Silicon Valley Redneck

Not really doing the Halloween thing this year

Well, apart from putting on my Accounts Receivable hat and doing some end-of-the-month trick-or-treating, anyway.

I did have the notion of looking for a black trenchcoat, so that if I had occasion to visit a defense contractor, I could rummage through my hat collection and become either Soviet Cultural Attache or Boris Badenov.

...Wait, isn't Badenov a little guy?

Badenov is shorter than moose, taller than squirrel.  I am shorter than moose, taller than squirrel.  Badenov is shorter than Natasha.  If I borrow Natasha from National Instrument, I am shorter.

...Anyway, what with having already done more running around than I could really handle, on a weekend that I ought to have spent sleeping, this just didn't happen.  Besides which, my metabolism seems to be getting back in gear this evening, so any extra layers of clothing are Right Out.

I'd also had the notion that, with a haircut (much overdue anyway), a dose of whisker bleach, and a top hat (and some other clothing to match, of course) I could be The One Percent.

Or, randomly, put on a zombie costume and go around singing "If I Only Had a Brain."  (The other way around might work well, too: scarecrow seeking braaaaains.)

Ah, well.  If the weather turns unexpectedly cool and I feel inspired (and have somewhere to go), I could always dig out the Harcourt Fenton Mudd outfit.  Or the powdered metals, and go around with silver skin and bronze hair (very impressive, that one).

(One o' these years, I need to come up with a proper Stalin costume (and persona) - or at least Stalingrad.  Mudd's fine for Mara's Bar, but the League of Evil Geniuses party calls for something more, well, evil.)

Update: costume of sorts.  Standard weekday attire, only with a different shirt (khaki) and hat (old-timey pith helmet), and river shoes and dark socks, 'cause the Vibram foot gloves Just Don't Go.  Gets some comments, e.g., "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" and "Gee, you look exactly... like... yourself."

 

Crud, crud, glorious crud

This pesky virus is acting up again; maybe I shoulda skipped morning walkies today.  Latest symptom: a sinus headache, of "an alien parasite crawled up my nose and ate my brain" character.

Seems to be developing into a two-week thing with a sort of feeling-better-now break in the middle, with vaguely not-really-a-cold, not-really-the-flu symptoms.  Rather like, oh, a lesser version of what I had this time last year, which in turn seemed a lesser version of what I had this time two years ago.  Sort of an attenuated third harmonic of swine flu?

Not awake enough to be much use (fortunately, my apprentice and one of his colleagues just sorted out an analog problem with one of the toaster controllers; apparently a several-month-old ECO had failed to propagate across stuffing variants*).  Too uncomfortable to sleep, and no narcotics to hand (except alcohol, which I find not very helpful in such situations).

Time to sit around sipping apple cider with a bit of lemon juice, and watch some cartoons.  Later, maybe, chicken soup or chili.

Update: shortly after the original post, I developed a new symptom.  My sinuses smell of B-complex vitamins.  WTF???  I haven't been snorting vitamin powder!  Nor have I been ingesting B supplements, unless yesterday's granola was extra-fortified or something.

*Also update: turns out it wasn't covered by the old ECO; it seems to have been a different-but-related thing.  Still remains to be seen whether we want to turn their fix from yesterday into a real ECO.

 

And also because of Quantum

David H. Freedman offers one obvious-once-pointed-out explanation as to why economic models are always wrong: such a model necessarily has a large number of parameters, and for any given dataset there will be many possible solutions for a set of parameters to make the model match the data so far... only one of which is right.

I offer another, non-mathematical one: economic models, in particular, are used to make predictions which are then used as a basis for action.  The observer thus becomes part of the system, along with all the other observers-within-the-system who are using their own models (and we all use economic models, even if the model is just "if hemlines are up, sell blue chips").  The whole thing becomes highly interactive.

Also, I had an insight a few days ago: over the past couple of decades, the stock market has essentially acquired the behavior of a school of anchovies, which is why it spends so much time chasing its own tail and not actually going anywhere.  A model of the modern stock market, or any other system dominated by swarms of largely-similar automated trading algorithms, needs to be based on chaos theory, which isn't exactly noted for its robust predictive value.

(I just re-read Making Money, so of course I'm thinking of the Glooper, and what happens when you change a parameter in the model.  Though, in our world, it's only when you try to apply the output of the model that you end up changing the parameters of the real world.  Note also that Ankh-Morpork has a very simple economy compared to ours!)

 

Well, duh.

"It’s amazing to see that the ‘occupiers’ of Wall Street are basically white kids, and they’re dressed fairly well." - C.L. Bryant

Well, what do you expect?  Note their grievances and demands.  It's a Sons of Mary parade!

...And they expect Jubal to solve all the world's problems for them.

 

Handy workshop tip

Having done a lot of tapping (i.e.: threading the insides of holes) the past couple of weeks, and still not having gotten around to acquiring a tapping head so's I could mechanize the process, I was developing a case of sore wrist muscles.

Inspiration struck!  I grabbed my handy VSR drill-driver, set the overload clutch sort of low-ish, stuck the tap in the chuck (with vigorous tightening), and hey presto!  Forward, bzzint, reverse, bzzout, done!  Sometimes takes a couple of reversals and restarts when working with thick material.

Seems to work fine for #4-40 through #10-32.  Probably good for a size or two larger or smaller, though for #0-80 I think I'd stick with the manual tap wrench unless I had a lot of holes to deal with.  I'm guessing ¼ NPT would probably overwhelm the typical home-workshop drill, besides not fitting in the chuck (minor detail, that).

 

War crime WTF?

Heard on the talking-type wireless this morning, en route to morning walkies: some international commission is promising to investigate K'Daffy's demise.

Because, y'know, if he was summarily executed after being taken prisoner it's a serious matter for the International Community.

Riiiight.

Look, if he was killed by foreign troops, it was before he was captured.  The allegation is that he was killed after capture.  By Libyans.  This is an international matter, or a war crime, how?

And what is the International Community going to do about it?

"Look, we're very sorry, but we just can't accept your new government.  You got rid of your old dictator the wrong way, you see.  It simply isn't done.  Now go back, get yourselves a new dictator, and overthrow him again, only this time do it right."

Or maybe they need to put Zombie Qaddafi back on the throne and start over.  Only this time he's a zombie!  With a zombie army!

Update: D'OH!  International law is based on the Treaty of Westphalia.  The Treaty of Westphalia is based on the Divine Right of Kings.  Ergo, any regicide is a violation of international law.  Unless, of course, it's done by the Rightful Claimant to the Throne, i.e., someone who promptly declares himself king and can make it stick.

 

Stupid excuse

Sometime tomorrow...

Boss: Eric, why are these L-brackets machined out of bar stock?

Me: I got lazy.

Honestly, that is the reason.  I didn't feel like driving to the hardware store while still partially zombified, the brackets I'd find there wouldn't be all that suitable anyway, and my efforts at bending metal seldom turn out well.

So, the lazy approach was to carve 'em out of solid aluminum.

Alas, a trip to the hardware store is in order anyway.  Turns out the mounting screws aren't #6-32 at all, but M4, and the ones provided aren't long enough.  I don't feel like trying to counterbore the holes, so longer screws are called for.

(The spelling checker thinks "counterbore" should be "Canterbury" or possibly "Wonderbra", neither of which is even a verb.)

Incidentally, I just happened to check the safety section of the Bridgeport manual today, and it lacks the all-important "Not to be operated by children, drunkards, the mentally incompetent, chimpanzees, or zombies."

 

Crud update

No craving for chicken soup, no chills (just kind of alternating between feeling overheated and feeling like clothes might be a good idea, all at around 65°F).

Sometimes having that feeling I get when my brain is trying to be fully awake, alert, and twitchy, while my body is trying to be asleep.  Zombie mode, as it were.  Hey, put that Z-Max away!

Cruddy little headache, randomly sore muscles, and a complete inability to get my brain in gear (though I did, with prompting, manage to answer some questions from my apprentice this afternoon; whether I gave him the right answers is another question entirely).

Funny thing: when I set out on morning walkies, a bit earlier than usual, with pleasantly cool weather and the Sun just peeking over the hills, I figured on a nice slow, easy walk.  My legs thought otherwise, and set out at a fast pace, apparently intending to do the 7-mile loop.  I overruled them on the route, not being quite early enough for that when I also needed to get to the office; this turned out to be a good thing, as, after 5 miles without much in the way of hills, I was getting pretty darn tired.

A little bit of real work time this morning.  The client's electric mice got a preliminary ride on the whoopsiedoodle!  Alas, they got dizzy and horked up all their data while still on the ride.  Turns out they need to be blindfolded, besides which there's some sort of software issue that needs fixing.  Also, I got the go-ahead for adding the proper closed-loop speed controller, to facilitate testing at several preset levels of G force.  Another thing to get done in the next week....

Tomorrow, I have the feeling I'll skip walkies in favor of getting work done: some analog breadboarding (for the Extreme Toaster project), and, if I'm feeling sufficiently coherent, a bit of further metal-carving.  (I'm sure that, if the Bridgeport manual were written today, it would include a warning against operating the machine whilst zombified.)

 

Awake (?)

Mnfxt.  First blog post this morning, 0400.  What I'm doing up and posting already?

Well... being up at 0400 is not all that unusual for me, but generally I'd be reading, not posting.

This morning, I crawled out of bed at 0215.

Three factors, aside from early bedtime last night:

1. Ferschlugginer mosquitoes.  Many big, lumpy, itchy bites, occasional buzzing in ear, inspiring swatting and anxiety.

2. Heat.  Too hot to hide under sheet and still sleep.  Need ventilation.  Without sheet, mosquitoes bite every-flippin'-where.

3. Some kind low-grade creeping crud.  Had it since Sunday morning.  Assumed it was just work-related stress ("Oh, crap, I need to get three different big projects done before Monday!") plus hot weather and being overdue for a haircut, but now have the suspicion that some manner of virus may be involved.  Symptoms: basically those of a moderate fever, minus the actual fever.  Hot'n'sweaty beyond what the weather would explain, sore muscles beyond what last week's physical work would explain, headache, inability to focus.

At least the crud doesn't seem to be what Tam has, which sounds like the virus I've heard has been making the rounds of Silicon Valley the past few weeks (and which, now as I think of it, might explain why the trails have been so empty on recent fine sunny mornings.  I mean, apart from the mountain lions).

Oh, well.  Time to get properly started on the day.  Early walkies this morning, after which it's down to the company lab to give a client's electric mice their rides on the new whoopsiedoodle, assuming the client can get the mice's firmware to do the data collection properly.

 

What's a Matador?

All the cool kids are doing it...

1. What was your first car? Model, year, color, condition?
2. What adventures did you have in it, good or bad?
3. What happened to it, what’s the end of the story?

1. AMC Matador, 1973, brown, well-used and requiring constant maintenance.  It was a hand-me-down from my father; at the time, I seldom needed a car, what with work being within convenient walking distance of home.

2. Not much in the way of adventures.  It got me to places that were a bit beyond walking or bicycle distance, plus the occasional drive to a backpacking outing, and a couple of trips up to scenic Gazelle, California, home of Starpoint Software (for a new business venture that kinda fizzled out).

3. After I moved to Sunnyvale and started needing to use the car for the daly commute, the Matador's condition deteriorated rather quickly, with wheel bearings looking urgent and a head gasket not far behind, and many other problems impending.  In the spring of '89, I got the Jeep to replace it, and the old beast sat by the curb until the guy who delivered the morning paper offered me several times scrap value (i.e., not much) for something he could drive slowly around surface streets.

A few years later, I heard that AMC products had become collectible.  Aw, darn!  And the body had been in fine shape; it was just the working bits that were troublesome.

 

Snap, crackle, phew!

This must be a bad month for vintage smoke bushings.

I've got an old Kepco 0-36V, 1.5A lab power supply that came as a freebie when I bought its big brother on eBay a few years ago.  It's gotten a fair amount of use, on account of fitting into a narrow space on my cluttered workbench, and lately I've been using it to run medium-sized motors for test purposes.

Well, I just dragged the assembled base of the new whoopsiedoodle into the lab to check its tachometer.  Hooked it up to the power supply.  Switched on.  It ran for several seconds, at somewhat variable speed (or, a. it sounded variable, and b. the scope display of the tach output looked variable), and then stopped.

Huh?

Check connections.  Note supply is showing no voltage and no current.  Flip switch a couple of times.  Start hearing the dreaded little crackly bubbly noises; smell (but don't see) magic blue smoke.

Aw, foo.  Out to the garage with it; maybe it's repairable - there should at least be a visually evident failure point, even if it's not the original failure point.

Meanwhile, there are three other things here that ought to be able to perform the task at hand: big brother (what I don't have bench space for, but it could run on the floor), another medium bench supply, and a serious 1U rack-mount on-meta-loan Anthrax Xantrex (which, again, would have to run on the floor).

Update: big brother is too well buried at the moment.  Other medium bench supply goes directly to current limiting without the motor even thinking about budging; somehow, I don't think it's really putting out 5A.  The Xantrex works fine; the motor spins happily, drawing around 0.8A steady-state at 12V as it spins the main shaft.  Speed sounds reasonably constant, but there's a lot of wobble in the tachometer output... possibly because the slotted wheel thingy is slightly wobbly both axially and radially.  Guess I should see how correctable that is, and then take measures to average the pulse intervals over a full rotation.  (Short-term speed regulation won't be that much of an issue, since when the thing's fully assembled it'll act like a bloody great flywheel.)

 

Pushing bits around

Didn't get much bit-pushing done myself, most of that time having been devoured by hardware-architecture issues, but I did run the apprentice through the process for creating the firmware for a new toaster model.

This was a particularly simple case: a clone of one of the existing models, but with a new identity and a few parameters tweaked in the Big Table Of Configuration Data.  The firmware having been duly cloned, I left him to fill in the new values (on Monday, when the lead engineer will be back to answer questions that crop up during the process).

Meanwhile, the Extreme Toaster has sprouted a new subsystem, wherefore the controller board will apparently require a new and entirely unplanned status input (we can repurpose an output which was meant to control a subsystem which no longer exists, and which has feedback from the pin).  I'm not clear on what the new subsystem is, exactly (nor is the lead engineer), but it seems to be some sort of Explosive Space Modulator.  Unless I misheard.

 

Dang...

In pondering fourth-quarter CAPEX, I'd been tentatively figuring in one of these newfangled CANbus adapter/analyzers, mainly as a learning tool.

Except that the promotional pricing was last month, when it was up in the air whether we'd be needing CANbus for an upcoming project.  (It's still up in the air as to whether we'll get the contract, and whether the system will have CAN in it, but we're figuring CAN into the proposal on general principles.)

Oh, well: I've ordered a couple of books; the hardware aspect is trivial (add one PHY chip); and maybe I can persuade the boss that the company ought to be buying me the CAN-CAN box (being smaller and cheaper than, e.g., a recent-vintage car I could play with as a source of CAN traffic).

In other CAPEX projections, what with cash flow not being so great right now: benchtop CNC mill is out; benchtop 3D printer is postponed if only because of much better ones being on the way Real Soon Now (and also that's maybe something the company gets); if the cash situation picks up a bit, I'll likely spruce up the old Bridgeport with a bargain-basement DRO, probably a VFD, and perhaps some other niceties.  It definitely could use repairs to the mist cooling system, and maybe one of those one-shot lube gizmos; those maybe get ordered next week, out of current cash on hand (along with some tools, like replacements for those fiddly little 1/16" carbide endmills I broke this week).

...And I hope the narcs don't come looking for my stash of CANbus....

 

How to save President Beeblebrox's re-election prospects

Really, it's all about the jobs, innit?

So what can the President do to create new jobs for Americans, and to bring back the jobs that have long since gone overseas?

Simple: start a land war in Asia.

I had the idea, early in his term, that he'd eventually launch a war of conquest and/or plunder, but such a profitable war turns out not to be necessary.  Nor need the war be short and victorious (as the one in Libya was presumably meant to be); indeed, one that drags on interminably is best.

Think: any serious war, as opposed to a collection of small wars (or dynamic contingency operations, or whatever) creates jobs for citizens, both as cannon fodder and toiling in the factories.  It also provides cover for austerity measures: we all have to make sacrifices for the war effort, and if Lady Macbeth can give up two of her $10 million vacations this year (to areas which are now at war anyway), then Grandma can sacrifice her Social Security check, no?

And!  With trade disrupted, and China likely on the other side in the war, all the manufacturing that's moved overseas will have to come home!

Even after the war winds down, we could find ourselves back in the 1950s, with all the other industrial powers bombed back to the Stone Age and our factories largely intact.  Also, our restless, trouble-making young male population would have been conveniently thinned out.

Heck, he might even get a third term!

 

Dusted off after may years of disuse

The back gear on the Bridgeport.  Turning a large hole saw at 80 RPM gets rid of that pesky chatter.  Caution: while it's not chattery, it can get mighty torqative; holding the cutter in a keyless chuck may result in extreme tightening, and a trip to the toolbox for a pipe wrench to loosen the darn chuck afterward.  (No, I didn't get hole saws with R8 arbors.)

Tap Magic Aluminum.  I vaguely remembered I had a can of the stuff around here somewhere, but had forgotten the spicy aroma, and how well the stuff works.  Way better than kerosene or wax.

Birchwood Casey Aluminum Black.  Had a little of the stuff sloshing around in the bottom of the bottle from way-back-when.  Doesn't exactly give a wonderful finish, but when you've just countersunk holes in a black anodized panel, and the black oxide screw heads don't quite fill the holes, a vaguely dark-gray hue looks so much less out of place than shiny unfinished aluminum.  (Though, come to think of it, maybe I'd better give it a protective coating of some sort; this thing's gonna be deployed in a somewhat corrosive environment.)

Yes, it was another metalworking day.  Got this project almost ready to hand back to the rest of the team.  Tomorrow, maybe I can finish the whoopsiedoodle.  Then, Friday, it's back to pushing bits around!

 

Musta left my brain in my other hat this morning.

Well, I managed to get some actual work done today: made a little progress on one of the toasters, before two op amps started exhibiting incomprehensible behavior.  (It doesn't help any that there's a ground loop somewhere, such that the scope shows a 15 mV offset between a ground post.)

Then I spent a few hours in the machine shop, attempting to fabricate a simple little slotted wheel, and making one boneheaded mistake after another.  Following a break, mistakes resumed.

Several blanks (of various sorts) having been ruined (in various ways), and a couple of fixtures having been made, used, and proven unsuited to their tasks, I conclude that it's too late in the day to be messing with rotating machinery without a functioning brain.  And maybe I don't need the slotted wheel anyway.  Or can buy one somewhere.

 

Garden mysteries

In the spring, I planted a new row of blueberry bushes along the patio.

A couple of weeks ago, following a prosperous summer, one of them suddenly started turning brown.  Soon, all the leaves were brown and dry.

It was getting the same water and fertilizer as its near neighbors, all planted at the same time, and one being of the same variety.

Roots eaten by some burrowing varmint, perhaps?

Yesterday, I bought a replacement (of a different variety).

Today I planted it.  This involved pulling up the dead one.  Which proved to have a well-developed root system, with nothing obviously wrong.

A mystery.

Also today, I decided to identify, once and for all, the medium-sized, yellow-and-green squashes whereof the squash patch produced such a multitude this year.  Easy, right?  I stuck a tag in the ground at each hill this year, identifying the variety.  Trace the huge vine back to its origin, and read the tag.  Question answered.

Well... I traced the vine back, all right.  I traced it to the edge of the patch, where it had volunteered.  Must have come from a seed scattered by a squirrel.

Which means it doesn't even need to be a variety I planted this year.  Could be one I planted last year and never got any of because of the squirrels.  Or it could be a mongrel of two things I planted last year.

Another mystery.  Oh, well: I figure I'll cook one soon, and if it's tasty I'll save the seeds and hope they produce more of the same next year.

It was a most productive vine.

 

Do I gotta write it myself?

(Answer: probably.  In My Copious Free Time.)

Why is there no decent serial-port communication program for Linux?  My needs at the moment are simple: keyboard to port, port to display (handling the usual ANSI escape sequences, including colors), and occasionally send a raw (probably text) file to the port, or capture port data to a file.  Eventually, I may need x/y/zmodem support.

Seriously: on Windows, there's TeraTerm (various flavors), and the crappy HyperTerminal that comes bundled.  PuTTY is also usable, after a fashion.  Of course, if you're stuck with Windows 7, none of these will work right, but at least the application exists.

On Linux, there's minicom, which not only has awkward curses-based menus but seems incapable of sending a text file from anyplace but the user's home directory (or, in any event, I'm finding the file-selection process utterly incomprehensible).  Also, it leaves my Konsole session colors white-on-black on exit, instead of back-the-way-it-was, or even restore-to-default-settings.  Then there's gtkterm, which does all the things I need at the moment, and even allows messing with the modem control signals.  Alas, it has a memory leak, and after a few hours of showing one of my live status displays, it'll bomb out.  I never used Seyon when it worked, and now it seems to be broken (at least on Debian), so I don't know whether or not it would have done what I need.

So, maybe I need to learn a bit of C++, and how to use Qt therefrom, and put together a simple-ish and well-behaved GUI serial-port terminal.

Oh, well: for now I'm stuck with minicom, unless I need to send a file, in which case it's gtkterm.  Or, y'know, use the Windows machine to talk to the gadget on the workbench, but I'm really trying to phase out Windows, which has abundant annoyances of its own.

Anyway, blogging time's over for the morning.  Update just finished installing; time to reboot the lab Linux machine and unravel some b0rkage (at least part of which is related to the way I've had networked home directories set up).  Then to get some real work done, on both toaster controllers and mousetronaut trainers.

 

Tool shopping

Need some funny-sized hole saws, 1/16" over a pair of normal sizes.  Hardware stores carry the normal sizes, but not the "just a little bigger" ones.

Turns out MSC has a local retail store!  Shows up on Google Maps as "Rutland", and it's a bit down the street from where I remember the Rutland store having been when it was.  Fair amount of stuff I need from time to time out on display, but no funny-sized hole saws in local stock.  Since I was really hoping to use them this weekend, I pass on ordering them from the Reno warehouse.

Off to Grainger.  No local stock, but they can have those sizes in the store around lunchtime on Monday (and they'll be working on Columbus Day, apparently).  OK, I'll go for that; there's plenty of other stuff I can work on before then.

The unrealistic option would be to use normal-sized hole saws, which exactly match the nominal body diameters of the connectors, and a 3-pound hammer for installation.  Somehow, I don't think the boss would go for that approach.  Nor our partner, nor the prime contractor, nor the customer....

The economics of this points up the absurdity of Government Work For Everyone.  I'll bill the tools to the consulting company, which will bill them to the partner company, which will bill them to the prime contractor, which will bill them to the customer, which will bill them to Congress, which will bill them to me.  With markups at several of those steps.  And then consider that the bill for my labor follows the same path....

 

The banks must be getting desperate

J. Pierpoint Manhattan is offering me some fiddly little incentive to deposit $50K in a savings account.

Uh, guys?  I may be one of those few people with a positive net worth, but I'm not one of those very few with loads of cash sloshing around, and if I were, I probably wouldn't be putting it in a savings account.

...Or maybe I would, since it doesn't look like any of the markets have hit bottom, and at least the savings account (1) doesn't lose dollar value*, (2) pays a fiddly bit of interest, and (3) would pay that fiddly incentive.

The last few years, I guess the best way to invest that money would have been a seat at a Beeblebrox fundraiser; those who did that seem to have done very well for themselves, even as their companies crashed and took our loan guarantees with them.  Now, I'm thinking that would be a very bad investment; it wouldn't even provide protection against the pro-Administration riots that are to come.

 

*I was going to say "doesn't lose value", but, what with inflation being higher than interest rates, the value of the dollars falls off.  And politicians wonder why we have such a miserably low savings rate.