Silicon Valley Redneck

Oh, this again.

Story making the rounds: voting machines in Texas are switching votes from Bobby-Frank McLopez to Alpho Cruz!  People have seen it happening!

Yeah.  Riiiight.

What kind of idiot programmers do you think the Devil (GOP, Russia, whatever) employs?

Back in 2004, people claimed to have seen their votes (or to have heard of people seeing their votes) being moved from Kerry to Bush.  Animated on the screen, like.  Which would take a whole bunch of extra work to implement.

There have been more plausible claims that miscalibrated touchscreens might be picking up touches at some offset from the location intended.  Which the alert user will compensate for by trying again, touching at a slightly different location, until the right box ends up checked.

But, if it were intentional?  The voter would never see the change.

The thing about touchscreen voting systems is, what's on the screen isn't what gets recorded.  They're supposed to match, but don't inherently match.  An intentional change of vote would leave the screen as the voter expected, while recording a different choice.

This is a good reason for mark-sense paper ballots.  The mark the voter sees is the mark that's recorded.  If there's a suspicion that the ballots were counted incorrectly by automated equipment, a manual recount can be done, with live people examining the actual marks on paper.  Can't do that with bits from glorified* fast-food kiosks.

* Actually, the voting machines are likely less sophisticated and secure than fast-food kiosks, because credit-card fraud is taken more seriously than election fraud, and also fast-food customers tend to notice if they don't get what they voted for.  Incentives matter.

Must be mistaken identity.

In the latest 💣MeToo incident, a Democratic Party office in Miami was closed due to a suspicious package.

Which turned out to contain Bill Nelson bumper stickers.

Well, that's understandable.  They had to make sure they referred to the politician, not to the guy from rec.pyrotechnics.

Not in the seasonal spirit this year.

Yeah, here it is Samhain, and I just wore my usual hiking attire this morning (plus a light jacket, because it was a bit nippy).

But all my costume stuff is packed and in storage (since we were expecting to have moved by now).  And the weather was not conducive to dressing like a Pict.  (Couldn't find a good recording of the former, nor any recording of the latter.)

Muscle memory can be tricky.

So I got this new Bluetooth speakerphone that clips to the visor in my car....

The previous one, and the one before it, had the power switch on the right-hand side.

This one has the power switch on the left.

Running through the cool-morning (with dew-covered windows) startup drill yesterday, I started the engine, turned on the headlights, turned on the speakerphone, and flashed the high-beams a couple of times before figuring out that the windshield washer is operated with the right hand, which is no longer the same hand I just used to turn on the speakerphone.

Eventually I'll get my hands trained the right way which.

No missing appendages!

Had occasion to use a circular saw this afternoon, for the first time in, if memory serves, a bit over 20 years.

At the end of the exercise, the quarter-sheet of 0.2" pretty-ply was disassembled into a pile of oddball rectangles that added up to just what I needed (plus a pile of sawdust and a couple of scraps), and no blood had been spilled.

Soon enough I'll be nailing the various rectangles into their assigned places in preparation for painting.  (They replace some really weird bits of wood that never really looked right.)

Another great idea straight out of Central Planning

So I set out to buy some new smoke detectors....

Turns out you can't get the old type in California anymore.  Home Despot was (at least, at first glance) only selling the hardwired type, which would run into the many thousands of dollars to install in my house, what with needing to have the entire (insulation-filled) attic crawlspace wired just for them.

Looking on Amazon turned up the reason, and some non-hard-wired solutions.  California, along with some other states, now mandates smoke detectors with sealed, tamperproof, non-replaceable, 10-year batteries.

Because you're too mentally incompetent to replace the battery when the low-battery alarm starts beeping, apparently.

And making it tamperproof makes perfect sense.  Because you have no need, ever, to disable your smoke detectors.  I mean, unless you ever clean your oven, or bake pizza, or relight your furnace in fall, or fix microwave popcorn, or anything like that.

After 10 years, when the low-battery beep finally starts?  Huzzah!  Your smoke detector is now a lump of radioactive e-waste!

(No, the source isn't all worn out after 10 years.  The half-life of ²⁴¹Am is 432 years.  At the 10-year mark, its activity is still well within factory tolerances.)

Some anomalies aren't.

When looking for anomalies, it's important to consider ways in which they might not be.

Case in point: it's being said (no linky for this) that the recent "mail bombs" had grossly insufficient postage.

Which sounds true enough, if you ponder the weight of that size piece of iron pipe.

But... apparently it was PVC pipe.  Which is considerably lighter.  And the photos of the CNN "bomb" actually make a little more sense if the pipe is white PVC.

I don't have any loose bits of PVC pipe handy to play with, but a rough guesstimate suggests that a half-dozen stamps might in fact suffice for that much PVC, a tiny digital clock, some token pyrotechnic material (or whatever the heck it was), and a couple of bits of wire and tape.

The "insufficient postage" thing is being used to promote some hard-core tinfoil-hattery, so it's worth a bit of reality-checking.

Clarification:  By "make a little more sense" above, I don't mean that they look more like photos of an actual bomb.  Rather, white PVC pipe explains away the appearance, in one photo but not the other, that there might be a white box behind the clock; some had speculated that it might contain a battery sufficient to heat up a bridgewire.  If the pipe is in fact white, it's much easier to see the "box" as just being an exposed part of the pipe itself, as seen from one particular angle.

And by "tinfoil-hattery", I mean the assertion that the packages had to have been caught by the USPS and subsequently hand-delivered by the FBI, for Insidious Deep State reasons.  (Really, guys: the Incompetent Derp State is quite capable of delivering lumpy envelopes bearing probably-sufficient postage without following its own procedures for hand-cancelling the stamps nor noticing that there's anything amiss.)

"If you don't like the censorship, start your own social media site."

Er, right.

Looks like Gab has been shut down.  Again.  For not duplicating the Google/Facebook/Twitter censorship policies.  Again.  (Which policies, incidentally, are very tolerant of certain types of hate speech, but not of political differences, nor of the mocking of sacred cows.)

This time, the outrage mob seems to have gotten Gab denied financial services, domain name registration services, and probably also hosting services.

Isn't there some law regarding conspiracy to violate civil rights or something?  Or at least conspiracy in restraint of trade, being as how the established companies seem to be significantly involved in shutting down the competition?

(I never had much to do with Gab.  Early on, it got swamped by noisy racist wackjobs in general and anti-Semites in particular.  I'd taken a couple of peeks in the last month or so, and most of the crap seemed to have been cleaned up.  There was even a fair amount of constructive material; the signal-to-noise ratio was looking somewhat promising.)

Unexamined assumptions

Here's one I've been questioning since it was first reported; it remains in the news, but I haven't seen the question asked, let alone answered, in any of the coverage that's come to my attention:

Matt Lauer, NBC's lovely, $20 million anchor who had a door lock on his desk to more easily prey on female subordinates

OK, now: let's take the italicized part as true, that is, that Lauer (and reportedly others at NBC) had a button on or under his desk that allowed him to lock the door of his office while remaining seated at his desk.

The plausibility of the bolded part depends on the assumption: that the door, thus locked, was locked against egress.  Which surely would be all kinds of illegal, starting with being a fire code violation, no?  A door that can be locked to prevent the occupants from escaping, and it's not in an official detention facility?  What contractor would install that?

On the other hand, a button that locks the door against ingress makes perfect sense, and would (or at least ought to) be eminently legal.  Keeps the vengeful looney in the hallway from getting at the high-value desk warmer, but doesn't prevent escape.

So, guys: anyone had a chance to examine the door lock in question?  Or talk to the contractor who installed it?  Or even ask a studio executive why there was a remote-lock button and what exactly it did?

Afterthought:  Perhaps the failure to ask this question is related to the widespread refusal to acknowledge, in a broader sense, the difference between keeping people in and keeping people out, in particular at national borders.

Earworm

Couple days back, some helpful individuals pointed out that 'twas St. Crispin's Day.

Ever since which time, I've had a tune stuck in my head.  So now I'll share it with you.  Because I'm generous that way.

You're welcome.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel the need to crank up some Berlioz.

Family sharing: do the math (not the meth)

I'm sure this has been noted before, in various places.  Possibly with Consequences involved.

12-hour pseudoephedrine: 120mg per dose, 2 doses per day.  That works out to 7.2 grams per 30 days for one person.

Federal law forbids buying more than 9 grams of pseudoephedrine per 30-day period.

So!  If two family members have an extended case of the sniffles... better not have one person buying the decongestant for both, or the wonderful computerized purchase-reporting system will automatically rat out your shopper to the narcs.

I've been gobbling the stuff at standard dosage for a few weeks now (at this point, mainly in hopes of unclogging my Eustachian tubes in the lingering aftermath of my end-of-summer cold).  Joy has also been using some.  Guess I'd better make sure she buys the next box.

Ah, the times we live in!

Granny Weatherwax explains the CNN mail bomb

Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact.

From Wyrd Sisters, of course.

(For those not paying attention: judging from the photos of the "bomb" received by CNN, it was utterly implausible as a functional parcel bomb, for various reasons, but looked remarkably like something that was trying to look like a bomb, As Seen On TV.)

Terminology

The "Mute" button: what does it do?

On some devices, it does what it says on the tin: makes the device shut up, or at least get quiet.  A mute person cannot speak; musically speaking, a "mute" is a dingus that makes an instrument quieter.  So this is consistent with the established meaning of the word.

On other devices, though... it makes the device stop listening.  Or at least nominally interrupts the microphone's normal function.  Which is not so much Mute as Deafen.

The icon on my new speakerphone has it right (a crossed-out microphone), but the little instruction booklet calls it a Mute button, which doesn't really make sense.  (Or have I just had too much to think?)

Investment advice

If you go looking for it, seems there are currently a lot of people pushing the idea that you should invest in medical marijuana.

Which sounds, at first, like a fine idea, until you give it a bit of a think.

For one thing, you don't invest in a product (unless you're on a mercantile exchange or something); you invest in one or more companies.  And there's not much to choose from, in an area with a very low barrier to entry.  It's not like any given pot business has a unique product nor even widely-recognized branding; while there's considerable potential for growth in the field, the potential for long-term growth of a particular company is basically zilch.  Especially if the owners sample their own wares.

For another, I don't believe there are any publicly-traded pot companies... nor will there be, until the laws change.  (Really, just try getting your IPO past the SEC when your product is banned by federal law.)  Established pharmaceutical companies may get into the business as laws and the FDA's attitude change... and of course they're the ones with the knowledge, connections, and financial wherewithal to get their products approved as proper drugs for real medical use, but those are Big Pharma companies, not weed companies.

No, what does have potential for growth is the trade association that will inevitably spring up to create barriers to entry.  UL, Realtors, Yoga Alliance, Thieves' Guild: once it's established, it's nigh-impossible to ply the trade without the association's seal of approval.  And doling out certifications is a lucrative business indeed.

So keep an eye out for organizations purporting to offer, e.g., quality inspection and certification for pot purveyors.  Though there's no telling which one will eventually dominate, and you probably won't have the opportunity to invest anyway.

Update:  Seems there are publicly-traded foreign pot companies.  Some of them traded on U.S. exchanges.  Still doesn't seem like a good investment.

Approval voting

May be coming to Fargo.  Yes!

I didn't know this system had a name, nor that anyone with any influence was pushing it.  I've been advocating it for many years now.

One difference, though: in my scheme, each candidate is scored by votes for minus votes against (as I think is the case in the system proposed for Fargo), but!  In order to win, a candidate (as for a ballot measure) must have a positive score, not merely the least-negative.  If no candidate has a positive score, in my system, either there would be a whole new election with all-new candidates (anyone rejected by the voters in the first try being disqualified) or the office would simply remain empty.

... Then there's my proposal for the "dead skunk" option in every election, but that's another story.

A little more progress

Fence construction is now underway; they expect to finish this weekend.

I got the disused watering-system valves capped.  And procured replacement outlet cover plates.  But...

Oh, yeah.  Gotta go back to Amazon.  I need a couple more non-grounded duplex outlets.  They don't seem to be available locally.  Plenty of grounded outlets on offer, but those just ain't right for a house that doesn't have grounded boxes.

And I did get a little bit of real work in, on the new ToasterCo project.

I'd set today aside...

... as a day of work.  Which didn't quite turn out as planned (it never does), but I did get in a solid half day on the latest for ToasterCo.

Which is turning out to be rather a bigger project than I'd anticipated, but I did make some real progress on it.  Over the next few days (in among all the other stuff I'll be doing), I need to extract a few more aspects of the product spec, confirm them with my apprentice, and figure out how to implement them in the FPGA and MCU code.

At least I'm not too concerned about overflowing the FPGA with this; while it adds some minor bits of complexity to the previous model's logic, it also loses one big mess that was dealing with the timing of an arcane control signal that doesn't exist on this model.

And, sometime soon, I need to create a new build-environment virtual machine, with a recent version of Debian (or maybe Mint) and certain development software.  Because the old build environment, as locked down in 2012, is missing a few features, and the toolchains are decidedly out of date.  Maybe I'd better include a couple of additional toolchains, too, to cover...

... Ugh.  I can include the tools for a new MCU family currently in use and for one likely to be used next year, no problem.  But the CPLD software has a time lock, and can't be usefully archived (unless one plans on messing with the system clock).  So it'll be necessary to keep updating the (free-as-in-beer) license, and possibly the software itself.  Such is life.

Downselling

So I took the Prius in to the dealership today, for 250K mile maintenance, a brake job (since a couple of services back the brakes were reported to be approaching minimum, after all these miles), an investigation of a scuffing sound when steering.

Just heard back: "You don't need a brake job yet.  We can do it if you insist, but we'll have to order new rotors.  How about leaving it until next time?"

OK, so next time.  Which should be after the house sells and I have cash on hand, so I can also do the windshield and the timing cover gasket.  And then see if the car lasts long enough to need a second brake job.

Oh, and the scuffing noise?  Apparently is something to do with my aftermarket satnav unit, or more likely its cable.  Which is kinda odd; it started fairly recently, and I've had that unit there for almost a year.  And I removed it to sort out a weird not-finding-the-satellites issue just last week, and then put it back.  Have to take a closer look at the cable routing after I get the car back.

Update:  Curiously, "replace timing cover gasket to fix oil seepage" has disappeared from the to-do list.  Maybe that dose of Geritoil a month or so back stopped the leak?  I'll have to keep an eye on this.

And: sure enough, the scuffing noise has been banished.  On arriving home, I looked more closely at any part of the installation that could have come into contact with moving bits of the steering apparatus... and, well, seems that it was the satnav unit itself that was getting in the way of the back side of the steering wheel hub.  Apparently when its vacuum base came unstuck from its little adhesive-backed smooth platform a while back, I'd re-seated it a little bit further forward than it had been, leading to occasional friction.

Which doesn't explain why, Saturday morning, the sound (1) was louder, (2) seemed still louder when I had the window down, and (3) seemed to have taken on occasional tortured-metal overtones.

So, anyway.  Got various deferred maintenance to worry about later, the biggest items on the current list being the windshield and the brakes.  Maybe I should check with one of those in-your-own-driveway auto-glass places; they might do a Prius windshield a fair bit cheaper than the dealership.  Probably have the brakes done at the dealership, if that's going to be a once-in-a-quarter-million-miles thing.

Additional, slightly car-related:  The "answer" button on my Motorola speakerphone had been deteriorating for a while.  This afternoon, it wasn't working at all.  Turns out that when the rubber face falls apart, the plastic bit no longer engages the metal dome bit usefully.  Might be possible to cobble a semi-fix together with some double-stick foam tape of suitable thickness, but probably not worth the trouble, especially since so much of my stuff is currently inaccessible.  So, off to Amazon again; find a Jabba, er, Jabra that gets good reviews and has a physical OFF switch, and order one for delivery tomorrow.

AD&D

No, not Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  The insurance term: Accidental Death & Dismemberment.

Which, as I suddenly realized in the wee hours of the morning, is what the Saudis now claim happened in their consulate.  With a whole team of adjusters to ensure that the accident happened according to the terms of the policy.

Unicode foolishness

Just noticed a symbol in someone's Twitter label: "Female astronaut (light skin tone)".

Er.  Why isn't it just a generic "Astronaut" symbol, showing a space suit?  The helmet (a proper one, not the specially-lighted Hollywood type) obscures all evidence of race and sex under typical lighting conditions.

And it could be reasonably non-specific, i.e., cartoonish, so you wouldn't need "Astronaut (Mercury)", "Astronaut (Gemini)", and so on, plus variations on "Cosmonaut" and "Chelonaut" or whatever the Agatean Empire calls them.