TechnoCrusader

Sigh...

2009-05-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

The last time I posted Bush was president.

DIY Ballistic Glass

2008-06-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

via Hack-A-Day: A guy made his own ballistic glass. No test results available, but it seems like it should work.

Quote of the Day from JWR

2008-05-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

This was the quote of the day on survivalblog.com today. Sounds like my life. :P

"If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." - Thomas Jefferson

Washington State Open Carry

2008-04-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

Two months without a post again, yuck. I haven't been inactive, through. I've been writing a story in Patriot Fiction over at Frugal's that's been met with some approval. Still plugging along on getting the cars running correctly and working two jobs (I'm approaching 70 hours a week)!

I found an informative site today: http://www.washingtonceasefire.net. They have all kinds of good info, but the most interesting were the tidbits of info about Washington's open carry law. Check it out here: http://www.washingtonceasefire.net/content/category/5/24/32/

Overheard in a livingroom...

2008-02-13T21:13:00.000-08:00

I'm surfing through the cable channels since I don't have cable at home anymore. The kid I'm watching sees a listing.

Kid: Is Larry King the same as Larry the Cable Guy?

Me: No. They're not at all the same.

Kid: Well they both have Larry in their names.

Well dip me in peanut butter and call me mouse bait!

2008-02-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

I just realized that I actually had some comments on a couple of my posts! Thanks for reading, folks.

WA state caucus

2008-02-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

I went to my first caucus on Saturday at one of the local high schools. It was packed. I ended up becoming a delegate by default since there were only three people from my precinct and three spots available.

Out of the seven people at my table (two precincts represented), there were two Ron Pauls, two Huckabees, a Romney, a McCain, and an undecided. That falls roughly with the official results as reported this morning by the Seattle P-I. They're reporting a McCain win, with Huckabee two percent behind him, and Ron Paul three percent behind him. Only 87% of the precincts have been counted yet, so I believe there's still enough sway that anyone could take it.

On a personal note, as of today it looks like I'll be working three jobs - My IT job, babysitting a kid for a few hours a night, and delivering pizza again. We need the $$$, but that's a lot of work. At least the cars are running.

A Point to Ponder

2008-01-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

Found this in the archives over at Possum Living, one of my new favorite blogs.

A Point to Ponder

I'm a new Ford hater!

2008-01-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine came over yesterday to help me with my Escort (I need to pull the head and see if it's OK. If it is, I'm putting a gasket in). I have to say that it is remarkably poorly engineered. It took us about 30-45 minutes to pull the alternator.

That's because the quarters are so tight the only way you can get it out is by unbolting the power steering reservoir, pulling it out of the way as far as you can, and yanking the alternator out, while praying that you don't break the power steering reservoir. We couldn't believe that was what we needed to do so we spent that time looking for another way to get it out.

The alternator was just the first of several things we ran into. You have to unbolt a motor mount just to get to the timing belt. Suffice it to say if I put this thing back together it's getting a new belt, because I sure don't want to go through all this again.

My friend is a long-time Ford hater, and I see why now. I'm just learning some of the deeper stuff in the engine; I've replaced accessories (alternators, water pumps, etc) on other vehicles before, but I've never done anything further in. It boggles the mind that I would need to put another essential component to safe driving (the PS reservoir) in danger to replace an alternator. I can't imagine trying to do that on the side of the road.

The Jeep is running

2008-01-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

Well, after my little car suffered a severe failure of the head gasket (if not something more serious - I haven't troubleshot it yet), the Jeep suddenly got moved to the front burner. The simple reason is that I don't have the $200-$300 needed to take care of the little car right now and I had most of what I needed for the Jeep already.

As given to me, the Jeep had a significant overheating issue. The previous owner informed me that his mechanic told him that he needed to run some Cascade dishwashing detergent through it, flush it, and fill it with a non-water based coolant. After consulting with some other friends who are more mechanically inclined than I, I ended up doing the following:

- Pulled thermostat and tested for flow: Flow OK.
- Used some Prestone Radiator Super Cleaner for a couple days. The thermostat was still out, and the temp didn't even approach 150 (for obvious reasons).
- Drained the system using the lower radiator hose (nothing comes out when using the petcock - presumably clogged ). I bounced on it and got a little more out of the system.
- Installed a flush/fill tee and bypassed the heater control valve (it was leaking).
- Installed a new 180 degree thermostat and new gasket.
- Backflushed the system - it took about 15-20 minutes for the water to run acceptably clean.
- Filled the system with 50/50.
- Installed a new radiator cap.

After some further consideration and advice, I think I'll go back to the 195 degree thermostat next time I change the coolant; the Jeep is supposedly happier closer to 210 degrees. I should try to get a new radiator for it since I can't drain it properly, as well.

Then there's the list of other things that need to get done. The Jeep is drivable in its current state, thankfully, but there are some issues that need to be taken care of.

- The HVAC ducts don't appear to be hooked up. Defrost works fine, but nothing comes out of the vents on any other setting.
- There's a poor quality aftermarket alarm installed. I managed to get it into valet mode, but it needs to go.
- The door locks have some kind of aftermarket power assist on them so the alarm can lock/unlock them, but the passenger side is jammed and can't be locked. Since there's no button to operate the power locks, I'll just remove the jammed actuators.
- Needs a car stereo (gotta have some tunes, and more importantly, news).
- Change/fill all fluids and filters
- Add anti-rust additive to coolant.
- The defroster/heater doesn't get as hot as I'd like; I think the heater core is to blame. That's a big job, though, so I'll put it off for now.

Finally, the wish list:
- Swing-away tire carrier/bumper
- Aggressive front bumper w/recovery points and receiver.
- CB/2M rig
- 2" or smaller lift
- Bigger tires (nothing too obnoxious - just a little extra clearance)
- skid plates
- rocker guards
- etc.

The MPG in the XJ will likely be about half of the little car, which is really going to hurt at the pump. I need to put some money away so I can get the head checked out to see if I should dump the car or not.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T08:47:00.001-08:00

This one didn't happen near me, but "Charlie" qualifies as one of the good guys.

When police arrived, Charlie had the suspect on the floor. "(I) just held him until the police got there. (I) put my foot in his back and the gun to his head.

Post-SHTF Transport?

2007-12-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

Pedal Powered Buick

Just kidding!

Merry Christmas, bad guy!

2007-12-24T10:16:00.000-08:00

Here's your typical leftward-leaning media for you. This incident happened quite close to my AO.

Homeowner used own gun to kill Kent man

A Kent man who shot and killed a suspected intruder inside his home Saturday was armed with his own handgun when he walked in the door and found the stranger inside his home, police said.
A man and woman came home to their condo on Kent's East Hill at 6 p.m. Saturday to find another man inside. The 28-year-old homeowner used his own gun to shoot the suspected intruder, said Kent police spokesman Paul Petersen.

It's unknown why the homeowner had a handgun, Petersen said.

Police aren't releasing the homeowners' names. The dead man, believed in his mid-20s, has not been identified.

Neighbors reported four to five gunshots, but there were no witnesses other than the homeowners, Petersen said.

After the man was shot, he ran through a broken sliding-glass door and died in the backyard. He was carrying a bag that contained some stolen property from the couple's home, Petersen said.

Between you and me, this guy is a hero, he should be getting a medal, but did you notice how non-committal the PD guys were? Fine, I can understand not commenting on something that could turn into a legal battle, but did you notice this comment by the author?

It's unknown why the homeowner had a handgun, Petersen said.

Why does he need a reason? This is America darn it, and people should be able to protect themselves and their family without trying to justify "why [they] had a handgun."

Congratulations, Mr. Homeowner. I hope that the system doesn't rake you over the coals too much for doing what's right.

Good argument for the grey man approach.

2007-12-06T17:16:00.000-08:00

They've opened I-5, but only for commercial vehicles.

A plain white pickup or van with "Bob's Plumbing" and a fake phone number on the side would be able to get past now. Your lifted super-Jeep probably wouldn't. Just a thought.

The case for only cops having guns...

2007-12-06T12:43:00.000-08:00

is certainly weaker anytime you see something like this. I don't recall seeing anything about it when it happened, but it's certainly interesting.

The gunman was identified as 20-year-old Tyler Peterson. Local Police Chief John Dennee said that Peterson worked full time for the Forest County Sheriff's Office and part time as a Crandon police officer. He was not on duty at the time of the massacre. Preliminary reports indicate that Peterson launched his attack after an argument with his 17-year-old girlfriend.

I dunno... 20 year old cop shoots jailbait girlfriend and a bunch of friends. There is the paragon of virtue the anti-gunners want to be the only ones with guns. Makes lots of sense.

Rain in WA: Need more ways out!

2007-12-04T09:53:00.000-08:00

The recent floods here in the state of Washington demonstrate how important capable vehicles and multiple routes are for evacuation planning. Although my immediate area didn't have any washouts or water covering the road (nothing so bad my Escort couldn't cross during my commute, at least), every sane route to any of my target locations was blocked or closed. In an economic collapse, if I were to double up with family, I'd probably end up in Portland. Couldn't do it today or yesterday, though: 20 miles of I-5 is closed, and the only route around is via Yakima - a 300 mile detour.

In a more significant event (nuke exchange, terrorist attacks, etc), I'm heading north to a friend's house or south to central Oregon. Guess what? My friend's town up north is almost completely inaccessible. One way in and out, and it's ugly. Going south, I have similar issues to going to Portland.

The moral of the story is that even three routes may be insufficient. I'm not a super-survivalist; better than the 95% of sheep out there, to be sure, but I'm just not there on a lot of my logistics and planning. I'd like to think that the odds of there being a natural disaster (not that this was quite a disaster, but you know what I mean) and a man-made TEOTWAWKI at the same time are pretty slim, but you know Mr. Murphy.

The recent article about Western Washington as a retreat locale posted on SurvivalBlog is pretty much dead on.

Stuff to do:
- Get Jeep running / safe / reliable. ($$$/time)
- Get water storage up to par. ($/time)
- Get wife's emergency kit together. ($/time)
- Plan more routes out, get copies to wife's kit (time).

A year has (nearly) gone by.

2007-11-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that I haven't posted since last year. Lots of busy-ness, not a lot of money or time to do stuff I need and want to do.

I'll go the standard new blogger route for my first post this year and hit on a few other postings:

Jim Rawles is suggesting saving your nickels: http://www.survivalblog.com/2007/11/mass_inflation_aheadsave_your.html . As always, make sure you have your other stuff taken care of before fretting too much about barter and investments.

James Dakin says not to use a laptop as a frugal computer / survival computer, citing the usual arguments of "expensive," "fragile," and "hard to fix." I agree with him to a certain extent, although most of those complaints can be overcome. See my comment on his blog regarding the Wal-Mart $200 PC. http://bisonsurvivalblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/off-grid-computing.html

Slashdot has an article about the new Amazon Kindle eBook reader. Sounds great in principle, except it's crazy expensive and has DRM. http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/191413115/article.pl

Cool product - Nite-Ize LED upgrade for Mini MagLite

2006-12-18T14:44:00.000-08:00

Like many in the PNW, we were without power all weekend. Like a bad squirrel, I found myself without some things that I really missed (or would have ended up missing shortly). While making a run to the store to address some of those deficiencies, I looked at the very empty flashlight aisle. One of the few items left was the Nite-Ize LED upgrade for Mini MagLites. Now, I have probably a dozen mag lights floating around. I'm on my last set of batteries for my SureFire G2, and for close to the price of a replacement set of batteries (at retail prices), I was able to upgrade one of my MiniMags to clean bright LED goodness (I have lots of AA batteries).

http://www.niteize.com/productdetail.php?category_id=28&product_id=110

Performance-wise, I was very pleased. The light was a pretty consistent brightness until it stopped completely. It's not as bright as a SureFire, but it was very bright. I put in an almost-dead set of batteries and it carried me through a good 12 hours of solid use. I haven't worn out the fresh set I put in after that, yet.

Target had them for $7.44. I'm not sure how long that's good for, they're usually $9.99. It was about a two minute upgrade and the kit I had came with a tailcap switch as well. An added plus is that you keep the parts you pull out, so you can always switch back if the LED module fails.

If you have lots of mini-mags, I'd strongly recommend getting this upgrade for a couple of them; I can't imagine you'd be disappointed.

Another cast-off article of goodness (using a BlackBerry with no service)...

2006-12-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

The resident VP at our office came to me recently and asked me to wipe and decomission a couple of BlackBerries. Of course, I agreed and found myself with two locked BlackBerries with no service.

In order to get them wiped clean of all company data I first had to get them unlocked. I had no idea who they belonged to, and knowing our users they wouldn't remember the passwords even if I asked. It turns out that this part was easy. Enter the wrong password ten times to lock the device. Install the BlackBerry Desktop Manager on your system. Connect the device and install the most recent version of the Handheld OS. It wasn't a trivial task, but it wasn't difficult, either.

Once I'd gotten into the devices and wiped all of the data, I found myself with two devices capable of doing address book synchronization, note taking, and so forth. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with either of them; someone probably decided they were too important to use an old one (insert eye-rolling smiley here). I did confirm that the cellular service to these devices was shut off by attempting to make some calls.

The BlackBerries were model 7750, a Verizon-specific model. A quick google didn't indicate any way to unlock them to use with another network, and it's old (or primitive) enough that it doesn't use SIM cards, anyway. Since I'm a T-Mobile user, and don't want to spring for extra service anyway, our new toys are going to have to be stand-alone when they're not tethered to my computer.

I determined what my goals were going to be for the device:
- synchronize my address book from Thunderbird (manually if necessary).
- Import calendar from Outlook (Wife uses OL and manages our events).
- synchronize notes to and from the device.
- Add reference material (probably not much - only about 5MB available on the device).
- Synchronize tasks at some point.
- Composing email offline and then syncing would be nice, too.
- Remove annoying Verizon wallpaper.

I initially ran into trouble getting the address book going, so I tabled that. I started working on getting notes off of the device. This was amazingly easy and required no skill at all. I simply configured the BlackBerry Desktop Manager to export notes from the device to a CSV (comma separated value) file. The output looks like this:

"Note Title","Note Body","Categories"
"Fox jumping","Test memo. Tqbfjotld",

Not perfect, but easily workable.

I started working on the wallpaper, but hit a wall there as well; it looks like the device may be locked down to prevent people from removing Verizon's branding.

Back to the address book. While there is no ability to directly sync the address books yet, I was able to export the address book as a CSV. However, the format isn't 100% compatible with the BlackBerry's import format. All of my initial attempts to import were met with errors, or no data at all reaching the BlackBerry. For one thing, it doesn't list what each of the fields are. What I ended up doing was creating a dummy entry in the BlackBerry's address book, then exported it so I could see what it was expecting as input. I got:

"First Name","Middle Name","Last Name","Title","Company Name", ... and so on.

Good. Next, I created a dummy entry in my Thunderbird address book so I could figure out which fields were which. It turns out that this was a pretty good idea. In each field, I entered the field name that the BlackBerry expected. When I opened up the CSV in OpenOffice Calc, I just had to move the dummy record to the top and save it. Future import operations worked just fine. To summarize, now the process to export from Thunderbird's Address Book to the BlackBerry is as follows:

1 - Export CSV from Thunderbird.
2 - Open in OpenOffice.org Calc, move the dummy account (field names) to the top row.
3 - Save as CSV
4 - Use Intellisync to import the file to your device.

To do:

I can't get the calendar to sync with Outlook's CSV format yet. The techniques I used on Thunderbird's Address Book aren't getting me there.

Since I haven't settled on a task manager / calendar of my own for the PC yet, I can't get started with that.

Work on email. Not a huge rush there as I can always type into a note and copy/paste after the sync.

Reference. I installed a free ASV Bible, but I'm looking for more. I haven't settled on anything else just yet.

Verizon Wallpaper. I think I'm stuck with that. Everything I've found online about setting your wallpaper requires a web-enabled BlackBerry.

Script the address book sync somehow (and the calendar once I get that worked out).

References:

Blackberry - Necessary drivers and apps, documentation.
OpenOffice.org - Used for manipulating CSV files, faster than notepad =)
Olive Tree ASV Bible - Download from Handango

Wireless router project w/Linux.

2006-12-12T14:15:00.000-08:00

I wrote this up several months ago, but never finished it. The project ended up being a bit of a bear; I never completed it because the problem I was trying to solve went away through other means. Still, it's a good start and look at getting Linux running fom the perspective of a Windows guy with only a little Linux experience.

-----------------

I've been working on setting up a wireless router which will route a wireless signal back to some ethernet clients (backwards to the way most people consider normal). Working with what I have has been quite a challenge.

I started out using an IBM Thinkpad T21 with some issues as my platform. My goal was to use an Intel 2100 MiniPCI as my wireless card and an old 3Com 10Mbps PCMCIA card for my clients. As an alternate plan, I lined up a standard Intel Pro/100+ MiniPCI and an old Lucent WaveLAN PCMCIA card.

For software, I originally thought I'd use a Linux CD distribution, but some research into my options didn't leave me terribly impressed. I could always do something with Windows, which would be the easiest, if not the most satisfying option.

There's been a bit of work recently in distributions that will fit into small spaces, such as compact flash. A lot of this work has been focused on an embedded platform called (http://www.soekris.com/). One distribution designed for these boards (but apparently works with just about any x86 box) is Pyramid. Pyramid is based on Ubuntu Linux. I started trying to get Pyramid going, but after a day's work figuring out how to get the IMG file onto my HDD and get it to boot, I realized that they haven't enabled PCMCIA yet. Pyramid is still in beta.

I then moved to Pebble Linux, based on Debian, which is the predecessor to Pyramid. It has PCMCIA support and decent hardware support, from what I've read.

I hooked my laptop's 4GB hard drive to my SUSE 10.1 workstation via a USB adapter and opened up a terminal session as root. I used cfdisk to clear the partitions, create a new partition, and make it bootable. Then, I did mke2fs to format the parition.

At this point, I downloaded and extracted the Pebble v42 tarball. The tarball is essentially like a zip file in windows, but keeps a lot more attributes intact. I extracted the tarball to a directory off of my home directory, and was somewhat concerned to see an error popup multiple times:

tar: : Cannot mknod: Operation not permitted.

As I found out later, mknod allows you to create special folders, like /dev/hda. Not realizing this, I ignored the error and continued on. Still as root, I attempted to run the pebble.update script, which is used to copy and configure Linux on the target partition. I then got the following error:

cp: setting attributes for 'filename': Operation not supported

Followed by:

Failed to install Pebble Linux onto /media/disk.

Poop.

I checked /media/disk (which is where my Hard Drive on /dev/sda1, the USB adapter, was mounted). It seemed like all the files were there. I started hacking on the script to bypass the errors, but it just went from bad to worse. I screwed with permissions, ownership, and all kinds of stuff before throwing my hands up in frustration.

I threw the drive into the laptop, plugged into the network, and booted off of a DamnSmallLinux CD. I erased all the data off of the drive, redownloaded the Pebble v42 install to the RAMdisk and extracted it. Without error. I then ran the pebble.update file. Without error. Now we're getting somewhere! DSL is a Debian-based distribution, too, which might explain why it worked without a hitch, unlike SUSE.

I popped the DSL disc, rebooted, and was greeted by a friendly ISOLINUX notice as the system booted. It looked like standard Linuxie stuff, but I watched as the text flew by. ETH0 and the wireless connection were not detected. Startup continued, then the login prompt, then a bunch of gibberish about no.cat.auth and Windows Update. I'm really not sure what Windows Update has to do with anything...

I powered down and switched to my alternate configuration with the MiniPCI LAN card and PCMCIA wireless card and rebooted. Same thing. Back to the net...

It turns out that in Linux you use something called modules to load drivers into the kernel at boot time. There's a file, /etc/modules that lists the modules that are enabled. I edited it to include the eepro100 module and attempted to add "wlan.o", thinking that was probably the wavelan driver. I rebooted and saw in the boot process that the internal NIC appeared to be detected, but still no love from the wireless card. I looked back at /etc/modules and realized that none of them had the .o after the name except the one I added. Whoops. Removed the .o and rebooted. Still no good.

Long story short (too late!), I found that this system uses orinoco_cs instead of wavelan_cs. Set that module up, added the PCMCIA modules, and rebooted. I still don't think I'm getting anywhere. I commented a few lines out of inittab and now get to a login prompt, but the keyboard was unresponsive.

I did a few more reboots to try to make some sense out of what was up. Then I noticed it. I had ETH0 and ETH1! My wireless card was loaded, just not as WLAN0! I went and edited /etc/network/interfaces and set ETH1 to DHCP and ETH0 to static at 192.168.90.1. I rebooted...

Now that the wlan0 errors are out of the way, I was able to see more of the boot process.

I'm not sure that I'm going to end up finishing this project since my need has gone away, but it was certainly a good learning experience!

References:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-wap.html?ca=dnt-429
http://www.nycwireless.net/tiki-index.php?page=PebbleLinux
http://www.nycwireless.net/pebble
Damn Small Linux.

I'm not even going to try today...

2006-09-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

I am _way_ out of touch. Buying a house really takes it out of you, and we haven't even moved in yet! I have a project list as long as my... well, it's long. Hopefully I can get some decent posts out of that. School starts next week; physics and geology. It'll be nice to be taking real classes again. The fluff I took over the summer just wasn't cutting it as far as keeping the brain sharp goes.

It's sad, really...

2006-06-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

... that I've only been able to make three posts so far this quarter. Still, summer is in sight! I received my Calc III grade already - 3.7, which isn't bad considering the instructor. I have my stats final tonight. I think it'll be OK, at least the questions covering material from the beginning of the course. I skipped a lot of class in the last four chapters, so I'm a bit shaky there.

I haven't received word on how I did on my Statistics project yet... I don't think it will be very good, but as long as I do OK on the final, I should be able to get a grade in the 80s without too much problem.

I just received word that one of my best friends paid for my membership to the EAA. Now I get to fly ultralights and PPCs legally. I still need my lessons, though.

Emergency welding using car batteries - I saw MacGyver do it, but here's how to do it for real.
SSKM's Knife Sharpening Guide - Great guide on sharpening your blades.

SUSE 10.1 Experiences so far.

2006-06-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

I'm liking SUSE 10.1, it seems to be fairly straight-forward. I did have to jump through some hoops to get the sound card on my sandbox PC to work, and the updater seems to be a bit rougher than in SUSE 9 and SUSE 10, but evolution worked great with my company's exchange server first shot.

If everything works well with my tests, I'll probably reinstall Windows on the sandbox and put SUSE on my main machine. Hopefully vmware player will install pretty easily so I can get at the windows apps that I need to run.

In other news, I'm almost done this quarter's classes. I have some "gimme" online classes this summer, so hopefully I'll have a bit of free time. Hopefully. I'd like to get some more stuff done on the emergency computing front. Seattle Wireless is having their 2006 Field Day in August, and I'd like to hit that up, too.

I'm also taking flying lessons this summer, so maybe I won't have as much free time as I thought... I guess a busy life is better than a dull life, but I still miss the days when I wasn't under pressure to get stuff done all the time. Sleep is mighty inviting...

Gilchrist for President '08!

2006-05-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Well, not much techie stuff to post this time. Here's some good news though. Those of you who have been with me for a while know that I've given up on the "lesser of two evils" political system here in the United States. However, Jim Gilchrist is going to potentially run for president in '08 on the Constitution Party ticket. I don't know if he'll win (I doubt it), but it's time for everyone to wake up and vote their conscience. I'm not voting for Guy A to keep Guy B out of office anymore. I'm voting to get Guy C in. I'll sleep better that way.

Personally, we're looking at buying a house. I just hope we can find something in our budget; stuff is REALLY expensive here in Western Washington.

Like I said, I don't have a ton of good tech stuff to post today.

Convert a mini-mag to LED - cheap - You can never have enough energy efficient flashlights.

FM Telephone bug - Cool.

Sketchup is now free! - This is a cool 3D modelling application, and you can't beat the price! It's very simple.

I know, I know...

2006-04-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been a month... I'm getting killed over here. I have calc III with an instructor with marginal English skills and few teaching skills. The phone won't stop ringing at work, and I still don't have a car. I have no idea what classes I'm going to take next term because there's nothing available. We may be moving in a little while as well, the wife wants to get busy on the spring cleaning (which means I need to remove all of my junk from the baby's room...). Not to mention that we're going to the in-laws' every other week for the next few weeks... yikes.

I know you don't want excuses, but that's all I've got today =(. Sorry.

Let's go, 4.0!

2006-03-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

Not to brag too much, but as of this second, I have a 4.0! w00t! I have a shot of maintaining it if I ace the calc II final, or maybe get some bonus points somewhere.

Sorry for the lack of original content right now; school is taking it out of me.

The Boys' Own Book of Outdoor Sports - This book is from the early 1900s. It's amazing how far we've come (in a bad way) since then. Can you imagine someone writing a "how to choose a gun" article for eight-year-olds nowadays? Sad...

Rough Living Urban Survival Manual - [PDF] This book by Chris Damitio is targeted for the "houseless". The guy has some kind of whacked out philosophies, but it is a very good read.

CIA Sabotage Manual - This is intersting! The CIA put a manual together to help the Nicaraguan people overthrow their government in the 1980s. The link leads to a flickr pool where a translated version of the original manual can be found.

Homebuilt Arc Welder - Although he has detailed plans for sale, there should be enough information on the free section of his site to put one together on your own.

That's it for today.

Going Home

2006-03-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

Well, at the end of this month I'll be returning to Pennsylvania for the first time since my wife and I caravanned to her parents' house in Oregon in 2003. It's a working trip, but I managed to sneak in some vacation time and I'm flying the family out with me. It'll be the first time either of my kids will meet my dad. Although not 100% accurate, the easiest way to explain why the boy never saw my dad was that there was something of a family feud going on at the time.

I'm getting into the scary part of Calc II, where I start getting shaky. Volumes cause me some grief. The ones rotated about an axis aren't too bad, but I have some trouble with the solids of known cross-section. I'm coasting through the rest of my logic class. There are no more assignments due. As long as I get a 183/200 on the final, I'll have a 4.0. I'll get a 3.7 with a 150-something.

On to some more interesting stuff (for you at least):

Adding a standard 3.5" HDD to a laptop (w/o USB or 1394): Not exactly an earth shattering mod, but useful if you want to put together a small system out of a laptop motherboard or something along those lines.

This looks like fun: Railbiking. I'm not sure how great a bugout tool this would be, but it probably beats using roads (assuming the rail system is out of order).

Seattle Wireless: The old standard for wireless infrastructure info.

Maple fun.

2006-02-23T08:20:00.000-08:00

I like Maple. I like Maple a lot. I _don't_ like it $129 a lot, though; feeding my family is more important. It is a fun tool, and I'm sure that coding it was a bear. Here's the problem: I need to use Maple for a project in my Calc II class. The instructor assumes (mostly correctly) that the students can just go to the lab and use the networked copy there. I, however, don't have the luxury of being able to spend hours at the college library.

So, I'm left trying to get to my 6:00 class early so that I can get as much done as possible. I tried just doing the graphs and complex stuff and then cutting and pasting into Word, but some of the symbols don't copy correctly. It's very frustrating.

Because the college licenses Maple for their site, any student can use it while plugged into the network. When you start the application, it checks for the license server, contacts it, and gets the OK to start. So, I dopped the executable onto my laptop and ran it. This was an improvement to using the lab because I could at least print the worksheet from my computer to a PDF. Unfortunately, I still had a lot of editing to do.

At the end of class, I hibernated my laptop and didn't boot up again until this morning. Lo and behold, I had left Maple running! So, until I close it, I should be able to keep working on my project and actually make some progress. Legally it might be a little grey, but morally I think it is OK. It's not like I can use the app willy-nilly. I didn't reverse engineer or crack anything. I'm not using it for commercial purposes. One way to look at it is that my computer is a part of the college network, I've just lost connectivity for a little while =).

It would be nice if Maple was a little more flexible with their licensing. They could probably talk me into maybe $15/quarter while enrolled at a qualifying institution or something like that. $129 is just too steep for a working student with a family.

Solder, wireless, and wingless birds

2006-02-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more sites for your viewing and listening pleasure:

Solder Smoke: Ham radio and homebrew podcast. I've gone through a few episodes, and they get better as they go, although admittedly a good bit of it is over my head.

Wireless Networking in the Developing World: The free PDF available from this site is a great primer on everything 802.11 from basic radio physics to access points, antennas, and more.

Finally, an interesting piece. In Israel, an F-15 was involved in a midair collision with another aircraft. The F-15 lost the right wing and _still_ managed to land. The pictures are completely jaw dropping. Amazing. (warning, some popups).

The Greatest Risk

2006-02-07T08:30:00.000-08:00

It may seem that I link a lot to content by Steve Roberts. I generally try not to draw too heavily on any one source. In fact, I was making a conscious effort not to post any of his material for a while. Unfortunately, as soon as you make a decision like that, you run into something you've never seen before. I won't post it in its entirety out of respect for Mr. Roberts, but here is the link and a brief excerpt:

The Greatest Risk

© 1988 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs

(An excerpt from Computing Across America, 1988)

Everyone has at one time or another shrunk from a growth opportunity because with it comes the Unknown. The Unknown! What’s out there, anyway?

Disappointment? Derision? Danger? Defeat? Death?

Those are all bad, certainly, but none of them are nearly as bad as nothing. None of those things can possibly be worse than the horror or Complacency that creeps like a psychic tapeworm into the mind, demanding a steady diet of the bland to let it propagate and infect those nearby. It’s insidious, evil, and epidemic in America. It slithers out of TV sets; it crawls from the pages of popular media. It hides in classrooms and slips unnoticed into vulnerable young brains.

To be frank, complacency has been kicking my butt. I'm starting to dig my way out, however. Deciding to go back to college wasn't as much financial as I made it out to be. Granted, watching MacGyver on DVD had something to do with it, but in reality I just wanted to finish something I should have finished in the first place. I'm also now a Cubmaster in charge of six cubs. I was in scouts for six months as a kid, now I'm in charge of three tigers, two wolves, and a bear! No pressure, now =).

There's much more to read at Steve Roberts' site - go there and check it out. The "Miles With Maggie" series is a good read, as well.

Building a decent laptop from free and cheap parts - Parts III, IV, V, and Links

2006-02-02T12:44:00.000-08:00

Here are the last four sections of my document on parting together a cheap laptop. Hopefully someone will see that they don't have to live without a laptop if they have some time and a little bit of money. For the record, my most recent machine cost about $30 out of pocket, although I had some of the parts already, have a junk pile at work to pull some of the other pieces (plastic bezels, that kind of thing), and have friends that love me - you know who you are =).

Part III: Beg, borrow, but don't steal!

Let's review: we know what device we are building and what we need to get the system to a minimum usable level. How do we best obtain the missing parts?

Obviously, the first thought is eBay. However, let us step back a notch. Do you have friends in IT? Friends who run through laptops quickly (read: sales, marketing, executives)? Start asking around and find out if anyone has extra parts you can bum off of them. Perhaps you will even score a complete, but dead, machine. A whole dead machine will be one of your best sources of parts, especially the little stuff (screws, spacers, shielding, insulation). Of course, finding a mostly complete machine may lead you to change your plans a bit.

Check to see what parts you have left to get. Now is the time to check eBay, craigslist, and so forth. Get a feel for how much the parts are going for. Don't forget to search for parts for compatible machines as well – you may find the part is cheaper when listed under a different model. You may find that your best bang for the buck is dead machines. This is pretty much your last chance to get out of this without a financial impact. If the required parts are too expensive, go back to finding cheaper alternatives, change your requirements, or give up.

Part IV: Assembling the system.

If possible, begin assembling your system as parts arrive. You want to test critical components such as the motherboard as soon as possible to judge the financial impact if they fail Repeat the examination process from Part II with each of the components you are planning on using. Parting together a system leaves some room for creativity. If you leave out a component (floppy drive, optical drive, internal speakers, and so forth), you can replace it with something else (USB hub, bluetooth controller, USB wireless, etc). At the end of this document there are a few links; the one to hackaday leads to a good article on being creative with the old hardware.

Break out the maintenance manual you downloaded earlier and start assembling. Be careful, and follow the directions whenever possible. Having to completely disassemble a mostly assembled laptop can be a little deflating. When you're done, you should have a more-or-less complete looking laptop.

Part V. Final Steps

All that is left to do is install your operating system and test the laptop. I usually recommend installing a recent version of Windows for testing purposes, and once assured that the system is functional, move to Linux or whatever version of Windows you have a license for and begin the fun of getting drivers and everything else working. Personally, I dual-boot Win2k and SUSE 10 on my system. Many people have good luck with Ubuntu Linux; I'm just not one of them.

Part VI: Links

http://laptops.hackaday.com/entry/1234000800056067/ - Project parting together two Thinkpad i-series laptops. Good tips for customizing any laptop.

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/12/adding_internal_bluetooth_on_a.html – Add internal Bluetooth to a machine that didn't come with it originally.

http://www.macmod.com/content/view/404/101/ - When looks don't matter (or they do, depending on your taste)...

http://www.linux-laptop.net/ - Linux on Laptops, a good, specific guide to getting Linux running on different laptop models.

http://www20.tomshardware.com/howto/20050504/index.html – Tom's Hardware Guide article on building your own laptop out of barebone parts. This is the type of thing I alluded to at the end of Part I.
---
Well, that's it for this one. I may revise and repost it later as I think of ways to clarify my thoughts, but I think it should give anyone looking to go this route a few things to think about.

Building a decent laptop from free and cheap parts - Part II

2006-02-02T12:41:00.000-08:00

Here's Part II. It should be noted that this is intended more for the semi-competent computer person. Most people could muddle their way through it, but may make (expensive) mistakes. It would certainly be a learning experience, though!

---

Part II: Start gathering parts

By now, you should have determined, generally at least, what kind of machine you are going to build. Is it a Thinkpad that's about two years old? Is it a three year old Dell? A year old Toshiba? Start the process by taking a quick inventory of the parts that you do have. Work from a high level here; we can worry about the little stuff later.

Memory
Processor
Hard Drive
Motherboard
LCD
Bottom Case
Top Case
Battery
Interface cards (NIC, Modem, etc)
Keyboard
Optical Drive (if you want/need one)
Floppy Drive (if you want/need one)

Inspect each of the parts for obvious physical issues. Check those thin ribbon cables for tears and breaks. If your LCD panel is not in a case, shine a bright light into it from behind and inspect it for cracks. Check the processor and hard drive for bent and broken pins. Check the motherboard for damaged ports and PCMCIA slots (look at the solder points and make sure none of them are broken. Put any that are damaged to the point of needing replacement to the side, but do not throw them out. Figure out how to fix anything that you believe you can (JB weld on the plastic parts, soldering on the easier ports, etc). You can work on the repairs as you're waiting on other parts.

Failing to check the ribbon cables caused me some grief on my most recent build; I had tested a keyboard a few months before I was ready to put my machine together, then put it on a shelf with my inventory of parts for the project. The day had finally arrived where I had all of my parts together. The machine was going together, but the keyboard wouldn't work! I pulled it out and looked; the cable on the keyboard had torn a quarter of the way through. I'm still not quite sure how that happened. It would have cost me $25 extra had there not been a spare on the scrap pile at work.

Now, go to the manufacturer's website and find the hardware maintenance manual for the device you're building. IBM's manuals are very good. Other companies vary from non-existent to OK. You'll want to look for an exploded diagram and/or parts list. Compare what you have to the diagram or list and look to see what you need to get this thing going. Print out the parts list and check off the working items. Cross off any items that you don't need to get the system to what you consider an acceptable state (internal speakers, for example). You now have a shopping list.

---

Tomorrow we'll do parts III, IV, V, and the links section in one shot. They're all pretty short.

Building a decent laptop from free and cheap parts

2006-02-02T12:06:00.000-08:00

I may need to revise this document a few times, but here is the first version. It is purposefully vague in a lot of aspects; it's a guide, not an instruction manual. Today I'm going to post the introduction and Part I. All rights are reserved, copyright me, etc.

---
Introduction:

This paper is intended to describe some methods, techniques, and caveats for parting together a decent laptop at a minimum of cost. Why piece together a laptop from parts when a new one can be had for under $500? One reason is quality. That bargain basement Dell will be dead long before your two-year old model IBM Thinkpad. Cost is still a consideration. It may cost $300 to scrounge your parts, but $200 is $200, any way you shake it. Another consideration is performance. Do you really need the latest whiz-bang processor and a gigabyte of RAM? I doubt it. If you do, you probably aren't reading this document. The final aspect to consider is that you will know your laptop better than most. Although laptops are certainly more proprietary, you will be in much better shape to deal with problems with your additional knowledge than you would be otherwise,

Caveats:

This is a project which could end up costing more than you expected. An Ebayed part can fail to perform as expected, you can make a mistake about parts compatibility, and so on. Although just about anyone with some common sense who can follow directions can do this, the more time you spend on research, and the more experience you have, the cheaper it will get.

Part I – Which laptop to choose?

Due to the proprietary nature of laptops, you'll need to choose a base model to use. There are several factors involved in this decision. One of the most important factors is the commonality of the base machine. Generally speaking, you'll want to choose something that is popular/common. These are typically going to be the easiest and cheapest to build; think supply and demand. Once you start researching, you'll notice that many times the same laptop will be sold under different names.

For example, the Dell Inspiron 3800 is pretty much the same thing as the Dell Latitude Cpx series. The only difference of concern to us is that the motherboard of the 3800 was flashed with a BIOS that prevents the use of certain docking stations. This was a rather pathetic ploy by Dell to force anyone who wanted to use their high-end docks at the time to buy the higher-end laptop. Besides the BIOS and a small removable plate in the Inspiron, the machines are part-for-part 100% compatible.

Many other laptops will be largely part-compatible as well. IBM Thinkpad T20s, T21s, and T22s are all mostly compatible. The plastic, keyboards, processors, and memory all work. The key is to do some research.

Another thing to think about is what parts you already have, or what you can get cheaply. When I recently parted together a laptop for school, I looked at what I had. I had a large number of usable parts for one particular model. Given that budget was the key, and the machine that could be made with those parts was acceptable, I decided to base it off of that.

Keep in mind that some parts work across most systems of similar vintage. We've had 2.5” Parallel IDE drives for probably ten years now; only on the newest laptops will you find SATA drives. Memory will usually exchange between laptops of approximately the same age. Processors get to be a little tricky, but if you can fit it in the socket, it will usually work.

A final note: You will be tempted to look at so-called “barebones” laptops. Although these machines can be built to very high specifications, they will almost always cost more than an equivalent name brand machine. Remember: generic ≠ cheap in what we're doing here.
---
Part II will be coming tomorrow...

Some good stuff...

2006-02-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

I tend to be a bit cynical when it comes to anything political these days, but hearing that Alito made the USSC made me smile. If the anti's refer to someone as "Machinegun Sammy", he can't be all bad.

James Rawles has a good post on SurvivalBlog today (if you're reading this later, check his archives) covering the Biblical case for preparedness. He addresses a number of the usual arguments in his typical clear, straightforward, and logical manner. Definately a good read.

Here's a good article I found linked to on AssaultWeb. I agree with one of the commenters on one thing; #7 conflicts with #2 and #8. I'd suggest making sure that any weapons that were used against you are out of reach of the bad guy, and that you make sure that several people (including non-cops, if possible), see them.

On a personal note, I'm doing well in both my classes. However, I just received the class schedule for next quarter, and it's garbage! There's only one class I can take that is directly usable for my degree (Calc III), and one that's useful, but not exactly the direction I want to go (Finite Math for Business and Social Science). I'll be taking them both since I have to stay full time, but I'm not happy about it. Their online classes are a joke, too. It seems like all this college is interested in doing is helping people in their fluff degrees, not real degrees like Math or Engineering. I was assured before I started with them that I wouldn't have any problems completing the degree doing nights/weekends/online/flex classes.

I have a couple articles floating around in the back of my head to write up, mostly to do with utilizing technology inexpensively. There's tons of cool technology out there today: MP3 players, Digital Video Recorders, wireless video cameras, digital cameras, laptops, PDAs, EVDO, wireless cards, etc. Several of those are bleeding edge technologies that are sure to break the budget. However, there are options for obtaining and utilizing this stuff on the cheap. This will (hopefully) tie in with my Emergency Computing theme.

A hodge-podge of projects

2006-01-19T13:43:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that it has been two weeks since my last post. Time flies when you're having fun (or short staffed at work, at school four nights a week, and terrified of failing a calc test - I think I did OK, for the record).

I don't have a whole lot to post today; personal projects have been on hold while I deal with all of this stuff. Here are some tidbits of information I've come across recently.

It looks like Steve Roberts will be living the nomad's life again, soon. I wish I had the cash, and could talk the wife into buying his property. It's beautiful! It'd be a long commute, though.

I'm loving the Instuctables website! A few of the links below come from there.

Build your own "helping hands". I do question how well the wire will hold up over time, but it's a great place to start. I'd use a small bolt and wingnut instead of the wood screw, too. In the end, free is better than $10, so it's worth it.

Lightweight, strong, ready rack. OK, it's really a guitar stand, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what else you could use it for... PVC projects are pretty easy, although if you have the budget I recommend using a tubing cutter instead of a hacksaw. It's much easier to get the correct tolerances that way.

Make a smoke "bomb". It's pretty straight forward. I haven't tried it, but it's a good one to stick in the back of your head.

Cleaning damaged electronics equipment. Saves me the trouble of writing it myself. I'm not sure about using gasoline; I'd probably try the device after toothbrush+shower.

The Road Warrior Powerbook. Good for a laugh, and an example of making beat-up hardware work for you.

That's all I have for now. Let me know if you run across anything exciting that you think I'd be interested in.

One of you younguns fetch me my walker!

2006-01-06T09:53:00.000-08:00

I'm only 27, but this past week, I've been feeling old. Why? This is my first week going back to school to pick up my associates in engineering. I dropped out of university in '99 and haven't been back since. Youth: it's all around you!

I went to the bookstore on Tuesday to get my books and get my picture ID printed. I was called "sir" at least three times by the student workers. On the plus side, I could see that I got a lot more respect than the kids. More time, more patience, more customer service. I even got the occasional nod of approval.

I then putzed around for an hour or two waiting for my first class to start; there wasn't much point in taking the 25 minute drive home. I walked around, looking at notices on the walls, that type of thing. They have a Linux club starting; I may need to check that out once I get used to my workload.

Finally on Tuesday I went to my first class: Introduction to logic. Yeah, it sounds like a BS class, but it was that or nothing. I tried to get into Chemistry, but they were way over booked. I got there about fifteen minutes early and watched people walk into the room, looking for people to "relate" to. That in and of itself is a sign of the improvement in my maturity over the past eight years. I didn't care who my classmates were before, I wanted to do the work and get out.

Anyway, as I watched these people file in, they looked pretty typical... bimbo and stupid boyfriend that looks like he should be way below her, a couple of bigger sized nerds that reminded me of my best friend in high school, a pretty boy, a jock, and a few people who are just there because they're not ready for the real world yet. Then a guy walks in. He looks maybe a couple years older than me, starting to bald a bit, stocky, wearing a plaid jacket with a furry lining (like you might see on a farm), and wearing a long sleeved shirt under a striped polo. He looked like he had a clue, and might be someone good to pair off with for class projects and such.

Turns out, he would be a great person to do that with - he was the teacher! How's that for making you feel old? The person in the room you could most picture going out for a drink with after work is your teacher! My wife just laughed at me when I told her that...

My Wednesday Calc class was a bit better; there was another guy taking the class after a long break from school. The teacher earned points with me when I found out he has two sheep and twenty chickens. Homesteaders rock!

You know, I believe that attitude is the most important attribute to success in school. In high school I did well because I tried harder than everyone else (which wasn't hard...). In college, however, trying harder wasn't enough. To succeed, you really had to stay on top of things and be disciplined. This time, I'm ready for that (I think).

Book Review: One Man's Wilderness

2006-01-03T15:16:00.000-08:00

Let me just start by saying: "Wow!" This is a fabulous book. I had seen "Alone in the Wilderness" and "Alaska: Solace and Solitude" on PBS a few times in November and December and decided that I must have this book. Santa was good to me, and I was not disappointed.

Dick Proenneke moved to the Alaskan Wilderness in the late 1960s. He built a cabin by hand, using only hand tools. He cut his own timber, milled his own lumber, and hauled his own stone. He was a carpenter, mason, farmer, fisher, explorer, protector, and homesteader.

"One Man's Wilderness" is mostly comprised of Dick's journals of the first year. Although it's not a how-to manual, there is certainly a wealth of practical information to have. He talks about the problems he faced and the solutions he came up with. He discusses living with wildlife and some of the pitfalls he came across.

As I read the book, I longed to be there, in that unspoiled land. I think deep down, most of us do. What man could honestly prefer the dirty, crowded streets of modern cities and suburbia to the freedom and relaxation of relative solitude? I know I wouldn't. To not have the clock constantly rushing you, the incessant ringing of the phone, the stack of email offering to improve your life through more borrowing; what could be better?

The first publishing of "One Man's Wilderness" was in 1973. There was one passage that touched me to the core, which is even more relevant today.

"News never changes much. It's just the same things happening to different people. I would rather experience things happening to me than read about them happening to others. I am my own newspaper and my own radio. I honestly don't believe that man was meant to know everything going on in the world, all at the same time. A man turns on the TV and all those commentators bombard him with the local, the national and the international news. The newspapers do the same thing, and the poor guy with all the immediate problems of his own life is burdened with those of the whole world."

"I don't know what the answer is. In time, man gets used to almost anything, but the problem seems to be that technology is advancing faster than he can adjust to it. I think it's time we started applying the brakes, slowing down our speed and slowing down the world."

One Man's Wilderness, pg. 212-213

I wonder what Dick would think about the web, RSS feeds, ipods, message boards, and all the other tools we use to fill our heads with the worries of the world?

The Truth About Kwanzaa

2005-12-27T16:09:00.000-08:00

I'm back after the holidays. Hopefully things will start picking up again after next weekend.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5251

This is a fascinating look at the true origins of Kwanzaa. I hadn't heard of any references to it before the early 1980s or so, but apparently it goes back to the 70s. The fact that the founder abused women in ways that would make Saddam blush is only the tip of the iceberg.

Bootable CDs for Emergency Computing

2005-12-19T20:54:00.000-08:00

You won't hear me arguing that computers and technology are more reliable than good old hard copy any time soon, but they are useful tools. In an emergency situation, a working computer could be the difference between life and death. I'm planning to cover the hardware side of things sometime in the future, but let's look at what we can do today.

Since the late 1990s, pretty much every computer in existence has been capable of booting off of CD. For most, this utility is used for installing your operating system or performing diagnostics. In an environment where every computer is an island and you may not have the parts or software you need to make a computer useful, it can be a lifesaver.

Today, there are several Linux distributions that fit on one CD (or even one DVD). They contain everything you need for general purpose computing: operating system, drivers, office software, communications software, etc. Some of these distributions are Knoppix, Slax, and DSL. There is also one based on Windows XP / Server 2003 called BartPE.

In an emergency, you could boot off of pretty much any computer you can make work (PC, tablet, laptop, thin client) and know exactly where everything is. You can have all of those FAQs, ebooks, engineering references, and medical references that you downloaded, but never bothered to print.

I've been working on composing such a CD for a year or so know. I was intending on using DSL, but I think I'm going to stick with Slax for now. What would you like to see on such a CD? Here's what I have or intend to have:

Army Field Manuals for useful topics
Firearm maintenance manuals
Radio equipment maintenance manuals
PSK31 software
Office software w/printer drivers (got to have freedom of the press!)
Medical documentation
Encryption software (GPG)

For the geeks:

Server apps (mail server, http server, IRC server, etc)
Traffic sniffers
War driving software

I certainly wouldn't want to bet my life on finding a computer in an emergency, but a CD such as this could be a useful tool.

12/20: Edited for clarity. I shouldn't post when I'm sleepy.

And there was much rejoicing!

2005-12-16T18:46:00.000-08:00

I don't have time to write much tonight, but I had to point this out: The Patriot Act is dead (for now)!

This is where partisan politics really show. In a Democratic White House, the votes would have gone exactly the other way. Thankfully (and I never thought I'd say this), the Democrats won today. In the end, we're probably just delaying the inevitable, but we should be happy for the victories we get.

Steve Roberts' Microship and Shacktopus projects

2005-12-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

I've been following Steve Roberts' work on again/off again for a couple years now. Some of his previous projects are the Winnebiko and BEHEMOTH recumbent bicycles. He was on the cutting edge of the information revolution in the '90s (Edit: should be '80s) when he traveled the country talking to hams, typing articles on his Tandy 100 using a custom chorded keyboard, and uploading them to CompuServe.

Lately, he's been working on making small watercraft (microships) with fully integrated radios to allow him to cut the cord and live independently of physical location. To further this goal, he's developing the Shacktopus, a system that will allow the integration of various data and radio devices in one box.

He's been on hiatus lately, attending to family business in Kentucky, but I can't wait to see what new advances come out of the Nomadic Research Labs in the coming months.

Welcome!

2005-12-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

Welcome friends and such to my blog. Like most new blogs, my blog will likely be lame for a while until I get into the groove. Let's start with a couple links:

Frugal Squirrels member FerFAL is living in the economically depressed and otherwise challenging nation of Argentina. I suspect that if the dollar fails (which it eventually will, being a fiat currency), the United States will be in similar shape. http://www.buildanark.net/survival_stories.html

hackaday has an article running on using a compact flash drive in a laptop. While this isn't exactly groundbreaking, it is useful for high reliability and low power computing. Coupled with a small linux distro such as Slax or DSL, you have a general purpose computing machine that is pretty close to indestructable. If you have an older system that is passively cooled, then you have no moving parts.

Given the political climate of the past 17 years (and, skipping the Reagan era, decades before that), we really need to make a change. I would like to encourage you, from now on, to vote your conscience, not "lesser of two evils". Although there are many good Republicans (and even a few good Democrats), the time has come for people to start voting for the right person for a smaller government, in all respects. I'd like to challenge you to look at the Libertarian party and Constitution party. Although I have some differences with the Libertarians, they are much, much, better than the Democrats or Republicans.

Until next time: Be smart. Be prepared.