Thursday, August 14, 2014
On-demand paper jamming...
On-demand paper jamming... This cracked me up, and brought back memories of some particularly funny bugs I've run into myself.
My favorite one of these was a stepping motor driver I wrote. I was annoyed by the noise that the head-positioning stepper in floppy drives made. The noise was caused by the constant step-rate employed by the simple software drivers generally used. I wrote one that accelerated and decelerated the stepper instead, and was virtually silent. However, I had a strange “bug” in my driver. When I first got it running, it would be quiet in the morning when I got to work – but by the afternoon, it was noisy again. Not as bad as without my driver, but much noisier than in the morning. How could my software behave differently in the afternoon than in the morning?
Eventually I figured out what was going on. Our office was ten degrees or so warmer in the afternoons, and the components of the stepper drive expanded a bit. This increased the rotational inertia in the system, which in turn reduced the acceleration the stepper could apply. To make it work right, I had to adjust the speed of my driver non-linearly as the ambient temperature (which, fortunately, the floppy drive measured) varied...
My favorite one of these was a stepping motor driver I wrote. I was annoyed by the noise that the head-positioning stepper in floppy drives made. The noise was caused by the constant step-rate employed by the simple software drivers generally used. I wrote one that accelerated and decelerated the stepper instead, and was virtually silent. However, I had a strange “bug” in my driver. When I first got it running, it would be quiet in the morning when I got to work – but by the afternoon, it was noisy again. Not as bad as without my driver, but much noisier than in the morning. How could my software behave differently in the afternoon than in the morning?
Eventually I figured out what was going on. Our office was ten degrees or so warmer in the afternoons, and the components of the stepper drive expanded a bit. This increased the rotational inertia in the system, which in turn reduced the acceleration the stepper could apply. To make it work right, I had to adjust the speed of my driver non-linearly as the ambient temperature (which, fortunately, the floppy drive measured) varied...
Humans need not apply...
The underlying premise of this little film is that jobs are being threatened, and that's bad. I agree with the first part, but I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. The centrality of jobs in our culture is an artifact of our culture, not necessarily a biological (or psychological) imperative.
Readers of science fiction will already be familiar with the many ideas about what happens to people who don't possess skills that robots can't do. After reading many of these myself, I find the most plausible scenarios involve hordes of entertainment-seeking people with lesser skills, coddled and pampered by smaller hordes of robots. Some people will find creative outlets, but many will pursue full time the same part-time leisure activities people pursue today, with TV at the head of the list.
I suspect that Mann is starting to understand something...
I suspect that Mann is starting to understand something... When Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann decided to sue Mark Steyn, Mann was spitting on Superman's cape. Not only is Steyn defending himself in a spectacularly aggressive way (unlike some others we won't mention) – but Steyn has also counter-sued, and looks to be bringing a world of hurt down on Mann's head.
Good. Couldn't happen to a more deserving warmist!
Good. Couldn't happen to a more deserving warmist!
Just shut it down!
Just shut it down! NASA has far outlived its usefulness. It's now turned into a pork machine, doling out multi-billion dollar useless projects to the home districts of powerful Congressmen. The few useful things that it continues to fund (mainly the robotic explorers) would be better handled with competitive contracts. Companies like SpaceX are already providing cheaper, better launch services.
Unionization is the last straw. It's a bureaucratic weed. Time for some bureaucratic Round-Up.
Unionization is the last straw. It's a bureaucratic weed. Time for some bureaucratic Round-Up.
Tide pool...
Maggie...
Maggie... Yesterday morning, as I was working out in my yard, I got quite a surprise: a beautiful Springer spaniel with unusual coloring showed up right in front of me. She was a mixture of brown and black spots on a white background all over her face, and larger patches on the rest of her. This dog – Maggie on her tag – came running straight through the thicket of roses that line the irrigation canal on the east side of our property. She was thoroughly wet, apparently having just walked through the canal. Lots of people in the area let their dogs and cats run loose, so I assumed this was one of my neighbors' dogs, though I hadn't seen her before.
I called to her, and she came right to me, very friendly. Being dog-deprived up here (our dogs are still all in Jamul), I took the opportunity to enjoy some canine company. We played together for a while, then I went back to work. That's when I started to suspect something might be wrong, as my new friend just wouldn't leave my side. She followed me all over the yard as I went about my work cutting down some pine seedlings that had gotten out of control in bad locations. Something about her behavior made me think that she might be lost. So I called her over to me again, and this time I looked at her tags. That's when I found out her name was Maggie – and that her home address was a mile and a half away, east of the town of Paradise. I took a closer look at her, and noticed that her pads were not very calloused – she wasn't accustomed to running around long distances – and her coat was mostly combed out and recently trimmed. This wasn't a dog used to field and stream; she was a pampered pooch.
So I walked over to my truck, Maggie trailing closely behind. I opened the passenger door, and Maggie jumped right in, looking happy and excited. I got into the driver's side, and Maggie crawled over the console onto the seat beside me (rather a tight squeeze!), and wouldn't leave. We drove off, crunched together, on a search for her house.
It took a while to find it, as the street she lived on isn't continuous. After a bit of exploration, though, I figured out how to get onto the right piece of her street, and finally located her house: a big, beautiful home on a hilltop, in a large lot (20 acres or so), with a commanding view of all of southern Cache Valley. The yard was beautifully landscaped in a style I associate with Arizona, with mostly plants that have low water needs. I rang the doorbell, and the lady of the house (Jill) came out with a baby on her hip. She gave me a funny look, probably because I was drenched with sweat (it was a hot and humid day), and wearing one of my goofy hats. But when I told her that I had a friend in my truck, she immediately knew that one of their dogs must have gotten out of her kennel. I opened my truck door, and a very happy Maggie hopped out to see her not-so-happy-with-her owner. Maggie had dug under her kennel wall, as apparently some of her fellow dogs had done before. However, Jill told me that they'd never had one wander so far away before – and certainly had never had one cross the highway before. I'd be pretty unhappy if I knew one of my dogs had done such a thing, and that's exactly how Jill reacted.
I suspect those kennels will be be fixed soon.
Maggie made my day yesterday, both with her company and because I was able to get her safely back home, where she belongs...
I called to her, and she came right to me, very friendly. Being dog-deprived up here (our dogs are still all in Jamul), I took the opportunity to enjoy some canine company. We played together for a while, then I went back to work. That's when I started to suspect something might be wrong, as my new friend just wouldn't leave my side. She followed me all over the yard as I went about my work cutting down some pine seedlings that had gotten out of control in bad locations. Something about her behavior made me think that she might be lost. So I called her over to me again, and this time I looked at her tags. That's when I found out her name was Maggie – and that her home address was a mile and a half away, east of the town of Paradise. I took a closer look at her, and noticed that her pads were not very calloused – she wasn't accustomed to running around long distances – and her coat was mostly combed out and recently trimmed. This wasn't a dog used to field and stream; she was a pampered pooch.
So I walked over to my truck, Maggie trailing closely behind. I opened the passenger door, and Maggie jumped right in, looking happy and excited. I got into the driver's side, and Maggie crawled over the console onto the seat beside me (rather a tight squeeze!), and wouldn't leave. We drove off, crunched together, on a search for her house.
It took a while to find it, as the street she lived on isn't continuous. After a bit of exploration, though, I figured out how to get onto the right piece of her street, and finally located her house: a big, beautiful home on a hilltop, in a large lot (20 acres or so), with a commanding view of all of southern Cache Valley. The yard was beautifully landscaped in a style I associate with Arizona, with mostly plants that have low water needs. I rang the doorbell, and the lady of the house (Jill) came out with a baby on her hip. She gave me a funny look, probably because I was drenched with sweat (it was a hot and humid day), and wearing one of my goofy hats. But when I told her that I had a friend in my truck, she immediately knew that one of their dogs must have gotten out of her kennel. I opened my truck door, and a very happy Maggie hopped out to see her not-so-happy-with-her owner. Maggie had dug under her kennel wall, as apparently some of her fellow dogs had done before. However, Jill told me that they'd never had one wander so far away before – and certainly had never had one cross the highway before. I'd be pretty unhappy if I knew one of my dogs had done such a thing, and that's exactly how Jill reacted.
I suspect those kennels will be be fixed soon.
Maggie made my day yesterday, both with her company and because I was able to get her safely back home, where she belongs...
Cat trees...
The photo was taken in the room that will be our new cattery. It's a large room (about 600 square feet) in the basement of our new home. We've floored it with ceramic tile for easy cleaning. The base will also be of the same tile, but we're waiting for the materials to come in for that. We also have a cabinet being built just for the cattery, with a huge stainless steel sink, ample storage, and a pull-out cat food bin. Despite being in the basement, the room is full of light from the seven casement windows around three sides. Next year, we're going to build an outdoor enclosure that the cats will be able to get to, through a tunnel from the basement, through a casement window, and up to the enclosure. This will give them outdoor access for three seasons of the year. We should have some happy cats up here!
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
The Internet hits another milestone of sorts...
The Internet hits another milestone of sorts... This is the fifth or sixth time in my own experience that a similar BGP size gate was hit. It sure seems silly these days to have just 512k route entries pose a RAM limit. The limit essentially comes from the conjunction of two things: (1) Cisco's dominance (now lessening) of the Internet backbone infrastructure, and (2) the insanely high prices that Cisco charges for RAM in their routers. All of this is starting to change, though, with the advent of serious competition for ISP-scale IP routing infrastructure...
Yesterday turned out a little differently than planned...
Yesterday turned out a little differently than planned... I had a list of projects to get to yesterday, a bunch of little jobs that I've just been letting go. I got a few of them done in the morning, ate some lunch, and then heard a strange noise in my backyard – some serious metallic clattering with a poorly-executed rhythm to it.
Upon investigating, I saw that my neighbor to the north (Tim D.) had someone baling his hay, which had been mowed and raked in the previous few days. Our weather forecast called for a storm to hit us yesterday afternoon, so I surmised that Tim was eager to get his hay off the field before the sky opened up. The fellow running the baler would be done in a half hour or so. Tim was driving his ATV, pulling a flat-bed wagon. He'd pull up next to a couple of bales, hop off the ATV, pile the bales onto the wagon, then hop back onto his ATV and drive off to the next one.
Well, it was easy to see this was an inefficient operation – poor Tim spent more time getting on and off the ATV than he did moving hay. Then I started thinking about the rest of the operation – that hay would have to be unloaded into his barn, where it's stacked high. That would be tough to do as a single-man operation, too.
So I laced up my boots, pulled on a pair of gloves, and headed out to give him a hand. Tim had some mild objections, said he's been doing this by himself for 3 or 4 million years ... but he didn't chase me off :). The two of us, working together, had that wagon loaded with 30 bales of hay in about a quarter of the time it would have taken him by himself. We drove it over to his barn and started unloading it, with each of us hoisting the bales halfway up his stack. Much easier with two.
As we were unloading that first wagon load, Tim's granddaughter (Taylor) showed up. She's 17 years old, and in great shape, and she went right to work with us. Now we had three people – and when we went out to load up the second wagon load, it went faster still. Taylor drove the ATV, and Tim and I stacked hay. We took that load back to stack, and now with three people working, we each only had to hoist the bales a third of the way up. That went much faster than the first wagon load.
When we finished that load, Taylor's dad (Tim's son-in-law) showed up. At about the same time, Tim called our mutual neighbors (Maria S.) to see if they'd like some hay. Tim's barn was completely full, and he had more hay than he needed to feed his horses over the winter. Maria's family have some sheep, and are about to get a milch cow, so they were happy to get some free hay – and they said they'd come right over to help. Next thing you know, we had 9 people loading the wagon: Tim, myself, Taylor, her dad, Maria, and Maria's four kids. An army! We loaded and unloaded that wagon onto Maria's haystack in just a few minutes, then loaded it and unloaded some more hay for Taylor's dad in another few minutes.
And then we were done.
It's been many, many years since I last loaded and unloaded hay – so I was sore and stiff last night (and still a bit stiff this morning). But I haven't done anything quite so satisfying in quite a while. I had the satisfaction of helping my cherished neighbor (Tim). It did storm yesterday afternoon – if we hadn't picked up that hay, it would have blown over half the county, and then been soaked. Tim wouldn't have been able to get it all up before the storm, working on his own. There was more satisfaction in working together with people that I liked. I know Tim and Taylor, but working with Maria's family was a new experience. Her kids jumped right into the work, laughing and fussing with each other to see who could do the most difficult things the best. I got to know all of them a lot better during the afternoon's work.
Best of all, though: when we'd finished, and I told Tim I was headed home, he came over, shook my hand, and said “Thanks for the help, my friend.”, with feeling evident in his tone. That “…my friend.” means a lot to me. We're fitting into this local community in a way that we never did in California. These are my kind of people up here, and I'm really happy to find out that the feeling is mutual.
When I got home, I had a big pot of beef stew waiting for me. Early this morning, I chopped up a nice beef round roast, a big white onion (from Tim's garden!), carrots, potatoes, a green pepper, and some mushrooms. All of that went into my slow cooker, along with some cream of mushroom soup and a few spices. That cooked for 9 hours. Yum! I'm really starting to like that slow cooker :)
This morning I have about half the jobs from yesterday still left to do. And in an hour or so, my new brush mower should arrive. Buh bye, weeds!
Upon investigating, I saw that my neighbor to the north (Tim D.) had someone baling his hay, which had been mowed and raked in the previous few days. Our weather forecast called for a storm to hit us yesterday afternoon, so I surmised that Tim was eager to get his hay off the field before the sky opened up. The fellow running the baler would be done in a half hour or so. Tim was driving his ATV, pulling a flat-bed wagon. He'd pull up next to a couple of bales, hop off the ATV, pile the bales onto the wagon, then hop back onto his ATV and drive off to the next one.
Well, it was easy to see this was an inefficient operation – poor Tim spent more time getting on and off the ATV than he did moving hay. Then I started thinking about the rest of the operation – that hay would have to be unloaded into his barn, where it's stacked high. That would be tough to do as a single-man operation, too.
So I laced up my boots, pulled on a pair of gloves, and headed out to give him a hand. Tim had some mild objections, said he's been doing this by himself for 3 or 4 million years ... but he didn't chase me off :). The two of us, working together, had that wagon loaded with 30 bales of hay in about a quarter of the time it would have taken him by himself. We drove it over to his barn and started unloading it, with each of us hoisting the bales halfway up his stack. Much easier with two.
As we were unloading that first wagon load, Tim's granddaughter (Taylor) showed up. She's 17 years old, and in great shape, and she went right to work with us. Now we had three people – and when we went out to load up the second wagon load, it went faster still. Taylor drove the ATV, and Tim and I stacked hay. We took that load back to stack, and now with three people working, we each only had to hoist the bales a third of the way up. That went much faster than the first wagon load.
When we finished that load, Taylor's dad (Tim's son-in-law) showed up. At about the same time, Tim called our mutual neighbors (Maria S.) to see if they'd like some hay. Tim's barn was completely full, and he had more hay than he needed to feed his horses over the winter. Maria's family have some sheep, and are about to get a milch cow, so they were happy to get some free hay – and they said they'd come right over to help. Next thing you know, we had 9 people loading the wagon: Tim, myself, Taylor, her dad, Maria, and Maria's four kids. An army! We loaded and unloaded that wagon onto Maria's haystack in just a few minutes, then loaded it and unloaded some more hay for Taylor's dad in another few minutes.
And then we were done.
It's been many, many years since I last loaded and unloaded hay – so I was sore and stiff last night (and still a bit stiff this morning). But I haven't done anything quite so satisfying in quite a while. I had the satisfaction of helping my cherished neighbor (Tim). It did storm yesterday afternoon – if we hadn't picked up that hay, it would have blown over half the county, and then been soaked. Tim wouldn't have been able to get it all up before the storm, working on his own. There was more satisfaction in working together with people that I liked. I know Tim and Taylor, but working with Maria's family was a new experience. Her kids jumped right into the work, laughing and fussing with each other to see who could do the most difficult things the best. I got to know all of them a lot better during the afternoon's work.
Best of all, though: when we'd finished, and I told Tim I was headed home, he came over, shook my hand, and said “Thanks for the help, my friend.”, with feeling evident in his tone. That “…my friend.” means a lot to me. We're fitting into this local community in a way that we never did in California. These are my kind of people up here, and I'm really happy to find out that the feeling is mutual.
When I got home, I had a big pot of beef stew waiting for me. Early this morning, I chopped up a nice beef round roast, a big white onion (from Tim's garden!), carrots, potatoes, a green pepper, and some mushrooms. All of that went into my slow cooker, along with some cream of mushroom soup and a few spices. That cooked for 9 hours. Yum! I'm really starting to like that slow cooker :)
This morning I have about half the jobs from yesterday still left to do. And in an hour or so, my new brush mower should arrive. Buh bye, weeds!
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Slot machine science...
Slot machine science... I've read bits and pieces of this before, but this article tells the whole story quite nicely.
The whole phenomenon of slot machines is one of those things (there are many :) that make me wonder whether I'm a member of the same species as most other people (shut up, mom). I have never had even the tiniest desire to put money into a machine in return for the dubious pleasure of watching it work, and the small chance that I might win more than I spend. Almost any other way of spending time or money seems more attractive to me. I know quite a few people who do things that seem utterly crazy to me, such as drive for 10 hours to get to a casino, where they then spend two days shoveling money into a machine, and then come home with (usually substantially) less money than they departed with. Some of them even delude themselves into believing that they're net winners of the long haul, when clearly they are not.
I just don't get the attraction. I must be broken...
The whole phenomenon of slot machines is one of those things (there are many :) that make me wonder whether I'm a member of the same species as most other people (shut up, mom). I have never had even the tiniest desire to put money into a machine in return for the dubious pleasure of watching it work, and the small chance that I might win more than I spend. Almost any other way of spending time or money seems more attractive to me. I know quite a few people who do things that seem utterly crazy to me, such as drive for 10 hours to get to a casino, where they then spend two days shoveling money into a machine, and then come home with (usually substantially) less money than they departed with. Some of them even delude themselves into believing that they're net winners of the long haul, when clearly they are not.
I just don't get the attraction. I must be broken...
Riots and looting in Ferguson, Missouri...
Riots and looting in Ferguson, Missouri... By now I'm sure you've heard about the police shooting of an unarmed black youth, and the resulting riots and looting of stores. What you probably have not read, however, is that two stores in Ferguson emerged from the riots unscathed and unlooted. Can you guess why?
“...if you know what's best for you, you'll think twice before suggesting seven-year-old Aussie citizens waving around severed heads might be indicative of broader, er, assimilation issues within, ah, certain communities, or anything like that.”
The multicultural dogma of cultural equivalence is indefensible by any rational argument, and the photo above is a good piece of evidence for that. Do you really thing a culture that celebrates children lofting decapitated heads is as worthy as, say, the culture of modern-day Scientologists? Personally I have no difficulty ranking the two cultures – one of them would love to kill me, the other just wants my money. The evidence against the notion of cultural equivalence has been strong and hard to argue with since the dawn of the human race, and yet the multi-cultis persist in their nonsense, and drag the rest of us along with them towards doom.
I know! Let's give the multi-cultis their own island, and they can do what they want. There are a lot of multi-cultis, though, so we'll need a big island. Got it! Let's give 'em Australia – there are already plenty of multi-cultis there, so we won't have to transport quite so many...
Gender bias...
- 7 are predominantly conferred to women
- 1 is predominantly conferred to men
- 2 are conferred roughly equally to men and women
Are these freely made choices by the student entering school? Or are they determined by cultural context and expectations? I suspect the former, though these days that's not a politically correct position to take...
Monday, August 11, 2014
If you know me well...
If you know me well ... then you'll immediately understand why this morning's Dilbert strip gave me a good belly-laugh!
Curiosity has found something curious...
“It’s meant to completely obviate them.”
“It’s meant to completely obviate them.” Momentum Machines is making a “burger bot” (a robot that makes hamburgers). Says the company's co-founder:
Once again, the progressives take a perfectly good, functional capitalist economy and totally screw it up.
Mind you, eventually the natural rise of wages and the falling cost of robotics would cause this tipping point to occur anyway – but without the “help” of progressive economic meddling, this transition would have occurred some considerable time in the future (say, 10 or 15 years) and after a more gradual transition. Many industry observers are saying that the automation of fast food restaurants is likely to occur extremely fast, now that the economics have suddenly made it attractive. The rate of change is likely to be limited only by the production capacity of the robotics companies...
“Our device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient. It’s meant to completely obviate them.”Raising the minimum wage has great accelerated fast food companies' interest in such devices. The higher the wages that must be paid for a human to do the work – and the more entitled the young work force feels – the more economically compelling such robots are. Many observers think that the latest round of minimum wage increases has pushed the fast-food industry over the tipping point – and the industry's investments in robot research would seem to validate this.
Once again, the progressives take a perfectly good, functional capitalist economy and totally screw it up.
Mind you, eventually the natural rise of wages and the falling cost of robotics would cause this tipping point to occur anyway – but without the “help” of progressive economic meddling, this transition would have occurred some considerable time in the future (say, 10 or 15 years) and after a more gradual transition. Many industry observers are saying that the automation of fast food restaurants is likely to occur extremely fast, now that the economics have suddenly made it attractive. The rate of change is likely to be limited only by the production capacity of the robotics companies...
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