different subnets. For example, the network connected to ETH0 could be 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0, and WLAN0 could be 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0, but they have to be on different networks. More on subnet mask

Finally you may want to read up on local routing for Debian systems.

Sorry I can’t be more specific, but there could be a book written to explain this topic. If you get stuck, or have a more specific question after doing a little reading, please let me know. I would be happy to help.

EDIT: Based on the added ip route show, you need to re-address one of your networks so the pi knows they are not connected. You may still have gateway issues, but that is where you need to start.
shareimprove this answer

edited Jun 18 ’13 at 16:13

answered Jun 17 ’13 at 22:38
Butters
1,339522

add a comment
up vote
3
down vote

eth0 is always preferred interface over wireless, you will need to issue command route -n to see your routes and then probably change default routing using:

$ sudo route add default gw 192.168.1.1 wlan0

just use correct address for your wireless router.

Blue Screen of Death Again!

Wget an ISO or other large file in the background

Linux, Unpolished Gems,

Let us forget the past. And remember that the past is a gift of the present, not a substitute for the future.

I was trying to download the Debian testing DVD ISO and it looked like it would take a while, many hours and I wanted to power off the machine.  This was back a while ago with slower internet but, this topic is still relevant. Normally I use the torrent for the distro file, but on the testing branch of Debian, none were available.

The solution

I have a Raspberry Pi, it’s running 24/7, let it do the work overnight and I can just power down my machine and not worry about the download.
Instead of downloading the file itself, I grabbed the link to the download location.
Then executed

wget -c https://gensho.ftp.acc.umu.se/cdimage/buster_di_alpha2/amd64/iso-dvd/debian-buster-DI-alpha2-amd64-DVD-1.iso
Output...
 --2018-02-07 18:15:27-- https://gensho.ftp.acc.umu.se/cdimage/buster_di_alpha2/amd64/iso-dvd/debian-buster-DI-alpha2-amd64-DVD-1.iso
 Resolving gensho.ftp.acc.umu.se (gensho.ftp.acc.umu.se)... 194.71.11.176, 2001:6b0:19::176
 Connecting to gensho.ftp.acc.umu.se (gensho.ftp.acc.umu.se)|194.71.11.176|:443... connected.
 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
 Length: 3864182784 (3.6G) [application/x-iso9660-image]
 Saving to: `debian-buster-DI-alpha2-amd64-DVD-1.iso'

Suceess!

Now all I have to do is put the task in the background via Ctrl-Z and then bg and I detach from SSH’ing into the R-Pi and it will just download in the background to the harddrive tethered to it’s USB port. When you enter bg it will still print it’s progress to the screen, but the terminal can be closed out fine.
There is a -b option for wget that will launch it, into the background from the start as well.

ps aux|grep wget

…will confirm that it is running still…

 erick 12438 7.0 2.2 13120 10996 ? S 18:15 2:46 wget -c https://gensho.ftp.acc.umu.se/cdimage/buster_di_alpha2/amd64/iso-dvd/debian-buster-DI-alpha2-amd64-DVD-1.iso

Watch

While in the directory that it is downloading a watch command can be used to see the progress of the download…

watch ls -l debian-buster-DI-alpha2-amd64-DVD-1.iso

 

Output…

Every 2.0s: ls -l debian-buster-DI-alpha2-amd64-DVD... Wed Feb 7 18:56:25 2018

-rw-r--r-- 1 erick erick 280608768 Feb 7 18:56 debian-buster-DI-alpha2-amd64-DV
 D-1.iso

This will show a progressive increase in file size, in case you want to monitor it.

 

Forest Gallery

How to Generate Art Demo Followup

Image Generation, Machine Learning, , , ,

Only the imagination grows out of its limitations.

In the example shown in the previous post I used 20 iterations at 512×512. A few lingering questions that might be asked are…

  1. What about more iterations?
  2. What about a lower resolution, like 256×256 ?
  3. Machine learning code typical initializes using random parameters will this affect the image in another identical run ?

 

20 Iterations and 50 Iterations

More iterations up to a point make for a better image. There is a point where the loss value deltas get smaller between iterations and a point of diminishing returns is reached. Not much difference that can be seen happens beyond 20 iterations for this run. There are minor details that have changed but you have to really look carefully to pick them out.

Start of iteration 0
Current loss value: 1.68853e+11
Iteration 0 completed in 672s
Start of iteration 1
Current loss value: 1.06826e+11
Iteration 1 completed in 616s
Start of iteration 2
Current loss value: 7.61243e+10
Iteration 2 completed in 594s
Start of iteration 3
Current loss value: 5.69757e+10
Iteration 3 completed in 501s
Start of iteration 4
Current loss value: 4.73256e+10
Iteration 4 completed in 496s
Start of iteration 5
…..
Start of iteration 9
Current loss value: 3.22461e+10
Iteration 9 completed in 498s

……
Start of iteration 19
Current loss value: 2.63259e+10
Iteration 19 completed in 471s
…….
Start of iteration 49
Current loss value: 2.26513e+10
Iteration 49 completed in 592s

Lower Resolution

The model will perform poorly on lower resolutions, even with 20 iterations, 256×256 will look sloppy and abstract. The only reason to go this low would be to run a bunch of iterations fast to see if it worth trying at higher resolution. Kind of like a preview. On my machine the 256×256 iterations run about 5x faster than the 512×512 iterations.

Random Initialization

Because the machine learning model loads itself with random weights and biases at the start of a model run and works from that as a starting point there is some variations in the results from run to run. This can be seen in theses images as there are slight variations in the results. Sometimes it is worth running the model over and over and then hand picking the best result from a batch of outputs.

As an aside. In some machine learning code it is possible to seed the random number generator so that the random starting point is not really random but seeded to be able to reproduce the same results. Occasionally I have had to do this when training genetic algorithms for trading, hand built code, so total control on my part. I basically want a reference run against which I can gauge future changes to the code against. By using a standard set of input, a fixed time series and seeded random initialization, I get the same tuning every time. Then if a change happens in the code, I know it is a code change and not in the data. Have a reference copy archive makes it reproducible.

Citrus

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Unpolished Gems, , , , , , , , ,

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life Barbara Kingsolver

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

The happiest day of my life? Well, I can’t quite say that reading a book falls under that category, but I do remember picking up this book over the summer of 2017 and waiting until winter to read it. And let me tell you, it was especially good over the winter months – which can be quite bleak around where I live. You see, reading about food and gardening gets the mind thinking forward to spring and looking forward to experimenting with new recipes and gardening techniques.

Buying Local

Barbara Kingsolver writes quite a bit about buying local and the costs of shipping exotic food from faraway places. And let’s be honest, the fuel involved in the growing and shipping of food from thousands of miles away doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But, it seems like the trend has only increased over the past years. However, there’s also been an offsetting trend of local food and farmers’ markets, which have grown a lot in the past 10 years.

Hubs

One fuel wasteful trend, but one that seems to be popular in terms of shippers’ efficiencies, is the hub. In other words, shipping things to a central hub from which they have to fan out. This helps the shippers move things more efficiently and organized, at the expense of more fuel as products sometimes have to double back along their path. An extreme example of this is the US Postal Service. Nowadays, the little slot for in-town delivery has been taped over. So, a letter that would have been hand-carried by me to the PO and then hand-carried to the local address by the postal worker, now does a 300-mile round trip in a truck to get delivered, in the same town. This example exists over and over as delivery has moved to the hub style of distribution.

Overpackaging

The other trend I have noticed is over packaging. This is probably due to product loss. One product gets broken at one point and company policy is to double-box it from that point on. For instance, I ordered a wrench, solid steel, and it arrived in a large box that could have held 8-10 of the type of box that was in it, actually holding the wrench. Obviously, a lot of air, plastic and cardboard is getting shipped around the world daily.

Trifoliate Orange

But enough about all that, let’s talk about something a little more interesting – plants. Her book mentions the Trifoliate Orange, which grows in Southern Appalachia and tolerates temperatures down to -20C/-4F. I read about this plant in another book of Kingsolver’s called Prodigal Summer. In that book, it is not mentioned by name, but a little research led me to the conclusion that it has to be the Trifoliate Orange. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle confirmed it for me. I got one as a Christmas gift, good timing as I was far enough into the book by the Christmas season to know I wanted one!

I have been raising citrus plants since I was quite young. I would collect the seeds and see what comes up, and citrus seemed pretty easy to manage as a houseplant. So, when a unique citrus plant came to my attention that just might be able to winter over outside in my Northern Appalachian climate, I jumped on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifoliate_orange

Trifoliate Orange (Hardy Orange)

https://www.uaex.edu/yard-garden/resource-library/plant-week/hardy-orange-2-9-07.aspx

Stacks of Coin

Bitcoin’s Soft Underbelly

ChatGPT, Cryptocurrency, My Thoughts, , , ,

The best way to make money is to go out and do it yourself.

Hey ChatGPT, Do you what Bitcoin is?

Yes, I am familiar with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that uses cryptography for security and is supported by a peer-to-peer network. It was created in 2009 by an unknown individual or group of individuals using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin is based on a distributed ledger technology called the blockchain, which allows it to operate without the need for a central authority. Transactions are recorded in blocks, which are linked together in a chain. This chain of blocks is secured using complex mathematical algorithms, which makes it extremely difficult to alter the record of transactions.

Bitcoin can be used to send and receive payments over the internet, and it has attracted a lot of attention due to its potential to disrupt traditional financial systems. However, it has also been associated with criminal activities, and its value can be volatile.

Hidden Risks

Just to linger on the topic for a moment, Bitcoin, has another risk that does not get enough mention. Cryptography has a shelf life and eventually breaks, either via some discovery of a short path to crack a private key given a public key or collisions. Bitcoin uses SHA256 encryption which seems safe for now but, as with all hash algorithms, there is no closed form solution that shows it is watertight. It’s more along the lines of, well the last cryptographic code broke because of X,Y or Z, so lets beef the new one up to be stronger in those areas. But, someone might find a crack in SHA256 tomorrow, just like what happened for SHA-1 not too long ago From what I recall it was a university research project that broke it. Or looking at the second failure mode, when will brute force collision with a large number of private keys become possible and profitable, It’s only a matter of time. 256 bits is a lot a space to brute force through. But, computing power (Now multi threaded quantum computing too ) grows over time and large entities such as nation states with deep pockets could do something like this at some point in the not so distant future. Is this possible, who knows now, but someday it might.

There are known knowns, known unknowns and then the ones that get you when you least expect it, unknown unknowns and this risk clearly falls in that category.

Interesting to Skim

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/M-23-02-M-Memo-on-Migrating-to-Post-Quantum-Cryptography.pdf

Immaculatorium

Immaculatorium

Unpolished Gems, , ,

Imagination comes to earth in mysterious ways, in the presence of its own eyes and through its ears.

Typically seen in 1960’s-70’s suburban houses as a second living room or an equivalent space that is maintained more as a museum piece rather than an actual living space. It usually contains furniture that is primarily used as a display and may be covered in plastic. Infrequently rugs covered in plastic may be seen as well. Typically the room is strictly off limits for small children, pets and most guests. It is typically situated in an area of the house that permits easy viewing as it’s purpose is to inspire a sense of suburban perfection.

Occasionally the room is actually used for important occasions such as once in a life time events, major birthdays ( usually ending in a zero ) or more infrequently, holidays.

Although the room may always look immaculate and usable, over time the furniture may degrade internally. Degradation occurs as the foam and leather becomes stiff over time from non-use. If the couches and chairs are used at some point, the materials may not have any natural resiliency left causing permanent wrinkles on the leather and permanent deformation of the foam inside the couches and chairs.

Immaculatorium View
Immaculatorium View

As of January 2023 the term Immaculatorium, is not on search via Google but is on DuckGODuck…

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-lm&q=Immaculatorium

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Immaculatorium&t=h_&ia=web

 

wave-1

Wave

Image Generation, Machine Learning, , , ,

wave-galleryOnly the imagination grows out of its limitations.

A while ago I played around with some code that was based on the following paper. One of the first things that I tried it on was a sample of the famous wave painting, styled by an actual wave.

A Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style

Leon A. Gatys,1,2,3∗Alexander S. Ecker,1,2,4,5Matthias Bethge1,2,41Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscienceand Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of T ̈ubingen, Germany2Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, T ̈ubingen, Germany3Graduate School for Neural Information Processing, T ̈ubingen, Germany4Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, T ̈ubingen, Germany5Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA∗

Fine art, especially painting, humans have mastered the skill to create unique visual experiences through composing a complex interplay between the con-tent and style of an image. Thus far the algorithmic basis of this process is unknown and there exists no artificial system with similar capabilities. How-ever, in other key areas of visual perception such as object and face recognition near-human performance was recently demonstrated by a class of biologically inspired vision models called Deep Neural Networks.1, 2Here we introduce an artificial system based on a Deep Neural Network that creates artistic images of high perceptual quality. The system uses neural representations to sepa-rate and recombine content and style of arbitrary images, providing a neural algorithm for the creation of artistic images. Moreover, in light of the strik-ing similarities between performance-optimised artificial neural networks and biological vision,3–7our work offers a path forward to an algorithmic under-standing of how humans create and perceive artistic imagery.1arXiv:1508.06576v2 [cs.CV] 2 Sep 2015

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.06576.pdf

Animation of wave image being styled
Animation of wave image being styled
Frames from the iterative process of creating the resultant image

See How to Generate Art Demo Command Line Version for more information.

Ancient Psychology

Money, My Thoughts, , , , , , , , , ,

True good is only possible when the self is aware of the suffering of the other and wants to minimize the suffering.

An interesting thought is to think about is when did humans or higher animals become self conscious and therefore developed a theory of mind that allows them to know what it feels like for others to experience the same thing that they might.

To make this more concrete, let’s use an example, two for that matter, one good behavior and one not so good. A bonobos monkey accidentally breaks a branch off of a tree and it falls on the head someone below, “… the film’s animal advisor, Patrick Bleuzen, who remarked that ‘Once I got hit on the head with a branch that had a bonobo on it. I sat down and the bonobo noticed I was in a difficult situation and came and took me by the hand and moved my hair back, like they do. So they live on compassion, and that’s really interesting to experience.” Excerpt From FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition Jeremy Griffith. The behavior  suggests that they can feel what it like to be in a position of compassion towards others.

Example two, an angry dominant male chimp snatches an infant from a female and dangles it precariously over a cliff edge. This is a clear example of control and an I don’t have to hit you but, I can get what I want from you by threat alone.

So what’s the threshold. What level does an animal have to be at to exhibit this behavior. How do we test for self awareness to begin with. One way that comes to mind is can they recognize themselves in the mirror. I decided to look it up, sure enough it has been done. As one would guess higher primates pass the test along with dolphins and others. See Mirror Test for more.

So once one is self aware, it is one easy step to start projecting that out to others and develop a theory of mind. And, this might be the root of good and evil. ( I started thinking about this was when I read partway through FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition by Jeremy Griffith )

For how can one know good and evil other than having a theory of mind for the other. True evil  is only possible when the self is aware of the suffering of the other and wants to maximize this suffering. True good is only possible when the self is aware of the suffering of the other and wants to minimize the suffering. The good news is that there is more good available because good can go beyond just minimizing suffering but, beyond it to generate positive benefit above this point, towards freedom from the potential of suffering and on to the path of the pursuit of happiness. Good can also generate the resources to create a reserve to push out and prevent suffering.

Cooperation

Think of it this way, people in small groups or a community can cooperate to store up a harvest and other reserves to carry the individual and a community through the hardest of times. The more that is stored up, the more that can be shared and the worse conditions might have to be before there is suffering.

Kye

In modern times this form of cooperation can be extended to one of the best resources that can be held in reserve collectively and used to do good for people involved cooperatively. The resource is money and the tool is known as a kye in Korean and, pronounced as geh in English. A form of this concept exists in many other countries around the world. It is basically a loan circle among a group of close friends and/or relatives and can expand to be as large as a community (good for the community such as providing a water well can be funded this way). Money goes into a kitty on a periodic basis, usually monthly and then someone from the group gets a payout to start a business, cover an emergency, obtain a down-payment on a house and so on. Think of it as a communal savings plan of sorts. Money is effectively harvested and concentrated to do good for all the participants on a rotating basis which can be determined by a leader of the group, a vote, consensus, random draw or rotation around the group in turn. To read more about this and the versions from other parts of the world read The Radical Economics of Lending Your Friends Money and/or Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA) . The descriptive category that is one level higher than this is Collaborative Finance.

The Circle of Self

In a way personal money can work like this too, with yourself, you can give the gift of it to your future self from your present self, your own mini loan circle, with now-you giving and future-you on the other side of it receiving.

Money is not quite about happiness after all

Money really does not buy happiness and having it beyond a certain point creates less of what economists call utility.

  • The first million is exciting, the second not quite as much.
  • Twenty dollars to someone living on the street with nothing is worth far more in utility than a person that is making 100K per year, it has a lot more utility for the former than the latter.

A thought experiment is to pretend that you have 10x your financial resources, 10x in income and in the bank, just divide everything that you see the price of by 10 and think of that for a minute for a perspective of how it would feel. Then do the opposite. It’s like having a utilty-scope and gives you a sense of what it feels like to slide into different financial brackets.

But, money has it’s limits to buying happiness as we can see with falling utility as we have more of it. But, it ( having enough buffer ) does buy a way out of misery, which is just a word for a continuous never ending path of suffering. Savings is just money set aside to share with your future self.

It’s expensive to be poor

  • In central Nairobi water comes out of a tap. In a shanty town outside of Nairobi it gets delivered in plastic containers at 10 times the cost of the tap water and with much more inconvenience to use.
  • If you are too poor to have enough money in your banking account to cover a check that was written to you, you can go to the originating bank and cash it. In the past this was free and why not, the money is right there, isn’t it? Totally verifiable and available on the spot. Nowadays you can expect a service fee of $5 for the convenience of getting the check cashed.

These and worse examples of predatory lending like payday loans, subprime lending make access to money as a resource more difficult for the poor.

How much to save?

It depends, some say 6 months of your income. I’d take that further by looking at what the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early  ) movement does. Save 6 months worth of expenses as a start, but don’t stop there, get rid of debt, learn how to raise your savings rate and learn how to invest what you have saved. The more you have, the further you push out the gap between comfort and potential suffering for you and others around you. Aim for true financial independence. Something major breaks, a big expense, no problem. If in the end it’s become a large pile of fat stacks of cash that you don’t need all of, well you can pay it forward to do good for someone else, a reverse kye maybe. Plus, having money saved up gives you more options in a positive way, life changes, plans change, unforeseen opportunities arise and being there at the right place and the right time means nothing unless you have the resources, usually money,  to make the opportunity manifest into reality.

 

Lightbeam Cat

Luna Rides Light Beam

ChatGPT, , , , , , ,
Can you write a story about a cat riding a beam of light. Use a writing style that is characterized by a narrative storytelling approach, use anecdotes and examples to illustrate the main points and also ask pretend questions about your own beliefs and assumptions, use a conversational tone and make it easy to follow your reasoning. Also use metaphors and comparisons.

Once upon a time, there was a cat named Luna who lived in a small village at the foot of a mountain. Luna was a curious and adventurous cat, always looking for new and exciting experiences.

One day, while exploring the mountain, Luna stumbled upon a strange, glowing beam of light. Without hesitation, she leapt onto the beam and began to ride it. The beam was like a magic carpet, lifting Luna higher and higher into the sky.

As Luna rode the beam, she saw things she had never seen before. The world below her became smaller and smaller, and she could see for miles and miles. She felt like she was flying, free as a bird. Luna felt a sense of wonder and amazement as she soared through the air.

As Luna rode the beam, she couldn’t help but think about the nature of light. She remembered her physics lessons and wondered if light was a particle or a wave. She wondered if the beam she was riding on was made up of photons, the fundamental particles of light. Luna also wondered if the beam she was riding on was infinite, and if there were other cats riding on beams of light somewhere in the universe.

But Luna quickly realized that these were just idle musings and that she should just enjoy the ride. The beam was like a river of light, and Luna was its fearless navigator. She rode the beam, feeling the wind in her fur, and the sun on her face.

Just as Luna was starting to feel like the beam would take her to the ends of the earth, it suddenly disappeared. Luna found herself back on the mountain, with the village below her. She realized that her adventure had come to an end, but the memories of it would stay with her forever.

From that day on, Luna had a new appreciation for the beauty and mystery of light. She would often return to the mountain and gaze up at the sky, searching for that magical beam of light once again.

And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, she would find it and ride it again, forever exploring the unknown and experiencing the wonder of the universe.