Matt's Garage

I’ve now got an Android phone- the Samsung Moment. Found (and am now trying out) the app that I found to post to this blog.

Something I say frequently: if money can’t buy happiness, it can’t buy sadness, either. While it doesn’t buy either of those, what I do find is that it helps me manage my anxiety- when I have more cash in the bank, and smaller fiscal responsibilities, I’m less anxious. And anxiety is what kept me from going back to sleep when I got up at 5AM this morning. Gotta focus. Today, and this week, the goal is move stuff out of the old house to the new.

(Disclosure: We adopted a child.) There are a huge number of kids (right in this country) that, through no fault of their own, don’t have parents that can appropriately take care of them. Raising a child is hard. Raising an adopted child is harder. So what? IVF is the technological approach to buying a child, and the most selfish thing I can think of.

If I’m pissing you off, please try to change my mind. Before I go deeper into the reasons behind this opinion of mine, I’d like to hear some of the reasons from the other side. I’m not trying to piss people off, just trying to understand something that seems so selfish.

I’m moving, and I’m shopping for new high-speed internet service.

I’ve been using speakeasy DSL for 7 or 8 years, and I’ve been very happy with the service. They give me static IP, no restrictions on servers, a really fast link, and incredible uptime. With Speakeasy, by my rough calculations, my uptime (not counting scheduled outages) has been on the order of 0.99991. When I’ve had to make changes, the customer support has been quick and knowledgable.

I run my own servers (SMTP, HTTP, DNS). It hasn’t been cheap (but not incredibly expensive). I do know that AT&T UVerse and Time Warner Cable are available. (For television I use DirecTV, and I do not want to change, particularly to Time-Warner… when DirectTivo comes back in HD, I’m on it immediately- that was the way TV was meant to be watched).

A couple of years ago, I tried to order DSL for a business we were starting up, and frankly, the business side of speakeasy was kinda crappy- we couldn’t get the speed they promised initially and support was kinda iffy.

I’m opening up my options.

• I want to retain at least one POTS line for the reliability. (doesn’t POTS service have some regulatory responsibility for reliability that VOIP does not?)
• I have a cell phone, and I don’t want to bundle
• I want at least one static IP, with options for others
• I want no restrictions on servers- all ports MUST be open (I will sign the appropriate “I understand the consequences of running a spam server and I am not, will not, nor have I ever been a spammer”
• I’d like to keep the budget of at something * Access to a NNTP (news server) is a plus- I get 5 GB a month with speakeasy, and have found that it can be really useful.
• As far as I know T1 is not available, and I’ve gotten better download speeds off of ADSL than T1. I can’t remember what my package speed is, but I see >3Mbit/s typical download speeds.

What is out there?

1. Cardio
2. Doubletap
3. Seatbelts
4. Beware of Bathrooms
6. Cast Iron Skillet
7. Travel Light
14. Limber up
17. Don’t Be a Hero
24. When in doubt, know your way out.
31. Check the backseat
32. Enjoy the Little Things

Are there more?

I got a call from our local blood bank- they want my blood. I’ve got a relatively rare blood type- a type that is what they prefer to give to newborns O- CMV-. Sure, no problem.  I made my way down there to give, and in the post-donation cookies and sugar but no caffeine room, I heard about the patient.  It was a baby that was about to go into surgery, 6 months old, 3rd surgery- a pretty tough break for the kid.  Then I heard that the baby suffered from Down Syndrome. I became disappointed.  I understand a human life is a wonderful thing to save, but how much effort should we go to? Some people think of it as “Eugenics by Abortion” (from Wikipedia, again), but really, I don’t think we should go to this much (very expensive) medical effort, for a person who is probably going to be a drain on all of our resources.  Kinda gets into our health care debate (we already ration health care, but right now it is rationing by economic situation).  Should the parents be more financially responsible for the care of the child?  Complex question.

• If the house or senate passes a bill, there should be no reconciliation- it should just go before a simple up or down vote in the other body.
• If a company is found to have committed a crime, the executives, including the board of directors shall forfeit their compensation for at least (?) years and face prison. It doesn’t matter if they knew about it or not- they are the company and board of directors, and should be responsible for what is going on in their company.
• Personally identifiable data about an individual (short of national security data) owned by a public or private corporation is owned by the individual and a copy must be surrendered to the individual upon request.

yes, well said!
–
A profound short little paragraph that says it all

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Dr. Adrian Rogers , 1931

(he was actually born in 1931 and died in 2005)

Well said, if you want the country to continue to be mired in the recession, which in large part was caused by those very rich people who ran the banks into the arms of a government bailout and have their wealth now protected in offshore accounts. Very few of the extremely wealthy truly earned that money by adding value to the economy- they generated that wealth by artificially trading up the value of items, cashing out, and letting the government pick up the pieces. If you make money on the stock market, you’re foolish if you think you actually earned it, unless you think time spent at slot machines is earning money.

Those that should be wealthy are those that add value to the economy. I’m not talking about communism, I’m talking about work.

In thinking about my political platform for my unannounced run for president in 2012, I’m starting to formulate what I really think about the political issues in today’s society.

• If you can’t vote for someone you should not have a voice in the political process. That means you should not comment on congressman outside of your district, senators from another state. Yes this gets into free speech issues, but what is most important, I think that providing money to a candidate you cannot vote for should be a felony and grounds for disenfranchisement.
• A corporation is not a person. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) which gives a corporation rights under the 14th amendment is just wrong, and if it takes a constitutional amendment to change this, that is what we must do.
• Health Care insurance providers must not be able to pick and choose their customers. Simply eliminate the difference between a group health plan and an individual health plan. Yes, you would have to pay the employer’s portion, but that’s it.
• Pre-Existing conditions should be ignored by all health plans
• A lawyer (or law firm) must not receive a portion of a settlement that is grossly disproportionate than what is given to the plaintiff, particularly in class action suits.
• Copyright must be limited.
• The death penalty is not applied properly, and given the repercussions of a mistake, we must eliminate capital punishment.
• The loopholes that allow employment of illegal immigrants must be closed, starting with major companies. The Federal government has a responsibility to employers to give them a method for verification of immigration status. Illegal immigrants give corporations cheap labor, driving down wages for those that are legal, pay taxes, and do their part to support society. If a company is found to have employed illegal immigrants, maybe make them pay a tax equal to 100% of the illegal immigrant’s wages?

I’m presenting a couple classes at this year’s Microchip Masters This is my 3rd year attending, the first I’ll be teaching. I’m teaching 4 sessions of a class I wrote on signal integrity and Ethernet (not that I expect to compete in authority with Howard Johnson), I just want to help some of our customers avoid some of the common pitfalls of poor Ethernet design. Howard Johnson’s classes are really good- great content, and he can deliver it quite well. I recommend his classes to anyone that can afford ‘em.

I’m also teaching one of the sections of our Ethernet class. This one I’m not quite so nervous about- I’ve taught it in our RTC.

Don’t know why I’m nervous about teaching- guess it’s similar to my test anxiety- I remember throughout school, no matter how well prepared I was for a class, I never felt prepared enough. In REDACTED, I took a course that was recommended to me as really easy- but I wanted to actually learn the subject, so I took it seriously, I was nervous about the final exam, which was an open notes, open book. I sat down with the exam and after a few seconds, a few page flips for comparison, I saw that this exam was the exact same exam that this professor had given the previous semester, which I had the answer key to, plus I had already worked it out myself. I think that was one of the few exams I walked out of kinda confident I got a good grade.

For my birthday, Angie gave me a mostly complete set of Audel’s New Electric Library- I got the first couple from Half Price Books, and the content is completely cool- for example, Volume VIII contains information about Railways, Signals, Elevators, Gas Engine Auto, Aero, Ignition, Starters. It is beautifully bound in an embossed soft cover, with gilded edges (to keep moisture from being absorbed?). It looks to have been originally printed in 1930, but I have the 1937 version- the Volume 12 comes from a series of the same books that was reprinted in the 40’s- not quite as beautiful a book. This is the type of library I’d love to send back in time- so many cool things, with some distance from what we have right now. The reference books we have right now are great, but they rely upon a lot of assumptions of what knowledge you do have now. Most of what is in these books would be a treasure to an engineer working 200 or 150 years ago.

I also have a favorite book that is old enough that I assume is out of copyright Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements – H. Brown, since it dates to 1871. I’ve got a PDF, but I hesitate to distribute it- considering it’s age, it should be free of copyright encumbrances, but I am not sure. It is a treasure trove of interesting mechanical contraptions, and a pleasure just to flip through (for the tinkerer in anyone).

OK, just in case you were interested in pictures of my Electric Truck, I have some in the gallery.

I’ve been driving my Taylor Dunn electric truck around the neighborhood. So much fun. Decided to start a little cleanup of at least the exterior rust, so I sanded down the front bumper and painted the bare metal with some flat white primer. Autozone didn’t have any flat white enamel. I’ve always thought that you should paint over primer… anyway, I do know that you need to wait after primer, so I’ll keep looking for the right flat white enamel. I’m just trying to make the truck a bit more presentable. I thought about posting some pictures, but they would be awfully boring.

Didn’t seem to be able to get much else done this weekend, though I always have big plans. I would like to have a panel that gave me the actual battery voltage of all my batteries. Trying to do that with normal A/D converters seems to be a bit tricky. Also would like to have a good current measurement, but I’m sure a decent shunt would be pricey- I think it would have to handle (quick calculation…) 208A, since I think I have a 10hp motor on my 48V system.

Also have more to say on my new Sony Ebook Reader, PRS-700BC but that will have to wait for another day.

Frequently I wonder what people really think about me- maybe it is just insecurity, or it could just be pure narcicisissim.  I’ve fucked up in my dealings with people before- I kinda think that everything before high-school is a pass, because we all screwed up then, but in high school, that’s when things start to count for me.  I don’t want to go into specifics- maybe I will someday, but a lot of it is just too personal or painful to recount right now.  I guess that others have the same feelings toward me, or at least I hope they do.  There are some things I’d like to apologize for, but in all honesty, there are many things that I think I did right, or at least for the right reaason, no matter how much it hurt in the moment.  We make mistakes.  It is part of learning. and there are many mistakes that while they hurt emotionally, that pain is something that doesn’t let us forget.

Since I haven’t heard any remorse for some of those wrongs that I feel have been inflicted upon me… here’s a couple shout outs: Adam, Erika: if you step in front of my truck, I’m going to have a really hard time hitting the brakes.  I’m not going to go out searching, but if the opportunity arises…

Ok, so now 2 of my friends have Palm Pres.  Yes, I’ve tried the iPhone, and it’s pretty good, but I’m stuck with Sprint, and I refuse to join the cult of Apple.  I’ve got a Windows Mobile Sprint Mogul, but in comparison, it sucks.  It’s got all the features, but it is bogged down with Microsoft.

I finally got the tape from Doug, got my setup for recording, now just the editing of the MP3s to finish. In case you didn’t know, RRWWLBWI was a 1989 campaign by the RAB/NAB. I had the damn jingle stuck in my head, and the Internet couldn’t find me any of the audio. So I got in touch with Doug, who was the GM at WMUC for a while, and he did some digging, and I have the cassette right here!

Had the most real “experience” of hearing knocking at the front door last night- had to wake myself up, arm myself and check out the house. Nothing there… but of course, now I’m fully awake. Ah well. At least it is satisfying to know that I can do the combination on the safe quickly and within seconds of becoming awake.

Found via Boing Boing, it came from here, reproduced so I can keep a copy locally:

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

I like this a lot, but I think that #5 is too limiting for significant projects. Not sure how to rewrite it.

OK, yes, steampunk was a cool trend, but face it, it is way past its prime, and we should let it die. What’s the big deal about yet another piece of technology with some wood and antiqued brass gears glued on it. If you want to make something cool, make it actually powered by steam, generated by the heat source of your choice, but my preference is fire. Cory Doctorow, are you listening?

I love this country because, basically, it is about doing what is right. Not necessarily what is right because what some burning bush said, nor from someone’s hallucinogenic visions- but because of the most fundamental rights that were described in the Declaration of Independence and codified in our Constitution. These are ideals, and sometimes we make mistakes- however, when we make mistakes, we can admit they were mistakes and try to rectify them. On Tuesday, I *believe* we swore in a president that can live up to the ideals. Will he? I don’t know, however, I do know that the George W. Bush failed to live up to those ideals, and I believe that Barack Obama says he will, and that he can. Yep, he convinced me. He’s not the messianic figure that Rush Limbaugh paints him as, with people blindly following him into socialism.I believe President Obama has the support to move the government from something that serves the interests of big business to a government that serves the interests of the people. Please, President Obama, don’t make me regret my vote.