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I'm a novelist and have an interest in space science and physics. I've been a programmer for more than 30 years and I like reviewing new and up-and-coming authors.
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Orbital Calculator 2.0.7 Released
This is a maintenance update. see Release Notes for details.
Another Day
A busy day today. I had an interview for a job today, so fingers crossed. Orbital Calculator got some attention too: I added the ability to have escape velocities output in km, metres or miles (per second) in the Gravity and Motion calculations - previously, output was just in km/s. I've tested and compiled and tested again, and I'll zip up the various releases and upload them to this site tomorrow (actually, later today - it's nearly 3am!).
I also spent the day upgrading my alternate desktop from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.4. No, let me correct myself there - it refused to upgrade because of a broken python3 symlink that I had no idea how to fix. This was what started a whole world of pain and agony.
Mars Weather Data Flows Again
It appears that after a long hiatus, Mars Weather data is flowing again.
Pi-Mars v1.1
Pi-Mars is a clock for the Raspberry Pi, that tells the time anywhere on Mars. It has options to nominate ad-hoc locations, pre-selected locations and sites of the various missions that made it to the Martian surface. It is skinnable and highly configurable.
Having written several clocks that tell the time at various locations on Mars for my Mars Weather page, I immediately knew I wanted to make a physical clock - something that could sit on my desk or such like, and tell the time on Mars.
Pi-Mars Installation
You require an RPIv2 or later (to use the SmartiPi Touch 2 case, you require an RPI4). It will not run on an RPI1 or an RPI-Zero. This installation and configuration guide assumes you have installed an operating system on your Pi and can login either directly (with a keyboard/monitor attached to the Pi) or indirectly through SSH or VNC across a network.
Note the operating system you install must have a Desktop, and the PI must be configured to boot into it. If you choose an operating system other than Raspberry Pi OS, you may have to adjust some of the instructions which refer to the LXDE Desktop manager configuration.