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Oh to have an EE clue.

My expertise in geekythings is limited to what I can do in the software of a system. Given a fully built linux box, I can run just about any program, write anything, do what I want with it. Bend it to my will as my whim directs.
But once outside that box, interfacing with the real world, my skills fall off. Some of my more geekier ambitions fall into interfacing with the computer and systems in ways other than just a keyboard, mouse and screen. Secondary controllers, mobile electronics, small devices that do ‘something’ for you and communicate amongst themselves. Fascinating, but really beyond my base knowledge.
So when I come across absolutely stunning projects like this one, it makes me keenly aware of the holes in my education. Embedded systems are a fascinating field, but one I don’t have the time to explore. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate things like this though:
The CLIVE Project is a combination hardware/software/art project that is on display at Burning Man The setting is an archway sculpture in the middle of the playa, with a large countdown clock on it, as well as a green laser shining up into the sky :

A giant digital clock that hangs from that arch counts down from 00:01:30. The warning spinners go still, having gotten your attention. The beam, still pointing oddly at nothing as the countdown marches on, slowly dims. As the clock reaches the last fifteen seconds a tiny dot in the sky gets just bright enough to be seen… moving swiftly towards the green pencil of light.
The dot is barely visible at first; in only seconds it’s brighter than the stars near it and then gets brighter yet. As it crosses the beam its light peaks — shimmering a good eight times brighter than anything else in the sky. It’s moving fast. Not so fast as a falling star, but quicker than most anything else one would see in the natural night sky.
Just as quickly it pases, fading; the laser dimmed to nothing, the entire archway gone dormant. No light; no sound… just that same travelling pinpoint of light dipping out of sight into blackness again. A few long seconds pass; maybe a halfminute or so. With a gentle whirr and flicker of green light the archway returns to life, counter resetting. “NEXT FLARE:” scrolls up on the display across the archway’s main beam, the 10-foot-long clock resetting and starting the countdown anew.
You just witnessed the magnitude -8 flare of an Iridium satellite, reflecting the sun straight at you as it passes overhead.
The large copper structure you’re standing under? It’s an almagest of sorts; a guide to the stars. We like to call it CLIVE: the Celestial Laser Identification / Visualization Experiment.

How cool is that?

When it rains it pours.

I think it’s a sign of the apocalypse. In the space of about 15 minutes, I not only smoked a video board (no, didn’t toke it up… it literally started smouldering while installed in the machine. The fan bearing had failed on the cooler), not only crashed said XP box right in the middle of getting information i was looking for, but in a fit of excitement, I apparently broke the seat of my nice Size C Aeron chair.
Since this was basically an ebay special, warranties are out of the question. I’ve had the chair about 7 months now, and use it daily day in and day out. I guess I wasn’t sitting on it properly or the like, but I’m not an -enormous- guy. I weigh about 270. The chair is a ‘large’ scale, it’s built to carry large people.
Now to find out what repairs or replacement costs will be for parts. Yippee.

Mini-Rant: ebay ‘keep me signed in’

I’ve been using ebay forever. And I mean, forever. DId you know that eBay wasn’t the original name of the project? It was called ‘Auctionweb’, and eBay was just the hosting company.
For as long as I can remember, that little checkbox on the login screen said “Keep me signed in”. I check it, I uncheck it, I yell at it, I try different browsers and platforms, and it has NEVER actually kept me signed in. I go away for an hour or three, yep! Gotta sign in again!
I can’t imagine I’m the only person this happens to. I can only assume eBay simply has no interest in fixing it.

The Cyclists Haggadah

(As written by Evan Parks of NYC on The Cycling Forum :

All who are in need of spring training, come and ride with us.
All who are hungry, come and partake of our carbohydrate-laden treats.
[The bottle of cytomax is held up and the blessing is recited:]
Blessed are You, our G-d, Universal Ruling Presence, who has created the
fruit of the laboratory.
The youngest rider asks:
1. On all other rides, we eat all kinds of bars. On this ride, why do we
only eat hard, unleavened Power Bars?
2. On all other rides, we might consume a wide range of fruits. On this
ride, why do we eat bananas?
3. On all other rides, we might not dip our bananas even once in our gu.
On this ride, why do we dip our bananas twice?
4. On all other rides, we ride sitting up straight. On this ride, why do
we ride in a reclining position on recumbents?
The answer my children, may be found in the story of Passover.
This is the power bar of our affliction, which our ancestors baked 400
years ago.
Many years ago, we were slaves to our automobiles, driving hither and
thither, not knowing that a better way existed. If the Holy One, blessed be
He, had not shown us the way of the bicycle, then we, our children and
our children’s children would have remained enslaved to motor vehicle. Even
if all of us were wise, all of us understanding, all of us knowing the book
of Effective Cycling, we would still be obligated to discuss the liberation
through cycling; and everyone who discusses this liberation at length is
praiseworthy.
There are four types of children who ask questions on this ride: the
wise one, the bad one, the simple one, and the one who does not know to ask.
– What does the wise one ask? I don’t know; I couldn’t understand him
either. Him you must send to a school for gifted children.
– What does the bad one ask? He says, “What is this ride to you?”
Because he excludes himself from the community of cyclists, you must exclude him from your ride, and he will go back to his employer and get paid double-time and a half for working on a holiday.
– What does the simple one ask? He simply asks, “What is this?” You will
say to him, “This is a bike ride.”
– As for the one who does not know to ask, you must go to his room, wake
him up and say, “Next year, come to the bike ride on time!”
These are the Ten Plagues which the Holy One, blessed be He, brought
upon the motorists, namely as follows:
[When saying the ten plagues, spill a drop of cytomax from the sports
bottle itself ten times for each plague:]
High gas prices
Congestion
Registration fees
Pollution
Pot holes
Expensive parking
Speeding tickets
Sedendary lifestyle
Obesity
First-born getting a driver’s licence
How many levels of favors has the Eternal One bestowed upon us?
If we would be wearing padded bike shorts, but not have clipless pedals,
it would have been enough.
If we would have clipless pedals, but not at least Shimano 105
components, it would have been enough.
If we would be equipped with at least Shimano 105 components, but not a
delicious post-ride dinner, it would have been enough.
If we would been served a delicious dinner and no dessert, it would have been enough.
If we would eaten dessert, but not have a hangover from too much carousing, it would have been enough.
(Pick up the cytomax and say:) Thus how much more so should we be
grateful to the Eternal One for the doubled and redoubled goodness that He has bestowed upon us! We do wear padded bike shorts, we do have clipless pedals, and we do have at least Shimano 105 components (and some of us have Ultegra and even Campy Chorus, and many other wonders), and we did eat a delicious post-ride dinner, and we did get dessert, and now we pray that we do not get a hangover from too much carousing — let us say, Amen!
Thus it is our duty to thank, to laud, to praise, to glorify, to exalt,
to adore, to bless, to elevate and to honor the One who did all these
miracles for cyclists before us and for us. He took us from car-driving slavery
to bicycling freedom, from steel-caged enclosed sorrow to the open road of
joy, and from bondage to redemption.
Blessed are You, our G-d, Universal Ruling Presence, who has redeemed us
and redeemed our ancestors, and enabled us on this ride to eat power bars
and bananas. So too, G-d, our G-d and G-d of our ancestors, enable us to
attain other rides and cycling events that will come to us in peace with
happiness, and with rejoicing in Your service.
This year we watch the Tour De France in the living room, next year may
we see it in person!

(Thanks… or something… to my father in law for forwarding this to me.)

New Toy!

Well, I think this means I’ve finally gone overboard. Ever since I’ve been playing ‘seriously’ with the band and actually going out and -gigging-, I’ve had to knuckle under and come to the realization that yes. I am a musician. In fact, I’m a bass player. I play a lovely Fender J-bass electric guitar I got on eBay 2 years ago, with hardshell case, for $190. I can’t complain, really. The guitar has been wonderful. I’m on my second amp with it (my original practice amp went missing after a weekend long retreat. Long story there). I’m happy with the Boehringer amp I have now, but there’s been one nagging problem.
I like folk music. Though much of my music collection is ‘classic’ rock with blues for the underpinnings, the stuff I really enjoy playing is folk acoustic, including older folk arrangements such as irish dance music. Though I’ve had a few occasions to try it, my big black electric bass just doesn’t meld into that scenario well, and its awfully hard to haul an 80lb amp out into the middle of a field or next to a campfire to play tunes.
I’ve looked at acoustic bass guitars for quite a while. The quality and price ranges all over the board. There’s a series that runs about $200 or so, but every review I’ve seen has been in the “Yeah, it’s a $200 bass acoustic. Sound is iffy, action is bleah, it’s a cheap acoustic bass. You get what you pay for.” I can’t bring myself to pay real money for one of these. There’s not a lot of demand for these instruments, so I don’t see them come across eBay or Craigslist very often.
Tonight I decided to stop into Guitar Center again to noodle on their acoustics. Dragging a recalcitrant Zach along with me, we wandered into their quiet ‘acoustic’ room, and there I saw something odd. A used decent quality acoustic bass right there on the stand, and marked at a reasonable price even. I took the instrument down and started playing on it. It had a good feel, good size, decent strings and action on it. It was an acoustic/electric – meaning it has pickups on the inside, and a small EQ and pre-amp built into the side. The cable patch is in the strap-mount on the bottom of the body.
But, was I ready to spend $300? That, was the real question. I checked in with Cat, and she said “Well, if you REALLY want it…”, which is always good to make me stop and think about things before impulse-buying. I knew however this was a good price for the guitar, and I wasn’t likely to get another opportunity like this for a while. It’s not like bass guitars are dropping in price like other technologies.
Finally I called up the salesdroid, and said “So, this Fender bass. Come with a gig bag?” “Nope, just what you see.” – he picked it up and noodled around – he had some chops on it, but I didn’t let that distract me. “Hmm, well, this is at the top of what I was thinking of spending, though I like it.” I sort of let it dangle there, and he got the hint. “Well, maybe I can get you a discount on a gig bag, lets go see.”
So we looked at gig bags. Now, acoustic basses are BIG. This was ‘shallow body’, but it was still the size of a normal ‘large’ guitar. Plus, bass guitars have long necks. None of hte ‘soft’ gig bags would work. He said something like “Let me check in the back. If we have one, I can let you have it for half price.” “Well, lets look at it.” Gig bags were listed right there for $40. $20? $320 for guitar and soft gigbag? Eh, I’m tempted, but still not satisfied.
After 10 minutes of waiting for him to reappear, I almost gave up. I started to write a note with my name and phone number, when he reappeared. “Couldn’t find it, but we found a hardshell case that should fit it. How bout that? They’re only $120.” “Umm.” “It’s right around the corner, lemme get it, you can check it out.” “Uh, okay.”
The case is unremarkable, but it fit the guitar, with a little wiggle room. It was a standard acoustic ‘cardboard-y’ case, with padding and stowage inside. It was definately not worth $120. “I’ll let you have it for $50.” Okay, this is sounding better. “Tell you what. Throw in an el cheapo nylon guitar strap, and we’ll call it a deal.” He turned around, pulled one off the rack (standard black with ties for the guitar head), tossed it in, and we were all set.
So, I got an awesome condition Fender BG29 Acoustic/Electric bass guitar, strap, and hard case for $350. I consider it a win all around. Naturally, when I got home, I started looking around the net for prices on these guitars. They seem to go for between $480 and $700 new, without cases, so I think I’ve done okay. The reviews I’m seeing are positive, noting things like a non-full length neck, and decent pricing. I feel fairly vindicated in the price I paid for it, and what I’m going to be using it for.
I spent a bit playing on it tonight, and I’m happy with the sound and feel. I’ll let ya’ll know how things go this weekend at NEFFA. Next I hae to learn how to accompany irish folk music! I’ll be bringing it to band practice tomorrow night to get more comfortable with it (and to test out the internal pickups). Wheee!

Pictbridge Licensing and CIPA Annoyances

While trying to get Blk‘s Sanyo 7500 phone hooked up to some reasonable system for downloading images, I came across the vileness that is the ‘PictBridge’ technology. Wikipedia has an excellent article about this.

The gist is, you can’t talk to a device that uses PictBridge technology unless you pay the Camera and Imaging Products Association some… confusing amount of money for ‘certification’. Their FAQ is confusing, but they say:

An initial application fee for certification of PictBridge compliant products will cost 500,000 yen. It costs 700,000 yen for CIPA members and non-CIPA members. When a logo certification tool is purchased, an additional 1,400,000 yen for printer, 800,000 yen for digital still camera respectively is required.”

What this means is basically if I wanted to write a driver for Linux that would support a PictBridge device – I’d have to shell out $15k or thereabouts, just for the privilege of writing support for their device.

Can someone please tell me how this is a good idea for anyone EXCEPT the CIPA? It sounds suspiciously like a way to not only stifle competition on the device, but also make sure the device standard never gets widely accepted.

GeekState 1.1

After a week of whining about things broken and whys, this has been a day or two of resolution and fixing, so lets put some positive things down on the Geekscale…

  • MythTV
    The MythTV box has been resurrected. Thanks to the joy that is KnoppMyth, and the foresight to put all my ‘file storage’ (music, movies, games, etc) on secondary drives, I was able to rip out the blown drive and drop in a spare 20gigger, and have it up and running in no time.
    Oh, and half a terabyte of storage? Kicks.

    dbs@deathstar:~$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1              17G  2.3G   14G  15% /
/dev/hdb1             233G  137G   85G  62% /myth
/dev/hdd              230G  198G   21G  91% /myth2
  • WinXP
    Thanks to Barb’s help, the WinXP box has been rebuilt. Or reinstalled. or something. We waved an XP installer CD at it, and said “Thou shalt rebuild yon self!” – naturally, this didn’t even come close to ‘just plain working’. There’s a whole nother series of rants on the idiocy that is the WindowsXP operating system – suffice to say, at one point I had to boot said KnoppMyth CD on the Windows box _JUST_ to find out what sort of video board I had via lspci. Cuz. Ya know. Windows cant’ just TELL you. That would be… uh. Something.
  • Eclipse
    So, that problem with the ‘Array out of bounds’? Turns out that WTP doesn’t like if you’ve not defined any servers for deployment, and the WebServices WSDL builder gets really ticked off without any targets at all. That was easily fixed. Alas, my workspace (Eclipses’ term for where you do configuration, have projects checked out, etc), finally got too confusing to debug, so we’re trashing and starting over. Fortunately, everything is in Subversion, so there’s really nothing lost. Folks on the Eclipse support channel have been great.

All in all, not too shabby. I can almost feel my productivity coming back to normal! Now, hm, I wonder how my Eve character is doing…

Sidenote – when I was but a young geek, I regularly read Steve Ciarcia’s ‘Circuit Cellar‘ in Byte magazine. Every month he’d talk about all the cool projects he had around the house – stuff he was building, things that worked, things that didn’t. I thought it was one of the coolest lifestyles around. I suspect I’m slowly, inexorably, following in his footsteps. Cept he was a better writer. 🙂

Just back from Vacation – Our new ship!!!!

Hi Everyone! We’re back from our vacation, and I just HAVE to tell you ALL about this new ship we’ve just bought! We JUST picked it up from the dealer out on at the Federation Navy Assembly Plant out on Eglennaert 1, Moon 14! It’s just FABOO! Here’s a quick picture of it while we were out taking our test flight!
ANYWAY, once we picked it up, we just HAD to go for a cruise. Oh! I almost forgot, didn’t even say what it was! It’s an, hang on, let me get the brochure and make sure I get it JUST right. Ah! It’s a… lessee… a “Gallente ‘Catalyst’ class Destroyer”! There’s a whole bunch of babble here about being ‘well suited for both skirmish warfare and fleet support’, and something about ‘anti-frigate platforms’, but we just HAD to get it because it has the most AMAZING wallpaper in it. You all just HAVE to come out and fly around with us! We’ll just take a quicky jaunt down to the Dairy Queen and be the ENVY of all the other ships!
Listen to me prattle on! Let me share some more pictures. Here’s a pic when we went out to watch the sunrise! There was this silly little machine in the way though, we had to go around it. Something about a ‘sedintary mum’ or a ‘gentry gun’ or something like that. But gosh, it was awkward! Durned near ran into the thing! Don’t know why they litter the space with them, someone should do something about it!
And speaking of annoyances! At one point, we flew by the Serpenti’s place, and wouldn’t you know it, they had parked their mining barge in front of our house again! We’ve told them and told them and told them that this is OUR space, and they have no right parking their big ole smelly barge near us! We paid good money for this space, and they should stay in their own area! Well, the last time this happened, we told them we’d show them what for! So little Bobbie got out the manual – you know, he’s SUCH a smart boy! And then we heard this big booming noise! Well wouldn’t you know it, Bobbie unloaded a couple railgun charges right into the Serpenti’s garage! We always knew he’d do well!
Anyway, we’re off to the movies now. This puppy’ll sure turn heads when we pull into the drive in, that’s for sure! Tah tah for now!

Today in the Book of Why

Friendzzzz, open our K&R to page 32, psalm 12. Today we shall recite from the Book of Why, wherein all manner of faults in life are exposed for cleansing…

Let us begin…

  • Why… did my MythTV primary volume kick the bucket just at the point where I’m ready to start working on some code to interract with it? We thank the powers at Maxtor for not taking the half a terabyte of other storage with it during it’s death throws. Amen.
  • Why… does the Linux kernel decide to number ethernet ports, particularly wireless ethernet ports, in a totally arbitrary way? Booting up may provide us with the mysteries of eth1, or perhaps today it’s eth2, or even something like eth1_someoddtext. Amen.
  • Why… is the Eclipse WTP project, such an awesomely wonderful and fantastic environment, be occasionally revealing itself as ‘not -quite- 100% stable’, particularly when I’m in the middle of convincing a client to use it? Amen.
  • Why… does the Bluetooth stack on the Treo 650 suck so bad? Simple requests for OBEX services cause the phone to crash and reboot. Connections to it are spotty at best, and it offers NO services up to a remote requestor. Makes it very hard to say “Please get my photos off my phone.” It is safe to note that almost every other Bluetooth phone on the market today at least provides a Bluetooth FTP service. The Treo doesn’t even have decency to say “no services”, it simply drops the connection. Amen, dammit.
  • Why… is there no easy way to hit the Tab key in Firefox in a textarea, and have it generate a Tab? Amen.

We shall ponder these life puzzles as we ommm around the coffeemaker and await enlightenment via it’s gurgly goodness.

And now, a word from the grocery store bagger girl…

In random clickingness, I came across ‘the best of craigslist‘, which offered up this particular rant from a grocery bagging girl in Portland…
A choice tidbit…

Paper or plastic- it’s not a difficult decision. Choose quickly, and please for the love of all that is good, do not change your mind mid-bagging. Not only is it a huge pain for me, but inconveniences others waiting in line.

Edit: Be sure to check Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Craig.

A tragic day! NOT!

As announced via the Washington Post :

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), a primary architect of the House Republican majority who became one of the most powerful and feared leaders in Washington, told House allies last night he will step down from the House rather than face a reelection fight that appears increasingly unwinnable.

Okay, everyone together now. “Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!”

Google Local Maps – but not for Palm

Glen Daniels write a post about Google Local Maps, a mapping service for ‘smartphones’. I was fairly excited about the prospect, until I realized that said service is only available for platforms that support the J2ME environment, as well as Blackberry devices.
Not Palm.
I’m blown away by this, but I suppose it’s another stake in the heart of the Palm platform. J2ME is ancient technology, has been around since the dawn of virtual machines. Why doesn’t the Treo have support for it natively? The newer ‘smartphones’ are getting more functionality, more applications, and better support than established and IMHO more useful platforms such as the palm.
Convergence my ass.
Edit 4/3/06 – A small update, the J2ME MID library is available for the Treo, but folks are having mixed success. I’m apparently not the only one disappointed in the lack of Treo support.