Silicon Valley Redneck

Need to put a dashcam on the tractor

No, not to prove that the wabbit threw himself on my hood and then did a soccer dive.  To record the wonders of Nature!

This afternoon, as I was mowing the tractor-accessible portions of the front lawn, I noticed that I'd acquired a fighter escort.  Yes, a squadron of swallows was flitting around me, keeping me safe from bugs!

Is it just me, or...

Does anyone else, on encountering the phrase "furin cleavage site", immediately think of bꙬbies.se?

 

Profound, if clickbaity

A few days ago, from Veritasium:

This is Math's Fatal Flaw

Er.  While it's philosophically interesting (and highly significant) that there are true statements that can never be proven, it's also important to note that there are plenty of true statements that can be proven.  An infinite number of such, in fact (though I'm not sure what flavor of infinity applies here).

While we now know that there are bounds not only to our current knowledge but to possible knowledge, it remains true that two beans plus two beans equals some beans.  The existence of the Halting Problem doesn't somehow make Marxist pseudo-math work, as I'm sure the "math is racist" crowd would insist if they were aware of the Halting Problem.

Afterthought:  Perhaps even more importantly, there are provably false statements.

The "Turing" machine is now known to halt if given an input of cyanide.  (Sorry, I left my good taste chip in Spare Head 2.)

I don't think I ordered a singularity.

FedEx tracking:

That package seems to have a remarkable knack for being in two places at once when it's not anywhere at all.

Let's do the time warp again....

A little note to purveyors of online content

If you're going to limit the number of free articles per month, and have a button for signing in to see the rest?

It'd help if you'd publish your pricing.  Really.  I was just looking at an article on a site that has a fair amount of good content, and noted that the little bar at the bottom said I was reading the first of three free articles for the month.  That's new... so if I want the full content, what are my options, apart from clearing cookies every so often?

Well... seems I can subscribe to the print magazine.  Nope, not what I want, and it's not clear that subscribing to the print version includes full online access.

Or, I can sign up for something I've never heard of before, which turns out to be some sort of third-party payment service with its own terms and conditions.  Which, also nope.  Especially since there's nowhere a clue as to how much I'd be paying to the site I was trying to read, nor when, nor on what terms.

So I guess I'll be clearing cookies for that site, just as I do with sites I don't want to support.

Tell the customers what they'll be getting, how much they'll be paying, and how the payment scheme is structured.  This is Lemonade Stand 101, folks.

Not sure this is the right sentiment

E-mail from a Toyota dealership back in the Old Country, subject line:

Thank you for your sacrifice

Er.  Surely those whose sacrifice is meant to be honored on the upcoming holiday are in no position to read e-mails (never mind buy new cars)?

... Wait.  Is Ouijacoin a thing yet?

Well, if being transvaccinated is a thing...

Noted here, though it's not exactly a new concept:

“A lot of people are using the phrase, ‘I identify as fully vaccinated’ and taking their masks off,” Kerry Ott, public information officer for the Luce, Mackinac, Alger, and Schoolcraft (LMAS) health department told Michigan Radio. “I’m not kidding …They’re not vaccinated, but they’re going to take their masks off.”

But that's just petty head games.  Try this one on, when challenged about failure to wear a mask: "This is a mask.  To gaze upon my true face would bring madness."  (It helps if you can do a Voice somewhere between Darth Vader and Great Cthulhu.)

A song for our times

Been tickling the back of my brain for a few weeks now:

Tom Smith's "Cthulhu Lite FM"

Dread Cthulhu knew we'd fight if we're scared,
So he made us so jaded that nobody cared.
With clinic bombings, kids shot at school,
And the W.B. Network - Hey, Great Old Ones!  Cool!

Really, with all the stuff that's going on?  The emergence of the Great Old Ones could happen almost without notice.

Google doesn't grok UI, part n+1

YouTube has a penchant for popping up a box inquiring: "Hey, kid, want a free trial of [new feature]?"

It offers two possible responses: "No thanks" and "Sure, start my free trial now" (paraphrased; I already clicked the "no" button to make it go away).

Thing is... in a sane world, "no" would mean "no", and YouTube wouldn't ask the same user the same question again a few days later.

There should be three buttons: "yes", "no", and "dismiss this question without prejudice", the third typically being a little "X" in the top right corner and/or an "ask again later" button, but Google doesn't seem to believe in those, and instead assigns that function to the "no" button, leaving no option for "dismiss with prejudice".

Another lawnmower update

Well!

It took several tries, much frustration, and a lot of sore muscles, but I eventually did manage to get the belt back in place.  It was necessary to dismount the hydrostat, again, then carefully wrestle it back into position with the belt routed correctly (and the tensioner spring removed).

Bolts torqued more or less to spec, linkages reconnected, tensioner spring re-installed, deck belt retensioned, wheel re-attached.  Lower to the floor.  Chocks away!  Fire 'er up... hm.  Is it noisier than it used to be?  Different noises?  Or... it it just that I'm not wearing earmuffs?

Anyway, by that time it's dinner break.  After dinner, back to it.  It moves, and mows, but... does seem noisier.  And something smells hot.  Is the belt rubbing against something?  Slipping and burning?  Back to the barn.

I can't find anything obviously wrong, and the hot smell isn't there when it's stopped.  Use the leaf-blower to remove various old grass clippings.  Take it back out, this time with music on the earmuffs.  Seems pretty much normal, when I'm using it under normal conditions.

So, I guess it's fixed.  Mowed maybe half an acre out back this evening.  Maybe a bit less than that.

Maybe I'll do the spring oil change tomorrow morning; the oil on the dipstick is looking a mite grubby.  Then, well, there are plenty of lawn & pathway areas that are getting out of hand.

Additional:  I think the blades probably do need sharpening.  Another thing to put on the to-do list.  (Some of the vegetation, grass and otherwise, has put up tall, tough stalks, and the mower isn't doing a very good job on those; sharp blades might help.)

Monday afternoon update:  Well, I got a little more mowing done... and then it suddenly stopped moving again.  Drive belt is shredded.

Think maybe I didn't have it on right after all?

I got it back into the barn... this involved the usual "bypass the hydrostats and disengage the parking brake" thing, then blatantly disregarding instructions and towing it behind the tractor, because I darn well wasn't going to push that heavy beastie up that hill.  A certain amount of improvisation was involved; I think I need to round up some appropriate hardware for attaching chains to tow bars and suchlike.

Guess I'll see about getting it fixed by someone who does this stuff for a living, has the proper tools for the job, and knows what he's doing.  Got other, more urgent stuff to deal with right now, so I may not start making phone calls until tomorrow.

Wednesday morning update:  Hm.  Did I mention all the skilled tradesmen around here seem to be mighty busy?  That includes lawnmower repairmen.  The places I've talked to so far have backlogs between six weeks and a couple of months.  Meanwhile, the lawn is growing.

I guess I'll try a few more, but I'd better also get a replacement belt on order (plus a couple of spares, plus a spare deck belt or two), 'cause it looks like I'm gonna have to do my own repairs & maintenance.

Sub-update:  Talked to an old guy who does mower repair.  He's only running about 10 days behind, but doesn't have a way to do pick up & delivery.  Meanwhile, I've ordered both flavors of belts, which should be here early next week, and maybe it's really time to buy a dagnab utility/landscape trailer.

Albert Camus, call your office

Noted in this piece:

By contrast, images of people not crying or trembling are adduced as evidence of their insincerity.

Yeah.  The Stranger, much?

Diffidently I point out that sociopaths are very good at putting on displays of emotion when they're aware that such displays are called for.  It's all fake, but very persuasive, and if you question the sociopath's sincerity, you're a monster.

(Was this also a factor in witch trials?  Seems like grand displays of emotion on the part of purported victims were an important part of the process.)

... and hot afternoons

Yeah, temperature out there got up north of 85°F.  And, late morning and early afternoon, I was trying to get some gardening done: trudging back and forth to the New Victory Garden lugging various stuff, attacking weeds with a hoe, digging, putting down more weed barrier, and so on.  Also, there was a bit of hiking around a hilly zone on Family Business.

It's enough to make one rather hot and tired.

Unwinding now.  Almost time to fix dinner, which I think is something pasta-based with Italian sausage.

Warm mornings

And even warmer afternoons, but right now I'm noting that at 0921 it's already 70°F out there.

I was really noticing it when I was out doing yard work in the blazing early-morning sun.

Looks like continuing warm weather, with no rain in sight the next several days, so I gotta do watering in addition to everything else.

I think I need to burn off more of the polar-bear insulation.  That, and it's time to start keeping my hair at summer length.

Lawnmower update

After various days of distractions (about which, maybe more eventually), I got the pesky hydrostat dismounted this morning.  Without, mind you, any apparent damage to the hydrostat, the floor, nor myself (aside from a lot of aches & pains from working in a very awkward position).

I ended up using the floor jack, some wood scraps, and a heavy-duty rubber strap.

Putting it back into its place (with the belt back where it belongs) was another bit of an adventure, but it's now back where it should be, with all bolts and n-1 nuts in place.  The remaining nut...I mentioned the impossible bolt?  The one that's supposed to get torqued first?  And how putting its nut back on was going to be even more of a nightmare?  Yeah.  The bolt is now where it needs to be, but I think re-installing the nut is going to involve some manner of temporary stickum to stick the washer to the nut and the nut to the wrench.

Incidentally, the washer in question shows definite signs of Gorilla Torque.

Anyway, I expect to get it all back together, with the bolts torqued to spec, later today.  Then I'll be able to mow the non-tractorable parts of the lawn!  And return the tractor to its normal configuration!

In support of lawn-mowing, I've also started putting up hose hangers on posts in various places so as to facilitate getting hoses off of areas that need mowing.  This reminds me: I need to order a bunch more hose hangers, being as how we've got rather a lot of long hose segments that'll need organizing.

Update:  So I managed to get the impossible nut and its washer into place, got everything more or less torqued, and... the drive belt is over the crankshaft pulley, not on nor under it.  So far, I haven't managed to fix this, despite loosening the belt tensioner spring as far as possible.  Guess I can (a) remove the hydrostat again, (b) try to figure out how to remove, and then reinstall, the tensioner assembly, or (c) wait for the impact wrench to arrive tomorrow and remove the various obstructions from the end of the crankshaft.

Seems like there should be an app for this...

The bundled clock/timer/stopwatch app on my Android phone is useful, but the timer function lacks a feature I want: the ability to define a bunch of named presets, start one or more at various times, and have the preset name pop up when the alarm sounds on timer expiration.

So I might have a 15-minute preset for leaving a car running to charge its battery, or a half-hour preset for running a sprinkler.  The sort of thing you start, then wander off to do something productive in the meantime, and forget about until much later.

Toss in a snooze button for those times when I can't run off and deal with the event just now but should be able to do it in 5 minutes or whatever, and that's be really useful.

I tried searching for such an app, but couldn't come up with the right set of keywords.

(I suppose such an app could simply maintain the list of presets, set an alarm based on the current time plus the preset interval, and let the clock app deal with the alarm... maybe?)

Anyway, taking up Android programming isn't really on my list of things to do this year, but surely there are other people who need this sort of thing.

Proof that the Bug War has started!

So there we were, just a couple of miles from home, checking out a little patch of forest along the river...

The phone video just doesn't convey the sound.  We saw a few discarded exoskeletons, and heard an overwhelming racket, as if a Bug flying saucer were hovering right nearby.

Never did catch a glimpse of the flying saucer.  Maybe it was cloaked.  Bugs have cloaking technology, right?  That's one of those everyone-has-it-but-us things?

I thought the story was that the Gen X Bugs were going to have their party real soon, but not yet.  Seems this patch is running a little early.  I assume they'll turn up here within the next few days.

Now, where'd I put my flamethrower...?  Wait, forget the flamethrower.  I want a FIDO!

Update:  By mid-morning Thursday, there was a faint sound of flying saucers around our own yard.  Things may get noisy around here.

Maybe rethinking MCU vendors

Taking another look at the chip-supply situation, I find that ARM-core microcontrollers from Atmel/Microchip remain available, and are cheap.

Trying to remember why I wasn't designing them in before... I think it was because their IDE was Windows-only.  This is no longer the case; there's a Linux version.  In fact, I'd previously downloaded an earlier version of it, but hadn't done anything with it.

And I have the debugging pod already (for programming the latest and tiniest AVR parts).

So, hm.  I'm not currently seeing a reason not to consider the ATSAM line of MCUs, when I get back to designing Gadgets, which I hope will be yet this year.

Guess I should also check out the various purveyors of small FPGAs.  I think Xilinx is out, as at last report they were no longer supporting the development tools for the sort of small parts that I tend to use.  Altera was looking promising.  Microsemi/Microchip and Lattice, I'll have to take another look at.  Availability of development tools with non-expiring licenses is a perpetual issue, given the expected long-term support requirements for some of the things I design.  (This ties in with my penchant for accosting chip vendors at trade shows and asking when some part or other will be available in mil-spec.)

Update:  On the FPGA front, Microchip is still very much Out, as the free license for the development software is only for one year, a 20-year license (for an edition that has features I don't need) is $3000 and is node-locked, and there doesn't seem to be a perpetual license that allows compiling updates to one's logic.  So, for long-term support, that's a no-go.  Looks like Lattice's base-level software is strictly on annual (and node-locked) licenses, too, though the version for one of the small FPGA families might not be time-limited... maybe?

Update 2:  Looking back at the Atmel/Microchip MCU side of things, it seems that the parts I was looking at (ATSAM4S4AB and similar) aren't supported by the cross-platform MPLAB IDE, but only by Windows-specific Atmel Studio.  Grrrr.  Have to take software support into account when picking a device family.  Oh, well: any action on this is at least a couple of months off, anyway.

Update 3:  Maybe it's the older, Atmel-branded parts that aren't (yet?) supported by the Microchip-branded IDE?  If I were still going to trade shows, I'd try to corner someone at the Microchip booth and inquire.  Anyway, it looks like at SAMD5/SAME5 series would do nicely, but parts in the QFN48 package seem to be nonexistent in the distributor pipeline; Microchip offers to sell me a tray of 416 parts, but I dunno what the lead time is (distributors are showing "parts on order; expected in December or maybe January").  I suppose a QFN64 might be OK, though I don't exactly need a high-pin-count device in my applications, and space is kind of tight.  9x9mm instead of 7x7mm?  I guess that's OK.  The Gadgets don't need Ethernet, and mostly don't need CANbus, but having those features on the chip doesn't hurt anything as long as firmware that ignores them will run properly.

Trendy area, much?

When we bought the Annex, seven sub-acre lots carved out of the front, along the road, got snapped up by what we assumed to be a developer.

They recently had a quick haircut, and signs popped up on the first three.  Just "lot for sale", so I guess the buyer was a speculator, not a developer.

The price history for one of the 0.66-acre lots:

That's... quite a markup for four months, one lawn-mowing, and putting a few permanent survey markers next to the wooden ones.  Oh, and it comes with a 4-bedroom septic permit, so I guess someone did some paperwork, but I'm not sure if that was before or after the January sale.

Search company doesn't speak search.

So, Google has owned YouTube for several years now, right?

And Google used to be a search company?

So why is it impossible to search the comments of a YouTube vid?  Hmmmm?

If there are more than a few comments, most of them are hidden, and it looks like the only way to get even all the top-level comments loaded is to keep scrollin' and scrollin' until you finally hit bottom.  Comments that haven't been hidden are of course invisible to the browser's search function.

And I'm not seeing any little search box on the page to allow searching the comments on the currently-displayed video.  Search for another video, yes.  Search the comments on this video, no.

So, if I'm thinking of commenting on a popular vid, and I want to make sure nobody else has already said the same thing... I'm pretty much stuck.

Am I missing a step?

Instructions for dismounting the deck from the lawnmower:

42 inch Stamped and 42/50/54/60 Inch Fabricated Deck Removal
   Note: The following procedure shows the 42 inch stamped deck.
       1. Park the machine on a level surface and set the parking brake. Stop the engine, wait for all moving parts to stop and remove the key.
       2. Using a spring puller, remove the deck tension spring from the deck tension spring anchor.
       3. Remove the deck belt from the PTO clutch.
       4. Remove the cotter pin and washer (1 per side) from each side of the rear deck weldment securing the rear of deck to the deck lift hanger.
       5. Remove the rear lift arms from the deck weldments.
       6. Raise the deck lift handle to the transport position.
       7. Remove the cotter pin and washer securing the front deck hanger to front deck weldment. Remove the rod from the deck.
       8. Remove the wood blocks from under the deck.
       9. Slide the deck away from the machine.

Er.  What wood blocks would those be, then?

Putting some 2x4s under the deck is mentioned earlier... about 35 pages earlier, under a completely different procedure.

Nobody proffreads anymore.

Update:  By lifting the back of the mower as high as the jack and stands could agree on (that is to say, the highest position on the stands that I could put it back down on after lifting with the jack), and raising the deck as far as it'll go, I got just enough room to work the ratchet on the torque wrench, and got enough leverage to break the insanely-placed bolt free.  Putting it back together promises to be Fun, as the nut is in an even more inaccessible place than the bolt.

No matter how slack the belt may be, there seems to be no doggone way (at least, with my level of hand strength) to get the belt back around the fan on this model without entirely dismounting the hydrostat.  Which I don't think I'm going to do today.  Tomorrow, probably.  Gotta figure out what I'm going to do about controlling its descent.

As Jim Register suggested in the comments, I've ordered an actual impact driver; it wouldn't have helped with this issue, but someday I'll have to replace the belt, and that definitely involves removing that annoying bolt from the crankshaft.  I ordered a Milwaukee, to color-coordinate (and, more to the point, battery-coordinate) with the rest of the cordless power tools.  I'm sure it'll come in useful for a variety of tasks in coming years.