Buttons

I HAVE been watching the war map slammed up for

advertising in front of the newspaper office.

Buttons--red and yellow buttons--blue and black buttons--

are shoved back and forth across the map.

A laughing young man, sunny with freckles,

Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd,

And then fixes a yellow button one inch west

And follows the yellow button with a black button one

inch west.

(Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in

a red soak along a river edge,

Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling

death in their throats.)

Who would guess what it cost to move two buttons one

inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper

office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing

to us?

Carl Sandburg

Fun With Thermite

At work, a major project for the last year or so has been extracting dead drives from machines leaving campus, with the intent of finding a way to render them unreadable. Degaussing was impractical, so we settled on running a drill bit through the platters in a couple of locations.

Effective, but it left us with about 200 nonfunctional drives leaking shards of aluminum. To make a long story short, I've seen one too many episodes of Mythbusters, so I asked the Director of IT if some of us couldn't have the drives for what, because we're an academic institution, I'll call an "experiment." The purpose of the experiment? To make a big boom and set stuff on fire. We're guys...this should go without saying.

I ordered several tens of pounds of unmixed thermite from a guy on the Web (just google "thermite mix" and it'll be pretty clear). Raymond drilled the drives, and Barth provided the camera. Long story short, we set up a stack of 100 drives and burned them out using molten iron.

The results were pretty cool, though I have to say that unless you got a real bulk rate on thermite, it would be a pretty cost-ineffective (though completely destructive) way to ensure your data didn't get out of your hands. Also, if we do this again, we'll remove all plastics and PCBs from the drives. We pulled off the drive rails, but the PCBs and connectors burned out, leaving a pretty noxious soot. Live and learn.

Anyway, you can see a gallery of images or watch a shortened video of the goings on.

Words for the wise: As really dangerous chemical reactions go, thermite isn't a big deal. It's just very hot, and very energetic. As the video shows, it drips molten iron and throws burning iron powder for quite a distance. It's also kind of a pain to light. I'm not going to say don't play with it, but use common sense if you do, and don't do anything really stupid.

Once a thermite reaction starts, you cannot stop it. It will laugh at your pitiful fire extinguisher. Water will create an explosion, and burning metal shrugs off dry chemical. I repeat: Don't be stupid, stupid. I can do this because I'm an adult with insurance and a healthy sense of self-preservation. If you do this and burn down something important, give yourself third-degree burns, or set the back lot on fire, it's your own fault.

New specs for a new year

Clearly, Emma likes her new glasses! Best of all, they were super-cheap thanks to a gift certificate picked up at a silent auction for Speedway Children's Charities. Good thing, too...at their prices, Horizon Eye Care won't be getting repeat business.

Revising the gallery

Bad news: The gallery is going to be goofed up for a bit.

Good news: Newer pictures coming along shortly.

That is all.

UPDATE: Nine new and revised albums are available in the gallery.

Failing probability

I find this annoying.

Everyone on the "switch" side continues to assert that Monty's pick of the two doors you didn't choose somehow magically alters the probability of the remaining door you didn't choose being correct. But I can't see as that's possible.

Door 1: Goat
Door 2: Car
Door 3: Goat

I choose door 1. I'm getting a goat if I don't switch. Monty opens door three, revealing the second goat. Switchers say I now know something about door 2, but that's not the case. Door 2 could just as easily contain a goat, with me sitting on the car. Monty's revelation doesn't change anything, except that I now have a fifty-fifty chance of being right. The same chance I have had all along, because I know that no matter what door I pick, Monty is going to open one of the two goat doors. Saying that you magically get a transference of probability to one door or the other on the basis of his pick makes no sense to me.

Argh. Stuff like this probably explains why it took me two semesters to pass freshman calculus.

Regular-ish updates to resume shortly

I'm finally kicking myself into gear and revising some things that need it. I'll go back to updating when I'm finished with that.

Visiting San Francisco again

I'm in SF again leading up to this year's WWDC with a few days of vacation that I fancy I rather deserve. I'm more than a little disappointed not to have the family with me this year, but have soldiered on in the face of that fact (that's only marginally facetious...I really am bothered about it). Anyway, as promised to certain parties, images, video and linkage for the last couple of days.

First, the flight out. A big raspberry to USAir for not even bothering with a movie on a cross-country flight. :P In any case, here are the mountains and clouds Mom requested. After dealing with Enterprise (more expensive, but always more professional and quicker), I headed into town and went straight to Cha Cha Cha for sangria and dinner, followed by a lovely flán for dessert. Topped that off with a stroll down to Booksmith, where I had Cosmic Debris autograph a copy of Emily the Strange for Emma.

Friday morning, I bugged out for Davis at 6am to do this. After lunch in Woodland, I drove down to Cupertino for the traditional pilgrimage and a little geocaching. Afterward, I dropped in at the Burlingame PEZ Museum, sent Emma a postcard, then headed back to San Francisco in awful traffic. That evening, I visited Kamei Restaurant Supply (I'll be going back today for a more extensive appraisal), stopped in at Green Apple Books and found the first two books of The Dresden Files, then did some more caching at Fort Mason. You should see the community garden there! Amazing. It was dark, but I'll try to get back today for pics.

After that, back to the hotel, where getting parked took about 20 minutes (late arrivals for the weekend blocking the entire curb. Then posted up the pics and sacked out.

Today will be the Farmer's Market, a little shopping, some caching and a kayak trip!

When You see Millions of the Mouthless Dead

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, 'They are dead.' Then add thereto,
'Yet many a better one has died before.'
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

Charles Sorley

With deepest respect for all who have served, and all who now stand to post.

The Maker's Bill of Rights

From make's Mr. Jalopy:

• Meaningful and specific parts lists shall be included.

• Cases shall be easy to open.

• Batteries should be replaceable.

• Special tools are allowed only for darn good reasons.

• Profiting by selling expensive special tools is wrong and not making special tools available is even worse.

• Torx is OK; tamperproof is rarely OK.

• Components, not entire sub-assemblies, shall be replaceable.

• Consumables, like fuses and filters, shall be easy to access.

• Circuit boards shall be commented.

• Power from USB is good; power from proprietary power adapters is bad.

• Standard connecters shall have pinouts defined.

• If it snaps shut, it shall snap open.

• Screws better than glues.

• Docs and drivers shall have permalinks and shall reside for all perpetuity at archive.org.

• Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought.

• Metric or standard, not both.

• Schematics shall be included.

Remember: If you can't open it, you don't own it.

The Repair Manifesto

From Platform 21:

1. Make your products live longer!
Repairing means taking the opportunity to give your product a second life. Don't ditch it, stitch it. Don't end it, mend it! Repairing is not anti-consumption. It is anti- needlessly throwing things away.

2. Things should be designed so that they can be repaired.
Product designers: Make your products repairable. Share clear, understandable information about DIY repairs.
Consumer: Buy things you know can be repaired, or else find out why they don't exist. Be critical and inquisitive.

3. Repair is not replacement.
Replacement is throwing away the broken bit. This is NOT the kind of repair that we're talking about.

4. What doesn't kill it makes it stronger.
Every time we repair something, we add to its potential, its history, its soul and its inherent beauty.

5. Repairing is a creative challenge.
Making repairs is good for the imagination. Using new techniques, tools and materials ushers in possibility, rather than dead ends.

6. Repair survives fashion.
Repair is not about styling or trends. There are no due-dates for repairable items.

7. To repair is to discover.
As you fix objets, you'll learn amazing things about how they actually work. Or don't work.

8. Repair - even in good times!
If you this this manifesto has to do with the recession, forget it. This isn't about money, it's about a mentality.

9. Repaired things are unique.
Even fakes become originals when you repair them.

10. Repairing is about independence.
Don't be a slave to technology - be its master. If it's broken, fix it and make it better. And if you're a master, empower others.

11. You can repair anything, even a plastic bag.
But we'd recommend getting a bag that will last longer, and then repairing it if necessary.

Stop Recycling. Start Repairing.

Valdemar: The Collegium Chronicles, Vol. I - Foundation

Good book by Mercedes Lackey. Surely not heavyweight fantasy, but entertaining. Fair warning if you pick it up: It's one long damned setup for Vol II. I hate that.

Reading Update

Just finished Dave Crenshaw's The Myth of Multitasking. Currently involved with Anathem (second attempt), The Hidden Persuaders, Cinderella Sims, AppleScript 1-2-3 and Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse (also second attempt).

I got distracted from Palast the first time, and Anathem is just kind of dense. Not impenetrable, the way I found Quicksilver to be. But structured in a way that demands a fairly intense level of concentration.