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ray

@ray@ottawa.place

hometown 4.5.10+hometown-1.2.1

Retired electrical engineer. Enjoy walking, cycling, reading, playing the flute. Interests include cooking, making milk kefir, and sourdough bread. On the technical side, I enjoy electronics, homelab activities, home assistant, etc. Lived in Hastings, UK, for work, for a while. Big fan of Britbox and Acorn TV. Blessed with health and a loving wife.

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Joined April 01, 2026

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ray @ray@ottawa.place · May 25, 2026

Nice flowers on the Trans-Canada trail this morning, between Bells Corners and Kanata. #nature #ontario

ray @ray@ottawa.place · May 21, 2026

Always annoying... #Shrinkflation

ray @ray@ottawa.place · May 19, 2026

Photos from this morning’s walk along the Trans-Canada Trail in Ottawa (near Briddlewood).

from Claude.ai:
These are white violets, most likely Viola sororia (common blue violet) in its white form, sometimes called Confederate violet or white form of the common violet.

The giveaway features are the distinctive five-petal shape with the characteristic purple veining/streaking on the lower petals, the heart-shaped, scallop-edged leaves, and the way they’re growing low to the ground in a woodland edge setting with leaf litter — classic violet habitat.

Viola sororia typically blooms in spring and commonly appears in both purple and white forms, sometimes growing side by side. They’re native to eastern North America and are edible — both the flowers and young leaves can be used in salads or as garnishes. #wildflowers #ontario

ray @ray@ottawa.place · May 06, 2026

A few more wildflowers along the trans-Canada trail in Ottawa. #nature #wildflowers

ray @ray@ottawa.place · May 02, 2026

The trilliums are coming!

ray @ray@ottawa.place · May 02, 2026

@alexpsmith@beige.party That happened to me once also, early in my career, when I was 25, with my first employer, a small engineering firm in Perth Ontario with a grand total of 11 employees. Got up, got dressed, including wearing a tie, made my lunch, walked to work, got to work around 8:30am, then around 9am or so started wondering where everyone was, then realized to my horror it was Saturday. Went back home hoping no one would see me…

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Alex the Naught (@alexpsmith@beige.party) - beige.party

ray @ray@ottawa.place · May 01, 2026

Beautiful Ottawa, from Rideau Centre, 4th floor, taken this afternoon.

ray @ray@ottawa.place · Apr 19, 2026

I managed to get Home Assistant to gobble-up energy data from my Hydro Ottawa Elster R1S meter today. I'm using the meter's optical port: it outputs an optical pulse (IR) for every 1mWh or energy consumed, so each pulse-per-minute corresponds to 60W.
For reading the meter, I'm using the optical sensor and internal circuitry from the Blueline Innovations 'PowerCost Monitor' model BLI-00292. This is barnacled on my meter, installed by Hydro Ottawa a while back. I'm tapping the signal directly at its microcontroller (pin 8). That CCA runs on two 'AA' batteries, but I plan to move its to the basement later this summer, and switch its power source to from the batteries to the +3.3V of the ESP32 CCA itself. I plan to simply running a couple of wires to the phototransistor in the small arm shown in the picture to the ESP32.
Speaking of the ESP32, it reads the pulses via the ESPHome Pulse Meter Sensor (https://esphome.io/components/sensor/pulse_meter/). Works quite well. One also needs a handful or extra parts (NPN transistor, a couple of resistors, filter cap) to convert metered pulses from 0-0.7V to 0-3.3V expected by the ESP32 GPIO pin. #homeassistant #ESPhome

ray @ray@ottawa.place · Apr 11, 2026

Bench rest before final shaping. I usually start with the dough positioned in a landscape orientation, do a bottom fold, left and right wings —at about 45°angle— then add few stitches to the top, space permitting, followed by a roll-up from the bottom, with just a gentle end tuck with cupped hands near the end of the roll to finish the ends, followed by a seam seal (30s rest), then flip into a banneton. My goal is an airy even crumb with no big holes, and no thick bottom crust for easy cutting. #sourdough

ray @ray@ottawa.place · Apr 09, 2026

With all the bad news in the world these days, I thought I’d post something positive. These crocuses in my backyard are a gift from the local squirrels. Nice to finally see some signs of nature coming back to life.

ray @ray@ottawa.place · Apr 03, 2026

Still a bit of ice on the TransCanada trail south of Bells Corners, towards Eagleson Rd. I was surprised to see how much snow had melted. Probably normal for this time of year. The trail was still quite soft.

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