My name is
David Robins:
Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner,
libertarian (voluntaryist),
and student.
This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site.
The cookies of my browser
News, Technical ·Friday October 2, 2009 @ 20:34 EDT (link)
Yesterday I noticed that my BitTorrent downloads were much slower than usual (about 100kb/s) for a comparably-seeded torrent that in the past would have gone much faster (1Mb/s). I connected to Comcast's LiveChat tech support and talked to someone named Juvy. Here's how the conversation went (starting 3am Friday); I entered with the complaint "BitTorrent suddenly slow":
…
Juvy> Let me check on that.
Juvy> Before anything else, can you please provide the complete account holder's name, account number, as well as the account service address?
David> I'll give you the account #. #### ## ### #######
David> The rest you don't need.
Juvy> Sincwe when did you notice this issue, David?
David> Today
Juvy> Okay.
Juvy> One moment please.
Juvy> Is it only BitTorrent that is slow or are you having slow page loading with other websites?
David> No other websites are as big. It wouldn't be noticeable. I hadn't realized yet that he didn't know what BitTorrent was, and was assuming it was a website; I meant most web pages weren't as large as BitTorrent downloads, and so a bandwidth reduction wouldn't be noticeable.
Juvy> Okay.
Juvy> While on the process of addressing your concern, I will now perfom a health check on your system. This is a proximity check on your services to see that they are working correctly. Would that be okay with you?
David> What does it involve?
Juvy> It involves the connection from our server to your computer system and back. It also involves the system check if your computer system (modem, computer, cable wirings, and router (if any)) is in good working condition.
David> OK, go ahead.
Juvy> Please check that all your cable wirings are secured and intact.
David> I'm using the connection to talk to you. I think they're working.
Juvy> I will need to reset your modem on my end. We may be disconnected with this process. However, do not worry since we will be reconnected right after.
Juvy> Would that be okay with you?
David> OK.
Juvy> I will reset your modem now. One moment please.
Juvy> Hello there. How is your internet connection?
David> i can get to websites, but bittorrent is still slow I.e., no worse, but no better either.
Juvy> Okay.
Juvy> Please optimize your browser by clearing your cookies. Close the browser and open another one. Then try to access BitTorrent again. Began to realize he didn't know what BitTorrent was at ths point.
David> bittorrent doesn't use cookies.
Juvy> I am pertaining to the cookies of your browser, David.
David> the cookies of my browser will not slow down bittorrent. trust me on this.
Juvy> David, I would just like to clarify. Are you using the connection of Systems Vortex? The business name for the account was Vortex Systems, since I have the domain, but they entered it incorrectly (not Juvy's fault).
David> yes.
Juvy> Thank you for the confirmation. David, are you using a router?
David> no Although I have a gateway machine that serves a similar purpose.
Juvy> David, is it okay if you do a hard reset of your modem on your end?
The modem can be reset by using the "reset" button located on the back of the unit. Get a pen, paperclip, or other point object and depress the reset button until you see the lights on the front of the unit go off. Release the reset button and wait for the unit to cycle up.
David> OK, will do.
user David_ has left room
analyst Juvy has left room
David> ok, it reset
When I reset it it lost our static IP. Had to drive into Microsoft so I could contact tech support—this time I contacted business class tech support by phone and talked to a much better informed person, Kisha, who was able to quickly fix restore the static IP (couldn't really verify until I got home, though). Then I was back to the baseline—slow BitTorrent. It was a real pain, since I had to reconfigure the modem, using a machine with a GUI (I believe I called it massively braindead in the past).
I was upset enough to take an axe to the old DSL modem at right. I'd optimistically tried selling it on Craigslist for $5, but there was no interest, and I really wanted to hit something, but not something useful or valuable. I still have one more DSL modem if Comcast messes me up again.
Books finished: 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed To Ask, Telempath.
Lebensraum
News, Guns ·Monday September 28, 2009 @ 22:36 EDT (link)
Our apartment isn't nearly so cramped—we've moved some things around and actually have "room to live": the couches aren't all against one another, the treadmill is out of the way, books are in bookshelves, and we can watch TV from a reasonable distance.
I feel a bit like an Enron employee as we're shredding a lot of old records unnecessarily kept (medical EOBs, utility bills, outdated financial statements). There's still about a 8" stack remaining. I'm also still going through folders and boxes to find things to sell, give away, throw out, or pack tightly on one of the shelves that go all the way high ceiling that are a great feature of this place.
Recently a car prowler in the Northgate area of Seattle was shot by the car owner (from his balcony) with a Mosin Nagant. Apparently he got jail time, even though the criminal was committing a felony and that's supposed to be a complete defense. Some responses from MSGun with which I wholeheartedly agree:
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that someone who is committing crime has any rights or expectation of protection from society.—JC
Everything the thieves did was WRONG. They intruded on a personÂs home, stole his belongings, and committed multiple felonies in the process. They needed to stay at home and work on their résumés to apply for jobs, not go out and steal another's property. Instead they robbed a guy who had a gun for a stupid stereo. It was flat out dumb.
I donÂt know why we speak of thieves and other criminals as deserving more rights than the people they victimize, but the more I think about it, the less I am able to sympathize with them. They chose to put themselves in a dangerous situation through their occupation, and one got killed due to occupational hazards. It is my opinion the only thing the guy did wrong (presuming the statements he made were true) was to speak to police before his lawyer.—TH
The law sucks, and is complete BS. A thief live in constant fear for their life if they have the balls to invade my home. Period.—SY
Okay, what gets me is the thief continued to carry the speaker after seeing the armed owner. I think any sane person would have dropped the speaker and ran like hell. Right or wrong this punk needed to be removed from society.—SN
More Texas-style laws allowing use of deadly force in defense of property and life are called for. Once someone has decided to invade or steal property, they should feel like a dead man walking with every theft bringing them closer to having some just soul arrange a meeting with their maker.
Honey's aunt Linda was recently diagnosed with cancer—please pray for her.
Oktoberfest at Tim and Katts'
News ·Sunday September 27, 2009 @ 03:33 EDT (link)
On Sunday we were at Tim and Katt's for an Oktoberfest party (1400-1900 although officially it was 1200-2000). They served homemade pretzels, brats, fries (long ones they fried themselves), black forest cake (soaked in brandy), and of course beer. We played Mafia; in the second game I got killed early and went for a 20-minute walk and the game still had about 10 minutes to go when I got back (could have driven home and picked up a book, and then I might have stayed for another game; but I hate to sit around with nothing to do, and the "dead" aren't supposed to talk). Good party. Got to see Tim's new shotgun, too: a used Benelli, in camo colors, very long (too long for Katt to handle comfortably).
DVDs finished: Cujo.
Shooting my new Ruger 10/22
News, Guns ·Saturday September 26, 2009 @ 17:29 EDT (link)
On Friday we got the license (tag) renewal for Honey's car; the Department of Licensing tried to sneak a $5 donation to state parks by us by making it the default (requiring subtracting $5 from the total to not donate). It's a cause I might donate to, when government stops stealing from me for all their other redistributionist projects. But trying to sneak it in: not cool, and almost fraudulent.
I finished cleaning the Mosin Nagant and reassembled it (disassembly, cleaning 1 2).
I took my new (wood stock, blued) Ruger 10/22 out to SVRC for the first time on Saturday; I shot it in the pistol pit (which allows .22s), and had the pit to myself although there were a few people in the rifle bay. It was a lot of fun.
Books finished: House of Cards.
Fremont Oktoberfest
News ·Sunday September 20, 2009 @ 19:06 EDT (link)
Oktoberfest! In Fremont, Seattle, to be precise. We went with Jim, formerly of Microsoft. We picked him up at his place (and paid for the tickets he'd picked up for us) and drove over to Fremont and (parallel) parked in a side street. We got to his place a little before 1400 and got home about 1830 (we sat for a while to make sure I was good to drive).
Moving, ammo, Meghan's visit
News, Guns ·Saturday September 19, 2009 @ 22:48 EDT (link)
From 1000-1500 we helped Amani (PM at work) and her husband Thomas move from Redmond to their first house, in Bothell, repaying the toh (obligation—sorry, Wheel of Time in-joke) owed from them helping us a month ago. Jodie and her husband Nick, and Angus and Kate (fellow Waterloo graduates) were also there helping.
We got there at 1005, and started loading a (16'?) U-Haul truck; we were worried about getting everything on, but we also loaded up several cars too and managed to get it all in one trip. The house is at the end of a cul-de-sac much like ours, but without the short road going off to the side. They got pizza afterward from Canadian-American pizza; the tandoori pizza was quite good although very hot. We got back to our place at 1500.
I went to the Monroe WAC gun show later on (1600-1700) and bought a box (440 rounds) of Russian 7.62x54R and 500 rounds of .22 (the size difference of the boxes is humorous). I looked at scopes, but the selection was poor and they all looked like scary off-brand knockoffs and with my limited experience I can't tell what's good, so I'll wait for another sale at a local place and most likely get a Bushell Banner 3-9x40.
I took apart my Mosin Nagant bolt; the Cosmoline gets everywhere and has to be cleaned out completely. I took the firing pin out via the method of using the connector bar as wrench as shown in these instructions.
Meghan got here at 1800 and we got KFC (instead of pizza as originally planned); she insisted on paying since we had last time. She was here until 2245 and then had to go to work (testing cell phone sites). We played some Guitar Hero, watched the last episode of House from last season, talked a lot (well, Honey and Meghan did most of the talking).
Books finished: The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution.
The state of the eBook
Technical, Media ·Friday September 18, 2009 @ 00:26 EDT (link)
Electronic, or digital book readers are regrettably still in the "stone knives and bearskins" state, and the industry really isn't helping.
What I want is a fairly general purpose device, which means open. The iRex iLiad might fit this description, but it won't read the most common DRM'd books. I want to be able to make full use of it, limited only by the technology, not by the vendor: so if it's physically possible to use it as, for example, a code editor, or to run an open source chess game, or to browse the web using my wireless router, I want to be able to do that. Many of the current devices are too locked down to allow that: complete and utter fail by design, although it's at least possible to "jailbreak" the Kindle.
I also want to be able to obtain eBook versions of the books I own (I don't mind giving up the physical books if necessary). The idea of paying $9.99 per book (the going rate for many Kindle books) for books I already own is insane. It doesn't cost that much for the publisher to make an electronic version available (not for books produced in the last 20 years, anyway), and if, as they claim (most vocally for DVDs and software), I have a "license" for the material, and don't own it, I should be able to buy a copy in a different format for no more than the cost of moving the bits.
While eBooks at $9.99 are touted as cheaper than the paper version, that's still not good enough. Since they don't need all of their paper book presses or delivery channels, the cost should be much lower: pretty much just the cost of operating download severs (almost insignificant when amortized), royalties, and the publisher's share of development costs and profit.
I would like to retain the right of first sale (let the state and its rules actually be of some use for once). DRM in practice only serves to restrict legitimate users (others just pirate the software or item anyway, or obtain it from someone else that has done so). It should be possible to use it to transfer a book from (to start) one Kindle (or Sony Reader) owner to another, later between eBook readers regardless of device.
The top three devices seem to be the Kindle (2 or DX), Sony Reader (PRS-600 or upcoming PRS-2121), or iRex iLiad (the Books Edition looks interesting), although there are plenty of also-rans. They all seem to be satisfactory in terms of readability (they use eInk and claim to be readable in direct sunlight blah blah blah), battery life (days, especially with wireless off), ergonomics, and speed (page turning). So it's not the hardware that's holding back the future—and to be fair it's probably less Amazon or Sony than the content owners.
Amazon's most common format, MobiPocket, has fortunately been cracked (there are some Python scripts floating around that can strip DRM, and there are other scripts that can add it so regular text can be read on the Kindle). That's a good first step, but then they built the better mousetrap: the "Topaz" (.AZW1) format, which apparently is a fairly lousy reading format anyway (used to store low-quality scans) but also a crack hasn't been publicized yet. Give it time: users can get root access to the Kindle, and the decryption software and key are both on the device. Many of us don't want to pay for content that we risk losing access to, or can't shift to another device. Many books can be found online, e.g. on BitTorrent sites, and I have no problem getting books I already own from there. I wish formatting was more consistent, and I hope HTML emerges as the format of choice (easiest to re-flow), and that HTML versions stop with the idiocy of putting <br> tags where the line would end in the book (nobody cares how the book was formatted, except for some scientific works).
I'd also like for libraries to have more eBooks; King County has a pretty good selection, with most books are available in MobiPocket or PDF. I'm not sure that they can actually be read with current eBook readers (I think Sony's can read secure PDF, and Amazon's MobiPocket, but the DRM might only work for PCs).
Duly last is price. Some online studies have shown that critical mass will be reached when the reader price is less than $100. $469 is pretty high for the Kindle DX, and even $299 for the Kindle 2 is fairly steep. But if they did everything I wanted above, I'd buy at current prices.
So while I have been looking at eBook readers as a way to cut down on clutter, they're not yet ready for prime time, and still I wait.
Let's look at it from the other side, and imagine what a great eBook reader experience would be. I'm going to hold my nose about the DRM a bit—I'm morally opposed but let's pretend it can do what it purports to do (stop theft) but still let users do whatever they could do with a paper book with an eBook that they've bought.
In this world, I'm connected to my home wireless network with my eBook web browser (I'm paying for the connection and bandwidth, just as if I was using my laptop) and typing this journal entry on it. In fact, I'm using a version of the open source Firefox browser that I downloaded and installed onto the device.
I've traded in all of my reasonably new books for eBook versions, in some format that can easily be re-flowed to different page sizes so that if I get a larger (or smaller) display in future (or want to zoom in or out), my books will still look good. I've managed to find copies of my old books that are out of copyright online, perhaps at Project Gutenberg (or even scanned and OCR'd them myself), and sold or gave away the physical versions. I only have one bookshelf (the rest were sold when the books went) which has a few sentimental or reference books in it only.
My local library has nearly everything available in electronic form. I can either download eBooks directly to my reader with the wireless browser, or download them with the correct DRM stamp to my PC and transfer them later, and they just work (perhaps with some initial PC setup).
Books generally cost about $5, except older ones are frequently available for much less or even for free. When I'm done with an eBook, I can sell it on eBay or Craigslist for whatever I can get for it.
My current University of Washington PMP Master's course textbook is available electronically, so I also keep it on my reader. I can easily take notes inline, or even work on projects and flip back and forth between my composition windows and several sections of several references.
I can connect a USB cable and backup all of my books, so that in the unhappy event of my reader being lost or stolen, I still have all my books. In fact, books I've bought online are (at my option) recorded with the retailers, so I can re-download them if I need to (but I can expunge the records if I feel paranoid).
I can set up a small perl program on my computer to automatically download and install various blogs or news sites' content to the reader overnight—free sites, or sites to which I already pay for access. I can use its text to speech capabilities to have it read me items of interest on the drive to work, then when I get there I can connect it to the wireless network at work in case I want to do some online reading or browsing over lunch.
There will come a day when all this is possible, and I look forward to that day. And I might not wait for everything to happen: perhaps when I'm happy enough with the state of the world I'll buy a reader and contribute to making things better myself.
Nikon film scanner, .22 and Russian rifles
News, Photography, Guns ·Thursday September 17, 2009 @ 22:32 EDT (link)
I picked up my Mosin Nagant (1927) from West Coast Armory in Issaquah on the morning of the 11th. It took a little longer than expected, in part because having just moved the address on my driver's license needed updating, so I went to get it updated at the nearby Department of Licensing (they updated it for my vehicle registration and gave me a receipt; no charge, and surprisingly no wait and a very fast transaction). It's covered in the rust preventative Cosmoline (old firearms are often dipped in the stuff and then sealed in crates), so I need to disassemble and clean it (and after shooting corrosive ammo, which is the most common surplus).
I met JF at 1100 at the Starbucks on 140th off Bel-Red Road today to test and buy a Nikon Coolscan V ED (LS-50) and light table ($500, via Craigslist). I installed and tested it on my laptop. It seems slow, but that was expected. I hope I'll be able to scan negatives at work while waiting on builds etc. I have approximately 9000 negatives in three binders (that's counting pages and multiplying by 25, but some rolls may have been 36 exposures). Even though I don't intend to keep everything, that's still a lot of scanning and I may have ScanCafé do some.
I drove out to Cabela's in Lacey (way down off I-5 exit 111) after work. They had the Ruger 10/22 wood stock/blued barrel for $199 as advertised, but not the Remington 870 Express Tactical for $299 (advertised in the same flyer). Didn't buy anything else (not even .22 LR ammo); their prices aren't that great (although their store is amazing in terms of size and scope). I'll get some .22LR ammo at the gun show this weekend, and maybe a scope (Bushnell 3-9x40?) and some 7.62x54R.
DVDs finished: Coupling: The Complete 4th Season.
Back before the dawn of time
News, Media ·Sunday September 13, 2009 @ 15:10 EDT (link)
I am about to extend the range of this journal backward to 1997, from the current beginning of November 11, 2000, by means of some written journals that I kept during school (undergrad, of course; BMath at the University of Waterloo, which I started in 1996). This is part of a push to get more things into digital form and travel lighter, which will reduce space required, increase convenience of access, and make moving easier, if it comes to that. Books and notebooks are heavy and bulky. I'm also considering getting a Kindle (DX) (wish they were easier to find used!), and I'm getting a (used) negative scanner on Thursday (Nikon Coolscan V) so I can get rid of some of my old albums when I move them into digital form. That will also spark a return to work on my photo editing/tagging system.
We were up until about 0600 this morning, so understandably we got up quite late too. We're almost finished watching the British series Coupling, which Tim and Katt introduced to us a little while ago. It's a beautiful day, though, so I wish we'd planned to spend more of this weekend outdoors.
Hope for the Wii guitar
News, Technical ·Sunday September 13, 2009 @ 03:59 EDT (link)
I discovered a fix for the faulty Wii Guitar Hero World Tour guitar that I was sold: this article about fixing a broken strum bar (site has another about tightening it) mentions that the problem (extra strums when not touching the bar) could also be an oversensitive touch strip, which can be disabled in the options. This seems to fix the problem; Honey wasn't using the touch strip anyway, although it seems a limitation that might be a problem in future (also I read something about not being able to disable it in group play). It seems the strip can be sensitive to light and shadow (and hence movement). Still doesn't mean I wasn't sold a faulty guitar, with no way to get it repaired under warranty (no box or manual).
Books finished: The Politically Incorrect Guide To Islam and the Crusades.DVDs finished: Ghost Rider.
<Previous 10 entries>
Our apartment isn't nearly so cramped—we've moved some things around and actually have "room to live": the couches aren't all against one another, the treadmill is out of the way, books are in bookshelves, and we can watch TV from a reasonable distance.
On Friday we got the license (tag) renewal for Honey's car; the Department of Licensing tried to sneak a $5 donation to state parks by us by making it the default (requiring subtracting $5 from the total to not donate). It's a cause I might donate to, when government stops stealing from me for all their other redistributionist projects. But trying to sneak it in: not cool, and almost fraudulent.
I picked up my Mosin Nagant (1927) from West Coast Armory in Issaquah on the morning of the 11th. It took a little longer than expected, in part because having just moved the address on my driver's license needed updating, so I went to get it updated at the nearby Department of Licensing (they updated it for my vehicle registration and gave me a receipt; no charge, and surprisingly no wait and a very fast transaction). It's covered in the rust preventative Cosmoline (old firearms are often dipped in the stuff and then sealed in crates), so I need to disassemble and clean it (and after shooting corrosive ammo, which is the most common surplus).