Silicon Valley Redneck

New toy gloat

My first-ever eBay purchase arrived today!

Yes, it's capital equipment - a spiffy slightly-used digital oscilloscope. Four channels, 500 MHz analog bandwidth, 2 Gsamples/sec, color display, all those goodies.
The included probes are (as advertised) a pair of P6131s, OK for verifying function, but at some point I'll really be needing four matched probes with better bandwidth - so, it's back to eBay to bid on that quartet of P6137s. (The correct probes would be P6139s, but at $330 each new, I'm not about to buy a set of those new. P6137 is close enough for my foreseeable needs (400 MHz bandwidth), and maybe I can get the set of four for less than a single P6139.) A P6205, 750 MHz FET probe would allow for detailed observation of the occasional really-high-speed (or unusually waveform-sensitive) signal.
I expect it to get some use in the next few days, not exercising the bandwidth, but using the four channels (my other scope is a 2-channel portable). Having multiple channels is good when you're bringing up a full-bridge motor driver....

Update:Got the P6137 probes. There's one little detail: the TDS 500 series scopes (this one's a TDS 644A) have lower input capacitance than the lower-speed scopes like the 2400, for which these probes were designed. Thus, the scope shows overshoot where none exists. Tweaking the LF COMP adjustment to give a flat top on the calibrator waveform corrects this condition.

Salmon hike!

Hot weather alert!  The forecast for Saturday, August 28th, called for exactly the sort of blazing hot conditions I need to get away from.  So, it was time for a salmon hike.
The announcement being duly sent out, and inquiries having been answered, I collected my group at the appointed time.  OK, so maybe a half-hour late, as the group gathered.  The final count was two men, three women, and a pair of 10-year-old kids brought by a newcomer to the group (who had checked first - I'd said it was OK, with some reservations).
Here are a few photos.  As usual, click on any image for a larger version.

Group, meet the river.  River, group.  I see someone catches on quickly!

The view ahead.

View ahead, with bird.  I think that was a merganser on that rock in the middle.  The waterproof camera (2 Mpixels, no zoom) isn't the best thing for wildlife photography.

The rocky footing helps build strong ankles.  Of course, those who don't already have strong ankles may find it slowing them down a bit.

Three mergansers (two clearly visible here) leave a little island as we approach.

When the going gets deep, the kids go swimming!  Meanwhile, the grown-ups are getting out and walking along the bank.  Obviously, I must be in the "kids" category here.

An out-of-frame hiker shows off an anonymous crawdad.  (Neither would sign the model release form.)

Ah, this looks like a fine place for lunch!

A shoe race is just about as silly as a banana slug race.  The shoes turn out to be just as uncooperative, too.

It would appear that someone attempted to make off with this rail.  (As George of the Jungle would say, "Steal track.")  He didn't get very far with it, though.

"Masonry brute and mishandled...."  I guess this is part of the old diversion dam.

Another view ahead.

Crawdad-infested waters I promised, and crawdad-infested waters we got.  This fish carcass drew quite a crowd.

A view downstream.

We must be getting near the Garden of Eden; there's a bunch of locals at this swimming hole.

Does your mother know where you are?

He made quite a splash coming down.  Yes, he came back up alive.

Up-river miles seem to be like dog years: multiply by seven to figure out (a) how long it'll take, and (b) how tired you'll get.

Uh, kids... we're tired here.  Well, there's always someone who doesn't get the memo.  This natural waterslide is a handy place for burning off any excess energy at the end.

It appears that my reservations about kids coming along were misplaced.  On the other hand... being run ragged by a 10-year-old girl has got to be the second most humiliating thing that can happen to a seasoned group of Sierra Club hikers.

More on salmon hiking here.

Sam McDonald Hike

So, it's almost a week late... I finally got around to developing the memory card from last Saturday's hike.
As usual, click on the images to see a larger version.
We started from the main parking lot at Sam Mcdonald County Park (San Mateo County), and took a loop through Pescadero Creek County Park.

Hey!  From the porch of the Hikers' Hut, there's a view all the way out to the ocean!

Some of those big old trees have a lot of character.  This one really needs a fisheye lens, which is not a feature offered by my little trail camera.

Here's a tree trunk with a lot of little fungi on it.

An interesting, multi-layered fungus.  Possibly a parking garage for bugs.

The bat sign!  Last time I'd been there, a few months earlier, there was a solitary bat living in the sign - he'd been there for months, at least.  Now all his relatives have moved in, and they've got a "do not disturb" sign.

One little fuzzy bat.

Two little fuzzy batses.

Bats, fungi... I didn't take any pictures of the little creeklet, which isn't exactly dramatic this time of year.  Anyway, it was a nice hike, with a decent amount of shade.  About 10 miles total, with moderate hills.  As usual, I was at the back of the group on the uphill parts, even though it wasn't terribly hot.

This Saturday, a river hike!  Pictures soon.

SVR Makeover, Part 1

Before commencing with the main subject of this post, I suppose I should answer the obvious question:
What's a Silicon Valley redneck, anyway?
Well. I'm glad I asked me that question.
It refers the the decor in my living room.
You know how the stereotypical redneck's front yard contains at least three non-running cars, up on blocks? Well, my living room usually contains several non-running computers, up on blocks.
I may elaborate on the concept later.
Anyway, I made some progress yesterday on the 10-year backlog of house-tidying. The living room still requires the gentle application of a bulldozer, but I did some de-cluttering in the office.

Here's the "before" picture, showing the mess on the side table - today's target. Those two overstuffed bookcases are part of a set I've had since I was a little kid.
To work! The first task is to clear off the piles of clutter from the table, then the books from the bookcases. I pile it all on my bed, thereby setting a deadline for finishing the project.
Next, remove the ancient bookcases. One gets stacked atop another member of the same set (off to the left of the photo). The other will get stacked atop another bookcase in the lab - as I convert the lab back from the storeroom it's become over the years. That's another day's project. Actually, another several days....
Now that things are accessible, cover the wall with shelf rails and brackets, add shelving, and slap another two shelves on the ends. Voila!

Perfect! Lacking only a Jennifer O'Meara print... which calls for a trip to the frame shop.
The little space up top can hold things like a WiFi access point and maybe a mascot or two.
It certainly feels different! Walking in now, I hardly recognize the place. I guess I should find a proper home for that pile of swords and whatnot - they'd been blocking access to the filing cabinet. Also, there's that big heap of photos atop the filing cabinet; they should go somewhere.
There's much more yet to be done, but at least there's one large task checked off the list.

Updated:
There's the print - this library is guarded by the bookwyrm. Also by Lesser Cthulhu. (Pikathulhu and Mr. Naughty Seabird are too tall for that space up top, and will have to find other homes.)

Angel Island

Saturday was Angel Island day - it comes around every couple of years - so, carpool to Tiburon, ride the ferry across to the island , and start hiking.  This time we did the "mountain" first, then the perimeter.

Fog over the Golden Gate.

In other directions, this was typical of the afternoon: partly overcast, with good visibility.  Cool enough for hiking, and clear enough for watching the sailboats.

Alcatraz escapes from the fog which engulfs the city.

The fog eats the Bridge....

Meanwhile, opposite the city, it was a pretty day.

One of the little coves around the island.

At the top of the immigration station's driveway, the li'l rackety coon chillun play in a ruined building.

You kids get down from there now!

Ivy covers the old Army hospital.

I guess the deer population is more or less under control now.  It got out of hand several years ago, owing to the lack of mountain lions (or mountain men) on the island.

A lone windmill!  Possibly a stray from the fabled Altamont herd.

The old rock-crushing machine, once used to generate gravel for the roads.

Monte Bello Sunset

Out on a good old fashioned Wednesday evening hike, at Monte Bello - and dragging along at the back of the group going uphill; it was hot today! (If it had been several degrees cooler, I might have gone up Mission Peak to watch the meteor shower. As it is, maybe I'll wake up around 2 AM and go up on my roof.)
The fog was hiding out over the ocean, not being very useful, though it was beginning to spill over the hills to the north:

Ah, and on the way back down we had a glorious view of the Sun setting over the fog!

...so then I get home, walk up to the computer, move the mouse, and the monitor powers up but the screen remains blank. Eh? Control-alt-F1, and the root text console is working. Alt-F2, log in as myself... wedgie! Er... it is a bit quiet in here, isn't it? Aha! The power supply in the server has given out! It had given a couple of warning dropouts a month ago, and I had the replacement sitting there awaiting motivation.
So, time to spend 20 minutes doing a power-supply transplant on an AT-type mini-tower. Then another 10 minutes for FreeBSD to check & repair a bunch of big filesystems. Then put the skin back on, connect all the cables....
Let's have another look at that sunset.

Ah, yes. Much better!

Purisima Creek

Out hiking today at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, out on the coast side of Skyline.  The morning forecast was for highs in the low 80s at San Gregorio (a bit south of the destination), and low 60s at Half Moon Bay (a bit north).  What with it being out near the coast, I figured we'd get some of that summer coastal fog.  What we actually got was mid 70s, and - aha! -

There's the fog!  Just down there, obscuring the ocean, but not keeping us cool.  Here, foggy, foggy....
(As usual, click on any image for a bigger version.)

We saw a fair number of these.  Maybe I should look it up in the Big Book of Flowers.  Sometime.

Wildlife!  A banana slug!  This one, however, was early in the hike.  We didn't find any close to the lunch spot - so, no lunchtime banana slug race this time.

Bumble bee, exploring the flowers.

A little creek crosses the trail, partway down.  It's a favorite spot to stop, rest, regroup, and enjoy the view.

The main creek, by the lunch spot.

Now, doesn't this hill look like there should be hobbits living in the vicinity?

It's not really photo season in the hills... things are getting kinda dry, though, as you see, there are still a few flowers about.  This was really more of an exercise hike than a photo outing, and, at 10 miles and 1500 feet (plus fudge factor) elevation gain, it was a fair bit of exercise.

Next weekend, either Angel Island or someplace else.

LinuxWorld Expo

I took the day off from any semblance of Real Work to go to LinuxWorld Expo, for the first time since 2000, or possibly 1999. Somewhere in that interval, it had migrated from Santa Clara or San Jose up to San Francisco; I guess the South Bay venues weren't big enough or glitzy enough anymore.
I don't even contemplate trying to park in SF for conventions, so it was time to check out Caltrain - catching the 10:53 out of Sunnyvale, along with Lindy (also ex-Ciena) and Bill (from the Sierra Club).
Eventually we found each other and the ticket machines, and got on the train, to be deposited in SF a few minutes after 12. At the Mountain View station, I thought I saw Melissa (also also ex-Ciena) getting on - yes, that's who it was, headed for the Museum of Modern Art on a completely nontechnical outing.
Once Bill and I had picked up our badge holders, and Lindy had gotten through on-site registration, it was off to the show floor!
That show was big! The core was dominated by huge corporate booths (IBM, HP, Sun, Novell, Oracle); the interesting little stuff was around the edge.
It's definitely gone more business-oriented than in the old days (and not just the megacorp booths). Most of the medium-sized booths were showing off (1) server arrays, (2) disk arrays, (3) backup software, or (4) some combination of those. Dense, high-performance computing clusters are very impressive, but they're really not on my shopping list just now....
On the fringes, though, there were still booths for Debian, Gentoo, EFF, FSF, PostgreSQL (hey! They've got replication now!), X.org, and so on.
Psion was showing off their little-bitty subnotebooks, with ARM (Xscale) processors, running (IIRC) Debian. Apparently not a shipping product yet (at least, not the Linux model), but interesting. Tiny gadget with touchscreen and semi-usable keyboard, apparently going to sell for about $1k. Cute!
Wyse had a booth, with their little thin-client boxes. It's nice to see that some companies manage to adapt - I remember Wyse as a terminal vendor back in the glass-TTY days.
There were a couple of vendors with embeddable boards, one using ARM processors and one using PowerPC. I grabbed some literature both places; ARM is of considerable interest, and I guess PowerPC has its place (as long as I don't have to write any assembly code for it).
I didn't encounter any of the people I'd expect to see wandering around a Linux trade show, but I did cross paths with a guy from the science-fiction crowd, and a familiar FAE.
At the Sun booth, I inquired about the practical differences between StarOffice 7 and OpenOffice.org. The guy I was talking to figured I'd do just as well to stick to OOo, rather than spending money on SO. He was also interested to hear that one of my BOM spreadsheets had (supposedly) lost its color attributes when the contract manufacturer read the Excel export, so I'll be sending him the offending files for examination. (It's also possible, of course, that somebody at the CM goofed up, and that the Excel export had actually worked fine.)
On the way out, I just had to stop at the O'Reilly booth, to weigh down my bag and lighten my wallet. Fortunately, my bag was already fairly heavy, so I didn't buy much.
Oh... yes, there were still booth bunnies. No rotating signs, though. Giant igloos, yes; rotating signs, no.