Blog: 2009-03

Discretion and Goal Misalignment

A couple times recently, I've seen a "Bugs" Burger Bug Killers, Inc. vehicle apparently working in the wee hours of the night.

The first time I saw this, I was baffled. What possible bug situation could be so dire as to demand an exterminator at 3am?

Then I realized: restaurants. Exterminate shortly after closing, leaving maximum time to clean up and air out before opening next day, and also minimize the number of people who see an exterminator going into your restaurant.

Given the discretion theory, it was funny was that this particular "BUGS" BURGER BUG KILLERS truck is like the white trucks shown on that linked Web page, except that this one is a negative-color image: huge white lettering on a black truck. I guess it's their COVERT OPS truck.

It would be more covert if they would forsake the advertising, and go with an unmarked vehicle.

Really, does anyone want to advertise to their neighbors that they have bugs? Googling for "discreet exterminator" suggests that there is a market for people do not want to advertise. I find no exterminators who claim to be "indiscreet."

This is What I Think of Twitter

Twouble with Twitters

It's even worse than blogs.

Parks Supervillain Glaze

The Parks Super Glaze that I mentioned on 2009-03-15, which I expected to cure in about 72 hours at 70F, has still not cured after 2 weeks. The top of the table is still tacky and soft, except for at the very corners, which are only slightly tacky.

On Day 9, I requested advice from the manufacturer, but I still haven't heard back.

A friend who uses epoxies for art restoration helpfully suggests that this epoxy now won't ever cure.

This is a blow to my can-do fix-it self image. Parks Super Glaze has reduced me to an ineffectual shell of a man.

Guess I have to start making phone calls to the manufacturer and the reseller.

At least I didn't ruin my dining room table, which was the original intendee of the Parks Super Glaze.

Small World

I was considering doing something with the LLVM compiler infrastructure, so I Googled for an Emacs mode their assembly language. The first link I click on, I get to a page, and the first thing I see is:

;; Shamelessly ripped from jasmin.el
;; URL: http://www.neilvandyke.org/jasmin-emacs/jasmin.el.html

They actually used only a small part of my 1996 jasmin.el Emacs mode for the Java bytecode assembler. Not a lot of people were working with the JVM in '96, so the fancier features of jasmin.el were probably overkill.

Vaccuum Tube Meditation

If you get 18 minutes of quiet time, you might enjoy this Fabrication D'une Lame Triode video.

Want to be a Pilot?

I have a small library of excellent aviation books that I'd like to sell as one lot, rather than try to part out on eBay or Amazon.

I assembled this collection recently, for background and reference purposes while working on a contract. (Don't worry, there were aviation experts involved too.) All are public, non-sensitive documents.

• Jeppesen, Private Pilot Manual (2002 ed.)

• Langewiesche, Stick and Rudder

• FAA, Airplane Flying Handbook

• FAA, Pilot's Encyclopedia of Aeronautical Knowledge

• FAA, Instrument Flying Handbook

• FAA, Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators

• ASA, TEST PREP 09 Private Pilot

If you think of anyone who's interested, please have them contact me.

ACLU Schwag

When I was a little kid, one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up was a lawyer (a la Perry Mason) and possibly a Supreme Court justice. I think I read all of the "law books" in my local public library. Maybe 5-6 years back, I was working the Boston Law School Forum, psyching up some of the reps with my background (law pertaining to IP and Internet seemed especially hot then), then seeing the disappointment and awkwardness in their voices and faces when I said I wanted to represent the public interest perspective. (Well, one rep didn't seem sad as, without missing a beat, he started saying, "Then let me tell you about our loan forgiveness program...") And for many, many years, I've thought that a US Constitution wallet card would be a neat thing for people to have.

So, a while ago, I wrote the ACLU, intending to suggest that they combine this neat Constitution card with their less-neat paper membership card.

I was in a hurry, I didn't want to say that I didn't like their membership card, the Web contact form I used was hard to write in, and they'd never responded to my previous letter on a Constitutional matter, so I just banged out something quick and vague this time:

How about sending members a plastic wallet card quick-reference on the Constitution? It can have ACLU branding and phone number on it.

There was no specific written response from them, but recently I received a bubble envelope in the mail, containing an assortment of ACLU schwag. The exact spoils were:

• 60-page pocket-size perfect-bind copy of the Constitution plus various ACLU info.

• Bill of Rights bookmark.

• Folded card-stock quick-reference card of tips for when being stopped by police, which is too big for wallet, even when folded. (This good advice is mostly wasted upon me, anyway, since I believe too innately in the goodness of honest communication.)

• Window decal with ACLU branding, proclaiming, "CARD CARRYING MEMBER."

• A standard paper ACLU membership card for me, laminated.

I didn't mean to beg for stuff. I was just trying to make a helpful suggestion.

No darned plastic combination Constitution quick-reference and ACLU membership card yet, though.

Coffee Table Meets Parks Super Glaze

My coffee table, which I inherited for free years ago, had seen much battle (including a roommate who used it for doing crafts). I'd tired of waiting for a good deal on a replacement to come up on CraigsList or for me to get the time and energy to refinish it properly with the Parks Super Glaze epoxy I had on hand from my kitchen table.

Remembering that the perfect is the enemy of good, Saturday I decided to just do it, even if I didn't have the attention to do it exactly right. I sanded down the table top, then decided that the moldy-looking imprint on the shelf looked too lousy, so I disassembled the table and sanded down the shelf. Then I cleaned up all the dust in my living room, ran to the convenience store for plastic cups for mixing the epoxy, and applied the Parks Super Glaze.

The epoxy reportedly will take about 72 hours to cure fully, but after 24 hours I was able to reassemble the table. The table looks better than before, and I should no longer need my improvised coasters (a box of architectural glass samples that I found on the curb).

A few things I learned:

• It's still tacky after 24 hours, so wait 48 to 72 hours if possible before doing anything with it.

• Do not work in socks that you like.

• When doing a table top, run a brush along the underside of the edge to get the excess before it cures.

• Being reasonably careful about debris isn't enough: even with an air cleaner running, I still wound up with a speck that I didn't fish out in time. In addition to following their suggestion of suspending a cover over the surface (which is not without its own risks), something closer to cleanroom bunnysuit process wouldn't hurt.

• The shelf, which I did last, with about 1/3 the epoxy, didn't settle nearly as smoothly as the table top. This might be because I spread the epoxy more thinly than it wanted to go.

• Trying to level out the too-thin epoxy with a small foam edging roller will make a foam of bubbles too dense to blow out yourself. A hair dryer on the "cool" setting saves the day. (Though that might have contributed to the uneven settling.)

• It's very high gloss. I might try out their suggestions for how to turn the finish satin after the fact.

• I believe that buying clean cups for mixing (the only thing I didn't have on hand) was worthwhile, as I suspected the slightest dirt or residue might compromise the epoxy.

I plan to actually test it out Tuesday.

For my kitchen table, which it turns out needs something atop the lacquer for waterproofing, I'll probably use polyurethane. The Parks Super Glaze is hard to get right, and a bit too expensive for that particular large table.

Canon G9 and SD880

I meant to post a follow-up review on the Canon G9 point&shoot camera that I originally mentioned on 2008-11-15 and then complained about on 2008-11-16.

The short answer is that the Canon G9 was too much of a toy camera to justify the bulk, unless you still have strobes and need the hotshoe. And the economy wants me to be frugal. So I got a great deal on a Canon SD880 pocket point&shoot, and sold the G9. The SD880 is even more of a toy than the G9, but it fits in my pocket for snapshots, which is the only photography I do anymore.

Definitely, with only a pocket point&shoot, I feel like a violinist left with nothing but a kazoo. But kazoos have their purpose, and they are what they are.

Rowing Machine Fixed

Thanks to technical consultation by c2jonw, and some affordable and rapidly-shipped parts from Concept2, I've fixed my old Model B rowing machine.

There were several problems with the used unit that I bought. The skewer bar was bent slightly towards the traveling pully, the shock cord was heavily worn, one of the screws was the wrong type, and there was a chunk out of the wood in the handle.

I reoriented the bend in the bar, replaced the shock cord and screw, and filled the handle with epoxy putty.

Two tips if you're reassembling the skewer return mechanism on a Model B:

• To thread the shock cord through the SCAM, I first had to get it in only far enough that the end was just barely in before I could get the proper bend. Only then could I feed it out, a half-inch at a time.

• Stretching the shock cord to get everything on the skewer at once is a little tricky with one person. I used a C-clamp to hold the front together on the floor while I wedged the other end of the bar against my torso and pulled the cord onto the rear pulley as the last step.

The only remaining problem is that one of the axles has shifted within the bar, making the chain rub against the plastic chain glide slightly when I first started rowing. I think there's a good chance it will sort itself out, and it seems benign for now.

By the way, I'm very happy with Concept2. Besides having a great product, low-priced repair parts and great support, they were even nice enough to toss in a free printed repair manual for my 20 year-old Model B, in with the $6 of parts.

Check your WWVB-Sync'ed Clock for DST Changeover

Yesterday, I noticed that my beloved Lacrosse alarm clock, which is normally synced to NIST's WWVB, had not done the DST changeover. I mentioned this in passing, and a colleague who also had a WWVB clock said his had not changed for DST either.

I verified that the time zone and DST options on mine were set correctly, then I noticed that the radio icon that is normally displayed on the LCD was not.

To correct my clock, I ended up taking the batteries out long enough to reset it, then setting it in the window for 15 minutes in case it might get a stronger signal there. It was soon displaying the correct time, and, after returning the clock to the night stand, the radio icon is once again present even after the midnight re-sync.

What is a little annoying is that I went to a lot of trouble to find an alarm clock that would avoid several common pitfalls -- 24-hour to avoid human am/pm errors, battery-powered to avoid AC brownout/blackout resets and faulty battery backup, and radio-synced to avoid drift and having to manually do DST changeover -- yet in this case I had a false sense of security.

So, double-check that your radio-synced clock is correct.

Got a Web CGI App in PLT Scheme?

Being one of the world's very few professional Scheme software developers, I'm trying to generate more Scheme opportunities by creating a new success story with my new fast Web CGI library.

So... if you have a production CGI app in PLT Scheme, perhaps I can convert it trivially to fast CGI for free. A deployed production app that's suddenly dramatically faster or more scalable should help promote Scheme, as well as validate the library itself.

I need to move quickly on this, so please contact me now, and let's talk.

C Runtime Libraries

I always thought I could write a C runtime library for a micro in a few tens of KB. The extracted glibc 2.9 source tree, however, is 124MB.

Looks like one of the worst offenders in glibc is the static tables for Unicode character sets.

Most of the fun in C was coming up with clever ways to do efficient string manipulations, and non-single-byte characters spoil much of that. At least much of that skill is still applicable to protocol implementation.

Just Say No to Twitter

Captured trace of kvm kernel repeated crash on F11 (rawhide), will poke at it later to see where it is happening now I have a dump

—http://twitter.com/jonmasters/status/1291091192

Penny Arcade has already railed against the Twittering of dumps, so I need not do so here.

More Scheme Libraries Converted

Protobj, ccnum, postnet, bencode, rfc3339, tabexpand.

Also did Testeez the other day.

Retro Commerce

My Concept2 rowing machine, manufactured 1988, needs a new shock cord and a screw, so I went to order parts. Their Web site ordering pages for parts don't have the screw, and the shock cord is available only as part of a bundle. So I went with their old-fashioned parts mail-order form for the Model B, which is available in PDF format. $6 plus shipping.

Printed out the order form, hand-wrote quantities and extended prices in the little boxes in the grid of available parts, wrote my name and address on the tightly-spaced lines reminiscent of mail-in offers in comic books and cereal boxes, put it in an envelope with a check (who needs credit cards), and dropped it in the postbox.