On the way out, I walked by our willow tree (at right). Its leaves are now about an inch long, and the flowers look like they're just about ready to pop out. Soon we'll hear the buzz of busy bees as we walk by it!
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Barn progress...
On the way out, I walked by our willow tree (at right). Its leaves are now about an inch long, and the flowers look like they're just about ready to pop out. Soon we'll hear the buzz of busy bees as we walk by it!
Friday, March 20, 2015
Curiosity is looking closely at some peculiar Martian rocks...
The hardest part of a penis transplant?
The hardest part of a penis transplant? Finding a willing donor. The donor is dead, mind you, just like with most other transplants...
Day of the Grizzly...
With his tractor, of course :) I tied a wooden beam to the motor and impeller assembly (the green bit near the very top). I drove my tractor into the woodshop, then used the forklift on the loader to raise it up, driving forward very slowly at the same time to make the fork traverse an arc. It worked surprisingly well, and not much in the way of muscles were required.
Once I had it standing upright, I attached the final bits: the HEPA filter (the big cylinder on the right), the hoses and muffler (above the HEPA filter), and the short piece of hose attaching the chip and sawdust barrel (cylinder on wheels below the cyclone cone), and then I was done. Next step for the beast is to get power wired for it, find a way to lash it to the wall without making the entire wall vibrate, and then get the ducting up to connect it to the various machines. I've discovered that the lead time for the ducting is several weeks, so that's not going to happen instantly...
Visualizations of pi...
Thursday, March 19, 2015
We still keep getting surprised...
We still keep getting surprised ... at how different ordinary things are up here in Utah, as compared with our decades of experience in San Diego...
Yesterday Debbie had a doctor's appointment in the morning. The doctor she was to see is a physical rehabilitation specialist at the largest local hospital; the appointment was a followup from the emergency room visit she had a couple weeks ago. All very ordinary, the kind of thing we've been through quite a few times in the past.
In those past experiences – mainly in the San Diego area – we'd get to the office 15 or 30 minutes before our appointment, do some fiendish paperwork, then wait for the doctor to actually see us. Generally that would happen quite a bit later than the actual appointment, sometimes hours later. We'd experienced this so many times that we knew to come equipped with things to read, to while away the time.
That's not what happened yesterday morning. Instead, we were handed a very small pile of paperwork, some of which was actually entertaining (we had fun with a section asking about our “social life” and how Debbie's injury affected it). We finished with that in under five minutes, sat down, and about a minute later a nurse came back to take us to the exam room. Wow! Then she figured out that Debbie needed some more X-rays, so Debbie got dressed up in one of those spiffy hospital gowns (with a bonus pair of bloomers), and hauled off for X-rays. I wanted to take photos, but Debbie threatened me with a painful death if I did. So I settled down with my Kindle, figuring (based on past experience) that I had at least 45 minutes or so to wait. Four minutes later, Debbie was back in the exam room with me, X-rays finished. A minute or so after she got dressed, the doctor came in to see her. He'd already reviewed the history and X-rays, and immediately started the exam. The exam was thorough and unhurried, with even some time for small talk – a most unstressful and even pleasant experience. In the end had an uncertain diagnosis, but thought it likely that all she needed was some physical therapy – and we were done.
We walked out of his exam room just under one hour after we walked in the door. In that time we were put into the hospital's record system for the first time, had Debbie's history taken, got X-rays, saw the doctor, and got a prescription for physical therapy, pre-cleared by our insurance company. I don't know what your medical experiences have been like, but compared with our own past experiences, that's simply remarkable.
But the surprises weren't finished. We decided to make the physical therapy appointment (with a different clinic in the same hospital) right away – Debbie was really eager to get started. It's a big hospital, with some construction going on, so we were confused about where to go. We asked at a physical rehab clinic we saw a sign for, and were told where we should go. Then the receptionist asked us if we knew how to get there – and when we said “No!”, she promptly got up and led us on a five minute walk through two floors of the hospital to get us to the right place. A few minutes later, we had her first appointment scheduled – for later that same afternoon.
So yesterday afternoon we drove back up to the hospital and checked into the physical rehab facility. Again we got there early. Again we were handed a small pile of paperwork that we quickly worked through. And again, within a few seconds of finishing the paperwork we were taken back to the exam room. This time the physical therapist did another unhurried and thorough exam, with lots of particular tests to see if he could locate the source of Debbie's knee pain. It took about an hour, but eventually he nailed it down: she has an injured (or perhaps just irritated) illiotibial band. Treatment is some simple physical therapy, and the prognosis is complete recovery within 4 to 6 weeks. We've both been through excellent physical therapy before (though Debbie more than I), but this experience still stood out for the physical therapist's competence, persistence (Debbie's injury was hard to diagnose, and both the doctor and the physical therapist thought it might be a meniscus tear initially), and easy, encouraging manner. Once he figured out what the problem was, we settled on a course of treatment, and left to get it all scheduled.
The fellow who scheduled Debbie's PT appointments was a college student, and he mentioned that he'd spent two years in Lithuania. That caught my attention immediately, as Lithuania is one of the Baltic states, quite close to Estonia, which I know very well. We ended up having a great conversation about our mutual experiences there while we got Debbie all set up for PT.
An hour and a half after we walked in the door, we were walking back out to our truck. To get there, we walked through the physician's parking lot, and something struck me: amongst the 50 or so doctors' cars, there was exactly one car that could qualify as a “luxury” car – an older Mercedes. All the rest were perfectly ordinary cars and pickup trucks – an assortment of Toyotas, Chevys, Fords, etc. There wasn't a single Porsche, BMW, or Maserati on the lot.
Presumably, after we've lived here long enough, these sorts of experiences will stop surprising us. I wonder what it would feel like to go back to California at that point? Not good, I suspect...
Yesterday Debbie had a doctor's appointment in the morning. The doctor she was to see is a physical rehabilitation specialist at the largest local hospital; the appointment was a followup from the emergency room visit she had a couple weeks ago. All very ordinary, the kind of thing we've been through quite a few times in the past.
In those past experiences – mainly in the San Diego area – we'd get to the office 15 or 30 minutes before our appointment, do some fiendish paperwork, then wait for the doctor to actually see us. Generally that would happen quite a bit later than the actual appointment, sometimes hours later. We'd experienced this so many times that we knew to come equipped with things to read, to while away the time.
That's not what happened yesterday morning. Instead, we were handed a very small pile of paperwork, some of which was actually entertaining (we had fun with a section asking about our “social life” and how Debbie's injury affected it). We finished with that in under five minutes, sat down, and about a minute later a nurse came back to take us to the exam room. Wow! Then she figured out that Debbie needed some more X-rays, so Debbie got dressed up in one of those spiffy hospital gowns (with a bonus pair of bloomers), and hauled off for X-rays. I wanted to take photos, but Debbie threatened me with a painful death if I did. So I settled down with my Kindle, figuring (based on past experience) that I had at least 45 minutes or so to wait. Four minutes later, Debbie was back in the exam room with me, X-rays finished. A minute or so after she got dressed, the doctor came in to see her. He'd already reviewed the history and X-rays, and immediately started the exam. The exam was thorough and unhurried, with even some time for small talk – a most unstressful and even pleasant experience. In the end had an uncertain diagnosis, but thought it likely that all she needed was some physical therapy – and we were done.
We walked out of his exam room just under one hour after we walked in the door. In that time we were put into the hospital's record system for the first time, had Debbie's history taken, got X-rays, saw the doctor, and got a prescription for physical therapy, pre-cleared by our insurance company. I don't know what your medical experiences have been like, but compared with our own past experiences, that's simply remarkable.
But the surprises weren't finished. We decided to make the physical therapy appointment (with a different clinic in the same hospital) right away – Debbie was really eager to get started. It's a big hospital, with some construction going on, so we were confused about where to go. We asked at a physical rehab clinic we saw a sign for, and were told where we should go. Then the receptionist asked us if we knew how to get there – and when we said “No!”, she promptly got up and led us on a five minute walk through two floors of the hospital to get us to the right place. A few minutes later, we had her first appointment scheduled – for later that same afternoon.
The fellow who scheduled Debbie's PT appointments was a college student, and he mentioned that he'd spent two years in Lithuania. That caught my attention immediately, as Lithuania is one of the Baltic states, quite close to Estonia, which I know very well. We ended up having a great conversation about our mutual experiences there while we got Debbie all set up for PT.
An hour and a half after we walked in the door, we were walking back out to our truck. To get there, we walked through the physician's parking lot, and something struck me: amongst the 50 or so doctors' cars, there was exactly one car that could qualify as a “luxury” car – an older Mercedes. All the rest were perfectly ordinary cars and pickup trucks – an assortment of Toyotas, Chevys, Fords, etc. There wasn't a single Porsche, BMW, or Maserati on the lot.
Presumably, after we've lived here long enough, these sorts of experiences will stop surprising us. I wonder what it would feel like to go back to California at that point? Not good, I suspect...
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Morning ponder...
Morning ponder... Why do Israeli Jews vote overwhelmingly for the conservative candidate (Netanyahu), while U.S. Jews vote overwhelmingly for the Progressive candidates (Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama...)? Are conservative Jews more likely to emigrate to Israel? Is it the proximity and obviousness of the existential threat that radical Islam poses to Israel? Is it something in the U.S. water supply?
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
It's undeniably spring in Paradise..
It's undeniably spring in Paradise ... and a much earlier spring than even last year. As I write this, our willow's leaves are out, about 3/4" long. The roses along the canal just started popping leaves from their buds today. Several other trees in our yard look like they're ready to pop into leaf as well. Looking back on my blog posts from last year, that's just about the same state we were in on April 12. That means we're almost a month earlier this year, which validates all the locals' astonishment at our mild winter and early spring. Temperatures today were in the high 60s; it was just lovely outside.
I took possession of this house last April 3rd, just under a year ago. Though sometimes it seems like we're making slow progress, when I think back to what this house was like when I moved in and started “camping”, it's obvious we've actually accomplished quite a bit this past year...
I took possession of this house last April 3rd, just under a year ago. Though sometimes it seems like we're making slow progress, when I think back to what this house was like when I moved in and started “camping”, it's obvious we've actually accomplished quite a bit this past year...
By popular demand...
By popular demand... Well, ok, one reader asked – but that's a significant percentage of my readers! Here's a photo of the hardware card I wrote about yesterday, and also a photo of the table saw in its partly-assembled current state...
Monday, March 16, 2015
“Almost immediately, it became clear that we were all going to hate each other.”
“Almost immediately, it became clear that we were all going to hate each other.” The subject is “mom dates”.
Geek: unexpectedly difficult...
Geek: unexpectedly difficult... Every once in a while I've come across a problem that turns out to be far more difficult than it first appears. Most recently this happened to me with the need to produce GUIDs. I accidentally observed a GUID collision (that is, identical GUIDs being generated multiple times) in the system I was working on (which shall remain unnamed). That's the sort of thing that just isn't supposed to happen, so it got my attention. I tracked down the source of the collision by examining the algorithm used. It turns out that collisions were happening when multiple processes with identical GUID generators were being run on the same server – as we were doing in our datacenter, with some servers having over a hundred such processes. Under those conditions, collisions were likely to happen several times a day – very bad indeed. Fixing that was challenging, especially fixing it in a performant way.
This morning I stumbled across a discussion about another such problem: uniformly distributing random floats in [0,1] given a source of random bits. I knew, vaguely, that it wasn't exactly trivial – but it's definitely more challenging than I'd have guessed!
This morning I stumbled across a discussion about another such problem: uniformly distributing random floats in [0,1] given a source of random bits. I knew, vaguely, that it wasn't exactly trivial – but it's definitely more challenging than I'd have guessed!
Geek: fast, easy jump consistent hash...
Geek: fast, easy jump consistent hash... Next time I have a sharding problem, I'd like to try this. But now that I've retired, why on earth would sharding ever raise its head again?
Memory lane, geek edition...
Memory lane, geek edition... I stumbled across this 1999 paper on data structures for representing text sequences in editors. I love the idea of using a simulator to rank the data structure approaches!
All of the data structures it discusses are far older than that paper, and I've implemented many of them. In the late '70s I wrote a Basic interpreter that used a buffer for each line of the program. In the early '80s I wrote a text editor (in Pascal!) that used what the paper's author calls a “piece table” data structure that included a snapshot feature (not discussed in the paper, but an obvious enhancement).
I got the idea for that last by reverse-engineering a '70s program by MicroPro called WordMaster (manual) – a general purpose WYSIWYG text editor I used for programming. I was amazed by its ability to handle large text files, and I wanted to know how it worked. I reverse engineered enough of it to understand that it kept something like a piece table data structure, and that gave me the ideas I needed to write my own with the snapshot capability. The “gap” approach discussed in the paper is new to me, and I'm surprised its performance was as good as it was...
All of the data structures it discusses are far older than that paper, and I've implemented many of them. In the late '70s I wrote a Basic interpreter that used a buffer for each line of the program. In the early '80s I wrote a text editor (in Pascal!) that used what the paper's author calls a “piece table” data structure that included a snapshot feature (not discussed in the paper, but an obvious enhancement).
I got the idea for that last by reverse-engineering a '70s program by MicroPro called WordMaster (manual) – a general purpose WYSIWYG text editor I used for programming. I was amazed by its ability to handle large text files, and I wanted to know how it worked. I reverse engineered enough of it to understand that it kept something like a piece table data structure, and that gave me the ideas I needed to write my own with the snapshot capability. The “gap” approach discussed in the paper is new to me, and I'm surprised its performance was as good as it was...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... An employee of WBTV (Charlotte, North Carolina) said:
I feel the doom crushing down on my shoulders...
“This is a learning lesson for all and we hope this will never occur again.”She's talking about another employee who was caught whistling Dixie. Literally.
I feel the doom crushing down on my shoulders...
The table saw is out of the box...
The table saw is out of the box ... but its assembly is far from finished. The main box weighed about 250 pounds, a bit more than I could muscle around by myself. The box was on a pallet, and I'd plopped it down in the garage section of the barn after unloading it from the delivery truck. However, we conveniently built the door from the garage section to the woodshop section just barely large enough to drive my tractor into the woodshop. So I loaded the box back onto the tractor's fork lift yesterday, and carefully drove it right to it's designated location in the woodshop. It took about 50 “K” turns to get it in the right place, and about 50 more to get the tractor back out of the woodshop – but I did it, and without bashing down any walls or posts in the process :)
Unboxing the table saw was a much more interesting process than I expected. The overall experience reminded me a bit of unboxing an Apple product – one pleasant surprise after another. First I cut the straps and pulled off the lid, revealing a piece of molded foam about 30" x 50" in size. I pulled off the foam, and discovered its bottom side was elaborately molded with bosses (for strength) and cavities to fit various things packed underneath it. The main part of the saw was packed on its side, with its cast iron top swaddled in heavy wax paper to cover the protective grease underneath it, and the entire saw covered in shrink wrap. Other components were boxed or wrapped in bubble wrap, with everything very carefully separated by some kind of shock absorbing material (several kinds were employed).
On the very top, prominently showing, was a single sheet of paper with detailed diagrams and explanation showing exactly how to remove the saw without damaging it. This was particularly nicely done. The first step was to remove the remaining box and other components. One of the things I pulled out was a large, colorfully printed piece of stiff cardboard, covered with plastic that had bubbles in it to hold various bits of hardware needed to put the saw together, along with some special tools (like metric Allen keys). This piece of cardboard was a delight to examine – someone went to a great deal of trouble to make my life easier! The colors are a form of coding to help identify each piece of hardware. Text in each colored section explained what the hardware was. Behind each bubble the cardboard was scored to make it easy to remove the hardware. I've assembled lots of kits like this one, but never one in which the hardware was so easy to locate and identify. Very nice job, SawStop. Very nice indeed.
After I removed everything except the base saw, I had about 150 pounds to muscle around – not so bad, especially since all I had to do was roll it and tilt it up. I followed the (excellent) directions, and in very short order I had stood up the table saw in its new home. It was getting toward the end of my day, so I didn't do much more work on it – just cleaned the grease off the cast iron tabletop, installed the two hand wheels (also cast iron, and beautifully made) and the motor cover. Today I'll tackle the rest of it...
Unboxing the table saw was a much more interesting process than I expected. The overall experience reminded me a bit of unboxing an Apple product – one pleasant surprise after another. First I cut the straps and pulled off the lid, revealing a piece of molded foam about 30" x 50" in size. I pulled off the foam, and discovered its bottom side was elaborately molded with bosses (for strength) and cavities to fit various things packed underneath it. The main part of the saw was packed on its side, with its cast iron top swaddled in heavy wax paper to cover the protective grease underneath it, and the entire saw covered in shrink wrap. Other components were boxed or wrapped in bubble wrap, with everything very carefully separated by some kind of shock absorbing material (several kinds were employed).
On the very top, prominently showing, was a single sheet of paper with detailed diagrams and explanation showing exactly how to remove the saw without damaging it. This was particularly nicely done. The first step was to remove the remaining box and other components. One of the things I pulled out was a large, colorfully printed piece of stiff cardboard, covered with plastic that had bubbles in it to hold various bits of hardware needed to put the saw together, along with some special tools (like metric Allen keys). This piece of cardboard was a delight to examine – someone went to a great deal of trouble to make my life easier! The colors are a form of coding to help identify each piece of hardware. Text in each colored section explained what the hardware was. Behind each bubble the cardboard was scored to make it easy to remove the hardware. I've assembled lots of kits like this one, but never one in which the hardware was so easy to locate and identify. Very nice job, SawStop. Very nice indeed.
After I removed everything except the base saw, I had about 150 pounds to muscle around – not so bad, especially since all I had to do was roll it and tilt it up. I followed the (excellent) directions, and in very short order I had stood up the table saw in its new home. It was getting toward the end of my day, so I didn't do much more work on it – just cleaned the grease off the cast iron tabletop, installed the two hand wheels (also cast iron, and beautifully made) and the motor cover. Today I'll tackle the rest of it...
Sunday, March 15, 2015
State of the dust collector...
State of the dust collector... The left photo below shows the partly assembled dust collector, lying on its side like a crippled minnow. The large cylinder in the left foreground is the HEPA filter for the beast, and the smaller cylinder in the background is the sawdust/chip collector. Both of these will be attached once the beast is raised upright. The right photo shows the variety of small parts that remain to be attached...
Spent the morning picking old caulking...
I picked all that out with a dental pick, then used steel wool and a lot of elbow grease to get the film of translucent silicone off. That was surprisingly difficult! I also used steel wool on the sink itself, followed by a course of Barkeeper's Friend (the best stuff I've ever used for cleaning metal); this cleaned and shined up the sink nicely.
Then I re-caulked with modern, water-clear silicone – and kept the bead completely under the granite. I finished it using a trick I learned from the guys who installed our bathroom granite: I spritzed the bead with half water/half isopropyl alcohol, then just ran my finger down the bead. Perfect finish! The face of the caulk bead is basically vertical. When it's cured (tomorrow), I'll get rid of any films of silicone remaining on the stainless steel – and then the kitchen sink will be completely finished!
Well, it took all day...
One sink-related task remains for today: I'm going to strip out all the old caulking (it's an under-counter sink, caulked to the bottom of the surrounding granite) and put new in. That means a fifth trip, this time to Home Depot to get some decent grout, hopefully in a color that will blend nicely. I'm also going to use steel wool to thoroughly clean the sink itself, as now it's old grungy appearance contrasts badly with the nice new faucet :)
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Hillary's email...
Hillary's email... The latest revelation is that the State Department didn't actually archive the emails that Hillary sent to other State Department employees. Nor did they archive anybody else's.
Everyone I know with any sort of IT background shares my reaction to the news reporting on this issue: it's all complete nonsense, credulously reporting the State Department's assertions that this is a difficult problem only recently addressed. That's the sheerest poppycock and twaddle. Specialized email backup programs have been readily available commercially, and routinely used by private organizations, since at least the late 1980s – almost thirty years ago. I personally selected and acquired such a system for my then-employer in the mid-1990s. These backup systems save every email (no selection is required) and then provide tools for recovery of particular (or all) emails.
For the State Department (or any branch of government) to assert that this is difficult, time-consuming, or expensive is one of two things: an outright lie, or a confirmation of an almost unimaginable level of incompetence.
Occam's Razor says: it's a lie.
But why would the State Department lie about this, making themselves look stupid and ignorant? The most likely reason I can imagine is that if they actually produced copies of their internal emails, it would expose them as the utterly incompetent fools and nefarious knaves the electorate suspects they are...
Everyone I know with any sort of IT background shares my reaction to the news reporting on this issue: it's all complete nonsense, credulously reporting the State Department's assertions that this is a difficult problem only recently addressed. That's the sheerest poppycock and twaddle. Specialized email backup programs have been readily available commercially, and routinely used by private organizations, since at least the late 1980s – almost thirty years ago. I personally selected and acquired such a system for my then-employer in the mid-1990s. These backup systems save every email (no selection is required) and then provide tools for recovery of particular (or all) emails.
For the State Department (or any branch of government) to assert that this is difficult, time-consuming, or expensive is one of two things: an outright lie, or a confirmation of an almost unimaginable level of incompetence.
Occam's Razor says: it's a lie.
But why would the State Department lie about this, making themselves look stupid and ignorant? The most likely reason I can imagine is that if they actually produced copies of their internal emails, it would expose them as the utterly incompetent fools and nefarious knaves the electorate suspects they are...
Dinner out...
The drive home in the late evening light was especially pretty. The mountains around the valley were glowing in the reddish light of near-sunset, while the valley was mainly in shadow. There were quite a few dramatically-lit scenes along the way. Just south of Hyrum, on the east side of Highway 165, there's a small farm that's recently acquired a bunch of baby goats. They were out playing “king of the hill” on a pile of giant wooden telephone wire spools. I could watch baby goats for hours. It's too bad they're only babies for about ten minutes – and then grow up to be extremely uncute goats...
Barn progress...
The two shipments due to arrive yesterday did arrive. We now have two pallets full of foam flooring for Debbie's agility court. My SawStop table saw also arrived, in a collection of sturdy boxes strapped to another pallet. The garage area of our barn is starting to look like a warehouse!
Today is “sink day” – I'm replacing the faucet, garbage disposal, drains, strainer, and under-sink plumbing on our kitchen sink. The immediate provocation was an annoying, persistent, and unrepairable leak in the existing faucet. The secondary provocation was a desire to get a more powerful garbage disposal (1 HP model replacing an aging 1/2 HP model) and to remove an “instant on” hot water heater that we never use. I bought all the parts I thought I needed earlier this week, but as I start the actual work I fully expect to discover 12 more things I need, necessitating at least 8 more trips to Home Depot and/or Lowe's...
Original Moog schematics online...
Friday, March 13, 2015
The hazards of open source programming, part 692...
Barn progress...
Barn progress... So I did finish wiring all the lights in the garage section of the barn yesterday ... and boy howdy is it nice and bright in there now when I flip the switch on! There are 12 “100 watt” LED bulbs in there. The LED bulb manufacturers have taken to specifying the light output of their devices in terms of incandescent bulb equivalents. I guess the American public just isn't sufficiently acquainted with actual units of light brightness (usually lumens). The specified power consumption of these LED bulbs is 17.5 watts each, or 210 watts total. I measured it at 196 watts, or just under one sixth of the power it would have taken to achieve the same brightness with old fashioned incandescent bulbs. Actually, if I couldn't have obtained LED bulbs, I would have used halogen bulbs, and they'd have used about 1,000 watts to get the same brightness. I detest the CFL bulbs and would never have considered using them.
Next up on the wiring front: 30 more LED lamp fixtures for the two other “rooms” on the first floor of the barn. Parts are on order for them.
I had a few hours left yesterday after finishing the wiring, so I started assembling my new Grizzly dust collection system. First step was to unpack the entire unit and inventory the (hundreds of) parts, and that took me nearly an hour. The packaging of all these odd shaped parts was done in a very clever manner to reduce the total volume. Some of the tricks took me a while to reverse-engineer so I could figure out how to get the parts separated. My hat is off to the ingenious packaging engineer who came up with the dozen or so key elements of the packaging. Not only did it reduce the volume tremendously, it also securely protected anything that was even slightly vulnerable. The pallet weighed 494 pounds, and there isn't a ding, scratch, or even a little mark anywhere on anything. Very impressive!
I haven't got very far on the assembly yet, but what I've done so far shows this thing to be a real beast. I'm putting the stand together, and it's made out of very heavy gauge steel, beautifully powder coated. It looks like something you'd see in an industrial setting. Once I get this monster assembled and wired up, then I have to install 8 inch diameter ducting to the major pieces of equipment (most especially the table saw). For smaller tools I can run 6 inch or even 4 inch ducting. It will be interesting to see how all this works out!
Next up on the wiring front: 30 more LED lamp fixtures for the two other “rooms” on the first floor of the barn. Parts are on order for them.
I haven't got very far on the assembly yet, but what I've done so far shows this thing to be a real beast. I'm putting the stand together, and it's made out of very heavy gauge steel, beautifully powder coated. It looks like something you'd see in an industrial setting. Once I get this monster assembled and wired up, then I have to install 8 inch diameter ducting to the major pieces of equipment (most especially the table saw). For smaller tools I can run 6 inch or even 4 inch ducting. It will be interesting to see how all this works out!
Thursday, March 12, 2015
A couple more paintings...
A couple more paintings... These are by friend, reader, and former colleague Larry E...
Shoelaces...
Shoelaces... Friend, reader, and former colleague Simon M. passes along this site he stumbled across that's all about shoelaces. Tagline:
The site was created by Ian Fieggen, the self-styled “Professor Shoelace”. He has written a book (“Laces”, now out of print), and has apps about lacing for iPhones and Droids. He apparently now supports himself through the web site and apps. Oh, and did I mention that he's Australian (as is Simon)?
Ian's Shoelace Site - Bringing you the fun, fashion & science of shoelacesSome of the stuff there looks genuinely useful. Most of it is far more about shoelaces than I ever wanted to know :)
The site was created by Ian Fieggen, the self-styled “Professor Shoelace”. He has written a book (“Laces”, now out of print), and has apps about lacing for iPhones and Droids. He apparently now supports himself through the web site and apps. Oh, and did I mention that he's Australian (as is Simon)?
Big rocket test fired...
Pi is a metaphor for the unexplained...
Pi is a metaphor for the unexplained... An interesting piece on why we're all fascinated by the constant π. One thing is very evident from that article: some of us are way more fascinated than others :)
Consumer Reports is anti-science...
Consumer Reports is anti-science... On GMOs, at least. I cancelled my subscription to Consumer Reports over 25 years ago, when I discovered that they use undisclosed non-objective factors in their rankings (things like “greenness” and political correctness). I've disregarded their ratings ever since...
Glowing vegetables...
Utah House defeats “Tesla” bill...
Utah House defeats “Tesla” bill... HB 394 would have cleared the way for Tesla to sell cars directly to Utah residents, but it was defeated on Tuesday. There were two major drivers for its defeat, one openly discussed, the other not so much.
The in-the-open reason was the fear that sales taxes from new car sales would decline. This is at least a real issue, but it illustrates nicely the inertia of an established tax. Once something is taxed and there's a dependency on the “revenue” from that tax, then it becomes very, very hard to do anything that would disturb that tax.
The not-so-open reason for the bill's defeat is the fact that the auto dealership lobby (which is vehemently opposed to direct sales of new cars) contributes a great deal of money to politician's campaign funds. There's nothing illegal or surprising about this; they're doing the same thing any business would do to protect their own interests. Politicians are perennially searching for campaign funds, so naturally they're going to think twice about pissing off a major contributor.
If we want a Tesla, it looks like we'll have to travel to Nevada or Idaho to buy it, or else arrange for delivery here. I've already informed my state legislators that their vote on this issue will be remembered come election time. Apparently I have no pull :)
The in-the-open reason was the fear that sales taxes from new car sales would decline. This is at least a real issue, but it illustrates nicely the inertia of an established tax. Once something is taxed and there's a dependency on the “revenue” from that tax, then it becomes very, very hard to do anything that would disturb that tax.
The not-so-open reason for the bill's defeat is the fact that the auto dealership lobby (which is vehemently opposed to direct sales of new cars) contributes a great deal of money to politician's campaign funds. There's nothing illegal or surprising about this; they're doing the same thing any business would do to protect their own interests. Politicians are perennially searching for campaign funds, so naturally they're going to think twice about pissing off a major contributor.
If we want a Tesla, it looks like we'll have to travel to Nevada or Idaho to buy it, or else arrange for delivery here. I've already informed my state legislators that their vote on this issue will be remembered come election time. Apparently I have no pull :)
Barn progress...
Barn progress... I installed about half the lights in the garage section of the barn yesterday (6 of 11); I should be able to finish the rest of those today. While I was doing that wiring, a building supply delivery truck showed up, bringing the wallboard and “mud” for my future office on the second floor of the barn. The builder will be here early next week to actually do the work.
The truck had a particularly long boom crane on it, designed to allow the delivery of heavy construction products up to five stories high, or 45' away from the truck horizontally. The photo at right (click to embiggen) shows the crane partially extended to deliver our wallboard. The crane operator used a belt-mounted remote control. This let him stand right where he wanted it to go, and then guide it in very precisely. The two guys on the truck humped all that wallboard up my stairs to the second floor. They were wishing I had bigger windows so that they could have used the crane :)
Later in the day, a Fedex freight truck showed up with a 494 pound pallet full of my new Grizzly dust collection system. Naturally it's a giant kit, with hundreds of parts. I unpacked it all (see photo at left) to make sure nothing was damaged in shipping. That thing is built like the proverbial tank – if any damage occurred, I'm certain it was on whatever the box hit, not on the dust collection system itself! The system is far larger than I was imagining. Assembling is going to pose some interesting challenges for this one-man operation. The motor/impeller assembly weighs about 180 pounds, and it needs to be hoisted to the top of a six or seven foot high device – I'm going to have to get some local muscle to help, or come up with some sort of hoist. One possibility: I can drive my tractor into the workshop, so I may be able to lift the assembly with the loader. Or I could mount a block to the roof, then pull it up with the tractor. What fun!
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
“I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say.”
More guns ≠ more crime...
More guns ≠ more crime... Criminologist Gary Kleck – no stranger to controversy he – has published a new study debunking the trope that more guns cause more crime. It's sure to twist progressive knickers...
Speechless, I am...
Strange nonchaotic attractors in the heavens...
Strange nonchaotic attractors in the heavens... Spotted in the strange pulsations of a distant variable star...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... From Strategy Page:
The accountants always win in the end.Read the details of how ISIS is disintegrating from within. It's encouraging, and gives a good explanation of how air power actually does have a good chance of bringing ISIS down (and accountants figure in this). At the very least it should dramatically weaken them; in the best case it will defeat them...
Powerful photos...
Photos from the window seat of an airplane...
What did I think of Hillary Clinton's email explanations?
What did I think of Hillary Clinton's email explanations? Inquiring readers want to know. Well, the Wall Street Journal editorial board had basically the same reaction I did, which I can sum up with one word: “preposterous!” Their lead:
Do go read the whole piece – it hits all the notes I would...
Hillary Clinton’s admirers say she’ll run for President in part by invoking the glory days of the 1990s. For a taste of that era, we recommend her brief press conference Tuesday explaining why she had used a private email account as Secretary of State. It had everything nostalgia buffs could want—deleted evidence, blustery evasions, and preposterous explanations that only James Carville could pretend to believe.I'm not even sure about Carville :)
Do go read the whole piece – it hits all the notes I would...
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
There were a lot of guys from Samoa and Guam...
Geek: “Dieharder” random number generator test suite...
Geek: “Dieharder” random number generator test suite... I hadn't run into this before. There have been several times when I wished I had access to such a test suite. Digging into this will make a good weekend project for me sometime...
Geek: a searchable catalog of NASA open source software...
Geek: a searchable catalog of NASA open source software... There's quite a bit of interesting stuff in here...
Dasatinib and quercetin...
Dasatinib and quercetin... You may be hearing a lot more about these. Quercetin is available over the counter today (though I have no idea what the quality of it is, and the supplements industry is notoriously fraud-filled).
6.5 million Americans are over 112 years old...
6.5 million Americans are over 112 years old... Not really, of course. But that's what the Social Security Administration's records say. You can probably guess what a wide door that opens for fraud – and, of course, that door is being used by tens of thousands of crooks. At least tens of thousands, and quite possibly, many more.
Who's the idiot that thought it was a good idea for the federal government to manage healthcare? Every time we turn over a bureaucratic rock, we find more festering incompetence, fraud, and waste. I'd have thought the Post Office was all the example anyone needed. The $900 toilet seats purchased by the Pentagon might have been another clue. The “stay in line until you die” lists at the Veteran's Administration might have clued someone in, too. Apparently all of this together is still insufficient to convince the progressives that it's a bad idea to have government managing anything...
Who's the idiot that thought it was a good idea for the federal government to manage healthcare? Every time we turn over a bureaucratic rock, we find more festering incompetence, fraud, and waste. I'd have thought the Post Office was all the example anyone needed. The $900 toilet seats purchased by the Pentagon might have been another clue. The “stay in line until you die” lists at the Veteran's Administration might have clued someone in, too. Apparently all of this together is still insufficient to convince the progressives that it's a bad idea to have government managing anything...
Life in Paradise...
Life in Paradise... For the past three days, every afternoon we've had people showing up at our door with complete evening meals – hot, tasty food ready to eat. Two of these times the people were complete strangers to us. Why is this happening? That's a bit of a story...
It started in our driveway last Thursday afternoon, as Debbie and I walked out to her truck to drive up to Angie's (in Logan) for dinner. We hadn't been there for a couple weeks, and we both felt like some comfort food. Our driveway still had patches of ice, but the afternoon was warm and it was melting. Wet ice, as you may know, is very slippery. Then add to that the fact that Debbie was wearing leather-soled cowboy boots. They might as well have been Teflon-coated. You can probably guess what happened next: her slippery feet slipped on the slimy ice, and down she went.
After an uncomfortable night, we went to see a doctor on Friday morning. The verdict: a “strained” back and knee. A “strain” is less severe than a “sprain”, but more than just “pulled”. I'm not sure how they come up with this terminology, but the doctor made it clear this was nothing to worry about, that she'd recover completely and quickly, and she just needed some rest, to wear a knee brace for a while, and a little pharmacological assistance (muscle relaxant and analgesic). Home we went.
Fast forward to Saturday morning, when our friend and neighbor Tim D. came over to visit. I was out in the barn working on the wiring, and he went in to chat with Debbie. When she came hobbling slowly to the door, wearing the brace, he knew something was up. He got all the details when talking with her.
I've learned enough about living in an LDS (Mormon) community by now that I should have known what was going to happen next, but it got me by surprise anyway. Tim is a former bishop, a devout Mormon, and upon learning about Debbie's injury (however minor!) he sprang into action as though she was now a quadriplegic. A few hours after he left, Alan and Nikki L. (another set of friends and neighbors) showed up to visit with Debbie. They were there both to comfort her and to interrogate her about our dining preferences. Later that afternoon, they showed up with a ready-to-eat meal, which of course we disposed of very quickly. This is despite our protestations that all this was entirely unnecessary, as (a) I can cook, and (b) Debbie wasn't bedridden, just slowed down. They insisted anyway, Alan telling me, basically, to “shut up and embrace it”, because it was going to happen no matter what we said.
Sunday and Monday afternoon, women who were part of the local LDS ward's Relief Society showed up with another installment. Sunday's meal was particularly good: roast beef with potatoes, carrots, a salad, and dessert, all ready to eat.
Yesterday morning, Michelle H. (the wonderful woman who does the heavy cleaning in our house every couple of weeks) came over as planned – but she was all prepared to do a lot more (I think Debbie's condition has been wildly exaggerated in the rumor mill) to help out. She was ready to do the cooking (note the assumption that the male animal of the household can't prepare food!), take care of the animals, etc. We didn't actually need any of that help, but it was comforting to know that if we did need it, it would be readily available.
The local Mormons are enjoying our discomfiture with all this, I think :) But I have to say that we're enjoying the food and the opportunity to meet some members of our community who are new to us.
Monday morning I ran down to the Post Office to pick up our mail. When I walked in the door, the postmaster asked me how Debbie was doing. His assistant wanted to know if we were happy with the meals. They both knew all the details of Debbie's fall, which is typical of any small community, I suspect – but after spending so much time in California, it's sure not something I'm used to. Everyone is connected here, somehow (including, of course, through the LDS church that the majority of our community are members of). Brent, our postmaster, is the brother of the woman who runs the local Relief Society. Linda, his assistant, is actually a neighbor of ours (and a water rights expert currently working on getting our well permit). Both are LDS.
Out in the Post Office lobby, where the P.O. boxes are, another woman greeted me with good wishes for Debbie. I had no idea who this woman was, and it must have showed in my face, so she explained that her husband pointed me out as they drove into the Post Office (the lobby has big windows). He knows me because we'd previously chatted in the Post Office lobby, and he remembered where I lived – and had heard in church that Debbie (whom he'd never met) had fallen. So when his wife ran in to pick up their mail, she was full of concern and good wishes – even though she'd never met (or heard of) either of us before!
We love living here. After forty-plus years in California, land of adjacent strangers, to live in a community that actually is a community is jarring in some ways, but comforting in so many more...
It started in our driveway last Thursday afternoon, as Debbie and I walked out to her truck to drive up to Angie's (in Logan) for dinner. We hadn't been there for a couple weeks, and we both felt like some comfort food. Our driveway still had patches of ice, but the afternoon was warm and it was melting. Wet ice, as you may know, is very slippery. Then add to that the fact that Debbie was wearing leather-soled cowboy boots. They might as well have been Teflon-coated. You can probably guess what happened next: her slippery feet slipped on the slimy ice, and down she went.
After an uncomfortable night, we went to see a doctor on Friday morning. The verdict: a “strained” back and knee. A “strain” is less severe than a “sprain”, but more than just “pulled”. I'm not sure how they come up with this terminology, but the doctor made it clear this was nothing to worry about, that she'd recover completely and quickly, and she just needed some rest, to wear a knee brace for a while, and a little pharmacological assistance (muscle relaxant and analgesic). Home we went.
Fast forward to Saturday morning, when our friend and neighbor Tim D. came over to visit. I was out in the barn working on the wiring, and he went in to chat with Debbie. When she came hobbling slowly to the door, wearing the brace, he knew something was up. He got all the details when talking with her.
I've learned enough about living in an LDS (Mormon) community by now that I should have known what was going to happen next, but it got me by surprise anyway. Tim is a former bishop, a devout Mormon, and upon learning about Debbie's injury (however minor!) he sprang into action as though she was now a quadriplegic. A few hours after he left, Alan and Nikki L. (another set of friends and neighbors) showed up to visit with Debbie. They were there both to comfort her and to interrogate her about our dining preferences. Later that afternoon, they showed up with a ready-to-eat meal, which of course we disposed of very quickly. This is despite our protestations that all this was entirely unnecessary, as (a) I can cook, and (b) Debbie wasn't bedridden, just slowed down. They insisted anyway, Alan telling me, basically, to “shut up and embrace it”, because it was going to happen no matter what we said.
Sunday and Monday afternoon, women who were part of the local LDS ward's Relief Society showed up with another installment. Sunday's meal was particularly good: roast beef with potatoes, carrots, a salad, and dessert, all ready to eat.
Yesterday morning, Michelle H. (the wonderful woman who does the heavy cleaning in our house every couple of weeks) came over as planned – but she was all prepared to do a lot more (I think Debbie's condition has been wildly exaggerated in the rumor mill) to help out. She was ready to do the cooking (note the assumption that the male animal of the household can't prepare food!), take care of the animals, etc. We didn't actually need any of that help, but it was comforting to know that if we did need it, it would be readily available.
The local Mormons are enjoying our discomfiture with all this, I think :) But I have to say that we're enjoying the food and the opportunity to meet some members of our community who are new to us.
Monday morning I ran down to the Post Office to pick up our mail. When I walked in the door, the postmaster asked me how Debbie was doing. His assistant wanted to know if we were happy with the meals. They both knew all the details of Debbie's fall, which is typical of any small community, I suspect – but after spending so much time in California, it's sure not something I'm used to. Everyone is connected here, somehow (including, of course, through the LDS church that the majority of our community are members of). Brent, our postmaster, is the brother of the woman who runs the local Relief Society. Linda, his assistant, is actually a neighbor of ours (and a water rights expert currently working on getting our well permit). Both are LDS.
Out in the Post Office lobby, where the P.O. boxes are, another woman greeted me with good wishes for Debbie. I had no idea who this woman was, and it must have showed in my face, so she explained that her husband pointed me out as they drove into the Post Office (the lobby has big windows). He knows me because we'd previously chatted in the Post Office lobby, and he remembered where I lived – and had heard in church that Debbie (whom he'd never met) had fallen. So when his wife ran in to pick up their mail, she was full of concern and good wishes – even though she'd never met (or heard of) either of us before!
We love living here. After forty-plus years in California, land of adjacent strangers, to live in a community that actually is a community is jarring in some ways, but comforting in so many more...
Monday, March 9, 2015
Taking notes...
Taking notes... I noticed many years ago that if I took notes, pen on paper style, at a lecture or meeting, I'd remember the important things much better. This was true even if I threw the notes away and never looked at them again. In my corporate life I then developed a habit of taking extensive notes at meetings and often even during one-on-one conversations. When I was managing teams of engineers, this was extremely useful, as it allowed me to remember many different things in a complex and ever-shifting environment.
Now there's research that backs up my observation about the value of taking notes...
Now there's research that backs up my observation about the value of taking notes...
Replace alcohol?
Replace alcohol? Ryan Cooper wants the government to fund research for a replacement for alcohol – because it's such a terrible recreational drug (highly addictive and physiologically damaging with heaving long-term use). He makes the point that alcohol is worse in many ways than the currently illegal recreational drugs, including even heroin.
I'm not sure we need new research here. Seems to me we just need to make the already existing, much safer drugs (like marijuana) legal. Consumers can then freely choose to abstain, to use the safer drugs, or continue to use alcohol...
I'm not sure we need new research here. Seems to me we just need to make the already existing, much safer drugs (like marijuana) legal. Consumers can then freely choose to abstain, to use the safer drugs, or continue to use alcohol...
Follow the money...
Follow the money... Oh, my:
"Follow the money." That apocryphal phrase, attributed to Watergate whistle-blower "Deep Throat," explains why the biggest threat to Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential dreams is not her emails. It's her family foundation. That's where the money is: corporate money, foreign money, gobs of money sloshing around a vanity charity that could be renamed "Clinton Conflicts of Interest Foundation."If these allegations prove to have any truth to them at all, that really might doom Hillary's quest for the monarchy presidency...
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Human-generated random data...
Human-generated random data... This is, so far as I can tell, a completely useless (and almost certainly not random!) idea. Also, it appears to be broken. But their “About” page is one of the best I've seen in a long time :)
The Apple way...
The Apple way... The Apple Watch had a challenge. Unlike any of Apple's previous products, a watch is perceived by many to be a fashion accessory or even a piece of jewelry. That means that some customers will want the rich look of gold – preferably, a nice 18K gold as is traditional for watchmakers going back hundreds of years. Probably any other manufacturer would simply have said “OK, make a gold model.” Apple noted, however, that traditional 18K gold has two problems. First, it's expensive, especially when gold is going for $1,200+ an ounce. Second, it's relatively soft – though 18K gold is much harder than 24K gold, it's still soft enough that it's easily scratched.
So Apple developed a new kind of 18K gold (see this explanation) that uses less gold and is more durable. Very clever, that. Also a great example of what can happen at the conjunction of visionary product development, scale, (almost) unlimited funding, and total vertical integration...
So Apple developed a new kind of 18K gold (see this explanation) that uses less gold and is more durable. Very clever, that. Also a great example of what can happen at the conjunction of visionary product development, scale, (almost) unlimited funding, and total vertical integration...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... This one is from a New York Times article (I read them so that you don't have to :) about the things the must be done to make online education attractive as an alternative to traditional (and very expensive) universities. The article focuses on credentialing, specifically on alternatives to the traditional college degree that's embodied in a diploma. As my long-time readers (all four of you) will know, I'm not happy with the existing diploma system, as the possession of a diploma from an American university really tells you very little about what that person actually knows, or can do. So this quote really caught my eye:
Meanwhile, the best credentials I know of currently are open source project contributions...
The standard diploma has roughly the same amount of information that prisoners of war are required to divulge under the Geneva Conventions.Ha! Yes, that's absolutely true. The fact that a candidate programmer has a degree from (say) Carnegie-Mellon University tells a prospective employer almost nothing at all about that candidate's suitability for the job. Some of the alternative credentialing ideas mentioned in the article (Mozilla's Open Badges, in particular) are attempting to address that problem. Traditional universities have a conflict with these alternative credentialing ideas, though – to the extent that they succeed, they will (a) provide less expensive alternatives to the university, and (b) expose the mediocrity of the education those expensive universities are delivering.
Meanwhile, the best credentials I know of currently are open source project contributions...
European tree of the year...
I've traveled extensively in Estonia in the period from just after their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 through 2004. The map that guided my explorations had numerous interesting botanical specimens marked on it, and after seeing the beauty of a few of them I started making it a point to visit them. This tree in Orissaare was one of those marked on that map, and I visited it twice – once in about 1995, then again in 2002, on one of my last visits to Estonia.
The first time I visited this tree was before the economic boom in Saaremaa, and the town's infrastructure was still in pretty bad shape. I bought my lunch in a small grocery store, and sat beneath the tree to have myself a little picnic. A couple of people walked by, but nobody stopped to talk. The second time I visited, Orissaare (and the rest of the island) was far more prosperous, with lots of fresh paint, repaired structures, and even a bit of pavement here and there. On that visit, I couldn't have my picnic under the tree, as there were all sorts of people playing several different games (though not football!) right around the tree. I sat on the edge of the field to eat my picnic lunch, which that time came from a small, new restaurant serving allegedly local cuisine. I'm not entirely sure what it was, but it had fish, potatoes, and a lot of dill in it – and was quite tasty!
It was fun to see a tree I know in the news :)
Saturday, March 7, 2015
All the sub-panelz are mine!
After I finished with this, I spent a couple hours getting started on the lights in the garage section. It will probably take me a couple days just to get the basic wiring in place, then another day to actually install the ten lights I'm putting up in there...
Never in a million years...
Uranium emissions, visualized in a cloud chamber...
Geek: integer overflow/underflow in C/C++...
Geek: integer overflow/underflow in C/C++... My first reaction on reading this paper was this: geez, guys, it's 2015. This problem has been around since about 1945. Is this really still a mystery and a source of problems? I've run into this issue (and other numerical representation issues) over my entire career, and I've no sense that things have actually gotten better over time.
With respect to integer overflow/underflow, the fundamental issue is very easy to understand: computers generally represent integers in a way that limits the range of integers that can be represented. For example, in today's computers a single byte can represent all the integers between 0 and 255. If you try to add, say, 200 + 100, the result (300) cannot be represented in a single byte – that's an example of integer overflow.
We humans don't generally run into integer overflow or underflow, as we don't have any particular limits on the size of integers we can represent. Computers, on the other hand, do have this limitation – and therefore computer programmers have to deal with it. This is where the problems start, as there are many possible ways one could deal with it – including ignoring the possibility altogether, which is in practice what most programmers actually do. This is the source of much trouble.
The problem is complicated by at least two things in modern computers: the fact that multiple sizes of integers are available (generally, but not always, some even number of bytes), and the fact that both signed and unsigned integers can be represented. For instance, a single byte unsigned can represent integers in the range 0..255, whereas a single signed byte can represent integers in the range -128..127. Older computers (and a few still in production) through a different variable into the mix: they represented integers by schemes other than the now-ubiquitous two's complement encoding. I've worked extensively with computers that used one's complement integer encoding and signed binary coded decimal (where the sign is held in a special bit), and to a lesser extent with zoned decimal encodings. Each of these has their own special variations of the overflow/underflow problem, though of course being fixed size encodings they all have the problem.
Anyway, it just seems kind of silly that at this stage of software development we still don't have a standard way of handling integer overflow/underflow, and we still haven't managed to educate programmers about the problems they cause. Actually, it's worse than that – even within the past few years I've run into programmers in very responsible positions, sometimes with years of experience, who don't actually understand the source of overflow and underflow, and who believe the problem can be safely ignored most of the time. They're wrong and they don't even know it...
With respect to integer overflow/underflow, the fundamental issue is very easy to understand: computers generally represent integers in a way that limits the range of integers that can be represented. For example, in today's computers a single byte can represent all the integers between 0 and 255. If you try to add, say, 200 + 100, the result (300) cannot be represented in a single byte – that's an example of integer overflow.
We humans don't generally run into integer overflow or underflow, as we don't have any particular limits on the size of integers we can represent. Computers, on the other hand, do have this limitation – and therefore computer programmers have to deal with it. This is where the problems start, as there are many possible ways one could deal with it – including ignoring the possibility altogether, which is in practice what most programmers actually do. This is the source of much trouble.
The problem is complicated by at least two things in modern computers: the fact that multiple sizes of integers are available (generally, but not always, some even number of bytes), and the fact that both signed and unsigned integers can be represented. For instance, a single byte unsigned can represent integers in the range 0..255, whereas a single signed byte can represent integers in the range -128..127. Older computers (and a few still in production) through a different variable into the mix: they represented integers by schemes other than the now-ubiquitous two's complement encoding. I've worked extensively with computers that used one's complement integer encoding and signed binary coded decimal (where the sign is held in a special bit), and to a lesser extent with zoned decimal encodings. Each of these has their own special variations of the overflow/underflow problem, though of course being fixed size encodings they all have the problem.
Anyway, it just seems kind of silly that at this stage of software development we still don't have a standard way of handling integer overflow/underflow, and we still haven't managed to educate programmers about the problems they cause. Actually, it's worse than that – even within the past few years I've run into programmers in very responsible positions, sometimes with years of experience, who don't actually understand the source of overflow and underflow, and who believe the problem can be safely ignored most of the time. They're wrong and they don't even know it...
Oopsie...
Email outage...
Email outage... Yesterday our family email (which is hosted by GMail) was down for close to 24 hours. The symptoms were that we stopped receiving any new mail, and the URL we normally used to access our mail stopped working (though the default GMail URL still worked). If you're the geekly sort, you probably immediately said “DNS problem!”, and in fact that's what it was. Once that got resolved, our missed emails started trickling in, much to the general relief of my family members.
Two observations from this experience:
First, how dependent on email (and the Internet, more generally) we've become! Our email has become one of the rhythms in our lives – we expect certain emails to arrive at certain times of the day, and when they don't arrive, it feels like a major disconnection – a bit like the power going out, or the road to your house being shut down. Some of my family members, when reporting the outage, had a distinct tinge of, well, panic in their voices. In actual fact, it's nothing so vital (though for my sister, who uses email in her business, a bit more so). Nevertheless, when it's cut off, we don't like it. Not. One. Little. Bit.
Second, how amazingly reliable email has become. My family has been using this (free!) GMail service for about ten years now. In all that time, we've only had a couple of short outages. We access our email from the web on multiple browsers, from email “fat clients” (like Mozilla's Thunderbird), from iPads, and from smart phones. Wherever we are, whenever we want it, however we want to access it – it just works. This reliability is in marked contrast to the self-hosted Microsoft Exchange email server that I maintained for roughly ten years prior to that. That beast would go down about once a week, and sometimes it took hours of troubleshooting (by me!) to get it back up again. I lived in fear of updates to that server, because about one in four of them would knock it offline. Contrast that with our GMail experience: I spend zero time managing the service, and it just always works. Well, almost always. Google deserves a great deal of credit for building such a reliable system. Such things do not happen by accident!
Two observations from this experience:
First, how dependent on email (and the Internet, more generally) we've become! Our email has become one of the rhythms in our lives – we expect certain emails to arrive at certain times of the day, and when they don't arrive, it feels like a major disconnection – a bit like the power going out, or the road to your house being shut down. Some of my family members, when reporting the outage, had a distinct tinge of, well, panic in their voices. In actual fact, it's nothing so vital (though for my sister, who uses email in her business, a bit more so). Nevertheless, when it's cut off, we don't like it. Not. One. Little. Bit.
Second, how amazingly reliable email has become. My family has been using this (free!) GMail service for about ten years now. In all that time, we've only had a couple of short outages. We access our email from the web on multiple browsers, from email “fat clients” (like Mozilla's Thunderbird), from iPads, and from smart phones. Wherever we are, whenever we want it, however we want to access it – it just works. This reliability is in marked contrast to the self-hosted Microsoft Exchange email server that I maintained for roughly ten years prior to that. That beast would go down about once a week, and sometimes it took hours of troubleshooting (by me!) to get it back up again. I lived in fear of updates to that server, because about one in four of them would knock it offline. Contrast that with our GMail experience: I spend zero time managing the service, and it just always works. Well, almost always. Google deserves a great deal of credit for building such a reliable system. Such things do not happen by accident!
Barn progress...
Barn progress... I've been working away at the electrical wiring in our barn. Yesterday I mounted a sub-panel in the workshop and started to wire it into the main breaker panel. There's a 65' run between them, with three 90° bends required. The sub-panel has a 50 amp capacity, so I'm using 6 gauge wire: two “hot” wires, one neutral, and one safety ground. I'm using separate wires (rather than romex) to make it easier to pull it through the 3/4" conduit. I'll have that finished with a another couple hours of work.
Meanwhile, I've mounted an LED ceiling fixture in the bathroom, with a wall switch, and I've ordered lights for the garage section (10 lights) and the workshop (15 lights). I figure each light is about 30 to 45 minutes of work, so I've got a few days of work just to get the lights up. Both of these areas present some light-mounting challenges, as there are obstacles on the ceiling. In the garage area I can't mount any lights where the garage door traverses, and in the workshop area I have the large “hatch” in the ceiling (to hoist heavy items up into storage). I haven't yet decided how to deal with the latter issue.
Yesterday I ordered the first pieces of equipment for my woodworking shop. This feels like a milestone of sorts, as that woodworking shop was one of the big motivations for building the barn in the first place. The first two pieces of gear: a dust-collection system (a 3HP Grizzly model that gets good reviews) and a table saw. On the table saw I splurged a bit to get a SawStop model with their safety technology. I've watched their hot dog demonstrations several times in person (see the link for a video), and each time I was astonished at just how well it worked – it stops the blade so quickly that there's barely a nick in the hot dog they feed directly into the spinning blade. The blade and the brake are destroyed in the process, but for around $100 they can be replaced, and you're back in business. That seems like a very small price to save one's finger, no?
I'm a careful guy around power tools; I have a lot of respect for the damage they can do to the user. Table saws have always worried me, though I've never hurt myself when using one. With that completely exposed blade that you're pushing work into, it would be so easy to make a tiny mistake that cost you a finger. One little slip, and it's “bye bye” to a finger or two. On most other power tools, you're not feeding work into the blade, so the danger is substantially lower. Consider, for instance, operating a drill press: you have the work clamped or held on the work table, and you turn a control to lower the drill into the work – this is inherently a much safer task than pushing a piece of wood straight into a spinning disk rimmed with sharp carbide teeth. Also the table saw is one of the central tools for any fine woodworking – one would probably spend more time with it than with any other dangerous power tool. Add all that up, and it starts to make sense to spend a bit more to help preserve my digits.
Both the saw and the dust collection system require 220V single-phase electrical connections. More wiring :) With any luck at all, they will arrive within two weeks, and probably a week or so after that I'll have them up and running. Once I have an operable table saw, I can start actually building some things of wood. Woo hoo!
Meanwhile, I've mounted an LED ceiling fixture in the bathroom, with a wall switch, and I've ordered lights for the garage section (10 lights) and the workshop (15 lights). I figure each light is about 30 to 45 minutes of work, so I've got a few days of work just to get the lights up. Both of these areas present some light-mounting challenges, as there are obstacles on the ceiling. In the garage area I can't mount any lights where the garage door traverses, and in the workshop area I have the large “hatch” in the ceiling (to hoist heavy items up into storage). I haven't yet decided how to deal with the latter issue.
Yesterday I ordered the first pieces of equipment for my woodworking shop. This feels like a milestone of sorts, as that woodworking shop was one of the big motivations for building the barn in the first place. The first two pieces of gear: a dust-collection system (a 3HP Grizzly model that gets good reviews) and a table saw. On the table saw I splurged a bit to get a SawStop model with their safety technology. I've watched their hot dog demonstrations several times in person (see the link for a video), and each time I was astonished at just how well it worked – it stops the blade so quickly that there's barely a nick in the hot dog they feed directly into the spinning blade. The blade and the brake are destroyed in the process, but for around $100 they can be replaced, and you're back in business. That seems like a very small price to save one's finger, no?
I'm a careful guy around power tools; I have a lot of respect for the damage they can do to the user. Table saws have always worried me, though I've never hurt myself when using one. With that completely exposed blade that you're pushing work into, it would be so easy to make a tiny mistake that cost you a finger. One little slip, and it's “bye bye” to a finger or two. On most other power tools, you're not feeding work into the blade, so the danger is substantially lower. Consider, for instance, operating a drill press: you have the work clamped or held on the work table, and you turn a control to lower the drill into the work – this is inherently a much safer task than pushing a piece of wood straight into a spinning disk rimmed with sharp carbide teeth. Also the table saw is one of the central tools for any fine woodworking – one would probably spend more time with it than with any other dangerous power tool. Add all that up, and it starts to make sense to spend a bit more to help preserve my digits.
Both the saw and the dust collection system require 220V single-phase electrical connections. More wiring :) With any luck at all, they will arrive within two weeks, and probably a week or so after that I'll have them up and running. Once I have an operable table saw, I can start actually building some things of wood. Woo hoo!
Friday, March 6, 2015
Quadruple vision...
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Folding fractions...
Horses in the moonlight...
Horses in the moonlight... This morning when I got up at 3 am to take Mo'i for a walk, I didn't turn the outside lights on – there was no need. The moon was nearly full, and quite high, the sky was crystal clear, and there's snow covering most of the ground. The result was fairly bright lighting outside, more than enough to see the color of our flags, our orange trailer and FJ, etc. Walking was no problem at all. The temperature outside was around 20°F, cold enough to make the snow crunchy.
As Mo'i and I walked around the yard, I noticed a dim light across the street from me, along the dirt road that borders the property belonging to my neighbor to the east (Gary and Elaine S.). Thinking that it might be someone broken down in a car, I walked over there with Mo'i. It was a beautiful walk in the moonlight, just a few hundred yards but full of sensory delights. In addition to the cool white moonlight there was the crunch of my boots on the ice and snow, the occasional sound of ice falling off a tree, the snuffling of my neighbor's two horses, and the aroma of their pasture.
When we got to the light, I discovered it was a small round sign that said “Vivint”. I'd never heard of Vivint before, but with a little googling I discovered it was a home security company. Apparently there's an alarm system in the adjacent horse barn. I'd never noticed the lit sign before; perhaps it was recently installed, or perhaps I just never noticed it in the glare of the outside lights I usually have on when I walk the dogs at night.
As I checked out the light, my neighbor's two horses came trotting over to greet us; black shapes in the moonlight, accompanied by horsey sounds and smells. One of them is entirely black, the other also black except for a small white blaze on its forehead. They looked a little spooky in the moonlight; a bit like the black horses ridden by the Nazgûl of the Lord of the Rings. Both of the horses remembered me from previous encounters, but both were leery of Mo'i at first. Within a minute or so, though, both of them were rubbing noses with a delighted Mo'i, who's always been interested in large animals. I think the horses were very happy to have some company on a cold morning; they complained a little bit when we left...
As Mo'i and I walked around the yard, I noticed a dim light across the street from me, along the dirt road that borders the property belonging to my neighbor to the east (Gary and Elaine S.). Thinking that it might be someone broken down in a car, I walked over there with Mo'i. It was a beautiful walk in the moonlight, just a few hundred yards but full of sensory delights. In addition to the cool white moonlight there was the crunch of my boots on the ice and snow, the occasional sound of ice falling off a tree, the snuffling of my neighbor's two horses, and the aroma of their pasture.
When we got to the light, I discovered it was a small round sign that said “Vivint”. I'd never heard of Vivint before, but with a little googling I discovered it was a home security company. Apparently there's an alarm system in the adjacent horse barn. I'd never noticed the lit sign before; perhaps it was recently installed, or perhaps I just never noticed it in the glare of the outside lights I usually have on when I walk the dogs at night.
As I checked out the light, my neighbor's two horses came trotting over to greet us; black shapes in the moonlight, accompanied by horsey sounds and smells. One of them is entirely black, the other also black except for a small white blaze on its forehead. They looked a little spooky in the moonlight; a bit like the black horses ridden by the Nazgûl of the Lord of the Rings. Both of the horses remembered me from previous encounters, but both were leery of Mo'i at first. Within a minute or so, though, both of them were rubbing noses with a delighted Mo'i, who's always been interested in large animals. I think the horses were very happy to have some company on a cold morning; they complained a little bit when we left...
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
The Musashi is found!
Geek: the evolution of character codes...
Geek: the evolution of character codes... For an aging geek like me, this paper was a trip down memory lane. In the '70s, while writing software for Univac computers that were part of the U.S. Navy's NTDS system, I often wrote programs to convert textual data from one character encoding to another. This was a common problem, as there was no “one standard to rule them all” as there is today with Unicode. Instead we used a combination of different character encodings, and if we wanted one system or program to communicate with another, we had to write a conversion program to do it.
The character encodings that I worked with included several widely used ones: Baudot, FIELDATA, ASCII, and EBCDIC, all discussed in the linked paper. We also used some special-purpose, typically application-specific encodings that were basically primitive compression schemes – these were especially common in what we'd call log data today. For instance, one system I worked on kept a log (on magnetic tape!) of all the targets we had identified and tracked. Space on that tape was at a premium, so many simple tricks were used to conserve characters. One that I recall: in an ASCII character stream (5 bits per character), we had a special “numbers-only” mode that was initiated by a control character. Once in that mode, codes from 0x00 to 0x63 represented decimal digit pairs (00 to 99), and 0x64 dropped us out of that mode. This was useful because a high percentage of a log was comprised of numbers – so why “waste” an entire ASCII character for just one digit? If you had a number with 8 or more sequential digits (and we had many of these), this character encoding would save bits.
What a different world with Unicode today!
The character encodings that I worked with included several widely used ones: Baudot, FIELDATA, ASCII, and EBCDIC, all discussed in the linked paper. We also used some special-purpose, typically application-specific encodings that were basically primitive compression schemes – these were especially common in what we'd call log data today. For instance, one system I worked on kept a log (on magnetic tape!) of all the targets we had identified and tracked. Space on that tape was at a premium, so many simple tricks were used to conserve characters. One that I recall: in an ASCII character stream (5 bits per character), we had a special “numbers-only” mode that was initiated by a control character. Once in that mode, codes from 0x00 to 0x63 represented decimal digit pairs (00 to 99), and 0x64 dropped us out of that mode. This was useful because a high percentage of a log was comprised of numbers – so why “waste” an entire ASCII character for just one digit? If you had a number with 8 or more sequential digits (and we had many of these), this character encoding would save bits.
What a different world with Unicode today!
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... From Josh Bloom, writing at Science 2.0:
There are many reasons to end the war on drugs, and this is but one of them...
The "war on drugs" has been a dismal failure by any measure. Turning cancer patients and others with severe pain into collateral damage in this un-winnable war is inhuman.I have only suffered from serious pain a couple of times in my life. On both those occasions, luckily for me, I was easily able to obtain powerful opioid painkillers. That may not be true, should I need them again – and I, for one, am not looking forward to suffering because of that.
There are many reasons to end the war on drugs, and this is but one of them...
Glasses to treat color blindness...
Glasses to treat color blindness... For real! But only certain kinds of color blindness, albeit the most common ones. These glasses work by blocking particular light frequencies – those sensed by both red and green “cones” (the color-sensitive photo-sensing cells on your retina). By blocking the common sensitivity, the glasses improve the eye's ability to discriminate between colors. My favorite part: the effectiveness of these glasses was discovered entirely by accident!
I sure hope they've gotten better...
The ability of our gun crews to miss their target was the stuff of USS Long Beach legend. We heard stories of ships that would refuse to tow targets for us to shoot at, from the (entirely justified) fear that our guns would hit them instead of the target – no matter how long the towline was. I remember watching target practice against an island target and seeing shells landing hundreds of yards from their aim point. From all I could tell, the bad reputation our guns had was well-earned.
I was an enlisted guy, and my living quarters (a “berthing compartment”) was shared with 40 or 50 other technically-oriented enlisted guys (ETs and DSs, for the most part). Our berthing compartment was right next to the Marines' berthing compartment, and there was a seldom used hatch (door) between the two. One day after target practice we heard a commotion from the Marines' side. A couple of us went over to see what the fuss was, and it turned out that a bunch of Marines were delivering some physical justice to the gun crew – for having dishonored the Marine Corps with their bad shooting.
One hopes things aren't quite so bad these days...
Weirder and weirder...
Weirder and weirder... The latest episode in the Hillary-didn't-use-government-email saga is an odd twist indeed: the email address she used for official business (hdr22-at-clintonemail.com) was hosted on a private email server. These days it's pretty darned odd for an individual to go to all the trouble of acquiring, installing, configuring, and maintaining a private email servers. Even businesses are moving toward hosted email (services like Google's GMail) to save money and the need for expertise. Often the motive is the realization that email security is hard, and getting harder every day.
So why would Clinton have her own email server? I don't know the answer to that, of course – but it's darned hard to think of a benign reason for her to do so. If she was some kind of a geek, I could pass it off as a hobbyist sort of thing – but she's famously not a geek. The only other motivations I can come up with revolve around a desire for secrecy – which in the case of a government official would be (a) inappropriate, and (b) illegal.
The Clinton machine's response to all this? It boils down to “Shut up! You’re talking to the next President of the United States, you insignificant worm!” How's that for a pleasant thought to start your morning with?
So why would Clinton have her own email server? I don't know the answer to that, of course – but it's darned hard to think of a benign reason for her to do so. If she was some kind of a geek, I could pass it off as a hobbyist sort of thing – but she's famously not a geek. The only other motivations I can come up with revolve around a desire for secrecy – which in the case of a government official would be (a) inappropriate, and (b) illegal.
The Clinton machine's response to all this? It boils down to “Shut up! You’re talking to the next President of the United States, you insignificant worm!” How's that for a pleasant thought to start your morning with?
The cure for cyber-bullying...
The cure for cyber-bullying... A father unmasks some men who made disgusting online comments about his daughter – and suddenly there was an attitude change. There's an entrepreneurial opportunity here for a nerdy version of the old-fashioned hard-boiled detective...
A pill that provides the benefits of exercise?
A pill that provides the benefits of exercise? Maybe. I'll take that as a substitute for the flying car I thought I'd have by now...
First I read a transcript of Netanyahu's speech...
First I read a transcript of Netanyahu's speech ... (here) and I felt a flicker of hope for the free world. I felt the presence of an adult in the room. I heard the pride of a patriot defending the country he loves.
And then I read the comments to this piece on the Huffington Post, and all is black and despair again...
And then I read the comments to this piece on the Huffington Post, and all is black and despair again...
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