Index to Commonwealth War Graves Registers - First World War

This weekend, Ancestry.ca held another of their "freebies", with access to Canadian Military records for the past 5 or so days. In general, I assumed that I already have most of the information since they were available from the previous freebies as well as free on the Government of Canada or CWGC sites. However, I took a look anyway, just in case.

One new thing that I found was the "Commonwealth War Graves Registers, First World War" (also known as the Black Binders, volumes 39 to 144 of the series Accession RG 150, 1992-93/314). It's not that new, in fact, as they were digitized in 2011. As pointed out here, the real advantage of the Ancestry site is the integrated search, as most of the information is on the CWGC site, but with a slightly less capable search.

However, there are small bits of additional information, and if you're like me, you'd like to have as many references as possible (even if just scanned). The trouble is that the Ancestry site will no longer be free in a few hours. One could use the Library and Archives Canada site but it is completely unsearchable. I don't know why they couldn't have listed the names included in each set. After all, they went through the trouble of labelling the names on Page 2 of every set. The time it would take to type this up is surely much shorter than the time taken to scan the binders (or else something is terribly wrong).

Anyway, I decided to do so, and it didn't take too long. The index is available below:

Index	Name	Location	First Person	Last Person
1	31830_B016669	France, Belgium, etc.	Aaron	Allan
2	31830_B016673	France, Belgium, etc.	Allanson	Angst
3	31830_B016674	France, Belgium, etc.	Angus	Astley
4	31830_B016672	France, Belgium, etc.	Aston	Baker
5	31830_B016677	France, Belgium, etc.	Bakys	Barrow
6	31830_B016663	France, Belgium, etc.	Barry	Beebe
7	31830_B034750	France, Belgium, etc.	Beech	Berner
8	31830_B016668	France, Belgium, etc.	Bernhart	Bittle
9	31830_B016662	France, Belgium, etc.	Bjarnason	Bolger
10	31830_B016667	France, Belgium, etc.	Bolin	Bowes
11	31830_B016666	France, Belgium, etc.	Bowhay	Briden
12	31830_B016665	France, Belgium, etc.	Bridge	Brown, I. F.
13	31830_B016671	France, Belgium, etc.	Brown, J.	Buist
14	31830_B016670	France, Belgium, etc.	Bulbick	Bytheway
15	31830_B016591	France, Belgium, etc.	Cabana	Canning
16	31830_B016590	France, Belgium, etc.	Cannon	Cave
17	31830_B016589	France, Belgium, etc.	Cavelle	Christmas
18	31830_B016594	France, Belgium, etc.	Christo	Cobley
19	31830_B016593	France, Belgium, etc.	Coburn	Coogan
20	31830_B016592	France, Belgium, etc.	Cook	Cotton
21	31830_B016595	France, Belgium, etc.	Cottrell	Crewe
22	31830_B016596	France, Belgium, etc.	Cribbes	Cyrs
23	31830_B016600	France, Belgium, etc.	Dabate	Dawson
24	31830_B016597	France, Belgium, etc.	Day	Dickie
25	31830_B016599	France, Belgium, etc.	Dickins	Dostie
26	31830_B016598	France, Belgium, etc.	Doty	Dunbar
27	31830_B016602	France, Belgium, etc.	Duncan	Edwards
28	31830_B016601	France, Belgium, etc.	Edworthy	Ezric
29	31830_B016606	France, Belgium, etc.	Faber	Fincham
30	31830_B016605	France, Belgium, etc.	Finder	Ford
31	31830_B034751	France, Belgium, etc.	Fordyce	Freymuth
32	31830_B016604	France, Belgium, etc.	Fricker	Gaston
33	31830_B016609	France, Belgium, etc.	Gate	Gingras
34	31830_B016608	France, Belgium, etc.	Ginn	Gotze
35	31830_B016607	France, Belgium, etc.	Goucher	Green
36	31830_B016611	France, Belgium, etc.	Greenaway	Gysin
37	31830_B016610	France, Belgium, etc.	Haas	Hancox
38	31830_B016675	France, Belgium, etc.	Hand	Harty
39	31830_B016676	France, Belgium, etc.	Harvey	Helms
40	31830_B016680	France, Belgium, etc.	Helps	Hildreth
41	31830_B034451	France, Belgium, etc.	Hill	Holmden
42	31830_B016679	France, Belgium, etc.	Holmes	Howles
43	31830_B016678	France, Belgium, etc.	Howlett	Hutson
44	31830_B034447	France, Belgium, etc.	Hutt	James
45	31830_B016681	France, Belgium, etc.	Jameson	Johnsson
46	31830_B034450	France, Belgium, etc.	Johnston	Juteau
47	31830_B034449	France, Belgium, etc.	Kaar	Kernick
48	31830_B016682	France, Belgium, etc.	Kerr	Knibbs
49	31830_B034448	France, Belgium, etc.	Knight	Landymore
50	31830_B034452	France, Belgium, etc.	Lane	Leach
51	31830_B016603	France, Belgium, etc.	Leachman	Levine
52	31830_B016614	France, Belgium, etc.	Levings	Lockie
53	31830_B016613	France, Belgium, etc.	Lockley	Lyttle
54	31830_B016612	France, Belgium, etc.	Mabee	Marsden
55	31830_B016617	France, Belgium, etc.	Marsh	May
56	31830_B016616	France, Belgium, etc.	Mayall	Millens
57	31830_B016615	France, Belgium, etc.	Miller	Moir
58	31830_B016620	France, Belgium, etc.	Moisley	Morley
59	31830_B016619	France, Belgium, etc.	Morphew	Muir
60	31830_B016621	France, Belgium, etc.	Muirhead	Myson
61	31830_B034752	France, Belgium, etc.	McAdam	McCoubrey
62	31830_B016618	France, Belgium, etc.	McCourt	McDonaugh
63	31830_B016622	France, Belgium, etc.	McDonell	McIntire
64	31830_B016626	France, Belgium, etc.	McIntosh	MacKenzie
65	31830_B016625	France, Belgium, etc.	McKeogh	McLeman
66	31830_B016624	France, Belgium, etc.	McLennan	McNaughton
67	31830_B016623	France, Belgium, etc.	McNaul	McWilliams
68	31830_B016630	France, Belgium, etc.	Nadeau	Nicoletti
69	31830_B016629	France, Belgium, etc.	Nicoll	Olivier
70	31830_B016628	France, Belgium, etc.	Olliff	Papworth
71	31830_B016627	France, Belgium, etc.	Paquet	Pattison
72	31830_B016633	France, Belgium, etc.	Patton	Perry
73	31830_B016632	France, Belgium, etc.	Perryman	Plow
74	31830_B016631	France, Belgium, etc.	Plowman	Price
75	31830_B016635	France, Belgium, etc.	Prickett	Ramsey
76	31830_B016634	France, Belgium, etc.	Rance	Reid
77	31830_B016638	France, Belgium, etc.	Reiley	Rizza
78	31830_B016637	France, Belgium, etc.	Roach	Roffey
79	31830_B016636	France, Belgium, etc.	Roger	Roy
80	31830_B016641	France, Belgium, etc.	Royal	Saunders
81	31830_B016640	France, Belgium, etc.	Sauvage	Selfe
82	31830_B034455	France, Belgium, etc.	Selkirk	Sholds
83	31830_B016644	France, Belgium, etc.	Sholert	Smales
84	31830_B016643	France, Belgium, etc.	Small	Smith, P. M.
85	31830_B034454	France, Belgium, etc.	Smith, R.	Spence
86	31830_B016642	France, Belgium, etc.	Spencer	Steven
87	31830_B016647	France, Belgium, etc.	Stevens	St. Pierre
88	31830_B016646	France, Belgium, etc.	Stracey	Syvret
89	31830_B016645	France, Belgium, etc.	Tabbener	Thom
90	31830_B016639	France, Belgium, etc.	Thomas	Tizzard
91	31830_B034453	France, Belgium, etc.	Tobias	Turnbull
92	31830_B016649	France, Belgium, etc.	Turner	Vyse
93	31830_B016656	France, Belgium, etc.	Wabanosse	Warby
94	31830_B016651	France, Belgium, etc.	Ward	Webb
95	31830_B016653	France, Belgium, etc.	Webber	Whitcutt
96	31830_B016654	France, Belgium, etc.	White	Willey
97	31830_B016655	France, Belgium, etc.	Williams	Wilson
98	31830_B016658	France, Belgium, etc.	Wilton	Worsley
99	31830_B016652	France, Belgium, etc.	Worster	Zykoski
100	31830_B016657	United Kingdom	Abbott	Byrt
101	31830_B016650	United Kingdom	Cadieux	Ewens
102	31830_B016661	United Kingdom	Fagg	Holmes
103	31830_B016648	United Kingdom	Holtum	Meads
104	31830_B016660	United Kingdom	Meehen	Ozanne
105	31830_B016659	United Kingdom	Packham	Smith
106	31830_B016664	United Kingdom	Smollet	Zinck

On GPG/PGP Keys...

Way back in 2010, I attended the GSoC Mentors Summit. I thought that would be a perfect time to get a new GPG key signed by a lot of people. Unfortunately, I decided to do this the night before flying out to Mountain View. With the lack of sleep, long flight, and busy weekend, I promptly forgot the passphrase to that key.

For quite a while, I tried to remember or somehow guess the passphrase, to no avail. I even wrote a Python script to try out combinations of fragments I thought might be in it. Alas, I had no success.¹

Since I just attended another Mentors Summit this past weekend, I had no choice but to come up with a new key. The new key ID is 0x8D86E7FA E5EB0C10 and eventually it will accumulate some signatures from the event as I go through them. The old key, 0xACA35FE6, really didn't have too many signatures², so I guess it's no great loss.

---

1 Okay, I realize you have no way of trusting this statement if you've already trusted the old key, but I can't really do anything about that anymore.^↩

2 At least you can check this statement on the keyservers, though.^↩

AGU Fall Meeting Poster

It's been a busy week, but my poster for AGU is finally printed and ready to go. Here's a small copy of it:

Note, ImageMagick doesn't seem to convert to colours exactly correct, so you may want to check out the PDF. If you want to have a look at the full PDF, check out the ePoster at the AGU. That page has the abstract, and you can click "View ePoster" for the poster.

This poster was the result of a monster-combination of Scribus, LaTeX, GMT, and even a bit of Inkscape. But at least I didn't use PowerPoint! I was planning to write some information about the process, but that's turning into a rather large post. I want to post this one before AGU and I'll write separate posts about the process later.

Missing Library in Rhythmbox on F17

One of the bugs I encountered after upgrading to Fedora 17 is that my music library seemed to have disappeared in Rhythmbox. In fact, everything appeared in the Missing Files view. The strange thing is that all the files appeared exactly where Rhythmbox thought they should be. In fact, I could even play them directly from the Missing Files view!

Anyway, after a bit of searching, it appears that I am facing this bug. You see, on my laptop, I encrypt the /home directory. Back on Fedora 16, some bug in gvfs or udisks caused things to think that that directory was a removable partition. Something must have been fixed in Fedora 17, because it's no longer marked that way (which is good, because I hate seeing it in nautilus.) However, Rhythmbox still thinks those files should be on a separate partition and doesn't correctly update itself (the aforementioned bug.)

This is pretty easy to fix, in fact. Since /home is now no longer considered a separate mount point, you just have to remove those indicators from Rhythmbox's config. The config is an XML file that's been pretty-printed, so the offending information appears on a single line (per file entry). That makes fixing it a pretty simple thing to do:

$ cd ~/.local/share/rhythmbox/
$ cp rhythmdb.xml rhythmdb.xml.backup
$ sed -i -e '/<mountpoint>/d' rhythmdb.xml


The Fedora 17 "Beefy Miracle"

So, a new release of Fedora was set free just last week, the so-called "Beefy Miracle". A couple of releases ago (or maybe last release), I had really thought I might wait at least a month after a release before upgrading. Turns out my curiosity got the best of me, and I went and upgraded my laptop mere days after the release.

Fortunately, this release has been much much better right out of the box. Having read the release notes, I was prepared for the one major bug, namely the kernel being stuck at an old version. Since it only affected shutdown, it wasn't too big of a deal, just a bit annoying.

Being the third release with GNOME3, it's finally starting to come together into something usable. With the right extensions, it's even better than GNOME2 was. I can't say exactly what changes went into it, but I guess it's a lot of behind the scenes changes to make things Just Work.

There are still a few things that need work, of course. I'm still not a big fan of the grey theme, but at least the window decoration is not huge anymore. It's still a bit difficult to find good complete themes that fix that. Also, it seems they introduced a fade-out of windows that are not in focus. It's sort of like it's disabled-in-appearance-only. I'm sort of yes-no on this change. It seems like it might be good for accessibility, but they don't seem to have tried this out all too much. Sometimes widgets remain faded even when the rest of the application is back in focus. Using some dialogs (like gedit's Replace) do weird things.

One last point is going to be about the wallpaper. I know I don't see it all too much, but the last three releases have had wallpapers that are really quite nice. Fedora's wallpapers have been traditionally mostly blue, the trademark colour. This one deviates a bit with a splash of pink, but I think it's just enough to make it pop. And who could not like fireworks?

"Video" Editing in Linux

Video editing is one of those domains for which there are some expensive options and several attempts at open source alternatives. Unfortunately, few efforts have even gotten past the first few months.

A couple months ago, I had to do some "video" editing. I put that in quotes because in fact, it was more of a slideshow. I had done something similar a few years ago in PowerPoint. After the pain of that experience, I was quite certain I didn't want to do it that way again. I looked for some alternatives, but pretty much knew what my list of prerequisites was:

1. Background music and voiceover audio
2. Easy positioning of audio clips (Possibly meaning multi-track editing)
3. Good set of transitions
4. HD output, if possible, since all my photos were high resolution already

Weighing the Options

I know there are dedicated slideshow tools out there, like Imagination, but I wasn't sure how to get points 1 and 2 taken care of. I was pretty much certain that I'd have to use a video editor of some sort. There are really only about three or four I'd expect to work.

I was originally thinking of OpenShot, but annoyingly, you can't drag multiple clips from the Project to the Timeline. This might seem like a small issue, but for a slideshow of a few hundred images, it becomes a bit tedious. That's one of the reasons I didn't like PowerPoint, since you had to create a slide per picture and then add it. Overall, OpenShot just seemed to be a bit too simplified to be usable. On the upside, it did seem to have a good selection of transition effects.

The next option was PiTiVi. A long time ago, when I had to settle for PowerPoint, I had looked at PiTiVi. It was really just not ready to use for much of anything then. Just loading files used to cause a caught-in-abrt-but-not-totally-fatal exception. Nowadays, it's become much more polished. The UI looks much nicer with a good layout of controls. Unfortunately, it's limited in the transition aspect. Basically, you've got crossfading and that's about it. With no transition wipes, that pretty much cut out PiTiVi, although I really do like the direction it's going.

A possible contender?

The final choice was Kdenlive. Kdenlive uses the same video processing toolkit as OpenShot (MLT), but has been around since before OpenShot and PiTiVi. I can't say whether this longer development time is the sole reason or not, but it's certainly turned out to be the best of the three at this time. It's obviously multi-track (points 1 and 2), there's a good selection of transitions (point 3), and it'll render almost whatever resolution you want (point 4).

Now, does editing real video have its issues? I can't exactly say, but for what I had to do, I found Kdenlive to be extremely stable. In the course of this project, I saw maybe two crashes. That's two crashes too many, but video editing seems to be a tricky art (likely due to there being too many video specs, with poor descriptions, and poorer implementations). Actually, I did have to insert two real video clips, and they didn't cause any trouble.

Kdenlive was certainly up to the task for this slideshow/video project. It was perhaps of a moderate size, a few hundred images, two video clips, a dozen music tracks, plus 15-20 audio voice clips, resulting in about 25 minutes of final video.

Alas, it's not quite perfect...

Let's not say that Kdenlive doesn't still have its rough edges. It did appear to use a large amount of RAM, but I think that's because the project was 1080p, and I wasn't using proxies. Randomly (but thankfully not too many times), an invisible spacer would insert itself on a track and shift all the subsequent clips. Eventually, I did find the Lock Track button, and then could shift the incorrect track back. Once, a clip became half-deleted, getting in the way of other clips, but staying immovable and un-deletable until I re-opened the file.

While there are many to choose from, there are twenty transitions that are just named numerically, meaning you have to pick a point in the middle of a transition, look at the result, and guess which direction it's going (it doesn't auto-preview the whole thing, for example). What would be really useful is a "base" transition set, with an editor to tweak a few settings. For example, if you had a expanding star, the editor could enable you to position that star over some important object instead of dead-centre.

The other transitions that were missing were some good 3D effects. I tried following these instructions to create a page curl effect, but ended up keying every frame of the overlay position just to make sure it looked good. For another effect, I used a rotate about Z to create a sort of full page flip, but the Z rotate doesn't seem to cause any perspective changes (the far end does not shrink in height and the near end does not grow in height). It didn't look too bad in the end, but it could have been easier to do.

Wrapping up

In the end, I managed to finish my project relatively easily with Kdenlive. OpenShot is really just not up there at this time, although it does have a nice set of 3D titles in Blender. PiTiVi is also moving along quite nicely, and if it wasn't for the lack of transitions, I might have used it. Kdenlive seems to be the best choice right now. But everything's under rapid development, so this might change any time soon.

Fixing the Toaster

Sometimes, things just break. Maybe it's planned obsolescence; I don't really know. But I don't want to be wasting things just because they "seem" to not work anymore.

Speaking of things not working, our toaster-oven (a Bravetti) recently stopped turning on. (You didn't see that coming, did you?) Turning on the timer didn't light the lamp, and didn't electrify the elements. A bit of a problem when you want to toast things (pizza in a microwave just isn't the same!)

Taking Things Apart

As it turns out, the same thing has happened before. That made this work pretty easy as I knew exactly where to look for the problem. As a plus, this is an easy fix and if it must fail, I'd pick this over some other problem.

First, you need to take out all the screws around the top cover. On this model, they're on the back and on the bottom along the feet. Remove the cover and you can see all the wiring as in the picture.

The top control is temperature, middle is heating mode, and bottom is the timer. Our trouble arises in the timer control. You need to pull off the front dial. It's got some goop in it to hold it in place, so I wedge it out with a flathead screwdriver. Once it's off, take out the two screws holding the timer control onto the panel. Pull out the electrical contacts, and you're good.

So now you have the timer control; what to do with it? Open it up, of course! It's locked up using small bent metal tabs. Simply straighten them up with some pliers and you should be able to pull off the top bit. You need to take all of the shell off, as below.

In the picture to the left are the separated parts of the timer control. At the left is the outer shell with the bell. Then the timer mechanism, a cover and another mounting cover.

In this picture we have the back view of the timer mechanism. Keep in mind the little black arm as that interfaces with the silver arm in the bell.

Cleaning the Contacts

That black plastic bit at the top is the site of all the trouble. Take a look at the contact below, which has become black. I don't know whether this is some kind of galvanic corrosion, but it means the switch just doesn't close.

I can't quite remember what I did the last time, but it may have involved scratching at it with a screwdriver. This time, I used a cone sanding bit on a rotary tool to clean it up entirely. It's a bit difficult to see below, but it's much cleaner now. Note, I didn't clean the mount around the contact, so you can see the difference between before and after there.

Finishing Up

Now that the contacts are clean, it's just a matter of putting everything back together. It's important to get the post on the timer aligned with the lever in the bell, or it won't ring when finished. Then reattach all the casing, bend the tabs, and screw the rest all together. And the final test, of course, is to turn it on and toast some bread!