James Burnett

How to home-school in Virginia (including with a religious exemption).

[audio mp3="https://jamesburnett.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/james-burnett-home-school-virginia.mp3"][/audio] There are two main ways to home school your children in Virginia. The first is by going down the typical home schooling path which consists of meeting certain criteria outlined in Virginia law as well as providing annual notices to your local school district of you intent to home school and submitting annual grades to your local school district. Secondly, you could file for a rel...

Podcast: How Linux enabled me to be who I am today.

In this podcast episode James talks about his history with computers, how he dropped out of high school to pursue a career working with computers, how he g Read More

Developing neural networks to detect guns from live videos feeds.

When I was researching school security in early 2018 I thought of an idea that could help enhance school security. I had been working with facial recognition developing a profiling tool that could detect sex offenders from live video and I wanted to see if I could adapt it to detect objects, such as weapons and guns. Two companies claimed to have technology to detect guns and weapons from live

Two ways to download historical stock market data with Python.

There are two ways that I download stock data with Python. The first way is using the AlphaAdvantage API and the second way is by using the Alpaca.Markets API, both are free. This stock data will be put into easy to use Python data types and can be used to create stock trading bots, stock data analysis programs or anything else you can think of. You could even combine this code with Python code

How to stream live video in Python via RTSP.

When I was working on my gun detection neural network I needed a way to test it. Every off-the-shelf surveillance camera that I have used comes with a video streaming technology called the real time streaming protocol, aka, RTSP. Using RTSP, Python and OpenCV I was able to easily stream video to my gun detection neural network. Code to stream with RTSP and Python. Streaming video in Python is

Calculate the Relative Strength Index (RSI) with Python.

The following code will calculate the Relative Strength Index (RSI) of a stock in Python. This Python function takes a Pandas DataFrame as a parameter and calculate the average gains and the average losses and then return the RSI as a new DataFrame. To use this function you will need stock price data that is in a time series format (each row as a date/time column) and you will need to

A guide to installing Python on your computer.

In this blog post I will show you the quickest and easiest way to install Python on your Mac, Linux or Windows computer. Python is an amazing and flexible programing language. Whether it's for developing prototypes of software ideas at work or writing stock trading bots in my spare time, Python has remained my most used and favorite language to code in. Getting started with Python can

Using Python to calculate days between news highs for a stock.

When it comes to swing trading stock options a trader needs to choose an option expiration date for their contracts. Choosing this date has often been brought with confusion and many traders often choose expiration's that are too short on time. One thing is for sure, when the options expire the contract is over. If you are an option buyer and your stock options expire out of the money, you

Can stock prices be predicted with LSTM neural networks?

One of the first questions I asked myself when I started working with neural networks was, can I write a program to predict the price of a stock with a neural network? There are tons of examples floating around the Internet on forecasting or predicting stock market prices but most of them give only example code without actually addressing the question. I've worked fairly extensively with

How COVID helped me increase software development productivity.

2020 was a crazy and chaotic year for all of us and as a software engineer it could have been much crazier. Designing software on paper doesn't require any special technology to achieve but when it comes to writing software and testing prototypes, that's an entirely different story. After the first wave of stay-at-home orders came down the pipeline I immediately shifted gears towards developing

Podcast 001: How Linux and Hacking got me into computers.

In this podcast I talk about how Linux and hacking influenced my interest in computers, programming and networking. From using my first computer in the late 80’s, to dropping out of high school, to getting kicked out of college for penetrating their HP Unix mainframe, this is my story of the early days.

Stop being tracked, time to shore up your online privacy.

Lets talk a little bit about how we can improve our own privacy on the... The post Stop being tracked, time to shore up your online privacy. first appeared on James Burnett.

5 tips to help you sleep better.

Sleep seems to be a highly desired human commodity. I hear about it almost everyday,... The post 5 tips to help you sleep better. first appeared on James Burnett.

Detect guns and weapons from live video feeds.

I never thought that I would be writing software to detect guns and weapons from...

An FTP server for security cameras.

So many off the shelf security cameras come with the ability to utilized FTP. The...

3 Practical Conceal Carry Options for Women.

Bree goes over 3 practical conceal carry options that are designed specifically for women. You...

These Virginia gun control laws go into effect July 1.

The following Virginia gun control laws go into effect July 1, 2020. Some laws appear...

Video: These Virginia gun control laws go into effect July 1.

The following Virginia gun control laws go into effect July 1, 2020. Some laws appear...

Episode 1. The Springfield Armory SAINT (Victor)

In this podcast James and Bree discuss Springfield Armory’s AR15 style pistol, the SAINT. Watch...

E001. The Springfield Armory SAINT (Victor)

In this podcast James and Bree discuss Springfield Armory’s AR15 style pistol, the SAINT. Listen:...

Epsiode 001: Is Python the most versatile programming language?

Python has been a powerful tool in my software engineering tool belt for nearly a...

Python back-tested reasons to swing trade ETFs like SPY.

The following code shows why I like to swing trade ETFs that track the stock market. Historically the stock market has never NOT recovered. Investors buy a Read More

009: Python back-tested reasons to swing trade ETFs like SPY.

The following code shows why I like to swing trade ETFs that track the stock market. Historically the stock market has never NOT recovered. Investors buy a Read More

008: How I became a software engineer.

James Burnett talks about the early days of dropping out of school to learn Linux.

How I became a software engineer.

James Burnett talks about the early days of dropping out of school to learn Linux.

Episode 001: How I became a Linux software engineer.

There wasn’t a whole lot to do growing up in northern Vermont, until my father...

Episode 007: Is fundamental analysis important for swing trading?

Good swing traders will use fundamental analysis to make sure they aren't dealing with garbage companies that have a history of bad recoveries.

Episode 006: 6 ways to be a better swing trader.

My 6 ideas that will enhance your swing trading strategy. Keep it simple and be a better swing trader.

Episode 005: Why I am not swing trading OIL.

I will never swing trade OIL for consistent income. Here is why.

Episode 004: Should you swing trade under a business entity or LLC?

In this PodCast I will cover a couple pros and cons for swing trading and investing as a business entity or LLC.

Episode 003: Why I like swing trading instead of day trading.

This is my opinion on why I like swing trading instead of day trading. I feel that swing tradings is less risky because of compounding factors which includ Read More

Episode 1: Sugar addiction and my exercise routine.

I’ve been working on losing my belly fat and kicking my sugar addiction. My fitness...

Is the government rigging the stock market?

With all the big red flag waving, how is it even possible that the stock market is UP?!

Episode 001: 5 ways to raise money for swing trading.

I hear it a lot. People want to get into swing trading or investing but claim they don’t have any money to get started. Lets be real clear here, the Read More

Stream video with RTSP and Python.

Streaming video in Python is made really easy with OpenCV and the RTSP (real time streaming protocol). The OpenCV library contains a VideoCapture class which handles all the dirty work behind the scenes. You can capture each frame into an Image or Numpy object for further manipulation, save frames to disk or even re-save and possibly even encode into a video format of your choosing. This code

Howto back test your trading strategies with Python.

Python is an amazing tool for back-testing stock trading strategies. In this article and video I will show you how to get started with writing your own Python programs for back-testing.Make sure you to get your Python environment setup for write stock trading programs!This Python program consists of a basic trading strategy for the MSFT ticker. The strategy is for demonstration purposes and

How to download stock market data with Python.

Data is the key to developing investing tools in Python. Lucky for us a company called AlphaAdvantage provides a free API which we can use in your Python development. You can test your programs on the MSFT ticker without a key but if you want to test other tickers you'll need a key.import pandas as pdimport sysapi_key = 'demo'ticker = sys.argv[1] api_url_daily = 'https://www.alphavantage.co/

Installing Python for stock trading analysis and back-testing.

Python is a must have if you want to get into super nerdy algorithmic, automated stock trading and advanced back-testing. With Python the possibilities are endless and will surely enhance your trading experience.Anaconda is a Python platform developed for scientific research and has all the necessary tools to develop tools for smarter investing.To get started you'll want to head over the Anaconda

Install ThinkOrSwim on Ubuntu Linux.

This guide will show you how to install the ThinkOrSwim stock trading platform on Ubuntu Linux. I assume that you are running the latest version of Ubuntu which is version 19.10 at the writing of this post. 1. Install Java JRE. ThinkOrSwim is a Java based program and requires athe Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 8.x. Unfortunatly, Oracle as decided to require registration to down

Simple code to place a stock order with Alpaca and Python.

I'm loving Alpaca more and more for back-testing and automated trading. One of the first items on my to-do list was to create very simply code for placing a buy or sell order. This example is the most basic of orders with the defaults set to a buy limit order.You can sell a stock by changing the order_side variable from 'buy' to 'sell' to sell. You can use a market order by changing the

Download stock data with Python and Alpaca.

This is a very basic code snippet for downloading data using the Alpaca API. You can get a free API for paper-trading through alpaca which will give you access to their IEX data. Once you get your alpaca API keys you can start using most of the code examples on TradeTechie.The Python script will only download the data and print out the low, high, close and open prices.Make sure to drop in your

A ThinkOrSwim buy sell signal based on EMA.

A common trading strategy that I like to use is the three step trade. Consolidation, confirmation, and validation on the sell side. I like to wait for a solid consolidation followed by a steady run in about a 45 degree angle on the charts. The start of my confirmation is when the closing price crosses my exponential moving average. When this happens I get a blue arrow to show me that a

Forecast stocks with Python and FbProphet.

Forecasting stocks with Python is actually really easy to do with the fbProphet model developed by Facebook. The following code will download the daily stock data which is passed into prophet to get a 10 day forecast.To run this stock forecasting tool you will want to install Python on your computer. Once that is done you'll need to install the fbprophet Python module.After setting up your

A motion detection class for Python.

Detecting motion is a key component to developing video surveillance based applications. Like this motion detection class, most methods are used by compare frames using hysteresis. An average motion detection score is calculate and can be used to determine the level of motion to act upon. Getting the frame difference provides a black and white representation of the differences in two frames.

Stream live video in Python with RTSP and OpenCV.

Using RTSP and OpenCV you can easily stream video to your Python script. OpenCV provides a high level set of Python modules which makes the stream of video feeds very easy. In addition streaming video from a video camera or RTSP feed you can also load video files in place of the stream. The following code contains a class called VideoStream. When the start() method is called the object is

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Episode 001: My back story and how I got kicked out of college.

In my first podcast episode I talk about where I grew up and how I... The post Episode 001: My back story and how I got kicked out of college. first appeared on James Burnett.

Podcast Episode 1: Keto vs Carnivore with a sugar addict.

In this podcast I talk about the Keto vs Carnivore diet argument. For me, my sugar addiction was so bad that any amount of carbohydrates would send me into a cascading sugar eating relapse. The carnivore diet is a lot more restrictive than the keto diet but for someone that is seriously addicted to sugar, […]

Podcast: Episode Zero. The Carnivore Diet.

The first episode of my podcast. In this podcast I talk about the first 10 days of being on the Carnivore diet.