Old man, old cars, and old whisky
Here is a simple “Spectator cuts to the aces” trick.
Start by getting the four aces to the top of the deck. I let the spectator shuffle the deck and then use my two step cull to accomplish this. You could also just start by already having the aces on top before you begin.
Continue reading “Spectator cuts to the aces”I am getting old and forgetful. This morning I remembered a card trick that I liked to perform, but could not remember the steps nor remember what book/magazine I learned it from. I finally reconstructed the steps, and then decided that I need to write these tricks down. Note that this is not original. I just don’t remember where I learned this.
Continue reading “Lie Detector”Just for fun I asked ChatGPT to write an essay explaining ChatGPT. This is what it produced.
Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence”
Check out the other version at https://robertjwallace.com/riffle-and-roll/.
The setup in the version is very simple. Have the spectator shuffle the deck. Take the deck back and spread the cards face up, removing the aces as you find them, dropping them to the table.
Continue reading “An even easier Riffle ‘n’ Roll”This is my version of Jack Carpenter’s “Riffle ‘n’ Roll” from his book “The Expert’s Portfolio No. 1”. I am a fan of Carpenter’s work and recommend any of his books.
The main reason I came up with this version is that I found his method to be a little cumbersome with holding multiple breaks. This version eliminates that, but with the expense of using a card with a breather crimp.
Quoting from “The Expert’s Portfolio No. 1”:
Continue reading “Riffle and Roll”I have been running home assistant on a generic Linux virtual machine using Oracle’s Virtualbox system for several years. It has worked pretty well for me, but I recently decided to purchase a mini pc and move home assistant to it.
In part what prompted this was finding a low cost mini PC that looked pretty good. $139.00 for an OUVISLITE Ιntel Celeron J4125 (Up to 2.7GHz), with 8GB DDR4 128GB M.2 SSD Mini Computer, 4K HDMI, Triple Display, Dual WiFi, BT4.2, and HTPC. For that price I figured “what the hell, let’s give it a try”.
Continue reading “Moving Home Assistant from a virtual machine to dedicated hardware”Normally you restore home assistant to a previous backup using the backups stored locally that are listed under Settings -> System -> Backups. Just click on the backup you want to restore and a window pops up. Simple.
But if you want to restore to a version saved to Google drive you first have to copy the backup file from Google Drive to your local PC and then upload it to Home Assistant. Then the feature to upload a backup file is hidden under the “three dot” menu at the upper right of the backup page.
Open the menu, select “Upload backup”, and find the backup file you copied from Google Drive.
I was looking for a tilt sensor to tell me if my garage door was open or closed. The sensor had to work with Home Assistant and the only one I could find that looked simple and cheap was the Aqara Vibration sensor that had a tilt/orientation feature.
Unfortunately the feature was not one of the attributes that Home Assistant showed with the device which sent me down the rabbit hole of googling. Eventually I got it figured out and this article is to share my experiences.
Continue reading “Using Aqara Vibrarion Sensor as Garage Door sensor”