I was having such a nice day...

I was having such a nice day ... until I read this.  Damn you, Ilya Somin, damn you!  Now I have the urge to short-sell America.  But how?

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  Rex Murphy (always read Rex Murphy when you have the chance):

This part of the world has a sack full of pieties when it comes to free speech, but its own actions, and frequently its own words, put the lie to all of them. Bowing to ruthless protest has become a habit. Labelling speech some people simply do not wish to hear as “hate speech” succeeds in silencing it. In matters big and small, on issues from global warming to abortion, there is collusion — we call it political correctness — over what should not be said, what cannot be said.

You really should read the whole thing...

Made it to Virginia...

Made it to Virginia ... but only after a few adventures.  My original flight was from Salt Lake City, connecting in Houston, then to Richmond.  However, when I got to Houston I discovered that my second leg had been canceled – bad weather (icy rain) in Richmond.  The airline (United) rescheduled me on a new flight connecting through Chicago.  Dang!  Next thing you know, I'm on the way to Chi-town, arriving right at sunset (photo out the window at right).  I had a very short layover there (just 15 minutes), but fortunately the Richmond flight left from a gate almost adjacent to the one my Houston flight arrived at, so there was no problem making it.  I arrived in Richmond at about 9:30 pm, and was at my mom's house before 11 pm. 

A long day...

Light blogging alert...

Light blogging alert...  I'm traveling to Virginia this morning, to visit with my mom and siblings.  I'll be lugging my computer along, but I probably won't be blogging very much...

The return of the analog computer?

The return of the analog computer?  Sort of.  I worked on (as a maintenance tech) electro-mechanical analog fire control computers in the Navy.  Those computers did integration and differentiation with gears, and arbitrary functions with cams.  They were computers that could give you the wrong answer if you didn't keep them clean and lubricated.  They were also far more interesting to watch work than a modern digital computer :)

How to guarantee the continued inferiority of U.S. broadband access?

How to guarantee the continued inferiority of U.S. broadband access?  Simple.  Just get the federal government involved.  That will put us into North Korean territory.

There's a solution already proven to work: completely deregulate the industry, and eliminate all government-granted monopolies (especially the cable company monopolies).  This is the approach Estonia took, and the result of competition unleashed is crazy high broadband speeds, access everywhere, and prices lower than our current crap broadband...

Twisted string actuators...

Twisted string actuators...  I had this idea about 15 years ago, after using an old-fashioned twisted wire-and-stick to straighten up a fence gate.  I did some investigation of it, never realizing that anyone else had done so already.  I came to the same conclusion others did: that the problems outweighed the benefits:

We spent a fair bit of time evaluating twisted string actuators to build low-cost robots. Unfortunately, they have some major problems that are tough to overcome for our specific application(s). For one, their lifecycle is measured in the many thousands instead of millions -- despite our best efforts at material engineering. For another, they are highly nonlinear in response (twists vs displacement), which requires very precise calibration for precision movements. Plus, they're inherently linear motors; for rotary motion, you need two opposing motors or spring-return mechanisms. That said.... there are probably a lot of applications that could benefit from this type of actuator!

It's a pity, because these actuators are ridiculously easy to build.  The non-linear part was especially frustrating to me.

Analyzing these things was surprisingly easy – it turns out that it breaks down into a simple trigonometry problem, with the key variable being the diameter of the string or wire.  I had the most success with graphite-lubricated mono-filament fishing line, and silicone grease lubricated mono-filament line came close...

Just plain stupid...

Just plain stupid...  And probably coming to a federal government near you...

Banning encryption is a bit like banning safes because they might stop the police from looking at the contents.  Let's make everybody unsafe because your “leaders” can't spy on you!

Things like this help me understand how revolutions get started...

The world is in better shape than most people think it is...

The world is in better shape than most people think it is...  Well, most people in the U.S. or Europe, anyway.  I saw quite a bit of the third world in the '70s, and again in the '90s and early '00s.  The reduction of poverty in the third world just in those 20 or 30 years is astounding, and obvious if you've seen it (or if you're an inhabitant of the third world).  Most Americans, though, are largely unaware of this, and have a seriously mistaken notion that America is getting wealthier at the expense of most of the rest of the world.  The chart at right encapsulates the economic progress of the world very nicely (click to embiggen).  More information here...

Snow!

Snow!  Mo'i woke us up at 2:30 this morning.  The poor old guy had to go out to pee – his bladder is only good for about six hours at best.  When Debbie flipped on the light outside, she saw about 18" of snow on our porch, and 2" to 3" of snow everywhere else.  The porch is directly under a steep roof segment, so the fresh snow slid off right onto it (we're going to fix that :).

This snow is of a completely different character than the snow we had in December.  The temperature is 31.8°F – just barely freezing.  The snowflakes are falling at nearly the speed of a raindrop.  They're heavy, gloppy, and just barely removed from liquid water.  I shoveled that 18" off the porch and was surprised by how much a shovelful of snow weighed – the fluffy white snow of a few weeks ago could barely be felt; this feels more like a shovelful of wet dirt.

I took a look at the weather radar, and it looks like we'll be clear of the storm in an hour or so.  Looks like I'll be plowing at daybreak :)

The only surprise here...

The only surprise here ... is that anyone expected anything else...

Progress report...

Progress report...  Well, the BluMoo universal remote control was a complete bust for us.  It didn't support any of the AV gear we have – and everything we have is mainstream stuff, not some weird off-brand.  BluMoo has got a lot of work to go before it's actually ready for consumers.  The app that controls it looks like an early prototype, rather than a shipping product.  I'm going to call it promising, but far, far from finished.

I'm leaving in a couple days to spend a week with my mom and siblings, so I really wanted to have the AV system usable by normal humans.  Without a universal remote, one has to juggle four remotes and have a complete understanding of how everything is interconnected (and that's pretty complicated).  It challenges me, and I'm the geek who put it all together!

So I ran down to Best Buy in Salt Lake City yesterday, and picked up another universal remote: Logitech's Harmony Ultimate Home.  It's pricey, but quite polished.  The company has a web site with device compatibility, so you can check ahead of time whether your devices were supported (and all of ours were).

The installation could hardly have been simpler.  Less than 30 minutes after getting home from my run to Best Buy, I had all of our devices configured in the remote.  We had a much older version of Logitech's universal remote down in Jamul, and it's easy to see that they've come a long way since then.  In particular, I noticed that the remote's understanding of device state (especially power on/off) is much better than the older control was.  I've already got it set up to let us watch cable TV, listen to the radio, or watch a DVD/BluRay disk.  I've got a little tweaking to do on button assignments (for instance, when watching TV, I want to be able to adjust the picture), but generally it's up and running.

That trip took up much of my day yesterday, and fighting BluMoo and implementing the Harmony ate the rest...

Hard rime on Saturday...

Hard rime on Saturday...  We had thick fog here on Friday night and most of the day Saturday, with below-freezing temperatures.  The result was hard rime everywhere we looked – fantastical collections of crystallized water coating absolutely everything outside.  I wandered around our yard with my iPad taking photos; below are a few of the better ones...

I am not Charlie-Hebdo...

I am not Charlie-Hebdo...  Here's the first paragraph of an uncomfortable, but totally on-target piece by (of all people!) David Brooks in (of all places!) the New York Times:

The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down.

Read the whole thing...

Skip your annual physical?

Skip your annual physical?   Yes, because science says it's worthless...

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  This is from Laura Rosen Cohen, the conclusion of a longer piece (emphasis in the original):

The pen clearly is NOT stronger than the sword.

The pens of the world are limp and flaccid and pathetic.
Firepower is stronger than the pen.

Air forces, soldiers, tanks and guns are stronger than the pen.

Superior firepower, superior intelligence, having no fear, and nothing less than a complete commitment to the preservation of Western, Judeo-Christian civilization and democracy are the only things that will save us from ourselves at this point.

Look around you: all over the "free" world, people are not even brave enough to draw or publish a cartoon to save their civilization-they think that will save their sorry, dhimmi asses.

My recommendation is to stick with superior firepower and a commitment to freedom.

Laura, I don't know you – but it's clear that you are my kind of gal!

A beautiful love story...

A beautiful love story...  Keep your box of Kleenex handy...

Progress report...

Progress report...  Yesterday was audio-visual day here.  The various components of our new system started showing up on Wednesday, and by Friday afternoon the last of them were here.  I spent the entire day assembling and wiring an AV equipment stand, a TV stand, speakers, amplifier/receiver, TV, cable modem/DVR, and BluRay player.  We picked out a pretty basic system, with a 5.1 speaker arrangement (left/right/center front speakers, left/right surround speakers, and a sub-woofer), but with good gear.  The amplifier is a Yamaha, speakers Atlantic Technology, BluRay player Oppo, and TV from LG.

By yesterday afternoon I had the system wired to the point where I could try it out, and the results were very satisfying.  Music in stereo sounds better than any other system I've ever owned.  The imaging (i.e., hearing where instruments and voices are located) is particularly good.  The surround sound part has a bewildering set of options and tweaks that I've just barely begun to explore.  However, a test with a Lord of the Rings BluRay showed that it was all working fine.

It's been quite a few years since I last purchased any AV gear, and things have changed quite a bit since then.  Perhaps most surprising to me: every piece of the gear is now network connected.  At least one of them (the amp/receiver) has a web server built into it.  The amp/receiver also has the ability to update its firmware over the Internet – when I first lit it off, it came up with a message telling me there was an update and offered to download it!  I haven't connected the BluRay player or cable modem/DVR to the network yet; I'm not sure what they do with it.  The TV has the ability to play movies from the Internet, and Debbie is planning to make good use of that with our Amazon Prime membership, as it comes with free access to many of the movies and series she likes (especially some of the British TV series).

Today I have a friend coming over to help me lift the TV (which weighs 80 pounds) up onto its elevated stand.  It was a bit too heavy for Debbie to feel safe about hefting half of it.  After that I'm going to be spending the day connecting the rest of the gear to the network, bringing up and configuring a universal remote (BluMoo), and tweaking things until we're happy with the setup.  Once it's all working the way we want, and we've got the final positions of all the equipment, I'm going to be making all the wiring “disappear” into the walls and under the floor.  Right now we've got wiring running over the floor, which for some reason Debbie's not real fond of :)

Morning belly laugh...

Morning belly laugh...  Via my mom, whom I'm going to visit next week:

A man died and went to Heaven. As he stood in front of the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, "What are all those clocks?"

St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone who has ever been on earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie, the hands on your clock move.” “Oh, said the man. “Whose clock is that?"

"That's Mother Teresa's," replied St. Peter. "The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?" St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abraham told only two lies in his entire life."

"Where's Obama's clock?" asked the man. St Peter replied, "We're using it as a ceiling fan."

It's on the high speed setting, too...

Customer service kudos...

Customer service kudos ... to IQAir.  We recently purchased one of their filters to cut down on the odors in our indoor cattery.  The box was undamaged, but when I unpacked the unit I found two large plastic parts that had broken.  Both broken parts still functioned, so I set up the filter, turned it on, and it was obvious within minutes that it was working great.  Before we got the filter, I couldn't stay in the cattery (where seven cats live) for more than a few minutes – my eyes would start watering, I'd get the sniffles, and the smell would make me crazy.  Within an hour after turning the filter on, the air was just as fresh and odor-free in the cattery as it is outside.  It's just an amazing difference!

But ... two broken parts, on a brand-new unit.  I called their support line, and within 30 seconds was connected with John V., a customer service rep.  He asked me just a few questions, verified that I actually owned one of their machines (by having me read him the serial number), and then with no hesitation said he'd ship me the two parts.  Next thing I know, I got an email with a tracking number – they shipped the parts via FedEx.  I got the parts today, installed them, and now we have not only a beautifully performant filter, but we have one with no broken parts!

The whole support experience was just about as good as such a thing can be.  No hassles, no delays, no cost, and all very friendly and warm.  Great product, great service – always a winning combination!